#evil mo ran arc animatic

[beltransadie]

Finally woke up and decided to work on animatic. Obligatory announcement post + essay commentary of this one below. Major book spoilers are abound.

Watch it here

Anyways

Proceed with your own discretion. But don't blame me if your reading experience is ruined because you decided oh this sounds interesting I'm going to read it even though you haven't finished the book.

Watching the video won't spoil you. No worries ^^ No guarantees either :P

Don't worry about it. Don't think about things too deeply.

Some things about Hate Me

Okay, I've really really wanted to talk about this even when I was in the middle of working on it because hoooo. Not only is this (I think) one of the more densely packed animatics that came out of my mind lately, it's also one that has a really good chunk of WIP lore in it because this is a year old.

THIS HAS BEEN STUCK IN MY MIND FOR A YEAR

And it's not even the whole thing :3

Anyways why this song? What is "Hate Me" anyways?

First listen, thinking about the lyrics, it's a song about liberation. Basically liberating yourself from a toxic relationship, finally saying good riddance to the one that basically ruined your life. It's also kind of why the song sounds so peppy.

Like the best animatics I've had, I got this idea while stuck in one of my long hour commutes. And basically it stems off of this one youtube short about the song's creation and it's a vid of someone getting their tattoo removed.

But my idea at the time was oh this would make a really fun animatic of MR turning evil under the influence of the Long Hatred Flower. And I think the flower's name and effect also has a hand in the creation of the idea.

And initially, I just went off of vibes and just made concept gifs on CSP because that's the only thing I can do at the moment.

Most of which got in, but some didn't. And at the time I was just fresh off of being mentally rewired after seeing Lonely Man's Lazarus' The Mind Electric animation so my mind then was like oh transitions which is suuuuper evident in the final product.

Pretty rich coming from someone who rarely even makes animations but yeah.

Like how the flower distorts MR's perspective. The song's message also becomes distorted. Instead of liberation, MR slowly becomes trapped deeper and deeper into the headspace that the flower cultivates. And my intention was to convey that as a good thing and something to be hyped about.

TXJ's rise to power is supposed to be rejoiced about here. Honestly don't know why people are crying in the comments section lmao.

People in the know would be hit hard. People not in the know are supposed to just go "oh cool symbolism". And speaking of...

Let's talk about the symbolism!

The flower

It's one of the mainstay and most obvious symbols littered up to the 2nd chorus. In hindsight maybe the animatic itself does have explicit major spoilers at the start ;P considering this is the first thing we see until it fades into MR's chest. It's also one of the things I heavily emphasized...

...anyways I'm just gonna pray people would be confused at most. 😄👍

We follow it from being a bud, to slowly and literally swallowing MR whole as a progress of MR's descent into evil and it literally culminates to MR burning Rufeng sect and CWN facing him off.

The flower itself is modeled after a lotus flower. Quite obvious as the name is a direct reference to the eight sufferings in Buddhism. (2ha actually has major Buddhism inspiration but that's for some out of pocket essay I made for my friends).

Narratively, it's described to be "那花朵含苞待放，还未打开，黑色的瓣叶，边沿闪动银光。" (A flower bud, still yet to bloom, its black petals and leaves fringed with a flickering silver light.) which isn't a lot, but other things also add to my headcanon that it's a black lotus, one of which is simply the term itself.

The first time I've encountered the term was in Scum Villain's Self-Saving, wherein it's used to describe Luo Binghe after the timeskip where Shen Yuan perceived him to have turned evil. While there's only a few discussions about what the term itself means, personally I agree with the interpretation of the white lotus being corrupted thus making it black.

Which is really really apt for MR's story. For 15 years of his life, he's stuck to the values of being kind and forgiving others, but it's only when he succumbs to the flower that he lets the intrusive thoughts win.

It also serves as a counterpart to CWN's association with the red lotus.

Chinese Chess Pieces

Zhenlong is one of the main ways that MR used in his rise to power. So naturally it would make sense to include it.

Contrary to what Westerners would think, the pieces themselves are Chinese chess pieces which are round pebbles that are colored black and white. It's main goal is capturing territory, and there can be a lot of board combinations which makes it a complex game to play.

In a way, MR slowly deciphering the technique is a sort of balancing mind game he and CWN played. (Although CWN has no idea about it). MR acknowledges that CWN is powerful enough to stop him in his journey to grow stronger, thus he has to make sure to go around CWN in order to win, slowly turning the tides to his favor.

It's kind of being pieced together as I typed this, but in a way the scene I attached above shows the start of the game. With MR has set the stage and is starting to gather his territories. It's not necessarily wrong for a scene, because black typically goes first in this game.

Puppet Mo Ran

It's such a small thing, but it's an intentional inclusion. For those who are up to date with my animatics, Puppet!MR is a direct reference to Please Don't Leave Me! Something I'm very happy to include because this means I'm so far into the 2ha animatic brainrot that I can start making references to my own work.

Specifically for the sequence before Puppet!MR appears, it's a reference to chapter 140. Where a flashback from CWN's previous life is introduced. Without going into details, it's one of the scenes wherein MR who's already deep into learning Zhenlong and into the clutches of the flowers temporarily gets out of the curse just because CWN got injured.

Something that shouldn't be shown for someone deep into the curse.

MR turning into a puppet, is partially me headcanoning that he might get an inclination that something's off with how he's acting towards CWN, and so tries to break away. What follows is his descent deeper into the flowers.

Burning Memories

Another sequence (not really a symbolism, but more of a reference) that I want to call to attention is the sequence before the first chorus which basically shows the flower's bloom and MR's good memories fading away.

Yes. It's Duanxun.

IT'S NOT COZ I'M BIASED TO THEM THOUGH!!! It's literally because of this small passage in chapter 278 and it's basically the moment before MR falls unconscious after taking the flower.

One of the flower's effects is the loss of good memories. And to a 15 year old MR, the people closely attached to the memories he holds dear are Duan Yihan, Xun Fengruo, and Chu Wanning.

While they don't appear in the same order, I specifically chose to use a burning paper effect to show memories fading away. Partially because MR is closely attached to fire. Not only will he burn Rufeng sect to the ground, but it's also because he burned down Xiangtan manor—a place that's closely related to the two people he could call family.

The scenes I referenced in the burning clips are also in the book, namely near the end of chapter 258 and somewhere in the middle of chapter 259.

The only scene that doesn't burn away is CWN's. Partially because there's not enough space in the song, and mainly because I wanted to transition to the triggering event for MR which is Shi Mei's death.

About the Work Process

I did mention it was a year old before. But it was mostly because I was going off on vibes when I started. Aside from what I've done with the concept animations (which isn't a lot), what I managed to create at the very beginning when I decided to finally sit down and work on this, is a prologue that finally sets the scene as well as the first verse.

(hint hint, check the last 2 seconds of the youtube video)

For a reason that can be summed up as "I don't want to spoil people too hard", I've decided to split it into two animatics. The second of which I'll post at a later date. Only you, dear reader, and my close fandom friends get to know this knowledge and this preview.

As for the rest of the animatic, I was stumped. I knew I had to include some scenes from the concept animations, and also some scenes, but to connect them...? I was lost.

Some parts solidified as time passed namely the memories burning away sequence and the last chorus. But how to execute the 1st chorus and the 2nd chorus? It took me a year to finally come around to forming it.

Mostly because of an 11 hour bus ride I took for vacation. (Man I really do take long commutes).

After that it was smooth sailing. I prioritized getting a rough draft down before cleaning it up and piecing things together and it went well.

It's really just getting over perfectionism and just getting things done. I'll prolly edit this when the prologue is out.

I think that's most of what I wanted to say. Thanks for getting this far and checking out my stuff, as well as the constant support!

See ya :3

Ok last: Bonus unintentional easter eggs

Because I draw too much 2ha, it's inevitable for some frames to be similar.

(Counting this one because of this unfinished frame i didn't commit to)

I draw too many CWN sideviews, but I distinctly remember referencing this while drawing the one on the left.

Summary

Overall, Hate Me is a very insightful animatic to work with. I ended up making frequent observations and ponderings while working on this too. A good example would be the Long Hatred Flower is a black lotus, and (the most out of pocket 2ha analysis) CWN and Buddha parallelism to name a few.

It could be better of course. Especially the razing of Rufeng sect sequence could've been executed better if I did it with after effects. And I've grown pretty particular with how I rewatch this.

Would this be the last? No, of course not.

It's an animatic that's part of my exploration into Mo Ran's character. Which is, in turn, part of an informal series diving into the theme. Heirloom is part of the series, there's another one that might be too 🗿 for yt and I've never bothered expanding on too.

I might end up posting some Duanxun animatics though (part of the Duanxun agenda more people need to acknowledge Xun Fengruo), or some non 2ha WIPs if I bother finishing them. Imagine 2ha AU animatic 😔 but that's for the very vague future.

Stay tuned for part 2 😘