#it made me want to experiment with somewhat dynamic poses (though I think this still looks sorta dumb ahaha...)

[ite-its-jellyfish-love]

Woah, it's the edgelord himself: Irakusa Akuros!

[thexfridax]

Recap/thoughts on L’Étang

Performed on 6th of June 2021, Holland Festival, Internationaal Theater Amsterdam / Rabozaal

I recently had the chance to attend Der Teich / The Pond / L’Étang written by Robert Walser and adapted by Gisèle Vienne at the Holland Festival 2021 in Amsterdam. The main reason I went was to experience the absolute force that is Adèle Haenel, but I was also intrigued about how she would interact with Ruth Vega Fernandez on stage (who I only knew from the Swedish film Kiss me / Kyss mig).

After a number of performances were postponed and subsequently cancelled in France, I wasn’t quite sure whether this one would actually go ahead. Luckily, the Covid-19 situation had improved sufficiently for a live audience to attend, albeit with a limited number of people.

Switzerland had hosted the world premiere of the play in early May, so a couple of reviews were already out (check out #L’Etang on @mlleclaudine’s blog, she has translated some of these reviews). I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect though other than French avant-garde theatre (= confusion 😊).

** SPOILERS **

The stage was dark, when the audience entered. You could spot some creepy shapes, some were clearly mannequins, but I somehow thought the actresses were already on stage, too. Watching us. (They weren’t.)

When the lights went on, a guy appeared and gently carried the mannequins off stage.

EXTREMELY loud electronic music followed, and in robo-walked Adèle as Fritz, and behind her Ruth as the mother (nameless, only her last name -Mrs Marti- is mentioned in the OG play).

They continued to robo-walk across the stage (somewhat synchronised), until everyone found their spot, very much apart from each other. You could clearly hear their breathing throughout this movement (also in the latter stages of the play).

Not much else was on stage but a bed with random clothes draped over it, and some other bits and bobs (for Fritz). There was also a wig and an ashtray (for the mother, alluding to her femme fatale status).

Adèle started to speak (in French), setting the scene for a boy who is somewhat disregarded by his mother, but longing for her…

FRITZ

Ich möchte fast lieber nirgends mehr sein, als so da sein. Nichts als böse Gesichter. Ist das ein Essen bei Tisch. […] Man darf den Mund nicht aufmachen, ohne fürchten zu müssen, den Anstand zu verletzen. Was nützt so ein Anstand? Der Paul, der darf wohl reden, der darf sich alles erlauben. An dem ist alles schön, artig, recht, nett. […] Ich muss ja glauben, nur er sei der Sohn seiner Mutter, und die Mutter habe keinen zweiten Sohn neben ihm. Nichts kann ich recht machen, ich mag mich anstellen, wie ich will. […] Wenn nur wer wüsste, wie es in mir drin aussieht. Wenn die Mutter mir nur einmal ins Herz schauen könnte. Vielleicht wäre sie erstaunt, vielleicht würde sie dann sehen, dass ich sie auch noch ein wenig gern hab. […] (Extract from Der Teich, Insel Bücherei Edition)

I’d rather not exist anymore than be like this. Only evil faces. What a meal. […] One isn’t allowed to open one’s mouth without being afraid of violating propriety. What’s the point of this kind of propriety? Paul, he is allowed to talk, he can do anything. Everything about him is lovely, good, proper, nice. […] I’m starting to believe that he is his mother’s only son, and the mother doesn’t have another one aside from him. I can’t do anything right, doesn’t matter whatever I do. […] If only anyone knew, how it looks inside of me. If the mother only looked into my heart. Maybe she would be surprised, maybe she would see that I still like her a bit. (My translation)

J’aimerais encore mieux être nulle part, plutôt qu’ici. … On n’a pas le droit d’ouvrir la bouche, de peur de blesser les convenances. À quoi ça sert, ces convenances ? Paul, lui, il a le droit de parler. Lui, il peut tout se permettre. En lui tout est beau, bien, correct, gentil. […] Je vais finir par croire qu’il est le seul fils de sa mère, et que la mère, elle n’a pas eu de deuxième fils en plus de lui. Rien de ce que je fais n’est bien, quoi que je fasse. […] Si seulement quelqu’un savait comment je suis à l’intérieur. Si ma mère pouvait regarder une seule fois dans mon coeur. Peut-être qu’elle serait étonnée, peut-être qu’elle verrait alors que moi aussi j’ai encore un peu d’amour pour elle. […] (Translated by Lucie Taïeb, in: Pièce (dé)montée : L'Etang, Gwenaëlle Hebert)

While Adèle talked, voicing multiple characters with ease (i.e. Fritz and his sister Klara), Ruth slowly walked around, and at one point intervenes in the quarrel between the siblings. She was a threatening presence, and spiteful to both of her children in the first act. Throughout the play you could see how scared Fritz was of his mother (the look of dread on Adèle’s face was shocking).

A dream like scene came next, where it wasn’t entirely clear (to me) what was happening. Fritz seemed to be dreaming of his family, being conflicted, laughing, angry, moaning … a disturbingly visceral and messy scene, where the characters all merge.

(NB: I may not remember the exact sequence of scenes or who played whom, as I was slightly stunned by this point..)

Meanwhile, Ruth transformed into the ‘good and kind’ mother of one of Fritz’s sickly friends, which made it even clearer how much Fritz suffers from the neglect of his own mother, and how isolated he is.

Maybe also by choice:

FRITZ

[…] Ich bin gern allein. Da kommen einem die Gedanken. Da stört einen niemand. – Mir ist immer, als hätte ich irgendwo etwas vergessen. Ich weiß, es ist nichts, und doch plagt es mich. Was kann es nur sein? Nichts? Da hab ich gut reden! Es ist was, aber das Dumme ist, ich hab es eben vergessen. Ich will dem Sächelchen nachgehn. Ich will zu meinem Platz im Wald gehn, vielleicht fliegt es mir dort wie ein Schmetterling zu. Warum muss man eigentlich denken? Man muss, es zwingt einen. Das ist so dumm, dass man was muss. Man sollte nichts müssen! Aber da hab ich wieder gut reden. Komm, Fritz, wir beide gehen. Ich bin doch nicht ganz allein. Der Fritz ist Fritzens Kamerad. Ich bin mir selbst mein bester Freund. – Was ich auch alles wissen muss. Eigentlich ist es zum Lachen. Aber im Wald will ich darüber nachdenken, was ich tun könnte, dass ich der Mutter – – – (as above)

[…] I like to be on my own. You can think. Nobody disturbs you. – It always seems to me, as if I had forgotten something. I know, it’s nothing, but it still haunts me. What can it be? Nothing? It’s all very well of me to say that. There is something, but the silly thing is that I forgot about it. I will look into the matter. I will go to my spot in the woods, maybe it will come to me like a butterfly. Why is it that one actually has to think? One must, one is forced to do so. It’s so silly that one has to. One shouldn’t have to do anything! But again, look who’s talking. Come on, Fritz, let’s go. I’m not quite alone. Fritz is Fritz’s companion. I am my own best friend. – Why must I know everything. It’s actually funny. But I will think about it in the woods, as to what I’m going to do, so that mother – – – (as above)

[…] J’aime bien être seul. Quand on est seul, c’est là que les pensées viennent. Personne ne vous dérange. J’ai toujours l’impression d’avoir oublié quelque chose quelque part. Je sais que ce n’est rien, pourtant ça me tourmente. Qu’est-ce que ça pourrait être ? Rien ? Facile à dire ! Non, il y a bien quelque chose, mais, bêtement, j’ai justement oublié quoi. Je vais suivre cette piste. Je vais aller dans la forêt, dans mon coin à moi, et peut-être que, là-bas, ça me reviendra ! Mais pourquoi il faut toujours penser ? On est obligé, c’est plus fort que nous. C’est tellement bête, d’être obligé. On ne devrait être obligé à rien. Facile à dire. Allez, on y va. Je ne suis pas complètement seul, après tout. Je suis mon propre meilleur ami. Et toutes ces questions que je pose. En fait ça me donne envie de rire. Mais dans la forêt, on va réfléchir à ce que je pourrais faire pour que ma mère... (as above)

And the plot thickens afterwards, his siblings become convinced that Fritz is going to drown himself in the titular pond (he hinted at it in a grand speech, according to his brother). The brother then chases after Fritz, urged by his sister to do the right thing.

Adèle is fully immersed in this scene, first voicing the siblings, then transforming back into Fritz, who is somewhat exhilarated by his own prank (she intones a sound or two, which makes me think that those singing lessons were quite successful). All to figure out if his mother cares for him or not.

It kinda worked. When Fritz returns home, he finds his distraught sister and parents. The mother sees her son for the first time as a real person (the father is angry). She calls him a man, and they temporarily connect as equals (the mother-child dynamic being interrupted). She wants this understanding to be kept as secret from the other siblings, to which Fritz agrees.

The siblings re-enact the fake drowning scene, Fritz is represented by a knife, Paul by a fork, and Klara by a little spoon. The story ends without the parents being included. (In the OG play, the mother observes this scene, and is quite moved that Fritz has kept his word of not sharing their secret. This is also part of the final act of the OG play.)

In another disturbing and weird scene, Fritz is (invisibly) choked by someone, Adèle pants and spits, but it’s not clear who the perp is (I thought, the father, but who knows). The mother(?) is standing by when this happens, and then leaves, repulsed.

At the end you can see Fritz observing his mother approaching his empty bed, picking up a pillow and holding it. Not a real closure for their characters, but it was a tender moment in a very compact and rather violent play.

Adèle seemed to have voiced the majority of the characters (children and adults), changing her voice accordingly to make them sound different in the same scene. She was often seen on the floor, stretched out, being in agony or another state of mind (or spitting). It was an intense and unsettling performance, but not to the extent that I wanted to leave the theatre 😊

Ruth did voice fewer characters (mainly the adults, maybe also one of the children). She cried heavily in one scene (sublime acting!), and by the end of the play her character seemed to have lost all of her harshness. We mostly got to know her through Fritz’s descriptions (or their interactions), she had maybe one monologue of her own (at least in the OG play). But she was omnipresent in Fritz’s mind and also during the play (she only left the stage once before the end), transforming from the devouring to the caring(?) mother. A more restrained, but still very effective performance.

I think, the (spare) use of electronic music and different lighting was in line with Fritz’s turmoil, and it wasn’t distracting from the acting. I was glad that there were subtitles, perfect for non-French speakers – though it didn’t give you a clue which character was speaking. You had to quickly switch from looking at the subs to Adèle or Ruth to figure it out.

All in all, it was great to be back in a theatre, to watch these two (plus Gisèle etc.) finally bring this obscure family drama to life with a vengeance.

I hope to watch the play again in Hamburg (Internationales Sommerfestival 2021, ticket information to be released in mid-June), as there were a lot more things I couldn’t unpack while watching, or even now 😉

Cover picture by @estellehanania Other pictures/video by @thexfridax

[soysaucevictim]

Week 7-ish. Ended up needing a few days to get through Chapter 40 of AoP...

-

Feb. 13

I got up a bit before 11AM.

After getting some coffee and a bit of the usual, I grabbed some iced coffee before starting on today’s exercises.

First, today’s DD. 2′ O-Pose hold. Still a favorite exercise. My headspace made this session take a bit more digging in to do that in one go. Still at a condition where teeth chattering from trembling is a thing for this. No less gratifying to get through.

Last, Chapter 37 of the AoP. First part was traveling, 19TP. Done at Level 2, as high knees, split into 15+14.

Workout proper was done at Level 3 (15 sets, 10 push-ups per). This was okay, push-ups got sloppy though. Occasionally lost track of getting both plank exercises in per set - in form of getting back up and going back down to complete them (rather than maintaining plank, until set’s done). But this happened only a few times.

Did some chatting and a quick silly sketch of the Creativitwin dynamic in a  bunch of my AUs.

Then made today’s Hello Fresh Meal. Chicken sausage rigatoni napoletano. I personally liked this one well enough. But it was kinda lukewarm with the family.

Spent rest of the day on the usual and then deciding to mangle “Forbidden Fruit“ with Google Translate. Yeah. :,D

I got to bed later than yesterday.

-

Feb. 14

I woke up after 11AM, and one of the first things I did was exercise.

First, today’s DD. 30″ calf raises with EC. I counted 29 reps by the end of it. Squeezed a 30th rep just as the timer buzzed. So just barely missed 1/sec. Ah well, ‘twas fun work.

Last, Chapter 38 of the AoP. Went for Option B. There were no defined levels, 10 sets to get through for everyone. Very manageable and worked up a sweat. Still thinking about using a bokken whenever i got chops to do. And also of Roman doing these exercising with his katana. :,D

Spent time working on setting up a playlist for the Begotten!AU, because why not.

Spent a good chunk of the rest of the night chatting and having movie night with a friend. We watched “Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)” and the 2005 movie adaptation of “The Producers”. Enjoyable experiences - remembering why I enjoyed BoP so much since I saw it a year ago~

I got to bed earlier than yesterday.

-

Feb. 15

I woke up around 11AM.

Watched a bit of YouTube before doing today’s exercise.

First, today’s DD. 40 knee-to-elbows with EC. Very manageable work.

Last, Chapter 39 of the AoP. Workout didn’t have levels again. Just 3 sets to run through, just happy there were only 2 jump squats and jump knee-tucks per. I shortened the rest periods to around 1′, instead of 2′.

Spent most of the day on the usual stuff. Did sketch some ideas for future art projects before turning in, though.

I got to bed in the yellow zone, surprisingly today (before 2AM).

-

Feb. 16

I woke up around 11AM.

Did some of the udsual before some BDay errands - got a free iced coffee, discounted ice cream, and some tasty Thai food.

After letting some of that go down, did my exercise.

First, today’s DD. 30″ star plank. Very doable work.

Last, Chapter 40 of the AoP. This is the chapter with the 10k Scraps wall to contend with. I had less than 1k at this point in time. Wasn’t as on top of trying to drip-feed jobs/fights into progression as last run of the program.

Regardless, I took one travel point (Level 2, as high knees) out of the City Ruins to get to the City Pits to pick some fights for Scraps. These being the numbers there...

Kaas - 600 jab + cross + hooks = 3(100/100) | ~6:25-6:49PM

Rizz - 800 side kicks + backfists = 2(100/100) + 4(50/50) | 6:57-7:37PM

Loona - 400 low snap front kicks + side kicks = 4(50/50) | 8:10-8:31PM

I had a pretty loud suspicion that I flirted with overtraining there, but I had a lot of fun (I considered this routine a gift to myself + some pointed stress relief). Thoroughly kicked my own ass and couldn’t help but laugh abt “I sleep in the BUFF.“

Spent rest of day on a lot of the usual.

I got to bed barely into the red zone, this time.

-

Feb. 17

I woke up around 9AM.

One of the first things I dealt with was making an appointment and a bunch of trip reservations with LC.

Only exercise I slotted today was the DD. 40 climber taps with EC. Also manageable. Did it while/before waiting on a ride that never came (found out later that they ordered a trip from Lyft, AGAIN... they don’t service my area and always cancel on me, because of that shit).

I kinda wanted to get back into Seeking Safety Group again today. =_=

Because I was tired and sore that threw a good chunk of my day off. Opted to take a few hours’ nap after that was evident.

Did some dishes and started to reclaim my happiness by starting a short writing project - the one for GymRat!AU. That definitely helped the spirits, somewhat cathartic vent too.

Got to bed a bit later than yesterday.

-

Feb. 18

I woke up after 10AM.

Spent a good few hours finishing up “Cherry Cola” and chatting before doing today’s exercise (somewhat lighter docket).

First, Chapter 40 of the AoP. I was still lingering in the City Pits and hella sore. But I picked one more fight before I called it for AoP stuff for the day.

Nazim - 500 in & out knife hand strikes = 2(100/100) + (50/50) | 6:20-36 PM

Last, today’s DD. 50 seal jacks with EC. Very manageable. Was a a fairly gentle way to get some stiffness in the delts out more.

Made dinner. Spent much of the rest of my day on the usual and reading other people’s fics.

Got to bed slightly earlier than yesterday.

-

Feb. 19

I woke up after 11AM.

One of the first things I did today was make some phone calls. Finally going to get back into individual therapy, soon. I’ve been badly needing that, glad i addressed that before the window closed (not helped by the feeling I may’ve missed a lot of opportunities of contact because of avoiding sus blocked/scrambled CIDs).

Also found out abt the Lyft thing. Nice knowing I was right about what happened. Was still annoying. We’ll see if the notes given to transportation will stick this time.

Did a bit of the usual before doing more exercise.

First, today’s DD. 40 squat hops with EC. Doable, not a huge personal favorite. but done!

Last, Chapter 40 of the AoP. Finally got to turning the chapter, this time. I endeavored to do all the Jobs on the Chapter Board/Slate. All traveling was done at Level 2 as high knees. This was the route I took and how I split things up:

City Pits to Equos = 5TP x1

Equos to Bunker 17 = 41TP = 11+10+10+10 [Chapter] - Bunker 17 Job - 200 climber taps = 4(50) | (4:27-38PM)

Bunker 17 to Bunker 201 = 57TP = 17+10+10+10+10 [Chapter] - Bunker 201 Job - 100 plank walk-outs = 10(10) | (5:04-30PM)

Bunker 201 to Bunker 22 = 9TP x1 [Chapter] - Bunker 22 Job - 600 squats = 6(100) | (5:34-6:07PM)

Bunker 22 to Equos = 24TP = 12+12

After all that, I was left with a bit over 1k Scraps... did/do kind of want to get some in-game equipment to explore parts of this map I hadn’t accessed in prior run, though...

Spent rest of night on the usual stuff.

Got to bed later than yesterday.

[comicteaparty]

June 8th-June 14th, 2020 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from June 8th, 2020 to June 14th, 2020.  The chat focused on Devil Tongue by Samuel Soto-Saines and Lucas Soto.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on Devil Tongue by Samuel Soto-Saines and Lucas Soto~! (https://deviltonguecomic.com/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace until June 14th, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Discussions are freeform, but we do offer discussion prompts in the pins for those who’d like to have them. Additionally, remember that while constructive criticism is allowed, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic! Whether you finish the comic or can only read a few pages, everyone is welcome to join and chat with us!

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 1

1. What did you like about the beginning of the comic?

2. What has been your favorite moment in the comic (so far)?

3. Who is your favorite character?

4. Which characters do like seeing interact the most?

5. What is something you like about the art? If you have a favorite illustration, please share it!

6. What is a theme you like that the comic explores?

7. What do you like about the comic’s story or overall related content?

8. Overall, what do you think the comic’s strengths are?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

mariah (rainy day dreams)

1. I really appreciated how this comic felt really authentically shonen manga right off the bat without feeling tropey or overwrought. 2. I liked when the protagonists confront the ghost in the theater. I just really enjoyed the ghosts dialogue and dramatic jestures. 3. Moira is my fav so far. She's got a sword and seems capable, though is also still an apprentice so I'm looking forward to seeing how she grows.

boogeymadam

1, ALL THE CATS!! :D but more seriously, the way the characters are introduced through their job, and yet their personalities still shine through~ 2, i liked the scene when they're leaving the Lemaire house and walking on a dark misty neighborhood street at night. It's so atmospheric and perfect for their discussion on what kind of ghost their target might be, as well as what kinda threats it may pose :0 3, I can't decide, they're all interesting. Leera was introduced last but I like her enthusiasm! 2, Moira and Leera during the scene where Moira is explaining tinctures to Leera. Moira's so goal oriented and focused while messing with some apprently-very-dangerous stuff and Leera's just trying to avoid boredom. Moira seemed patient of Leera (for the most part) and willing to explain stuff, which was cool. It made me smile. 5, Oh Man, a lot!! The lines are so very clean and precise, every characters' silhouttes is distinct. It's hard to pick which page is my favorite, but I'd have to say https://deviltonguecomic.com/comic/chapter-01-page-32/ because of all the dynamic angles and expressions on the characters. 6, Pupils taking over from the mentor. I like how Emery is allowing his pupil, Moira, to prove herself, and she seems extremely eager to do so and also: good at it! I can only imagine what Emery is like at this job :0 8, A fun and classic premise of paranormal investigators, of a sort, but with magic of their own, making it even more interesting. It's easy to root for the protagonists and feel curious about what got them into this business, or what they were like before they reached this level of fame and skill. And also, there are talking cats!! Huge draw!

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I agree with your #6 Boogey. I do really like how Emery is like "I'm just here to mentor, this is Moira's job." I like seeing the apprentice really get to take point on the mission. I did see though on the cast page that Emery's magic type is just "?????" which definitely makes me what to see him throw down some magic now XD very curious what it is

boogeymadam

OHHH i hadn't spotted that! a secret, how exciting :0c

copperine (Lady Changeling)

I'm not familiar with this one, but I'm intrigued now (and should stop reading this channel till I've read the comic...)

I'll read in the morning and try to give some thoughts

RebelVampire

What I like about the beginning is the character development. Cause we get a lot of it and find out things like Emery being an ex-magician, his relationship with Moira, etc. Yet, at the same time, the plot is not sacrificed and the story is still moved along smoothly, which is a great balancing act. My favorite moment in the comic so far is actually all the times Emery feigns that he doesn't care but then we get those shots of him peeking and spying. I find those adorable but just also really nice character moments. My favorite character at the moment is Emery. I like aloof characters and he fits that bill. I also like his general cynicism about life. Emery is the sort of character who I'd have as a friend in real life. XD As for characters interacting the most, probably Leera and a combo of Emery and Moira. Leera has pretty different motivations for being there, is somewhat opposite in personality from the main pair, and just all around adds an interesting dynamic too the group that kind of makes certain elements of the story seem more grounded. I really just in general love the comic's linework. Not only is everything super clean (making the action easy to follow), but it really knows how to bulk up the shadows to create specific atmospheres that really work for each panel and add so much to each scene.

In terms of themes, I like that the comic somewhat explores with Emery the concept of what to do with your life after your previous life fails. I think we all kind of like to believe we'll do X forever and X comes to define us in a lot of ways. But then suddenly X might not be there and it's like, what is life now? How do I deal with life? And with Emery, I do think we get to kind of experience one path that kind of takes. What I like about the comic's overall content is the...strange mix of fantasy and realism. I can't really put it into words. Like this is definitely a fantasy story, yet there's elements of realism thrown in I wouldn't expect. Like things are almost scarily normal in some respects like the houses or journalism, etc. So everything about the world really intrigues me since it feels super unique in tone. Finally, for strengths, I'm referring back to the art here. I think the atmosphere the art adds to each scene really helps give the comic that extra oomph.

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

Everyone's covered all the stuff I like about the characters, so let me just throw in some extra praise for the backgrounds. Those elaborate buildings! That towering opera-house interior! That one sequence with light streaming through elegantly-patterned windows!

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 2

9. What do you think Emery did that caused him to be exiled by the Magician Order? How does this factor into his general cynicism and bitterness? Also, do you think Emery will ever be a magician again?

10. How do you think Moira became Emery’s apprentice despite Emery being an ex-magician? Similarly, why do you think Moira hasn’t joined up with the Magician Order? As the story develops, how do you think Moira will grow and change as a magician?

11. Besides following Emery and Moira around, what role do you think Leera will have in the story? How might Leera’s presence hurt or help the duo on each case? Also, how will Leera change as she experiences things firsthand?

12. How do you think Moira and Emery will resolve the haunted opera house situation? Can the kidnapped girl be saved, or is she truly gone forever? Additionally, what other sorts of cases do you expect to see after this one?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

RebelVampire

Honestly, I get the impression that Emery was good but also just a rebellious rule breaker type. So he probably got exiled for just not fitting in with the club regardless of anything else he might have done. Which to me would explain the cynicism cause it would show him how much of life is just a popularity contest. As for being a magician again, maybe, but the bigger question is would he want to? My current theory for Moira was that she's just ill-suited to the order. I'm sure she's heard awful things about it from Emery, so why join team lame when you can join Emery and be on team winner. As for how Moira will grow, I think she'll just learn to take things a bit more seriously and mature (though probably still pretty happy and excited). I've talked about Leera a bit already, but I think her major role in the story is the grounding element and reader's eyes. Cause someone needs to ask questions for the readers, and I think that will be Leera. But in terms of plot, I also think Leera will just help them get more work by spreading their name to lands far and wide. I think in terms of how Leera will change, I think mostly she'll maybe find better things to publish about and the power she wields with words. I think the kidnapped girl can be saved, but that it needs to be done quickly. As for how this will ultimately resolve, I assume epic battle followed by emotional ghost revelations. As for other sorts of cases, I actually am expecting lots of drama ones with heavy emotional reveals from side characters. I could be wrong, but that feels like the route the comic is going. O_O

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 3

13. What are you most looking forward to seeing in regards to the comic?

14. Any final words of encouragement for the comic?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

Ryccomics

1. What did you like about the beginning of the comic? Very good dynamic introduction between Moira and Emery. Very quickly and effectively I understood Emery is an older cynic, and Moira is the energetic and out to prove herself. 2. What has been your favorite moment in the comic (so far)? The magic reveal of what the potions/chemicals do is fun. I do not really understand how they work at this time, and I don’t really need to. 3. Who is your favorite character? Mauretta, she’s a lot of fun in design, and she gets to talk more than usual character type. I’m not sure what this character type would be called, but I’m going with person who starts the Scooby Doo mystery. 4. Which characters do like seeing interact the most? Moira and Emery have good chemistry. Having the young rookie be more powerful than the experienced partners adds to the dynamic. 5. What is something you like about the art? If you have a favorite illustration, please share it!

So much going on in this panel. All 5 characters are doing something. 6. What is a theme you like that the comic explores? I don’t have an answer yet, because how this encounter goes will shape the narrative, everyone could die. It could be resolved peacefully, it could wrap like a monster of the week story, or lead to bigger things. 7. What do you like about the comic’s story or overall related content? I like the map in FAQ area of site is cool. Gives information for those who want it, but can be safely ignored by those that don’t. 8. Overall, what do you think the comic’s strengths are? I like your line art, a lot. The silhouettes read really well. And when working in black and white having distinct shapes is so important, you’ve color code your characters. 9. What do you think Emery did that caused him to be exiled by the Magician Order? How does this factor into his general cynicism and bitterness? Also, do you think Emery will ever be a magician again? I know from the Cast FAQ, he broke their laws, in what contest will tell a lot about Emery and the Order. I am a little unclear what the Magicians are at this points, how powerful they are in this society. Are the Magicians outside of the Magician’s order?

10. How do you think Moira became Emery’s apprentice despite Emery being an ex-magician? Similarly, why do you think Moira hasn’t joined up with the Magician Order? As the story develops, how do you think Moira will grow and change as a magician? I think Moira will have to confront what caused Emery’s cynicism. I expect she will get more powerful as the story begins. 11. Besides following Emery and Moira around, what role do you think Leera will have in the story? How might Leera’s presence hurt or help the duo on each case? Also, how will Leera change as she experiences things firsthand? I Leera’s role will be mainly to ensure the characters get back onto the plot. Most stories have some form of this function, whether it is the Greek gods, a ticking clock to motivate the characters to act right now Given she works for a newspaper, she can prod the characters to do news worthy things. 12. How do you think Moira and Emery will resolve the haunted opera house situation? Can the kidnapped girl be saved, or is she truly gone forever? Additionally, what other sorts of cases do you expect to see after this one? I feel it will have a happy ending, monster defeated girl saved. This is because the character dynamics would change really drastically if Moira had to confront extreme darkness so early, she would get cynical. 13. What are you most looking forward to seeing in regards to the comic? Will be interesting to see how the combat functions with regard to group dynamics, are the other characters going to plan a part in the combat, or are they on the sidelines. 14. Any final words of encouragement for the comic? I was sad when it ended.

RebelVampire

I am looking forward to finding out more about Emery and what Emery is capable of despite the circumstances. As for final words, this is just a lovely comic with tons of unique aspects about it that I really like.

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about Devil Tongue this week! Please also give a special thank you to Samuel Soto-Saines and Lucas Soto for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked Devil Tongue, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: https://deviltonguecomic.com/

Devil Tongue’s Story: https://deviltonguecomic.com/store/

Samuel’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/sainezart

Lucas’ Twitter: https://twitter.com/lucaswordcraft

[vanitygrxxx]

Vanity. Seems like a dated word and an old concept that has never been more prominent before today. What does vanity mean in a world of social media, cellphones and perpetual exposure? What does vanity mean in a world of lax morals and little dignity? What is dignity? What are morals? What are lax morals? Are they a bad thing? Who sets the bar? Everything is up for debate. Is it immoral to be so into yourself? Why is it frowned upon by some but glamourised by others? And if today’s world is characterised more and more by shameless vanity should we just all embrace it? Or should we be more critical of it? Is it an inherent thing that we learn to suppress due to societal standards or are we conditioned into it through societal pressure?

These are a few of my concerns and questions on the matter of vanity and to be honest I haven't been able to answer any. And to be even more honest every answer seems right. Depending on one’s point of view of course. In my case, my background and upbringing are a somewhat unorthodox mix of traditionality and forwardness that have made my confusion on the subject even more intense. My parents were raised in the rural town of Sparta, Greece. Greece, where I’m from, has always been a deeply traditional country that even though considered part of the western world, it has deeply rooted middle eastern influences that can be considered as more conservative. It has also been characterised throughout the years by a core dispute between communist and right wing parties and their respective followers which is still very prominent. Therefore the country itself is a nation defined by a series of conflicts and contradicting mentalities. However, the ‘westernisation’ that we espouse as a nation calls for an open-mindedness and progressiveness that Greeks were not eased into. And that has definitely created a sort of conflict for my peers and me. Because we are a generation that has grown up with the ideals and ethics of our parents and grandparents, family being a very strong institution in Greece, but with the need to keep up with current trends and norms and be more open to change. Moreover, carrying the weight of an ancient civilization that has shaped the entire humanity, we are expected to honour that heritage by adhering to expanding our intellectual capacities and disregarding superficiality. Therefore, it strikes me as odd and troubling when I see any greek girl my age posting pictures on instagram of her face accompanying it with a misspelled inspirational quote in english just to project a certain image of herself and simultaneously downplay the vanity angle by easing it with a ‘meaningful’ message. This is a common occurrence that is truly baffling to me which highlights the vast disparity between truth and image. This is also a recurring theme in many ancient greek written works such as the Odyssey; the concept of «είναι και φαίνεσθαι», the difference between reality and appearances.

On the other hand however, I wonder, am I just being an overly critical, contemptuous, angry person? I could cut people some slack. At the end of the day is vanity so bad? It has existed since the dawn of time and has been the driving factor behind many achievements I am sure. After all how can we distinguish vanity from self-love, ambition and confidence? They say be comfortable with your looks, love the skin you're in, but when does loving yourself become a little too much? These are questions that constantly trouble me and to which i have tried to give answers multiple times but to no avail.

Greek artist’s alter ego Anna Goula shown above is a trash pop singer who mocks contemporary Greek performers.

The most obvious and early tale of vanity is that of Narcissus. Enamoured by his own reflection but not being able to realise his feelings towards himself, he was burned by the flame of his own passion. This myth gave its name to what we now know as narcissism, the overt admiration of ones self and looks and their self-idealisation. Vanity, on the other hand, started off as a term referring to the futility and ephemeral nature of life and material things, however it has mostly become synonymous to narcissism and egomania in current times.

One very prominent example of how the social and cultural dynamics surrounding vanity have drastically changed over the past  few years is the rise of the Kardashian aesthetic and the reign of instagram culture. Kim Kardashian has almost single-handedly rendered shameless vanity an acceptable if not desirable trait, and has even managed to capitalise on it by not only using it to expand her followers which in turn translate into more money but by also publishing a book full of her selfies, titled ‘selfish’ and rightfully so. I think that current instagram culture has a lot to give when it comes to insight on the matter and probably more so when it comes to ordinary people rather than celebrities.

Kim Kardashian’s aforementioned book.

I am also interested in how female artists like Cindy Sherman and Nan Goldin explore the female image and sexuality in their photography, which could provide insight coming from either a pro or anti vanity point of view. I also once attended a talk by Juno Calypso, a young photographer who explores the issue of vanity, self-worship, the futility of beauty and its attainability at any cost, through her site specific performances and photographs. Her pinky pastel aesthetic also alludes to stereotypical explicit femininity and seamlessly blends the past with the present. I would certainly like to look at artists like that whose strong aesthetics are a source of debate and inspiration.

Juno Calypso’s Honeymoon Series.

I would also like to look at Yorgos Lanthimos, the only famous Greek director who is currently the pride and joy of Greece due to his accolades. Even though I have only watched some of his movies in fragments, I was surprised by his distinct aesthetics and concepts when I saw a magazine editorial he shot with Taylor Hill. The young model is posing in her underwear in her grandmothers utterly traditional home, resulting in an unusual but very real and gritty visual, that speaks volumes to Lanthimos’ greekness. I would definitely want to explore his earlier movies more in depth, more so because of his exploration of greek social and familial dynamics rather than his exploration of vanity, but at the end of the day aren’t they both related?

Lanthimos’ shoot for V magazine.

Last but not least, I would like to look at how vanity is related to fetish and explore their relationship to fashion and cinema. Looking at collections and runways from the 90s by Thierry Mugler, the sheer theatricality of the models, the way they have been directed to essentially perform instead of simply carry out a catwalk and of course the clothes, inevitably bring to mind dominatrix-y aesthetics. Of course latex also plays an important role in forming that aesthetic and is a big part of the fetish notion which is worth looking into.

Thierry Mugler’s fashion shows.

I believe that all the works I have done so far have more or less included the element of vanity and body ideals in one way or another. Combining latex with traditional victorian hoop skirts was a way for me to explore the relationship between the traditional and the contemporary and examining the dynamics between the conservative and the sexual. I also tried to explore that relationship in my manifesto project, where I looked at my upbringing and more specifically my rural roots and the agricultural background of my family and tried to explore the gap between the aforementioned traits to the more ‘liberal’ and modern upbringing I had in the city. I also tried to explore that relationship in two linked performance/photography pieces I did last year, combining again my traditional background to my sexuality and self-admiration; one was set in my grandmother’s house while the other one was set in a temporary stay sex hotel in Athens. I feel like my experience so far with latex and pvc will prove useful, at least as material exploration and experimentation are concerned and will pave the way for me to explore further the notion of vanity and fetish through their material realisations.

My ‘Portrait of a millenial’ project, set in Priamos sex hotel in Athens. I placed objects like family photos, christian icons and doilies from my grandmother’s house and did traditionally ‘grandmother’ things like crossword puzzles as if I were in my own home.

Second part of my ‘Portrait of a millenial’ project. I made a revealing burlesque costume and wore it around my grandmother’s house to highlight the difference between the sexual and the flamboyant and the religious and traditional.

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

Their Hero Academia – Chapter 26: Izumi Todoroki and the Big Friendly Giant

Presenting the next raw and unedited installment of my on-going, next gen, My Hero Academia fic!

As always, the actual semi-edited chapters (and a side series) can be found here

One of the regular chores of Class 1-A was to keep the panty and refrigerator stocked.  Some maintained their own personal supplies, such as Toshi’s protein bars or the teas that Izumi herself preferred, but they also kept a number of communal essentials.  As such, regular trips to the store for groceries was required.   This was nominally a task given to two students, selected from their chore rota.

By happenstance, however, this week it fell on Chihiro Kaminari and Mika Mineta.  Prior to their leaving after spending the afternoon in training, Mister Aizawa had pulled Izumi aside and asked her to accompany them, as he did not, to use his words, “trust them not to trade the grocery money for magic beans.”  Izumi thought this characterization a bit unfair.  Chihiro tried very hard, despite occasionally making rather poor choices. Granted, very often those choices were to listen to whatever scheme Mineta had come up with, but she supposed that Mineta could be quite convincing when she wished to.

The grocery store was… a unique experience.  It was Izumi’s first time in one, as they most often had their food delivered.  Or at least she was reasonably certain it was delivered.  Certainly, more food appeared in the refrigerators, freezers, and pantry at regular intervals, though she had never personally seen it arrive.  She had occasionally accompanied her mother to the Donki-Oote, which apparently had “the best bargains on the planet.”  They would return with dozens of shopping bags and her father would simply regard it all with a small, possibly disappointed sigh. But that was a store where every square inch was filled with merchandise, all of there to temp to you.   The grocery store, at least, seemed somewhat more logical.

Currently, Chihiro was pushing the shopping cart through the frozen foods aisle, as Izumi consulted the shopping list they had been presented with.  Mineta walked behind them, her hooves clicking on the tiles rhythmically.  “Are we done yet?” she asked, whining.  “This place is boring and packed with grannies.  There aren’t even any hot guys or girls!”

“We are about halfway through the list,” Izumi told her, without looking back.

“Relax, Mika,” Chihiro said, looking over her shoulder.  “We’ll stop by the magazine rack on our way out and you can get a copy of Teen Hero Beat.  It’s the issue where they rank the hottest up and coming Heroes.”

“Wait, that’s this week?!”

“How do you not know this?” Chihiro asked.  “Don’t you have, like, charts for everything even remotely sexy?”

“It’s been a busy week!”

The banter between the two easy and light, and Izumi envied it.  So different and less formal than what she had Chihiro had as friends, even though she was certain it was so less a friendship.  But friendships and people did not come easily to Izumi, not with Chihiro, not with Toshi and the others, not even with Katsumi, who she counted as her dearest friend in all the world.  People were strange and complicated and she did not always understand.

The clip-clop of Mineta’s horns suddenly stopped and Izumi and Chihiro to see Mika transfixed by something in one of the freezer cases, which she grabbed and then proceeded to run up to them excitedly.  “We have to get this,” she said, cradling the box to her chest.

“Is it on the list?” Izumi asked.

Mineta looked down and away. “Does it need to be?”

“Yes,” she replied. “We’ve been given limited funds and cannot go over the budget, as well as a very specific list.”

Mineta looked like she was going to cry.  “But I neeeeeed it!”  What on Earth could possibly have been that important?  Especially here in frozen foods?

Chihiro let out an exasperated sigh. She crossed her arms and pointed one of her Cords at her friend. “Mika, what is it?”

Slowly, Mika turned the box around so that they could see it.   It was red and green and decorated with a cartoon apple with arms and a face. The apple appeared to be proudly presenting some kind of green… icicle?

“They’re frozen apple pops!” Mineta said, excitedly.  “I haven’t seen these since the last time I was in America!  I didn’t even know they made these here!  They’re so good!”

Izumi honestly didn’t know how to respond to that, but Chihiro burst out laughing.  “That’s what’s got you so excited, Mika?  Apple-flavored popcicles?”

Mineta pouted. “They’re so much more than that. Granny used to buy them for me when we’d visit.  They taste like… freedom!”

Perhaps these were the “magic beans” Aizawa had been referring to.

“You’re ridiculous, Mika,” Chihiro said, Cords drooping.  “They’d probably melt by the time we got everything back anyway.”

“Hello, we have our own built in ice maker!”  Mineta said, pointing a finger at Izumi.  

“Why do you not just buy them for yourself, Mineta?” Izumi asked.  “I would still be happy to keep them cold if you did.”

Mineta looked down. “I didn’t bring that much money. If I buy these, I can’t buy the magazine I want.”

“Are they expensive?” Izumi asked.  “They couldn’t possibly cost more than ¥1000?”

This time, both other girls laughed.  Why, she did not know.  For a brief moment, she flashed back to her younger days in school and the merciless teasing because she was so sickly and frail. “Did I… say something funny?”

“Sorry,” Chihiro said, hanging on the cart for support.  “I know we’re well off, but I forget that you’re, like, a whole other level of rich.”

“You’ve basically got all the money, Todoroki,” Mineta added.

It was true her family was very rich.  The Yaoyorozu fortune combined with Todoroki money had made her family one of the wealthiest in Japan, if not the world.  She tried not to take it for granted, but admitted there was much she probably did not understand.

“Then perhaps I should purchase this treasure,” Izumi said.  “So long as you plan to share.”  There was little harm in it.  And it seemed to make Mineta happy.  Which also had the long-term benefit of likely keeping her out of trouble.

“Oh, thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!”  Mineta threw her arms around Izumi and hugged her tight. “You’re the best, Torodoki!”

“Mika!” Chihiro said. “Let her go so she can breathe!”

“Eeek!”  Mineta said, as she released her.  “Sorry!”

Izumi sucked in a few breaths.  “It is fine,” she said, then nodded.  “Shall we continue?”

Mineta deposited her treat in the cart with the rest of the food and they continued on.

As she rounded the corner, Izumi impacted with a human shaped wall.

***

“Oh!” Izumu called out, trying to steady herself and regain her balance.  “I am so sorry…”  She looked up at the person she had bumped into.  And up.  And up.

They were tall, easily over two meters, broad-chested, with sandy brown hair, buzzed on one side. “Oh, forgive me, I wasn’t looking…!” he said, and then his eyes fell on Izumi.

Instantly, his face broke into a broad grin.  “Izzy!”   He scooped Izzy up into his arms, holding her close as he spun her around.  In spite of herself, she couldn’t help but let out a rather girlish giggle.

“Shinji,” she said, through her laugher, “Shinji, I am getting dizzy!”

Shinji Yoarashi simply laughed a great booming laugh as he put her down.  “Sorry, I got carried away!” he said, though perhaps bellowed was the better term.  One had to adjust for volume where Shinji was concerned. “Holy hurricanes! I haven’t seen you in forever, Izz!  How have you been?!  And Shota? And Katsumi?”

“I have been well,” Izumi told him.  “U.A. is challenging, but I am confident in my ability to succeed.  Shota and Katsumi are also doing well.  And you?”

“Shiketsu High, of course! Have to stand for Dad’s old school! Rigorous!  Intense!  Challenging!” He struck a dynamic pose as he spoke.

“What are you doing here, then?” she asked.  “That is on the other side of Japan.”

“A few of us from my class are staying in the city,” Shinji explained.  “Our rescue training facility is undergoing repairs, so your school offered us the USJ to train this week.  I came here to pick up a few snacks, but seem to have gotten turned around.”

“This place can be very confusing,” she agreed.  

To the side, she saw Mineta elbow Chihiro.   “…Did you know Todoroki knew somebody that hot?”

Chihiro shrugged.  “I… think I’ve seen some pictures of him and Izumi with Shinso and Kirishima-Bakugo, maybe met him… once, twice? When we were little and Izumi was sick. But not in a long time.  Which I’m now regretting.”

“Okay, in that case, I forgive you for not telling me about him.”

“You can’t forgive me for not telling you something I barely knew!”

“Fine, then I won’t forgive you!”

“Ugh!  Why are you like this?”

“I’m charming and you know it!”

“Yeah, well, I saw him fist!”

“I totally called dibs!”

“You did not!”

Izumi’s eyes felt like ping-pong balls as she followed the argument back and forth.   “Friends of yours, Izzy?” Shinji asked, chuckling.

Where were her manners?   “Yes,” she said.  “These are Chihiro Kaminari and Mika Mineta.   Chihiro, Mineta, this is an old friend of mine, Shinji Yoarashi.”

Shinji was, of course, the son of her father’s friend, Inasa Yorashi, the hero known as Gale Force, and like his father, commanded the winds.  Though she did occasionally wonder if the friendship was a bit one-sided. Certainly, Mister Yorashi seemed happier to see her father than her father was to see him at times, but that may have simply been attributable to their personalities.  Her father was quite reserved and the Yorashis were… not.

Shinji took a deep bow. “A pleasure to meet you, ladies! Any friends of Izzy are friends of mine!”

Mineta gave Chihiro a slight shove back, stepping closer to Shinji.  Even considering her hooved-feet, she was walking somewhat strangely, in a manner that exaggerated the movement of her hips.  She stopped when she got closer to Shinji and thrust her chest out.

“Well, aren’t you a fine hunk of a man,” Mineta said, looking him up and down.  “You see anything you like, Big Boy?”  

Was this… flirting? Mineta did that kind of thing so often, it was difficult to tell.  Izumi didn’t claim to understand her at all, though Chihiro often insisted she wasn’t quite as bad as she acted.  Izumi could admit, however, that Shinji was very aesthetically pleasing.

“Mineta,” she began softly, “I don’t think you…”

And then, to her surprise, Shinji reacted to Mineta in a way she had never seen before.   He smiled, his eyes dancing over her form.  “Suffering Cyclones!” he said.  “You are hot!  I see quite a bit that I like!”

Mineta suddenly frozen where she stood, unmoving.  Shinji waved a hand in front of her face.  “Is she all right?” he asked.

“I think,” Chihiro said, “I think you broke her.  She’s never had to think this far ahead before.”  She prodded Mineta with her left Cord, before giving her a small shock.

Mineta let out a small cry of surprise.  “Sorry,” she said, “went away for a little while there.   Got distracted by the hotness.”   She pulled out her phone.  “I’m gonna need your contact details.  Because I think we’ve got a kindred spirit thing going on here.”

“I would be happy to give you my number!” Shinji said.  “I must say, I am impressed by your forwardness!”

Izumi felt a slight tug on her arm and turned to see that Chihiro had returned to the cart.   “Might as well let finish up,” she said.  “I get the feeling they’re gonna be a while.”  She rolled her eyes.  “I think she’s finally met her match.”

Izumi allowed herself to be tugged along.  It was rude to leave without saying anything, but given how deep in conversation they were, she doubted the two would have noticed their absence.

***

“So, seriously, Izumi,” Chihiro said, as she put a couple of boxes of pasta into the cart, “you and the big guy, you got history?”

Izumi nodded.  “We’re very good friends, Chihiro.  Shinji and I go back quite far.  You and he simply never had the opportunity to meet. Shota and Katsumi know him well though.”

Her friend nodded.  “I can see him and Shinso getting along real well. Kirishima-Bakugo… probably not so much.”

That did get a small chuckle out of her.  “Well…” she admitted.  “Katsumi is who she is and Shinji is who he is.  Though she has threatened to explode him on more than one occasion.  Especially after one of his surprise hugs.”

“This is my completely not surprised face,” Chihiro said.  “You two ever, ah, date?”

She shook her head. “He took me to a middle school dance once, but that is all.”

“Guess that’s all right,” Chihiro said.  “But that is one fantastic looking guy.  And if it doesn’t work out with him and Mika, you’ll give me his number, right?”

“I do not see why not.” Izumi was grateful for the lack of further follow-up questions on the dating issue.  Though she had confessed her lack of sexual or romantic attraction to Katsumi not long ago, it was not a conversation she wished to have again and again with her friends.  She was not ashamed, nor did she feel the need to hide it, but neither did she feel the need to lay herself bare like that in front of everyone at any moment.

Still, Shinji did make her smile.  Where Katsumi was her dearest friend and her protector, Shinji had always been the one to make her laugh, to make her smile.  Whether that was spinning through the air like a tornado, taking her for a flight around the backyard, or telling her of the adventures they’d one day have as Heroes, he always tried to buoy her spirits.  Like Katsumi, he was loud and his own variety of explosive.  But where hers was often born of anger, his was born of amusement and excitement, quick with a laugh and cheer.  

When she was small and did not yet understand the concepts of attraction or infatuation (not that she could truly say she understood them now) but had understood that marriage was something you did when you found someone you always wanted to spent time with, she had thought she might marry him.  That had passed, but he was still a dear, dear friend.

Chihiro added a couple of jars of pasta sauce to the cart, then resumed pushing it.  Izzy checked off the items on the list.  “It looks like we still need coffee and some vegetables,” she said.  “And Katsumi has requested peppers.”

Chihiro went a little pale. “She’s gonna make Inferno Curry again, isn’t she?”

“I’ve never really understood that name,” Izumi said.  “It’s really not that hot.”

Extension Cords pointed sharply at Izumi as Chihiro spoke.  “You self-regulate your own temperature.  You don’t get to decide what is or isn’t hot.  Or cold for that matter.  Learned that one before.  Never challenging you to an ice cream eating contest again.”

At that, Izumi smiled. “The stomach ache was still worth it though.”

“…yeah, it was.”

“Hey!” Mineta’s voice rang out from behind them.  “Look how strong he is!”

Izumi turned and found that Mineta was sitting on Shinji’s shoulder, supported by his bicep as they walked up behind them.  Shinji, for his part, didn’t seem to be showing any strain.  She wasn’t surprised; he’d always been quite strong, one of the few people other than Toshi who could successfully arm-wrestle Katsumi.

He set her down.  “She didn’t think I could do it!” Shinji said, letting out a laugh.  “But I proved her wrong!”

“You sure did, Big Boy,” Mineta said, patting a hand against his broad chest.  Izumi noticed her hand stayed there for several long seconds.

“Your friend is delightful, Izzy!” Shinji added.  Chihiro started to laugh, but stopped herself, ending up coughing instead.  “Are you all right?”

“Fine, fine,” Chihiro insisted.  “I’m fine.”

“We’re gonna have a lot of groceries,” Mineta said.  “Think a big, strong guy like you could help us carry them back to the dorm, Yoarashi?”

“I would be delighted to lend my muscles to your cause!”

***

As they returned to the dorm (securing a pass for Shinji had been easy enough, after the security system had scanned his Shiketsu ID), Izumi reflected that today had been a good day. Spending time in the company of friends, getting out of the school for a little while… she had even shopped at a grocery store!  It also meant that had had time not to dwell on the upcoming Sports Festival.

Even two weeks into school, even with having sat out several days for Quirk exhaustion, her stamina had improved by leaps and bounds.  She would need to file the proper paperwork for the regulator equipment from her costume, but if she could use that during the Sports Festival, then she believed she would do well enough.   Her actions would have to be careful and measured, but that was how she preferred to act anyway.  She knew that her parents believed in her, wanted the best for her.  But she felt that if she could make a good showing there… maybe they would be a little less worried about her pursuing the path of a Hero.

Maybe she’d worry a little less about it too.

The Common Room was sparsely occupied by the time they entered it.  Asuka sat at one of the tables, with Shota, going over some kind of their homework, while Katsumi sat on one of the couches, feet on the coffee table in front of it, one of their literature books in her hands.  Everyone else was presumably in their rooms or otherwise occupied.

“We’re back!” Mineta called out, as they set their groceries down on the kitchen counters.  “And we brought a friend!  But don’t try hitting on him, because I already called dibs!”

“You hit on everyone, Horse-Girl,” Katsumi said, without looking up.  “Leave me out of it.”

“Katsumi!” Shinji called out.

“Shinji!” Shota piped up, recognizing his friend’s voice.

“Shota!” Shinji returned, laughing again.

“Oh, hell, no,” Katsumi said.  With incredible speed, she launched herself up off the couch and towards the stairs.   She was not quick enough, however, to avoid Shinji, who scooped her up in a bear hug.  

Shota left Asuka behind to join them.  “Me next, do me next!”

“Oh, it is good to see you two!” Shinji boomed.  “I have missed you!”

“Me too!” Shota said.

“Put me down, you overgrown whirlwind!” Katsumi said, struggling to break free.  “I’ll blow you damn head off!”

Shinji put her down, still laughing.  “Still as funny as ever, Katsumi!”

“I’ll show you funny…”

Izumi quickly decided to intervene.  “I think Katsumi has homework to be doing,” she said.  “Perhaps we should not keep her?”

Katsumi shot her a grateful look.  “Yeah, I do. Thanks, Izz.  …I’m watching you, Windy.”   She quickly returned to the table to grab her book and this time successfully made it to the stairs.

“C’mon,” Chihiro said. “We need to get these groceries put away.  And then we need you to tell us alllll about how you know Kirishima-Bakugo, Yorashi.”

“Oh, yeah,this I gotta hear,” Mineta added.

All the better Katsumi had beat a rather hasty retreat… if she had stayed, violence would have likely followed.  As it was, a little trip down memory lane with a good friend would do no harm. Time to look back, even as they began to look forward.

[friendlyneighborhoodborg]

Marc Appreciation Week 2019| Day 2: Hero/Villain| ”Coping Mechanism”

Okay, so I know the prompt is basically supposed to mean “this character but with a miraculous.”  The backslash (/) in the prompt is meant to be taken as “or.”

But...

That’s one ambiguous backslash.

Let me know what I’m doing right/wrong.  Disclaimers were in the Day 1 submission.

~1700 words, for those who care.

Chapters:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

           Monday was a lot smoother than Sunday.  On Monday, Marc had stuff to do, including, but not limited to, school, meetings, and feeling depressed.

           Few strangers would be surprised to hear that he was depressed today.  After all, it had been two days since his little episode, and akuma victims generally had some sort of depressed attitude for a few days after.  Anyone who knew him would be even less surprised; Marc was anything but the ray of sunshine some of his schoolmates were.

           Getting akumatized was exactly the trauma he didn’t need.

           It was a little bit of the dissociation he had heard other people feel.  Having no memories of the event, watching the news and seeing himself as that stranger was jarring for a multitude of reasons.  He saw him as someone with his thoughts and personality, basically everything that made him himself, only twisted into someone with a killing rage and the means to destroy.  There was a lot of himself in Reverser, and that’s one of the things he tried to ignore from his viewing experience.

           The other thing he ignored was how familiar that experience was, seeing someone with his face and emotions do things only a complete stranger would.  He did often feel like he was projecting himself to the people around him,  with an overwhelming need to stifle his passions to stay normal.  He only felt allowed to act like himself when he was alone with his journal.  Being someone else wasn’t too far off from his normal, everyday life, which is why Reverser’s power-set in particular kinda sucked.

           Then the last thing he tried to brush off was the increasing number of stares he got from people who had never been corrupted. He just hated people looking at him in general.  Including himself, sometimes, and the extra attention was not welcome at all.

           But he was begrudgingly used to getting judged. Judging himself had even become a habit. Every morning, he’d look at himself in the mirror.  He’d feel some sort of emotion, something he hadn’t quite found the right words for yet. It would fall somewhere between “Ugh, not him again” and “Well, it could be worse.”  He had found that hiding his face was a good way of combating the more extreme end of the scale of loathing, so he had starting wearing makeup.  And he’d do his own face in the mirror until he felt more like “Well, it could be worse.”

           Point is, he didn’t like people noticing him, but he could usually brush it off.

           He didn’t usually take this approach to his writing.  He generally thought the writing was pretty good, especially if no one but him was going to see it.  No matter what, he rarely ever wrote down his own thoughts, or if he did, they were unintended, or buried and disguised as something else.

           His thoughts wandered to the journal in his backpack. The tale of a forbidden love between a hero and a former villain, the kind of workplace romance that scores a high budget and has audiences flocking to the cinema.  A de-evilization gone wonderfully wrong, making the butterfly’s effects on its victim permanent, a blossoming emotions between him the heroine who saved him.

           Starring the dubious alter-ego of one Nathaniel Kurtzberg, and written as the heroine from a first-person perspective.

           God, he wondered what Freud would say if he was living today.

           Thankfully, only one student seemed to have cottoned on that his artistic admiration went a little deeper than conventional, but even then he wasn’t sure if Marinette actually knew the full-blown extent of his crush.

           ‘Nope,’ he reminded himself.  ‘Not thinking about that today.  He’s your project partner, and that’s it, and he very obviously has a thing for strong, female superheroes.’

           ‘Well, that’s why you wrote from Ladybug’s POV, isn’t it?’ he argued.  ‘Why don’t you admit what the problem is?’

           ‘That’s not the problem.’  He straightened his back.  ‘I know that’s not what the problem is.  And I don’t have time for this right now.’

           Today, despite his constant state of internal darkness, he was early to school.  And so was a certain redhead artist whose attention he duly attempted to avoid.

           Poorly.

           As per his double-standards.

           Marc shrank as Nathan’s eyes met his and he was waved over against his will.

           He didn’t appreciate being called out like this, especially not in public. But since it was him... he inched up to him.

           “Morning,” Nath said, smiling.

           ‘Gosh dangit.’

           Nevertheless, Marc was determined to keep a level head. It may have been true at one point that the wordsmith had maybe possibly harbored some potentially… problematic emotions for this boy, it was abundantly clear nothing good would come of them.  It was a morose conclusion, as it usually was, but one that had to be reached for both of their goods.  So, he was determined to end his crush on this artist by any means necessary.

           Even if his eyes were clear blue gemstones, teeming with some unseen energy that made him want to keep looking—

           ‘No!’ he chastised.  ‘Bad Marc!’

           “You okay?” Nathaniel asked, and Marc realize he hadn’t answered him.

           “Yeah,” he admitted.  “I’m not a morning person,” Marc admitted.  Internally, he mused, ‘Or an evening person.  Or an afternoon person.  Really, I’m barely a person.’

           Unable to see into Marc’s soul, Nathaniel continued.  “Well, I hope it gets better.”

           ‘It rarely does.’  “You seem to be in a good mood, at least.”

           “Yeah.”  He scratched his head absently.  “Probably not what you expected, huh?  How am I supposed to be emo when I like sunshine?”

           “You seem to be managing yourself just fine.”

           “Thanks, I guess.”  He shrugged off his bag.  “So, we didn’t really do any work yesterday.  Got any ideas for a story?”

           “Oh.”  Marc relaxed, knowing this must be all Nathan wanted from him.  “I hadn’t really given it much thought.  Probably the usual heroes’ dynamic at play.  Ladybug, Chat Noir, and Mighty-Illustrator.”

           Nath looked confused for a second.  “But what about…”

           “What?”

           “Well,” he opened his satchel and pulled out his sketchbook, then he started flipping through it.  “Look, see here.”  He pointed at one page in particular.

           He saw what Nathaniel had drawn.

           He was suddenly aware of everyone looking at him.

           When he came to his senses, he found he was hiding in a bathroom stall.  Someone was banging on the stall door, trying to get his attention.

           “Marc!”  Nathan’s voice carried a deep concern.  “I’m sorry, I should have—I mean, of course, I’m an idiot!  I just…” He groaned loudly at himself, and his voice softened.  “I’m sorry. I should have realized, it’s too new for you.  It only happened a couple days ago…… Look, you can feel free to hate me, I didn’t think about what you’d…”  He just trailed off and left them both in silence.

           Marc heard him start to leave.

           “How do you do it?” he asked, suddenly.

           “Wh-what?”

           “You turned your akuma into the hero?  Why did you do that?” he demanded.  “How could you do that?”

           Nathaniel didn’t answer verbally.  Of course he didn’t, why would he?  He didn’t like expressing himself verbally.

           There was a rustling of papers and something was slid under the door.

           Marc picked it up.  “Are you crazy?  You put your sketchbook on the bathroom floor?”

           “Just look, Marc.”

           He did.  “This is… Mighty-Illustrator and Marinette.”

            There was a pause, and then, “That’s Super-Nathan.”

           “Huh?”

           Nathaniel explained.  “Super-Nathan.  I told you, I’m not good with words or names. He was… well, it was me as a superhero. That’s how he was created, and that’s what I drew him to be.  I wanted to be strong and empowered and witty and do all the things superheroes get to do. I don’t know if you noticed this about me, but I don’t… I’m not strong and I’m not witty.”

           “You’re pretty witty.  I mean, you made this.”  He realized something was off with the picture, however.  “Um, I thought he was supposed to like Ladybug, though.”

           “That was only after I was akumatized.”

           “Oh… Wait, so then… oh.”

           “Yep.  Super-Nathan came first.  Then Hawk Moth turned Super-Nathan into a villain.  Super-Nathan became Evillustrator.  Then I turned him back into Mighty-Illustrator.”  He took a deep breath, and continued forward, his words blazing with a strength Marc hadn’t heard him use before.  “Super-Nathan is mine.  Not his.  I figured this is the one way I can get back at him.  Taking him back, using him to fight Hawk Moth.  Fictionally, anyway.”

           Marc was somewhat grateful for the door in between them.  Nathaniel couldn’t see his completely floored reaction.

           Marc looked down at the sketchbook in his hands. He flipped to the most recently-used page, careful not to look at any of the others.

           The face of evil stared back up at him, striking a heroic pose.

           “We don’t have to use him,” assured the cartoonist. “If you don’t want to.”

           Marc stared back down at himself.  He was only startled out of it when Nathaniel’s steps started walking away.

           “No,” Marc said, stopping him.  “We can use Reverser.”  He hesitated.  “Only… can we change his name?  Like you did?”

           “Well,” his collaborator mused.  “You’re the writer.  And it is you, after all.  You think of something.”

           Making sure his face was back to its normal pale, Marc opened the door.  And there was Nathaniel.  Marc passed him back his sketchbook.  It was taken with gratitude.  “We don’t have to work today if you’re not up to it still.”

           Marc considered this before slowly nodding.

           “Okay.”  He turned to leave.  “Whenever you’re ready, then, you’ve got my number.”  He stopped at the door, still with his back turned.  “Hey, Marc?”

           A noise of acknowledgement was made.

           “I don’t usually do art for anyone but myself. But…” he searched for his words, which seemed to have left him.   “It-it’s nice to work with someone.”  He turned back and regarded Marc, smiling.  “Especially you.”  Then, looking unsure of himself, he awkwardly made his exit.

           Marc was now all by himself in the washroom, and he was suddenly very aware of the heat in his cheeks.

           He sighed.  Not out of any particular emotion, except maybe frustration.

          ‘Gosh dangit.’

I’m taking the mostly positive comments as a sign that I’m on the right track, so I’m just gonna keep going with this.  If the other chapters aren’t as good... well, there’s worse things than this on this site.  And I only finished this today, barely on the deadline, so I’ll try not to stress much over it.

[commodorecliche]

Gimme all the book recs Please :D

yaaaaaaaaaaaas okay great. i love sharing books i love.  

1. The Thief of Always - Clive BarkerGenre: Dark FantasyBig personal favorite of mine. My father read this to me when I was a kid, and it literally has stuck with me since then. Every now and then I go back and reread it just for fun. It’s a wonderfully spooky little story, accompanied by some really lovely and somewhat off-kilter illustrations. Much like Coraline, it’s a novel that is a fable for children, and a tale of terror for adults.

After a mysterious stranger promises to end his boredom with a trip to the magical Holiday House, ten-year-old Harvey learns that his fun has a high price.

2. House of Leaves - Mark Z. DanielewskiGenre: Postmodernism, horrorHands down an absolute favorite. This is a book I literally recommend to everyone. This is a book that made me viscerally uncomfortable, at times I didn’t even sleep in the same room as it. I made it sleep in the living room. There is nothing overtly terrifying about the book, but its format and its unsettlingly immersive nature will lead you down a road unlike any other. 

In 1997, Johnny Truant has stumbled upon a chest full of scrap papers that had once belonged to a man named Zampono. The papers aren’t just scraps though, they’re a chaotic but detailed transcription of a series called the Navidson Record. The Navidson Record is a series of videos made by a family who has discovered that their new house appears to change dimensions almost daily, it has hallways that shouldn’t exist, doors that should lead outside but instead lead into nothingness. Johnny attempts to re-order and reconstruct Zampono’s papers, and along the way begins to lose himself as well. 

3. The Postmortal - Drew MagaryGenre: Science Fiction, Postmodern DystopiaReally funny, really dark, and full of a surprising amount of morality and humanity in a pre-apocalyptic world. 

Imagine a near future where a cure for aging is discovered and-after much political and moral debate-made available to people worldwide. Immortality, however, comes with its own unique problems-including evil green people, government euthanasia programs, a disturbing new religious cult, and other horrors.    

4. Horrorstor - Grady HendrixGenre: Comedy, HorrorHonestly this book is just balls to the wall fun. It’s a horror novel that’s laid out like the world’s most messed up IKEA catalog. Spooky at times, ridiculous and funny, at times moving, while also offering great social commentary on consumerism and the the current status of retail workers. 

Something strange is happening at the Orsk furniture superstore in Cleveland, Ohio. Every morning, employees arrive to find broken Kjerring bookshelves, shattered Glans water goblets, and smashed Liripip wardrobes. Sales are down, security cameras reveal nothing, and store managers are panicking. To unravel the mystery, three employees volunteer to work a nine-hour dusk-till-dawn shift. In the dead of the night, they’ll patrol the empty showroom floor, investigate strange sights and sounds, and encounter horrors that defy the imagination. 

5. Rant - Chuck PalahniukGenre: Science Fiction, Horror, SatireThis is a book I read several years ago and that I still think about from time to time. I haven’t had time to sit down and reread it, but parts of it still resonate with me today. This is a very peculiar story and it is told in a rather peculiar fashion (it is an oral history, and as such is told in a very conversational way by a number of different characters with a wide variety of thoughts and opinions on the titular Rant. It’s hard to properly describe this book, but let’s just say it’s been in my reread list for a while now. 

Buster “Rant” Casey just may be the most efficient serial killer of our time. A high school rebel, Rant Casey escapes from his small town home for the big city where he becomes the leader of an urban demolition derby called Party Crashing. Rant Casey will die a spectacular highway death, after which his friends gather the testimony needed to build an oral history of his short, violent life. 

6. John Dies at the End - David WongGenre: Comedy, Horror, Dark FantasyHoly god what do I even say about this book? It is just hilariously and marvelously insane. A perfect mix of cosmic fantasy, horror, comedy, and lunacy, and I loved every minute of reading it. I still have the rest of the series lined up to read, too!

The drug is called Soy Sauce and it gives users a window into another dimension. John and I never had the chance to say no. You still do. I’m sorry to have involved you in this, I really am. But as you read about these terrible events and the very dark epoch the world is about to enter as a result, it is crucial you keep one thing in mind: None of this was my fault. 

7. Sphere - Michael CrichtonGenre: Science Fiction, Deep Sea HorrorThis is one I actually JUST finished, and I absolutely adored it. I had a couple small complaints about it, but overall, it was a wonderful read and very engrossing. Plus, I’m always a sucker for deep sea horror. 

A group of American scientists are rushed to a huge vessel that has been discovered resting on the ocean floor in the middle of the South Pacific. What they find defies their imaginations and mocks their attempts at logical explanation. It is a spaceship of phenomenal dimensions, apparently, undamaged by its fall from the sky. And, most startling, it appears to be at least three hundred years old…. 

8. I, Lucifer - Glen DuncanGenre: Religious Fantasy, Occult FictionThis book is incredibly well researched, thought out, and characterized, as well as funny and extremely thought-provoking. I’d never expected to see a story that would give me a realistic and modern look into the Devil’s side of the story. I especially never expected to see a story that would make the Devil learn what it is to be human, either. All in all just an A+, fantastical read. 

The Prince of Darkness has been given one last shot at redemption, provided he can live out a reasonably blameless life on earth. Highly sceptical, naturally, the Old Dealmaker negotiates a trial period - a summer holiday in a human body, with all the delights of the flesh. The body, however, turns out to be that of Declan Gunn, a depressed writer living in Clerkenwell, interrupted in his bath mid-suicide. Ever the opportunist, and with his main scheme bubbling in the background, Luce takes the chance to tap out a few thoughts - to straighten the biblical record, to celebrate his favourite achievements, to let us know just what it’s like being him. Neither living nor explaining turns out to be as easy as it looks. Beset by distractions, miscalculations and all the natural shocks that flesh is heir to, the Father of Lies slowly begins to learn what it’s like being us. 

9. The Wasp Factory - Iain BanksGenre: Psychological HorrorLook, I want to say this right off the bat. This book is… not for everyone. Trust me when I say this is an extremely dark book with a lot of dark content. I would say that if you have any potential triggers, you may want to message me first and I will give you a better rundown of what all this book entails. This is a true piece of horror fiction. But it’s also incredible. I ate this book up in about two days and it is one of my favorite pieces of dark fiction to date. So yeah, chat with me if you have any concerns, but if you enjoy truly dark fiction, then this is up your alley. 

Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different and more fundamental reasons than I’d disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim. That’s my score to date. Three. I haven’t killed anybody for years, and don’t intend to ever again. It was just a stage I was going through. 

10. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (the whole series, trust me)Genre: Comedy, Science Fiction, Cosmic FantasyJust trust me when I say this is a series that literally everyone should read at least once in their life. They are unflabbably hilarious in a way that only Douglas Adams could be, and they are just truly unique. This series is (rightfully) a classic and shouldn’t be missed. 

Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor. Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker’s Guide (“A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have”).

11. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War - Max Brooks Genre: Zombie horror, Faux HistoryI beg you - do not judge this book by the very terrible movie that was made about it. It is an entirely different animal than that mess of a movie, I promise. World War Z is a masterfully crafted book that details the zombie apocalypse in ways never before done in fiction. The Battle of Yonkers scenes and the testimony of Tomonaga Ijiro still stick in my head to this day. This book is a triumph of horror, ‘history’, and humanity, all balled into a distinctly unique experience. 

The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years. 

12. The Raw Shark Texts - Steven HallGenre: Fantasy/Realism, Meta-fiction, MysteryThis is a tough one to put into words. I read this many years ago, and I remember it more as a series of emotional experiences rather than just as a singular plot. Which I think really speaks to its character as a book. This is a book that deals with dissociation, memory loss, our sense of self, how easily we can lose that sense, and our struggle to hold onto or to rediscover the world we know and the people we believe ourselves to be. This book is just… an experience, much like House of Leaves. It’s immersive, and at times quite unsettling. 

Eric Sanderson wakes up in a house he doesn’t recognize, unable to remember anything of his life. All he has left are his diary entries recalling Clio, a perfect love who died under mysterious circumstances, and a house that may contain the secrets to Eric’s prior life. But there may be more to this story, or it may be a different story altogether. With the help of allies found on the fringes of society, Eric embarks on an edge-of-your-seat journey to uncover the truth about himself and to escape the predatory forces that threaten to consume him. 

I think 12 should be good for now! I certainly have more though, if you want them!! 

Bonus, Currently Reading: The Library at Mount Char - Scott HawkinsGenre: Contemporary Fantasy, Horror, Dark FantasyI don’t have a whole lot to say about this yet since I’m not very far into it, but so far it’s been extremely intriguing, and Hawkins’ writing is truly beautiful. 

A missing God. A library with the secrets to the universe. A woman too busy to notice her heart slipping away. Carolyn’s not so different from the other people around her. She likes guacamole and cigarettes and steak. She knows how to use a phone. Clothes are a bit tricky, but everyone says nice things about her outfit with the Christmas sweater over the gold bicycle shorts. After all, she was a normal American herself once. That was a long time ago, of course. Before her parents died. Before she and the others were taken in by the man they called Father. 

Bonus 2, Up Next to Read: Dark Matter: A Ghost Story - Michelle PaverGenre: Horror

January 1937. Clouds of war are gathering over a fogbound London. Twenty-eight year old Jack is poor, lonely, and desperate to change his life, so when he’s offered the chance to join an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it. Spirits are high as the ship leaves Norway: five men and eight huskies, crossing the Barents Sea by the light of the midnight sun. At last they reach the remote, uninhabited bay where they will camp for the next year, Gruhuken, but the Arctic summer is brief. As night returns to claim the land, Jack feels a creeping unease. One by one, his companions are forced to leave. He faces a stark choice: stay or go. Soon he will see the last of the sun, as the polar night engulfs the camp in months of darkness. Soon he will reach the point of no return–when the sea will freeze, making escape impossible. Gruhuken is not uninhabited. Jack is not alone. Something walks there in the dark… 

(also if any of y’all have read these, i’d love to hear YOUR thoughts on them too)

[starglasszodiac]

SGZ Anniversary - Cassie and the Comic

The big one, the origin story!!!! And honestly one of my favourite memories to look back on. :’D I’ll be talking about both the idea itself and the evolution of Cassie’s character in what is a BEHEMOTH of a text post, so here we go!

While July 19th, 2015 is the official origin day of SGZ, it started a bit prior to that. I have this story already somewhat explained on the blog’s FAQ page, but I might as well reiterate it here:

SGZ started as an idea in the summer of 2015 after my buddy Laura showed me two webcomics: Paranatural by Zack Morrison, and Vibe by Dan Ciurczak (two comics I highly recommend, please go read them!). I loved how vibrant and beautiful their artwork was despite how different their stories were, and how wonderful the writing and humour was. My two biggest creative passions have always been visual art and writing, but ironically this was what really flicked the switch in my head to actually try comics, the literal combination of the two. Why I didn’t start sooner will forever be a mystery to me, but I suppose a lack of exposure to comics as a kid had something to do with it. Better late than never, right?

The specific launch day of July 19th is an homage to not only the creation of the idea but of the main protagonist, Cassie. After thinking “hey, I could do this!” I started wondering what I should make a comic about. While working at my retail job (on the slowest day in existence), I began to make a list of things that I liked or wanted to write a story about, and stars / astrology was one of them. I had always loved that aspect of mythology, and my affection for stars is a mystery to no one.

I worked at what was effectively a Blockbuster clone in my hometown (RIP Cherry Hill Video) and we had scrap pieces of paper that we made from old movie facings, so the first ever notes and doodles for this series exist on these scraps. I’ve still got quite a few of them, but they got a bit scattered when I moved for college. I’m hoping the rest are at my house somewhere.

I got the idea of a girl with a star in her eye, and called it the Starglass. And, well, the idea went from there! I started researching all of the zodiac signs and symbols, and drew the first (digital) drawing of Cassie when I got back home that day. Which, looked like this:

Seeing this again is not only weird and oddly nostalgic but it’s a testament to where my artistic sensibilities were prior to going to animation school. The idea for SGZ happened mere months before I was thrown into that 3-year fray of insanity so the evolution is pretty odd in places, especially how my knowledge of shape language, anatomy, etc. evolved and how my style adapted to that. I had almost NEVER drawn humans prior to going to college, so a lot of the art for this series deals with my inability to do so at the start. ^^’ The awkward phase, if you will. And as such, it is the first story idea I had that primarily focused on humans.

Looking back on it, Cassie’s character in terms of personality was pretty different than what it is now, but from a visual standpoint there’s (surprisingly) a lot that stayed. The basic idea of her hair stayed, right down to the double ponytail and orange clasps. Her freckles, eye colour and general face shape too, even if that ended up modified after solidifying her character later.

Her main colour was always red, in fact after making the headshot I remember having NO IDEA what to do for the rest of her body, so it just ended up being RED. Then I added the blue for the contrast, but I still wasn’t happy with it at the time (a perhaps subconscious origin for her blue pants though, lol). I also find amusement in the fact that my current concept for her mother Nora has her wearing blue flats much like these.

Based on the notes I have and what I remember, Cassie was older at this point (like 15 or 16 probably) and seemed to be a lot more sarcastic (this is a norm for a lot of my characters, trust me). xD Some of the first character interactions I ever wrote largely involved Cassie being sassy to one of the signs, back when a few of them were being over dramatic (looking at you SCORPIO). I cackled reading those interactions again now that my characters have changed so much. They’re not well written at all but they still let me look back to that time with fondness. :’D

What is also interesting is the progression of her name, or the fact that she didn’t have one right at the start. My earliest notes have simply Starglass or SG whenever I wrote dialogue. I started trying to think of a name, and contrary to popular belief, settling on Cassie actually had nothing to do with Cassiopeia. Though I do really enjoy the irony of that. xD It started with Cass, which could be short for either Cassandra or Cassidy, and I ended up going with Cassidy. I then changed it to Cassie, as I find the -ie suffix makes it a lot cuter. I am biased though, my name ends with it too, aha. There is a note that spells it as Cassi and for the life of me I cannot determine if that was a typo or not, but when I write fast I miss letters sometimes. The nickname of “Star” was one the table for a while too, and now that Star VS exists it’s even funnier. I specifically recall my mother telling me that she was going to suggest Star on the Facebook post I had made for the art at the time, but thought maybe it was too obvious. She was right, though this idea lives on in the nicknames that the signs end up giving Cassie later on, my favourite being “Little Star”.

While development for the story and characters started right away, it got a much welcomed jumpstart at the beginning of my second year at animation school. We were given a character design project that would span the entire year, and would require a story concept to complete all of the assignments. We were told this fact in first year to give us time to prepare over the summer, and I had just pulled an all-nighter to finish an assignment that day, but upon hearing this news I was not tired at all. Character design was already my favourite class, but this put it over the top. That beautiful feeling of inspiration that hits you is the BEST and in that moment nothing else mattered. Not even my fatigue, which I promptly dealt with the next day.

I used this as an opportunity to spend time developing the designs and story progression of all the characters, while getting marks for it at the same time! This is largely the reason I was able to launch the comic a few months after completing that year of school, as it ended up giving me full-sized references, colour schemes, and a much better idea of the story as a whole. Based on when my school years took place, I can actually track the progression of the characters pretty well through the artistic skill upgrade I was getting too.

The progression is pretty wild honestly, especially between 2015 and 2016:

(oh god these are so old help me) 

(these aren’t all of them either but I did my best jdhkfhsjkfhskjf)

From 2016 onwards I had the basic idea of her, so her colours stayed more or less the same once I actually added them. Cassie’s hair was one of the things that required a lot more iterations. I had her general idea down for a while, but when it came to making the character pack of her for my character design class, I remember having to sit down and actually figure out how her hair would work, structurally and otherwise, for that High Quality Refinement™ that was required of the project. Her older drawings had the part in her hair be in the middle, and that posed the problem of covering her eyes too much. If she was a more reserved character in any way this could have worked, but nah. I knew from the beginning she was going to be an outwardly eccentric child, one I wish I could have been when I was growing up.

Now for anyone that knows me as both a huge nerd and an artist, when it comes to fantasy stuff I LOVE armour. Absolutely love it. You see it everywhere in the things I make both inside and outside of SGZ, and I adore making themed costumes based on that (see my Feather Knights series for the most extreme example of this ever, ahahaha). So, it stands to reason that I would do the same for Cassie at some point, and I did! 

There was a particular focus on a helmet for a while too, whole plot points in fact! This helmet was, story wise, a long-standing plot point that proved difficult to change once the focus shifted. The initial idea was that the helmet belonged to Cassie’s science teacher (who is still a minor character in this as of now) and he gave it to her knowing its significance to the Starglass, thus establishing a sort of connection between Cassie’s normal life on Earth and the supernatural shenanigans that happen on the Astral Plane. The night she brings it home, she discovers that this little friend laid dormant inside:

This is Flicker. A character I’ve actually never revealed to anyone prior to now but hey, why not? The idea of Cassie having a spirit companion certainly didn’t come out of left field for me, but I wasn’t entirely sure how this character would appear, or what dynamic they would have with Cassie. I didn’t have pets bigger than a hamster growing up, so the idea of Cassie having a potential dog or cat companion would be new territory based on my own experiences. 

Flicker, as they are right now, acts as a sort of sensor for spirits that are roaming loose on Earth, and alerts Cassie to them... even if she’s not always up for a spirit hunt. They do have a backstory associated with how they appear and what their purpose is in the overall context of the world, but that isn’t revealed until much later in the story. For now Flicker is a cute little friend that cannot say much, but is devoted to protecting things, especially the Starglass. Luckily they still made the cut when it came to the helmet idea, and you should be meeting them officially pretty soon in the comic! :D

While the initial problem was getting any sort of cohesive look to the helmet or any other armour in terms of concept, I found as the story developed along with Cassie’s design, both her hair and her star sweater ended up being her two most “iconic” qualities aside from her eye, and using armour would have covered that up. 

On top of that, Cassie didn’t really end up being the type of character that would use armour, as one might expect from a character that has to fight and defend things a lot. She’s one to do things a little differently, and both her and the signs discover that, well, different works! It wasn’t a matter of her physical strength for the majority of the problems she faces, but rather strength of heart, and that’s a very personal note for me to touch on with this character. As such, nothing about an armour concept ever came out of the sketch phase:

It still makes for really interesting ideas though, so I’m sure I can work these into something else I’m working on. :’D Knowing myself, I’ll find a way. (The wings are VERY Cardcaptors though lol)

What did stay, however, were her swords:

She had at least one sword at the very beginning of this concept, but it eventually evolved into two. I find it interesting that sun, moon and star symbols were always present, regardless of what iteration these swords went through. Their official names are the Sun Star and Moon Star Swords respectively. Aside from the few doodles here and there for the zodiac weapons, this was the first appearance of any kind of fantasy weapon in SGZ. I can confirm that Cassie and the signs were going to have weapons from the get-go though, this IS something I made after all. xD

I think I also need to mention the main influences for this series, as the love for those things is very evident in my work, from the visuals to the storytelling and everything in between. Aside from my general interest in fantasy topics such as mythology and astrology, here’s a list including (but not limited to) the series that inspired the making of SGZ:

Kirby, Steven Universe, Harry Potter, Avatar: The Last Airbender & The Legend of Korra, Cardcaptor Sakura / Cardcaptors, Kim Possible, Danny Phantom, and pretty much any other show I’ve watched about surviving school while going on crazy adventures. That stuff may be cliche now but I’ll be damned if I don’t love it still.

I grew up with some of these and the rest are new, but they’re all near and dear to my heart for many reasons. I’m happy that I can put that love into something I’ve made, and share that story with the world. 

I know I’ve got a lot more ranting about this story to do in general and the comic is still going, but I want to say some special thanks to some of SGZ’s biggest supporters: 

Laura, Eleanor, and my classmates and teachers at Seneca College. This comic wouldn’t exist without you. <3

I’ll be honest, working on this series got me through some of the toughest years of my life so far, and this was one of the first times where something I made actually came to fruition in some way, and had a genuine development period that I can look back on. I’ve grown a lot as both a person and an artist since then, and doing this look back in time really solidified that for me. I have a cast of characters that I love, and now I get to tell their story. So if you’ve stayed till the end in this gigantic post, thank you. I don’t know where this story will lead me, but with any luck it’ll be somewhere in the stars. Thanks for reading, friends. <3

[snowhavenstudios]

Meet Ema the Character and CG Artist for My Sweet Confession

Ema, known on Twitter as Spookymeal, was the character and CG artist for My Sweet Confession. Mixing her own design with descriptions of characters from author Ebi-hime, Ema planned and brought each character to life with her unique style! Not to mention the heartbreaking CG!

Read about her experience working on My Sweet Confession and see some of her sketches and preliminary designs for the visual novel.

What was your inspiration for the character designs and CGs in My Sweet Confession?

"I was actually given art references from the game's writer, ebihime, which were basically her ideas of how characters could look like. For Ichika, she was picturing Gudako (Fate Grand/Order), for Ayumi, she referenced Mai (Nichijou) and for Hana she just gave an illustration from an author I don't know, unfortunately.

Personally, I didn't think of any particular characters or artworks. Rather, I drew on a combination of my memories with Visual Novels I had played in the past, and my memories of high school. I wanted to give myself the freedom to just go with what felt right, without actively trying to resemble any particular style. If I had to point out to an artist that played an influence, though, that would be Takashi Takeuchi, whose work is still a big inspiration for me.

One fun dynamic that helped me design the characters was to picture Ichika as a deer, which is why I went with a red-brown-green color palette, long limbs and freckles, I felt it suited her personality. In contrast, I thought of Hana as a wolf; being more serious looking, smaller, and having dark and slightly messy hair. (If this was a different kind of game, maybe she would have ended with fangs too, haha).

Something I also find interesting is that prior to starting work on this VN, I was a little hesitant to lean into anime aesthetics for my art, as I still had some shadow of doubt in me that told me I would not be taken seriously because of them. However, allowing myself to dive into those shojo-like elements and adapting them was something very liberating, and from then on I have started to incorporate that more on my personal work. So in a way, the work I made here is what has inspired me, instead of the other way around."

When working on a project such as My Sweet Confession, is there a process that begins your illustrations?

"Yes. I tend to start by writing down ideas for the illustration, detailing what needs to be there, what the mood is, and how it should be portrayed. Among other details.

In this case, however, Dara, my (very lovely) art supervisor already had such descriptions ready for me.

Going from there, my first step starts with sketching very loosely on individual paper sheets. I like to get the first rough ideas out just going from my imagination without looking for any references.

Once I have a somewhat solid idea, I begin a back-and-forth process of working with the references I find, going back to the sketches and start reiterating them until I'm happy enough with something I can take to the computer.

I tend to work simultaneously on both mediums, going back to paper when necessary. That's why there are so many paper sketches, though these were only the ones I kept!"

When working on My Sweet Confession, did you have any favorite parts about the visual novel?

"I enjoyed fleshing out visually the characters' personalities and figuring out how to best represent them, while also contextualizing their writing in return.

In terms of the illustrations, the CG for the ~secret ending~ was a delight from start to end (I even took a couple of reference photos of myself doing the very extra posing, which I love). And I also quite enjoyed working on the Ichika rejection CG, which was a bit more dynamic (as painful as it may be for our poor heroine).

Also, this is a big secret, but just between us- Designing outfits (both the uniforms and the casual clothing) was an unexpectedly fun process and I can't wait to do more of it. <3"

Make sure to follow Ema on Twitter to see all her incredible work!

My Sweet Confession is currently available on both Steam and Itch.io! You can also follow the official Snowhaven Studios Twitter to stay informed on our upcoming releases.

[jokesonme25]

A Small Town’s Mysterious Summer Vacation - A review of WORLD END SYNDROME

I just recently finished a game (or visual novel if you want to be pedantic) called World End Syndrome. I’m going to ramble about it now.

For some context, World End Syndrome is a visual novel that was published by Arc System Works in the May of last year. I’d classify the genre as a Mystery/Romance with some light horror elements. It tells the story of its 17 year main protagonist (named by the player) as he moves to a small town called Mihate in the summer, where every 100 years undead beings called Yomibito appear. After joining a Mystery/Tribal Studies club he then lives out his summer vacation, haunted by the memories of his tragic past. That’s just the backstory though as most of your time spent in Mihate will actually be spent in what I’d best describe as a Dating Sim with the actual mystery/horror being saved for the various endings and two specific routes.

Yeah, I know. It’s a dating sim and that can be a bit of a turn off, but hear me out!

First off, I’ll just get the gameplay out of the way. It’s a visual novel so the “gameplay” is non-existent. The closest thing to gameplay would be picking who to spend time with and occasionally choosing dialogue options. Like I said though, it’s a visual novel so somewhat nothing gameplay is just part of the experience. With that out of the way though, there is still a general “gameplay” loop that you end up following in WES. You start your day off, pick a location on the game’s map, and you then spend time with whoever it is happens to be there. Rinse and repeat until you reach an ending. This is where the problems start to creep up however. (With some exceptions) You simply have no way of knowing where everyone is during these sections on your first go of each in-game day. The game will keep track of everywhere you’ve been and who was there even if you reload your save or start a new file, which will allow you to effectively save-scum your way to victory but doing that gets tedious FAST. Another decent idea would be to look up a guide, but the game is relatively obscure so there are very few guides to use online. (I used this one: https://knoef.info/trophy-guides/ps4-guides/world-end-syndrome/)

The game is split into 5 (technically 6) routes, one for each of the main girls (Maimi Kusunose, Saya Kamishiro, Hanako Yamada, Yukino Otonashi, and Miu Amana) and one true ending. You can spend time with whoever you want, but you will need to spend most of your time with just one of the girls in order to get anything but the game’s worst ending. Do things right though, and you’ll get one of the girls’ endings which (usually) involves them falling for the MC. I DID mention that this was a dating sim, didn’t I? Whatever, once you get all 5 girls’ endings, you unlock the true ending which can just be triggered by going back to title screen and starting a new save.

This however is where my biggest complaint with WES pops up. One thing the game COMPLETELY neglects to tell you is that doing the character’s routes out of order can potentially soft-lock your file by locking you out of the other routes, forcing you to have to wipe the game’s save data completely. In particular, in my first run I did Hanako’s route first but when I restarted the game, I couldn’t get the other girl’s events to trigger until I reinstalled the game. It can be frustrating, but its avoidable by just doing them in this order: Saya, Maimi, Hanako, Yukino, and then Miu.

Admittedly, I could’ve just been doing things wrong and there might be a way to do the rest of the game’s routes without wiping your save data, but my second playthrough (where I did things in the above listed order and used a guide) went perfectly so that’s neither here nor there.

I’ve been selling the game kinda short though, so onto the parts of it that I actually liked: the graphics and the narrative.

One thing you’ll notice right off the bat, this game is GORGEOUS. The character designs have a very distinct anime style that I absolutely adore, they can look a little off at times (in particular, Rei Nikaido’s right arm almost looks like it’s bending the wrong way, and the character’s mouths tend to do the Sonic thing where the entire mouth is only on one side of their face when viewed from a side profile) but in general they look REALLY good. The game’s backgrounds also have a hand-painted style that compliments the game’s otherworldly atmosphere excellently.

I’ll just put it here since I didn’t know where else to put it, but I should mention that the game’s music is… Ok, I guess. It isn’t anything to write home about, but it serves the mood and atmosphere decently enough.

Now onto the narrative.

For one thing, the actual mystery that serves as a backdrop for the game’s plot is a decent one. An astute player could potentially put the proper pieces together before a lot of the actual reveals, and someone who isn’t paying as much attention as them could be in for some interesting surprises. However the way its presented is fairly linear with the game not really giving the player any way to solve the mystery themselves and just kind of spoon-feeding it to you as you do the various girls’ routes. I’d rank the game as a 6.5/10 in the mystery department.

If you’re looking for horror though (as some of the game’s marketing and its prologue might lead you to believe) skip this game. Ultimately the game’s “horror” just amounts to the fact that there’s undead creatures involved and (MILD SPOILERS) that there’s a murderer on the loose. (END OF SPOILERS) Over all, a lot of the game’s creepier bits only come from the game’s atmosphere and its prologue/endings (minus the true ending). This is especially prevalent in that once the mystery itself starts to be unraveled (MILD SPOILERS I GUESS BUT NOT ACTUALLY) a majority of the creepier parts of the narrative are justified and given incredibly non-creepy explanations. (END OF THE NOT ACTUAL SPOILERS)

However, like I said at the start the mystery surrounding the town of Mihate, the Yomibito, and the horrors there in are simply a backdrop for a good majority of the game, with the main focus being put onto the game’s characters and in particular their (for the most part) romances with the main character. In the romance department I’d rate it at a 6/10. Most of the girls’ routes have a few very sweet moments and are over-all engaging, but a couple of them (in my opinion) fall flat. In particular Maimi and Saya. For one thing, Maimi is the MC’s distant cousin which I can see being a bit of a turn off for a few people. The romance itself was also just not that compelling, even discounting the whole cousins thing. Saya’s fared slightly better, but I found the family drama surrounding her far more compelling than any romance with her could’ve fared. They also felt the need to point out that she’s specifically only 15 which put basically any fan-service including her into the “gross” pile for me.

Oh yeah, I guess I should probably mention the fan-service. This being a dating sim and all, there is a decent amount of glamour shots of the game’s various girls in skimpy clothing (swimsuits 95% of the time since it takes place over a summer vacation) or in compromising situations and suggestive poses. There’s no nudity or anything explicitly sexual, but it’s worth mentioning because of the fact that the game’s cast is mostly made up of teenagers, so that could easily creep a good number of people out.

With that in mind I’d still say the actual story being told here is a good one. The characters are engaging (albeit with only as much depth as a decent JRPG or your average Shonen battle anime), their dynamic is entertaining, and like I said before the mystery being unraveled is at least a decent one. The game also devotes a good chunk of it’s time to world building, allowing Mihate Town to feel just a little bit more fleshed out than you’d think. The message the game ends on (that no matter how much hardship you might endure, life is still worth living) is also incredibly sweet. I also like that despite its name and all of its talk of “the world’s end” the story is actually relatively small scale with no worlds actually being in explicit danger or anything like that. It’s just a small town’s somewhat mysterious summer vacation. (Then again, there WAS a rather blatant sequel hook in the true ending and the sequel, named World End Phenomenon, was just recently announced so that small scale could inevitably change once that comes out, but I digress) I’d rank the narrative over all (rather than just the pieces of it) a solid 7/10.

If you enjoy Visual Novels, and don’t mind the slight horror elements or the fact that it’s going to spend most its 20-30 hour run-time on high-school romance, I’d give World End Syndrome at least a look. It’s available on the PS4, and the Switch.

[specialistpracticegeorgesmith]

Personal Specialist Field: Investigate and Practice [Task 2]

26.04.19

After researching what exactly my specialist field is; illustration—what the common materials and techniques were involved, how old the specialism is, and how it is practiced to this day, I did some research into three different artists of this specialism that I admire; Wlop, Inio Asano, and Hiroshi Nagai. Now, it is time for task two; Investigate and Practice. I will start investigating for creative design within my specialism, illustration. I will be doing this through practical experimentation and primary research. In this post I will be generating ideas and testing said ideas out in my sketchbook. Through all of the ideas that I have come up with thus far, I aim to improve my skills. 

Idea Generation

First Idea: Digital Painting - Background, Foreground and Character 

My first idea, and so far, my favourite idea of the ones I have come up with; a digital painting. This digital painting will be one comprised of a background, a foreground, and a character between the two. I have come up with a list of sorts, listing all of the different potential backgrounds I can paint:

Mountains, or a rocky background, a grassy field, a blue sky, perhaps one with lots of clouds (I really enjoy painting clouds), city skylines, (Tokyo, New York, etc.) a beach, the ocean, underwater, a school building, a forest, a jungle, a desert, a cave even, a city viewed from far away up on a mountain, mt. Fuji, viewed from the iconic spot in Kyoto, or some kind of futuristic or Jurassic scenery. I’m most inclined to go with either a mountainous or rocky area, a field of grass with some mountains in the background and some clouds, the city skylines, or some kind of futuristic scene. Whichever of these scenes I decide to paint (If this even becomes my final idea) I will find a way to insert some kind of foreground ‘thing’ pertaining to the background, e.g. trees in the foreground for the grassy field scene. My reasoning for this first idea is that I wish to improve on my background painting, as I have virtually no experience at all to be honest, this will allow me to experiment with different textures beyond human skin and clothing. I also wish to experiment with lighting, which will really help overall with my illustration skills. As for the character in between, I will design my own character, and this will give me a chance to work on my anatomy-drawing skills. As for the poses said character will be doing, I will allow myself any pose, the more difficult for me, the more I will get a chance to improve my anatomy. Lastly, it will also greatly help my perspective skills, and let me experiment with things that are far away, and right up close.

For this idea, I will be using a sketchbook to draw out initial ideas I have. Then, I will need to use a digital painting program; Clip Studio Paint—here, I will sketch the line art for the background and character, and then finalize it all in one with colours and lighting. This will certainly be a predominantly digitally produced piece of work. Some techniques that I would need to use to my advantage would be anatomy, as I have mentioned, an understanding of lighting and shadows, perspective, how things look at different angles, and composition, meaning that I must even out everything on the composition, and make sure a certain thing isn’t much bigger than the others, if necessary. Some sketching is needed if I want to ascertain a good final composition, and I will need to manage my time well. 

Second Idea: Digital Painting - Something Non-Human

This could mean a lot, a lot of things, for example, my first thoughts are that I could paint a photograph that I have taken myself of a bird or small animal, etc., with a background consisting of presumably trees and plants. I have a bird feeder on the front of the house, I may encounter a blue-tit or a sparrow. Again, I have very little experience painting things non-human like animals. However, I do not just mean real animals when I say “non-human”, I also mean imaginary creatures spawned from my own mind, like some kind of flying monster. These animals and creatures will let me experiment with other textures, much like the first idea will, with backgrounds. Also, for both of these ideas and probably future ones, I will be slightly exaggerating colours and lighting when necessary, to make for more appealing paintings. 

For this idea, firstly, I will need a camera, as if I’m drawing a creature from life, I will need to take a photograph of it if I want to paint it. I may not need a camera though as if I’m drawing a creature from my own mind, I won’t need to take any photographs. My sketchbook will be useful so that I can sketch things down that give me inspiration. I will need to use a digital painting program again; which will be Clip Studio Paint, my personal favourite drawing program. I will be doing the basic line art for the outline for the creature/animal, and then I will go over the lines with more finalized ones, or, alternatively, I will simply paint over the rough line art, because it may look better if there are no lines, and just paint strokes, I think that I would feel confined if I had lines restricting me, ordering me to paint within them, so if I were to do this, I would more than likely just paint over my original line art. Lighting and shadows will play a big part, as the angle at which an animal from real life will be viewed at will have a different lighting to a human, most likely. As I mentioned, I will have to make sure I also pay attention to the texture of the creature, since it will be greatly different from that of a human or their clothes. Again, some sketching will be important if I want to get a good composition with even subjects.

Third Idea: Pixel Art - Background or Character Design, Animated or Still

I probably will not be doing this idea for my final project, but I won’t rule it out just yet. I have been making a certain type of pixel art for fun up to this point, and would like to test it out on doing something much bigger—backgrounds, and characters with no limitation. A huge part of pixel art is the colours—this idea will give me a chance to improve even further with colours, since palettes can be made before even starting a scene. I almost never make palettes in the first place when making pixel art, so this will allow me to experiment with colour ramps and contrast as well. The type of background that I would be making would be most likely one of the ones that I mentioned in the section about painting a background from my imagination (e.g. city skylines, field of grass with mountains and sky). I would rather not base it on something from real life because there aren’t many areas around me that I would be interested in basing it on. 

For this idea, I would not need a whole not of materials or programs to be honest—Adobe Photoshop will be pretty much all I need to put this idea into motion. I say this because Photoshop is probably the easiest and best program to use to create pixel art. Clip Studio Paint will definitely not be suitable to create pixel art, as it is predominantly made for painting and illustrating. Again, lighting and shadows will be incredibly useful here, because with pixel art, any chance to create more depth and tone is appreciated, since it can look very flat if you don’t add these things. I will need to also use perspective to my advantage, since again, it will help to add more depth to the scene, or character, if I chose to do this. I would need to manage my time well with this one, since I am aware of how long pixel art takes to create, and refine, although this will still be a new thing for me, so I believe it will still help me to improve my skills. 

Fourth Idea: (Musical) Motion Graphic Animation

For this idea, I plan to create some kind of motion graphic that will appear alongside a song. I could create a lyric video, or animate certain things that appear whenever a certain word is mentioned. It doesn’t have to be alongside a song though, it could be anything else. This idea is very different from the idea that I will most likely be doing in the end (digital painting) as it would involve me creating 2D assets in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop and then bringing them over to After Effects to animate. This is something I decided as I do enjoy animating in After Effects, and it could give me the opportunity to experiment with different types of animation techniques and presets that I have not tried before. 

For this idea, I would again not need many materials—I only really need Adobe Illustrator, maybe Photoshop and definitely After Effects to animate my assets. I would need to have good timing throughout this project if I were to go with this idea, as I would need to time the words from the song with the moving things. I would also need to consider the 12 principles of animation when I’m animating, like squash and stretch, and staging. These will help to make the animation flow better and look more realistic. I would need to carefully plan what I would be animating throughout, as I can’t just go into it blindly. I would first need to pick which song I want to animate along side, then I would need to sketch some initial ideas out in my sketchbook. Then, I’d need to draw out a storyboard, because this would greatly help me to determine what I would be animating/creating next. 

Fifth Idea: Digital Painting - Small Room or Scene with a Character 

02.05.19

I just came up with this idea—it isn’t a whole lot different from the first idea, but for this idea, I would be digitally painting a small scene, so something like in a room or outside under a tree or something like that. The scene would also have a character of my own creation, much like the first idea, performing a difficult pose for me to draw. The perspective for the scene will most likely be somewhat dynamic, so slightly exaggerated objects and character (bigger head the closer to the screen, smaller legs and feet as they go farther away). What I’m sort of imaging here is the view from a peephole in a door, but that’s just an example, I may or may not actually do that. 

I want this idea to be the most challenging one for me, and it will prove to be a great test of my perspective, lighting and anatomy skills, which will go towards improving my skills on a whole. I would get to experiment with different types of lighting such as front lighting (probably not this one, as it is relatively easy to pull off), form lighting, rim lighting, and back lighting. When I experiment with perspective, I can look into the different points of perspective, for example 1-point, 2-point, 3-point and maybe even 4-point perspective, as this will really make my drawing look more realistic and dynamic. Of course, I would need to do a lot of sketching in my sketchbook to get a kind of feel for what I would be doing when it comes to digitally painting, and come up with a scene to paint. I like the idea of doing a character outside in front of a tree. As for the program, I would once again be using Clip Studio Paint, since it is my personal favourite drawing program, and the one I am most familiar with (aside from Photoshop, but I don’t draw on that). 

Sixth Idea: Digital Painting - Character Design with Dynamic Pose and Lighting

03.05.19

A new idea that I just thought of, character design. Again, some similarities to some previous ideas, but this time, I will put all of my focus on drawing this character of my own creation. Of course, just coming up with a character design and illustrating it isn’t enough to count as trying out something new, I want to put said character into a difficult pose, so something like them stretching their arms over their head whilst they’re crouching or something like that. I haven’t experimented with poses enough, so this will be very beneficial to my anatomy skills if I can pull said pose off. It will also help my perspective skills if I can put parts of the character more in the background, so they would maybe be facing sideways, with their arm stretching out into the back. Like I mentioned in the previous idea, I wish to experiment a lot with lighting as well. I want to put either form lighting, rim lighting, or back lighting into effect in my illustration. When it comes to the actual character, I will try and stay away from typical anime boy or girl style this time, and make more of a mature-looking character with less exaggerated anatomy. I could create a muscular character so to help me with drawing muscles and bigger proportions on humans in general. I could even give my character some kind of weapon or accessory to add to the drawing. The narrative of the art would adhere to a game, so it could be something like the character performing some kind of action like opening a chest, or attacking an enemy. These could make for some interesting poses. 

For this idea, I would need to do a lot of sketching in my sketchbook in order to first come up with an original and somewhat unique design, then draw them out in various different poses to see what looks good and what doesn’t (referring to the character’s design compatibility with the pose). Something that will come in handy I think is this wooden mannequin that I have on my desk. I haven’t used it much since I bought it, because I haven’t experimented with poses other than front-facing ones that don’t require a lot of understanding of the human body. Aside from sketching in my sketchbook, I can also use Clip Studio Paint to sketch ideas out, because I won’t have any limitation sketching on a digital program. I will use techniques like moving line work around with the selection tool until I get something that looks good. When I finish sketching out the character and pose, I can pick a dark shade and paint the character adhering to a specific type of lighting. I am most inclined to go with rim or form lighting for now, but I will try out everything. 

[imageryofinterest]

Sameen Shaw - An Essay

Shaw’s a really unique character within the television landscape, I feel. She’s a bisexual, non-neurotypical woman of colour doctor badass whose heritage is discussed and who is never demonized for the way her mind works. In a lot of ways, I think Shaw is, on paper, a character that would be a villain in most shows and films. The ex-government assassin with an atypical way of processing emotions that wants some revenge. I feel like I’ve seen that archetype used as a villain dozens of times, and I think the fact that Shaw fits that trope and yet is a hero really makes her stand out as a character.

While I felt like Emerson and Caviezel, to a lesser extent Henson and Chapman, needed a little bit of time to grow into their roles, Shaw crashed onto the scenes with Shahi feeling like she had done this role for years. I believe I read that she only had two weeks or so to prepare, but man does it not show on screen. I’m coming back to a point I made in my ones for Finch and Reese, but I think it’s perhaps done the best here, the restraint of the performance. Shaw’s not a showy character really, she’s very understated and the performance manages to handle that perfectly. I think people underrate sometimes just how hard it is to give a minimal performance like this, focusing on more showy ones, but Sarah Shahi really kills it. Her best performance though for me, bar none, is in 6,741. She manages, over the episode and the season, to seamlessly blend Shaw as we know her with the effects of what Samaritan has done to her. She’s acting different, but still very Shaw. Nothing about it betrays her character, yet allows for further insight into her as some of her feelings she’s been wallowing in for so long through the endless simulations are brought closer to the surface. It’s just all around a brilliantly done performance, and one I think deserves more attention than it often gets.

The Mayhem Twins dynamic really brings a lot to the series, injecting a lot of life into everything. Not that the series didn’t have it before, but Reese and Shaw have great chemistry and it’s fun to watch them bounce off each other. Like Shaw fills the role of Reese’s deceased sister, and Reese fills the void left by Nathan for Finch, Reese for Shaw fills the spot where Cole used to be. Her partner, and the one person she considered an exception to her disinterest in having friends, something Reese, as well as Fusco, Carter and Finch become to her as well. Their dynamic really comes back to a line he says to Shaw in Trojan Horse, “In our line of work, you walk in the dark. Doesn’t mean we have to walk in it alone.” And I think there’s no better way to sum it up than that line.

After she was revealed alive in M.I.A., and especially following Martine tormenting Root a little in Asylum by telling her about how Shaw pointed them towards her cochlear implant, I remember a lot of discussion about Shaw being turned. I am immensely glad they didn’t go down that route for her. I feel like it would have felt a bit too typical, a bit too easy, and would have gone against her character. What we got instead, with Shaw sacrificing herself over and over again, just like she did in If-Then-Else, that felt like Shaw. Instead of going down the somewhat lazy, in my opion, turning her to working for Samaritan route, they stayed true to her character as well as brought out a new dimension in Shaw. She experienced killing herself instead of Root-but-not some 7,000 times, and when she gets back, we can really see how the experience changed her particularly in terms of this relationship. Prior to everything Samaritan put her through, I don’t think Shaw would be the type to enjoy the softer things, moments like Root and her holding hands in TDTWWA. And when Root’s being her usual self in the face of a gunfight and flirting with Shaw, instead of the usual brushing it off, Shaw smiles. She missed this. Because the simulated Root was never really Root, and not just in the fact she wasn’t real. It was always just a bit off. Root wouldn’t be trying to get Shaw to sleep with her minutes after she returns, for example. None of them were quite right, and while Shaw’s not 100% when she gets back if this is real or if the simulations had just gotten really good, either way, she missed the real thing. Seeing how Shaw’s stripped down by the simulations is heartbreaking to watch, but brilliantly pulled off, allowing for a new lens on her as a character. 

The Root and Shaw relationship is without a doubt my favourite romantic pairing in anything. It’s a relationship where both participants are fully formed, fascinating characters in their own rights and doesn’t feel the need to play by any will they/won’t they, love triangles created to pad things out. I wish more TV shows would approach relationships with this level of maturity, instead of relying on tired tactics to drag it on. And what I really love is how it develops them both, how they challenge each other. With Shaw, I think we see a little bit of Root’s perception of The Machine having rubbed off on her in Death Benefit. When the team is confronted with the Trolley Problem, Finch falls in the camp of uncertainty but thinking murder is out of the question, Reese doesn’t trust The Machine as herself but trusts the rules Finch gave her, Shaw meanwhile is willing to trust in The Machine. Maybe it’s just me, but I think seeing how she and Root work and how everything that Root did with The Machine’s instructions had a larger purpose that she didn’t see at the time but they couldn’t complete the mission without grew that trust. I think it’s also what made Shaw the ideal pick for an analogue interface for The Machine down the line. And then there’s a smaller little development of teasing in their relationship, from Root flirting and teasing and Shaw looking irritated through season 3, to Honour Among Thieves when Shaw gets to be the one doing the teasing. One of the many things I love about their relationship is that it’s not everything their characters are, but at the same time, it’s big part and something that you can’t remove from the series without it falling apart. Seasons 4B and 5 can’t work without it, because this show understands that it needs to write for characters, not plot. The plot is informed by the characters, their wants, their desires, their fears, their hesitations, their impulses and decisions, those things are not dictated by the plot. Both these points are fine lines to walk, but this show pulls it off and makes it look easy.

“What is love if not being seen?” The Machine poses to Finch in Synecdoche, and I think this is a line that perhaps applies to Shaw most of all. The show, and Root within the show, never felt the need to change Shaw. It handled her non-specific aneurotypical personality respectfully, not acting like it was something that needed to be cured or gotten past. It wasn’t something wrong with her, it’s just who she is.  And as The Machine says in return 0, she’s special and loved by Root for who she is, not as some kind of project, not as someone with something wrong with them, for being Shaw, exactly the way she is.

[recentanimenews]

THE GREAT CRUNCHYROLL NARUTO REWATCH Nears the Finish Line with Episodes 211-217

  Welcome back once again faithful readers to the penultimate edition of the GREAT CRUNCHYROLL NARUTO REWATCH! I’m Nicole Mejias, and It is hard to believe that we’ve nearly reached the end of these ninja adventures, and next week will be our final outing into the world of Naruto. Before we hang up our ninja headbands, though, we’ve still got a week’s worth of episodes to discuss! 

Before we get started, I wanted to briefly mention how amazing this entire process has been. When we posed the idea of a group rewatch, I didn’t think it would evolve into something as fun as this was; to be honest I was kind of dreading going through all of these filler arcs, but doing it together has made this into a pretty fun experience! I hope you all at home enjoyed following along and watching with us, and stay tuned for any future adventures we might have! 

That said, let’s get on to this week’s episodes and questions! We’ve got the end of one mission, the entirety of another one, and the beginning of the last one to tackle, so without further delay, let’s get to it! 

Boy, am I glad that arc is over. What are your closing thoughts on the Gantetsu Escort Mission storyline? 

Kevin: I mean, in theory I liked it. An impulsive police officer who wants nothing more than to kill the criminal he is escorting isn’t a story that we’ve seen in Naruto, as best I can remember. Unfortunately, then everything else happened, and it was all obvious and boring.

Paul: Gantetsu should have turned himself in at the end. He was penitent and prepared to accept death as punishment for his sins, but Todoroki not only let him go, but encouraged Gantetsu to continue acting as foster-father to Akio and the other children that the Ninja Dropouts left as orphans. That doesn't balance. There should have been serious karmic consequences, considering the severity of the Ninja Dropouts' crimes and the breach of Todoroki's duty.

Danni: Yeah, I agree with Paul. There are some weird inconsistencies in this arc. Gantetsu knew Akio had an older brother, but still effectively kidnapped him in the name of saving him? Plus I can’t get over the fact that all of the kids are super okay with the fact that Gantetsu effectively assisted in the murders. AND in the end Akio abandons the only family he has left to keep living with his kidnapper. It’s one thing to nitpick plotholes, but this is just plain bizarre. 

Jared: It certainly happened. I feel like half the time it was going on I was just completely checked out and then it ends on some pretty baffling notes. Plus, Gantetsu and Todoroki just felt super one dimensional with their characters and everything around the plot was way too predictable.

Kara: Have you ever watched something and then afterwards had no idea whether you liked it or not? That was me. I have literally no discernable feeling on this storyline. I do remember watching it, though.

David: I usually love characters like Gantetsu and their arcs basically as a rule, but this was handled unbelievably poorly for reasons others have stated. I’m pretty disappointed. 

Carolyn: I’m a little torn. The ending is a bit messy, for sure. But I did like seeing Rock Lee and Sakura trying to figure out how to handle adversaries who are literal children. (Although, aren’t they also technically children?) It’s just a different dynamic versus immediately jumping into a fight.

Noelle: It really just felt all over the place? It started out strong but then it really dissolved. It kind of felt like they didn’t want to commit to too dark a story, which seems strange considering some of the things they’ve thrown at us.

Joseph: I didn’t love the arc but I did love that it featured T. Hawk from Super Street Fighter II. Such an unexpected yet welcome cameo, and I knew he would turn out to be a good guy who fostered youth in the end.

Something that kind of bothered me as this show lurched on is that for all of the amazing things that Naruto and others can do: a lot of filler arcs have them acting weaker or sillier than the norm. What’s your take on that? 

Kevin: Sillier can be amusing, actually. Please let me have a filler arc like the Ninja Chefs, where we see the gang using legendary ninja techniques to make really good ramen. It’s dumb, but at least its entertaining! Instead, we get a lot of arcs where the main cast is just being stupider than normal, and it’s just aggravating because we’ve all seen that these characters should be more competent. 

  Paul: My biggest complaint is that during the filler, they aren't introducing any variations on Naruto's training. He's still confronting every challenge with Shadow Clones and the Rasengan, and I lament the lack of creativity, because Naruto isn't learning anything, developing any new Jutsu, or polishing his skills as a shinobi. He doesn't feel so much “weak” as “static”, since his growth as a character is in suspended animation.

  Danni: Sillier is fun, but too much of the filler has them acting weaker and dumber. The Rasengan has been so flippantly used in all of these arcs that I’ve effectively forgotten how powerful and novel it was when it was introduced. That being said, using it to make ramen was absolutely inspired. 

Jared: I think silly can totally work, especially in filler, but sometimes the show really pushes it in the wrong direction. Such as having somewhat serious arcs end on something that makes it end up more as a joke. I get that they kind of can’t add a ton of new moves to everyone, but that doesn’t help the fact that everyone’s attacks and especially Naruto’s have gotten kind of stale due to that.

Kara: I don’t mind silly, but this seems like they’re regressing him to his early series “I’m gonna use Disguise Jutsu to embarrass Sasuke, also I need to potty” self. I think there’s a way to do that effectively with characters (late-era Phoenix Wright is a great example of someone who’s grown in skill but can still believably be a doofus sometimes). I don’t think that’s what is happening here. Also, I can’t be the only one noticing the literal Hanna-Barbera sound effects.

David: Well, it’s filler, they sort of can’t give them anything that would actually challenge them or make them grow without bumping heads with the inevitable return to the manga-adapted episodes. Or they can, and it turns out really messy. I’m reminded of a filler arc in Bleach where one character had used a technique in the previous arc that stripped him of his powers, so they had another character invent some nonsense plot device to “temporarily” give him his powers back so he could participate. That is worse to me than just not trying.

Carolyn: I don’t mind the occasional comedy and slapstick but I suspect downplaying the characters’ strengths is just a shortcut to keeping them from moving forward. We have to stall and overpowered ninja won’t let us do that.

Noelle: There isn’t anything wrong with comedy. Too serious for too long ends up being depressing. It really does feel that for the majority of the filler arcs, the characters end up reverting to elementary school level jokes. It’s not witty, it just feels lazy. I could really do with some more serious filler arcs. 

Joseph: Echoing Paul, because the biggest downside to filler for me—besides the abysmal writing and lackluster animation—is that it restricts growth by design. Naruto is stuck in stasis for 100+ episodes and it totally kills the momentum and energy of the end of the main storyline.

This week we get to the small storyline of the Menma Memory Search Mission. I have to admit: I did not remember this arc at all, which is maybe ironic. How did y’all feel about it?

Kevin: For most of it, I didn’t care too much. It was basically a standard amnesia story for the most part. The ending reveals, basically from when Menma wakes up until the end of the episode, were actually engaging in my opinion though. We see him genuinely try to repent for what he’s done, and see that the opening scene wasn’t just showing that he was a bandit in a boring attempt to create suspense, but it also had another hidden moment that I legitimately did not think was coming (although admittedly if I had kept in mind that he showed up almost dead in a river, I might’ve seen it coming).

Paul: The key detail of the Menma storyline that didn't come across as boilerplate was the reveal that Menma had been faking his amnesia in order to manipulate Naruto into helping Menma to atone for his crimes. That added extra punch to the character and story dynamics. Naruto got played, and perhaps he'll eventually realize that he's not the keenest judge of character, and that not everyone with a kind face has pure intentions. Also, the principal villain, Shiin, is a palette-swapped Orochimaru, and Menma was voiced in the English dub by Wil Wheaton. Make of that what you will.

Danni: I honestly wasn’t that into it. The reveal that he always had his memory and his sacrifice at the end were both interesting points, as was Naruto’s silent decision to take Menma’s deception to the grave, but the ending kind of flew by. After getting bested by Shiin twice, suddenly Naruto is just finally able to beat him? Overall it felt like a really weak arc.

Jared: The end was perhaps the most interesting part, but even then it wasn’t as if it made it good. I was sort of surprised since it was basically another arc introduced by fire and something being ransacked, which didn’t give it the best start since we’d just saw that. Combining this with the end of the previous arc was a rough set of episodes to get through. 

Kara: Naruto filler villains have like three modes: pushovers, not actually bad after all, or part of Orochimaru’s downline. None of those is necessarily bad on its own, but I’ve seen these plates go by on the conveyor belt over and over and over again. The “No one trusts a potential villain but Naruto just knows they’re good” shtick has been done fairly recently, even. I get that Naruto has heart and understands misunderstood people and that’s why he’s gonna be such a great Hokage someday, but never challenging that trope ever means every story is broadcast from the first episode and the eventual info-dumps come across as comical. 

David: What really frustrates me is that in canon material, characters meant to be redeemed show some sort of connection or flash of goodness to Naruto that allows it to feel natural when he defends them later on. In filler he basically just guesses and is always right, or everyone except Naruto is clearly being irrational. There isn’t much if any attempt at convincing the viewer the conflict is meaningful at all, and Menma is a prime example of this issue.

Carolyn: A blonde guy who plays the ocarina and starts his story by waking up from a deep sleep? I think we all know his real name.

Noelle: I think that the ending was probably the best part. Like people said, it was a decent twist that exposed one of Naruto’s blind spots. At the same time, it felt like far little too late, as the rest wasn’t that enjoyable. 

Joseph: I liked the ending, and it certainly wasn’t the worst of the stories, but I dunno, like, who cares at this point? Naruto has defeated me.

Something about filler arcs in anime that has always bothered me is how tenuous they are; Naruto mourns Menma’s death, but we know that will never come up again ever, and it feels like a wasted opportunity for character development. Naruto is roughly 40% filler, so do you feel all these arcs damage the overall series? 

Kevin: If anything, I wish there was MORE damage to the overall series. Sure, a lot of filler Hell was boring or stupid, but there were also some legitimately interesting character moments and abilities. Imagine if Hinata had another three years to perfect her Protective Gentle Fist, or we saw Naruto take a moment after coming back to the Hidden Leaf at the beginning of Shippuden to mourn the people he’s lost while eating ramen next to the KIA stone, almost like a variation of Iroh’s Story from Avatar: The Last Airbender! Instead, it takes the likes of this massive Rewatch for even me, a longtime fan of the franchise who grew up watching it, to even know about those gems.

Paul: Now that we're near the end, I don't think the filler arcs are that damaging to the series overall, but I do lament certain missed opportunities. The arc where Anko regains her memories demonstrates that it's possible for filler to build proper character development, but it's a difficult task and I don't envy the show-runners that responsibility.

Danni: As much as I’ve liked some of these arcs, I think the filler is absolutely damaging, because a version of Naruto where we go straight from the Sasuke Retrieval arc to Shippuden definitely sounds better than one where you have to watch three full seasons of filler. I don’t normally recommend skipping filler sections in anime, but I will 100% cosign skipping filler when recommending Naruto.

Jared: It’s perhaps slightly damaging because it sure is a grind to watch all the way through. Maybe if it was tighter, had better written arcs as a whole, and was less episodes, it could be a lot better. With what was made though, I think there’s a few arcs that could be recommended to someone new, but going through all of the filler is tough because of how much of it will ultimately be meaningless.

Kara: I’ve never minded filler as a whole from a story standpoint. But I’m also used to watching shows where “filler” means “not progressing the main plot but still part of the intended experience” as opposed to “killing time until we have more main plot to adapt.” I think in a show where those side stories are there by design, or even with some minor degree of forethought, they can be really rewarding. Especially since then you do get those little callbacks, or the writer may bury a nugget of info for later amidst the “unimportant” stuff. But this is very obviously time-killing… and full disclosure, I am distracted a lot by my brain going “I wonder if these decisions are going to clash with the main plot when it starts up again.”

David: The filler isn’t damaging because it just washes over me. Once it’s over and we’ve written about it the details seem to magically leave my mind.

Carolyn: I definitely think it’s damaging. I had remembered the show as being a lot stronger than it is. I think I was mostly remembering the exams, to be honest.

Noelle: I think it’s a little bit of both. Plot-wise, it’s not really damaging, because filler lets characters that don’t do much in canon have some limelight, and it lets some new ideas get around. Audience experience-wise, it totally is, because there’s nothing in filler worth emotionally investing in, we’re just waiting for Kishimoto to push out more chapters and what a long wait that was. 

Joseph: The filler fully turns this into an anime I can’t recommend beyond a certain point. It’s pretty bad when you have to tell someone to avoid around 100 episodes of a 220 episode show. I would recommend reading Masashi Kishimoto’s excellent manga and watching some highlights, or just watching the first 100-and-some-change eps.

Finally, we leave off this week midway through the Sunagakure Support Mission, which unlike the Menma arc, was almost entirely about Naruto, features a lot of the supporting cast in what seems like a last hurrah. Are there any supporting cast that you like more now than you did when the show started? I find I really grew to love Gaara a lot more than I did when he first appeared. 

Kevin: I’m a bit spoiled on this one, because the arc is essentially giving us the characters’ Shippuden selves before going into Shippuden. As a result, I actually hold off from talking too much about the characters, for fear of spoiling stuff from the beginning of Shippuden. All I’ll say is that I really like the idea of Gaara actually trying to train and support a student. 

Paul: Gaara is still a precious baby cinnamon roll, albeit one that is slightly less murder-flavored. I wish that the filler episodes had focused more on the Jonin characters. It's been so long since I've seen Kakashi that I almost cheered when he summoned his horde of ninja dogs. Anko and Kurenai got a chance to shine, so I'd like to see more of that. I'd even accept a Might Guy episode, especially if it reveals what makes him tick. There must be something tragic beneath his bluster. His eyes are filled with sadness now and then.

Danni: I liked Gaara from the start, but I think he’s shot up my list of favorite characters. Seeing him struggle to connect with his students really makes him more sympathetic of a character. Giving him someone that he wants to protect is exactly the kind of cathartic development that his backstory warrants. I’m really looking forward to seeing the rest of this arc. 

Jared: I was actually thinking about this when watching these episodes since when Gaara first showed up I couldn’t stand him. Now, I’ve pretty much flipped all the way around on him. Probably the whole sand crew as well now that I’m thinking about it. Where’s the weird Naruto sports spin-off where Gaara is just the strange coach that has a good team, but no one understands how?

Kara: One of the things I’m enjoying about Naruto 200+ episodes in is that characters who were Rivals or Bad Guys are now allies and friends, or maybe rivals in a healthier sense. Really, it’s cool to see the Sand Kiddos being awesome and not feeling divided about it.

David: Most of the supporting cast is who I liked going in, so actually the character I have grown fond of over the course of this journey is Naruto himself.

Carolyn: My favorite side characters are still my favorites. I have found myself liking Naruto himself a lot more this time around, which I definitely did not on first watch.

Noelle: I think that my feelings on the characters maintained relatively the same from my first time watching the series when I was young. Gaara is still great, Itachi is still great. And Gaara is fun here! I do think overall, as an adult, I appreciate Rock Lee a whole lot more. I didn’t give him a chance when I was young but now? Fantastic.

Joseph: This was a decent little portion of this week’s batch. It’s just more “fighting in the same forest set” from before, but I enjoyed seeing a bunch of these long lost characters again. Felt more in line with Naruto proper.

For (almost) the last time: Highs and Lows from this week? 

Kevin: High - Menma’s redemption. Especially in a show that loves to have its characters loudly proclaim what they’re doing, having a character who we’re not entirely sure if we can trust stand up and start helping build town defenses while barely able to stay conscious was a really good moment. Same goes for most everything else that followed.

Low -  The reveal and resolution of the Ninja Dropouts. First, did none of the other Dropouts realize that Gantetsu kept disappearing after they attacked? Second, why didn’t Gantetsu mention any of this earlier, since it would’ve come out in trial as evidence to prove his innocence? Third, how is that thread stronger than steel, but a single drop of sweat noticeably loosens it? I have many other questions, but most are either the same logical fallacies or about how predictable and obvious the ending was. 

Paul: My low point was the scene where Todoroki stumbles from the flames of his family home, having just witnessed what he assumes is his younger brother being horribly murdered, and the little bundle containing his books and that wooden fish key-chain that he keeps as a memento of Akio is trailing a cartoony streamer of smoke. It was visually dissonant, reading as comedy instead of tragedy. My high point is the pay-off of the Leaf Village kids helping the Sand Village kids in their pursuit of the Celestial Four. I know it’s filler and it doesn't really count, but I appreciate when story elements come full circle like that.

Danni: My low point is the moment I realized that Gantetsu is 100% just a kidnapper that the show tries to redeem. High point is everything in the Sand Village Assistance arc so far. It goes hand-in-hand with the Sasuke Retrieval arc so well that if you told me it was canon I would *ahem* believe it. Also, it seems like Shikamaru finally attended a gender studies class and realized that women are people too. Hooray! 

Jared: High point would be the Sand Village trio returning and seeing Gaara try to be a teacher in his own way. Reintroducing them with how they showed up in the Sasuke retrieval arc made me remember just how dang good that was and also how good this show can be. Low point would be the other two arcs that just fell completely flat for me.

Kara: High point is the Avengers rollout to help the Sand Village trio. This is one of those cases where mirroring previous episodes works, because we have a one-to-one comparison for just how far they’ve come. It’s so cool to have these very obvious moments at which we can measure everyone’s growth. Low point is just straight up the existence of Todoroki in the Gantetsu Arc and his very Heavy Rain-y “Press X to Akio” behavior.

David: My high point was all the callbacks to the Sasuke Retrieval arc, including when Naruto outright asks if they’re going to do the line strategy Shikamaru implemented last time. Low point was slowly realizing no one in the Dropout Ninjas arc was going to understand how messed up the situation was.

Carolyn: Naruto dumping Menma off his back when he found out he was lying was great. I would have to agree with the kids’ weird dedication to Gantetsu being a low point. That’s just kind of sad.

Noelle: Gantetsu’s arc just seemed messy and confusing. It really felt like they weren’t committing to anything, so that’s my low point. High point, I think was seeing Gaara again! Gaara trying his best is genuinely good. What a great kid. 

Joseph: The low point was the resentment building up within me for Pierrot producing so many bad episodes of an otherwise excellent show. Also, the whole Gantetsu storyline was weak, even though I love the idea of Ninja Dropouts. High goes to the return of Kakashi, Gaara, and some others I’ve sorely missed. 

  COUNTERS:

Ramen:  7 bowls + 3 cups Hokage: 0 Clones: 28

  Total so far:

Bowls of Ramen: 208 bowls, 20 cups (Wow... that's a lot of ramen!)

��I'm Gonna be Hokage!”: 62

Shadow Clones Created: 940

  And that's everything for this week! Remember that you're always welcome to join us for this rewatch, especially if you haven't watched the original Naruto! Watch Naruto today!

  Here's our upcoming schedule:

- On August 23rd, CAYLA COATS will wrap up our GREAT NARUTO CRUNCHYROLL REWATCH! 

CATCH UP ON THE REWATCH!

Episodes 204-210: Escort Mission Time

Episodes 197-203: Solving a Mystery

Episodes 190-196: Matchmaking Gone Wrong

Episodes 183-189: No Laughter Allowed!

Episodes 176-182: Reach for the Stars!

Episodes 169-175: Anko’s Backstory At Sea

Episodes 162-168: The Tale of the Phantom Samurai

Episodes 155-161: Quickfire Curry

Episodes 148-154: The Forest is Abuzz With Ninjas

Episodes 141-147: Mizuki Strikes Back!

Episodes 134-140: The Climactic Clash

Episodes 127-133: Naruto vs Sasuke

Episodes 120-126: The Sand Siblings Return

Episodes 113-119: Operation Rescue Sasuke

Episodes 106-112: Sasuke Goes Rogue

Episodes 99-105: Trouble in the Land of Tea

Episodes 92-98: Clash of the Sannin

Episodes 85-91: A Life-Changing Decision

Episodes 78-84: The Fall of a Legend

Episodes 71-77: Sands of Sorrow

Episodes 64-70: Crashing the Chunin Exam

Episodes 57-63: Family Feud

Episodes 50-56: Rock Lee Rally

Episodes 43-49: The Gate

Episodes 36-42: Through the Woods

Episodes 29-35: Sakura Unleashed

Episodes 22-28: Chunin Exams Kickoff

Episodes 15-21: Leaving the Land of Waves

Episodes 8-14: Beginners' Battle

Episodes 1-7: I'm Gonna Be the Hokage!

  Thank you for joining us for the Great Crunchyroll Naruto Rewatch! We hope that you'll join us next time as we conclude our Naruto rewatch adventure. Have a wonderful weekend, y'all! 

Have anything to say about our thoughts on Episodes 211-217? Let us know in the comments! Don't forget, we're also accepting questions and comments for next week, so don't be shy and feel free to ask away!

----

Nicole is a features and a social video script writer for Crunchyroll. Known for punching dudes in Yakuza games on her Twitch channel while professing her love for Majima. She also has a blog, Figuratively Speaking. Follow her on Twitter: @ellyberries

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com