man i love this sequence so much—and tbh their dynamic in general which i feel like we don't talk about enough
on paper they seem like such opposites—and they kind of are—with tanaka being a mood maker and morale stabilizer for the team, he's loud and boisterous and never holds back what he's feeling ("dial down my feelings?? what does that even mean??"), while tsukki barely speaks on the court, openly admits to disliking loud and excitable people, and seems to calculatedly hide his emotions away. you would think they wouldn't like each other and wouldn't work well together, but i think every interaction we see between them is a positive one
we see them kinda partner up to roast other teams or their own teammates, but also tanaka is one of the few senpai that tsukki seems comfortable openly making fun of directly. but then tanaka doesn't even ever seem mad by tsukki's taunts—occasionally he'll even pass judgement on how successful tsukki was with his comebacks. and tanaka will just throw a jab back easily, which tsukki doesn't really seem bothered by either—tanaka never gets under tsukki's skin the way kageyama does, for example
and then we get a great little sequence like this one that's deliberately pointing out their differences and then using them to emphasize something more, and it's just so effective??
what tanaka goes through in the first set of the inarizaki match of feeling like he's not doing enough and having it shoved in his face that he'll never be the best, is like a speedrun version of what tsukki has been going through since he was in middle school when he found out his brother was lying about being the ace. there are these little subtle callbacks too—with the dichotomy of being lame vs cool (yamaguchi calling tsukki lame for not trying and tsukki thinking yamaguchi is cool for saying so), and furudate even uses the same visual metaphor of a never-ending staircase
it took tsukki years to realize he might be looking at things in a destructive way, and then months more after that until he actually saw the merit of trying—and then even here we can see that he doesn't find any of this easy. and tanaka basically does all of that in thirty minutes or so.
and while tsukki seems perturbed by this, he isn't mad at all. you can feel the respect tsukki is veiling behind his words in the first panel of the page when he calls him "ridiculously mentally tough." it's "frightening" to him because it's something that doesn't come naturally to him personally, when it obviously does for tanaka
of course it's important to note that the situations are completely different in terms of the catalyst for those feelings, tanaka didn't have some world-shattering event he's been struggling with since he was a pre-teen (that we know of). he just had an off day. but what i like is that the emphasis here isn't really about the circumstances, it's about their attitudes, how they each react to feeling down about themselves
and i just love the way furudate put this page in here. we just had this awesome sequence of tanaka scoring a well earned set point by doing a move he's been practicing for months after he spent all match feeling inadequate—sounds a lot like tsukishima winning set 2 vs shiratorizawa with a stuff block that was preceded by months of extra practices from him, but the reader (rightfully) isn't thinking about tsukki at all. until furudate gives us this conversation and we're reminded (not specifically or directly of tsukki's moment but) that this feeling is something other players, other people go through too. like, furudate didn't have to put this page in here, the chapter and tanaka's moment would have been just as epic without it, but i feel like it just adds this extra little emotional grounding to it
it just, it feels so human. getting down, being hard on yourself, feeling or even knowing you'll never be the best, everyone can relate—it's a storyline we've seen in haikyuu before but furudate always manages to make it feel not only fresh but satisfying because of how they present it to us with a new lens every time. tanaka and tsukki are so opposing in their character and actions that it makes their moments feel different and new, so it's just as cathartic for the reader every time, even though the underlying message is the same
whether it's hard or not, it's always cooler to try
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To be honest I was wondering if you have a top 5 of books 👀
Hii! Now, that's a hard question :') I have so many!! I think if I were to make a top 5, it'd look something like this:
(Limited to English books only because I really wouldn't know how to choose otherwise haha)
The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir (if I had to pick just one, it'd be Harrow the Ninth, book 2 in the series)
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (which he wanted to have published as one big book, so hey, this isn't technically cheating!)
Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley
I tried to vary a bit in genre with this, and honestly my favourite books change quite frequently, but I'd say the top 3 are pretty stable! (I'm not sure anything will ever be able to beat The Locked Tomb for me anymore haha)
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YEAH........... YEAH..... LIKEWISE, NO NOTES AT ALL, THAT'S EXACTLY IT... Main antagonist deaths are often treated as "comeuppance," but that would be the ultimate comeuppance for Aoki. As it stands, the only people who actually suffer for it are Ichiban and Jo, and Ichi didn't even do anything wrong. Also please I'm positive there's more to wring out of Aoki and Jo for an essay 😭😭at the very least, I always love to hear your perspective!
"he'd made a social circle for himself where people predominantly liked him for the power and influence" <- incredibly Mine-core of Aoki btw (I also feel the rest applies a little in terms of Mine probably being very quick to write off people who Do care about him as not caring about him, as with Katase, but it's nowhere near the extent of the Arakawas)
Wait actually it's kind of funny... for both Mine and Aoki, I was so sure their endings would go a certain way. Mine and Kiryu'd fight Richardson off together and Ichi'd, I don't know, shield Aoki or hug him so Kume couldn't get to him in the first place, or after that INSANE direct parallel to Arakawa running to the hospital with Masato, he'd miraculously pull through like he did on New Year's. Tormented with visions of the better timeline... With Aoki in particular, it makes me want to tear my hair out because the moment of him choosing to put the gun in the locker was REVOLUTIONARY for the series, looking at the characters he was most heavily based on.
Anyway. Bottom line. These bitches need to hug it out. It was so evil Arakawa didn't hug Ichi at Omi HQ or on the waterfront like bro stop being """manly""" for five seconds you're ruining my life you're ruining your own lives
There'd genuinely be nothing more painful yet more satisfying for an antagonist than being confronted with the consequences of their actions and having to navigate life after having making those decisions, ESPECIALLY when it comes to mending the bonds that- for anyone else- would have shattered long ago. With Aoki being motivated by the want to be loved and appreciated for himself, it would've been nice to see him finally acknowledge that he did have that love and start to better himself as a result (however much he'd be able to while in prison anyway lmao).
The Mine and Aoki comparisons are so real though, I remember joking to myself about it days after beating the game but it just fuels my mental illness every time I think about it ☠️ I LEGALLY AM NOT ALLOWED TO GO OFF ABOUT THE Y7 ENDING I'VE DONE IT TOO MUCH it makes me so mad every time I think about it 😭 ESPECIALLY THE PARALLELS WITH ARAKAWA AND THE LOCKERS UGGGHHH IT COULD HAVE BEEN SUCH AN EPIC CONCLUSION WITH THAT... Arakawa running from the lockers at the start of Aoki's life compared to Ichiban running from the lockers and getting Aoki to the hospital so Aoki can restart life I'm Going To Kill Someone (myself) (in Minecraft)
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Plz post ur essay about why you think DBZA was a damaging thing plzzzzzzz
for a minute i just thought you were asking me to ramble bout why DBZA was cringe but no i just remembered i told you guys i had a official essay on why DBZA was cringe
i'll give you a diet version of it though it's under the cut
DBZ's audience already was disconnected from the franchise in that DBZ was so late to become popular in the west, never mind the original run of DB. with no proper background of the characters, DBZA was free to run with characterizations and interpretations and no one would think it was any less accurate or ill fitting (not to mention no one's going to knock on people for making a parody- i doubt the DBZA team even expected DBZA to become as popular as it did). the late 2000's also offered a grittier internet experience, so even if someone did have a complaint they'd definitely be laughed at to hell and back
i don't think DBZA would be able to get as far as it did if it was just jokes though; while some of DBZA's jokes still land imo, i've seen numerous people praise its interpretations of plot points and characters (not saying i agree of course but it's been an opinion i've seen a lot over the years) and that's what's let its popularity sustain. i think people genuinely take DBZA as The Best Way in ingest DBZ both in a timely manner and narrative/character wise- which is just doing yourself a disservice if you're skipping out on the original material
when DBZ finally did start to actually gain traction and people had more access to the series or were more willing to watch it, DBZA already had made its mark on fans. hell- i think this much is evident when a character like nappa is able to be in a game like fighterz and have such a prominent role, but a character like raditz who had just as much of an equal role in DBZ as nappa is hardly mentioned in the franchise anymore
and i mean. do i have to mention goku's characterization throughout the years.
i'm not saying DBZA was The Absolute Downfall of domino of DBZ's changes, but it's hard to deny it feels as though there was an influence of sort
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[@distinguished-turtle-enjoyer ]
i actually have not stopped thinkin bout your bb!edit like,,,, its so good and scratches my brain right
how long have you been doin edits for? do have any tips for someone, who hypothetically, wants to start doin edits too? what programs do you use? how did you do the cool animated bits?
im so sorry for all the qustions 😭😭 i just think youre very talented and inspirational and i hope you have a good day ^_^
hi firstly oh my gosh you're literally so sweet i am gently shaking you i love you so much /p. secondly, i apologize for the long answer! (it's all under the cut. this got away from me. i'm so sorry apparently i have a lot to say.) (also you're so good about the questions i would constantly be asking one of my professors questions during class to the point where she said i didn't have to go "i have a question" every time i approached her)
i've been editing since 2016! around march/april, i think? loved it so much i went into film & video production in college as a major so i could do editing for a living. (i have done more motion graphics for my classmates than i have done edits outside of class assignments, BUT!)
the program i use is after effects - i started learning it when covid first hit the united states because i had nothing better to do with my time (other than music theory but i failed that bc my professor focused more on the history aspects than the actual theory soooo) and my ipad kept giving me the "no more storage" whenever i tried to use videostar lmao. (vs has, apparently, gotten a LOT of good updates, so if you're looking to start editing and have an ios system, i'd look into it! only downside is you have to pay for some of the cool stuff).
also the program i use for masking (i think i explain this later dwdw) is superimpose. i've been using it since 2014 and it's SO nice bc i can use my fingers to erase backgrounds & stuff instead of hoping i can get it to work correctly in ae or photoshop (photoshop my DETESTED i'll use it but i'll complain the entire time).
for people who want to start editing: tutorials on how your program works and how to do specific transitions are gonna be your best friend when you're first figuring things out! i forced a friend to literally walk me through how after effects worked when i was first figuring it out, and when i had swapped to videostar back in 2017/2018(?) i had watched a Lot of tutorials. that and played around a lot and figured things out on my own - which is also always a good way to start!! it's also totally valid to look at other people's edits for inspiration - most editors don't really care, as long as you don't flat-out remake their edit (some people don't like that!). i have a style insp folder on instagram where i save edits that i like so if i need transition ideas or i'm doing a different style, i can look there for inspiration. at the end of the day, as long as you're having fun with it that's all that matters!
also, starting simple is always okay!! my edits for a year were just me slapping gifs & video segments together on a timeline in cute cut pro bc imovie didn't load them lol & it'd crash every time i breathed. ++ it never hurts to ask people for feedback/constructive(!!!) criticism/etc! (also not to sound like everyone else but practice? good. it's so good. if i showed my 14/15y/o self some of the edits i can make now they would've passed out on the spot bc i was still trying to figure out transitions back then. programs can also sometimes make a difference in edits, but usually it's not super noticeable until you start getting to the Complicated Shit.)
a lot of popular programs i've seen are ones like video star (ios only), alight motion (android only), after effects (i recommend 🏴☠️ing it tbh, i only use it legally bc i had to use adobe programs for school), capcut, and i think some people still use sony vegas pro & maybe cute cut pro (i've heard it may have actually gotten better since i last used it in 2018)? i have no idea. programs also depend on whatever device you're using to edit on! since i've been using my laptop, i'm able to use after effects (it's computer-only), but when i used my phone/ipad to edit i used ccp & vs.
for the animation - it's a lot of cutting up the image and masking! more complex animations, like the one i had of leo walking down that red 'hallway' have several different layers that have been masked. (i removed the background & filled in the spot where leo originally was in two different apps - superimpose (taking leo out) & photoshop (filling in the bg)) in after effects, the way i've done this was mask out the specific thing i wanted to move (like an eye) and then put that mask on what i've called a "base" (not animated), and then stick a solid behind the base to match the color of the object. (some of my layers are not named appropriately; base 2 is the left arm & the four "SIX_[...]" layers are the mask/bandana tails)
an example of this would be for any of the eye blink animations i did! this (above) is the same shot, with and without the eye - since it's masked out and i have the background solid behind it, it doesn't look too unnatural/have a black outline/mass where his eye should be.
what it looks like without the solid layer behind it ^ (the red lines are from the null layers - ignore that)
this is what my timeline looks like if it's a more simplistic animation - the only five things being animated here are leo & raph's eyes. (there's only this many layers bc it's two characters in one shot & i was also animating their pupils - typically, an eye-blink animation is about 4-6 layers for me (solid, base, mask, & null to animate with, 6 if i'm animating both eyes & 4 if just one))
in after effects, there's this really cool tool called the puppet pin that one of my friends (lovingly) yelled at me for not knowing about - which. yeah fair she wasn't wrong it's SUPER useful in animating, provided you chop up your image first. if you don't it's a mess.
(separated by layer vs i should've really put the mask tails & leo's head on separate layers and didn't bc that was the 2nd to last animation i had to do and i was losing my mind bc i wanted to be done with the edit lmao)
the way people animate depends all on their style (there's two common ways to do blinking animation - having the anchor point at the bottom of the eye, or the middle of it) and the program they use. it's been a while, but i could probably tell you how to do some basic animations on videostar still even though i've been doing them in after effects for about 2-3years now. ALSO the best way to have an animation be noticeable is to over-exaggerate it/make them Big - which, yes, can mean 'breaking bones' and having the limbs be a little wonky at the start. (if you want it to be realistic though go Just to the point where it looks uncomfortable lmao)
uhm. again i am so sorry that this is so long i THINK this is everything? if not: my inbox/dms are always open if you ever want to ask more questions, wanna follow up on something, etc etc!! (also if you ever start editing please send me your edits!!! i'd love to see them <3)
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