#medical histories my beloathed

[fooltofancy]

gonna curl up in a stupid little ball w fields of asphodel (beloved) and try to sleep, the piles of things looming can goddamn wait.

[novafire-is-thinking]

Okay, okay, okay- may I pretty please have your thoughts on TFP Soundwave🫶🫶🫶

I recently finished the 40th chapter update on The Echo Garden and for the love of all that’s holy I can’t stop thinking about how convoluted and well thought out the author made Soundwave along with his backstory.

I would absolutely love it if you shared your thoughts on either the canon TFP Soundwave or the Soundwave from The Echo Garden, but I’m not even sure if you’ve read the fic, so your analysis and overall opinion on TFP Soundwave would be much appreciated.

And maybe, just maybe, add in a little bit of a review on RiD2015 Soundwave and how well you think the writers incorporated his character in the show.

Have an amazing rest of your day👋✨✨✨

I’ve never read The Echo Garden, but your excitement has me intrigued. 👀 I want to share my Soundwave’s backstory sometime, but this is neither the time nor the place to do so.

Anywho, TFP Soundwave. I have many thoughts about him—too many to fit in this ask. But I will share what I can.

one aspect about them i love

I can’t say everything, so I’ll go with his design.

one aspect i wish more people understood about them

He is an opportunist and a manipulator like Starscream—just quieter and more calculating. He didn’t start out loyal to Megatron.

one (or more headcanon(s) i have about this character

I wish I could share the really good ones I have, but because of TF Big Bang rules, I can only share the headcanons that aren’t exclusive to my BB fic:

His resting face is “perpetual death stare.”

He’s a triple-changer. (possibly implied in the novels)

He injects his energon straight into his system.

Similar to a horse, he can lock his knees and sleep standing up.

His body temp runs a bit colder than that of the average Cybertronian.

He has an unusually high pain tolerance.

He keeps his own medical records.

His holoform basically looks like Silco from Arcane, but with a lot more purple.

He does not fear scraplets. He knows what range of frequencies they can hear and which ones repel them.

His origins are tied to the Quintessons in some way.

one character i love seeing them interact with

None. He’s a genuine loner, and all of his interactions with others in the show or novels are boring to me.

one character i wish they would interact with/ interact with more

Optimus. In the novels, Soundwave seemed to hint at a minimal respect for Orion at one point, and if history had gone differently, I think they could have done great things together for Cybertron.

one (or more) headcanon(s) i have that involve them and one other character

Soundwave will play music for Shockwave over a private comm channel when working in the same general area so that they can listen together.

Again, I am limited because of BB rules. 😢 I promise I have a whole stack of interesting headcanons/AU thoughts for Soundwave. I just can’t share them until September.

Nothing like an ask game to remind me how boring canon Soundwave is compared to the version I’ve crafted in my head. lol

Now, for RiD15 Soundwave, my beloathed…

He started out so badass, but he was quickly demoted to “loyal lapdog” status in my mind.

But if I isolate him to the show alone, I think he’s a good antagonist. He was a force to be reckoned with, and it was fun watching the Bee Team get thrown around by him for a while.

Also, the way Soundwave handles Steeljaw is one of my favorite parts of the show. SJ was trying to cozy up to Soundwave and assert dominance, and Soundwave just dealt with him like he would an annoying pest. For the first time in a long time, Steeljaw realized he wasn’t the Alpha in the area anymore. lol

Soundwave didn’t have to pick the guy up. He could have checked out the fuel rods without moving him. But no—Soundwave literally grabs Steeljaw with a single tentacle and lifts him up like a cat that’s in the way. He had to put him in his place:

ALSO, my favorite part: Soundwave was one of the only—if not THE only—character who evoked fear in Steeljaw:

^ The proper reaction to Soundwave

Overall, Soundwave in RiD was a decent antagonist for the audience the show is aimed at. He was a real threat, but his motive was simple and expected. Personally, I was disappointed, but I still found things to appreciate about him during his time on-screen. (Mostly because I was already rewriting the show in my head)

[danidrawsstuff]

Hi ! I came from the doctor gilbert blog. I didn't know you were an animation student ! That is so cool !! That was one of the things I thought about studying after high school but I didn't know enough about it and went a different path. Can you tell us more about how being an animation student is ? What type of classes do you have ? What would you like to work on ? (if that's okay of course ^^)

Hey there!!

Yes, I started animation school this January and while it's very hectic, I'm absolutely having the time of my life ^^ !! It's something that I tried to go into after high school too, but when I realized my art skills were not up to par yet, I also chose a different route while continuing to work on art on the side! Took me two tries to finally get in, so if you ever decide to give it another shot, I say absolutely go for it! Never too late to shoot your shot and see where it takes you!

I will be posting my accepted portfolio pieces here soon, in case anyone was wondering what animation schools are looking for. And if anyone has any questions about the application process, I can try to give some general answers~! For now, more answers to questions under the cut:

The biggest thing about being an animation student is that it's very busy. My animation prof actually described animation as the medical school of the art field since the grind is just as gruelling. The workload has been heavy from the get go, there's typically an assignment due every week for all classes. If it's not finished pieces that's due, then you're expected to have a certain level of roughs done for in-class critique. My wall calendar and my agenda are my best friends for keeping deadlines in mind and helping me to prioritize which projects to do first because if I don't physically see my deadline written out in front of me, my brain can and WILL forget :')

Speaking of critique, that's the second thing: Critique is going to be a big part of your life as an animation student, or any kind of art student for that matter. You're expected to show your work in front of class and have the prof really pick it apart and show you how to improve your work! There are profs who give vague critique but thankfully all my profs so far have been amazing with critique, either by providing extremely detailed notes or by doing draw-overs on our roughs. And we also have TAs available for pre-class critiques if you find yourself stuck on a part of a project that's just not working. I can't speak for other programs in other schools, but in mine there's a lot of support which is awesome since it's such a work intensive program!

As for courses, I'm doing a full course load so I should have 8 courses. I'm only taking 6 since I transferred credits to cover my mandatory communications and electives courses for this sem! Right now I have:

Layout - environments, backgrounds, lots of perspective work. i thought i would hate this class the most since i don't draw backgrounds that often but i actually really enjoy it!

Character Design - lots of character studies, a big emphasis on staying on model and keeping your drawing consistent which has been personally challenging, but still fun!

Animation History - exactly what it says on the tin. getting in on a lot of the disney tea. i believe we're moving on to animation's role in wartime propaganda during ww2 which will be interesting

Animation - the actual animation course. i've posted a few of my assignments on here! lots of ball bounces, seaweed waves, pendulums, all the fundamentals. one of the most demanding courses in terms of time since you have to draw so many frames.

Storyboarding - MY LOVE. this is my actual favourite class. we're given a script and told to plot out our board to show how it's going to be seen on screen. boarding is also pretty intensive since depending on the way you want to show the action, you could easily end up with 60+ frames to draw out, but i love it so much.

Life Drawing - My beloved and beloathed, but so important to animation. the class that's hardest to do online because it's not easy to draw a model when you're looking at a small screen. life drawing profs, at least in my experience, also tend to be the toughest critics.

And I think I might have answered the last question already but I really, really love boarding and I think that's exactly what I want to go into after graduation. Would like to work on something along the lines of ATLA or finally bring one of the many personal projects that have been stewing on the backburner to life kjdjds.

I will also say that it can get very taxing mentally and it's easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of projects you have on your plate. As crazy as the workload is, I've also learned that it's very important to schedule some downtime into my everyday, even if it's just taking an hour or two to walk away from whatever I'm working on and just meme around on discord or take a nap.

I think that about covers it. If you got any more questions, please feel free to yeet them my way!

[bugenjoyer]

re: queer being a slur in many places - lemme give you an example of a similar situation. where i come from (uk) spaz and spastic are slurs. they essentially mean retard and have a long history of medical abuse behind them. i honestly had no idea it meant something else to americans and thought most of yall were casually ableist for the LONGEST time, and really resented that as an autistic kid who heard those words a lot growing up. but when i learned it wasnt as loaded for yall, i stepped back, acknowledged the difference, and minded my own business. because as you say yourself, you have to acknowledge that sometimes these things are a "you problem". i really think this whole argument insisting queer is one of the worst things you can say is incredibly american because whenever someone tries to explain that queer isnt so heinous where they come from, its always, ALWAYS met with someone going "well clearly youve never been to a small town in the south", and its like NO i havent because youre not the world!! it would be unreasonable for me to insist that all americans change their lexicon to accomodate me with the word spastic, so why do they get to insist the same of me for queer, you know? ill just politely ask people not to use words i dont like if it comes up in personal discussions, not assume every instance of the word in general discussions is targeted at me, and move on. sorry if this is a lil disjointed, this is a topic i feel pretty strongly on. also feel free to tag as slur tw the r slur and stuff i know thats more universally beloathed but it feels wrong to be censoring some words and not others in a discussion like this.

Alright that actually makes perfect sense, thank you so much for explaining this to me!! I really appreciate it :D