#my frame of reference may be skewed

[burinazar]

((mildly discoursey. also old/repeated thought)) insane to me belavue is the one that like three ppl have tried to start fights with me over the presumed problematic-ness of when it'd be easier to bullet-point reasons wabe is cancellable and i openly enjoy that one quite a bit too lol

just incomprehensible to me that this is the one single ship people have ever started shit with me for

it's basically a Freyang tier of sweetie pie 4 sweetie pie

[actual-changeling]

if god did not want me to over-analyse a two second video clip she would not have given me video editing software, so welcome back to alex's unhinged meta corner with me, alex, as your host.

we're going off the deep end with this one.

let's have a look at a. well, you cannot really call it a scene at this point. more of a collection of frames - aziraphale's face right after crowley leaves but before the bell above the door rings. this has been on my list of metas to write anyway, but someone kindly pointed it out which gave me incentive to make this post.

now, my leading theory is that much like his mouth movement before saying "i forgive you", which looked and sounded a lot like the beginning of "i love you", aziraphale is mouthing a silent "don't". presumably, the complete sentence would have been "don't leave".

first things first, why do i think he would say it? well, if you look back at their breakup in the park in season one, aziraphale calls him back when he says he will leave.

"you can't leave, crowley, there isn't anywhere to go".

then, after the fucking mess that is "nothing lasts forever", aziraphale also calls out. "come back". it is also perfectly in line with his previous behaviour to try and keep crowley from leaving again. especially because he almost tells the metatron he will stay just a few minutes later.

some other important things to keep in mind: aziraphale is shaking and about to cry, and also probably still in shock. so his face is doing a number of things and any words he may or may not mouth are slightly skewed due to that.

the first few frames are him taking a breath, so far so good.

this is the part where it looks like he is about to say something and silently begins to mouth don't. if you pay very close attention to his lips, you can see that they get pushed forward just a little bit as one does when saying "do".

you can try it yourself to confirm, i certainly did several times while rewatching the same two seconds like an absolutely sane person.

the last few frames are him closing his mouth again and breaking off whatever he was going to say, but in my opinion, you can still see the ending of that "don't".

alex, you might ask, how do you know that's what he was trying to say? i don't, although i hope once the strike ends someone will ask michael sheen some much needed questions. however, i wouldn't be a scientist if i didn't have evidence to present nevertheless.

i compared two of the frames from above, one from the "do" part and one from the "nt" part with another instance of michael/aziraphale saying "don't" - "i don't think you understand what i'm offering you".

the mouth shape and the movement of his facial muscles looks very similar even taking the whole sobbing and crying business into account.

interestingly enough, once the bell does ring, signaling that crowley has left the store, he not only closes his mouth but also physically steps back even more. he almost says "don't leave", restrains himself by physically pulling back, and then inches even farther from the door.

that is also when his face shifts from completely openly heartbroken to angry/spiteful and heartbroken.

the camera angle changes a little bit but not enough to explain the discrepancy, so yes, he steps backward before turning away and touching his lips. that pillar is honestly a very helpful point of reference. also completely unrelated but the face he makes at the end cracks me up it is LITERALLY >:(

to summarize: someone get michael sheen on the fucking phone before i lose my mind. also you can pry this meta from my dead, cold hands, he almost said "don't leave" and i will die on this hill.

lastly, said two second clip at half speed if you want to have a look for yourself.

[skania]

OnK 153 or all the ways I can tie this back to Akane and Aquakane

I won't try and write any theories about the Revenge Plot™ because, like I always say, Aka will just do whatever he wants however he wants to do it 😂

As the Akane Fan that I am though, I must say that a lot of what Kamiki said this chapter felt like it could've been said by Aqua after Chapter 97 if Akane hadn't caught onto it. So that's what I'll be focusing on below!

I am SO glad we're getting a flashback from the actual Kamiki rather than from Aqua's movie. I'm sure that Ai's feelings were portrayed more accurately in the movie than in Kamiki's self-loathing, skewed view — but it's still nice that we will get to hear Kamiki's thoughts straight from the source.

But that's the first key thing here, I feel: Kamiki's self-loathing. The way he talks about himself and of his relationship with Ai, completely downplaying Ai's side of the equation to make it sound like he was the one one-sidedly clinging to her reminds me a whole lot of Aqua with Akane.

Kamiki felt like he was the only one relying on Ai because he is convinced that Ai never loved him. Similarly, we once saw Aqua feeling guilty for relying on Akane and questioning whether or not she even harbored any romantic feelings towards him.

Granted, Aqua is the one who breaks up with Akane (to protect her), while Ai is the one who "dumps" Kamiki (for unknown reasons). But... all of the things Kamiki says here feel like things Aqua could've said about Akane if she had allowed things to get to that point.

After all, Aqua tried very, very hard to shoulder his burden on his own, but as of Chapter 97 he was breaking under it. Meanwhile, here Kamiki was breaking under it and keeping himself together thanks to Ai and Ai alone.

Kamiki hasn't put it into such words yet, but it's very obvious here that he felt saved by Ai and by his connection with her. Just like Aqua felt saved by Akane.

Even the way Kamiki talks about the burden he carries automatically evokes Aqua/Akane because... that's exactly how Akane has always referred to what Aqua was going through. As a burden that he was trying very hard to shoulder alone, one she wanted to help him carry.

@meruk0 in the Akane server even pointed out that these two panels are framed very similarly, so I wouldn't be surprised if Ai once said the same words — or something close to them — to Kamiki.

The ingredients were all there. So it feels like in Chapter 97, Aqua was well on his way to grow as emotionally dependent on Akane as Kamiki was on Ai. Thankfully, Akane realized it and gently encouraged Aqua to make his own choices, reminding him that if they were to grow dependant on each other, it wouldn't be a healthy relationship.

In all honesty, I can't help but wonder if Ai unceremoniously dumping Kamiki may have been her very, very clumsy way of trying to protect him from being so emotionally reliant on her (if Ai couldn't even be sure that she loved him, I could see her fearing that staying with Kamiki may eventually break him). It's hard to say because we have sadly gotten very little insight into the real Ai and into her relationship with Kamiki, but if Aka pulls that, then that would confirm that all of these parallels are very much intentional.

Regardless of Aka's intentions and of where this may be leading though, it's very very hard to read this and not notice that this chapter contrasts two different kinds of romantic attachment. Those based on superficial aspects like the person's looks, and those based on deeper things like feeling understood and seen by that person. And like I've been saying over and over again, it's also kind of very very hard to not contrast the way Aka has been writing Aqua and Kan@ with the way he wrote Aqua and Akane. But I digress!

One possibly plot-related thing that caught my eye though was the color of Kamiki's stars.

They were white before Kindaichi's words triggered his trauma and changed his view of the world into something much more suffocating, and then they become black and seemingly stay that way. His stars were black during the break-up and he kept talking about wanting Ai to help him carry the burden, so when exactly did he and Ai actually stop seeing each other? Because I believe most of us have been assuming that Ai and Kamiki were already over by the time the twins were born, but they were already born when that funeral took place.

Oh well, no point thinking too hard about it since Aka may answer that next week 😂

All in all, the anon who called that Kamiki/Ai would have parallels to Aqua/Akane exactly a year ago may have been right on the money. I hope you see this, anon!!

[seventeenlovesthree]

Character/Relationship Analysis: How Taichi's and Sora's arcs in the late Etemon/early Vamdemon arc are intertwined, how they (in)directly activate each other's Crests and how they're the most important plot drivers/leading figures at this point in the series.

One of my early theories regarding the character line-up in Adventure was how Sora could have potentially been the secondary main character besides Taichi (instead of Yamato). And I still believe that nothing makes that theory more apparent than taking a close look at how the "Crest activation period" frames these two as main plot drivers that are the reason why the group sticks together - and also why they all found their way back together after Taichi's disappearance. So let's break this down, shall we.

As pointed out in the analysis post above, when you just watch the opening of the series without any context, you might assume that Sora is the secondary/female main character anyway, because she (and Piyomon) are basically always coming after Taichi (and Agumon). And if you look at Sora's impact in the series, that isn't even too farfetched - especially when you consider that she is LITERALLY stepping up to be leader in the Etemon arc in the novels while Taichi is in a dark spot, whereas Yamato is later on declared to be "too emotional to be a leader".

That aside, let's dig into the set-up here: In the Etemon arc, Sora's Crest is the last to be found. We do not know a lot about the characters' singular arcs at this point, so watching her worrying about the situation doesn't strike the viewer as too weird yet. While it astonishes her that Taichi is so keen on finding her Crest for her sake (despite knowing how selfless he can be too), Taichi himself doesn't see any reason to falter and reassures her instead. This is important, because these two have known each other for quite a while already; they have been in the same class together since elementary school, are also partners in their football club - thus, Taichi's view on Sora is pretty settled. He is very vocal when it comes to "words of reassurance" towards people he cares about and so he repeatedly mentions how caring and selfless Sora is to him, how she always worries about others first and how she shouldn't doubt herself and her qualities - neither because of her own perception of herself nor because of the lies PicoDevimon had been feeding her. Because Sora's perception of herself is indeed slightly skewed, but we will get to that.

Taichi's road to (re)discovering his personal sense of courage is irrevocably linked to his wish to save Sora; initially, his recklessness had repeatedly caused trouble, not only by letting his own Digimon partner go through a dark evolution, but also because he let one of his longest and best friends get captured by the enemy. He initially promised that they would find her Crest for her - and now he is being humbled once more, threatened by an electrical fence right in front of him that could potentially kill him, punishing for losing his way once again. He is aware that something important was lost, referring to both his "brave heart" - and Sora.

Why is that so important?

Not only is Taichi fulfilling both of his promises in the end - saving Sora himself and personally giving her the Crest they've been looking for -, but this is (in)directly mirrored in Sora's arc as well.

Once Taichi disappears after defeating Etemon, the group starts to search for him - for two whole months, while some of them already start to lose hope and drift apart. Sora realizes that the group is torn on how to proceed, but can't stop herself from wishing to find Taichi. Because, once again, something important was lost, indirectly referring to both Taichi - and the sense of togetherness in the group. One might argue that her leaving the others behind may not look very sensible at first glance - but just like she was the one who enabled Taichi's Crest to glow, her disappearance indirectly has an impact on (almost) everybody else's arcs as well. (Additionally, they would not have learned the meanings of the Crests, if Sora hadn't overheard PicoDevimon talking about them to Vamdemon...)

As a complementary force to Sora, Taichi's return reunites the group bit by bit. It almost feels like they're acting as fairy godparents to everyone else, each in their own way - while Sora is hiding in the shadows, giving everyone advice (Agumon, Mimi) or physical aid (Jyou, Yamato) to protect and guide them in the right direction, Taichi directly tries to pull them out of their corrupted viewpoints (Takeru, Yamato, Mimi, Koushirou rather indirectly), whether through words or actions. It's absolutely no surprise that the scene where Yamato tells Taichi that he was the one who brought them all back together (episode 28) is basically a direct mirror of them all coming together to agree to save Sora (episode 20). Because these two are the glue that keeps it all together.

And so, of course it puzzles Taichi that Sora doesn't want to reveal herself to the group again. Of course it surprises him that the girl, whom they all came together for to rescue, who secretly protected all of them behind the scenes due to her kind heart and selflessness and who never gave up looking for him - once again, doubts herself like that. Not only that, she screams at him, tells him that he has no idea who she really is. That her "love" is a facade, that she has no idea what love even means - that she had lost (or never even possessed) her personal sense of love.

(To go on a small tangent here, their framing is just endlessly interesting to me, because the misunderstanding and miscommunication between them is a red thread that spins throughout the entirety of the series. And it is rather tragic, because throughout it all - they actually never really seem to be drifting apart, but due to their lack of means of communication, they cannot be close for some reason. Whether you think of them as platonic or romantic doesn't even matter, the general idea remains the same: They are on each other's minds, they are incredibly important to one another and never stop feeling that way, consciously or subconsciously. It's why Taichi encourages Sora to be with Yamato, but still goes observing the black spore kids together with her in 02, it's why Sora still feels comfortable being physically close to Taichi in DSB and Tri, it's why she gets upset that he ALWAYS gets her - somewhat - right despite not finding the CORRECT words in OWG and Tri, it's why the connections never vanishes in Kizuna... But they're also both awfully insecure about certain parts of themselves, especially when it comes down to decision-making towards their futures and selves. Since neither of them can be fully open up to each other about that, things kinda feel like they are on hold.)

In the end, Taichi (mirrored by Pyocomon's words below) had been correct to tell Sora not to believe in PicoDevimon's lies, not to give in to her own self-doubts - and eventually, she realizes that, just like her mother, she simply did not want anyone else to get hurt even more.

The way Taichi is framed here, smiling at her with absolute glee and satisfaction marks the end of this arc - while he wasn't directly triggering her Crest to be activated, he still believed in her best qualities just like her Digimon partner did, refusing to let her get corrupted more. And even if the infamous sentence "I want Sora's love too" is more of a light-hearted little throw-away line, it's intriguing to look at the potential implications overall here: Since Taichi's arc of Courage was fueled by his wish to save Sora, since Taichi was the one who eventually gave Sora the Crest of Love, since both their arcs were initially sparked by their wishes to find each other again as they took the others under their wings like proud parents... Let's say, after all this time since Taichi had successfully saved Sora, after all the searching leading up to finally being reunited (after several months in Sora's case), they both must have been incredibly relieved that it had all turned out nicely. To see each other again alive and well.

It started with his Crest - and ended with hers.

Long story short, the Adventure would have stopped rather early if it hadn't been for these two, their bond and loyalty toward each other - and also their sense of leadership.

Last note: Shout-out to the third most important character in this arc - if it hadn't been for Koushirou, Taichi would not have found Sora, may not even have found a way back to the Digital World and they also would not have been able to solve the card riddle to get back home.

[sibyl-of-space]

oh my god so a while ago i submitted the amadeus demo to a certain not-to-be-named indie event, not really expecting it would be accepted but figuring it's worth a shot and either way i get feedback. right.

now i have had... mixed... experiences with the particular group putting on this event. i think they do some genuinely awesome work and provide an invaluable service, but the overall community still feels wholly unprepared for anything even remotely artsy or weird. like even though it's an indie scene it feels very normie core. i don't even consider amadeus that artsy or weird, but i am occasionally reminded that i may have a skewed frame of reference compared to a lot of folks.

(a few months ago i attended a narrative feedback thing with them that was such a dumpster fire it pissed me off so bad i went and wrote 43790248932 paragraphs about it on here. like just genuinely some "have you, like, ever read a book?" tiers of utterly baffling "criticism." one of them pointed out to me that i may not have considered this, but Amadeus comes off as slightly rude. ....NO FUCKING SHIT.)

anyway. i submitted the demo because i figured the feedback would be useful, i can use any positive quotes in future trailers, etc. i have as of today learned that the game didn't get in and also received the promised feedback.

first of all i think it says a lot that from seeing in the email "we regret to inform you," my response was oh thank fuck. I don't really want to deal with tabling at an event cuz I have other shit going on and would rather focus on finishing the game since I've just made a lot of decisions I'm excited about; they also didn't get these responses back far enough in advance to actually prepare tabling materials if I HAD been accepted so it would have been more stress than anything else. I've also been salty at things like the above narrative feedback debacle so I was absolutely just like "this is completely fine with me."

But I made the mistake of reading the feedback provided and now I am going insane again.

TO BE FAIR! SOME OF THE FEEDBACK IS GENUINELY THOUGHTFUL, I may take or leave a lot of it, some of it raises good points I've already addressed, some of it clearly understands what I'm going for etc. I appreciate all of that.

But man some of this is pissing me offfffffffffff.

Some quotes that are making me particularly want to kill someone:

"When first meeting the witch the dialog is just incredibly long and boring and I ended up skipping through most of it. Given how linear this story seems to be, I think it would be better suited as a webcomic or a motion comic, not a visual novel."

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE WORD NOVEL MEANS. JESUS CHRIST.

I am extrapolating a hint of potentially meaningful feedback from this which I'm already addressing (the personality of the Witch in that conversation should come through more than it does) - but this person gave that "feedback" in the douchiest most insufferable way possible. Luckily for them, I've since made that conversation even longer. Fuck off.

"Some of the music is very harsh and dissonant while being very repetitive, which made me less enthusiastic about listening to it."

This was the same person which just tells me they have no taste. Like hmm I wonder if there was an intentional reason I am using dissonance in the soundtrack about someone going through something insanely fucked up. The repetition is an understandable critique even if I'll be ignoring it, but "some of the music is harsh and dissonant" is not a valid critique. Soundtracks aren't supposed to just sound like nice flowery music all the time, or at least not good ones. I'll be making the full soundtrack more dissonant just for you.

"Is there a reason for the Amadeus's bracers to be colored in but not the rest?"

[different person] THIS . THIS. F. ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS

NO. THERE'S NO REASON. I TRIPPED AND FELL AND ACCIDENTALLY ONLY SOMEHOW ENDED UP COLORING HIS ARMS IN EVERY SINGLE ASSET THAT DEPICTS HIM BY ACCIDENT SOMEHOW! THANK YOU FOR CATCHING THIS OVERSIGHT! SILLY ME!!!! IM TEARING MY HAIR OUT

"Not all of the music is equally fitting. There's at least one track that gets a bit techno."

yeah and im adding another track inspired by Bad Taste Aquarium from Sonic Adventure and another one that's basically GoldenSlaughterer 2. girl help I'm being "critiqued" by lame people with absolutely no taste

im so glad i read this after i finished moving my to-do lists to a new project management platform and getting really excited/motivated about where i'm at with the game because if i had seen this 2 days ago it would have just fucking killed my motivation. man. it's literally so hard being the only person with #vision

[copperbadge]

Genuine question; how is it self publishing with Lulu and are there any copyright issues? Thinking about taking some of my older world building and turning it into a Actual Novel.

I hope it's okay if I answer this publicly, I've had a few questions about it recently!

I've been doing it long enough that my frame of reference for difficulty may be a little skewed, but it's relatively straightforward -- Lulu has a publishing wizard that walks you through selecting options, uploading a document, adding a cover, and such. There is still a lot you have to do yourself that they don't really tell you how to, but it's not hard to google for some and they do have forums that cover other bits.

There are generally speaking no copyright issues with going through a self-publisher, but it depends on the services you obtain from them. With Lulu -- as with, I think, most Print-On-Demand printers -- there's an array of routes to go from unpublished document to published book.

So you can do it all yourself -- you can edit, proof, typeset, design the cover, purchase an ISBN, and do all the marketing. Or, at any step in the process, you can purchase services from Lulu that will do that for you. I can't recommend purchasing their proofing/design/marketing stuff; on the one hand it's where they make their money, but because of that they're not providing super great value for what you pay. And as a self-publisher, unless you have a massive platform or great marketing and hustle, you probably won't recoup in sales what you paid for.

Whether or not you buy other services, Lulu charges a per-book print fee, but you set your own prices, so like the book might cost $5 to print, but if you set the price at $10 you're making a pretty sweet profit per book. Some other POD publishers also charge a "setup" fee, but I'm not familiar with what that entails.

In any case, there's only one point at which copyright becomes an issue, which is the ISBN -- the serial number and barcode that identifies your book so that (for example) bookstores can sell it and libraries can stock it. You don't HAVE to have an ISBN, but it makes it much harder to get it distributed if you don't.

You can obtain an ISBN on your own -- cost varies by country, many make them available for free but in the US a single ISBN is $125 or you can buy like 100 for $500. If you want to have one but don't want to buy one, Lulu will give you one, but they then become the publisher of record. I don't really know how that works in terms of copyright, but it does impact some rights to the book, so if you use a Lulu-issued ISBN that would be something to research. If you're just publishing a book through them without using their ISBN, they're basically a printer -- they have no right to your book as an item of intellectual property.

Now, outside of copyright considerations, it is certainly more work to self-pub. If you want it to look professional you have to have access to a good program for typesetting, you have to know how to set margins and gutters, title/author headers and page number footers, and if you want to do an epub that's a whole other ball of wax.

I don't get super fancy. I typeset in Word, because Libre Office and Open Office (at least last I checked) didn't have a few of the features Word has, but any other program has a much higher learning barrier to entry. You also have to upload the document as a PDF, so you have to be able to save/print it as a PDF.

Lulu does have a cover-design app you can use to make a cover, but it's extremely basic, so if you don't want your cover to look like it was designed in Canva, you'll need access to a design program like Photoshop or Glimpse, or to commission a cover from someone who does. Once you've uploaded your document, Lulu will give you a template that tells you exactly what size your cover should be, where the bleed margins are, and etc.

And then we get into the nitty-gritty stuff like how only certain fonts can be used for the document (there are twelve fonts that Lulu allows, it's listed on their site somewhere, I just use Garamond) and you need to make sure any art that goes on the cover is either free for use or Creative Commons or similar (or you buy the art for use). Google does have a handy Creative Commons filter on their imagesearch function, which has been useful for me in the past, but on the copyright pages of many of my books you'll see credit given for images used.

So to do your first book there is a bit of a steep learning curve, but once you're past the curve, you'll have some pretty good skills for future publishing. I did a book a year for several years, in my twenties, and then didn't publish at all for several years, and had to relearn a lot when I started publishing again, but it came back pretty quickly. And depending on how fancy or professional you want your book to look, you don't necessarily have to put in a TON of work. Like, I try to make mine look as much like pro-published books as possible, but some authors on Lulu just shove a formatted word document into a PDF and call it a day, they don't bother with headers/footers and fancy formatting and such.

In any case, while I think going the professional route of querying publishers and agents is laudable and certainly I wouldn't advise anyone to go to selfpub first thing, selfpub can be awfully satisfying, and it starts to feel kind of like a fun hobby after a while.

[detailtilted]

Hi there! I've belatedly seen your question about coloring, and I'm someone who likes to tweak color, so in case it helps, I thought I'd write up some things I might do. I don't know if you have the same tools I have, but I saw you use Color Balance, so I've used that for an example below. I usually start by adjusting lighting levels so that the lightest and darkest points are where I hope them to end up. Then I'd adjust color hues which in your case was using the Color Balance tool. I might also adjust the saturation or vibrance because too much can cause colors to get extreme quickly. Here are some quick settings I did in Photoshop.

Levels: dark point=19, mid point=1.37, light point=249, output levels=18 to 255

Color Balance: shadows red+13, green+5, blue-4; midtones red-8, green-9, blue+3; highlights red-60, green-28, blue-25

Saturation: reds-8, master-4

Here's the result:

I know it can be hard to translate setting between different apps, so I wonder if this will be helpful at all, but feel free to ask me questions if you're so inclined 😊

~ Dani

WOW, your results are incredible! Thank you so much for taking the time to play with this and to offer some tips! Adjusting lighting before trying to adjust colors hadn't occurred to me at all.

I'm using Adobe Premiere for the video editing, so same software company at least, but I couldn't find any lighting level settings like what you described. Through Googling, it looks like a setting called "Lumetri Color" is typically used for lighting corrections and it's broken out differently.

I have to go to work pretty soon, so I haven't had sufficient time to really dig into it and play with it, but I did mess around with it a tiny bit. I'll play more this weekend and see if I can get closer to what you were able to accomplish.

For reference, my original adjusted version (which I can see now looks soooo horribly orangey compared to yours!):

As a starting point, I just clicked the friendly "Auto" button on the Lumetri Color tab to see what it would do. A little better, still pretty orangey.

Then I tried to make some of the color adjustments that worked for you. It looked like your adjustments had been based on my adjusted version, so I'm not sure if my attempt at making it a direct mathematical adjustment was the right way to go, but I tried to add your adjustment #'s on top of my adjustments. So for example, I'd had Shadow Red set to -10 and since you said you added 13, I changed it to 3. When I changed all 9 settings it didn't improve too much, definitely nothing like yours:

But while applying those changes, I noticed that before I applied the last two (highlight green and blue), it looked closer to what you had. Still not there yet, but closer.

Once I have time, I'll play with some of the Lumetri sliders and stuff a bit more. It may also help just to have your beautiful image as a reference point. Thanks so much!

Addendum: Additional Efforts

I spent some more time playing with this. I present two versions for your judgment.

The first version isn't exactly like yours, but it looked pretty close to my eyes. So I was happy for a minute or two. Then when I started watching the video instead of just staring at the still frame, I felt like it looked a little too green. Maybe that's because I've spent so many hours staring at my previous orangey version that my idea of what looks normal is skewed.

So in version two I adjusted the Tint setting. I feel like this looks a little better, especially when I watch the video, but I don't trust my judgment at all. My color judgment was bad before, and now I think my eyes are permanently warped from staring at different shades for so long.

I'm including both versions below. For each version I'm including a side-by-side comparison with your example vs mine. I wanted to include a video clip for both, but it looks like tumblr limits it to 1 video, so I only included the video for version 2.

Please don't be afraid to tell me they both look horrible! I feel sort of like the proverbial monkey hitting a bunch of random keys and hoping I might hit upon Shakespeare by pure random chance. 😅

Version 1

Version 2

[amysubmits]

I just saw your post looking through some tags about how both Doms and Subs should be in control and i just want to say THANK YOU.

Its crazy. Admittingly anything I've done has only been via sext, but somehow as a dom-top, i still get pushed into being controlling, or I'm just supposed to mind read.

Admittingly- i know some of it was my fault for not communicating better, and now know better, but this ex person made me feel really bad about myself.

I'm not sure which blog post you're referring to but whatever it was, I'm glad you found it and that it helped!

I think it's easy for people on either side of the slash to get caught up in fantasy just based on our own desires...but also, content out there about D/s often is skewed fantasy based as well so we may not always even know that our ideas are fantasy based rather than reality based. But, injecting a lot of reality into our expectations is so important to avoid unhealthy situations. I think that expectation part is really key? Because having a desire is fine, and frankly I don't know that we can even really control our desires. But when we have an unrealistic desire or fantasy - or even a realistic one but one that the other person hasn't agreed to? And then we get upset with them for not meeting our expectation, that's a unfair and unhealthy. Maybe even abusive depending on how they express that upset.

From your framing it's not clear to me which category your experience fell into.

If she expected you to take more control without asking you to, wanted you to read her mind but she didn't say or do anything 'at you' in response and instead had feelings about it that you picked up on that lead you to feel bad. for example, maybe you could tell she was sad that you'd didn't read her mind and that made you feel bad? That's a problem but it's just miscommunication and needing to figure out how to make your D/s more realistic.

On the other hand, if she accused you or insulted you (like telling you that you were a bad dom or told you that you were doing a shitty job of taking care of her) for not doing things that you hadn't agreed to or were incapable of doing (like mindreading) then that's abuse.

Anyway, as cliche as it is communication really is key but also having realistic, reality-based expectations is essential. I know CD and I have stumbled through figuring out what is realistic and also how to communicate more effectively many many times over the years. I think it's something that most of us have to learn through some trial and error, unfortunately. But as long as you're with someone who is dedicated to being as healthy as they can be emotinoally/socially and is willing to learn/grow/change over time it can be a really neat thing to get to experience together. Best of luck to you with future partners.

[neonscandal]

Manga With Me: MHA Pocket Theory

A Walk in the Forest

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: Discusses chapters through 322. No major plot points just some sweet, sweet character development.

I didn't go down this rabbit hole until @amardahlia commented on this post and now everyone has to think about this as well.

This scene has popped up in the manga many times as a recollection of the relationship that Bakugo and Deku had as children but it wasn't until I looked back to source the actual chapters that I realized that they have something in common. This is a memory held by Bakugo.

Why is that important? Well, chronologically, as pointed out by @amardahlia, the memory shows the two of them getting further and further apart even though we know that their relationship actually improves over time.

Historically, When Bakugo recalls upon this memory, it's never framing up their childhood "friendship". More to say, "this guy could never keep up with me when we were younger," than "this was a fond memory". In fact, it's typically what he recalls as he's puzzled by Deku's burgeoning strength and power as it is eclipsing his own. This scene is an indication of their rivalry or competition in Bakugo's mind. Never one to wait around for the weak, look at how Deku trails behind Bakugo. It's not even apparent what they're doing or where they're going. All Bakugo knows is that he leads the charge.

We've also seen that Bakugo's interpretation of past events between the two of them tends to be heavily skewed by an egocentrism steeped in insecurity (and maybe self-loathing). In one of the core memories that they both share, he mistakes Deku's genuine concern for condescension, equating the need for help with weakness. This sours the relationship and Bakugo constantly assumes he's being looked down upon or being made fun in instances where Deku is trying to connect to him.

I wouldn't be surprised if the reason they're getting further and further apart as the gap in their relationship is built is because, even though Bakugo reaches a level of respect and understanding with Midoriya, he can't help but still compare himself to him either. He recalls them being further and further apart to his own detriment. Now, instead of reveling in their power disparity, he's now constantly thinking about how far behind him Deku started and, subsequently how quickly he's been powering up. I believe that remembering it inversely in this way illustrates a growing unease and dissatisfaction with himself despite the positive change in their relationship.

Ultimately, all roads point back to Bakugo, obsessed with being victorious (his name reinforces this), constantly grappling with the idea that his strength may not be enough. He may not be enough. I reflect on this a bit here. For all his bluster and bravado, Bakugo is just wracked in self-doubt and insecurity and while this consumed him early on and reinforced an unhealthy dynamic between he and Deku, he's come a long way in mitigating that.

Prediction

This is also hopefully a good enough apology to @hxneyrosie who was having a good day before I opened my mouth on the internet.

I think that, by series end, we're going to find the reason why Bakugo refers back to this specific memory. Personally, I think that they're lost in the woods. I think Bakugo, with his predilection for mountain climbing/hiking, may have gotten them lost in the first place. But I also think that, as Deku's concern and fear around the situation grew, Bakugo kept his cool just like a hero would (despite also being scared) and led them out of that forest. He may have even comforted Deku which is how he initially began associating the need for help with weakness in the first place. Like, in his mind, "not only could he not keep up but he needed me," and that was another 1 in the Win Column for Bakugo. This would also presumably explain how, later, when Deku reached out in concern, he worried that Deku was looking down on him. Because when the roles were reversed that's exactly what he did.

Receipts and explanation for everything above the prediction are down below if you’re still curious 👇🏾

Chapter 9: Deku vs Kacchan

Context - While the chapter starts with Deku talking about growing up in the same neighborhood, this scene in particular is actually a part of Bakugo looking back on Deku being a mere pebble along his path to becoming a hero. The quotes I removed were, "Your quirks so cool, Kacchan. Hope I get mine soon." to which Bakugo responds, "Whatever you get, no way it'll beat mine."

Chapter 117: A Talk About Your Quirk

Context - POV is ambiguous but I think the distortion of this memory comes as Bakugo's rage is simmering. He walks in silence in response to Deku's prompt while he's preparing to confront him. He's confirming his sneaking suspicion about the origin of Deku's sudden quirk development while also low-key reconciling his guilt from the events at Kamino Ward and it's all a bit much to bare. The recent turn of events challenges Bakugo's sense of self right as they hit a critical breaking point in their relationship. In his mind, the memory is at odds where Bakugo finds himself at a steady decline while Deku has begun to usurp that which he feels entitled to. Even the visual leading up to this moment of Bakugo leading Deku is just - 🫠

Chapter 275: Encounter, Part 2

Context - Heading to the first Shiggy Showdown, Bakugo chases after Deku to act as support under the guise of getting even after ending All Might's career. He recalls this memory while contemplating Deku's growth and his determination (and difficulty) to keep from falling behind. In fact, this visual precedes him taking a decisive leap ahead of Deku just to show himself that he can keep pace. This fight with Shigaraki ultimately ends with Bakugo being impaled when his body moved all on its own to protect Deku.

[lepiosprites]

Lepio’s New Spriting Tutorial!

While my spriting process hasn’t changed too much, it has been four years since i posted my other tutorial so i figured it was due for an update! For this tutorial i’ll remake the troll i sprited the last time.

Note: I use ms paint to make my sprites, so some of the steps i do may not be necessary for people who use other programs

When spriting, I always start off with the outfit as I find this to be the easiest part. I have a large sprite sheet of outfits from homestuck that i use as a base. You can find a similar sheet linked in my references tab. To start off with, i will the young handmaid’s outfit as a base, then find aranea’s dress to take the skirt, and make the pattern i want to have on the skirt.

Now i can work on taking aranea’s dress and combining it with the other outfit. I erase most of the aranea’s outfit, just leaving the bottom portion of the dress to replace the outline on the other skirt.

Now i just need to combine the new outline with the sides of the skirt, and then just recolor the outfit!

Now for adding the pattern! I like putting a box around the sprite body, then color in and white parts, and move it over the pattern

Now i can fill in the white space, erase all the red, and finish the outfit!

Now typically for the symbols, at least the extended zodiac ones, i grab them from the website and resize them until the look to be about the right size. This time i’m just going to reuse the symbol from the old sprite.

And now for the face! While i’m going to use the same mouth, i’m going to make new eyes using aradia’s as a base

I start off by using the circle tool at size 3 pixels. and make an oval that about the same size as the eye. Next, i use the skew tool to have it better match the shape of aradia’s eye. After cleaning up the shape, i draw eyelashes.

Once i have the eye shape, i make another one and place them back over the eyes i’m using as a base. I erase the base eyes, move the pupils up if they’re touching the bottom of the lid, then add eye bags. I have another tutorial on spriting eyes which you can find under the sprite tutorial tag.

Now we can add them to out troll, along with the mouth. I also like to cover the bit of eye bag that sticks out over the head outline.

Now it’s time for the hair! I like doing hair after the face to ensure the bangs frame the face nicely.

I start off by free handing the outline with the pencil tool, then using the curve tool to clean up the lines. Then i do some tweaks and done! I tend to do the bangs separately, but use the same process. Sometimes i jump straight to using the curve tool though.

After coloring in the hair i do some more tweaks and then we’re almost done!

I leave the top part of the head outline for horn placement, and i make my horns the same way i make hair. I actually really like how the horns turned out from that time so i’ll just reuse those.

And there we go! Feel free to send in questions if you have any and happy spriting!

[foiazoli]

Hello Silm fans, I’m reading your book for the first time

Hi! So, I’m reading the Silmarillion for the first time and thought I’d post my thoughts as I went as I’ve heard that some silm fans enjoy hearing people’s first thoughts on the silm and also just as a way to keep track of my own thoughts on the thing. Before I launch right into it, I thought I’d explain some background on how I got here, to explain how I know a good many random things contained in this book I’ve never actually read before.  

First, I got into Tolkein as a kid when my dad read me the Hobbit and the entire LOTR trilogy as bedtime stories! It took from when I was about 8-10 and while the Balrog actually gave me a nightmare or two I thought it was a really cool series and tiny me was set off into the wide world of fantasy books and I’ve never given it up. I saw the Peter Jackson movie trilogy at some point and enjoyed them, several animated versions of the Hobbit that I enjoyed, and finally that trilogy of Hobbit movies which were overall meh with all the added extra stuff, but good otherwise. I hadn’t touched Tolkein specifically other than this, even though I knew the Silmarillion existed because I had been told it was “dense, uninteresting, confusing, disjointed, and not worth it overall.” So why am I reading it now? 

Several of you are gonna lose your minds at this, but I watched the Rings of Power show with my dad and kinda liked it. I went, “y’know this stuff is all really interesting but all the fans online are saying it got butchered. I wanna know what they mean.” and through the mystical ways of fandom delving I found out what exactly got butchered by that show (Celebrimbor’s entire storyline, anyone?) and here I am now several months and millions of words of fanfiction read later, actually reading the Silmarillion.

Now, this is not my first time reading a book written by someone from a significantly older time than myself (I read a lot of my dad’s favorite books from high school) so I am somewhat accustomed to sifting through cultural biases that have shifted over time and looking through both the frame of the time and my own cultural reference frame to analyze books and their themes and meanings. As such, I’m gonna list out some of my own biases that I think may be relevant here to help anyone who’s reading this figure out where I’m coming from.

Raised female, but no longer ID with that

Atheist raised by atheist parents, I really don’t jive with religion, especially organized religions and struggle to understand how anyone does, although I always do my best to be respectful of other people’s beliefs when interacting with them. I do have a soft spot for Jewish people though, on account of all of the bullshit that’s happened that they didn’t deserve (nobody deserves the level of death in their history to be clear) and also all of the memes I’ve seen that are like “3 Rabbis 5 opinions” which is incredibly funny and also exactly the kind of energy I intend to bring to the table here.

American, which isn’t totally relevant except that I live in the south, so christianity is pervasive enough here that I somehow ended up culturally christian without my parents or I noticing. I mean culturally christian in that I do things like celebrate christmas and have catholic guilt syndrome, but when I was like 7 I asked my mom why people sang about Jesus on the radio so much every December.

I’m white

I’m in college and everyone in my family has gone to college for three full generations so I have a skewed idea of how well educated everyone around me is, as in I used to expect everyone to know how the government works by age 12 (my parents started discussing politics at the dinner table when I was like 8 and I thought everyone did that) until I started working with kids and several six year olds have assumed batshit things like, that the marker of adulthood was being married and having children, not like, turning 18, and I had to yank my worldview around and am still in the process of figuring out how much other people know about things.

I might be autistic? Many of my autistic friends are like “that thing you do? That's autism. No neurotypical does that.” But my older sister is autistic and much of my childhood was shaped by being “the normal one.” so. Lots to unpack here.

My friend group has a token straight guy and it’s not me

I walk a very thin line between “I have to fit in with everyone and be normal and do things like them and never stand out ever” and “WHY does everyone do this thing the dumbest way possible FUCK that I will be doing this completely differently and you all may watch if it so pleases you” (but the second one is usually about like, wearing mens pants instead of womens because they have functioning pockets). This means my views on individuality culture vs communal culture are disjointed and contradictory af.

Not sure if it’ll come across in my posts here since most of the writing I’ve done in my life has been academic but I have a fuckin potty mouth. A friend analyzed my discord messages once and I averaged one fuck per five point something messages, other swears not included. Fuck is an excellent word and sometimes swears are just what you need to get the point across y’know?

In my fanfiction delving to get a basic understanding of the silm, I started with Elrond (as one does), and got interested in kidnap fam and stayed there for a good long while, so now I have many Feanorian murder babies who I will be seeking any and all information on during this read-through. Primary blorbo here is Maedhros, but all of them come along for the ride. 

When I say I’ve read millions of words of fanfiction I’m not kidding. A good part of what I’m intending to do with this read-through is separate fanon from canon, as I think there's enough fanon that all agrees with itself you could write several reference books containing it. And then do it again with alternative sets of fanon. This fandom is old and y’all have been busy.

I think that’s all, but I may come back to this later if something keeps popping up! I’ll be tagging all my posts about this with #baby’s first silm read if anyone wants to see what I’m up to!

Also, I am yelling into the void from a 10ish year-old blog that I’ve basically never done anything with so my post history will be undergoing renovations at some point so I can tag and actually find later all those useful references I found in the past couple weeks before they get buried. If you (the void) would like to yell back I would love that! Your thoughts on my thoughts, If you think I’ve misinterpreted something, you want to talk about blorbos together, anything!

[daja-the-hypnokitten]

Jukebox reviews part 28! For context, see my post “A Project”     under this same tag. If you want to see a full list of his EMCSA   stories, they can be found here, sorted alphabetically.And if you want to see some of his drabbles, check out his blog at @jukeboxemcsa

Double Vision

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1/2/2016                                       mc ff

First - ok, do the Ljosalfar also exist in the world of this story? (then again, are the Ljosalfar even a distinction from the Dokkalfar that existed pre-Christian influence? I dunno, the mythology is fairly incomplete as it stands, and none of this has anythign to do with the story so why am I spending so much time on this anyway?) Second, why does getting hit on the head give Jo the Second Sight? Or did she always have the capacity for it, and the hit just catalyzed it? REGARDLESS, as none of that has anythign to do with the actual control part of the story, moving on. It's a good story. Very fantasy, but I grew up LOVING mythology, so even though I'm a little rusty on it, seeing something drawing on myth is lovely. And the idea of control that most folk dont' notice, and that even though she *does* notice it Jo can't resist? It works within the context of the story. The actual control we see is fairly pedestrian by EMCSA standards, but the worldbuilding done around it means I like this story much more than I might have otherwise. 8/10 spirals 

 Wide Awake

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1/2/2016                                       mc mf md

This falls into the therapist abusing trust trope I strongly dislike, but outside of that it's well done and put together. If you like the trope, give this one a read! 

 Take Me Home Tonight

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1/9/2016                                       mc mf md

I don't know what to say about this story. It's so far out of my general realm of control I like that I have no frame of reference for it. It's half possession, half mind control of a different sort, and just not my style. But If you like dream and possession magic, give it a go? 

 Forever Your Girl

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1/16/2016                                     mc mf md cb rb

Huh, from the title I was expecting this to be a Girls(tm) story, not a superhero story, and not such a tragic one at that. Oh, it has its moments of heat, during the transformation that takes place, but the end of it is just tragic. To be forced to continue loving someone who's dead, unable to truly mourn, No matter how much heat is in the rest of the story, I can't find it hot on the whole with that layer of tragedy underlying it. it's a GOOD story, just ... another one that isn't really erotica to me. 5/10 spirals 

 Trust and Obey

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1/23/2016                                     mc ff hu

This story feels like a cross between Green Eggs and Ham and The Cat in the Hat. I get distracted by the couplets, especially the occasional slant rhyme, and honestly Dr Seuess-esque language in an erotica story is just offputting. 3/10 spirals 

 X, Y and Zee

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1/30/2016                                     mc ff

... There is no IRB in the country that would approve this story, so this isn't just self-funded, but there can't be any meaningful oversight either. Also, her work needs more footnotes. Also, she clearly needs to review what we've learned from the Stanford Prison experiment; any time a researcher directly involves themselves in the experiment, as she did, it skews objectivity, and makes it less generalizable. We also ought to be presented with the method of recruitment; the nature of the recruitment can bias who is likely to apply. Further, any experiment of this sort should have included a boiler plate "you may revoke consent at any time" clause. Which clearly X was not provided. Putting the design/framing of the story aside, this is ... well, clearly it bothers me a little bit, given my science background, in the ways that it betrays the doctor's intentions with it. Which makes sense in context, but I get distracted considering how I'd improve the experiment. And it's a solid experiment for the goal of "how can I make girls want to have sex with me," rather than "how can I test response to authority?" - they *are* two different questions. The external view of the shifting mindset is less to my taste, and X's clear distress makes this less hot than it would be otherwise. 5/10 spirals 

 Kissing Disease

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2/6/2016                                       mc ff mf fd md

Nope, I had to nope out of this one. I can't with stories of a pandemic spreading and people minimizing it until it's undeniable that it has to be worse that they say it is. I just can't. 

 Skeleton Key

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2/13/2016                                     mc mf md

This one is a lot more magic than my preference, though the sudden internal changes are fascinating and add some heat for me. And Merrion acknowledging that he's being unethical actually makes me feel better, in some ways? I at least have more hope that he'll treat Paula right after this. And she clearly is getting something out of it, too, which helps. But it does come down to just being too magic for my tastes - though if you like magical artifacts driving the control, give this one a look. 6/10 spirals 

 The Bigger They Are, The Harder They Fall

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2/20/2016                                     mc mf ff fd hm

I never quite understand how pleasure is that overwhelming for folk. It can be fun to play with, sure, but to make me completely let go around someone who puts me on edge? I don't get it and never will. Especially given the context of their interaction here. Maybe I'm just too ace to ever truly grok it, though. But the way she uses the sensation to take control, to build an effective overload induction as she does? It's well done and well written, if a bit cold for my personal preferences.  7/10 spirals 

 Zone Out

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2/27/2016                                     mc

Another induction, and one that would be *really* good for folk who have trouble staying completely focused on a hypnotist, if it were a recording rather than a text induction, as it was clearly written to be read aloud.  The way it uses the idea of focusing on something other than the hypnotist, and letting their voice (and I want to say her, because I'm hearing Lady Ru'etha's voice reading it in my head, for all it's Jukebox's words) just slip past the conscious awareness. It does, of course, include arousal and orgasm suggestions, so be aware of that if you're susceptible to text inductions, but I also recommend hypnotists read this one and take some inspiration for if playing with folk who are easily distracted when trancing. 9/10 spirals

[zaph1337]

Monster Hunter Rating 47: Blango

Next on the agenda is something special. Something unprecedented. Something that Monster Hunter had before now never known. It is not enough to just introduce this monster by its name; no, it is something more than a name. IT. IS. MONKEY.

Okay but real talk it’s Blango. It-it’s Blango.

(How it appears in the Second Generation of games)

(How it appears in Monster Hunter Generations)

Appearance: Much like how Anteka seemed to be a hodge-podge of different animals, Blango are inspired by the Japanese macaque, yet have the face of a mandrill, which are the largest monkeys in the world (that has nothing to do with the review, I just thought it was neat). It’s an interesting combination, given that macaques are known to live in snowy areas like Blango are, but mandrills aren’t. It certainly makes them more intimidating, though, given how they inherited the mandrill’s giant canines. I think this actually makes them look scarier than the small raptorial Bird Wyverns; the latter would still scare the daylights out of me if I met them irl, but big teeth do a lot for fear factor.

The fact that these are the first monkeys in Monster Hunter does a lot for them, as I never had anything like them to skew my frame of reference. I won’t deny that they’re pretty plain otherwise, but they’re still a cool concept. 6/10.

Behavior/Lore: Blango live in snowy areas--chiefly mountains--in troops led by a Blangonga, which is basically the Blango equivalent of a Velocidrome. These troops are highly coordinated, and by combining that with the strength of their Blangonga leaders, Blango can successfully defend their high-tier spot on the food chain from most monsters that could compete with them, such as Khezu. They prey on monsters such as Anteka and the woolly Popo (which I’ll talk about soon), and either hunt them normally or bury themselves in the snow to ambush passing herds. Perhaps because resources in their habitats are rather scarce and their neighbors are dangerous, Blango are highly aggressive and territorial, yet different troops have been known to coalesce into single groups that can have multiple Blangonga in charge--behavior which is sometimes seen in primates in real life. There’s no info on how effective these groups are, but they’re surely forces to be reckoned with.

Because Blango aren’t stand-alone monsters, they have the same problem the raptors had, that being the bulk of the information about their behavior is reserved for their leaders and how they interact with the packs. I could talk about more here, but then what would I be able to say about the Blangonga in its review? All that said, Blango have one thing going for them: despite living in similar habitats to their real-world inspiration, the Japanese macaque, Blango are much more aggressive, which makes sense given their more hostile homes--it’s not like macaques have to deal with, say, electric nightmare chickens. This may well be a coincidence, but it’s still neat that this contrast exists, and that there’s a logical reason for it. 5/10.

Abilities: Aside from their coordination, Blango rely mainly on their physical strength and nimbleness in fights. This normally wouldn’t be very interesting on its own, but they do have one trick of note: throwing chunks of ice. Again, it sounds boring, but somehow, these bits of ice can inflict a very special status condition: Snowman. A hunter marred by this terrifying affliction will be encased in snow below their neck, greatly hindering their movement speed and preventing the poor soul from attacking or using any items--save for the ones that can end the nightmare.

Okay so obviously its a ridiculous status condition brought about by a monkey throwing ice in lieu of its excrement, but that’s what makes it great; it’s funny to imagine someone being pelted with ice and having a ball of snow spontaneously form around their torso. As a result, what was doomed to be another below-average score in the Small Monster Abilities department is instead brought up to a 5/10.

Equipment: It was difficult to find weapons using Blango materials that didn’t also use Blangonga mats, and Blango don’t have armor, so this’ll be a very short equipment review. Let’s start with an Insect Glaive called the Wardance Cudgel:

This doesn’t look bad, but I’m concerned that it’s supposed to look “tribal,” and while I’m sure there are other monsters whose equipment bears a similar motif, I can’t help but feel that it’s in bad taste to have this theming present in weapons associated with violent, territorial monkeys. Giving the MH devs the benefit of the doubt for a moment, I like how the different ends of the glaive are bird-shaped. It’s cute, though I question the effectiveness of such a design. Moving right along, here’s a Long Sword called the Blango Destroyer (which probably refers more to the Hunter wielding it, imo):

I can always appreciate different takes on the Long Sword, and this is no exception. Not only is the “sword” a different weapon than normal (I don’t think it qualifies as a cudgel, though), the “sheath” is closer to being a shield in shape, and it kinda makes me think this would be a sick Charge Blade. I also like how the sheath is modeled after a Blango’s face; it really takes advantage of the mandrill inspiration.

It’s tough to rate these without taking the Blangonga weapons into consideration since they have the same aesthetics, but honestly, while the designs are interesting, some of the weapons look a little bland to me by virtue of their white color. They’re not bad, but they don’t appeal to me as some of the other ice-based weapons in the franchise do. 5/10.

Final Thoughts and Tally: While Blango stand out due to being primates and having an interesting concept behind their design, they don’t really do a lot for me. That’s admittedly not surprising, as--and I get that I’m being a broken record here--Small Monsters aren’t made to be as interesting as the large ones are. I do have high hopes for the next monster on my docket, though; hopefully it’ll live up to them. 5/10.

[orlamount]

Layouts and Colour Change

While I was looking for layouts, I stumbled across some blue layouts, so the images are blue along with the text. I really liked the aesthetic of it so I researched into what the blue colours can represent. Blue is often associated with sadness in the English language. Blue is also used extensively to represent calmness and responsibility. Light blues can be refreshing and friendly. Dark blues are more strong and reliable. I thought that this idea of being calm in the sea, being away from those mental health distractions could be presented by the means of a colour.

These were some spreads I picked out so I could get a better idea and understanding of what using blue in my book could look like.

hhh

gg

ggg

For the book, I'm using the pictures I've taken. I started with editing them so they look like film photos. Andreea is really into her photography and she mentioned a method of photography called cyanotype printing. I looked into it and I really like the visual it creates because of the usual natural colour it produces is a dark blue.

I think the colours will also go with the aesthetic simple nature of the book. I decided I would editing my images on photoshop to create my own cyanotype images because I don't have the methods of doing it myself.

The cyanotype is a slow-reacting, economical photographic printing formulation sensitive to a limited near ultraviolet and blue light spectrum, the range 300 nm to 400 nm known as UVA radiation. It produces a cyan-blue print used for art as monochrome imagery applicable on a range of supports, and for reprography in the form of blueprints.

I noticed most of these images have a boarder from the image being smaller than the paper, so I may include that in my book.

Reference pictures of cyanotypes

This was the image after the final affects. It took a lot of tweaking to get the textures and colours looking realistic.

I started with adding a diffused glow on the image, I then skewed the image so it looked out of frame and was no longer a 90 degree triangle. I then added a texture layered black background. The image wasn't looking handmade enough so I added another texture that went over the top of the image. I think it turned really good. It looks realistic. I intend to edit the rest of my images like this. If I had more time left on this project, I would have liked to actually do the cyanotypes physically myself.

I then tested out using the same colour as the image in the text and I really like the way it looks. I felt inspired by the all blue page spreads I'd previously looked at.

[sloshed-cinema]

101 Nights [Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma] (1995)

In a period rife with odes to Hollywood or to cinema which are fair to middling at absolute best, it was a daunting proposition to sit through this movie.  I should have known to trust Agnès Varda.  Produced for the centenary of filmmaking, Varda crafts an effervescent love-letter to the medium, creating a collage of movement as only she can manage.  Cinema encompasses every aspect of the frame, and the sheer variety of manifestations of the artform subsumes all.  You can try to keep tabs on all of the films referenced, but sooner or later it becomes all too daunting of a task.  Cardboard standees of icons dot M Cinéma’s villa.  Stars drop by to pay their respects.  Film posters comment cheekily on the nature of a scene, even changing from shot to shot.  Verbal puns and visual one pop up at unexpected and delightful intervals: Simon urges for more cries and fewer whispers; Camille has her bicycle nicked by thieves, and her boyfriend bemoans Italian neorealism.  It’s comprehensive and loving, lacking the creative bankruptcy seen in everything from Cinema Paradiso to The Fabelmans.  

Perhaps the most overt references were the film extracts dropped throughout the runtime.  Sometimes the parallels to the narrative arc were obvious, others more oblique.  Of all the clips, I caught Nosferatu, King Kong, Citizen Kane, 8 1/2, Un chien andalou (the full eye cut), Danton, My Own Private Idaho, Metropolis, Paris Texas, The Young Girls of Rochefort, Singin’ in the Rain, The Producers, Night of the Living Dead, L’Age d’or, White Christmas, and The General.  But the interests skewed much broader in film posters, everything from Back to the Future to Au hasard Balthazar to Eraserhead getting its nod.

But who is this manifestation of cinema itself?  Simon Cinéma is an old frail man, but that doesn’t stop his lusty streak.  It’s perhaps slightly less endearing in the #MeToo era, but Varda allows all of her female subjects to rebuff his advances and scoff at his outrageous claims.  Haunted constantly by death, he nevertheless remains alive.  Cinema isn’t dying, it’s constantly reinventing itself, adopting new forms.  He is accompanied by a roguish Italian friend, played by a delightful Marcello Mastroianni who both reminisces on and spoofs his great films with Fellini and others.  But really he has an ulterior motive: to possess the Cinéma estate.  Simon’s will becomes an important through-line, and an even more important question: to whom does cinema belong?  Should Simon’s legacy be handed to the knowing hands of a studio, or sold off for a cause to pad the ego of a star?  Do young filmmakers have to steal it for themselves, scrape together what they can to break into an industry not handing out charity?  Varda emphasizes the importance of new voices, focusing on some up-and-comers as they home-brew a goofy gangster flick inspired by the likes of Scorsese and Coppola.  They may have to use toy airplanes and cotton-ball clouds, but they got the very spirit of cinema to make a guest appearance and pass out at the sight of some tits.  Now that’s what really counts.

THE RULES

SIP

An episode starts.

Film clip.

Simon Cinéma be horny.

Someone tries to get Simon’s estate.

BIG DRINK

Varda references one of her own films.

Mid-scene outfit change.

That lovely cue from Le Mépris starts to play.

[infini-tree]

closed position

Summary: Billy goes to a comic festival in Piqua for the first time, and he realizes just how strange that statement is.

A/N: Also known as, “the outsider POV fic no one expected, even me”. Also also known as “saying Harold and George as opposed to the other way around should be a crime, but it makes sense for Billy, so you just have to live with it”. 

This was born out of a certain bit of interactions that popped in my head, and then this fic kind of... appeared around that small exchange. Oops. This was also supposed to be a warm-up fic. Double whoops. This fic leans a little more heavily into my personal headcanons for the future timeline (aka: Sticky Notes), which is why the title is in the wheelhouse of Terminology-- albeit skewed to theatre terms since its a Billy POV. You’ll see what I mean.

Not sure if its just going to be one of those Ambiguously Ended One-Shots, or something I’ll continue.

--------------------------------

Billy Doanbee-Ahiro did not do well in crowds. 

Which was ironic considering the fact that he was in a performing arts course, one argument in his head said. To which he would reply-- no, these two facts are mutually exclusive. There is a level of separation between him and a crowd of people if he’s up on stage that he had a modicum of control over. On-stage, he can make the decision of how to play his part, how much he can tap into his own personal experiences. Even minor flubs were a manageable amount of terror for him after years of being desensitized to it.

Here, wedged in a crowd of people in a too-small convention hall it was nerve-wracking to try and navigate the alleys of tables showing off its wares. His hands were permanently locked onto his upper arm as he tried to navigate between the other con-goers and tables and trying not to bump them.

Plus, it didn’t help that the venue didn’t have the best air conditioning set up.

He made his way to a sequestered corner that had the bathroom, mostly to have a frame of reference than anything. There were others sat down a ways away that took advantage of the peace, however slight. He pulled out the map the front desk gave him.

The Piqua Comic Festival was a relatively new venture, from what he heard from Harold and George. Despite the odds-- though what odds were left vague from both of them-- the group that wanted to set this up managed to perform well and was steadily growing.

It was also the first time the both of them had a table with a few Dog Man issues in print. 

They also said it was meant to be a smaller event since its local, don’t worry about it, but the supposedly unprecedented swaths of people milling at assorted tables said otherwise. 

Billy clenched his jaw with a quiet huff. He had promised his boyfriend that he’d show up; it would be unfair to decline, after Harold had sat so attentively at his shows (and he knows how much effort that was for him during Hamlet).

Besides, this may have been the the first time he’s ever been invited to his hometown that didn’t involve his family house.

“It’ll be fine, Billy,” he muttered to himself as his eyes honed in on Table 109 and Dog Man in the same sentence. With great trepidation, he stepped back in.

--------------------------------

The Zine Zone, as the map called it, was on the other side of the hall much to Billy’s dismay. In his simultaneous relief, its secluded nature meant less foot traffic-- and less noise.

Which was why the sudden baritone laugh that he managed to pick up on made him jolt up. A quick glance around the area revealed that it was in the direction of the Dog Man table. From where he was at, he could spot Harold and George faced away from him, along with two other people he didn’t recognize. 

The strangers stood out in a way he couldn’t quite pin down-- it wasn’t quite their advanced age, but it was certainly a factor. They looked like they wandered in on accident or were dragged here at the behest of their child more savvy in the comic scene.

As he continued to walk closer, even that assumption was half-challenged. While the woman looked like she was more ready for a vacation with her floral sundress than to be stuffed into the sweatbox that was this hall, the portly looking man with her was another story. He still had the look of someone who wandered in, but the Dog Man issue he was stuffing into his well-stuffed Comic Festival-branded tote bag clashed with that assumption.

“-- Alright, maybe I should have used the map,” Baritone said before excitedly lifting up the bag. “But! I feel a few detours are worth these, don’t you?”

Harold and George laughed, while Sundress mumbled something.

The man tilted his head. “Not to worry, I’m sure some of these issues will be to his liking, so he won’t be too mad.” His teeth flash in a wince, the picture of a comedic pause. “Hopefully.”

This was a laugh riot to Harold and George. The other vendors and a few of the congoers turn their head towards them. A person’s comically large hat obscured the quartet from Billy and he sidestepped hastily as he continues his approach.

In that short time between that uproar and now, Baritone’s whole demeanor shifted from standing upright to a slouch. His voice didn’t have the same brass as before, let alone the same volume, so his next words were hard to parse. In response, Harold and George give him a firm pat on each shoulder.

“Don’t be a stranger,” Harold said.

The man only grumbles a response as he readjusts his lopsided hairpiece. In that moment, him and Billy make eye contact. This close, he could see his face shiny with sweat, the aged lines on it. His eyes widen, quickly glance at the direction of Harold and George, before speed-walking away stage left.

“I didn’t dress that badly,” Billy says in an aside.

Sundress turned towards him, her face paling. “That’s not the reason at all!” She starts waving her rubber-gloved hands. “He’s, uh... a little sensitive about being here all day, that’s all.”

Harold whirled around. “Billy!”

Before he knew it, he suddenly got an armful of boyfriend on him. “Yes, yes, I missed you too,” he says as he returns the hug.

Harold steps back and his eyes light up, thankfully, at the sight of said attire and Dog Man in a graphic style, running printed on it. “Oh my gosh!”

George appraised it in kind and nods. “Man, we should have hit you up and had you advertise for us.”

“I might as well have, with all the walking I did,” Billy groused before dramatically putting his hand palm-up. “Speaking of, where’s my cut?”

George puts a hand to his chest dramatically. “You got a lot of nerve asking that from indie creatives.”

The mock-severe silence was quickly broken by their laughter. After a moment or two, Billy quickly sobered up as he realized that Sundress was still here for some reason. He quickly stood straight and sidestepped away from the table, jerkily gesturing to the table in the universal gesture of ‘go ahead after me’.

“O-- oh! No, I’m good. We got everything.” She turns towards George. “Maybe we should have a proper catchup later.”

“Good call. We’d probably be beat after this, and we got a few days after that before school starts up again.”

Billy couldn’t help but stare a bit as she made the same exit as her partner did, scurrying to who-knows-where to find him. Somehow, in these past few minutes, he learned more about their past than he ever did in the year he knew Harold and George.

--------------------------------

His thoughts had to be shelved for the moment as the both of them were winding down for lunch. After one quick trip to an overpriced pizza pop-up shop-- that, thankfully was nearby, all three of them settled down with a quarter of a full pizza and soda from the vending machine.

“Ah, can’t beat the classics.” George pulled out a slice, marveling at the strings of taut melty cheese that stubbornly stayed connected. One quick tug and the cheese falls limp where the slice once was. “Want some?”

Billy waved a hand. “Oh-- I don’t want to impose.”

“Oh, we’re imposing,” Harold said. 

He put his hands on his shoulders and firmly pushed him into one of the fold-up chairs. Instead of sitting down in the other chair, he sat down cross-legged on the floor before offering a sandwich triangle in Billy’s direction, which he takes.

Both Harold and George practically inhale their food as quickly as they can and wiped their fingers clean every time someone so much glanced at their direction. It wouldn’t be good if they managed to damage their stock with an errant stain of ketchup.

Billy leaned back on the chair he was offered, taking a more reasonable pace at eating his slice. From where he was sitting, he had a front row view of the arrangement of Dog Man issues they had on display. His eyes glanced over a familiar cover-- it the one that mercurial man was stuffing in his bag earlier.

“Hey--” The both of them perk up. “Who were they?”

“Who’s they?” Harold blinked, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

“You know-- the older guy I scared off and his... partner?”

They shared a look, as they always did. Billy wasn’t surprised by how in-sync they were-- after all, they were friends for practically all their lives. Even if he knew it was stupid and unfounded, his stomach roils in quiet envy at George for that sort of closeness.

“Uh, they’re--”

“From back in our elementary school days,” George finished.

“-- Old friends,” Harold said at the same time, folding up the pizza like a one-bread sandwich. With a smirk he added, “We’ve known them for a bit, too.”

Billy pursed his lips, but he expected as much. Sometimes, it was difficult to parse their statements for any veracity, with the amount of jokes into it. If they said anything at all. Which was strange, because from what little managed to slip, they spoke of their past and Piqua so fondly. 

“A little old to be a classmate,” he commented.

George nearly choked on the last bit of pizza in his mouth, trying his best not to have a lob of cheese stuck in his throat or sending chunks flying table-wards.

“They were...” Even now, Harold glanced to George, despite his predicament. “Faculty from our old school. Edith was the lunch lady.”

The omission of who Baritone was to them did not go unseen.

“You two must have been real teacher’s pets if they came all the way here to see you two again,” Billy hazarded, though that guess felt wrong.

His suspicions were proven right as George’s struggle was for naught. In his attempts to stop himself from snorting chunks out his nose, he put the lower half of his face into several napkins and let out his loudest laugh yet, interspersed with wet coughs. 

Billy hazarded a glance at Harold, who also couldn’t help but let out a snort of laughter.

“Sorry!” he said. “It’s just-- really ironic, what you said.”

“Oh, he--” George wiped his nose. “-- he hated us!”

Billy couldn’t help but jump back at the his outburst. Stranger still was his wide smile at that statement. He looked to Harold, who only nodded in agreement with the sly smile that came from being in on the inside joke.

That roiling feeling in his gut came back. He set the pizza down.

“But it didn’t look like he did,” he retorted. “He was so excited, showing you the merch he got and everything.”

Something in this already-humid atmosphere shifted. Harold sat straighter. George took an a vested interest in wiping his nose again. It was the exact same tension that came when he asked about any specific questions about their hometown, and it was the exact same wide-eyed fear he saw on the stranger’s face.

“You saw--” Before Harold could finish, George cut in.

“Well, he’s more of a closet fanboy about these things.”

And there was the redirect.

“What, did he think I’d gatekeep Dog Man from him?” The words come out harsher than he expected.

Another glance, this time from Harold to George. The latter gave a wary look before leaning back on the chair, if only slight.

“Billy...” Harold started, before stopping immediately. He scratched the back of his head. “Why’s this suddenly so important?”

“Is it that strange to ask what my boyfriend’s hometown is like?” 

Harold stared at him, mouth agape before closing it gently. He could practically feel George trying to look for an opening to jump in. Right now, Billy wanted none of that; he’s at center stage now, and he will not accept any intermissions until he reaches a proper denouement.

“I mean, no, but I--” he sighed. “I’m sorry, really. But also, could we talk about this later?”

Its only then that Billy remembered that they were all at a public venue. It wouldn’t do if he were the cause of why they’re kicked out. And as much as his irritation was flared by the humidity and the scraps of information he couldn’t make sense of, it was still their moment to shine.

Still, though.

“It will be brief, then,” he said. He adjusted his glasses-- a nervous tic he never got rid of. “This is the first time I’ve been to your hometown.”

“I brought you home to meet my family.”

“And only that.” He tilted his head, and he finally, finally voices the ugly assumption that had been nagging in his head ever since he stepped in here. “It’s almost as if you want to hide as much of this place as you can from me.”

From his periphery vision, he could see George wince.

“When it’s my turn to take us out in Columbus, I bring you everywhere, big and small,” Billy explained. “I talk your ear off about so much of my life that I feel like I’m annoying you.”

“You could never annoy me,” Harold replied, like it was a fact of life.

Despite himself, a smile wormed on Billy’s face, the theatrics of the moment bleeding out of him. He slid off the chair and kneels at eye-height to him. “Is it really that bad, wanting to know about who you were? Getting a straight answer about it for once?”

The air is oppressive. The humidity only amplified its weight on all their shoulders. This close, he could see the fine twitches of Harold’s mismatched irises. It flits to where George was, with that same unreadable expression since the conversation took this turn, and a hand hovering over his tie in what he could only assume was a nervous tic of his own.

“Well,” Harold said finally. “It’s because there is no straight answer.”

“Will I ever get one?”

In a sign of good faith, Billy leaned back to balance on the back of his heel. He watched as his boyfriend relaxed, even if it was slight. In turn, that seemed to be the signal George was looking for as he relaxed in kind, lowering the hand at his tie.

The next few seconds stretch on as once again Harold and George look at each other. Their expressions were at different levels of gravity, which felt foreign on either face. Harold’s was of reluctance, with his knitted brows and bit lip. George’s unreadable expression had shifted to something more yielding. 

“It’s your call.”

“We could--”

“You could,” George echoed, before glancing towards Billy’s direction expectantly.

The blood that was drumming in his ears before had dulled down, and shame flooded back in. “I-- I wouldn’t judge, you know that, right?” Billy’s voice was quiet. Then firmer, “You know that, right?”

He searched Harold’s face, and thankfully he saw relief there. But it was a slight thing; his brows were still knitted together in a way he couldn’t quite get, whether it was just the last, trailing bits of anxiety or something deeper.

George stood up suddenly. “You can wrap this up, right?”

Harold nodded. 

Just like that, he made his way to the front of the tables to wave at an approaching entourage of congoers, conveniently standing in front of them to shield them from any potential eavesdroppers.

“Harold?”

“You’re right. Kind of,” he said. 

Billy opened his mouth, but he cut him off gently with a raise of his hand.

“It wasn’t less that I wanted to hide Piqua from you, more like... the other way around.” He looked back up to George, who was now showing off a few issues towards a younger congoer. “Piqua can be a lot. Especially when we’re back here.”

He quietly shelved that strange bit of wording away. Even if it was still next to vague, all of this was a deluge of information than he was used to.

“Is this...” He waved a hand around. “A ‘my hometown is quirky and a city kid can’t handle it’ sort of deal?”

“Ah, well--” Harold made a wiggly hand gesture in the universal sign that meant ‘kind of’, before standing himself up. “I think it would be a little easier to show you.”

“What?” Billy blinked.

“After we swing by my folks’ place--” And he reached a hand out to him. “-- We’re all going to that catch-up party.”