He's Innocent, Your Honor!

IN THE JUNGLE ☾

also EXTREMELY key point the director keeps explicitly using words like 'queer contents' and 'queer works' (even when the koreans are referring to things like skam or cmbyn as 외국 BL작품 'foreign bl works' which is itself interesting...) AND he says he told them not to watch korean bl shows as reference

家主が…あやしいことをはじめました。いつも「だんごは丸くあるべき」と言うくせに、へんなかたちです。

Today, my landlady suddenly started something strange... Although she always says "Dango should be round 🍡", these are different...

ごまをすって…

Next she made roasted sesami powder...

きなこも よういしました。どちらも くろみつでねります。

And she prepared kinako, the soy beans powder. Both were mixed with brown sugar syrup.

だんごはしっかりゆでると ういてきます。ちゃんとうくまでまって、そしてしっかりひやすのがだいじと言います。

Dango will float up when they are boiled well. We have to wait this floating and cooling by water, and those are important to make good dango.

かんせい……「オレとちっさいののなかよしだんご」…ま、オレにはだんごのみりょくは まったくわかりませんけどね…

She cooked dango with the image of Little and me... Hmm, of course I can't understand dango's attraction any at all...

whenever i think about playing stardew valley i realize i don't really want to play stardew valley, what i WANT to play is harvest moon another wonderful life lesbian edition but that doesn't exist

I know I talk about mdzs modern AUs a lot, but it's just somehow become a fascinating adaptation process to me, all these people making their personal calls about the nature of reality.

And a thing I keep coming back to is all the people who deliberately decide to give modern!wwx Mo Xuanyu's build.

To preserve the strength contrast that's leveraged for horny, which like, yeah that's fair, horny is an acceptable reason to make a story choice. I respect that, sometimes grudgingly.

But as a result of noticing this being done, oftentimes it seems without any reflection about why, I've developed this minor obsession with the fact that wwx in his own body at its adult height was fractionally shorter than lwj.

And this was the height he reached after a multi-year period in childhood living on scrounged garbage, plus the three months starving in the mass grave toward the end of his growth period.

Meaning that by all normal logic, a modern AU wwx who did not experience these periods of intense privation--which is most of them; it's quite rare for children to experience that particular form of total neglect in modern developed nations and modernAU!wwx's life ruining circumstances only occasionally involve intense physical torment--is going to be significantly taller as an adult.

Like. Add a few inches on there.

Where are all my adequately nourished six-foot-four Wei Wuxians???

How did you get so good at drawing such expressive bodies/faces??? tell me your secrets!! (But srsly your skills are amazing)

AAAA THANK YOU!!

I think my initial inspiration was about 10-11 years ago watching Adventure Time and finding Rebecca Sugar’s boards. Sometimes I get a little frustrated because she gets so much more notoriety than the other very very amazing AT boarders, but….. her expressions man…. she was always able to convey so much with SO LITTLE. (SU’s expressions are on another level of course, but I think AT’s are just so impressive to me because they’re dot eyes)

But the thing is!! I’m also a fan of deadpan. Which AT also does very well. It’s tempting to want to do BIG, extreme expressions at every moment, especially in comedic comics, but you really don’t need to. I find that characters often feel more expressive if you reel it in more often. That way, when you DO have bigger expressions, they FEEL bigger!

for example, a panel where the contrast between big and subtle expressions sells the contrast:

I don’t really,,,, know exactly what I do that works, ?? I kind of just like, think of the emotion I wanna convey, make the expression, think about what my face feels feels like, and try to convey that. Using a mirror helps!! You’ll feel a little stupid but it’s funny.

some misc expression tips:

Definitely prioritize eyebrows, eyes, and mouths!

Noses aren’t as important BUT flared nostril can totally sell an expression, so it depends!

Remember that your upper jaw is stationary, and your lower jaw can move, and then your lips and cheeks can move all around that!

Just subtly changing the placement of eyelids and location/size of irises can completely change an expression

Don’t be afraid to make your characters look weird or stupid.

Don’t reinvent the wheel! Take reference from different media you like that stylize expressions in different ways, and find what works for you. I take a lot of inspiration from AtLA

Again, NUANCE! Like, when most people are sad, they do their very best to try NOT to cry. People hold things in. Sometimes what characters don’t say can speak louder than what they do.

some expressions I’ve done that have varying levels of nuance:

Also framing!! You can use the composition to help project how the character feels:

As for body language!

Having a better sense of three-dimensional form and anatomy isn’t necessary, but it sure helps a lot

Hands!! I have adhd and my family is italian so I use my hands a lot when I talk. But even still, most people don’t just leave their hands hanging loosely by their sides. People cross their arms and fidget with their zippers and put their hands in pockets.

Head, neck, and shoulders. If you can master the foreshortening of these overlapping shapes at most angles, you will be very powerful

Hips & feet!!!!! People RARELY stand straight with both feet flat on the ground with even balance. Most people will shift their weight to one hip, leaving one leg looser and at an angle. It also helps to practice perspective, because people also rarely stand with their heels lined up side by side. One leg may get kicked foreward or loosely bent backwards. I sometimes cross my legs when I stand.

Ultimately, if you want more lifelike expressions and poses, study from life!! Don’t worry about your drawing being “good” or “bad”, instead think about what can make it successful. Ask yourself, “is this conveying the expression I want to convey?” and if it’s not, figure out what you need to change to get it there.

i’m choosing to ignore the shot of the lone fish in the tank symbolising the fact that jaewon feels alone, his club dissolved and his boyfriend...somewhere.  that’s definitely not happening. everything is fine.

the eighth sense said let’s scare everyone. total silence for the title sequence.  i feel like i’m in the hospital waiting for updates on my blorbos in emergency surgery with only the sound of my anxious beating heart in my ears; i have a feeling the boys will be okay but do we really have to sit in complete silence while waiting for confirmation??

Sometimes I feel weird identifying as aromantic AND polyamorous, because people act like it's somehow impossible, but, like...I really love the label aromantic, because I don't feel like I experience romantic attraction the same way as allos.

I don't consider romantic attraction important in a relationship at all, because I just don't really seem to feel it very strongly? Like, for me, an intimate partnership is grounded in being extremely good friends, being willing to care for each other emotionally, and building a life together. Romance doesn't have to be a part of it at all, but I'm not, like, repulsed by romance most of the time, so sometimes I'm cool with romancey-type stuff.

But, like, it's just not vital to me. But I like having multiple intimate partnerships because it feels comforting and stable not to rely solely on one partner for everything, y'know?

So anyway, shout-out to all the other aromantic polyamorous people!!! We exist, damn it!!!

“What else is pressuring you?” THE EIGHTH SENSE (2023) - Episode 4.