I have weird taste.
I sometimes see art of animals and food. As in, a cat sitting in a cup of boba. Or an owl sitting in a bowl of ramen. An animal wouldn't want to sit in a cup of soup. Except maybe a raccoon, which will eat anything. They'd get gross and sticky. And who would ever want to eat something that an animal had been sitting in?
Am I being too literal? Absolutely. But these are the things when I see pictures like this.
But if you give me a cat that's MADE of boba, I love it.
I just finished Arcane: League of Legends a couple days ago.
Through season 1, I was impressed by the animation. But I never liked how the series made me feel. Whenever I finished watching for the day, I felt angry or upset.
I liked a lot of the characters. And then because I like picking out my favorite characters, I landed on one at the end of season 1. Viktor. Which is especially funny, because I was so suspicious of him at first. When he said that he came from nothing, I immediately got an image that I've seen elsewhere. A sort of "I clawed my way up from nothing, and I'll be damned if anyone tries to take that from me. Maybe I can use this magic to gain more." Except I was so wrong. This show loves to trick you about characters, so maybe they even intended something like that. But Victor ended up having a genuine desire to help people.
I won't turn this post into a full analysis of Viktor. Though if I ever do watch the series again, I can't promise that won't happen. And if I do watch it again, it will probably be to get a better grasp on Viktor.
I just looked up a few clips of him on Youtube. I love his expressions. And he has so much more enthusiasm before the first time skip. Before the disease takes its toll. There are actually some funny moments in there, which I didn't appreciate when I first watched the show. I love it when a character makes me laugh.
Jayce asks, "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Viktor shrugs and grimaces. Jayce does it anyway.
And what happens when he gets caught picking a lock? "Wait a minute, this isn't my bedroom!"
Plus he likes big weird monsters, so that's even better (Actually, Rio is adorable).
Yeah. After watching those clips, I love this guy.
And now,
In season 2, everything kind of fell apart for me. The animation was still amazing. But they crammed so many things into the season that a lot of them never felt clear, or resolved. Like the Black Rose?
And I stopped understanding why characters were behaving the way they did. I just talked to Nicole about it today, and she said she felt like she'd missed an episode. Which is exactly how I felt, twice.
I had just decided that Viktor was my favorite character, and was horrified by his injuries. Then I was glad to see that when Viktor got powers, he immediately tried to help people. Though I could tell something was off about it. But then all of a sudden he became the ultimate evil in the show? I was so blindsided and confused. What had happened to all of his morals? I knew something was strange, but immediately before that, Viktor had still been trying to help Vander. I couldn't grasp such a dramatic change happening so immediately. Especially the fact that he allied himself with a warmonger, who killed many people during the final battle. How could Viktor be okay with allowing that much death? I wondered if he was kinda possessed by that weird magic, or something? And he died, but then somehow came back? I had no idea what was happening during that whole scene.
When Jayce reappeared from getting sucked through the vortex, he immediately killed someone. That shocked me. Then Viktor said that person wasn't actually Jayce? But it was Jayce? I still don't understand any of that. And then we see where Jayce had gone to that broken future. He was getting infected by that weird magic stuff through his wound. And his food too, if I remember correctly? There seemed something seriously wrong with him. But then he was fine when he got back home?
Jinx's psychotic episodes also seemed to completely stop in season 2, though she certainly wasn't in any better state of mind.
Vi and Caitlyn attacked Ambessa, then just leave her there? Why the heck didn't they try to lock her up or something? It felt like such a half-ass maneuver, which of course backfired badly.
And they brought Vander back for a brief moment, only to make his life worse than death?
Did they really kill that cute kid just to teach Jinx a lesson? It really didn't feel like Isha had to die. The whole situation felt contrived. Just because Jinx couldn't stand up quite fast enough, Isha kills herself to save Jinx?
I was glad that Viktor was shown not to really be evil at the end. Jayce says that Viktor's imperfections were important. And I love the sentiment. But it felt really weird when Jayce said that he appreciated the illness that was about to kill Viktor? I don't think that was meant literally, but it was weird.
Anyway, that's just a sampling of what confused me.
On a positive side, I liked the episode where Ekko saw the better world. I think he might be my second favorite character. Like Viktor, Ekko was also working desperately to help people.
So, it's been well over a year, but I've gotta plan some Fern interventions. Especially to help Viktor. He didn't deserve that ending.
My cousin wanted to check out the spring Sacanime convention. To my astonishment, Don Bluth was one of the guests. That's right - the guy responsible for films such as The Land Before Time, and Secret of NIMH. Who gave Disney a run for its money for a while. One of the most famous American animators.
While we waited in line, I checked out some of the other convention guests. Jeff Bennett would have been cool to meet. He played characters like Kiki's dad in Kiki's Delivery Service. I never got the chance to talk to him though.
I really wanted to meet Sam Vincent. He voiced Julian in Cardcaptors (or Yukito, if you don't watch the older English version). I really liked Julian as a kid, though it's only recently that I realized why. In the shows/movies I had, he was the only teenage boy that was really sweet and kind. I wanted to tell the actor how much that character meant to me, but once again I didn't get the chance.
It took about an hour for my cousin and I to reach the front of the line. We read the price list, bewildered. A signed poster was $120. He'd also written a book, and an autographed copy of that was $80. So I bought the book. I want to read it anyway. To get the book personalized in any way, even just your name, would cost an extra $40. When they asked for my name, I gave it. And when they tried to charge me for it, I said no. So they crossed it out.
Seriously, how do they figure out these prices? Fanime hasn’t charged me for an autograph. Does Sacanime just do this so they can skim off a lot of the money? Because some of these guests don’t seem like their autograph should cost $50.
When we stepped up to meet Don Bluth, he autographed my book, and wrote my name anyway. So that was cool. He said that if I bought his book, I must be able to read. I said I like learning how things are made. And that my graduate project had been about environmental fiction, so I’d discussed themes in The Secret of NIMH and Titan AE. He didn’t have any response of that. But I think he commented on my Haku plush, because I ended up saying that I should make a Mrs. Frisby plush. He encouraged that idea. So I guess I’d better do it. I wish I could show him the result. It sounds fun. I already have the perfect pattern.
It was a pretty quick meeting, after waiting for an hour and paying $80. I asked my cousin if she’d talked to him. She said she smiled at him, and was charged $5. I laughed. It sounded like the kind of thing that would have been on the price chart.
Don Bluth had a panel coming up. Joining him were three voice actors from The Land Before Time: Gabriel Damon-Littlefoot, Candice Hutson-Cera, and Dan Molina-Spike. I was crazy about that movie in preschool. Me and some friends would pretend we were the characters. One of those girls ended up playing in band with me years later. She was an absolutely fabulous trumpet player. We played a whole piece featuring her. I hope she still plays.
The four panelists talked for a bit. (Spoilers) Don Bluth talked about the scene where Littlefoot’s mom dies. He said that it was inspired by the scene in Bambi. Then he recited the whole build-up to the meadow. He combined the two meadow scenes, but the dialogue was spot-on.
He said that digital animation is just puppetry. I can see his point of view. It's an entirely different art form to hand animation. He also said that AI isn't art. It doesn't feel. Amen to that.
It opened up for questions. One person asked Don Bluth which movie he though was worse: A Troll in Central Park, or The Pebble and the Penguin. The crowd erupted in protest and I laughed. Don Bluth said that he’d trash both of them. Either he was joking, or he hadn’t gotten to do those movies the way he wanted to.
At another point, he said that all of his films are about bringing family back together. And that someone had calculated how long it would have taken Walt Disney to animate and ink Pinocchio all by himself. 400 years. So the entire crew of the film is worth praising.
I got in line to ask a question. I figured that this was my first chance to ask a filmmaker about environmental themes in their work. But Don Bluth didn’t answer that question. Instead, because I mentioned Secret of NIMH, he talked about his idea for a sequel in which NIMH realized that the rats were smart, and came after Mrs. Brisby’s family. I thought it was hilarious that he answered a totally different question, but it was a cool response. I wonder if he’s not interested in environmental problems, and it was just a side-effect of story. But I'm curious what that sequel would look like.
Hmmm.
I just did something that even I didn't really expect. I got a tattoo XD
Of a fern. What else? A design I've had in my head for probably over fifteen years. I always knew if I got a tattoo, it would be this. (Then again, my dad's covered in tattoos, so anyone that knows him might not be surprised that I got one too).
We have a family friend who does tattoos. But I didn't know until recently how well known he is as a tattoo artist. I thought it would be simple, but he made it really fancy! He said taht "elaborate" is his middle name.
I can't show you, because it's bandaged up XD And it hurts! He said that leg tattoos often hurt more than expected.
I need to figure out how to make my Beauty and the Beast story more exciting. There's almost no action until the end. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I want more than people just talking and getting to know each other.
Luckily Maya does have some good stories to tell, so those could be like cool interludes.
And since Maya reads a lot of books, I'm wondering if I could include scenes from those. I'm not sure how well that would fit in, but I might try it.
