GHOST HOST, GHOST HOUSE EPISODE 08

OP: Difference between winter in southern, northern, and northeast China (dongbei area).

I love animation history and one of the things that always baffled me was how did animators draw the cars in 101 Dalmatians before the advent of computer graphics?

Any rigid solid object is extremely challenging for 2D artists to animate because if one stray line isn’t kept perfectly in check, the object will seem to wobble and shift unnaturally.

Even as early as the mid 80’s Disney was using a technique where they would animate a 3D object and then apply a 2D filter to it. This practice could be applied to any solid object a character interacts with: from lanterns a character is holding, to a book (like in Atlantis), or in the most extreme cases Cybernetic parts (like in Treasure Planet).

But 101 Dalmatians was made WAY before the advent of this technology. So how did they do the Cruella car chase sequence at the end of the film?

The answer is so simple I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me sooner:

They just BUILT the models and painted them white with black outlines 🤣

That was the trick. They’re not actually 2D animated, they’re stop motion. They were physical models painted white and filmed on a white background. The black outlines become the lineart lines and they just xeroxed the frame onto an animation cel and painted it like any other 2D animated frame.

That’s how they did it! Isn’t that amazing? It’s such a simple low tech solution but it looks so cool in the final product.

oh no my pornography is turning into an angst-filled character study

Oh no my angst-filled character study is turning into pornography

I hate when girls who really wanna fuck men do their makeup so they look like overwatch cause men dont even wanna fuck women no more they only wanna fuck overwatch

Hey um quick question have you had sex

No because I'm an ugly smelly obese fat bald mixed race hairy moron woman with bad breath and a tooth gap and I'm really evil too and I hate penis and I hate vagina and I'm catholic and I waz lowkey attacked as a child so if I ever have sex I'm gona throw up and kill myself and others and also I'm broke as hell and really inconsiderate of others and cruel and unfunny and lame and I abuse animals and I gott a hunchback like an igor and two drastically different feeet sizes like whitey from 8 krazy nights, and my toenails are all pointy and ragged and I got a horroble foot fungus and diabetes and high blood pressure But I will be able to have Sex soon if they add an overwatch character who matches my description to a T and I can purchase and wear cheap scratchy ugly unironed bathing suit with creases in it designed off their outfit off amazon, and give myself big ass stupid eyes and blush and fake freckles and always be crossing my eyes and sticking my hairy white unbrushed cigarette tongue out ahegao style!

"Hikaru" hugging Yoshiki's pillow🤲🥹

He just wanted Yoshiki's attention🥹

how it feels to be on tiktok (or in any anti-prevalent space)

y'all remember when we glomped?

Black Sails gives me Rome vibes but on the high seas. They just don't make shows like that anymore.

And what a great intro to a "morally grey" ML. The first few minutes of Ep. 1 promised us A Character and the ending delivered.

Side Notes: yay, sapphics!

Something I appreciate about this show is how it drives its conflict with the characters' preexisting relationships.

Every piece of dialogue is written to reveal something about the characters' past, tensions, and power asymmetry so because no one feels like a blank slate we get great emotional payoff as early as the second episode. Case in point: the convergence of Eleanor and Max's breakup with the schedule sale.

Up until this point, these two women have been on screen together for maybe less than 5 minutes and yet we immediately understand why Max would take such a risk to supply the schedule to Vane and Eleanor would resist the opportunity to run away with her because of her limited commitment and how tied to the island her sense of identity and ambition is.

This show has some of the most efficient character-driven plot writing I've come across in a long time!

THIS SCENE!!!

The cross cutting to heighten the tension and viscerality of the carnage!

Flint's character writing! (A true opportunist.)

The change in stakes now that character loyalties have shifted!

Side Note: I need to know Silver's beach hair routine because while my curls also look better in my Caribbean motherland they don't look that good around salt water without product.

So let me get this straight: not only does Black Sails portray queerness in interesting ways it also tackles racist systems with some degree of nuance?

That conversation between Mr. Scott and the enslaved woman when they were imprisoned together on the ship about servitude and capitulating to the promise of white supremacy was so well done. Mr. Scott is such a fascinating character. On one hand he represents the complex and emotionally fraught pseudofamilial relationships Black slaves and servants were forced into by their white masters. He might care for Eleanor as a daughter and she might respect him and seek his approval like a father figure but ultimately she still has authority over him and is not at all afraid of flaunting it when it serves her best. On the other hand, he is shown to be very strategic and self-possessed, which makes me think there’s more to his character and his long-term goals than meets the eye and I can’t wait for him to become a power player in the region.

The women are so ridiculously hardcore in this show:

You got Miranda sleeping with priests and betraying Flint to “save” him from his pirating life.

You got Max purposefully putting herself in danger servicing Vane’s crew to pay off a debt but most likely to punish her former lover and probably some other 4D chess game plan.

You got Anne willing to murder the man torturing Max to protect her even if it would be political suicide to do so.

You got Eleanor one upping Anne by offering to murder the entire crew so that she can technically save Max but also absolve herself of the guilt she felt betraying her and more importantly establish her reputation as the ruthless HBIC everyone should fear.

The transition between S1 and S2 has been amazing when it comes to the plot but now we have TWO polycules???

Ugh I know I sound like a broken record but this show has such fantastic writing. Three other things I love about the writing is how well it does:

Unity of opposites: I forgot who came up with this term but essentially they argued great tension and conflict comes from characters with opposing personalities, needs, values, goals, etc. who are locked together in a situation where neither can walk away nor back down. So if two characters agree to fake dating, for example, maybe they have conflicting “rules” for how their fake relationship should look like because they have different values. Or if two characters are lost in the jungle and have to work together to get out, maybe they have different problem solving styles and tolerance for uncertainty.

This perfectly encapsulates Flint and Silver's dynamic in the S2.7 scene where Flint suggests Silver should advocate for his captaincy. Flint is fighting for the opportunity for Nassau to self-govern while Silver has only supported him purely for self-gain but Silver can't immediately step away.

And we learn that because of...

Dialogue as fighting: Another great feature of the show is how it always treats dialogue as a fight without necessarily arguing—it’s why all the characters have chemistry with one another (both romantic and otherwise). One character will “attack” (trying to achieve a goal) while the other will “defend” (trying to protect their inner most vulnerabilities and truths). Who plays which role might change from scene to scene and even within the scene but regardless through these interactions the characters come to know one another in ways no one else is privy to. And how characters respond to being “seen” or knowing someone else's truth creates these perfect emotionally laden moments.

A few episodes ago Silver attacked by calling out Flint for resenting his reputation as a villain but in this scene it's now Flint attacking by cruelly pointing out Silver's own vulnerability and how he needs Flint because it's only with him and his crew does his life matter.

Which is why the end of the episode hits so hard with its use of...

Unreliable narration: This show loves withholding information from the audience until its reveal will have maximum impact and Silver lying to Flint about the Urca's status is a perfect example of this. Because this season has spent so much time unpacking Flint's backstory and his motivations, as the audience we're much more in his head and therefore prone to seeing situations through his perspective. So, like Flint, we see Silver's impassioned performance to the crew as a signal that he's capitulated and has decided to go along with Flint's plan when in reality he's scheming with Max to take the Urca himself and therefore making something of himself like Flint named but this time without Flint.

SO GOOD.

Alright show I've finally learned my lesson with the Anne backstory reveal. I won't doubt the long-term vision.

In a show brimming with interesting and well-defined characters, I have to admit I always found Anne's characterization a bit...off, particularly in the language of her character's cinematography and costume design. The affected tip of her hat, the overuse of strong camera angles and close-ups, the low lighting--all of these creative decisions that were made to obscure her face and give her mysterious air sometimes felt like a parody attempt at pirate noir.

But with her backstory reveal, the affectation actually makes a lot of sense. She's a queer woman cosplaying as a heterosexual one. She's a woman pirate cosplaying her male peers. As she tells Max, she never felt like she grew into her own since escaping her traumatic marriage as a young girl:

Her performance as Jack's righthand woman feels as dysmorphic as putting on a dress for the first time in decades.

Now that we've finally seen Anne completely stripped bare, I wonder how the character's camera language and costume design will change. My guess is if she gets recruited by Max to sail with Silver to retrieve the Urca treasure, we'll see a new Anne take advantage of the opportunity at recreating herself unadorned with the trappings of the past. Something like:

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Hey. Stop for a second. Take this moment to appreciate that you don't have to write a paper right now. No one is asking you to write a paper. You don't have to think about the paper or plan your time around the paper. You have the freedom to think about whatever you want. Everything is going to be okay. At least you don't have to write a paper right now

Posting on tumblr is like you say “I think people should be nice to each other” and somebody is like “oh so you hate people that are born in January” and then you’re like. What.

COFFEE PRINCE 커피프린스 1호점 (2007)  1.08: Eighth Cup