please teach kids that its not normal to be in pain all of the time, we also need to start taking kids seriously when they talk about pain or difficulty physically, kids and teens can absolutely have chronic pain, medical conditions and disability that you cannot see. a kid isnt going to lie to you about being in pain 24/7 repeatedly.
Id just like you guys to know that I essentially cannot write. My brain is literally mush at this point like if you stuck your hand in my head it would feel like overnight oats with a little too much water in it. The ideas are rattling around like a pinball in my fucking skull but I cannot put them to word document no matter how I try
Asamiya Kia’s first artbook in 20+ years hit shelves this week and for once my copy arrived fairly quickly. Titlted Réunion, this book covers the artist’s entire manga career from well known 90s titles like Silent MöbiusandNadesico right through to his more recent efforts like JUNKandKanojo no Carrera. If you’re looking for any of his anime art you won’t find it here, this is exclusively for his printed media (and you can find his older anime work released under his actual name, Kikuchi Michitaka, in older artbooks like “The Next Generation”). If you’re a fan of his manga however, you’re in for a treat as this is a fairly comprehensive release.
Now when I say “if you’re a fan of his manga” that really is loaded, isn’t it? Look I’ll level with you, Asamiya’s manga art has changed significantly over the years to the point where his early works like SaimebiandVagrants look vastly different to Corrector YuiandSpe-Ope! He was also an early adopter of digital processes in the 90s and more recently increased his use of reference photos in his doujinshi releases too (like, to an obvious degree). All of which impacts how his work has evolved over time.
To put it simply, there’s 288 pages of art in here and depending on which works of his you like, you’re either going to see the 4400 yen price tag as a bargain for all the great art from series you love or a rip off for all the mediocre art from series you don’t care about. I’d have to say I sit probably between the two, while I’m not a huge fan of the way Asamiya’s art has evolved he did still help create some of my favourite series. So while a lot of his recent work just isn’t for me, I was satisfied with the amount of early artwork here that did tick my boxes.
Anyway, good things about this art book:
A shitload of pictures. Like there is PLENTY of art here which makes it heavy to ship but worth it if you’re keen on having a lot of his art in one place.
The book covers most major releases (manga, DVDs) from each title, including more recent ones (so you have original 90s book art from Compiler but you also have the cover Asamiya drew for the 00s DVD release of the series).
Quality paper, quality printing – honestly the work looks good.
Comments from Asamiya for each illustration that give you an idea on the background behind each pic (like when he was first testing out effects in early Photoshop or what inspired a particular pose). It gives you some insight which is nice.
There are some rare pieces of art represented here that you won’t find in good quality anywhere else (the Kiddy half-naked in jeans pic, for example, has never been published in quality like this before).
Bad things about this art book:
Not nearly as comprehensive as it could have been. Don’t get me wrong I like that Saimebi QD is included here (for posterity if nothing else) but the section on the original series is rather lacking. Off the top of my head there’s no Saimebi bunkobon covers included, no kanzenban covers included, no DVD covers included, etc. This goes for most of the bigger series featured in this book (Kanojo no Carerra doesn’t have a fraction of its overall art here). I’d honestly have preferred they split this into two books to give the bigger titles more representation because argh, we could have had it all!
Far too many lovely pictures ruined by being placed across the spine. Why do publishers insist on doing this? There’s some incredible art for series like Corrector Yui and ALL the Dark Angel manga covers that are spread across two pages to their absolute detriment. Hate this practice (see above in the pics for a gorgeous Saimebi spread that’s ruined by this placement).
There is some overlap between older pics from art books GAIA and VENUS, but there’s also a lot missing from this era. Again, points off in terms of comprehensiveness. (But I do have to say the quality of this book remains vastly superior to the old ones.)
Overall though look I’m very happy I purchased this to get what I got. The pictures from series I like look amazing and even the ones I don’t care about as much are nicely represented. My gripes are really just wistful desires for more of what we have and better organisation, none of which are exclusive to this release.
So my advice is that if you like Asamiya and want to own a collection that covers all his major manga releases, get this book.
Some selected screenshots from my conversation with this person. She tried to wiggle out of it at first by saying my watermark was on the pic (it’s not, it’s cropped) which, even if it was, I asked her to deleteit. Then she got defensive and told me it was my own fault for publishing it - after all, if you don’t want someone to steal your stuff, you shouldn’t post it.
And then she tried to turn it around on me by accusing me of looking at her page - her public page, which she had linked to in the chatroom for us all to look at. And to subtly gang up on me by bringing up this other person.
And then she tried to trivialise the whole thing by saying that because art theft isn’t fatal to the victim, it’s fine.
She’s@emmajoneskilliansladylove on Instagram, @killianjonesownsmyheart1 on Tumblr. I don’t want to start any drama, and there honestly isn’t any point in trying to talk to her, so please don’t send her any messages on my behalf or anything like that. Don’t get involved. I’m just saying it for transparency, so you can be aware of who this person is and what she’s like and what her attitude to other people’s work is. If she steals yours, I’d say don’t bother engaging her, just report it and be done with it.
Oh man. I think that’s the one @sherlockianwhovian has been having problems with, too, right??
Yes, this is the same person who has been harassing me for over a year now.
I blocked them after they tried to aggressively guilt me into writing a fic for them, they’ve then continued to demand to be unblocked for months - getting friends to pass on messages to me, making new accounts, trying to attract my attention in Discord groups - and just this week they’ve asked people to share anything I post with them because they can’t see it due to the block.
I know for a fact that multiple people (including myself) have told them to stop messaging me and yet they continue.
Please be aware of this person, they not only harass but also steal work and become extremely aggressive when confronted.
I’ve just seen that they also stole my art. The fact that they had the audacity to thank a person as if they created it and they were complimenting them.
god this is so shitty. i’m sorry that y’all are all having to deal with it. :(
don’t repost works, ever, without explicit consent from the creator. if they give you permission, give them credit. don’t harass people to make things for you, ever. if they accept requests, then send a request, but don’t expect anything unless it’s a commissioned work and you’ve paid them for their time and effort. they’re very simple rules, not hard to remember, and should be the standard across all fandoms. basic courtesy. common decency. don’t be a dickhead.
We actually banned this person from one of the Discord servers for harassing @sherlockianwhovian and constantly asking people for help getting around the block.
While this might seem like a case of “Person stealing an artist’s work” (and it is), it’s more than that. People in the server had tried to explain to her multiple times, clearly and politely and as kindly as possible, that she was flouting etiquette and needed to cut it out. It did not make any difference at all.
I don’t know if she understands that she’s behaving really inappropriately and harassing people, or if she’s genuinely incapable of understanding, but it doesn’t really matter. At this point, I feel pretty comfortable speaking publicly about her behavior and harassment because speaking to her directly about it has done absolutely nothing, and folks may want to preemptively block.
I’m incredibly grateful to the mods of that Discord server who were wonderfully patient and understanding about the whole thing. <3
This isn’t a recent thing, it does date back months and months and it’s a frankly worrying trend of behaviour.
Agreed. This person shows no remorse or consideration for what she has done and sees nothing wrong with doing it. I hate to make this into a witch hunt but I for one have had enough. Googling something is NOT an excuse, because even that has filters where you can find ‘free to repost’ items - which normally automatically excludes fanarts from the search I might add. This person has ruined making art for me and the last time they stole my art I didn’t make any for a while. The muse was gone, and I was afraid to share my art because of the time it takes to prove it is yours and get it removed. I know I shouldn’t have been, but when you put hours into something and someone can claim it as their own with two clicks of a mouse, then it’s a little disheartening. And this if course ruins it for the rest of the fandom who are there to enjoy the art too but miss out.
I have a question for everyone. If I block someone of Tumblr, does that stop them seeing my posts other reblog?? Like, can they steal art from a reblog? I hate watermarking things but that’s what’s got to happen from now on. I usually put my sig in an uncroppable place but it’s easily erased.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop them from seeing it, only from reblogging it/liking it. Which is a big problem with Tumblr. If we block someone they shouldn’t be able to see our stuff and we shouldn’t be able to see theirs. She’ll still be able to steal it.
It also won’t stop it from showing up in Google etc searches, which is where she (and I think a lot of others) got a lot of art from. It sucks. I would definitely advise putting a watermark on your work. I hate doing it too, but it’s at least a little bit of protection, and when it says “do not repost” on the image itself, people have to actively ignore that so it puts at least some people off.
But this… THIS is what happens, and why this matters in a fandom. Having your stuff taken, copied, used, etc, kills motivation and makes people want to stop creating. It IS disheartening. There’s no “shouldn’t” about it, @artistic-writer, it’s a totally normal reaction. The whole reason why I stopped making certain kinds of edits is because people kept reposting them, and I did NOT want them on Twitter with actors tagged in them. That made me really uncomfortable, and the only way to stop people from doing it was to stop making the content.
So this behaviour leads directlyto less fan content being created. That’s not what I want. I don’t think that’s what anyone wants.
And that’s why I said something and called it out. I honestly had no idea how much damage this person had already caused to other people and I’m glad it’s all come to light now. Because I think a) it’s important for people affected by this to know they aren’t alone, and b) this isn’t a personal feud or difference of opinion, it’s behaviour that’s going to directly or indirectly affect everyone, and if someone is going around mistreating my friends, putting them off making things, and trying to ruin things for everyone, I want to know about it.
oh wow it’s been a while, hasn’t it. welp, I’m good. played ReMind and it was really really great! So now I’m back to streaming the main game, but I’m working towards ultima along with oathkeeper (gonna have to wait until critical for oblivion). Also I got an elgato for Xmas, so I’ll be using that from now on!
I also will of course be coming back and reblogging/posting shit, thanks a lot kh fandom
I’m talking about Book!Eowyn. This is important to remember because she’s so very different from Movie!Eowyn.
When I first read Lord of the Rings I was 11, which looking back was way too young to fully understand them. Rereading them when a was as a mature, wise eighteen-year-old (yes, that counts as an adult) I find myself looking at Eowyn differently.
As a kid, I felt like she was a good example of how to not write a female character. She was going to commit suicide just because a random guy didn’t like her, and she ends the story marrying a random dude and deciding to stay in the kitchen. Like a lot of people, I thought her entire character was pretty sexist. Of course, I loved Movie!Eowyn. She was my idea of a good female character: a spunky warrior who smashed the patriarchy.
Between 11 and 18 I’ve struggled with depression a lot. My experiences with that and other mental illnesses put Lord of the Rings in a completely different light. Its funny no one mentions exactly how much it’s about conquering depression. That’s practically the main theme of the book. Every character suffers from depression at one point, every character gives up all hope at least once, and it’s the constant, unseen enemy. The Nazguls personify despair, but we see less blatant examples too. Eowyn’s journey is possibly my favorite.
Eowyn’s situation when we first meet her is pretty terrible. Her cousin has recently died, her brother is banished and on a suicide mission, and there’s a creepy guy constantly trying to make moves on her. Her kingdom is about to be overrun and her people are being killed, and there’s nothing she can do about it. What’s worst, her uncle, who’s practically a father to her, is being manipulated and weakened. She watched him grow weaker every day and there’s no way she can help him. She’s royalty, born for greatness, but she’s stuck helplessly watching everything around her crumble and rot.
That sort of depression, the kind when you fear your own helplessness and inability more than anything when you are unable to fight back, doesn’t have a name. But those who have faced it know how draining and debilitating it is, especially when you feel that you have to stay strong for those around you.
Then Gandalf and co come in and save the day, Eowyn sees a way out. She sees Aragorn and becomes obsessed with him. Not because she’s actually in love with him, but because she sees him as a great king who will give her a chance to fight, a chance to be great, a chance of freedom.
But then he leaves on what seems like a suicide mission, and she knows her uncle and brother are on their way to a battle they probably won’t return from. She, however, is stuck once more, left behind to watch her world fall apart while she can do nothing.
Her soul has been worn away by the endless waiting. She has no hope left that the power of Mordor can be defeated because she has watched it invade her very home while she could do nothing. In many ways, she’s similar to Denethor, who was destroyed by doing nothing but watching the enemy creep closer. But Denethor’s paralysis was by choice. Eowyn has no choice, she rarely does. She has no control over anything. And the one person she thought could save her and her kingdom is leaving on what seems like a hopeless journey.
Eowyn is no longer afraid of dying. She’s reached rock bottom at this point. All she wants is a chance to make a difference, to make a choice for once in her life. So she disguises herself as a soldier and marches off to battle she doesn’t plan to come back from.
And of course, she takes Merry, who might not be as desperate but also feels pretty helpless.
We all know what happens next. That scene is so famous, it’s probably one of the best moments of the books. It’s way better in the book the movie: Eowyn laughs before her “I am no man,” line. But looking further into it the scene is about as heartbreaking as it is awesome. Eowyn’s laughing because at last, she’s doing something. At last, she’s able to at least try to make a choice. A choice at how she will die, heroically, defending her king and father-figure to the last. The Nazgul, whose weapon is soul-crushing despair, has no effect on her because she’s faced it day after day. And that despair had no face and no form and she couldn’t fight it. And now, finally, in her last moments, she has a chance to fight it.
And she does.
But instead of dying, she’s wounded, and yet when Aragorn heals her she finds that not much has changed. She still believes that their defeat at the hands of Mordor is inevitable, and she’s still determined to die in the best way she can. If she can’t control her life, she might as well control her death.
But she can’t even control that. Aragorn and the others insist that she stays behind to heal while they once again head off to a hopeless last stand. Yet again she’s trapped, helpless, waiting for Mordor to win and overrun everything.
She killed a Ringwraith, but nothing much changed.
Then she meets Faramir. He’s the first person she lets see her as anything but strong. She allows herself to cry before him, and later on, draws close to him when she thinks the armies of Mordor are coming. This is a sharp contrast to the way she treated Aragorn, constantly trying to prove her strength to him. She lets Faramir see her pain and her fear. Faramir knows quite a bit about despair himself, and he’s watched at least one loved one (his father) be destroyed by it already. He wants to save Eowyn from her own hopelessness. The two grow close, and Eowyn allows herself to melt a little.
Finally, after Mordor falls, Faramir asks her if she loves him, or Aragorn. Like many love triangles, this one is symbolic. Aragorn offered what she thought she needed: a chance to have control of her life, to be great queen, to have control over her world. But he was never going to love her back, and great deeds were never going to heal her.
Faramir offered a simple life. He wasn’t a king, her place as second in line to Rohan was much higher than his. But he loves her, and she loves him. He gave her a chance to be a healer, a mother, and a wife. She was never going to heal chasing the impossible, striving for a last heroic stand. She had to stop fighting and let herself heal.
Ironically enough, killing the personification of despair didn’t conquer Eowyn’s depression, finally accepting someone else’s love and letting herself a chance to heal did.
Eowyn’s story is not about a battle against evil hordes or even the patriarchy, but of a battle against depression. She is so much more than a spunky heroine or a tragic lover. Her character is complex and her despair feels very real because many of us have felt it.
Many people, including me at first, felt like Eowyn’s ending was sexist. But Tolkien never saw battle as heroic or good. We naturally see it sexist that our heroine retires to become a healer and wife because we’ve been taught that those things aren’t ‘heroic’ or ‘cool’. But Tolkien’s heroes rarely are skilled in battle, and over and over again we are given the message that true strength is not what it seems.
The great ones: Denethor, Boromir, Theoden, and Saruman are easily corrupted. The small, unimportant hobbits who like to cook and garden (fairly traditionally feminine activities) are the strongest of all. Even Aragorn is recognized as a king due to being a healer, not a warrior.
Eowyn’s story is another one in which Tolkien shows us that true strength isn’t killing a terrifying demon but letting yourself hope again.
Sorry for taking so long on Aizawa! I just got a little overwhelmed this week working on too many projects at once but I’m back on track now so he should be posted soon! Thank you for being so patient with me
