“Pleasantly Blue”, 4 Non Blondes, Bigger, Better, Faster, More!
Glitter
and plushies and bruising oh my, Megamind wakes up in shambles without an ounce
of recollection of last night. Minion tries to help him piece it together.
The first thing he feels is his stomach rolling. He’s not sure if he’s
hungry, or needing to throw up really, really badly. Most likely both.
The second thing he feels is his head splitting in half. With the throbbing of
each of his heartbeats there is a lightning bolt of pain striking his skull,
from behind one ear crossing around the back of his head to the other,
pulsating with each pump of his heart.
The third, is how it feels like he’s dying. Truly dying. His heart races as if
it will give out at any moment, since it’s currently at 109 beats per minute.
To the average human, that rate would be the result of an arbitrary exercise
regimen, a brisk stroll through the park if you will.
However, being as the resting heartrate for the all-inclusive Megamind was
clocked in at 36 beats per minute, it sure did feel like one hell of a heart
attack.
He’s having difficulty opening his eyes, feeling as if they’ve been glued shut
somehow, and regardless of the strain he puts into it he feels his efforts are fruitless.
They remain closed.
He listens intently, the gentle hum of electricity surging through the walls
being the only familiar sound. He can feel the delicate caress of silk on his
skin, the weight of a blanket or comforter pulled up to his chin and tucked underneath
his right leg. His head feels to be at an elevated angle, his left leg hanging
idly off the mattress with his booted foot planted firmly on the floor.
He racks his brain for any recollection of the previous night, any hint to his
whereabouts or what led him to his current situation. Reaching up with nimble
fingers the weight of gravity fights against his arm as he tries to feel his
face, finally forcing his eyes open to view his surroundings.
There’s an air of familiarity to the teal covers on the bed he’s resting on,
the lilac toned walls drawing nothing but a thoughtless blank from his mind. He
turns his head as far as the angry little elf hammering away in his skull
allows him to, coming face to face with a smiling whale shark on the pillow next
to him.
He blinks for a few seconds, then decides to succumb to the welcoming call of
deep slumber, letting his eyelids fall prey to the enticing lure of gravity
when a booming WHAM from behind him makes him lose all sense of security,
snapping his head quickly towards the source of the sound that sends a fresh
blooming pain across his field of vision.
“What in the unholy hell?” he mutters to himself as he slowly looks over his
shoulder again, finding his Minion hunched over a gym bag while leaning into a
wall at the edge of the room.
“Sorry Sir, didn’t mean to wake you,” his connate says with a sheepish smile.
“Oh, that’s quite alright Minion,” Megamind assures him with a faint smile, a
wave of relief flooding through the piscean.
Then their faces turn quite the opposite.
“You didn’t wake me so much as GAVE ME A GOD DAMN HEART ATTACK YOU NIT!”
Megamind angrily proclaims, somehow finding the strength to yank the covers
over his head dramatically.
The real flaw with Dreamworks is the marketing!! Like fuck Megamind was marketed as a stand-off fight between the two leads when its actually a huge, beautiful, hilarious dconstruction of the super-hero trope and a punch in the face to the theory of ‘nice guys’ that actually makes me cry sometimes??? (Like sorry Roxanne and Megamind is my OTP for life ok I get feelings about them)
And KFP was marketed as a silly fat joke/lazy kung fu movie but was actually a good look at where people come from and accepting who you are and not letting your limitations and the judgement of others from stopping you, and that sometimes things you thought were limitations are strengths!
And Spirit was marketed as an action packed western for boys when it was basically an ART film about the harm humans can do to the environment and handles the subjugation of Native Americans better than DISNEY did (because if there’s one thing Dreamworks does right its POC, which always leads me to wonder why if a studio considered by most as at best B-list can get it right why CANT EVERYONE ELSE) Honestly Spirit and Hunchback are up there with animated movies that I can’t really believe were intended for children.
And the Croods was presented as a silly caveman joke movie that even I didn’t want to see at first but when I did like!!! FUCK that movie was amazing!!!
AND YES Monsters vs. Aliens was DEF marketed for boys but like??? The main character is a girl and she has SUCH a character arc and its amazing!! God that movie deserved better, it was honestly a really faithful recreation of monster movie tropes.
Like yes Dreamworks has had some freaking astonishing misses ( *cough B Movie cough Shark Tale cough cough*) but they have also made some of the most glorious animated movies of all time and I wish that they got more credit for it. (And even the ‘bad’ ones are still pretty funny. Over The Hedge may not have stuck in people’s minds but I still remember it being an enjoyable movie, and in the end thats honestly enough.)
The Muse of Tragedy – When it comes to romance novels, you like high drama and deep emotion. Tortured heroes, tragic backstories, lovers reaching for one another across the wild pain of an empty world…the more drama, the more heartbreak, the more satisfying the eventual happy ending will be.
You got: Thalia
The Muse of Comedy – When it comes to romance novels, your taste runs to biting dialogue, witty remarks and ridiculous plots. The more over the top it is, the more cutting the criticisms characters make, the more helplessly everything goes wrong, the better.
Calliope: The Muse of Epic Poetry – When it
comes to romance novels, you like drama and intensity. Mad schemes, dark
secrets, plot twists and moments of high emotion are your personal
taste.
Calliope too. I may have written an adventure-with-romance-sauce.
I got…Polyhymnia?? How did I not get Calliope? Huh.
The Murderbot Diaries: All Systems Red is the free ebook for Tor.com’s eBook of the Month Club.
Available from April 6th to April 9th. Download before 11:59 PM ET April 9th, 2018 For US and Canada only.
This is a book you want.
Let me elaborate: Murderbot is a clone/cyborg Security Unit rented out to protect a group of interplanetary surveyors. It has hacked its governor module so it will never again be ordered to murder its owner’s clients. Alas, that doesn’t stop the company from trying to kill its clients in other ways.
Murderbot is an agender, asexual, brave little toaster who just wants to be left in its bunk to consume 35,000 hours of popular media downloads in peace. I can relate to Murderbot.
Waaaaant.
Signal boost for IS/C folks
it really is fabulous and there’s a sequel due out on May 8, 2018
Finally uploading some personal work I did for my portfolio, playing around with the story of Beauty and the Beast but tried placing it in Feudal Japan. The vassals were by far my favorite to do
I widened the hips, widened the thigh, added an extra bit of skirt on Roxanne’s right, lengthened the neck, increased the size of the head, and increased the size of the hair. This made Roxanne taller than the source image, so I copy/pasted and blended the top part of the background behind her.
I also basically restructured the whole face–
I changed the shape of the jawline, eyebrows, nose, and lips, increased the size of the eyes, and changed their position.
Then I used the blend tool on everything to smooth out pixelation!
One trick I’ve learned with photoshop–make a copy of the layer you’re going to work on every time you’re going to take a new step. ‘Step backwards’ only takes you so far; it’s better to have a backup copy if you’re going to do something experimental.
For example, after I had finished the restructuring of her face, I thought “hmm, I feel like her head might need to be bigger?” So I duplicated the layer, hid the original, went to the duplicate layer, and worked on making her head bigger in the duplicate layer, copying and pasting her head and then increasing its size.
Once I’d finished that, I had to lengthen her neck, to make the transition between the head and the neck look smooth. It looked good–but did the bigger head really look better than the smaller head version? Since I had previously duplicated the layer, I was able to quickly and easily switch back and forth between viewing the two versions.
Oh my goodness! I never would have guessed this was originally Anne Hathaway (although I can definitely see how you would have made the connection from the original image).
Your work here is amazing and perfect! I love how you fully embrace the reality of Roxanne’s figure and made the small changes to thicken certain areas beyond just her trademark hips (like her thigh). As a “extra curvy” ciswoman myself, I really do love seeing how people with dimensions beyond just “Hollywood Thin” can be just as beautiful (Actually, I think I find Roxanne’s thigh more asthetically pleasing??)
@laventa
this came out different than planned idk I kind of like it ?? I immediately saw ‘I love you’ and ‘don’t do that to yourself’ and thought of Harriet and Snape and I made this tbh I wanted to for a while now but I’m shitty at this} {I’m in love with these fics, they are truly amazing and everyone should go read the never ending road and its sequel bc you wont regret it because laventadorn is such a talented writer like holy s h i t
setepenre-set 