Aryashi's Opinions

I feel like I need to say something on here for reasons that should be self evident, but David Lynch is no longer with us

do you think a cornered mouse would dream of cheese

come on man

there's a point in your life on the internet where "oh, it's a weird sex thing" becomes reassuring. there's so many worse reasons that people do things. fly your flag mate

happy new year yall

[ID: art of four happy snakes, curled up into the numbers "2025." One blows a party horn, and another wears a party hat while flicking its tongue. Confetti falls around them. End ID.]

It feels like this every time I write a fic

the world is running out of glassblowers and yet you want to become a fucking doctor

One of the most jarring moments of my university education was in a physics class when I was given a device that measures gravity and was told “this cost the university sixteen thousand dollars, but the only glass blower in the world who could make the glass springs inside it died so it’s literally irreplaceable. If you drop it those springs will shatter. Go fuck around with it for a day and take some measurements”

If you are truly interested in becoming a scientific glassblower, Salem Community College in New Jersey has a 2 year associates degree program for it, and if you actually complete it, you’re practically guaranteed a job in the field if you want one.

The program is amazing. I spent a year in that program before getting into an MFA program. If you really want to learn how to flamework glass, there is no better place to do so IMO.

A weird quirk about that program is that it also attracts a number of pipe makers (at least when I went there in the mid 2010s).

10/10 would definitely recommend.

fanart for Prim_the_Amazing's AWESOME qijiu fic, Masochism. Read it now.

I just realized...........the jury selection process for the UHC shooter is gonna be BANANAS. Like Martin Shkreli to the nth power. *Everyone* in the US has a story about being fucked over by insurance, personally or in their closest circles. Gonna be wild.

Like this but. Way more.

Not being able to draw my favorite character the way I envision them in my mind

[image description: reaction image of a woman biting her laptop angrily.]

I cannot overstate how much I love Tom Lehrer's story. It sounds so fake but is entirely real.

He's a goddamn genius- he started studying mathematics at Harvard when he was 15 and graduated magna cum laude. He worked at Los Alamos for a few years before being drafted and working for the NSA, where he claims to have invented jello shots to get around alcohol bans.

He then went back to Harvard for a couple years before starting to teach political science at MIT.

Through all of that, he was writing and performing both some of the funniest shit you'll ever hear (Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, Masochism Tango) and absolutely scathing political satire (Who's Next, Wernher von Braun, Send the Marines). Until the mid/late 60s counterculture gained momentum. He didn't like their aesthetic, so he stopped making music.

Shortly after, he moved to California and started teaching math and musical theater history at the UC Santa Cruz for the next 30 years.

I don't know if non-Californians understand just how goddamn funny that is. It's where stoners and math (and now computer science) kids who couldn't get into Berkeley go. Leaving Harvard/MIT for UCSC is peak academic phoning it in. And by all accounts he had a blast.

Plus the whole putting all of his music in the public domain thing. That fucked.

Also he is still alive! 95 years old as of November 2023.

The other day @piecesoftape sent me a text that said, "you probably got a notification for this, but Tom Lehrer outlived Kissinger."

There's a quote attributed to Lehrer, probably in answer to why he stopped performing, that "political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize."

I am delighted to report Tom Lehrer is still with us as of January 13, 2025.

EU QUERO

I love how he went the extra mile and made an outfit that definitely fits with the Jojo aesthetic. Like yeah, I totally wouldn't think twice at a Jojo character wearing a leather outfit covored in mirror.

Shang qinghua behind you-

[ID in plain and alt text: digital drawing of shang qinghua and shen qingqiu from scum villain. shang qinghua has one hand on his hip, the other hand pointing up, eyes closed and smiling as if saying something philosophical. Above him is a speech bubble where he quotes a tumblr post by user klezmurlocs that says "calling a work of fiction 'saccharine and masturbatory' to indicate that it is awesome. just like sugar and cranking off". shen qingqiu is behind him with a murderous glare, swinging his fan towards shang qinghua as if it was a baseball bat. End ID]

(shoutout to @princess-of-purple-prose for the idea I took from her tags)

The Magnus Archives x Disco Elysium 📼🪩

Picking the quotes was really fun hehehe

Here's that scene with the vats btw

By the by, everyone is freaking out over the lighting, but I have to highlight the FRAMING in this clip. Every single shot is beautifully and dynamically framed but one of the greatest moments that conveys eeeeeverything you need to know about Germs is a very simple and yet incredibly unique shot here:

This framing is INCREDIBLE. The camera is mounted right flush against the door at this low angle to show in phenomenal detail, both visually and psychologically, where Germs' mind is at all times. Then later his comment about the hospital and "sick people" double-taps what has already been embedded in our minds from this framed shot. Even the way the bar blocks out his face at the end to perfectly transition from one space to the next.

It doesn't look like much, but I have worked with many illustrators, story boarders, and artists, and most in the industry these days can't even think in this manner, let alone pull off a shot like this without being hand-walked through it.

Batman: The Animated Series survives because of the talent and passion of every person working on it. From the writers to the boarders to the animators to the colorists. Everyone actually loved what they were working on. This perfectly illustrates our current creative dearth with the phrase: You Can't Pay People to Care. Everyone working on Batman: TAS cared.

I had no idea Clayface from BTAS was one of Ron Perlman's early roles. I imagine he must have enjoyed it since he continues to take many voice acting gigs

Also goddamn the animation in this episode

Batman the Animated Series has a reputation for being well animated but even so this is outstanding work

"According to Bruce Timm, Tokyo Movie Shinsha, the studio that animated this episode, ignored the color instructions given to them and made their own color palette. The results were so successful, though, that Timm didn't mind. Per Timm: "I think when we shipped them 'Clayface,' they said to themselves: They think they know everything, but we'll show them how do do this show. We'll change Batman's colors. We'll do special color key treatments on the villains when they're walking over the green vat. We'll blow them away.' If that's their revenge, thank you for proving us wrong. I was so happy with that episode." "The sequence where Daggett and Germs are walking over that green vat, those characters look like they're three-dimensional. They look like they're rotoscoped. When Daggett slowly turns toward the camera, the shadows really wrap around his face. It's as if they're real! They did all those colors themselves. We couldn't even ask for those colors if we wanted to. They aren't even in our palette. They had to specially mix those colors.""

Was scuncht about it, but fine now.