#artistissues

[artist-issues]

before I put the hyphen in there you thought it was Art is Tissues, didn’t you?

[stitchandani]

THAT’S IT

Experiment 324 - Ruinit

Primary Function - Distortion of valuable intel.

324 was designed to collect important enemy transmissions and warp them so that the enemy got the wrong message. Unfortunately, Jumba’s definition of “important” worked a little too well, and 324 began swallowing and reproducing twisted versions of beloved heirlooms. He ate Jumba’s wedding photos, then barfed them back up with Jumba’s ex-wife looking noticeably uglier than she had originally, so he was deemed a failure and deactivated.

He was re-activated on Earth and re-named Ruinit. When captured, Lilo asked him to swallow the recording of a home video featuring herself as a baby, which Nani planned to offer as a contribution to an end-of-the-year class celebration slideshow. She was sure whatever he did to it would keep Nani from showing it to her class. But when he barfed the tape back up, it showed a new recording of Baby Lilo miraculously performing a hula dance like a child prodigy.

At first Lilo thought this was a vast improvement. Then she saw what Ruinit’s regurgitating power did to her Wasp Mummies collection—it totally destroyed the creepy monster films and turned them into lame action movies. When he swallowed her Elvis records, the barfed versions played pop remixes of his classic songs.

She asked Jumba if the effects could be reversed, and he said no. Lilo despaired, especially once Nani explained that the original baby-tape had ended with their mom and dad coming into the room and playing a sweet game with their baby Lilo. But it turns out, finding someone who can remember the original artefact and describe it in front of Ruinit can cause the Experiment to drool, and the drool restores whatever he swallowed to it’s original self.

Watching the home video of their parents, Lilo learns that sometimes you don’t need a flashy new version. You just need to remember and draw inspiration from what you already had.

Ruinit’s One True Place is restoring corrupted audio and video tapes at the local radio store.

So there.

No, I don’t like the Live Action Remake Trailer. Reasons why listed here.

Sorry it’s not polished or finished, I did this in a rushed rage because this isn’t a serious character design. Guess what I based his stupid color palette off of

ArtistIssues

[standalonework]

Christmas picture 2024 by standalonework on DeviantArt

Christmas picture 2024 by standalonework

[artist-issues]

(I may have accidentally clicked the Unfollow button instead of the Ask button, my bad!! 😅 Still following ya!)

I'm here to deliver you a fun question amidst a world full of negativity, and that is;

If you ever had the opportunity to create your own story/animated film, what would you want it to be about? Who would be the characters and how would you want to write their stories? Would you bring in subtle tenets of your faith, or go all-out Lewis/Tolkien and dive into analogy/Christian values? Fantasy or Sci-fi? Romcom or thriller? Adventure or something cosy and intimate? Any worldbuilding?

Basically, if you could write your dream stories, what would they be about?

Sorry if you've got a similar question before, but I am really curious. Your posts talking about storytelling and faith always fascinate me, and I'd love to know how someone with such a love for Christ and stories would go about creating their own stories 💙

This is a wonderful question! I can't tell you how wonderful. Thank you! I'm so glad you follow me still!

I guess I'd always lean more toward allegory, and fantasy. I don't know how to make a story that isn't saying something very intentionally about God and people and their relationship to God.

It's funny, my taste in stories is more intimate. My favorite Disney movie is Lilo & Stitch, for example. But I have a hard time boiling it down when I make my own stories, because I like to trace every character's motivations back to their source--and when I do that, I wind up world building without meaning to, for way longer than I planned!

I make my stories based off of the Invisible Ink model by Brian McDonald, with a few tweaks to the outline so that it makes sense to me specifically.

So I always start with a thesis statement, the Point of the Story, the lesson I'm hoping it teaches. Then I break it down by listing "characters that need to learn it" and "characters that believe the opposite of it" and "characters that know it already." And then how they all interact, and where they'll be by the end of the story. Fun stuff like setting and fictional history and characterizations come while I'm filling all of that in, kind of naturally, which I wish I was better at giving in to.

Anyway! On to the fun part of your question;

I keep my stories really private because I have learned that if I "tell" the story, even just in a summary or a tumblr post or a text to a friend, I lose a lot of inspiration and a lot of...mental freedom to finish the story itself. It's like once I say it out loud, that version of the story is final in my subconscious, and I have less motivation to tweak it.

So I don't tell people about my ideas. Not unless we're officially or professionally collaborating.

But this question is so GOOD and I so APPRECIATE IT, that I'm going to get over that and tell you about one, for example, that I started doing but probably won't get to make.

I call it "Come When You're Called" and it's a story about a sheep farm, from the perspective of the farm animals (but specifically the dogs.) The style is like if all of Ruyard Kipling's Serious Animals With Their Own Noble Cultures met Albert Payson Terhune's How Animals Thrive Serving Their Owners met Disney's Fun Anthropomorphic Animals.

The main character is a border collie named Sky Blue (she's liver-colored with blue eyes) who is learning the lifestyle of a good dog on her master's farm. She's very energetic. Thats the one word you could use to describe her. She never stops trying to play or have fun. She's proud of being the fastest dog on the property; the older border collie she's learning from, Sharps, isn't even as fast as she is. He's teaching her how to recognize the Master's commands and obey them immediately.

Sharps is excellent at what he does, but he's super irritable because all he cares about is the work. If he had a character arc, it would be to find his identity in how much his Master loves him instead of how well he can do his job. When he first meets Sky, he doesn't like her because there's a subtle fear that he's getting too old to do the work himself. He's very strict.

There's another older dog on the property. His name is Lockjaw but everybody calls him LJ, and he's the opposite of Sharps. He's even older, wiser, and downright jolly. He used to be the guard dog for the whole huge property, but he's been raising a young German Shepherd named Buckwild to take it over. Buckwild and LJ have southern accents and Buck is a very smart, good dog...as long as someone tells him what to do, and exactly how to do it: his default state is laziness. He becomes Sky's love interest.

Anyway, the music would be very highlands-folksy—think The Oh Hellos. Each animal species on the farm has its own "culture," but they all function like a kingdom serving their king, the human Master. When you're living by that code of obeying and fulfilling your purpose, the animals generally call it "Coming When You're Called." But if you are disobedient, lazy, or out for yourself, stealing food or killing the Master's chickens or whatever, you're twisted and looked at with scorn and apprehension by the good animals.

It would be super episodic. 🤷‍♀️ There's villain characters, like a pack of wolves that like to try picking off the sheep every once in a while. Theres also a tomcat who does not Come When He's Called, but just sort of does whatever he wants around the farm and causes mischief. Theres a tiny black kitten who Sky teaches what she's learning, about how to Come When You're Called, who wants to grow up and chase the lazy tomcat off and take his place. Stuff like that.

I have other ideas. One, in particular, I've mentioned before, got me involved with the studio I'm currently working in. It's an allegory to do with a siren, vampire, and werewolf in the early 2000s. But I'll keep that one to myself 🫢 for now! The story the studio and I are making right now is sci-fi fantasy adventure, about a family that needs to figure out their relationship to each other and the world they're finding themselves rulers of...but that's all I'll say about that until it's out there for people to watch!

Really I like creating all of it. I've got a sci-fi idea, three fantasy ones, and then an ongoing batch of monster stories, too! I guess I always tend to create as if my audience is...in that 12-20 range? But really, like Disney, I'd like it if my stuff could be enjoyable for all ages. We'll see! I think! I hope!

Thank you for this question!

[stitchandani]

Doverstar UPDATE: Arti is very rarely available to respond to questions these days (new job keeps her very, very busy), so please note that questions about the Experiments in general, especially about her fanmade Experiments as well as 621's arc and anything about him will probably go unanswered for much longer than questions that are not about those things! I will not be answering questions about that half of the story without her input, and she can't answer them as quickly as I can answer these days. Just bear that in mind! :)

[stitchandani]

Will there be more experiments like checkup, based on real alien species we’ve seen in the series?

ArtistIssues

Absolutely, there will be! (said the artist, knowing for a fact that no new Experiment designs have been posted for months) ^^”

Seriously though, I love looking at all the little background aliens in the franchise and coming up with cultures or traits for them, so of course I’ve got a few Experiments in the works that are based off of them. You should expect to see some based on the below characters:

[artist-issues]

Just so it’s out there, in writing:

My Favorite Sitcom: Community. (Yes, over The Office, over Parks & Rec.)

My Favorite Film: Lilo & Stitch (2002.)

My Favorite Color: Yellow.

My Favorite Princess: Cinderella.

My Favorite Book Series: The Chronicles of Narnia, Little Women, and Anne of Green Gables, in that order.

My Favorite Video Game: Sonic Adventure 2, and the Sonic series.

My Favorite Superhero: Captain America.  My Favorite Animal: Dogs. My Least Favorite Movie: All live action remakes of Disney films except for Cinderella (2015) and The Jungle Book.

My Least Favorite Song: Mr. Brightside.

My Least Favorite Medium: Anime.

My Worldview: Evangelical, Biblical Christianity.

My Career: I write movie reviews, am a freelance copywriter, and am in the story department of an animation studio which shall remain nameless to protect it from association with my reckless posting.

And, in order to understand the angle at which I approach just about every type of story:

I subscribe to the Invisible Ink idea that all stories should serve one main idea or thesis. Everything in the story should support that main idea, including the characters, and any other element that makes up a story. It has to hit that main idea or thesis with not only excellence in form, but excellence in content. If it can do that, it is a good story objectively, whether we like it or not. If it fails to do that, it’s not a good story, it’s just entertainment.

There. It’s down in writing

[stitchandani]

So what would you guys say are your favorite episodes of The Series?

ArtistIssues

My favorites are:

Spooky - Probably some of the best animation in the show is in this episode, plus they nail the Halloween-spooky-fun vibe, it’s fun to see the nervous-scared side of Stitch’s personality, and Spooky’s whole function is so genius! And almost everything Pleakley says in this episode makes me laugh.

Splodyhead - I’ve always loved this episode. I love Splodyhead, too. I particularly like episodes where characters who hate each other are forced to work together on a desert island. That’s a trope I’m here for!

Poxy - I love Poxy. When I was a kid I used to ride around the neighborhood on a scooter pretending to be him and his slick little germ self.

627 - This episode was so so cool when I was a kid. I love 627’s black claws and how all-out they went designing him. Plus, again, an episode where we’re shown how unstoppable Stitch always is, until he isn’t anymore, is such a cool break from the norm.

Bonnie & Clyde - I adore the different musical score in this episode, and I love Bonnie & Clyde’s dynamic together and the fact that they can speak English, but they’re rotten little alien life form stinkers. And I love Pleakley in this episode, too. I could just rate every episode based on Pleakley moments. But then I’d have to add Holio to this list which is already too long!

Doverstar will chime in, too! Doverstar:

Angel - It's my #1 favorite episode of the show, for sure. It hits all the nostalgic notes for me. Angel is my favorite experiment, and though the animation in this episode is terrible, I'm a huge fan of Angel's color palette in it and the idea behind the episode. The fact that love is what turns Angel from bad to good - and that it's Stitch who names Angel and changes her, instead of Lilo, which was the norm - love that. Plus it's cool there's an experiment in the 600's series that exists whose primary function is literally the opposite of the goal of the series.

Remmy - I like this one because of the emotional plot, and the fact that it focuses on Lilo and her mind and the lasting affects of her parents' death on the family. Any particularly deep Lilo-centric episode is a standout in my book! As a kid, the heavily-decorated "door" in Lilo's dream, which she says always has "bad things" on the other side of it, was super creepy and interesting to me. I remember thinking even at that age that the scene of her parents' actual crash would be behind that door, or maybe their gravestones, or maybe just a flashback of the night they didn't come home. I both did and did not want to see that. But no, instead it was Lilo's hula school and disarmingly-kind classmates, which is also interesting! All in all, it's my second favorite because of the slightly-deeper-than-usual subject matter. 627 - This one is purely nostalgia-based for me. The 627 episode was one of the all-time coolest to us growing up, like Arti said! Lots of her reasons for listing this one are the same as mine. Always cool to see Stitch come to terms with the fact that though he's pretty cool, he's not always the best at everything. And extra wonderful to hear Lilo say something like "So what if you're not king of the block anymore? You're still king of my block." So. Good. So sweet. Love that. Shoe - Shoe is one of my top 5 favorite experiments. I like the plot in this episode and the animation in it too! I like Pleakley's comedy beats, and the idea of turning the old ship into a B&B was genius for a show about aliens living on Kauai. Perfect. But Shoe's lil emotional journey makes me very happy. His sole purpose is for the gain of other people, and he's at least intelligent enough to understand that people only seem to value him for what he can do for them, and then finding out Lilo specifically likes him even when he's bad luck? 10/10. One of those times where part of the episode isn't just catching the cousin or showcasing the shenanigans its abilities get the cast into, but showing how the experiment goes from bad to good and why. Dupe - Because Dupe's design delights me, because the writing in this episode is fantastic, because the idea of a slumber party at Lilo's house with the experiments instead of four bratty human girls who'd ruin all the fun anyway is awesome, and because in the end, Lilo gets another reminder that even if she wants lots of friends, having one like Stitch at her side is more than good enough. Retro - I always wanted this one to air often on TV growing up, specifically because it was later in the show and therefore rarer to see rerunning. I thought Retro's ability was so cool, and I was especially interested in the little glimpses of Nani's life before becoming sole caretaker of Lilo. Plus the setting of a cruise ship is always fun! Swapper - Lilo gets a human friend Lilo gets a human friend Lilo gets a human friend LILO GETS A HUMAN FRIEND- Snooty - Victoria gets an experiment of her own, Snooty is precious and Halloween-y, more looks at Victoria/Lilo's friendship, Pleakley driving is hilarious, and the ending gets me every time. Amnesio - Gantu? An excellent friend for Lilo? Latent protective affection for the cute little Earthling? It's more likely than you think- Bad Stitch - I like this one because it has some of my favorite Lilo/Stitch moments. It also seems to have unused material from the original movie? Maybe? I don't know, but Chris Sanders seems like the kind of guy who would suggest more of Lilo training Stitch like a "puppy" and squirting him with the stupid water bottle. I especially love the ending, where Lilo tells Stitch she knows he's good, even if he breaks things. And how Stitch wants to behave because Lilo asks him to, and she loves him, and that's why he wants to behave. Love that. The Asteroid - Jumba recognizing that Earth is his home and that the Pelekais are his family waters my crops and clears my skin. And I love watching the whole Ohana work together on a planet-saving space trip.