#Épisode 3

[choupistickfaitdesbetises]

Yes… the famous family atavism… 🤦🏼‍♀️

... wink wink

[locklaicy]

Rewatching Le Visiteur du Futur for the 4th time in a year

[emmathompsonegot]

Those private chef videos on Instagram that trick you for a quarter of a second into thinking that would be a cool job. It’s like how sometimes the guests on Normal Gossip have clearly never met rich people before, because they miss the very obvious twist that entering into direct employment to a rich person is Always an insane choice

[xnoctua]

🪶🦴🦋

[harritudur]

Fortune De France, épisode 3

[superiorkenshi]

JE SUIS EN FOU RIRE C'EST PAS POSSIBLE GJEKFKZIDKZ

j'ai trouvé le plus autiste des confessions intimes

[logogreffe]

French Podcast Recommendations

The following list contains podcasts in French that I, a native French speaker, listen to. So if you're a beginner in French, those might be too hard for you !

The rest of the post will be in French !

1) Chasseurs de Sciences : Chaque épisode dure une dizaine de minutes et porte sur des scientifiques/personnalités "méconnu(e)s". (Il y a plein d'épisodes sur des femmes qui ont eu un impact énorme sur leur discipline)

Super intéressant !

Mes épisodes préférés : Henrietta Lacks, morte il y a 70ans..et toujours vivante ; Ada Lovelace, autrice du premier programme informatique..en 1843 ; Rosalind Franklin, une femme à la conquête de l'ADN ; Nelly Bly, 10 jours dans un asile psychiatrique et 72 jours autour du monde ;

2) Vénus s'épilait-elle la chatte ?

C'est un podcast sur l'histoire de l'art et le féminisme !

Les épisodes sur Picasso et Frida Kahlo sont à écouter absolument ! Frida Kahlo, au delà du mythe ; Picasso, séparer l'homme de l'artiste ;

3) Thinkerview :

Séries d'interviews sur différents sujets (qui ne sont pas vraiment mentionnés dans les médias).

Super intéressant si vous vous intéressez un peu à la géopolitique/ réchauffement climatique

Mes épisodes préférés : L'effondrement, le point critique ? Aurore Stéphant (Elle parle de l'industrie minière et de ses impacts sur l'environnement. L'écoute de cet épisode devrait être obligatoire pour l'ensemble de la population)

Guillaume Pitron : L'enfumage de la transition écologique

4) Mythologie Grecque

Un podcast sur ... la mythologie grecque !

Remarque : Je crois qu'à la base c'est un podcast à écouter avant d'aller dormir donc les effets sonores sont un peu...particuliers.

Voilà voilà, après, je vous conseille, s'il y a des sujets particuliers qui vous intéressent, de juste les taper en français dans la barre de recherche de Spotify et de choisir au hasard des podcasts ! C'est comme ça que j'ai découvert un tas de podcasts en anglais/ allemand/ espagnol. Bonne écoute !

[ohmuuuu]

Hi Tumblr, it has been a long time :)

"They can't kill me, I'm already dead" is my first long comic. I will be posting the pages as episodes on my Instagram and Tumblr, available for free reading. If you'd like to support me in this project, you can subscribe to my Instagram on a monthly basis for access to exclusive content, including behind-the-scenes of the comic. The pages will be posted in English, with a French translation included in the post captions.

At the moment, there's no plan for a non-digital release, but as the project progresses, I'd definitely love to make a print version. I'm still considering whether to go for self-publishing via crowdfunding or to approach publishing houses. Thank you so much for your support in this project, which is one of the biggest I've ever worked on and means a lot to me. See you soon for the first episode! // oh mu

instagram.com/ohmu_art

FR : Coucou Tumblr ça fait longtemps !

"Ils ne peuvent pas me tuer, je suis déjà morte" est ma première longue bande dessinée Je posterai les planches par épisode sur mon instagram et mon Tumblr en lecture libre. Si vous voulez me soutenir dans ce projet, vous pouvez vous abonner à mon insta par mois pour bénéficier de contenu exclusive en ce qui concerne les backstages de la bande dessinée. Les planches seront postées en anglais et je posterai la traduction française en légende du post.

Il n'est pas encore question d'édition hors digital mais plus les publications avanceront plus j'aimerais sûrement en faire une version papier. Je suis donc encore en réflexion d'autoedition participative (crowfunding) ou alors démarchage de maisons d'édition. Merci pour votre soutien pour ce projet qui est un de mes plus gros et qui me tient énormément à cœur. À très vite pour le premier épisode <3

// oh mu

instagram.com/ohmu_art

[this-is-a-name-dont-worry]

Je me suis retrouvée à penser à la religion dans Kaamelott et c'est tellement étrange mais genre, d'une manière super intéressante

Donc, il y a les Dieux. Ils existent, ils ont un impact sur le monde, on le voit à travers la série et le film. Puis, il y a le dieu chrétien, le Dieu Unique. Pour le coup, on n'a pas vraiment beaucoup de preuves de son existence hormis l'endorssement des Dieux, ainsi que la BD l'armée du nécromant, où après 20h de prière et à essayer d'échapper au danger, Père Blaise balance un rayon de lumière divine qui désintègre les revenants (et sa croix)

Clairement, il y a l'air d'avoir en effet ce dieu chrétien aussi, c'est juste qu'il répond moins aux appels que les Dieux.

Jusqu'à présent ça va, mais c'est quand tu t'intéresses aux détails que ça devient bizarre:

1) Les chevaliers sont techniquement chrétiens, car ils font la quête du Graal, qui est une quête liée au Dieu Unique. "Techniquement", parce que la plupart semble soit n'en avoir rien à foutre, soit tenir les croyances païennes qu'ils ont apprit en grandissant

2) Arthur est l'élu des Dieux. Ce sont eux qui l'ont choisi pour unir la Bretagne, et seul lui peut voir leur envoyée la Dame du Lac

3) La Dame du Lac est censée aider avec la quête du Graal. C'est son job. La Dame du Lac, envoyée des Dieux, doit aider Arthur, élu des Dieux, à trouver le Graal, une quête du Dieu Unique.

4) Arthur est censé s'être converti au christianisme. Il suit la religion du Dieu Unique, et non pas la religion des Dieux qui l'ont choisi comme roi de Bretagne

5) L'impression est alors que les Dieux travaillent pour le Dieu Unique, expliquant qu'ils soient d'accord avec tout le monde quittant leur religion. Cependant, dans un épisode on apprend que Merlin a peur d'énerver les Dieux s'il se convertit, ce qui indique que malgré tout, les Dieux sont pas complètement chauds à l'idée de perdre des personnes qui les vénèrent

6) Kaamelott se passe durant une période de transition, où la vénération des Dieux laisse place à la vénération d'un Dieu. La quête du Graal, c'est un peu un moyen d'aider à répandre le christianisme. Les Dieux semblent donc travailler dans la direction de ce remplacement

On a donc des dieux qui aident un autre dieu à les supplanter, et entre les deux, ce sont les Dieux les plus actifs pour effectuer cette transition, bien qu'ils ne semblent pas complètement d'accord avec l'idée de perdre tout le monde

Ce qui bien sûr amène à des réflexions super cool sur comment tout ce bousin fonctionne. Le Dieu Unique est-il juste un des Dieux, mais qui est plus jeune et beaucoup plus puissant? Les Dieux l'aident-t-ils parce qu'ils le veulent, parce qu'ils ont peur?

Bref je parie qu'il y a un gros jeu d'échec politique chez les Dieux, et les personnages ne sont au final que leurs pions

[canmom]

l'aventure de canmom à annecy - épisode deux: XR

so I'm going to abandon all semblance of chronological order at this point.

just like last year there was an VR room operating on a morning booking system - each thing had two headsets and a signup sheet. I didn't get to try every one but I did get most of them. enough that the volunteers noticed me coming back every day x3

^ some random people immersed in the Wired

this is easily the longest annecy post so far... so please read on for a big old discussion of the unique difficulties faced by VR film as a medium, and how this year's annecy films meet them... or more often don't.

so annecy's vr films section is for essentially linear vr projects (i refuse to write "experiences") that can be watched/played in less than an hour. i don't know if that's a hard rule but that's how long all the ones here were!

let's get the technical stuff out of the way: the Quest 2/3 was by far the headset of choice. some ran natively, some were PCVR with a wire connecting to a computer, and some were 360° videos which played back on the headset with 3dof tracking. some had a degree of interactivity, up to about a 'walking simulator' level. the average runtime was between 20m and an hour.

the preamble: on the limitations of VR

the big question I have with XR movies is basically... how well does it actually use the medium? like, is it doing anything that wouldn't work better as a flatscreen game or a film?

this might seem like a high bar to clear, like why shouldn't it be in VR - but VR is uncomfortable, the headset is expensive etc etc, and that's before even the formal stuff I'm about to get into. so that's 'why not'. and also, this is a new medium, I want to see what unique features it has to offer!

I'm sure I've said this before, but despite on the face of it being more 'inmersive' than traditional flatscreen games or films, VR is actually a pretty restrictive medium! compared to flatscreen games with their many 'buttons', you are very limited in the possible interactions. your main interaction is to 'pick up' and 'hold' objects, but this is close enough to actual physical interaction to highlight how much it isn't. what it actually means is that you position your hand or controller in a trigger and press a grab button or pinch your fingers, at which point the object snaps to your hand and moves weightlessly with it.

you also can't accelerate the pov too much without causing motion sickness, etc etc.

ok, what about film? well, compared to film, the big big thing VR lacks is the frame of the camera. you can't cut, you can't frame a subject, you don't have long shots or closeups, you can't even rely on the player/viewer looking in the direction of an interesting thing.

since movement is also tricky in VR due to the motion sickness problem, you're also limited in your ability to steer the viewer to interesting sights with Valve-style 'vistas' using the level architecture. it's not impossible - Valve themselves have their familiar vistas in HL Alyx - but it's something that depends on the player being able to move through a large space, so it doesn't fit these kinds of movie-like project so well. otherwise you can draw attention to a direction using various means, like visual effects that converge on a spot, or just keeping most of the action in the same area.

what you can also do, closer to camerawork, is move the viewer's point of view, and shrink or enlarge their surroundings. the language of VR 'shots' is still far from defined, but we have a few recurring ones: standing in a normal sized room, the giant's view in a tiny city, the floating perspective looking down on a diorama, the ant's eye view inside something regular sized.

how about theatre, which also has most of these limitations? well, compared to being in person with a real human being, you're limited by the capabilities of realtime animation systems and the rendering tech available on the device. you're looking at the character in a slightly fuzzy low resolution and unless you have AAA money which noone in VR does, you're a bit limited in the 'acting' you can pull off. this may change if the apple vision pro gets popular - apple already have a 'gertie the dinosaur' style demo where a very detailed dinosaur emerges from a portal - but it's definitely out of reach of most teams working on the Quest.

so compared to all these other media, what does XR offer?

compared to film and theatre, there is the game aspect of agency: a story feels different if you are the one doing it. so most VR narrative games have characters interact with the player somehow, though this introduces the problem of how to write the player into a story without feeling like you're railroading them or that they're superfluous to the real story.

it's very easy to undercut this sense of agency by having an amount that's not zero but still too small, e.g. if it just feels like the player is touching a button that lights up then you wonder why they even bothered.

the role that most games put the (vaguely defined) player character in is 'terrifying violence doer'. this is a fairly easy role to write around, and it gives the player a lot of control of the 'how' while letting the writer control the 'what' and 'where' and 'why'. similarly if the player's role is something like 'puzzle solver'. but for a purely narrative presentation, these roles don't exist.

still, this is the idea that a lot of VR rests on: an 'immersive experience' which puts the player into the story.

the other big thing that VR has is the joy of experiencing visual effects in 3D. particles, trails, transforming geometric shapes etc are cool on a flat screen and even cooler in stereo vision where you can move your head around. another benefit is spatial audio by default - something that is gradually coming to games but provided 'for free' by vr consoles.

in the land of games, you also have incredibly precise position and direction input... as long as it's in arm's length of the player. the most successful genres of VR games (so far) use this: a lot of shooting games, and some games that let you interact with physics objects, offer 3D jigsaw puzzles, or simulate sports to provide some real exercise. it can be really good for rhythm games as beat saber demonstrates.

VR is also really for social games like VRChat - similar to MMOs but with the benefits of more complex tracking in lieu of canned animations.

but... none of these fit the form of a predictable 15-50 minute narrative sequence! they're not films! so the VR films category at annecy is a tough problem to crack.

last year, the VR project that most impressed me was one that put you in the seat of a novice spotter in a bomber in the second world war. this was a great fit for a lot of reasons. you are in a vehicle so you have no reason to move from seated; the scenario is full of loud scary sounds that can make full use of spatial audio; your 'character' is well-defined but also doesn't have much reason to speak within the scenario. this had a small amount of interaction (by pointing your head) which you could actually fail, making it a bit closer to a game, and also giving you reason to play close attention to the bombed out cityscape below you. it did a fantastic job of capturing the tension of a dangerous air mission, the pilot character interacting with you was compelling, and overall it really benefited from being in VR.

this year's films

sadly nothing I saw this year comes close to that. but still, some are interesting, so let's go through them!

My favourite this year was probably Flow - completely unrelated to the movie in the main competition, though they share the trait of being completely wordless, conveying their story simply through imagery and music.

Flow's big trick is a very cool visual effect where characters and objects are conveyed the trails left behind by little particles, causing them to appear ghostlike . At first you're just flying through a cityscape, passing various people on the street and in the subway, with the particle trails conveying the breaths of the passengers; gradually a storm brews, the trails becoming the wind that tears at everything.

I believe this was a prerendered film, with only 3dof tracking - i think i saw some compression artefacts at some point. So it's less technically impressive than if they managed to do it realtime but it does make full use of the power this gives to render loads of particles and move rapidly through different scenes. it was also an effect that benefitted from the ability to put you in the middle of it - something that would not work as well on a flat screen.

But it also benefitted a lot from being more film-like. It has an original soundtrack, and progresses without input from the player. There's no awkward 'player' character to write around, no space you stand about in. The film can simply unfold and let you appreciate it. In this case, no interaction is better than bad interaction.

My Inner Ear Quartet from Japan did not do anything particularly novel with the medium, but to my mind it had by far the most compelling story. It tells of a young, introverted boy who habitually digs in the dirt for objects that other people would consider trash. The title refers to a string quartet which he hears when he cries, imagined to be in his inner ear; also there is a pair of tiny shrimp which he saw grow in a net.

The first half is narrated by a man who turns out to be the boy grown up, now a hearing aid salesman. While the boy abandons his box of treasures, as an adult he returns to collecting and documenting abandoned objects as a kind of urban explorer.

The geometry here is stylised in a kind of rough, children's drawing way. I think this could have been pushed further with more complex shaders but it works. For the most part, you're watching as an invisible observer seated on a floating chair. At certain points, the viewpoint is taken inside the boy's ear, or into the tin of treasures, where you can grab the objects and get the boy's brief, poetic description of each one.

I liked this story because it had substance, but left enough up to interpretation to be engaging. By showing the treasures to us with the descriptions we get to understand why they might be significant to the boy. It plays well with the classic anime theme of objects as vessels for emotional significance. I think it would have worked just as well on a flat screen, but I enjoyed my time with it.

Now the rest...

The Age of the Monster had some things going for it, but honestly I think this one shouldn't have been in VR. It's basically a film about how bad we're fucking up the planet, putting us in the house of a man who works in the nuclear industry in the 70s up to a future where the cooling towers lie in ruins. The 'monster' is a giant anthro catfish, seen first as a B-movie monster and dream vision and finally as a real kaiju scale creature in the final future scene.

We're told about the economic circumstances that led to the man getting this job, and his relief at working in nuclear during the oil crisis; we're told about the infamous repressed oil industry report about how climate change is gonna be a thing; we're told about the man's fraught relationship with his radical daughter who is furious about his extractivist ways. Then we get a collapse and humans learn to take the force of nature more seriously, i forget the exact phrasing they used.

The main problem is? These are mostly things you are told, by voiceover. There is some environmental storytelling in the evolution of the house but not enough to convey much without the v/o. the film does not seem to have the confidence in its imagery to show us what it's trying to say.

I feel like the film's vision of the post-collapse future, with flocks of birds flying over a wide river and collapsed overgrown cooling towers, is a huge missed opportunity. Here's an opportunity to apply some true visual imagination of how humans might live in a climate changed future... but nah, giant catfish kaiju just kinda hanging out there.

t

The environmental message is generally a stance I sympathise with, but the film doesn't make a good case for it on a propaganda level. We see the cooling towers outside the window and eventually the house, flooded, but it does little to make the collapse narrative emotionally compelling - and I question a little the choice to make it nuclear focused in a film about climate change. It's probably based on an actual guy, right? Maybe someone's parent? But... despite putting us in his shoes i don't really feel like i understand him very well.

Does this seem harsh? I know full well how involved vr dev is, and even simple things can take weeks. But i also want someone to make the most of this medium. To make something as compelling as the best short films on the main screens.

Gargoyle Doyle tells another 'skipping though time' story, depicting a gargoyle on an 800 year old church from its construction through to demolition. I would compare this one perhaps to a puppet theatre - it certainly stands out in terms of character animation, with Doyle played by Jason Isaacs as a classic grumpy old British theatre guy, his foyle foil a goofy statue of monk acting as a drainpipe with a penchant for puns.

I didn't get to watch this one in full, since I got to sub in for someone who left early (thanks to the volunteer who took pity on me when it was fully booked lol). So I didn't see the full arc of this. What I saw was... definitely edutainment material, but pretty well done. The player is cast as a visitor to a future museum and nature reserve built on the site of the church. It seems like this was originally shown in a real museum in Venice, with the 'in the museum' sections portrayed in mixed reality; obvs this wouldn't work at Annecy so they have these virtual too.

The narrative as a whole seems a tad self congratulatory and pat, with Doyle learning a valuable lesson about not being a cunt to his only friends as he's resurrected in the museum, and it doesn't do a whole lot with the VR framing, but taking it as an educational puppet show, it works pretty well - the voice performances are good and the jokes, while a little predictable, work for the kid-friendly style it's going for. I'm not sure it really needed to be 40 minutes long, but I can see they wanted to go maximalist for a proof of concept like this. It is kinda limited by the rendering capabilities of the Quest, the lack of shadows in particular, and could definitely benefit from some baked lighting given the relatively static scenes, but I give it a lot of credit for the character animation and VA.

Apparently the jury liked this one too because it won the competition!

Nana Lou has been in development a few years apparently, casting the player in the role of a psychopomp spirit whose role is to ease the passing of a woman dying of a stroke. Visually, this is one of the best looking, with elaborate forest scenes and strong environment design.

What I really like about this one is its use, at times, of a diorama-like presentation where the player looks down on tiny characters in a room. This is a concept I've wanted to try in VR for a while, and it's cool to see someone do it.

I found the kind of spiritual aspect of the story a lot more underwhelming. The player is accompanied by two other spirits who explain everything that's going on and point out the significance of all the imagery. The player is informed they have an important role, but they don't have a name and can't talk back, and the only interaction is to grab floating photos to initiate flashbacks.

I wish this film had had the confidence to trust in its acting and visual storytelling. While Nana Lou's life is a bit too lacking in serious conflict to make the premise work, it would still be far more interesting and compelling with the frame story largely trimmed. You could still cast the player as a psychopomp but you don't need to have a greek chorus telling them what to click on!

The actual story concerns Lou's relationship with her daughter, who became estranged when she quit university to raise her child, instead of staying on as Lou thought she should. This caused them to spend decades estranged. Finding out this story frees up the daughter's spirit as well, and the penultimate scene has her speak to Lou and make up.

There's definitely something to work with there, but the main delivery mechanism is rather ponderous narration triggered by interacting with objects, with the dramatic scenes largely having taken place off screen. Like The Age of the Monster, it suffers a severe telling-not-showing problem.

It's a shame because there are nice touches here. When you are beside Lou's bed in the hospital, your touch leaves a glow effect which is very evocative. The acting is solid, though the script undermines it a bit.

I don't think narration is evil - evidently, Yuri and I used it in our film, it's a very efficient way to convey information - but I do think it requires a lot of thought put into style and rhythm.

Spots of Light... ok. This one tells the story of an Israeli soldier who lost his sight in the Lebanon war, and later regained it temporarily through surgery. Given my general feelings about the Israeli military (presently carrying out a genocide), I was definitely not disposed to like this one. Nevertheless, it was the only one free so I decided to give it a shot.

This is one of those films where you interview someone and then put an animation to it. So this guy tells you what it was like to be blind and then not blind to see his family briefly, and it's illustrated with various images. And (if i remember right) some parts are on tvs showing video (and if you're using vr to embed a flat screen what is even the point??). When he's blind, everything disappears except vague outlines suggested by small points of light.

Ultimately this is a film about blindness, not the war (of course, meaning this is a person who could leave the war behind - though not to make light of the cruelty of conscription). Making a film about the experience of blindness in a purely visual medium is a choice all right, and I don't feel like this film expressed anything unexpected about it - he was sad to lose his sight, glad to see his family, depressed to lose it again but ultimately at peace. Which is conveyed, of course, primarily by narration.

So yeah this one didn't do much for me!

Stay Alive My Son, now. Agh. This one was... this one was a mess.

So this one is about the Cambodian genocide, right. It's based on a memoir by a survivor of the genocide, Pin Yathay, who became separated from his wife and son while fleeing the Khmer Rouge.

The way this is presented is essentially a walking simulator that takes you through a dungeon-like environment full of skeletons. Every so often you encounter 3D films - filmed with some kind of depth camera - showing actors playing out scenes from the life of the family. There is also a frame story where you visit Pin Yathay in his modern day house, where he sees a digital reconstruction of how his son might look as an adult

This one is difficult to review because it was severely marred by technical issues with the spatial audio, which caused the sound to cut out when you turned your head the wrong way or moved it to the wrong place. It would probably be less of a rough experience if the audio worked as intended. Nevertheless, I have plenty of reservations with the way the story is told as well.

It seems the director of the VR experience (fine! I'll write experience, there isn't a better noun for this kind of thing that sits between game and film) met Pin Yathay, there's video of her speaking to him at the end, but he had pretty minimal creative input beyond providing inspiration through his memoir. So this is a Greek/US interpretation of the Cambodian genocide. The narrative it tells is basically: Yathay and his family are living a pretty idyllic life, then the Khmer Rouge happens, seemingly not for any particular reason. Yathay and his family are evacuated and then put to hard labour growing rice; eventually, their son is put to work too, so fearing for his life, they flee into the jungle.

The Cambodian genocide is - obviously! - one of the worst atrocities of the whole bloody 20th century, and the circumstances surrounding it are worth reading about (though pretty unremittingly bleak). But you won't learn much about, say, cold war geopolitical alignment, Prince Sihanouk, the absolutely horrific civil war, the different ideologies in play in the Marxist milieu that influenced Pol Pot, or the spillover from Vietnam and the massive bombing by the Americans here which helped put the Khmer Rouge in power. You definitely won't learn much about the Cambodia that existed before the war. Instead, you're mostly traversing a dungeon that could come from any horror game, shining your torch on the things you're told to in order to unlock another segment of narration from (the actor playing) Yathay. It is, in pretty literal terms, a tour of atrocities.

Unfortunately the '3D film of actors' conceit doesn't really work because... even audio issues aside, the acting is pretty unconvincing. For some reason - perhaps that subtitles are tricky in VR - the dialogue is in accented English rather than Cambodian, and it's pretty quickly evident that they just have one guy in the role of 'Khmer Rouge soldier' and the lines he's given are kinda awkward. The horror game aesthetics of the environments and the amateur actors and costumes all clash pretty badly. The 3D filming is also kind of jank, only really working if you're fairly close to the camera position, so you aren't really free to move too far even if the audio didn't crap out.

The basic feelings it's trying to explore - the horror of living through a genocide, separation from a child, guilt for abandoning him, not knowing if he's alive or dead - is definitely worth depicting, but honestly this would have been far far better expressed as a 10-20 minute film than a slow 55 minute VR walking sim. The more abstract bits toward the end with paper plane imagery and a Buddhist temple (where you have to put a block in a slot to unlock a door) also feel too jank and videogamey to really have much impact, though by that point I had been wrestling with the audio for nearly an hour so I wasn't in the most receptive mood.

But all the execution flaws aside, that leaves the question of what even is the right way to portray a genocide artistically? This approach is very abstract, reducing the events to dislocated symbols - propaganda posters, the tree against which children were dashed - which perhaps might reflect how fragmented memory becomes, but seems to be wasting the potential of VR to establish you in a place. But then, I guess rice fields are harder to render than enclosed dark rooms.

Speaking of rendering, this was PCVR, so your torch casts shadows and it has other features that would be hard on realtime. But the lack of ambient light and general harshness of the materials adds to the 'horror game' feel.

There is something here about how genocides become associated with certain images. For Cambodia, it is primarily phrases like 'killing fields' and the stacked skulls in the genocide memorials such as Choeung Ek - few people know the name of the memorial in the west, but I think everyone who's heard of the genocide has seen the big stack of skulls. I imagine this is what all the skeletons in this experience are supposed to call to mind: they're representatives of the many ways people died. The problem that this kind of environmental storytelling has long ago been made kind of camp by videogames. A photo of a stack of real skeletons still has power to disturb, but less so a low poly 3D skeleton.

Should it have tried for a realism? The idea of trying to realistically simulate the experience of living in Cambodia though the genocide is kind of ghoulish, and I'm glad they didn't take that approach. But the 'tour of images' approach falls flat. I think The Most Precious of Cargoes elsewhere in the festival makes a stronger case for how to approach a topic like a genocide in a consciously constructed way, but it also has the ability to be in dialogue with a lot of other films made about the Holocaust. There is less in English about the Cambodian genocide - the viewer can't even be assumed to know what happened.

Overall, I think it would be possible to make a much stronger film about the genocide in Cambodia. But I'm not sure what that film would look like. I did learn one thing from this story, which is that there is a reality show in Cambodia which shows survivors of the genocide being reunited with their families. Not much is made of this here, it's something of a background detail. What would it be like to grow up in the shadow of an event like that? I wish the film had been willing to portray more of modern Cambodia - and I hope at some point someone in Cambodia will have a film at this festival, in VR or not, which can talk about it all from the first person.

Is there a good way to try to answer the curiosity of people who live safely in rich countries about what it is like to go through an actual genocide... using a Meta Quest 2 VR headset that costs a few hundred quid? I don't really know, but this film could have done with being a bit more reflective, I feel. So it goes.

the others

there were three films I couldn't see - The Imaginary Friend, Oto's Planet and Emperor. If I get some other chance to try them I'll write about them too!

Overall I felt a bit disappointed with the VR this year, but also I kind of want to put my money where my mouth is and try my hand at making this kind of thing. I do have the technical knowledge at least!

If you read all this, thank you.

[chifourmi]

Bonnnnjour à tous et bienvenue dans mon top 3 des posts les plus cringe que j'ai fait ici.

En 3ème position, on commence très soft attention ne vous attendez pas à grand chose (mais la suite va vous étonner). Un post où j'ai leak moi-même mon prénom alors que ça fait des années que je me casse la tête à faire attention. 🥳 Il a fallu que je boude sur le monsieur pour que mes neurones ne fonctionnent plus et que je donne toutes mes infos persos. Il m'a pas fallu grand chose finalement.

En deuxième position, un post où je dis que je pourrais sortir avec des gars qui ont entre 23 et 50 ans. Quand j'ai revu ce post j'ai cru halluciner. J'ai 23 ans. Comment ça 50 ans?? Laissez moi vomir puis on reprend. 🤢

🥁 Et en première position mesdames et messieuuuurs... 🥁 Un lien pour qu'on m'aide financièrement pour mon voyage en Nouvelle-Zélande 🎉 Non mais t'as cru que t'avais 1M d'abonnés ma cocotte, redescends un peu. Ça me tue d'y avoir cru premier degré.

N'hésitez pas à participer, qu'on élise le post le plus cringe de Tumblr. 🏅

Bonne soirée et à bientôt pour un prochain épisode 👋🏻

(28/10/2024)

[ol-files]

So with all the théorie made thince the kickstarter here the final bingo since tonight the last 3 épisode will be out.

Some are already checked since it was for all the season 😅

Seriously this one I have the Idea really early in the process(it's one of the most favorite Epic theory them starting and ending with a fight)

[akodsamaka]

Spoilers for season 3 episode 9 of doctor who.

FUCK YOU "FAMILY" !!

I'm currently watching the épisode, and damn. Poor Guy had his possible happy life played before him.

This stuborn little idiot is way to lonely.

[mhedusard]

Five Reason why YOU🫵 should play fly forever Loving you 2

First of all what's Fly forever Loving you 2 ?

Fly is an indie otome game where your character will enter in 11th grade at the Hummingbird Highschool and where you'll eventualy find love and discover some hidden secret along the way.

It's a sequel of another game of the creator who found that the first lacked of constancy. You Can play the 2 without having to play the First since the important plot point are reminded (but I personally recomend you to try the first since it's still very enjoyable and you'll understand the story better).

Reason number one: custom your character

You Can chose your,apparence, pronouns and customize your character.

Reason number 2: Choose your best Friend

A recent update grant you the possibility to chose who is your best Friend between two character:Rachelle and Nabil.

Rachelle is your default best Friend since Fly 1 she's a Sunny girl who is determined to help you find love

Nabil is a funny and layback Guy with a baffling Bad Luck.

Reason number 3: Awesomes love interest

In this game you have 8 love interest.

(I'm going to présent them from left to right for first Line and same sens for the second.)

-Evan is a shy and reserved but nice guy passioned of litterature.However he seems to have some family trouble lately.He's Rachelle's best Friend.

-Josh is the guitarist of Nuggets on the run a group that he created with his brother Ben and Friend Beatrice. He's an Honest Guy who don't like drama.

-Juliette is the pianist of Nuggets on the run and an artist to the core.She's a very sensible girl who has been bullying last year partly because of the fact she's lesbian. (It's one of the main story Line of Fly 1).

-Kanan is an activist whose everyday life turn around making the World better in term of ecologie and politics. This made him gain the Title of kill joy by some of his peers.

Kanan and Juliette are both exclusive love interest: if you Choose the girl apparence you Can date Juliette and if you Choose the boy one you Can date Kanan.

-Clement is Rachelle's and Evan's best Friend. He's a flirty Guy with a hight self-esteem. He's still a lovely and comic person.

-Thomas a Guy who likes to act all mysterious and with who you share the custody of a cat named Java.He work at the Highschool despite being only 19/18.

-Mélanie is your local Mean girl who's a lot more tolerable than last year.She still likes to throw uncalled mockeries at you.

-Dahn is an ex star player of the Best basketball Highschool team of France who decided to change School and to go to Hummingbird.He's a sociable Guy who seems to blend in easely.

-Laurène is a very strong girl and Juliette's best Friend.She's serious and much more mature than most of adults.You Can have truth her without any worry.

Reason number 4: a beautiful story with gorgeous illustrations

While the setting of the story is not revolutionary some episodes genuetly made me gasp especialy for the episode 8 who spoke about revenge porn.The characters feel very humans(for the better and worst).

Reason number 5: HER

This is Candice Mc's best Friend until they move out and I love her so much. Part of it because of a side story that made me relate to her.

If this post convince you to give this game a try you should keep two things mind:

-This game is 100% french and there is not translation from what I know.

-Ajeb the creator of the game do all the sprites, illustrations,coding and writing alone so the update of episodes are slow but there is some special épisode who are disponible !

Side note: you Can download this for free on your computer/laptop and phone (it's not disponible for IOS thought)

[kilfeur]

Pour trouver sa propre vérité

Trouver sa propre vérité est un thème important pour Claudia, Viren mais aussi Callum. Mais je vais parler de Callum d'abord, dans l'acte 1, il a été introduit comme un jeune homme incapable d'atteindre les attentes de son rôle en tant que prince. Mais quand il a utilisé la magie, il a l'impression d'être bon en quelque chose. Du coup il veut essayer mais Lujanne lui a dit que comme il n'a pas de connexion à un arcanum. Mais malgré tout, il veut quand même essayé. Et du coup essaie de comprendre l'arcanum du ciel. Il se sent impuissant quand il faut sauver Pyrrha bien qu'il décide quand même d'y aller en utilisant la magie noire. Dans son cauchemar, il ne sait pas où aller et se sent perdu. Toutefois arrive le passage où son côté sombre le tente à la magie noire.

Qu'est ce qu'il y a de si mal à la magie noire ? Si ça peut aider ses amis ? Et avec ça, il aura un pouvoir illimité. Et Callum a failli le prendre mais Harrow intervient lui rappelant qu'il est libre et en voyant son côté sombre. Ce dernier refuse et dit que ce sera à lui d'écrire son destin. Et le fait que justement il a dû mal à respirer fait justement parallèle à son père biologique Damien qui avait un maladie respiratoire. Mais aussi Sarai qui sera toujours là pour lui même si elle est plus là. Ce qui lui permet de comprendre l'arcanum du ciel et utiliser le sort aspiro.

La découverte de soi même

Ce qui est aussi important de noter c'est que le voyage de Callum est aussi une découverte de soi même. Il comprend qu'il peut être courageux, aider les autres, voir que ses préjugés étaient faux et renforcer ses principes moraux. C'est aussi parce qu'il a eu la possibilité de voyager, de découvrir Xadia qu'il a pu évoluer et grandir. Mais aussi apprendre à connaître Rayla et finissant petit à petit à tomber amoureux d'elle lui faisant pousser des ailes. D'ailleurs on a une expression qui dit que l'amour donne des ailes et c'est ce qui s'est passé dans le final de la saison 3. Puis arrive la saison 4 où on apprend que Rayla a parti et que ça l'a affecté émotionnellement, Callum n'était pas prêt de lui parler quand elle est venue dans son bureau. Mais j'avais bien aimé la manière dont était géré leur relation dans la saison 4, ils avaient besoin de temps pour enfin comprendre que oui, l'un et l'autre sont là et n'ont pas l'intention de partir.

En revanche, la magie se retourne contre lui quand Aaravos prend possession de lui. L'horreur et la peur que quelque chose puisse arriver à ses proches. Et demande à Rayla de le tuer, elle refuse de le tuer car elle vient tout juste de le retrouver et ne veut pas le perdre. Elle croit qu'il pourra le surmonter car Rayla a été témoin des épreuves qu'il a enduré. Mais c'est quelque chose qui hante Callum et dans l'épisode de Finnegrin, Finnegrin est l'incarnation de la tentation. Il refuse de donner ce qu'il veut car leur point de vue sur la liberté se diffère (J'en parle plus ici). Pour lui la liberté lui a permit de faire ce qui semblait être inconcevable : utiliser la magie primale. Finnegrin prend la liberté des autres pour les contrôler. Et il refuse que sa liberté soit volé par Domina Profundis. Mais avec Finnegrin lui fait comprendre qu'il n'est pas un mage primale mais un mage noire. Et le pousse jusqu'à l'atteindre en s'attaquant à Rayla. Et bien qu'il a pu se lib��rer de ses chaînes, il a de nouveau utiliser la magie noire. Pourtant malgré tout ça, il a pu se connecter à l'arcanum de l'océan en lâchant prise comprenant qu'il pouvait pas tout contrôler. Pour lui, c'est un échec !

Le côté sombre de Callum

La saison 6 est assez intéressante car son moral est au plus bas, entre les cauchemars qu'il a d'Aaravos et le fait qu'il n'arrive plus à dormir. Il est du coup plus sensible et réagit souvent au quart de tour. Il en devient parano et on a vu dans la saison 4 dans le premier épisode, que ses craintes peuvent être dangereuses quand il croit qu'Ezran est en danger. Ou bien que Callum est fermé émotionnellement parlant. Mais aussi quand il s'est énervé contre Finnegrin pour s'en être prit à Rayla. Il utilise différentes solutions comme créer une couverture empêchant à Aaravos de le manipuler. Après on peut se demander pourquoi c'est aussi grave qu'il utilise la magie noire alors que Viren et Claudia l'ont plus utilisé que lui ? Dans sa tête, c'est pas une bonne chose et dans ses cauchemars, son subconscient empire la chose et ce qui pourrait lui arriver. Quand Cosmos lui révèle que la perle qu'il a amené est un leurre. C'est trop pour lui même quand on lui dit qu'il y a une solution pour le purifier de la magie noire. Il n'a plus le courage de le faire c'est pour ça que Cosmos lui ment et lui permettre de passer le rituel de purification. Dans ce passage, Callum se pose des questions mais ne voit que les ténèbres ne pouvant voir sa constellation. Mais la constellation de Rayla le guide pour être sa vérité. Ce qui lui permet de retrouver une certaine stabilité émotionnelle !

Tu dois me tuer

Donc est ce que ça veut dire que Callum est hors de danger ? Pas vraiment, dans la scène du bateau, Callum a avoué qu'il a utilisé la magie noire. Le ton monte et quand il révèle qu'il a fait ça pour elle. Elle n'aime pas ça, elle sait que Callum tient à faire ce qui est juste et ne veut pas qu'il la priorise. Ce qui est récurrent avec elle dans Lux Aurea, elle veut pas prioriser son envie de revoir sa famille au détriment de la mission principale. Et après s'être échappés du bateau, il lui parle de faire ce qui est bien et demande de le tuer si jamais Aaravos prend possession de lui. Bien qu'il a fait le rituel de purification, ça veut pas dire pour autant qu'Aaravos peut pas l'attaquer émotionnellement. Callum était obsédé à l'idée de se débarrasser d'Aaravos. Donc si il apprend que la perle qu'il a donné est un leurre, il risque de faire une crise d'angoisse. Mais du coup il essaierait justement de trouver une solution pour le voir partir pour de bon. Par contre, je pense pas qu'emprisonner à nouveau Aaravos ou bien le tuer va résoudre quoi que ce soit. La conclusion entre ces deux là, sera sûrement quelque chose dont on s'y attend pas. Donc faudrait voir pour la dernière saison de la série.

To find your own truth

Finding one's own truth is an important theme for Claudia, Viren but also Callum. But I'll talk about Callum first, in Act 1 he was introduced as a young man unable to live up to the expectations of his role as prince. But when he uses magic, he feels he's good at something. So he wants to try, but Lujanne tells him that since he has no connection to an arcanum, there's no way a human can learn primal magic. But despite this, he still wants to try. And so he tries to understand the sky arcanum. He feels helpless when it comes to saving Pyrrha, although he decides to go anyway, using dark magic. In his nightmare, he doesn't know where to go and feels lost. But then comes the part where his dark side tempts him to use dark magic.

What's so bad about dark magic? If it can help his friends? And with it, he'll have unlimited power. And Callum almost takes it, but Harrow intervenes, reminding him that he's free and seeing his dark side. He refuses and says it's up to him to write his own destiny. And the fact that he's having trouble breathing draws a parallel with his biological father Damien, who had a breathing illness. But also Sarai, who will always be there for him even if she's no longer there. This enables him to understand the sky arcanum and use the aspiro spell.

Learning about yourself

What's also important to note is that Callum's journey is also one of self-discovery. He understands that he can be courageous, help others, see that his prejudices were wrong, and strengthen his morals. It's also because he had the opportunity to travel and discover Xadia that he was able to evolve and grow. But it was also because he got to know Rayla and gradually fell in love with her that he grew wings. In fact, there's a saying that love gives you wings, and that's what happened in the season 3 finale. Then comes season 4, when we learn that Rayla has left and that this has affected her emotionally, and Callum wasn't about to talk to her when she came into his office. But I liked the way their relationship was handled in season 4, they needed time to finally understand that yes, both of them are here and have no intention of leaving.

However, the magic turns against him when Aaravos takes possession of him. The horror and fear that something might happen to his loved ones. He asks Rayla to kill him, but she refuses because she's only just found him and doesn't want to lose him. She believes he'll be able to overcome it because Rayla has witnessed the trials he's endured. But it's something that haunts Callum, and in the Finnegrin episode, Finnegrin is the embodiment of temptation. He refuses to give what he wants, because their views on freedom differ (more on that here). For him, freedom has enabled him to do what seemed inconceivable: use primal magic. Finnegrin takes the freedom of others to control them. And he refuses to let his freedom be stolen by Domina Profundis. But Finnegrin makes him understand that he's not a primal mage, but a dark mage. And pushes him to the point of attacking Rayla. And although he was able to free himself from his chains, he once again used dark magic. Yet despite all this, he was able to connect to the ocean's arcanum and let go, understanding that he couldn't control everything. For him, it was a failure.

The Dark Side of Callum

Season 6 is quite interesting because his spirits are low, between the nightmares he has of Aaravos and the fact that he can't sleep. As a result, he's more sensitive and often reacts out of the blue. He becomes paranoid, and we saw in the first episode of season 4 that his fears can be dangerous when he believes Ezran is in danger. Or that Callum is emotionally closed off. But also when he got angry at Finnegrin for going after Rayla. He uses various solutions, such as creating a cover to prevent Aaravos from manipulating him. But why is it so serious that he uses dark magic when Viren and Claudia have used it more than he has? In his head, it's not a good thing, and in his nightmares, his subconscious is making it worse for him. When Cosmos reveals to him that the pearl he's brought along is a decoy. It's too much for him even when he's told there's a solution to purify him of the dark magic. He no longer has the courage to do it, so Cosmos lies to him and allows him to pass the purification ritual. In this passage, Callum asks himself questions but sees only darkness, unable to see his constellation. But Rayla's constellation guides him to his truth. This allows him to regain some emotional stability!

You have to kill me

So does that mean Callum's out of the picture? Not really, in the boat scene, Callum confessed to using dark magic. Tensions flare when he reveals that he did it for her. She doesn't like it; she knows Callum wants to do the right thing and doesn't want him to put her first. This is a recurring theme with her in Lux Aurea, she doesn't want to prioritize her desire to see her family again over the main mission. And after escaping from the ship, he talks to her about doing the right thing and asks her to kill him if Aaravos ever takes possession of him. Even though he's done the purification ritual, that doesn't mean Aaravos can't attack him emotionally. Callum was obsessed with getting rid of Aaravos. So if he learns that the pearl he gave him is a decoy, he's likely to have an anxiety attack. But then he'd be trying to find a solution to see him go for good. On the other hand, I don't think that imprisoning Aaravos again or killing him will solve anything. The conclusion between these two will surely be something we don't expect. So we'll have to wait and see for the final season of the series.

[flashbic]

Ça y est : les épisodes 2 et 3 sont maintenant dispos sur youtube avec les sous-titres en français! Je pouvais pas annoncer ça en mettant juste un lien vers les vidéos, donc en bonus on a des title cards.

La playlist complète est par ici!