#1.7.1

[jelepermets]

I do love how intense Hugo is about hammering home how Sister Simplice does not lie. How Sister Simplice has never lied. How Sister Simplice sees lying as satanic, literally:

"Satan has two names: He is called Satan, and he is called the Liar."

Like I'm sure this will never come up in the future. At all. Nope

[cliozaur]

Just a couple of points concerning this chapter:

I'm intrigued by what might have occurred in Hugo's life that led him to disdain truthfulness and almost elevate the ability to lie out of necessity to a virtue. Valjean excels at deceit and performance, which proves crucial for his survival on multiple occasions. In contrast, Javert is pathologically incapable of lying (he does it just once in his life), and this trait doesn't make him a better person; instead, it renders him both villainous and ridiculous. Sister Simplice shares a similar aversion to lying (at least at this point): "the sacred truth was Sister Simplice’s distinctive trait; it was the accent of her virtue." For her, lies are equated with the devil. However, unlike Javert, Sister Simplice will demonstrate more flexibility.

When introducing Sister Perpétue, Hugo unveils his perspective on peasants. It's evident that among intellectuals, attitudes toward peasants have not changed much since the eighteenth century. In this regard, Hugo aligns with the views of Voltaire, which was somewhat unexpected.

[the-mountain-flower]

HMMMMMMM

[mechs-track-tournament]

Round 1.7.1

[lmchaptertitlebracket]

I.vii.1 La Sœur Simplice

Sister Simplice: Wilbour, Wraxall, Hapgood, Walton, Denny, FMA, Rose

Soeur Simplice: Donougher

[dolphin1812]

I think it’s interesting that Sister Simplice’s honesty permits her to transcend age (no one can tell how old she is) and gender (”a person - we dare not say a woman”) when honesty’s importance is so mixed in the novel as a whole and in this section in particular. Of course, many instances of lying in this book are obviously harmful. We’ve just seen how the Thénardiers lie to Fantine in their letters to try to get as much money as possible out of her while separating her from Cosette. However, we’ve also seen the consequences of a focus on honesty above all else. Madeleine’s factory only requires “honesty” from the workers, but that demand is what got Fantine fired. Fantine may not have been hired at all if she’d told the truth about having a child outside of marriage, and then she wouldn’t have ever experienced the financial stability she had while working at the factory. Similarly, Jean Valjean relies on lies to stay safe. In theory, it’d be wonderful if he could tell the truth of his life, but false identities are what keep him out of prison.

I don’t want to imply that Sister Simplice’s honesty is a form of privilege. Hugo specifies that her name comes from a martyr who chose to die rather than lie, suggesting that she too would tell the truth even if it cost her her life. I think it’s instead a sign that there are multiple ways to be “good” and that they all have their flaws. We saw this with the bishop as well. His commitment to charity and compassion undoubtedly makes him good and admirable, but his avoidance of politics makes it difficult for him to address the systemic aspects of these issues. In contrast, the Conventionist was working for political change, but that came at the cost of violence. Even though he was opposed to monarchy, he specified that he didn’t vote for the death of the king, and while he did feel that the violence of the old order explained the violence of the Revolution, the fact that he spent so much time on this question indicates that it’s a difficult issue to navigate. 

In addition to allowing multiple systems of morality to co-exist, I think Hugo is pointing out the difference between actually adhering to a moral code and paying lip service to it. Everyone in Montreuil-sur-Mer seems fixated on honesty, but most of them (such as Mme Victurnien) are hypocritical about it as well. Sister Simplice, however, is genuinely honest. When she preaches the value of this trait, she’s not doing so to harm others, but out of a real belief that it’s right.

[pumpkinspice-prouvaire]

hugo: sister simplice never lies

me: ok

hugo: like, ever. she never lies. she just doesn’t do it

me: 

hugo: N E V E R. doesn’t lie. ever. 

me:

hugo: SISTER SIMPLICE NEVER LIES

I wonder if this will be important later

[katenepveu]

So Les Mis Letters through the end of Part One, "Fantine."

(Reminder: I know very little about the plot, so please: no spoilers! Thank you.)

This turned out long (what a surprise!) so I will pop it behind a read-more.

I continue to be bemused by Hugo's approach to verisimilitude and sources. I would be perfectly happy to just roll with it, but he keeps calling to my attention the places in which he cannot know just as much as the places where he claims he does! Consider this from 1.7.3, "A Storm on the Brain":

It’s only in this sense that we should understand the words often used in this chapter: he said, he cried out. We say to ourselves, we talk to ourselves, we cry out inside ourselves, without the outer silence being broken. There is a great tumult; everything in us speaks, except our mouths. The realities of the soul are no less real for not being visible and tangible.

Beautiful, true, and also putting flashing neon lights around "none of this monologue could have been overheard by anyone!"

And then this from the chapter immediately after:

The nightmare struck him so forcefully he later wrote it down. It is one of the notes written in his own hand that he left behind. We believe we should transcribe the thing verbatim here.

Maybe it's because I really pay attention to how a work carries through its chosen narrative framework, but I find these constant attempts to reinforce the text's authoritativeness to have exactly the opposite effect.

To continue with the narrative's approach, I note this from 1.7.1, "Sister Simplice":

Among these details, the reader will come across two or three improbable circumstances that we are keeping out of respect for the truth.

All of 1.7 seems to be improbable circumstances stacked on improbable circumstances! This is not an objection, to be clear: Hugo obviously wanted to produce the specific effect of rapid tension-release-mounting tension of the journey to Arras, which works very well--even though I didn't actually have any doubt, this time, about how Jean Valjean was going to decide.

And that inevitability makes it pointless, for me, to quibble with the logistics--even though I admit I wanted to. For instance, I managed to restrain myself from looking up the possibility of appeals at this time in France, even though my day job is as an appellate lawyer: not the point! And while I tagged the post about the mayor's inability to delegate with "management! is! a skill!!!!"--because my day job also includes managing people and I have a lot of feelings about that--I know that's part of the larger point being made, about how ingrained prejudices manifest even in social structures that are meant to help and how there's only such much a single person can do.

So while I did think, quite a bit, about the competing duties to Fantine and Cosette and to Champmathieu, ultimately I couldn't judge Jean Vajlean as a person for his choice because as a reader, I didn't experience it as a choice, I experienced it as Hugo moving him through the plot to produce the desired effect. For a while I was looking for Good Place trolley problem gifs, thinking I would have Jean as the driver and Hugo as Michael making it all bloody; but then I came across this one, which seems extremely apropos (transcription in alt):

Jean Valjean, being our very explicit Christ analogue (1.7.3), could never do anything else.

(Do I wish that Fantine lived? You bet. Am I surprised? Again, no. Do I see it as Hugo demonstrating that women get the worst of it, and also Hugo demonstrating that he's sexist? why not both.gif!)

Finally, as a lawyer, I fully appreciate Hugo reading my profession for filth in 1.7.9:

The defense counsel had given a pretty good summing up in that provincial lingo that had long constituted the eloquence of the bar and that lawyers used to use in days gone by, every bit as much in Romorantin as in Paris or Montbrison, which today, having become classic and therefore old hat, is scarcely spoken anymore other than by the official orators at the bar, for whom it is most useful in its grave sonority and its majestic tone: a language in which a husband or a wife is called a spouse, Paris, the center of the arts and of civilization, the king, the monarch, my lord bishop, the holy pontiff, the counsel for the prosecution, the eloquent interpreter for the prosecution, the speech for the defense, the strains we have just heard, the century of Louis XIV, the grand siècle, a theater, a temple of Melpomene, the reigning royal family, the august blood of our kings, a concert, a solemn celebration of music, the general in command, the illustrious warrior who, etc., theology students, those gentle Levites, mistakes imputed to newspapers, the imposture that distills its venom in the columns of these organs, etc., etc.

I try very hard not to fall into that myself, but he's not wrong.

[gb-patch]

Today Our Life version 1.7.1 went live! It fixed the errors reported for Baxter's DLC and added a handful of improvements throughout the entire game. If there are any updates beyond this, they will only be to make minor typo fixes. Our Life has reached a definitive state of completion after almost three years!

To celebrate finally reaching this point, we had one last promo image made 💚

Thank you all once more for the kind messages and feedback over the dozens of months of development. It was an incredible experience. And though Our Life: Beginnings & Always won't get further DLCs, GB Patch Games will still be around to make new stories (like that upcoming Patreon bonus event)! We hope to see you around again sometime.

Steam Page (Windows/Linux)

Itch.io Page (Windows/Linux, Mac, Android)

GOG Page (Windows/Linux)

Our Life:

A nostalgic visual novel where you design your own character and grow from childhood to adulthood with the lonely boy next door. Create an experience that’s all your own in this near-fully customizable, choice-heavy story.

[solargeist]

in grian’s episode 50 they entered version 1.7.1, and grian’s series ends at episode 51. phantoms weren’t added until 1.13, which ironically came out like a month after he ended evo, i just don’t think they made it that far.

oh man, I like to think he learns abt them with the Watchers since they bring about updates, he gets to see them before players.

she’s gonna send it after him

[paluding]

A bit of a teaser. So yesterday I learned how to rip models from PSP games using Ninja Ripper 1.7.1, and of course I had to get the most iconic shapeshifter from The Sims series.

Gotta love that crunchy, broken mesh, the 128 px texture... Lot's of work to do to bring this puppy to TS2 on PC 🐶

[jelepermets]

Literally I can't tell if this:

"No one could have guessed [Sister SImplice's] age; she had never been young and seemed as if she would never have to be old."

is supposed to be evocative of Madamoiselle Baptistine, or if Hugo's just like that about writing virtuous women. I'm not being facetious I'm genuinely unsure.

[dotmander]

How To Get Your Character Models Out Of A Game: Tips And Tricks For Bitches That Have Never Used Blender

(it's me, i'm bitches)

(also ignore how messy that lighting is it's 1am and i should have been asleep hours ago. he's there for proof of concept 💕)

a couple people (specifically @forsaken-constellation and @ratasum) asked for a tutorial on how to rip models out of the game. this is not that, but it is a compilation of resources i used to learn about ripping, blender, and 3d modeling in general. i desperately wanted a post like this to exist when i was trying to figure this out, so here we go! all the resources below are completely free, with the exception of a link to the patreon of the person that created ninjaripper.

disclaimers:

there are probably more efficient ways to do the things i am doing. i watched a tutorial to learn shortcuts and then skipped to character models. if you have tips to add, corrections to make, or other thoughts, please feel free to share! i'll link to your post here. ^^

i do not know if any of this will get your account banned. i've ripped several models, so i'm going to assume it's fine as long as you don't try to make money off of it. use your best judgment, be an adult, etc etc etc

last updated: june 30, 2024

PROGRAMS & WEBSITES

ninjaripper 1.7.1 - there's a newer version on the creator's patreon, presumably with support for newer versions of blender and fewer bugs, but i haven't tried that

blender 2.79 - the import addon that comes with ninjaripper 1.7.1 is outdated for the current version of blender (3.5 as of this post), so 2.79 is needed to combine the .RIP files into a .BLEND (blender) file

noesis - ninjaripper saves your textures as .DDS files, noesis lets you view them and export them as .PNGs

blender 3.5 (optional?) - i just like it better than 2.79. if you're completely new it might not matter to you. all of the tutorials linked later are for later versions, though.

mixamo (optional) - rigs your character for you and lets you put them in Situations (like my guy above.) there's a whole library of free animations and poses you can try!

TUTORIALS

how to use ninjaripper - most of what you need to know about actually ripping the files and using ninjaripper is covered here. do not skip this one.

how to use blender 3.5 - full disclosure i haven't finished this series because it's uhhhh many hours long. but if you are a complete newbie to blender, i do recommend at least the first few videos; you'll learn about shortcuts that will make your life easier, how to unfuck your model when it fucks itself for no reason, and different terms that will help you google things you don't know later on. possibly he even covers some of the things i'm about to link! anyway.

what's a uv map?

how to apply textures

how to apply bump maps (note: for our purposes, you wouldn't add a color ramp node, you would add an image node with your bump map, and attach it to the bump node as the person does in the video)

there should be stuff here about weight painting, cloth physics, emission maps (makes your sylvari glow), and other stuff, but um. i haven't figured those out <3  

TIPS

TURN UP YOUR GRAPHICS BEFORE YOU RIP - if you don't, you might end up missing certain textures/glows/etc. HOWEVER, you should turn animations down, because apparently high animation can make your meshes misplace themselves

rip from the character select screen, rather than an instance, because you will have 100 meshes to sort through instead of 1400. i am not exaggerating either of those numbers. if you are new to blender, please love yourself and start with character select.

your textures will be fucked up the first time you try to apply them. this is because the UV maps (the things that tell your textures where to go) of your models are flipped upside down in relation to the texture image. you can flip them back over manually, ooooor you can just flip the entire texture file in something like CSP or photoshop.

for some reason all eyes are red in the texture files. i have not figured out why. i recommend editing the .PNG to have the correct eye color before applying the texture.

that's all i can think of for now - if you have other questions, feel free to shoot them my way, although i can't promise i'll have a straight answer ^^;;

mixamo only works for humanoid characters with tight clothing (or without clothing at all). if you try to use it to rig a charr or asura, or someone with a skirt or big sleeves, you will most likely be disappointed.

2024 edit: sometimes parts of hair meshes just...disappear. i have no idea why. if you can figure it out please let me know LMAO

information from bookahlogy about character proportions, fixing normals, and other fun tips

[chibipwincess]

Outfit by ! BUFFY'S ! - Jiangshi Set @Abnormality

Hat by ! BUFFY'S ! - Jiangshi Hat (Group Gift) @Abnormality

────── °.  「 e x t r a ◦ i n f o r m a t i o n 」 .° ──────

── G e n e t i c s

‣ Head: LeLUTKA Briannon Head 3.1 .

‣ Shape: . Yubbi . // Personal Shape .

‣Skin: Enfer Sombre.

‣ Eyes: Enfer Sombre

‣ Blush: Cake Inc. + [Utopia]

‣ Body: Meshbody LEGACY Special Edition (1.7.1)

‣ Hair:  [^.^Ayashi^.^] Shiina hair-Fatpack

── N o t ◦ s p o n s o r s

‣ Bandages: 12.[Since1975] Bandage Leg -White (legacy)

‣ Ghosts: YOKAI - Scare Factory

[dolphin1812]

“Sister Perpétue was a robust nun from Marines near Pontoise, who chattered her patois, droned, grumbled, sugared the potion according to the bigotry or the hypocrisy of the invalid, treated her patients abruptly, roughly, was crabbed with the dying, almost flung God in their faces, stoned their death agony with prayers mumbled in a rage; was bold, honest, and ruddy.”

Sister Perpétue is just a French version of Dr. McCoy from Star Trek?

[dysperdis]

I'm calling this 1.8 b/c I forgot to update the info on the last one & decided to call it 1.7.1, but... yeah, anyways, this thing is starting to look kinda polished and everything.

Anyways, the tileset's been improved, there's some fun little interactions with the environment, Forrester's sidequest actually has a name, background NPCs show up and leave when they're supposed to, and the doors to the bathrooms open properly.

Play on Newgrounds: https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/913388

Download from Itch.io: https://dysperdis.itch.io/welcome-to-silverscale-lake

Both links take you to the full version of the game, and I do not collect, track, or sell your personal data in any way. I do, however, love feedback, including ideas for how I can improve things!