#But he manages to guess right

[irenespring]

It is fun putting House on the comfort side of hurt/comfort. He doesn't like it. He's awkward. He thinks he's terrible at it. He hates talking about emotions. Eye contact is his mortal enemy. But he does it. And Wilson thinks he's great.

[vaguely-concerned]

the fact that irving canonically survives through the end of asunder to be at wynne's funeral is so fucking funny to me. nothing but love and respect for MY unstoppable cockroach morally grey machiavellian mage dad!!! he's survived in his position through multiple attempted rites of annulment and blood mage plots popping up left right and center around him. the chantry keeps trying to stamp him out but his dodge game is simply out of this world, divine. civil wars, political machinations and minefields, chantry atrocities, this wily old motherfucker is dodging and weaving his way through it all, not-quite-no-hits-taken-running-it-but-honestly-close-enough-under-the-circumstances style. if solas does succeed in tearing down the veil I would fully believe that one of the like three people still alive at the end of it all would be a very weary 90 year old first enchanter irving going 'oh this shit again huh'. the maker has cursed him for his hubris and his paperwork is never finished (affectionate, it's fine he canonically loves paperwork)

[spoofymcgee]

finally got around to watching hbomberguy's plagiarism video and i. don't even really know if i have so many thoughts. i loved it, obviously, it's such an incredible and fine toothed combing through of who deserves to be credited for everything james somerton has stolen. it's not his work and he didn't have to do it, it's going far above and beyond what's necessary–except that it isn't, because the video isn't about the drama or the fact that somebody else Did A Wrong. it's about the people plagiarism hurts, between the creators and the audience and the plagarisers themselves.

i feel like i went into the video with certain expectations based on the way i saw tumblr react to it, and there was some of that, too, and i'm sure i was viewing those reactions through my own biases but. i think it's really cool how different it was from what i expected. i really loved how much of it is dedicated to just. showing why and how doing this hurts people, and it's wrong because of that, not because someone decided it is.

i dunno. it's a very poignant and well stated and researched video, and i can't wait to watch some videos from the creators he recommends. and it really made me think about how even the pieces of art i make that i think are silly or ridiculous are some little part of figuring out who i am, a little bit of myself drawn out and pinned to paper, and in exchange i think i get a little closer to, like hbomberguy talks about at the end of the video, filling that little bit of nothing inside of us with something.

and i think that's really cool.

[cent-scratchnsniff]

it was just going to be a few warmup doodles but then she infected the rest of the page like the ever eternal and spreading spores. hod!!! hod. hod :)

[gilgil-machine]

You know, I kind of hate to see people treat Cas!Gil as if he was any less arrogant than his Archer counterpart, when in reality, he just learned that there is a time and place for everything, including arrogance

Same here, and like I kinda understand where those people are coming from since they got used to Saber having a bunch of different versions or alter egos or like Sakura too and some others more. And sure Gilgamesh too has different versions of him like his alter ego that we'll about to see in new volume of fsf or we have proto Gilgamesh or Nebuchadnezzar (well this guy is just Gilface and not actually Gilgamesh but you get the point).

But still you can't treat archer Gil and caster Gil situation as like saber Artoria and caster Artoria because it's a completely different thing and there's a lot of proofs that show that they are one and the same person.

The most obvious one is Babylonia, like there's a lot of moments there that show the connection between caster and archer Gil and it has a huge reference to Gilgamesh's third SG in CCC like I mean.

Also some characters in fgo also mentioning the fact of connection and similarity between archer and caster Gil, like Hakuno for example. She has a line for caster Gilgamesh

AND she uses the same words that archer Gilgamesh mentioned during his third SG speech.

Also in fate samurai remnant there's a lot of archer and caster Gilgamesh references scattered all over his shop. Oh and also this art.

AND there's one official acrylic stand that we have of archer Gil but he wears caster Gil's jewelry.

And caster Gilgamesh can be just as merciless and sharp as archer Gilgamesh

[worstloki]

Loki simply does not have the wiles to usurp the throne. sorry

[moongothic]

I don't even know how to start this post, I've been just thinking about this concept of like... "Role Redundancy" in One Piece, regarding the OG Shichibukai. A lot of it does come from people just speculating about Crocodile's past and future role in the story, and how often I do kind of feel like certain suggestions/ideas feel somewhat too redundant, as the idea may have already been done with another one of the Warlords if not multiple. (An example of this could be the "former slave" theory, because we already have two former slaves amongst the OG Shichibukai; the fact that Crocodile would then be the THIRD one makes me less likely to believe the theory personally.)

And that just made me wonder even more about how, when you think about it, a lot of the Warlords do actually have stuff in common with one-another, but only to a limited degree. Like there is what almost feels like intentional redundancy amongst these characters and their roles, but it's done carefully so they're not too repetetive?

And to really visualize the connections... I had to make a chart

(Could've added a "Tried to kill Luffy" but literally the only characters who wouldn't fall into that bubble would be Jimbei and Kuma, so it felt a little unnecessary)

Now this is just what I could think of very quickly at the top of my head, you probably could figure out more "Role Redundancies" between these characters. But figuring out all the theoretical connections/similarities between the characters isn't as important as noting how, yeah, most of those similarities are only shared once or twice between characters. They get repeated, but not so much they become actually reduntant in the story (personal feelings/relationship with Luffy aside, that one is quite natural to repeat after all) Also interesting how Crocodile seems to have The Most Shit going on with him, to the point the only characters he doesn't really seem to have one-on-one similarities to are Moria and Hancock

I don't really have a point to this post, I just thought it was interesting to think about and try to visualize. And I do wonder if this could be used to like, try to predict where the story is going, somehow? But yeah, just something to chew on

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

you know, in retrospect, listening to this week’s episode while I’m going out for lunch probably wasn’t a great idea

[orangedogsquad]

Walk at the nature reserve this afternoon. Spur of the moment decided to take four instead of three and it turned out to be a great time!

[lulu2992]

I’d like to (finally) talk about this interview with Mark Thompson, Narrative Director on Far Cry 4:

I love it when devs talk about their work because it’s always super interesting and informative! This video is no exception.

But what struck me most when I first saw the interview is what he says about Far Cry 3, a title he also worked on as a Level Design Director, which I believe means he was not (or barely) involved in the writing of the script. When he mentions what he thinks the issues with the game were and what had to be “fixed” in Far Cry 4, the thing is that... he often contradicts what Jeffrey Yohalem, Lead Writer on Far Cry 3, explained in various articles.

Under the cut, I highlighted some parts of Mark Thompson’s interview (in red) and compared them to Jeffrey Yohalem’s words (in blue, with the sources) so you can see how different their points of view are.

In this case, when it comes to the story and meaning of Far Cry 3, I’m inclined to give more credence to the Lead Writer’s explanations, but I think this example perfectly illustrates how even people who worked on the same project can have very different (and sometimes equally valid) opinions, understandings, and feelings about it, and why it can therefore be difficult for the audience to determine what the “truth” or the “right” interpretation is…

Open world vs story

MT: We ended up shipping a game where the open world had a lot of cool stuff, but it didn’t have a lot of depth or meaning, and it had almost no connection to what was happening in the story. And in fact, in some ways, the two were kind of opposed and they were kind of conflicting each other. So, on one hand, the story itself had this ticking time bomb of “I have these friends that I need to rescue, but holy sh*t, collecting plants, finding that next animal I need for the next upgrade, getting that next skill point… Oh, look, there’s a radio tower! Wait, wasn’t I heading to that outpost?” And then you’re like, “Oh yeah, sh*t, my friend Keith’s trapped in the basement, I should probably go rescue him… I’m a terrible friend.” That was my main goal: fix this sh*t and make sure that the story and the open world speak to each other, complement each other; strip everything down so that the story and the open world are the same thing and it’s the same game.

JY: People who have looked at the surface of the game think that the story and the game are at war with each other as they are in most games, with the story just plugging potholes and the gameplay is going along its merry way. I think it’s very exaggerated that, “Oh, go save the friends! Go save the friends!” but most people are out on the island doing all this other crazy stuff and experiencing the gameplay. And that’s actually the point of the story. It’s not a game about go save your friends. It’s a game about – doing a lot of picking skins from things, and wait, it’s just a pile of meat – this doesn’t even make sense, yet I’m still doing it instead of saving the friends. (Rock Paper Shotgun - Dec. 19, 2012)

The “white savior” trope

MT: We were definitely aware of some of the tropes that we fell into - unintentionally in some cases, intentionally in some - and (…) almost the first thing that we did was decide how we were gonna address the white savior trope, the outsider who comes in and helps simple people with his outsider’s kind of more advanced understanding of the world. (...) The first thing we said was, “This guy is from Kyrat, no matter what happens. That is the most important thing; he is part of this world, he belongs here.”

JY: “It’s a first-person game, and Jason is a 25-year old white guy from Los Angeles. From Hollywood. So his view of what’s going on on this island is his own view, and you happen to be looking through his eyes, so you’re seeing his view,” Yohalem explained. “It’s set on an island in the South Pacific, so immediately the thing that comes to mind is the white colonial trope, the Avatar trope. I started with that, and it’s like, ‘Here’s what pop culture thinks about traveling to a new place,’ and the funny thing is, that’s an exaggeration of most games, they just don’t expose it. (The Penny Arcade Report - Dec. 17, 2012)

JY: There’s a reason why Jason is a 25 year old white guy from Hollywood – these are all ideas that are in his head. You’re seeing things through his eyes. (...) It’s not that [Citra] needed a white saviour at all. She didn’t need a white guy at all. She was just looking for the ultimate warrior and someone to be her gun. (...) If this was about the white messiah motif, would I be so stupid as to have a main character’s nickname be Snow White? I’m making fun of that! (Rock Paper Shotgun - Dec. 19, 2012)

The player and the protagonist

MT: When we were doing the script review, almost immediately, the first thing we would do would be, “Okay, so how many lines does Ajay have? Okay, cut that by 75%”, and then we would review it and then cut out even more. Whenever possible, we would set up a scenario where we know or we think we know how players would react, and so we would remove the line that the character would actually say and then have the other person react to it. “Oh, you think that, do you?” - in that kind of way, so they’re like, “Oh f*ck, how did he know I was gonna say that?” Whereas, if the protagonist said that line, they’re like, “Oof, I wouldn’t have said that”, and then suddenly you’re kind of broken out of the experience. (…) When you’re in first-person, all you hear is this disconnected voice that might not be agreeing with what you’re doing. So, again, it’s just about stripping away those barriers of immersion so you can imagine yourself in this scenario.

JY: In Far Cry 3, Jason is a character and he’s not the player. The player is another character in the game. Sometimes Jason disagrees with the player, and sometimes Jason agrees with him. And the magic of that is that then it doesn’t matter! Basically, as long as the whole narrative is directed towards what the player is feeling—which for me is how videogames should be—then I get to target Jason as a resource where players can go: “I disagree with Jason.” And the player gets to convince Jason to do something else. So instead of trying to force the two of them together, I’ve decoupled them. (Killscreen - Dec. 12, 2012)

[slavhew]

12/11/2023

realized i completley forgot to post these mspaint rufii. ig i was saving them to be part of a bigger sketchpile but i didnt get far on my replay :(

[patchwork-crow-writes]

The Lonely Wizard in Inscryption breaks my heart.

Forced to exist in absolute sensory deprivation at the behest of an uncaring master, so starved of sensation that he literally leaps towards you, the first actual thing he's seen in what might well be years. And then when he's turned into a card, his effect is to beeline it towards any card you place on the field, saying things like "Hello Friend!" to what is essentially an unfeeling, uncaring piece of paper...

...I guess this is my thing now, huh. I just... lonely wizard type people are like my kryptonite, aren't they.

[sleepinglionhearts]

It's all fun and games til you hit something you didn't expect in a construction zone and you pop both passenger side tires in what can only be described as the absolute worst occurence of fuckery you've encountered today

[dimdiamond]

Part 2 is dedicated to all the Dancing Queens out there!

Part: 1 / 2 / 3 (Speech bubbles in alt text)

[horsechestnut]

Genuinely starting to think whoever was in charge of the Once Upon a Time timeline quit after season 5.

[marcsnuffy]

Using Lorenzo and Charles' interviews as reference, I'd love to see any assumptions of what Kaiser and Ness would answer here