#I used to think in concepts and overarching ideas if you’re curious

[the-radiants]

I don’t think pluralphobes actually understand anything at all. Nope most of us don’t think we’re plural because we have thoughts. Nothing about my thoughts changing to actually be in words made me think I was plural lmao

[inphront]

hi! as one of your local canadian followers I’m curious about your writing project. I’d love to hear more about it if you don’t mind sharing! no worries if not though ✌️

oh i was so hoping someone would ask me about this thank you you’re an angel. this story popped into my head like literally ten hours ago and i’m already thinking about making a whole ass sideblog for it. i am rotating it sosofast in my brain. anyway it follows Delta Powell-Ward, the daughter of a very shitty political leader campaigning to be president of Life (Life being a country). Unbeknownst to her family, Delta spends her spare time smuggling refugees across the border between Life and the neighboring nation of Death— Life and Death have been in the midst of a trade war for a hot moment that will become an all-out *actual* war any day now, and the people of Death (or just the dead, as they’re called) are not resourced for this in the slightest. Delta is one of the only people she knows with the know-how to travel mostly uninhibited between the nations.

anyway, in a completely unhinged attempt to drive the metaphor home, i’ve decided Life and Death aren’t the only domains in this setting: there is also Canada. i initially thought of this because i found the concept fucking hilarious, but it has immediately started doing obscene amounts of thematic heavy lifting. the narrative is, at least for the first while, going to treat Canada similarly to how the US tends to treat Canada, which is to say it will be largely ignored unless it’s funny (“have you always been alive?” “no, actually, i was born in Canada”), even though the implications of Canada being part of this universe like completely change the entire way the story reads. eventually the existence of Canada will end up as kind of a springboard for exploring the in-universe idea that life and death aren’t necessarily a strict binary and the overarching *out-* of-universe theme that neither is quite as big a deal as society seems to think they are.

i could go a lot more in-depth about my plans for all three nations symbolically and also for Delta as a character, and like. i probably will either on this blog or on a new one, but. yeah that’s the origin of “not alive not dead but a secret third thing (canadian).” i am gonna hyperfixate like hell.

[miraculouscontent]

Ask Explosion #9:

Asks answering previous posts:

Sabrina, I have one word of advice for you...

R U N

“Chat, please stop talking.”

“But that’s my thing!”

“YOU JINX EVERYTHING!!”

Ayyyyyy~

Well, it’s something, I suppose?

Answered this here.

It absolutely did. Bless you, kind and hilarious citizien. ;P

I’m torn because... on one hand, I want to give proper mythology and such for like--anything that’d be put into the show, but on the other, I liked the idea that Alix’s brother was just sort of a conspiracy who thought of stupid stuff (which is why I kept the concept for MC Jalil Kubdel).

Zoe did it really well in Scarlet Lady where Alix knew the actual mythology and started blurting it out whenever Jalil got it wrong.

New Asks:

Considering “Ikari Gozen,” I imagine Alya and Kagami don’t get along as well. I agree with basically everyone that Marinette and Kagami not getting along is bad, but Alya and Kagami not really getting along makes more sense and is more tolerable.

Since Alya is Marinette’s “““BFF”““ (supposedly), I could see her kind of being like, “You’re competing with my girl over the same guy,” and keeping Kagami at arm’s length, worried that keeping Kagami close will allow Kagami to be closer to Adrien since Adrien is an extension of their friend group (kinda, sorta, not really, but Marinette calling him a friend so technically--)

You know, Alya trying to be a good friend and help Marinette with Adrien in more subtle ways. It’s the wrong way to go about it but she’s trying.

LUKANETTE IS AMAZING IN TERMS OF PROGRESSION KDJNGJDFG, I ADORE IT. Every episode they share together, we either learn something new about them or see more details on their relationship.

I think I was already all-in before “Silencer,” but man, that episode just sealed it even more. I was like well dang, why does the love square even EXIST???

jfdngjkfdjgfdg

Incredible. Only problem is that the creator doesn’t know how to use it properly.

You mean fourteen year olds aren’t perfect human beings???? :o

(no, but really, that’s me all the time; like, she’s barely a teen!)

He’ll believe it if it’s Chat Noir who’s doing it. If Marinette ever does it though, he’ll be sure to shut it down. ;P

Ugggggh, the worst part is that I have the same exact fear that they really are going to be like yeah Ladybug you silly fool Chat Noir has been with you since the beginning!

I mean, we’re already basically getting that with the New York special; Chat was supposed to protect Paris and then didn’t tell Ladybug that he “had to” leave for New York (and the New York thing is inadvertently Marinette’s fault and parts of the fandom actually did blame her for it even though it was Chat’s choice not to say anything), then Ladybug gets upset with him when she discovers it mid-battle, which leads to Chat being distracted and Cataclysming someone (another thing that Ladybug can be “inadvertently” blamed for), then Chat gives up his miraculous so Ladybug isn’t even allowed to be angry and cue the later line of “I can’t imagine being Ladybug without... him.”

So clearly that’s saying something. Adrien doesn’t get anything close to that level and Marinette is chewed out for not asking him to stay when Nino had already asked him too.

It’s like--Marinette chooses to go after Adrien and then gets either nothing in return, or humiliated by the narrative, and then in the New York special, she decides to do nothing and everything still goes wrong while Alya yells at her for it. The “damned if she does, damned if she don’t,” on display is stunning. The girl tries to confess and it’s like, “no, not allowed, but Chat is allowed to confess.”

I still don’t understand this logic of his overarching plot but also “there’s not much of a timeline.” I think the only solid thing we’ve ever gotten was something about all the episodes in one season coming after all the episodes in a previous one, but there are still things that don’t add up? The only thing the season 3 production order will give is making sure the hero debuts work out (so no Viperion or Pegase before “Party Crasher,” for example).

It’s not really reliable. I mean, like--I’ve been experimenting with timelines for a while, and stuff like “Miraculer” baffles me. It’s basically non-canon with no value whatsoever. All it does is make “Heart Hunter” look even more confusing and treats Marinette even more horribly for not picking Chloe when she explicitly told Chloe that she wasn’t getting it back.

I’m not familiar with that one! Is it any good?

(Okay, I actually was too curious and ended up looking it up; fancy! I couldn’t have guessed that it was a webtoon! I started reading the 1st issue and before I knew it, I was on the 6th! Oops~)

Lila is totally Rashta, 100% agree. The fact that the comments have a nickname of “Trashta” for her, equivalent to Liar Rossi, says as much ;P

Because lessons that involve telling someone that they’re valid and allowed to feel a certain way don’t apply to Marinette. Isn’t it nice? :3

Not that I know of? Though I also don’t look for that kind of thing, so it’s possible that it exists and I just don’t know about it.

Even if it did exist thought, I don’t see a problem with you doing your own regardless. Good luck if you do!

No. No I do not. ;P

GREETINGS FELLOW INTJ!

And yeah, I’m not really capable of not analyzing shows. There are some small exceptions, but they’re usually not full shows in the normal sense. If there’s an ongoing plot, my mind tends to be working at all times.

In terms of Miraculous, Season 1 was harmless enough where I was bothered but pretty quiet about it, but then it just got progressively worse. It really feels like one of those things you can’t unsee when it finally hits you, y’know?

I’m glad I was able to help you get that satisfaction you need (and appreciate Lukanette, of course ;3)!

Non-Miraculous Asks:

(some heavy Puella Magi Madoka Magica salt below)

Wow, this is a really dedicated ask! Nice!

Gonna go point by point here:

1 - Yeah, the whole thing with Homura not “being able” to save everyone... kinda questionable, and I didn’t really buy the arguments they used to explain it away. I think there was this one PSP game or something with Madoka Magica where you could kind of choose what happened (like, there were bad ends where Sayaka didn’t get her soul gem back in time and her body was partially decayed; ick) and I think there’s a good end where Homura saves everyone but--yeah, not canon.

I just don’t care for twisted stories like that unless there is actually a good end on the horizon (and I mean like “Everyone Lives and is Happy” good end). Angst is just so exhausting so the second I saw Mami’s head being bitten I was just like, “Ah, okay, so we’re doing this then.”

2 - Eugh, the sexism thing. It’s so... yeah, and especially this because the whole “girls are emotional” thing, I don’t really care whether or not the show is trying to “subvert” or “explain” anything, it just feels like poor taste and I don’t like it. (I also didn’t know about that Death Note thing because I didn’t watch it, but geez.)

3 - Wow, I’ve been away from the show for so long that I forgot what Mami’s wish was; I thought it was to “not be alone” or something (or maybe not die alone?? I really don’t remember), but either way, the fact that it follows some sort of genie wish logic is just--*sigh*--they’re teenage girls, come on (plus, the “genie wish logic” is really overdone to me anyway).

4 - The other thing about Sayaka is that it’s really predictable that she’d “die so quickly.” Basically everything was pointing to her just being annihilated at some point, and being Madoka’s best friend, it was pretty inevitable that she’d go.

((semi-unrelated, but someone also asked me which character’s name was lied about before episode 3 hit and they wondered if it was Sayaka’s; it was Kyubey’s))

Yikes. Sorry you had to experience that.

Anyway, I guess I’m not experienced enough in multiple fandoms to say for sure? If I was ever in a fandom, I would just blacklist the people/stuff I didn’t like, so I didn’t get to see a tong of “bad things” going on.

+ I try really hard not to generalize fandoms into one thing.

𝓖𝓮𝓷𝓭𝓮𝓻 𝓝𝓸𝓻𝓶𝓼 𝓐𝓻𝓮 𝓢𝓽𝓾𝓹𝓲𝓭 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓑𝓸𝔂𝓼 𝓐𝓻𝓮 𝓐𝓵𝓵𝓸𝔀𝓮𝓭 𝓽𝓸 𝓛𝓲𝓴𝓮 “𝓖𝓲𝓻𝓵𝔂” 𝓣𝓱𝓲𝓷𝓰𝓼

Oof, uhhh, shows, huh? That’s tough.

I think the main ship from Given (Mafuyu and Ritsuka) is really adorable (you might’ve seen the amusing video of their love being mutual before), and while I would’ve said the same thing for the kinda-sorta side ship, it gets--uh... really bad during the movie/rest of the manga, I’ll just say that much.

Mafuyu and Ritsuka though, totally adorable.

Inuyasha kinda? Though Inuyasha and Kagome are definitely not the kind of romantic chemistry that I lean towards (I find “the bickering couple” to be rather exhausting). Plus, Cardcaptor Sakura did the “male tsundere” better than Inuyasha did (though the Clear Card Arc was terrible, at least it’s not canon kinda-sorta? idk it seems like a mix of the anime and manga so...).

After that there’s...

uh

...

hm.

I mean, there’s probably a couple more examples somewhere, but--yeah, I’ve got nothing. Maybe if I thought back to all the generic children shows I watched when I was little (like those old Disney live-action shows; I had no taste when I was younger), there might’ve been something that satisfied kid me but idk.

I don’t remember what post inspired this, but I have no problem answering regardless, ahaha~

My main issue is Aang’s attitude about the whole thing. I’m not saying it was right of Katara to go out and get “revenge via murder” exactly, but I also think that Zuko had the right idea with allowing her to go and face the man who killed her mother so she could get some form of closure (also note that Zuko doesn’t express any sort of opinion when Katara decides not to kill him; he just wanted her to have whatever she thought she needed to heal).

It’s also the episode where Zuko directly confronts Aang on his “violence isn’t the answer” rhetoric which then goes completely ignored as Aang lionturtles his way out of the conflict. Aang is also not confronted on his point of “forgiveness is the first step to healing” (when Katara has a right not to forgive and Aang isn’t challenged outside of Katara commenting on it) and was permitted to ride his high horse when Katara “steals” Appa like, “It's okay, because I forgive you... that give you any ideas?” which is just--

reaaaaaally "holier than thou”-esque when Aang is like, ten, and Katara is a sort of motherly figure to him. The episode even has Sokka praise Aang for how “wise” he is and I groaned through the entire thing.

Another smaller thing is that it sort of makes the air kingdom look way too “perfect” by having Aang be the “source of wisedom,” especially when it’s like “violence isn’t the answer” while all the other airbenders are dead.

[reversemoon255]

Digimon Adventure:

Honestly, when this series was announced, I wasn’t looking forward to it. While the final product always varies, I’m not a big fan of the concept of reboots, especially in shows like Digimon that live off refreshing themselves every season. Yes, we’ve had continuations of specific continuities a few times, but never a redo of an existing story. I understand it was likely due to ratings, but I’d rather they do a new team in the existing Adventure universe than go back and do the story again.

But, thankfully, I did enjoy it. It had its lows, but a lot of highs, too. I feel like the overall product on an episode-to-episode basis was superior to the original. That’s not to discount the original, as the overall plots there are stronger, and we get character backstories that, while they carry over, are only fleshed out in the original.

The Good: As I said, episode-to-episode, this show is really good, and definitely has the best filler episodes in Digimon so far. While it pops up here and there, there’s a lot less stock footage used in comparison to the previous seasons, and apart from Agumon and Gabumon’s evolution sequences are very short. It also has the best non-movie animation in the show’s run. Fight scenes are no longer stock footage finishers being thrown at each other; there’s actual impact and interaction between Digimon, and a lot less standing around with lip flaps. The battle against Millenniumon in particular was outstanding to watch, and many of the scenes during the fight against Abbadomon were great as well.

Diving into more detail, I like that Taichi was used as a framing character for most episodes. This is a cast of 16 main characters, even if the Digimon don’t get a lot of development, and having a central character, as well as the show’s decision to slowly introduce everyone rather than all at once, makes things easier to digest.

I had heard some complaints early on about how early Omegamon showed up, but when hearing from people who were watching Digimon for the first time it was an exciting mystery and pull to continue watching. And I have to agree with the decision. While I too felt it was a little early, I also thought he was well utilized, and if he helped bring in more fans, then I have to applaud the idea.

While the basic characterizations and backstories are still there, everyone’s personalities have changed ever so slightly. Taichi is less childish than before, Yamato is a better representation of friendship than the original (IMO), Sora lacks a lot of her baggage, Izumi has some self-esteem issues, Mimi is a lot more caring, Joe more confident, Takeru more competent, and Hikari… well, Hikari feels like she’s written as if she’s on the spectrum (which isn’t a bad thing, as it felt somewhat competently done, if maybe a bit subtle and less obvious as the series continued). I actually prefer some of this show’s versions of the characters to their counterparts. Mimi in particular is a far better and more interesting character, and I think the writers thought that too, as she got some of the best solo episodes.

The Bad: While individual episodes are typically good, Adventure: does drag when it comes to overarching plots. It takes them twice as long as the original to fight Devimon, but he isn’t nearly as built up or developed a character until over 10 episodes after they defeated him. Then there’s Millenniummon, who is talked about a lot, but has no personality and is just a force of nature. Granted he has the best fight scene in the series, but that only goes so far. And Negamon is done slightly better? But is pushed aside when it comes to everyone’s individual final character episodes.

A similar issue is that the opening chunk of episodes feel very formulaic. Introduce a new character and have their partner evolve to Adult, then it’s the same with Perfect. Part of this may be because there was a push to get to WarGreymon for promotional purposes, and the several week delay caused by Covid meant they had to get to it sooner to meet deadlines. This show hits its stride after WarGreymon, but it’s more hit-or-miss before he shows up.

While Characters like Mimi became better during the Reboot, characters like Izumi suffered a little, and Sora suffered a lot. It’s heavily hinted that all the character backstories and parent relationships are the same, but they don’t utilize them or bring them up more than once apart from with Takeru. And since Sora’s character development was heavily related to her mom, and her mom was omitted from the series, her development is extremely basic in comparison to the original. Izumi does grow in confidence over the series, but also loses his relationship with his parents and learning that he was adopted. The show weirdly feels like a sequel to the original in this way. There are a few things in addition to parents that carry over from the original, like the crests, that aren’t delved into here, but are hinted at being the same.

Another noticeable change in the characters is that everyone acts quite a bit older than they actually are. Joe is the oldest at 5th Grade, and Takeru and Hikari are, like, 6.The bizarre level or understanding and clear-headed-ness displayed by these children in some of these situations is above what they should probably be capable of, at least near the beginnings of the show. Most of the seasons where the characters are younger do a good job of somewhat realistically portraying their ages, but this season forgoes that. Not a deal breaker, but I would have liked to have seen act their ages a bit more.

Ghost Game: I’m very excited for Ghost Game. Even with the very little I’ve seen of it, it has several things that I’ve enjoyed in previous seasons, like taking place in the real world (something lacking from this season), a smaller cast, and new Digimon. It’s also doing a few new things that have me curious. While having a female Tamer and male Digimon isn’t too uncommon, Angoramon is a more Typically masculine Digimon than we normally see as a partner in these situations, and this is the first time to my recollection that we’ve gotten a male Tamer with a femanine Digimon. Also, Gammamon is the first MC partner Digimon that isn’t a primary color (yellow, blue, or red), which seems to be going around lately (as Zenkaiser and Cure Summer are both white team leaders usually filled by red or pink characters). There’s just a lot of things about the team comp that stand out compared to everything that’s come before if you give it a second glance.

Overall, I enjoyed this season, which I wasn’t sure I would going in. The first half of the show has a few misses, but plenty of hits, and they only increase in number as the show continues. It can easily be viewed if you’re new to Digimon, but there’re also some things you might only pick up if you’ve seen the original. There are also plenty of good individual episodes if you like the original and just want to spend a little more time with these characters.

[amysubmits]

I have loved listening to the podcast and reading the blogs. Your story remind me much of myself. I thought it was all about spanking, but have found that I believe it is about the dominance. I am nervous to talk to significant other about this. We have been together for 7 yrs and live together. I am on the fence about bringing it up, I guess I want to know how to know for sure, some tips on bringing it up to him and how can I tell if he is naturally a dom? He is already pretty dominant in bed.

Thank you! Glad you like them. :)

It’s quite a tricky question because there are many types of dominants and many types of D/s. I can tell you some of the things that existed in CD before we intentionally chose D/s, that I now see as his natural dominance...

He always stood up to handle things when times were tough. A medical crisis, our house flooding, our roommate giving us 2 weeks notice that he won’t be resigning the lease with us, a problem with a neighbor, vehicle trouble. Whatever crap got thrown our way, he was always going to step up and take care of things. He’d get my opinion if I had one to give, or let me help if I wanted to. But when something went wrong he was always going to make sure things were taken care of for both of us. So I guess...he valued responsibility, and was happy to take on responsibility for both of us without seeing that as burdensome or like I wasn’t doing my fair share. He wanted to take care of us in those ways. He’s a problem solver who likes being trusted to take care of things.   

He always did his best to be aware of my needs and to meet them. He’s kind of a natural caregiver in that way, he wants me to be okay and he notices when I am not. He is just naturally emotionally aware. I grew up around some men who would pretend to not recognize their wife’s distress until they were metaphorically hit over the head with it because they wanted to not get involved unless they were forced to, basically. CD not like that at all, he wants to be emotionally supportive of me, and he wants to maintain a high level of emotional intimacy with me, he wants to really deeply understand me and so on. He doesn’t run from emotional labor.  

He never was bothered by my passiveness, softness, shyness, anxiousness, etc. This is personality-specific, not sub-specific. But a lot of people in my life have thought I should be more adventurous, or bolder, or more assertive. CD never saw me NOT being those things as a weakness. 

Obviously, this is very specific to our situation in terms of our genders and our sides of the slash and the style of D/s that we are interested in, but we had talked openly about how we liked “old fashioned relationships’ well before we knew what D/s was. I now recognize that the reason we liked some ‘traditional’ things was that they aligned with our interest in D/s in certain ways. 

In just an overarching, vague way, he always kinda wore the pants. Not in a super obvious way like...he wasn’t giving me demands or restrictions, he wouldn’t have done those things before D/s because he didn’t have the right to at the time. But I always wanted to please him and I always wanted to let him have his way when I could. And he was more likely to throw out an idea or suggestion first than I was. So more often than not, he’d suggest something and i’d say sure, and so he led in that natural way prior to D/s.

So these are a few of what stands out to me in hindsight as ‘signs’. But because every dominant is different and every relationship is different, these may be totally different from what you may see in your partner and he could still be a dom. Or someone could have all of these traits and not be a dom in the same way that CD is, at least. 

I tend to see being naturally dominant and being ‘a dom’ as things that can be slightly different. Some people can be leaders and caregivers within their relationship but have no interest in intentional D/s in terms of making rules or rituals or protocols or assigning specific roles or doing kink. I’ve talked to people who had partners who had what I saw as clear signs of dominance, but were strongly opposed to trying intentional D/s. Or some are open to some areas of intentional D/s like assigning roles/responsibilities or doing rituals or protocols, but are really put-off by the idea of holding their partner accountable. So in my view anyway, it’s not always as black and white as ‘are they dominant or not?” or ‘are they a dom or not?” it can also be about if they are interested in taking on the roles/responsibilities that align well with your type of submission or the style of D/s that you are drawn to. I think that can really only be discovered through talking about it, and then through trying things out, if he’s open to it, of course. Because some things sound better in theory than they do in practice, and some things don’t sound that exciting in concept but they’ll feel great to you in practice. So sometimes I think you just have to learn what works for you through trial and error. 

I don’t remember how it was first brought up, for us. At least not in terms of wording or lead-in or anything like that. I think ultimately how you bring it up won’t matter, it’s more about just finding the moment of courage to initiate that conversation. People often seem to assume that they’ll basically ask for D/s and then get told yes or no. So just in case you’re thinking along those lines, I want to say that in my experience, and I think most people's experience, it’s not a single conversation that ends with an answer. It usually takes several conversations to really even pinpoint what your idea of D/s is (because there are lots of misconceptions and stereotypes out there about it), what things you both may be interested in, the basic details of how it might work, finding answers/solutions to concerns (And there likely will be some concerns) and so on. It’s a complex thing that will require lots of communication. So if you bring it up and the conversation ends without a clear answer? I wouldn’t take that as a bad thing. Honestly, if it ended with “Yippee, lets start D/s tomorrow!” that would be a little concerning to me as it would probably be rushing in and not hammering things out enough. 

Anyway I hope something in here was helpful. I guess I just want to restate...there are so many styles of dominance that it’s tough to tell you what signs to look for. I think traits like valuing responsibility, being a caregiver, being trustworthy, honest, consistent, enjoying control (but using it in ethical ways), being a natural leader, etc can all be aspects of dominance but you can also have them and not want D/s. Or you can have those traits and be into one type of D/s while the other partner may be interested in a significantly different type of D/s. Or they may think it sounds interesting, but not really get a ‘buzz’ from it once they try it so they may not really be invested in it longterm. Or they may only be curious at first, but one they try it be blown away at how good it feels to them and how much they want it too. There are just so many variables that I think the only way to find out is to talk and give it a try and see how it feels, see what middle ground you guys can come up with that works for you both. 

If you want to follow-up later please do. I love hearing how things go. Good luck! :)  

[flying-elliska]

Seeing that post, I am actually curious, how do you go about writing a fight scene? How difficult is it to visualize everything that is necessary to paint the action effectively?

Anon ! Thank you for this great question which will allow me to procrastinate writing said fight scene for at least five minutes instead of setting my computer on fire :

For me, like most of my writing, it starts with the characters + the emotional dynamic of the scene. What is happening between them ? What emotional process do I want to convey ? And so when I imagine/brainstorm the story in my head, I often have ideas for action that are centered around emotion. It’s a lot like a stage choreography - the beats should illustrate the story.

For instance : the fight between Lucas and Thorston, it’s sort of a theatrical performance ; Lucas wants to prove himself to the Vallès people, so it’s a sort of demonstration. So it’s very staged - one opponent makes a move, then another. A lot of the time when writing action scenes the first thing I have in mind is the dialogue and the character interactions - and the setting that will fit - the rest comes later. It starts with this training sequence where I show that Thorston is a bully asking Eliott to hurt himself. The general concept is that Lucas is a knight ‘jousting for the honor of his ‘lady’ (Eliott) who has been slighted, bc the chapter has these allusions to knighthood. But he’s also an underdog so I wanted his final victory to come as a surprise - so at first it starts like an unequal fight and then Eliott realises Lucas has been hitting all these strategic spots and Thorston crumbles - this is an illustration of ‘brain over brawn’ (also very inspired by the ‘five finger death punch’ in Kill Bill) - Lucas is physically smaller/shorter than most of his opponents and he compensates by being extremely smart and quick . The end goal is a feeling of satisfaction due to this reversal + Lucas proving himself + then Eliott makes his speech which shows he has a ‘hold’ over Lucas + there is this whole thing where Vallès has orchestrated this on purpose to get rid of Thorston for being a nuisance.

The catacomb fight sequence, on the other hand, is very chaotic, it’s in the dark, through Eliott POV and he is terrified, and out of his depth, but at the same, he also trusts Lucas so a lot of that sequence is him trying to figure out where Lucas is and following his guidance. It’s a bit of a trust fall - this whole bit is them really being together outside of the prison for the first time, and the overarching emotional aspect is that, right away, they fall into this sort of ‘battle intimacy’ where they have to immediately trust each other and they find that they actually really work well together. It also being mostly in the dark pushes them to rely on touch and hearing, which adds another interesting layer of closeness. Meanwhile, Nikolai Magnusson, is like this terrifying assassin figure that stalks them in the dark, so there is a very ‘primal fear’ aspect, they’re under the ground surrounded by dead people, I wanted it to have a bit of a horror movie vibe, so there is a moment where Eliott shoots him and thinks he’s down but then surprise, he’s not and he goes for them again and it’s this ‘oh my gooooood the serial killer is actually behind me!!!!’ moment and they run away without really knowing if he is dead or not, which adds to the lingering threat and atmosphere of pressure.

So then when I actually sit down to write, I have this general idea about a vibe and some ‘high moments’ I want to put in ; I know the purpose I want the scene to serve, the starting and end points. Now I need to figure out how to get from A to B to C, which is A LOT HARDER. A few things to consider : the characters’ abilities, the weapons they have at their dispositions, the constraints (are they wounded ? in the dark ? restrained ? are there any rules or is it a free for all ?) the environment (anything dangerous ? they can use ? a time constraint ? a bomb ? somebody to protect ? etc) and again, the character’s psychology and emotions (are they angry ? scared ? determined ? too arrogant ? etc). I basically put myself in the mind of the POV character and imagine what I would think and try to do if I was actually living the scene, focusing on the practical details. I honestly don’t write a lot of intricate fight choreography because this is just not my forte and i don’t really have the knowledge. Mostly I think about what would be cool and how to fit it in, and what the character NEEDS to do

For instance, Eliott doesn’t have a lot of fight experience, so when he actually wins a confrontation, it’s often due to the surprise effect - he has a very fierce streak under pressure - but I can’t put him in drawn out fights (yet). He also has a tendency to be overwhelmed and to get into his own head, which is like, very normal for a person without training. Lucas is different - the dude is supposed to be lethal and a bit of a legend so I have a bit more leeway when it comes to him doing crazy shit that shouldn’t be possible (lol) but again, his MO is to be smart about fights so I have to think ok what funky trick is he going to pull this time. What would make him look the most badass. Really, Lucas is all about the power of surprise, because again, his adversaries almost always underestimate him (or they don’t even see him coming). He’s like a stoat, small and uncommonly vicious. (look up ‘stoat dance of death’ if you don’t know what I mean lol) or like a blackfooted wildcat (which is called ‘adorable remorseless killing machine’ and is the smallest and deadliest wild cat) so it’s a theme that you can be very small and also very ferocious, and yes, i have been on a stupid animal documentary binge lately (animal fight club !! so fcking stupid). anyway, there is often a ‘what the fuck’ moment when he fights and also use of distraction. But it depends on context - again in the aforementioned fight with Thorston he is very elegant and precise because he’s showing off - but he started as a street fighter, ; using everything he has at his disposal, being ressourceful/inventive, ruthless, efficient, etc. Like in krav maga ‘use a pen as a weapon’ etc. He’s also very very attentive to his surroundings, alert to see if there is anything he could use, and he tries to analyse the moves of his opponents. (credit to the 2 krav maga lessons i took in my life lol). And then there is Daphné who we haven’t really seen fight yet, but she’s an acrobat, so that would come into account, etc.

I also have to do a lot of back and forth because what often happens is I get an idea for a solution (really a fight scene is a series of problems to set up and solve) so I have to go back in the story and make sure they have their guns/whatever they need for the scene and that there is proper foreshadowing. It’s often the logistics that drive me a little crazy because I get to a point and I’m like...okay and how would they do the thing I need them to do ? And you always have to have this back and forth between the perspective of your POV character and their enemy because you don’t want either of them to be purely reactive or to act stupid just because it’s easier (i mean, if they’re not supposed to be stupid)

I read this good writing advice idk where that said, basically, in action scenes, the more details you have, the more it feels important. So like, when the characters are just trading blows, it’s ok if you’re not super precise. However when things change - like the balance of power shifts, there is an upset, something that carries character significance, etc - it’s good to be more descriptive  -it’s like the writerly equivalent of slow mo when everybody is holding their breath. I mean, it’s good to have a general idea in your mind of where everybody is and how they react but it’s not like a movie, it’s ok if you don’t have a super precise beat by beat rendering in your head. At the same time, a fight scene is not the time for super introspective character beats, you have to kind of transcribe the fact that everything happens super fast and there is this sense of complete focus on the action and so you don’t want too many distractions where you pause to describe the scenery, etc etc.

So yeah idk I’m still trying to figure it out I guess ^^ because honestly I still feel like action scenes are some of the most difficult things to write, making everything make sense is hard !!!! hope this made some sense tho and was a bit interesting.

ok now i’m back to the story ^^ have a nice day/night anon ! <3

[albatris]

Sorry in advance for the potentially dumb question, but: do you suffer from psychosis/schizophrenia? I’ve seen you reblog a lot of posts about it, of course, but i was curious. Also, if its not too personal, if you do, how much does it impact your writing/the weirdness glitchiness factor?

Not a dumb question at all, you’re all good!

So this is kinda…….. not something I’ve spoken about in a great amount of detail or specifics on this blog? And talking about it directly is actually kinda weird! I wasn’t expecting this to feel weird, but it totally does! So please excuse how long this answer took me hahahahaha

So I mean YEAH psychosis is a thing that I possess, this is a thing that resides inside my brain and occasionally outside of it………. I’m not schizophrenic, I’m more in the schizotypal realm of things, which is like….. I mean, that’s a label that best encompasses my experiences and so far it’s the only label that’s been vaguely and tentatively applied to me that’s ever really made me go “oh hey yeah that would actually explain a whole fucking lot” but like. Bits of it are still kinda wonky. Mental health is wonky, I think, generally speaking…………….

I was gonna talk a bit here about my specific experiences but, like, I really had no idea where to start with those and I don’t actually know how relevant it’d be to this question aside from being vaguely tangential in terms of psychosis………… so uhhhh I’m gonna jump ahead and talk WRITING which is WAY more in my comfort zone apparently

and oh my god this was so many words, I’m so sorry in advance, I have no idea if any of this is actually like………… super interesting? But I enjoyed the opportunity to talk about it so cheers for that! I think!

(and I’m sorry if you were expecting like………… a really short sharp sweet answer, I don’t really deal in shorts or sharps or sweets, I mostly deal in, uh………. rambling)

Rest of this post, under the cut, which I hope actually works on mobile, for the sake of your dashboards - 

So this message was an adventure for me into how the questions “How does it affect your writing?” and “How does it affect the glitchiness/horror factor?” are actually two entirely separate things. I mean, they’re two separate things because I’m assuming by “glitchiness factor” you’re thinking specifically of the stuff in my recent ATDAO posts about body horror and the unreality? In which case………… let me get to that in a moment

And since this post got super long, I’m going to start with my extremely short summed-up answer, and then elaborate on it………

In terms of how it affects my writing? In lots of direct ways!

In terms of how it affects the glitchiness and horror aspects? In some weird roundabout ways! It’s not where the horror stems from, but it’s where the response to the horror stems from and where a lot of my descriptive choices stem from! It’s not the horror, but it’s kind of the lens through which I explore the horror!

AND NOW HERE WE GO………… WORDS AHOY

So in terms of how it affects my writing, generally speaking

boring straightforward answer first:

It’s something that crops up in a super literal sense, just in that I’ve got a fair few characters who are psychotic to some degree or another, and it’s something that plays into how they relate to the world and their specific character voice and how they respond to the situations they find themselves in. 

somewhat irrelevant, it’s, uhhh….. something that I feel interacts with themes in a different sort of way, too. ‘Cause a lot of times there’s, like….. stories about people going on cool magical sci-fi quests, and there’s Stories About Psychotic People, and there’s not an awful lot of overlap between the two unless it’s in the context of “and the whole magical quest was a delusion all along!” which, ew

and for fucking REAL there is so much interesting ground to cover and opportunities for different perspectives and new avenues through which themes can be explored, like, in that overlap of stories. It’s something I wish I saw a lot more of in fiction! Which is another huge driving force in, like, why I write stuff the way I do

and now slightly more interesting:

Worldbuilding! It’s definitely something that plays into worldbuilding and like…. my love of creating stories that are kinda just……. “reality but a little bit to the left” if that makes sense? 

Whether this is something like Undertow, where there’s a degree of magic woven into the fabric of the universe, where things are connected by invisible threads, where I can give opinions to objects and feelings to the weather and the streetlights, where the earth itself has a voice? Or whether it’s something like ATDAO, where reality is coming undone at the seams and the fact that everything is just a little lopsided and haywire is a Mundane Part Of Everyday Life? That’s something I find super cathartic and quite lovely to play around in! I’ve always experienced the world as Just A Little Bit To The Left, and writing was one of the first avenues I found to kinda…. channel and explore and expand on that and put my feelings of strangeness into words?

It’s kinda, like, I like being able to share that kind of vision with others in some sort of way, and not necessarily in a frightening or horrible way, y’know? 

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NOT TO SAY that anything I write is, like, 100% a direct mirror or my own life and how I see the world lmao. A lot of my writing takes experiences and feelings and little facets of how I experience the world and works them into something that’s often more literal and concrete, or it’ll start out as My Thing and as I’m writing, it sorta blooms into something totally different. But bits of it are in there, sure, although they change shape a lot! And it’s definitely in there with a lot of the general overarching feelings and concepts! Yeah!

One other thing that kinda leads onto my next topic is, uh…… that a lot of how I interpret events and meanings in the world around me can be kind of frightening and threatening, and that’s not reeeaaaally something I want to delve into too much in my writing from a worldbuilding perspective? So generally the parts of ATDAO’s “reality but a little to the left” that start to twist into horror and unreality are things I’ve constructed specifically to serve that purpose, more so than things I’ve pulled directly from my experiences.

AND NOW IN TERMS OF GLITCHY HORROR STUFF HELL YEAH

so again I’m assuming by “glitchiness factor” that’d be all the unreality and all the body horror stuff and weird horror? Which, fuck yeah! Despite my squeamishness when it comes to horror, this is one odd little corner of ATDAO that I’m extremely fond of hahahaha

And, like, initially when I considered this question I was like…. oh, this is not something that really has any of its roots in psychosis or my experiences of mental illness. And that’s…… kiiiiiind of true? My construction of the unreality and its contents is a lot of me just me sitting at my laptop going “Hahahaha that makes me physically nauseous! That’s the worst thing I’ve ever come up with!! I’m adding it in immediately!!”

But yeah, it definitely does factor in, though! Maybe not in as interesting a way as you’d hoped? 

So first off, my experiences are something that sorta plays into my word choice and the specific way I use language in those scenes. And I’m also gonna go ahead and say that dissociation and specifically derealisation are also things I draw from pretty heavily for those kinda……. more glitchy horror-ish parts? So for me, my experiences factor more into HOW I describe the content more so than any of the horrid glitchy gory content itself. 

‘cause it’s kinda, like, a specific kind of fear, I think, it’s a little bit off-beat and weirdly-worded and disjointed and it hits your senses all wrong, it doesn’t make an awful lot of sense but it’s still extremely real. There’s a lot of weird or unsettling bullshit that goes on in the unreality that there’s no convenient Real World Descriptive Equivalent for. Like, cityscapes made entirely of soundwaves, the aforementioned body horror stuff in earlier posts, places that are a complete and total lack of Anything where there’s not even space or colour or texture or light, senses getting all tangled up into each other, something being simultaneously bigger than the sun and smaller than an ant, voices unravelling like twine? LOTS OF WEIRD, BASICALLY

There’s no nice neat right way to describe that, and if there was, it probably wouldn’t pack the punch it needs to, yeah? But I love that kinda shit, I get to pull from a bunch of really weird sensory experiences and feelings I have no real way to articulate and I get to use language in creative ways to evoke the same feelings, the same experiences, the same sense of fear and wrongness? I get to draw from weird shit to describe a bunch of weird shit that makes NO fucking sense whatsoever and that can’t realistically be tied up with words

Point is, they’re experiences I draw from in order to Get Real Fuckin Weird With Words

and getting weird with words in this specific way is CATHARTIC as FUCK dude it’s so good, it’s one of my favourite things. This is, like, the dark edgy version of what I talked about earlier in regards to worldbuilding and me painting a nice odd vision for people to share in hahahaha

“let me take you on a nice gentle stroll through my imagination” vs me supplexing you to the ground and beating the shit out of you with a bat 

And one other thing is just……. I’m sorry, I’m super tired, this bit is probably gonna be jumbled and wordy and maybe not super relevant but uhhhhhhh

So the unreality is not something I initially drew from any particular place in my psyche, but it IS something I’ve come to construct in a specific way, and a lot of it is something I build with the questions of like…… “How does a psychotic character respond to this input?” and “What does this scenery draw out in my character and how does it challenge them?” in mind, so I guess………… in that sense, there’s definitely still a fairly big impact? But kind of in a sideways way. The unreality is not so much based on psychosis, but it’s something I use to highlight specific elements of it, I guess, but mostly in terms of the skills it draws out

‘cause like. in ATDAO the only characters who kinda get to butt heads with the unreality aside from that one random dead car driver who may or may not be vaguely half alive in a state of horrific limbo are Jacob and Tris, and like

I don’t ever really frame Tris’s psychosis as some horrible terrible thing he’s burdened with that makes life a terrible living hell 24/7 but it is, like………. something he struggles a lot with over the course of the story, both in general terms and in terms of people not taking him seriously about the Extremely Real Fantastical Nonsense that’s going on and in general being hesitant to trust his perceptions of reality. And ALSO I guess in terms of just…….. the way he relates to the fact that he’s been dragged into some Extremely Real Fantastical Nonsense? And him wrestling with how he’s supposed to believe in something like that when no one else can see the evidence and everyone is telling him he’s just crazy, and how “ridiculous interdimensional dumbass sci-fi quest” is something that’s reserved for other people, because he’s already been there like four times already and it has extremely different implications for him

In terms of mental illness, all my protags have patches of the story where they make it through kinda “in spite” of their struggles with mental illness (though that’s a sentence I fuckin hate) and other patches where mental illness is just a thing they deal with alongside whatever plots they have going on…… but their experiences with mental illness are also something that gives them specific skills and perspectives and ways of understanding the world that are invaluable, and some of the most important parts of the story are the parts where they make it through specifically BECAUSE of those skills and perspectives

Which is kind of the Whole Thing With The Unreality, that’s its whole deal

The unreality is a fucking huge turning point for Tris as a character, because it’s specifically because of his experiences with psychosis that he’s able to navigate it so effectively, it’s because of the specific skills he’s developed and the practice he’s had in similar circumstances

not, like, the SAME circumstances, but things from other contexts that kind of, transfer, circumstances where the same skills are applicable

‘cause like, turns out, he’s really good at navigating confusing frightening hellscapes where nothing makes sense and mis-stepping can get you killed, because he’s had a whole lot of practice just like. existing as a person with psychosis in a weird apocalypse world where reality is collapsing in unpredictable ways. He spends a lot of his life trying to make sense of reality and figure out the rules and developing countless systems for navigating the world safely, which he often needs to adjust at a moment’s notice, or completely scrap and reconstruct. He’s had a lot of experience of just sorta waking up and whatever bullshit is going on he’s just gotta be like “ok cool so this is what we’re doing today, I have to deal with this, so how can I deal with this”. He’s used to grounding himself and problem-solving even under intense pressure and when he’s terrified and regardless of whatever objectively horrifying nonsense is happening around him. He’s used to sorting the horrifying things that are not dangerous from the horrifying things that are extremely dangerous.  

He’s basically the one character who can get tossed into the unreality and actually work with it and figure out the rules even though everything is screaming and glitched out and trying to kill him, he’s spent most of his life developing the perfect skill set for it

(and like, this is the first point in the story where he sorta realises that his specific way of viewing the world is going to be a strength rather than a weakness, but like. despite the fact that Tris is basically a walking panic attack he’s actually always been the one of the team who’s been the most adept at navigating daily life with the apocalypse, it’s just not something he’s ever really picked up on)

and uh

that’s kind of a vaguely irrelevant note to end on, actually

HEY THAT WAS SO MANY WORDS I’M SO FUCKING SORRY

I DON’T EVEN HAVE A NEAT WRAP UP TO THIS POST

MY WRAP UP WAS THAT SUMMARY AT THE START

IF YOU READ THIS FAR I HOPE IT WAS AT LEAST SOMEWHAT INTERESTING

[comicteaparty]

December 18th-December 24th, 2019 Reader Favorites Archive

The archive for the Reader Favorites chat that occurred from December 18th, 2019 to December 24th, 2019.  The chat focused on the following question:

What tropes and/or clichés are you perfectly fine with seeing in the webcomics you read?

Deo101

Like all of the cutesy cheesy relationship tropes. I love them all and I always will! Plenty more, but I find myself getting caught up in the relationship tropes the most. Specifically friends to lovers, but I also really like the found family trope. I know there are more tropes that I love but I can't think of them off the top of my head, so I'll probably just agree with others as the week goes on

indogswetrust

pass me the slow burn romance please thaaaanks

Deo101

that one too. Also hurt/comfort. Pump those into my VEINS they are my lifeblood... I shamelessly put every trope I want into my work so I can't judge other people for doing the same

indogswetrust

i’m trash

I’ve become more sssssophisticated as I’ve gotten older but I know what I like in a webcomic.

And it’s Adorable Behavior (tm)

Deo101

I've gotten less sophosticated. I thought I got more sophisticated but turns out I just got less shameful about the things i like

indogswetrust

Haha

I mean I used to really be fixated on comedy and now I’m more okay with things being ambiguous and complex? Ingress is a good example. I might have put it down two years ago but now I wanna see where Spicer and Toivo’s journey takes them

Fixated isn’t the exact word. whatever

Deo101

No I get you! Realizing you like more than just one thing and expanding your horizons is really important!

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I love the enemies-to-lovers trope. Any time a pair of characters goes from ‘I hate your guts’ to ‘take me now’ I’m loving it. That is, so long as one of them wasn’t being outright abusive during their ‘hate’ phase.

indogswetrust

Man that’s a delicate balance but also

Deo101

^ Fully agree. I just get a little too anxious about the "enemies" side of thing and worry they wont fully grow into lovers I guess! But if it's done well, Its an especially good one

carcarchu

i second the enemies-to-lovers thing i will never get enough of that trope

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

thirded

if I even smell a hint of it in a story, provided it's not overtly violent or abusive or otherwise horrible... I am hooked

kayotics

Fourthed... it’s a good trope

keii4ii

Now I feel like the odd one out for being neutral toward that trope. I definitely enjoy good examples of it, but otherwise completely neutral?

Evolving relationships is a good thing in general though, and enemies to lovers does fall in that category.

keii4ii

I have a soft spot for long lost superadvanced civilizations being unearthed. While it doesn't guarantee I'll fall in love with the story, it WILL grab my attention and at least get me to check it out.

renieplayerone

I dont really have any strong opinions on any tropes, but theres a really good channel on youtube that goes through and critiques tropes. I find it really useful for writing. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDb22nlVXGgcljcdyDk80bBDXGyeZjZ5e

keii4ii

(Please don't let my weirdness ruin anyone's enjoyment of the trope though, lol. I'm all for celebrating what you like! was just genuinely wondering if I'm the only one who's neutral about it!)

keii4ii

Also not an overarching story trope, but more like a type of a scene... I really like this thing (if this is a trope please tell me what it's called XD) A, B, C are friends. A and B are bffs. C is not as close. B talks to C about this while A is away. This is an honest conversation, not a malicious one. B learns to see A in a way they hadn't before, and it strengthens the B-A friendship. I'm not likely to start reading a story just because I know it contains this scene. But if a story I already like has this scene, it is likely to be my favorite scene!(edited)

I guess part of the reason why I like it so much is, it shows that the relationship (the B-A one in this case) is not insular. It's a real relationship between real people, who also have relationships outside of it, and the relationships have an influence on each other.

(And that's a lot of "relationship"s in a paragraph...)

eli [a winged tale]

Positive relationships and healthy navigations between relationship and life problems are my jam The enemies to lovers trope can be gripping because you get an additional conflict on top of tension. I thought the novel Red White & Royal Blue did a good job at that. Grant Snyder did a trope bingo for murakami and I thought it was fun to do the same for my works in progress. For reference: the murakami one https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.avclub.com/here-s-how-to-play-haruki-murakami-bingo-as-you-read-hi-1798271345/amp

keii4ii

omg

I NEED TO MAKE THIS for me/ comics I read

I mean I don't have a whole lot of stories, but it would be interesting to see what kind of common items get checked off across mine + my favorite comics combined

Capitania do Azar

wow I've been thinking about it a lot and I'm having a very hard time selecting the tropes I like best... I'm more of a "I know what I don't like and taking that aside I like being surprised"

Cronaj

All I can say is... Red Oni, Blue Oni (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RedOniBlueOni). This trope is seriously so good. My favorite thing about this trope is that the "Red Oni," or the hot-headed one, and the "Blue Oni," the cold or level-headed one, can be either friends or enemies. So it makes for a beautiful dynamic no matter what type of story it is. Buddy cops, competitors in the workplace, brothers, enemies, the straight man and the fool, you name it. Typically these characters are foils of each other, and their differencesbalways make for exceedingly fun interactions. Another favorite trope of mine, which I don't really know the name of, is where the seemingly hot/handsome guy is actually a dork who has no idea what he's doing. Everyone in the story thinks he's done everything, but really he's just a dopey, niave possibly shy and definitely clumsy virgin. But the social awkwardness only makes him inexplicably more appealing to the other lead. Cute

Ah! Another trope I have to add because it's basically my crack: Androids Are People, Too (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AndroidsArePeopleToo). I have loved this trope since before Detroit: Become Human, but the game certainly rekindled my love for it. Very genre-specific, but AI fascinate me to no end, whether it's in the real world, or in Sci-Fi.

eli [a winged tale]

Haha Cronaj are you me? Contrasting characters and robots who have feelings can get me hooked straight away

indogswetrust

lemme tell y’all about a trope I’ve noticed: the crazy lesbian. Like, The Favorite and Killing Eve and that Netflix movie about the violinists. Whoof. I am so tired of that

Cronaj

Hahahaha! I dunno maybe. I also have a protagonist in one of my novels named Eli.

eli [a winged tale]

The cute nerd who is fumbling but appeared to have it all together may lean towards the Mary Sue for me but if there is a true flaw (Tm) then I’m down

indogswetrust

I feel like gay men characters have been getting humanized and happy endings and that’s awesome! But lesbians have not been getting the same treatment.

bumbling and romantically inept nerds fuel me

eli [a winged tale]

What do you mean about the lesbian part, indogswetrust? I’m curious to know of the differences as I’m currently writing both

Cronaj

@eli [a winged tale] YES. I'm not gonna lie, I have definitely used more than one of these tropes XD And one of them may or may not be the fumbling hottie...

eli [a winged tale]

I wanted to link my trope bingo but thought it went against the pinned rules I can DM it to you if you’re interested and I’d love to play everyone else’s bingos

Cronaj

Oh hell yes. Lesgooooooo!

I have never made a trope bingo, but I really should

indogswetrust

Like, Love, Simon or Call Me By Your Name show gay men as people slowly falling in love and it’s tender and kind. But The Favorite literally has animal abuse in it and women sleeping with each other for power. I walked out of the theater. Same for Killing Eve, it’s about a spy and a murderer. High intrigue and drama but it’s obviously a toxic relationship from the premise

eli [a winged tale]

Oh no! You should check out Their Story by Tan Jiu)

It’s formatted like a webcomic as well though formally called manhua. It does the slow burn romance, humanizing aspect very well. I’m not well versed in the mainstream portrayal but certainly on the indie side, people are stepping up and writing very positive and healthy lesbian stories

indogswetrust

The indie side is great. Even “The Sea In You” (a webcomic) is frickin adorable

It just grinds my beans about mainstream portrayal

eli [a winged tale]

Loving the sea in you!

RebelVampire

A trope I will never get sick of is https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses , especially if https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ReallyRoyaltyReveal this is what happens in the story. I just...I really love royalty. I can't help it. I love the pointless traditions, the fancy dresses, the palaces, etc.. And even if that's not part of it, I still like it when some rando girl realizes that she's a princess and now has to deal with that idea that she has subjects she has to protect or something. Bonus points if she's a magical girl. I even like it when it's a reverse situation where it's an evil princess. I will never tire of princesses ever because the concept is always fascinating to me no matter which way its spun.

eli [a winged tale]

I love the fanciness of it all. All those lovely eye candy designs

Cronaj

Same... I have also used the Really Royalty Reveal, like..... Several times

eli [a winged tale]

The royal reveal when done well can be so powerful and validating

Kelsey (Kurio)

I have a queen ant character but no princesses yet

Eightfish

ooh are we talking about tropes we like? I really like mind reading/ mind control. But consensual. It's feels like the theme of trust taken to the extreme, where a character has such belief in someone they'd trust their mind / body to them. But I've only really seen it in some kid's books I liked (Young Wizards, Animorphs), and the only webcomic I've seen with this idea is my own, and I haven't even gotten to that part yet. Anyone have any recommendations? Ooh or a tvtropes link?

Erin Ptah (BICP 🎄 Leif & Thorn)

It comes up in the Murderbot Diaries -- the main character is a construct, basically a really-advanced android, and there are times when it lets a more-powerful AI pilot its body to handle an emergency that's unfolding too fast for it to keep up with on its own.

Eightfish

I looked it up and I do like the themes of androids' humanity. And it's a series of novellae, which, wow, that's very rare. Not sure I've ever seen that before. Do you recommend the book as a whole?(edited)

Erin Ptah (BICP 🎄 Leif & Thorn)

I recommend the whole series, yes!

[writingfulfillment]

The Overarching Power of Belief

I believe that every story ever told is true because of the creative power of belief of Humankind. I believe that there are not millions of fictional places where heroes live, but one place that houses the collective dreams of all who’ve ever existed. In many of the works of fiction that I’ve read, they speak of the creatures and Gods’ being able to exist because there are still humans who believe in them. And this belief is what gives them their power. There is not one story or belief that reigns supreme over the others because they all share the same origin story: they were created by humans. Whether in one sitting by one author, or if it’s over years by a collection of people, they are all creations of our minds.

In this dream world, the people reflect what we see in ourselves. They are stubborn and have flaws, but are overall good. These people will see what they will expect or believe that they will see, such like ourselves. And this is how this collective dream world functions. Both on the creative power of the imaginations of the humans who fuel it existence, and the ignorance of the reflective humans there.

In series like Percy Jackson and Harry Potter, they talk a lot about how the regular people view their secret world. For example, In his first book Riordan notes the differences in how people believe. “But if he’s a preacher,” I said, “and he believes in a different hell…” Grover shrugged, who says he’s seeing this place the way that we’re seeing it? Humans see what they want to see. You’re very stubborn-er, persistent, that way.”[1] This fits with how so many dreams could live together, as well as with the nature of the reflected humans. In the first Harry Potter book, Harry notices the Muggles’ obliviousness.“The people hurrying by didn’t glance at it. Their eyes slid from the big bookshop on one side to the record shop on the other as if they couldn’t see the leaky cauldron at all. In fact, Harry has the most peculiar feeling that only he and Hagrid could see it.” [2] The mundane people couldn’t see it because they didn’t believe that it was there. I believe that in this dream world, the ordinary people are excessively ignorant for the sake of peace between the dreams.

In most, if not all stories, there is an ordinary character who leads a mundane life until they discover a Secret world. Everyone dreams of being swept away as a crucial member of something. We all want to be important and we all want to be remembered. This is why we love to create and read these stories, they reflect the dreams of our childhood selves. All of this imagination and collective hope cannot amount to nothing. This is why the dream world came into existence, somewhere for the dreams to live and for us to visit when we miss them.  

The creation of this one world relies on the same desire for acknowledgement that lives in all our hearts. This is where the Hero’s Journey comes in. Joseph Campbell theorized that every story is, in fact, the same story except it is told differently and that every protagonist is actually the same character wearing a different face. In his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he discusses the idea of a monomyth that spans genres, authors, and time periods. Joseph proposes that every good story follows a basic plot map that he calls The Hero’s Journey. Since it’s publication in 1949, it has been referenced by creators,(Perhaps the most popular of which is George Lucas, Director of Star Wars) authors, and artists in the telling of their stories. I believe that the subjects of this one story that has been told a million different ways live in the dream world.

The Hero’s Journey, although it has many different versions, is largely made up of 12 stages that the Hero goes through. These can be identified in most popular stories. The 12 are: 1. Ordinary World, 2. Call to Adventure, 3. Refusal or Acceptance, 4. Meeting with the Mentor, 5. Crossing the Threshold, 6. Tests, Allies, Enemies, 7. Approach to the Innermost Cave, 8. Ordeal, 9. Seizing the Sword, 10. The Road Back, 11. The Master of Two Worlds, 12. Return with the Elixir. You can read about them in more detail elsewhere.[here] I will just be focusing on the Ordinary World v.s.  the Secret World.

In the Ordinary World, the people cannot see, or do not know about the Secret World, because they do not believe that it’s there.  And the same is true for why the Secret World exists, because the Hero and his companions continue to believe in it and its creatures. The belief in the Secret World and it inhabitants in turn give them belief in themselves, increasing their power and existence. There are hints of the belief to power transfer in many popular works of fiction.

In Harry Potter, the most curious aspect of magic is its distribution. There are children of generations of wizards that possess no magic, or very little. (Ariana [3], Neville [4])There are also children of muggles who have great magical powers. (Lily [5], Hermione [6]) In all of these cases the power of the witch or wizard was dictated by their belief in themselves. Ariana was a fine little witch until some boys traumatized her, then she lost the power to control it. Neville had always struggled with magic, partially because his grandmother was always telling him that he wasn’t good enough. As he grew older, he learned that he was worth it and his magic greatly improved. If any muggleborn had the wits and guts to excel at magic, it was Lily and Hermione. From the start they were both know-it-alls who had no qualms about their intelligence.

Despite what you may think, Harry really wasn’t all that great of a wizard. At least when it comes to book learning and memorizing complicated spells. Courage and loyalty, on the other hand, were Harry’s best traits. When it came time that he knew that he had to save his friends, he always came through magically, even though he wasn’t all that gifted. In The Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry saves himself and Sirius by performing the advanced charm Expecto Patronum. He produces an extremely powerful patronus and keeps numerous dementors at bay. A task, that would be difficult, if not impossible for a fully grown wizard, and yet Harry was just 13 at the time. “‘I knew I could do it this time,’ said Harry, ‘because I’d already done it… does that make sense?’”[7] Harry’s personal belief in himself skyrocketed because he’d already done it, thus giving himself enough power to do it.

If their power of belief in themselves was enough to boost their power and self-worth, then who’s to say that our belief in them isn’t powerful enough to make them real? Who says that dreams turn to naught but dust? Humans can do amazing things while we’re awake, why not when we’re sleeping? Isn’t billions of people dreaming each night powerful enough to cultivate something more than dust? I believe that it is enough, and I believe that our dreams become real in the dream world. That there is a place where the characters that we love and dream of exist together.

In all of Rick Riordan’s work, the mythologies that he uses are interconnected. The different Gods and cultures coexist because of the different peoples who continue to believe in them. “‘But Gods can’t die,’ Grover said. ‘They can fade,’ Pan said, ‘when everything that they stood for is gone. When they cease to have power, and their sacred places disappear.” [8] In some instances, such as Pan, the Greek God of nature, when people ceased to believe in him, he faded. But there will always be the Gods that are believed in and worshipped by these secret worlds that might be more connected than we think.

These are taken from two of Riordan’s books, “Lacey had warned me about Drew the first day of school. Apparently the two of them had gone to some summer camp together-blah, blah, I didn’t really listen to the details- and Drew had been just as much of a tyrant there.” [9] “Lacey looked like she might fall apart from nervousness. ‘Oh, well-’ ‘Drew might find out,’ Mitchell explained. ‘I might have to wear the shoes of shame!’ Lacey gulped.” [10] Amongst other evidence, this proves that they exist in the same universe. Also, in his other series, the protagonist, Magnus Chase, is cousins with the partner of Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase. “...I haven’t thought about them in years. I have an uncle and cousin in Boston.” [11] “‘I just don’t want to put you in danger,’ I said. ‘I kind of hoped that you could be my one connection to the regular world.’ Annabeth stared at me. She snorted and began to laugh. ‘Wow. You have no idea how funny that is.’” [12]

Riordan loves the idea that all of the Gods and the different mythologies could coexist. He has even written several crossover stories between the Greek Demigods and the Egyptian Magicians. [13] He has never said anything outright about his belief about why they might exist in the same universe, but I think it’s safe to gather from his books, that he thinks that there is something very powerful about belief. He also makes references to other cultures and their beliefs. In his second series, The Heroes of Olympus, his characters have more diverse background. Frank is Chinese and his grandmother believes in the Roman Gods and Buddhism. [14] Piper is Cherokee and the old Native stories that her father tells her play a part in her success as a demigod. [15] Leo is Mexican and he speaks of Dia de Los Muertos and his experiences with spirits. [16]

He hints that there may be much more than one truth or one belief. Of course, in order for this to be true there would have to be rules and/or magic separating these religions, if you will, from each other. Simply because there would be too much confusion and contention over which one was true, when in fact they would all actually be true. It’s a daunting concept, but simultaneously a very interesting one. They would all be very delicate barriers, easily cracked or broken because of the masses that they are hiding. But it poses an interesting situation for the deities or beings of power in these different “religions”. Of course, being a God, they would know things. And someone has to know the rules in order to make sure that they are kept. “‘The tradition is still strong among … our people.’ ‘Our people?’ I asked, but Sadie muscled in with another question. ‘So you can’t live in Manhattan?’ She asked. Amos’s brow furrowed as he looked across at the Empire State Building. ‘Manhattan has other problems. Other Gods. It’s best we stay separate.” [17] It makes sense that the future Chief Lector of the Egyptians would know the new location of Mount Olympus and Vice versa. It can be very confusing, but the cumulative power of human belief is very strong and I believe that it is strong enough for this. The suggestion that because we can believe in something, it can or must exist? Even if it contradicts other beliefs or laws? But this is very prevalent in works of fiction like Riordan and Rowling. (There are so many others that I didn’t highlight because it would have been way too long, but you get my point.)

It is very interesting when you combine it with the Hero’s Journey. That every story is the same story of the same character but wearing a different face, alongside that they all must be true because someone believes in them. It’s a little mind blowing, but it actually makes a lot of sense. We all would like to think that we have our own story, but in reality, we just aren’t that creative. Everything that’s ever done is something that has been done before. So we must make it our own by creating magical worlds around the old stories to make it seem new. Or at the very least, have us fall in love with the new characters. I believe that all of this exists in the dream world.

You’ve seen the raving fans of books, movies and TV shows, people love these predictable fictional characters with all their heart. How can all of that love and belief accumulate to nothing? I don’t think that it can. I wonder if by desiring these stories to be real because we love them so much might just actually make them exist. Thuss, the existence of all of these beings and stories in the Dream World. The human psyche is a mysterious and powerful place that scientists can only guess at and pretend to understand. Who’s to say that we aren’t more powerful than we think? What defines creation or a creator? What excludes us from creating art, music and emotion? Nothing. What excludes us from creating beings or worlds? Perhaps, nothing. If only the understanding of such a process.

When an author writes a book, they put so much into creating that world, and so do their fans. Thats a lot of collective belief to come to nothing. What if our power of belief is enough to create? Whether in this world or another, what if our beloved stories do exist? How could so much emotion go into art and music, such that it can evoke emotions in us, and not create something more?

Works Cited

[1] Riordan, Rick. The Lightning Thief. New York: Miramax /Hyperion for Children, 2005. Print, 293.

[2] Rowling, J.K. The Sorcerer's Stone. London: Bloomsbury Children’s, 1997. Print, 68.

[3] Rowling, J.K. The Deathly Hallows. London: Bloomsbury Children’s, 2007. Print, 564.

[4] Rowling, J.K. The Sorcerer's Stone. London: Bloomsbury Children’s, 1997. Print, 125.

[5] Rowling, J.K. The Sorcerer's Stone. London: Bloomsbury Children’s, 1997. Print, 53.

[6] Rowling, J.K. The Sorcerer's Stone. London: Bloomsbury Children’s, 1997. Print, 105.

[7] Rowling, J.K. The Prisoner of Azkaban. London: Bloomsbury Children’s, 1999. Print, 412.

[8] Riordan, Rick. The Battle of the Labyrinth. New York: Miramax /Hyperion for Children, 2008. Print, 314.

[9] Riordan, Rick. The Serpent’s Shadow. New York: Disney Publishing Worldwide, 2012. Print, 83.

[10] Riordan, Rick. The Lost Hero. New York: Disney Publishing Worldwide, 2010. Print, 178.

[11] Riordan, Rick. The Blood of Olympus. New York: Disney Publishing Worldwide, 2014. Print, 393.

[12] Riordan, Rick. The Sword of Summer. New York: Disney Publishing Worldwide, 2015. Print, 487.

[13] Riordan, Rick. Demigods and Magicians. New York: Disney Publishing Worldwide, 2015. Print.

[14] Riordan, Rick. The Mark of Athena. New York: Disney Publishing Worldwide, 2012. Print, 492.

[15] Riordan, Rick. The Blood of Olympus. New York: Disney Publishing Worldwide, 2014. Print, 384.

[16] Riordan, Rick. The Blood of Olympus. New York: Disney Publishing Worldwide, 2014. Print, 68.

[17] Riordan, Rick. The Red Pyramid. New York: Disney Publishing Worldwide, 2010. Print, 52.

[wendynerdwrites]

Interview With Jonathon Burkhardt AKA ChaosD1

Jon Burkhardt AKA ChaosD1 is a video game reviewer specializing in MMO’s. He’s found himself embroiled in the controversy surrounding his old not-quite-employers, Channel Awesome, with the rise of the Change the Channel hashtag and the publication of the Google Doc Not So Awesome, which he contributed to. Having been a long time contributor to the Video Aggregate, he personally witnessed much of the mismanagement and poor treatment committed by the site’s management, culminating in his own abrupt termination. 

He was nice enough to talk to me in some more detail about the controversy, the fallout, and his plans going forward.

First, can you go into, in your own words, who you are, and what you do?

I go by ChaosD1 online, but most people know me as Jon. I’ve been doing video game related content on YouTube for nearly 10 years, but focused specifically on MMOs with my show “MMO Grinder” as well as have livestreams on Twitch.tv most weekdays.

How did you come to work for Channel Awesome?

I was fairly involved with the site as a fan, as I think a lot of us were, back early [during] its inception back in 2008. Funnily enough I had a manager from my job at the time mention [the Nostalgia Critic] NC specifically, but I didn’t end up checking it out until watching Noah’s announcement that he was posting on there.

Early on there was a flash game arcade that kept track of overall points in each game, and I gained recognition when gaining the top rank overall in the arcade. I was contacted by the wiki team, who hired me on to work on the wiki with them.

Far later after meeting and talking with a few friends who started out as people I was just a major fan of, like Phelous, I decided to start making videos of my own. One of them won the Transmission Awesome contest to have me featured and interviewed on the podcast.

It wasn’t until I started my show “MMO Grinder” that I felt I had any content worthy of placing onto the site, and after Julien (Sad Panda) used up one of his schedule spots to give me a trial run, I was well enough received to earn a spot on Blistered Thumbs in October of 2011. I posted there and on TGWTG.com and after the site merger when BT was shut down, until May of 2017 when the incident I wrote about occurred.

How did you get involved in Change The Channel?

I never figured my story was important or interesting enough to provide any fuel to the fire that was quickly becoming #ChangeTheChannel, to the point I didn’t even make a big deal about what happened when I was let go, though I did have forward enough thinking to save the conversation, just in case something like this even came up. People involved as well as curious fans, still asked to tell my story through the Twitter thread, as well as some anon asks on Tumblr. It happened more after I reblogged Allison’s post from years ago describing the incident after she once again received a ton of people asking her why she didn’t watch or work with Doug anymore. Despite my thinking I didn’t really have a great story to add, I figured it was more a cautionary tale for those who still remained, as well as at least symptomatic of what was an overarching problem we all had for years.

There have been rumors and statements flying kind of under the radar for some time about the channel. What do you think sparked this movement now? What about this period in time led all these people to contribute to a mass document like this?

I think with the current climate on social media, as well as less and less people holding onto those idyllic ideas of a peaceful online utopia that was the internet equivalent of making it big in Hollywood, people were just more accepting now. Also with less and less producers being on the site, more were willing to finally let loose with the stories rather than rock the boat for those who were willing to put up with it. Just another case of straws breaking the camel’s back and what not. As you said, these rumors have been around for years… and honestly it’s nice to finally be able to come clean about a lot of them, rather than just let speculation fester and have contributors thrown under the bus for CA’s policies of silence and non-involvement for any form of bad press.

Can you talk about your personal aims in contributing, as well as what you think the general intent of the document was?

If anything, to show support for those that have, and give my take, regardless of how seemingly insignificant it was. The document’s intent is pretty outlined in the opening paragraph, but some people want an apology for their mistreatment, while others just want people to know why we don’t enjoy being questioned about what CA’s been up to, like we’re forced to be lifelong fans just because we were involved with them once. At least that’s my reasoning. I don’t expect an apology. I know how they do. I just remember feeling more disrespected, like every one of us not in the main studio were a burden upon the website they deeply regretted bringing along in the first place.

Something that’s become a hot button topic over the last few years and has been a major point in the Change The Channel complaints is the concept of being paid “in exposure”. What are your feelings about that whole idea and it’s validity?

I understand it to a certain degree. In the event of an aggregate site, it does help when the community is being fostered. Where fans can potentially become contributors, which is exactly what CA USED to be. There’s a slight validity to the claims that people on CA would be NOWHERE without Doug, but that’s not the case for everyone who was involved. People like Smarty [For Smarty’s story, click here], Mike J and myself didn’t really see any level of channel growth directly from CA. In fact, both Mike J and I’ve made mention of how shockingly LOW the metrics coming from CA were. We’re talking a percentage of a percent. 

But if that site gains popularity because of you, it’s only fair to share some of that success with the people who helped you reach that point.

And if you’re only there to host people and pay them in “exposure” it’s not fair to make complete demands of them for how they post their content, or what content they post, especially if you were fine with everything they did beforehand.

There’s benefits to the aggregate site, but I don’t think anyone’s willing to put in the work for that kind of thing anymore.

What means do you think an online media worker has to protect themselves, and what measures and protections would you like to see become a reality?

Honestly that’s something I should be looking into myself. It’s still pretty much a Wild West right now, with so many people at the mercy of any company’s whim. If anything it would be nice to see a more hands on approach and clear communication between all parties involved, instead of leaving everything up to an experimental AI. Get some PEOPLE involved and create some jobs. Don’t just shut down channels or delete videos for having footage if they aren’t going to check the context that footage was placed in. I dunno. I’m not really an expert here.

What was your experience fresh off of your split from the Channel?

It was a non-starter all around. As I’d mentioned in my Tumblr post (I would have added more detail to my section of the doc, but figured I’d just keep things concise.) views from CA were next to nothing at the time of my departure. I’m not joking when I say a percent of a percent. 10k views? About 20 from CA. 100k in a month overall? Less than 200 from CA. It just wasn’t worth the effort, but staying just felt like some kind of principle you know? Phelan, Allison and Julien were all wondering why I bothered to stay on as long as I did, but I figured as long as I didn’t get any flak either way, I’d stick around. In a way I knew I was going to get canned for posting just one video that month. I didn’t ever really want to bother asking to get back on until I was encouraged to do so by the producer chat. It felt like I was freeing myself from a needless burden after they let me know, but the whole thing still felt really shitty. They never really did much of anything to promote me. In turn, I never bothered to promote them. Notice how I never included the Channel Awesome logo bumper, nor mentioned them in my credits scrawl after Blistered Thumbs was shut down? That was on purpose.

If anything did surprise me, it was how upset a lot of the producers were after they let me go in such a… and let me use this word correctly here, “callous” manner. In fact I think at least two producers quit in solidarity shortly afterward. For the producers, they all seemed to care about me. For the management? I was a fly on the wall they just shooed out the window. Out of sight, out of mind. They just never asked the fly how much information it gathered beforehand.

Do you think workers at online companies - particularly in online media, are particularly vulnerable given how unregulated the medium is? After all, as we’ve seen with cases involving everything from fair use and “revenge porn” cases, it seems the law is far behind properly addressing how to handle the internet?

I think cases like this, regardless of how important this whole thing might seem to the average viewer, or online atmosphere are steps in the right direction. A lot of these companies did just start out as a group of friends deciding to do a thing, and spiraled into unexpected popularity they weren’t ready to handle. You can say the same about a lot of online producers. Hopefully we just keep moving forward with all of this and perhaps in time we’ll see some protections for new media. As long as old media isn’t still trying to completely invalidate it out of fear of being replaced.

A lot of people have taken notice of this over the last couple of weeks. What do you want to say to people who wish to support you?

To support me, or anyone you choose to support, visit their shows directly. Share their videos. Leave feedback and engage with their communities. Follow them on social media. If they have a Patreon, contribute if you can. Even a dollar makes up for literally HUNDREDS of views worth of ad revenue. Just continue to recognize what they do, as long as you enjoy what they do.

And what actions should they avoid?

Don’t be a sycophant or a zealot. You don’t need to directly “attack” anyone on our behalf, and plenty of innocents tend to get caught in the crossfire around that kind of behavior. Be mindful of those upset by the information, as for a lot of people, it’s very tough to deal with the news. I tend to forget just how long the site’s been around, and some people literally grew up with our videos. That dose of reality is a lot harder to deal with than some.

Also, for the love of God, do NOT speculate on things that have been kept vague. I’m seeing a whole bunch of people trying to piece together parts of the puzzle left by a few anon contributions, and several people I know were NOT involved were thrown under the bus as a convenient scapegoat. Sometimes it’s easy to want to hate someone for a certain reason, and use them to blame all those mysterious stories, but the truth is far darker than you can imagine, and there are none who come out of top by trying to decode the message. If they decide they want to add more information to their stories, they will. Until then, respect their decision to remain anonymous and vague when they feel they need to be.

How have you found the response so far?

I’m genuinely appreciative and shocked for the outpour of support I’ve seen. Yeah, there have been more than a few “hell no we won’t go” die hard fans with some disturbingly zealous responses, or attempts to dismiss our stories as whining or revenge, but far more are willing to accept this kind of thing as reality now. If you’d have asked me years ago if I’d ever wanted this day to come, I would have honestly said no, as we were all starry-eyed hopefuls once, but I think the writing on the wall’s been there for years, and only now are people starting to read it. I’m not hoping to see any one particular outcome from all of this. I’m just glad people are finally reading that writing.

What are your plans going forward professionally?

Having nothing to do with Channel Awesome, the market situation of MMOs has forced my hand into a defacto hiatus, but we’ve been going fairly steady with the side content, and I plan on doing a new show focused on my new gaming passion Indie Games. As much as I’d like to talk about my favorite Switch or AAA games, too, I think it helps to carve out a niche.

Going into #Change the Channel, was there any fear or anxiety about possible legal retaliation by CA?

For me? No. Someone on Tumblr asked why I wasn’t on CA and I answered.

Others might have concerns, but I think many more fans have been concerned, or defenders of CA outright teased producers, that legal action would head their way, but so few things were under contract. I never even got a welcome package. That kinda works both ways.

After leaving CA, did you keep in contact with your old co-workers prior to the Change the Channel collaboration? What was the general atmosphere among ex-CA members before this?

Considering I only really ever spoke with them, and never really the management, yeah I did, and most of us usually did. There were plenty of times collabs would have ex-members pair up with current At that point, most of us were disillusioned with the concept of CA being some kind of exclusive club. It was never a "member vs non-member" mentality. Friends we made there tended to remain friends. There is even a group Skype most of us have remained in just to chat and collaborate. This is far from the first time any of us had grievances with the management, but it's definitely the first time it's been this public.

There's been a lot of talk about how the sense of camaraderie was what compelled a lot of people to put up with the mismanagement and mistreatment. Can you speak to that?

That's, from my perspective, an unquestionable truth. Many of us didn't share stories just as we didn't feel it necessary. (Again, my reason for being let go is basically nothing in the grand scheme. It fits more for the "They don't care about non-studio producers." side of the story than the "Here are some generally horrifying practices." portion. I learned about many of these from the doc, just like the rest of you.)There are plenty of people who wanted the status and recognition they perceived they would get from joining the site, two of who I warned personally about, but really, we mostly stayed for the sense of community with each other. That's why so many, past and present, left in small groups of solidarity.  It's when we realized that it wasn't the site keeping us together. It was just us.

You can follow ChaosD1 on his youtube page, his Twitch stream, on twitter, and at his tumblr page @chaosd1. You can also find his work on his website, MMOGrinder.net. Also, please consider supporting his Patreon!

Art by Andrew Dickman.

[fyloona]

(INTERVIEW) The all-girl K-pop group with a unique coming together story

LOOΠΔ are a girl group who are ambitiously announcing their 12 members over a string of solo singles – we speak to the members of subunit ODD EYE CIRCLE

A little over a year ago, something big was quietly manifesting on the edges of South Korean pop music with the reveal of HeeJin, a then-15-year-old who was the first person to be announced for a new, 12-member girl group called LOOΠΔ. The process of introducing LOOΠΔ to the world ranks as one of the more ambitious projects undertaken by a single entertainment agency (in this case, Blockberry Creative), with each of the group’s members unveiled not over a matter of weeks but over 18 months. Each girl has a symbolic colour and animal, and each releases a solo pre-debut single and video, interspersed with music by subunits formed of the already-revealed members.

While LOOΠΔ’s multi-pronged announcement strategy might seem hard to wrap your head round, large scale concepts and storylines for girl groups aren’t an anomaly in K-Pop. One only need look back upon T-ara’s 15-minute film around “Cry Cry” and videos like “Lovey Dovey” for precedents, or to newer groups like the J-rock-centric Dreamcatcher and GFriend’s ‘school trilogy’ of music videos. But LOOΠΔ stand apart amongst girl groups and even in the wider K-Pop world for the sheer ambition of their world-building, with each music video knotting another thread into an increasingly complex web of theories and imagery. Only EXO have in recent memory so carefully created a far-reaching origin story.

LOOΠΔ are yet to make their official debut. Right now there are still four members who’ve yet to be revealed – currently HeeJin, HyunJin, HaSeul, ViVi and YeoJin make up the subunit LOOΠΔ ⅓, while Kim Lip, JinSoul and Choerry combine for LOOΠΔ/ODD EYE CIRCLE. For now it’s the latter who have become key purveyors of what’s known as the ‘LOOΠΔVERSE’.  The trio’s solos (Kim Lip’s “Eclipse”, JinSoul’s “Singing in the Rain”, Choerry’s “Love Cherry Motion”) are sleek, compelling cuts of electronic pop, stylistically linked via their MVs (music videos) and tinged with 90s R&B, future bass and Katy Perry-esque vibes respectively. As LOOΠΔ/ODD EYE CIRCLE, they’ve also solidified themselves as one of 2017’s brightest groups, with both their EP Mix & Match (which climbed to #10 on Billboard’s World Chart) and its just-released repackage Max & Match pulling together the boldest elements of their individual songs.

“Chaotic”, “Uncover” and “Starlight” are drenched in unpredictable percussion and spacey synths against the girls’ feathery yet firm vocals, while on “LOONATIC”, they skip beyond familiar turf and channel Grimes’s dream pop. Two singles – the upbeat and assured “Girl Front” and “Sweet Crazy Love” – pile on new and existing visual clues (circular mirrors, maps, their ‘odd’ eyes) and recreate shots from the group’s previous videos.

As they discuss the struggles of debuting and breaking the mold, Choerry (at 16 the youngest of the three) calls their overarching concept “a first”. “It’s new, intriguing, and we’re proud,” she says. “It’s like being in a fairytale.” Open and assiduous for this, their first ever international interview, Kim Lip, JinSoul and Choerry are also feisty, confident and endearingly prone to dissing each other like siblings. Say hello to your new favourite girl group.

You each have a colour and an animal... did you get to choose either?

Kim Lip: The company chose each animal based on each member’s character. When I heard I would be an owl, for a moment I was like, ‘Huh?’, because everyone would want something pretty, like the deer for ViVi or a cat for HyunJin. But I like my symbol animal now. I think it goes well with my solo track.

JinSoul: When we first heard Choerry would be the fruit bat, everyone was surprised because it’s not very girl group-like. But given that Choerry will be going back and forth between both LOOΠΔ ⅓ and the new one coming later, I believe it fits the theory very well.

*full interview under the cut

Theories already abound about multiple dimensions in the LOOΠΔVERSE – one for each sub-unit, including those yet-to-debut – and everyone needs to find each other to debut a whole. Can you give us any hint to the full story?

Kim Lip: There are several theories, but we want to show the process of putting puzzles together through our videos and music. I’ll give you one hint – we’re wearing a band on our wrists based on each of our colours and that band is twisted. People might not have noticed, but ‘Möbius’ is an important hint for LOOΠΔ moving forward.

JinSoul: LOOΠΔ is 12 solos, three units, then the complete group, but I can tell you that this is not the end, rather just a beginning. There could be a new unit with different combinations, for example, HyunJin and I could be a new unit.

It’s unheard of for girl groups to develop narratives that are as complicated and prolonged as yours. What did you think about LOOΠΔ not only having a story but their own world?

Kim Lip: When we first heard about – like, how it would be actualised – we were quite surprised, because normally girl groups would just perform good songs with nice clothes. But as the theory unfolds, even we’ve gotten more curious and we’re finding it enjoyable!

If I said LOOΠΔ has the potential to change the creative landscape for K-Pop girl groups, how would you feel about that?

Kim Lip: It’s definitely a goal we’d like to achieve. Each solo has its own power, and each unit has an independent power rather be a typical unit, then all together we become LOOΠΔ. We want to be like Marvel’s Avengers.

How did each of you join LOOΠΔ? What did your friends and family say when you told them you were to be in an idol group?

Kim Lip: I tried out in so many auditions to find the right agency. I was pretty exhausted. But then my company contacted me through Instagram. I auditioned, made it, and became a trainee. It was challenging to adjust, realising ‘This is what a trainee’s life is like,’ and I spent time worrying about if I’d be able to become a member. But I practiced hard and finally became part of LOOΠΔ. All my family and friends celebrated with me. They were as happy as I was.

JinSoul: I auditioned a lot. I had good opportunities through street casting but didn’t make it through. But, like Lip, our company contacted me through Instagram. My family is very proud, and my friends have been supporting me a lot even before my debut.

Choerry: I participated in a vocal contest and got casted for an audition and became a trainee. My parents didn’t like the idea of me becoming a singer at the beginning, but they support me a lot now and give me the strength to go on.

LOOΠΔ/ODD EYE CIRCLE is said to have ‘strange and mysterious charms’. What’s your strange charm that only your family or friends understand fully?

Choerry: Kim Lip may pretend to be inattentive or indifferent, but actually she always keeps her eyes on others and takes care of them. She has that cold-but-warm charm.

Kim Lip: JinSoul may look cold and have a strong personality but, in fact, she has sloppy charms (makes cute mistakes).

Kim Lip: Choerry has a bright energy and charm to think always positively, even in bad situations.

Your EP has several tracks that really stand out for their ethereal synth pop. Which track seemed most interesting to you at first?

JinSoul: I have affection for all the tracks, but I liked ‘LOONATIC’ especially because it’s a type of genre only we can do in K-Pop.

Choerry: Also, ‘Chaotic’ is a bit masculine, but we’re proud to express it with our voices.

LOOΠΔ/ODD EYE CIRCLE is based around the ‘girl crush’ attitude – what does that mean to you personally?

Kim Lip: Girl crush for me is a complete turning point from (the ‘pure’ image of) LOOΠΔ ⅓.

Choerry: I think it’s a girl who has a strong gaze and who is cool, a girl who approaches proactively and confidently. Girl crush might be difficult to pull off, but I think we’re good at creating a strong appearance, so it fits us. Haha!

Lip, you have a natural authority about you on and off stage. Have you always been this type of confident person?

Kim Lip: When I was little, I was so shy that I couldn’t even get food on my plate at a buffet. When I thought ‘I want to be a singer’ and went to audition, I thought I should become more confident. I tried hard to change my personality so I could become the Kim Lip of now.

What did you emotionally experience while waiting to debut? What was your biggest fear and biggest hope?

JinSoul: Would I really make it to debut? I did my best in everything with many thoughts. In the beginning, I was shy and had low self-esteem, so I was worried if it’d be okay to debut with this talent and visual (appearance). But I was also so excited for my song coming out!

Choerry, you’re still at school... what does the average day look like for you? How do you juggle schoolwork, rehearsing and performing?

Choerry: Normally I wake up at 6am and go to school. When I have a schedule, I attend only morning classes or take a day off, so it’s sad that I don’t have much opportunity to meet with friends.

Now you’re promoting as a trio and spending a lot of time together, what’s something new you’ve discovered about each other?

Kim Lip: I didn’t know when JinSoul was a trainee but, as we’ve lived together, I’ve noticed her sleeping with her eyes open. I thought it was only in the car because it’s quite uncomfortable, but she always sleeps with her eyes open.

JinSoul: Choerry tends to be bloated well in the morning, so when she wakes up, her double eyelid is gone. So in the morning it’s quite different version of Choerry.

Choerry: Lip is very easy-going, that was quite unexpected. But she is surprisingly cleaner than I expected.

source: DAZED

[ganymedesclock]

What's your read on the Green and Yellow Lions? I feel like there's not much I can glean about their personalities at this point in the show (unlike Black, Red, and Blue), but I have to wonder if I'm just not looking hard enough.

So my read on the Lions is rooted partially in the symbolism used for them, and partially for similarities noticeable between the paladins, as well as their capabilities.

Green is tied closely to plant life, but also, to technology- there’s this concept of “become something else in the face of adversity.” She’s not necessarily outstandingly gifted or prone to being victorious right away- but she’s tenacious, stubborn, and sticks to issues, observing her surroundings, gathering information, and relearning.

She’s the Scholar to Red’s Prophet. Both of the arms are information gatherers, but Green does so through logic, order, and more conventional patterns.

At the same time, the stealth capabilities, and that very concept of evolution, would suggest Green is someone who feels pressure a lot. The Green and Yellow Lions are together on the left side of the body, grouped as the more defense-oriented Lions in contrast to the more dynamic, offense-oriented Red and Blue.

You can tell this with their elements: trees and stones are both rather sedentary presences while water and fire tend to flow and move. And the sky/cosmos is simultaneously constantly in movement, and completely still- it’s so large, it’s more of the medium everything else exists within.

As little as we see of Trigel, my read is that Green in the past was more assured, and probably more willing to be inquisitive, curious, kind of playful. Things felt more safe. She was more confident.

But now, with Pidge, we see that there’s a needier, lonelier side to Green that’s developed after the fall of the original paladins. There’s some similarities between how Green behaves and how Pidge does when they’re left alone- compare Pidge in the trash nebula and how she makes images of her friends and talks to the caterpillars.

On the planet Green is first found, it seems like most of the creatures there know about the Lion. This is unusual- remember on Earth nobody but Keith even got the faintest idea Blue was there. But the gondolier, the rabbit creatures- all pop up to happily greet and welcome Pidge and Shiro and take them to the Lion.

It creates an image that Green has been talking to them, without a real purpose- not actually finding a paladin in them, but just that she was incredibly lonely.

So Green strikes me, in short, as very clever, inquisitive, even kind of bubbly or excitable- but also, very vulnerable, and quick to reach out to others to try and ease her loneliness. She doesn’t like being away from her pride.

Outside of that, official interviews have said that Green is fundamentally not a destructive creature, which does I think lend a bit to the idea that she’s a bit cautious.

Onto the Yellow Lion...

The most clear thing we see of the Yellow Lion is he is a protector, and a stalwart one. His fighting style consists of throwing himself bodily at things, more than any of the other Lions- tackling and ramming with his powerful shoulders and jaw. Even his projected weapons have a very kinetic element.

This suggests a kind of practical wisdom and the overarching philosophy of earth. Yellow trusts himself, and his own physical limitations, over relying on distance weapons to do his fighting for him. That’s not to say he’s less sophisticated or more of a brute than the other Lions, because he’s not.

Compared to Blue and Green’s markings, and how they guide their paladins to them, Yellow’s markings contain more specific instructions and an element of problem-solving. Outside of “this way” there is a “you need to break this wall.” and Yellow has faith that his paladin will be able to figure out a way to solve this problem.

Allura describes Yellow as having a powerful sense of compassion, someone who hoists the rest of the team onto his shoulders. And we see that with the Lion- after all, the first thing he did was fling himself in front of a downed Blue.

Yellow isn’t just confident in his own abilities, he makes himself a shield to his allies. Not in sacrifice, but in that he’s bigger, stronger, he can take the hits they can’t.

And I think it comes back to this sense of foundation. Because the thing about Hunk is he’s not a nervous guy who grew out of it, as much as we see that he’s actually a very confident person- if he’s in his area.

So Yellow is interested in problem solving and building that foundation, or expanding it, to have good ground to stand on. He can explore complicated ideas with ease- but it all comes back to a very practical root.

Comparing Hunk and Pidge and the way they think, I think of Pidge very much as like a creeping vine- she ceaselessly and industriously puts out leaves, climbs higher and higher and higher, growing on whatever she can reach. But as a result Pidge gets very.... tangled. Everything is complicated to Pidge. Layman’s terms are unheard of to her, and she’ll often get distracted in her own logic and wander down unrelated tangents.

Conversely, Hunk is able to parse those leaps of sophistication with perfect ease- he’s Pidge’s intellectual equal, easily- but when he discusses these things himself, he uses terminology that the average person can easily grasp. Because to Hunk, every upward build is a straight shot from the ground- you don’t forget where the basement is on a building just because you’re on the tenth floor.

So there’s a level of Yellow who is confident, brash even, maybe- and we see this reflected with Gyrgan, that kind of fearless self-sufficiency (one of the flashback scenes in s3e7 suggests Gyrgan’s people were nomadic, travelling with pack animals) but also, in a way, reflected in Hunk- Yellow is only fearless and self sufficient as long as, in one sense, he has his feet on the ground.

If he’s out of his area- as in s2e2- then he’s not doing so hot.

[sabrinamerican]

BURGER KING - QSR (Quick Service Restaurant)

The objective of this mock campaign for Burger King is to launch the “Impossible Whopper” in Malaysia. The Impossible Whopper is a 100% meatless burger which tastes exactly like their iconic beef Whopper burger. The strategy we used is Meatless Mondays as it is a current movement along with animated cows as the icons in the campaign to further prove the burger is 100% meatless. We wanted to tease and create a sense of wonder surrounding the burger so we decided to use YouTube advertisements to display our ideas. As most fast food advertisements are shown on YouTube.

Bumper 1 Food Delivery (TEASER)

This acts as the first teaser about the Impossible Whopper.

Bumper 2 Bus Stop

This shows the cows waiting and going into the bus with a bus wrap advertisement that teases the Impossible Whopper.

Pre-Roll 

This advertisement displays the cows traveling together from the farm to city to eat The Impossible burger.

notes: Illustrations created by (me) Sabrina Merican and Joanna Chen Ki-Ying. Animated by Adrissa Binti Adam. Audio from Fesliyan studios and Zapsplat.com

CRITS

Adrina Binti Adam

Burger King, good length but the first 2 videos it's a little too quick and hard for me to get that it's a meatless burger because my brain picks up Burger King + Cow + Burger so I still think it's a beef burger. The last video is quite straightforward to the point so I get it that it's like a meatless burger. That's why the cows are eating it. Otherwise the length is good, and straight to the point also. Could be punchier like the third one. The length is really good because it grabs the attention of people and it's not too long people that will skip it and it’s a cute jingle to remember.

Adrissa binti Adam

Burger King - QSR

1. The bumper videos work fine as a teaser but a bit concerned that some people might not understand the video because of how fast the information is been given with not much explanation from the audio, therefore, leaving some gap of the uncertainty of what the advertisement is talking about from Burger King.    

2. Voice acting in the advertisements can also make/break the advertisement which the voice acting was quite lacklustre despite the cows looking enthusiastic to go to town to eat the Impossible Burger.

Lyla D. Murugayah 

Bumper 1 Food Delivery:

1. Messaging on video is unclear. With it being a busy video, the promo elements do not stand out. Also delivery to the cows is confusing. 

2. The duration of video and timing is too fast to get the message across. 

3. Also if this is an introductory product video. It should talk about the product more instead of delivery as your first messaging. 

4. I like the colours but would have used Burger King colours to highlight your key points.

Bumper 2

1. The bus wrap I'd have maybe changed it to" It's not impossible that it's like the real thing". So it flows better as a sentence but that's just my preference. The line is okay.

2. Completely missed the cows waiting for the bus because again the busy background and things moving too fast, nothing stands out. Only caught the cows on my second watch.

PRE ROLL

1. The timing for this was a lot better! I knew what was happening and watched the progression.

2. The idea of the cow eating a non-cow beef burger (ish) is a bit cannibalistic! But I like the extremity of it. 

OVERALL

1. Colours could have played into BQ so you have elements that can standout.

2. One overarching tagline could have been highlighted overall. Like "It's impossible but we made it possible" and that's an overarching line through all the videos (a better line maybe). 

3. As an introductory promotional video, you may have missed an opportunity to tell people what the impossible burger is. 

4. Fun illustrations that'll attract viewers.

Wan Rezal Ismail bin Wan Othman

For the Burger King:

The beefless burger rhyme scheme is nice but I doubt the overall concept attracts people to try the burger. Your market audience, in this respect, are people who already know the Impossible Burger that was trending (keyword on 'was') in the US some time ago and are curious to try it here. With that in mind, assuming your target market are for the general public, you should consider tackling the angle of something that's too good to be true. 

The Impossible Burger has its name because you're not supposed to tell it apart from a beef burger. So, you can engage with the audience's curiosity. Tying into the Meatless Monday might be difficult but I do believe you can pull it off. A narcissistic cow that believes its perfect, even if its own taste. The possibilities are limitless. 

However, if we're sticking to this concept alone, then one thing to consider is that your call to action doesn't translate well over the various concepts you're providing. This applies to the delivery variation of the ad. It's a tiny adjustment that could have significant impact, to change, "Order yours today at Burger King," complements "The Impossible at your door step," more than "Come get yours now."

[williamgraphics-yr2-blog]

Final evaluation

The context for my second year final major project was to create a self-lead project relating to the idea of curiosity. The brief itself had no set theme so I could go anywhere with the project as long as it could be linked back to curiosity. The problem faced by a self-lead project was that everything needed to be done independently with considerably less support than in past projects. This meant that I had to create work using the skills I had learnt over the past two years and do all my own independently source research. Then with the research collected, create work in response and relate it back to the overarching brief about Curiosity.

My initial thoughts upon reading the brief was that I could go anywhere with this project. I started thinking about what I was curious about which lead to the objects I brought in that would later become my display box. After mind mapping my assortment of curiosities, I then decided that I wanted to create something relating to video games.

I had chosen to pursue illustration and animation as my specialisms for this final major project as I believe they were my strongest areas of work in the past projects. I feel my animation and illustration skills have evolved since the first year and I wanted to use this final project to create a well-rounded final outcome incorporating elements of both of my key skills.

The purpose of my project was to create my own video game concept consisting of a unique character design and environment. I decided to relate my final project to video games because I am quite passionate and knowledgeable about them. I planned to investigate the design and development of iconic characters and levels from classic video games to see what makes them so iconic and timeless and hopefully gain a better understanding so I can implement that into my own work.

My research for my project began after visiting the design Museum in London. During the trip I took photographs of everything that I believe was curious and interesting to me that could possibly be relevant to my ideas. After the trip I created sketches based on the photos I took and collaged them together in a piece based on the work from Michael Craig-Martin. This is where my research began. Michael Craig-Martin was an artist who would always create his art in the same way. There was a consistency that meant you couldn’t tell if the piece was newly made of from multiple years back. This gave his work a somewhat timeless quality which is something I aimed to achieve with my own designs. His work used very bright and bold block colours which would usually be unrelated to the originally associated colour of the object. This created a sense of intrigue which I took inspiration from when I designed my background from my final outcome.

The photos I took from the Design Museum were of items such as a headset, old fashion TV and original Playstation and a fruit juicer made by Philippe Starck called the Juicy Salif. The TV and console reminded me of video games and the Juicy Salif inspired the villains for my concept as the juicer looked like a UFO from Men in Black and War of the Worlds.

Early on into my research I took various stills from some of the video games I thought were most visually appealing and decided to attempt recreating the scenes using various different media. I took stills from The Last of Us, The Witness and Journey all for the Playstation 4. I recreated these scenes via dry point etching and then used the pieces to create projection-based paintings. I did this so that I could look in-depth into the worlds and their landscapes/environments to see what makes them so appealing. I began to consider how these environments could look if they were retro based graphics and that started my investigation into classic game designs.

During the project I researched Tomohiro Nishikado who was the original creator of Space Invader which inspired me to go for a retro look with my final design outcome. I also looked into Susan Kare and how she expressed emotion through her icon design. This made me consider how I could potentially convey emotion in its simplest form. What initially got me interested in retro game designers was my curiosity into the creation of Jak and Daxter and other similar games. Charles Zembillas was the original art director for popular video game icons Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot. These characters are what inspired me to what to create my own for this project.

The retro appearance of the original space invaders had that timeless look which I planned to replicate with my design. I wanted to create something simple and stylised so that it can be recognisable as my own work. Incorporating elements that make a character and environment iconic.

When it came to my final design I went out and collected primary images of environments that I could possibly translate over into pixel backgrounds. This was relevant as video games environments are most commonly based on concept art that was sketched up based on real locations. Mario and Sonic for example have aspects of their worlds that link to our own, which contains that link to reality when you’re immersed in the virtual world. I collated all the images I have taken over the years of interesting views and landscapes and selected some for use in this experiment. The experimentation consisted of Dry point, inking, projection-based art and digital pixel media. This allowed me to see real locations in different styles and decided moving forward which was most successful and interesting. These processes were chosen because they all produce interesting outcomes and were some of my favorites during the first year. For example, dry point in a process that requires you to etch over the top of the piece you intend to ink. Then when inked and printed the outcome is a mirror of the original piece. This gives a new perspective on the environment and helps with considering what an outcome could look like if it were inverted.

When showing research, I display each piece of my work in my production file showing the research compared with the piece I created alongside it. I also compare the research to the work I create on my college blog. Analysing what worked and what needs improvement. The primary research was more beneficial when it came to design my own environment as I used my photos as a template for my ideas. Whereas the secondary research was more beneficial when it came to design the character as I needed to look into other designers and their designs only to understand how they created their characters.

At the start of the project I began experimenting with collaging, screen and block printing. These pieces were originally typography based and formed the start of my curiosity work and acted as a basis for ideas. This got me thinking about what might interest someone else, and how can I make my work appeal to others. The typeface I originally created went towards the cover for my project and from that formed the title for the project.

Moving on I creating pieces based on environmental research which lead me back to the print room where I returned to the dry point process used in the first year. This was one of the first pieces of independent workshop I had done, and this gave me an insight into landscape design and from this I began thinking about scale and manmade cityscapes vs natural environments.

A natural progression from this was projecting the dry point pieces onto the wall, enlarging them giving me an opportunity to further study them in closer detail with an enlarged view. Recreating these landscapes A2 was a lengthy process that I ultimately realised was too complex for my ideas, I wanted to create something more basic as a starting point so I went out and took some primary research photos of environments in my local area to try and transition into digital graphics.

Returning to a pixel-based workshop I had looked at the previous year, I created my own characters inspired by Tomohiro Nishikado’s 1978 ‘Space Invaders’ I created two simple designs to test animate and a larger head to focus on more detailed facial animation. Digitally recreate these on Illustrator was essential to ensure a high quality, as it would be created from digital blocks which could be resized and maintain quality. I also created environments based on the primary photos I took and then created a looping animation. This was an important piece for deciding if I wanted my character stationary with the background moving or vice versa.

What I proposed was to create my own character design and environment and after these workshops I felt I was confident in creating my own unique design concept that I could create final animation and illustration based on. Alongside workshops there are also sketched potential ideas and mind maps in my sketchbook to help keep a consistent vision for my idea. Effectively managing my time during lesson help me to create a body of work that could be developed on after lessons. After lesson development was imperative to improve and make more pieces before making a final design.

The main strengths from these workshops was being able to develop and refine preexisting skills such as dry point was less messy and more concise, and the projection pieces had a better quality of line when adding water to spread out the ink. Additionally, having a dry brush with thicker ink gave the trees income pieces a sharper look early on in the paint process. Most of the pieces I experimented had trees in which solidified the idea of a more natural style of environment for my piece.

The pixel characters design was defined multiple times to make it less symmetrical and the final design ended with using a shield and Sword. The idea was conceived from the sonic screwdrivers in my display box inspiring the idea of a character and their associated tools or weapons. This then led into the environment being designed as a war-torn world design. During the refinement process I learnt how to properly use illustrator and all its features such as pen tool and snap-to-grid.

Building of the finished designs I moved them into Photoshop and made one of my most intricate Photoshop animations including multiple moving objects on each layer for over one hundred layers. This was by far my most sophisticated animation and took the longest to create. Using the knowledge I had gained from past projects such as ‘Glitch’ I was able to create multiple frames and move each object on each individual layer without changing every frame in the animation. This was a problem back in the past projects but now is easy to fix because I have learnt from the past experience.

The aim for this final major project was to create my own video game concept and I believe I have achieved this. I have created a character with an iconic look and an alternative version of the character to interact with each other, along with creating 2 different backgrounds with 2 variations of each. The piece shows its own unique world with its own set war torn theme. Creating a sense of conflict with the characters clashing over the burning environment.

I believe the choice to use digital media was the right one as the finished outcome more accurately resembles iconic video games of the 80s and 90s. After experimenting with more traditional processes compared with that of the digital final outcomes, I believe the digital pieces was more effective. The use of snap-to-grid on Illustrator insured that all pixels of the character and background were all perfectly inline and were easy to line up when combining the finished pieces. They worked appropriately and looking visually engaging during the final animation. Vectorising my original design was beneficial when moving and resizing as the vector version maintained the high quality whereas the original pixel would stretch and blur.

 Reflecting back, I think it would have been more beneficial to focus more on sketching out ideas and creating more pixel variations using analog processes on pixel paper. I could have been more efficient with my time management using digital workshops to priorities digital experimentation opposed to the analog processes I worked on.

The most successful aspects of the final design were the character and environments use of colour. The alternative version of the main characters design was made using negative colours, inverting the standard colour pallet using light blue and white. Reminiscent of the character design of Jak from Jak 3. One of my inspirations for designing my own character. Improvements to my development of the final outcome could have been to create a higher resolution non-pixelated design for a comparison with more traditional high-resolution character designs.

The background colours adhere to the rule of three. With the sky being a standard yellow transitioning into orange then red. The landscape in the piece made with a thick black and a second layer to add detail in a darker grey. I believe this worked quite well as the sky isn’t normally these colours. The closest to this would be during sunset which is what I based my piece on for my first year final outcome. Taking what didn’t work about last years design helped create a more cohesive and well-rounded final outcome for this year.

Overall I believe I achieved my goal and created two iconic pixel characters of my own along with a successful environmental piece that had a range of different uses from looped animation to experiment with movement to the final piece with it being stationary and the focus being on the movement of the characters. the final animation accurately captures my vision of a world on fire with a character fighting against a hostile invading force.

Tutor feedback has helped me realises there needs to be more of an emphasis on research. Previous projects have been slightly lacking so for this final project I have aimed to have a range of primary research and artists to look at and draw inspiration from. Peer feedback has assisted in finalising designs. With classmates giving feedback on what needed to be improved with my original pixel designs and when they were translated into digital pieces.

If I could change anything I would change the final animation and the amount of assets moving on screen. I would add additional animations to the main character including the sword equipping animation and the swinging of the sword. I would also add the animation of the guns firing. This would be on the larger designs and not the smaller ones as they wouldn’t be big enough to see.

[mindthewolves]

some thoughts, filed under: pacific rim

[this is gonna be full of spoilers. fair warning. but also curious what others thought of the storytelling in the movie.]

-the voiceover backstory was long and seemed like kind of a storytelling crutch. the thing is I don’t think the story needed to start where it did, with the onset of the kaiju attacks. it would’ve worked just as well to open at the height of the jaeger system, and cobble together the backstory from news footage (sans voiceover), the celebrity status of jaeger pilots (& specifically I would have loved for this to focus on POC pilots as an inversion of the directionality of media consumption today, which largely faces toward US/western media), and raleigh’s pov. it took quite a while for pacific rim to find its footing in terms of characterization, and introducing raleigh and his brother in this way - focusing on more of their daily routine and the sibling dynamic - could have helped the story gel sooner and heightened the emotional impact of yancy’s death.

-but one possible reason this wasn’t done is because drift compatibility and the entire premise of the jaegers is difficult to show without a narrative voiceover. potential workarounds: retrospective news footage of how the jaegers were conceived, engineered, and troubleshooted; or (and more interesting to me) a scene involving pilots who weren’t drift compatible. this is something pac rim never got to show, and given that compatibility is seen as rare and special, I’m curious what incompatibility looks like – bigotry, possibly, given the overarching theme of unity tying the film together. and assuming people are fluid & have the capacity for change, is it possible to fall in and out of drift compatibility, i.e. if the pilots discover something about each other, if the relationship becomes rocky, etc.?

-been thinking about ways the neural drift could be portrayed other than wandering through each other’s childhood memories, and I think sense8 does it more effectively in terms of how it overlaps narratives and shared experiences. in your eyes is another movie that plays with a similar telepathic bond in a very effective way. 

-it’s a movie made for the big screen visual; there’s so much detail to the kaiju and a lot of thought has gone into the monster anatomy, their evolving modes of attack, etc.

-so much so that there are more kaiju than speaking role women in this movie, more kaiju than speaking role POCs, and (subjectively; tbh I haven’t tabulated) the kaiju get more screen time than the female or POC characters. I’m also not sure why the kaiju are all nicknamed. like if you are hunting and tracking a group of things for a length of time, I understand; but for an enemy that appears singly and is dealt with immediately? why would you name it? (also the naming choice for the main jaeger...just no.)

-ok the racial politics first. I loved stacker’s portrayal, how his authority and the burden of command flows from him as easily as breathing. it’s never questioned. even when raleigh disagrees, he presses up to a point, but ultimately defers. & stacker is three-dimensional in a way that sidesteps tropes of black men in authority positions being angry or intimidating, or being sidelined or killed off for the advancement of a white character’s narrative: he has the people he wants to protect, he's willing to make the hard choices but is set up as the moral center of the story, and he has the weight of his own history behind him. the fact that he’s ostensibly drift compatible with anyone speaks to a remarkable capacity for empathy and understanding. ofc it’s found family that always gets me though, and the scene where mako very subtly gestures to herself to alert him to a nosebleed says volumes about their relationships, about the secrets she keeps for him, and the vulnerability he lets her see.

-mako on the other hand does fall into a number of racial stereotypes: all asians know martial arts, all asian women are demure and defer to authority. from a purely storytelling perspective, she makes for a good foil to raleigh’s more impulsive character, and they’re evenly matched. but when you take into account the larger pattern of racial stereotypes in mainstream media, this particular characterization irks me to no end (see: sense8, street fighter - legend of chun li) and this trope needs to die. also it irritated me that she had so little agency; she doesn’t fight (much) for herself to become a jaeger pilot, she stands back as raleigh decks chuck on her behalf, and later she’s ejected from the jaeger when raleigh decides it’s time to go it alone. she doesn’t make a ton of choices in this story. from a gender standpoint though, I definitely appreciated the restraint in terms of not sexualizing her as a character – the jaeger uniform she wears is the same as raleigh’s, she’s not shown in various states of undress, and the romantic subplot I was sure was going to rear its head just...didn’t? kudos.

-for a story set in hong kong, there are a bunch of white people. just sayin’. and sure the apocalypse could conceivably be postracial, but that’s not what’s happening here. the asian actors are background, and it’s most notable in the scenes with newt in the bunker – he’s always centered, and the camera singles him out while everyone else is just noise. the other jaeger candidates are indistinguishable from one another and unnecessarily, poorly matched against raleigh. mako is the only asian actor with more than a token line (and is, notably, japanese rather than chinese). non sequitur but it’s also not apparent to me why raleigh magically speaks japanese, or why it’s even necessary to include that detail in their meet cute. stacker speaking japanese I can buy, given their father-daughter dynamic, but raleigh doing the same sets off red flags for me.

-as a disclaimer I tend not to like action scenes for their own sake (avengers & batman v superman, boring; wonder woman: riveting, because the emotional stakes were palpable) but these definitely felt too long because the characters and stakes weren’t sufficiently fleshed out and there was so much attention paid to the kaiju when they were fairly monotone villains.

-like there was so much characterization that could have been capitalized on here, which is why I think pac rim has such fic potential: lots of space to fill in the blanks. and that’s not a bad thing, to leave those gaps. but at the same time I think the emotional beats of the movie hit late, and maybe they could have been played up more.

-for one I didn’t realize the striker eureka pilots were father and son until they were saying their goodbyes on opposite sides of an elevator door (see there are these great moments) and therefore when stacker sizes up the son, his mention of daddy issues seemed heavy-handed and not borne out in the previous narrative. idk maybe I missed something earlier on, entirely possible. I completely missed how the dog was a surrogate for the father-son affection until the elevator scene.

-second, the jaeger pilots just kept dying in droves towards the end of the movie but for a group of people with a skill set so rare and so valued? I wanted their deaths to be played up more. I wanted a funeral or at least a tribute to the wei triplets and the kaidanovskys, possibly also dredging up the jaeger carcasses from the sea. it didn’t have to be elaborate, but it would have made sense to take a moment. (it’s been a while since I watched battlestar galactica, but something that has always stuck with me – however vaguely – was the way the raider pilots would touch the memorial wall as they filed past, the sheer emotional weight that went into those few frames.)

-but geez the shoe motif. it was a neat metaphor for the theme of togetherness lacing through the movie, as well as for the concept of drift compatibility. & I liked how the two pairs of shoes contrasted each other. stacker gives mako (what I assume to be) the second shoe, making a complete pair, and it’s a little kid’s shoe that embodies unity and family and an innocence of heart. but when hannibal gets eaten, the gold-plated Shoes of Avarice TM are separated.

-the questionable science: the striker eureka is purely electric, and goes out of commission when an EMP hits, whereas the mark-3 jaegers run on nuclear energy AND YET power off when the plug is pulled? but wait it gets better. stacker’s been warned that he’ll die from radiation poisoning if he steps foot in another jaeger, and the emotional beat when he takes herc’s spot plays off his knowing sacrifice. not sure what he thinks he’ll die from though, because he’s stepping into a solely electric-powered jaeger.

-nitpick: why is there so much shouting in the jaegers. why the need to talk if you’re in each other heads.

-also from a safety design standpoint it seems like a terrible idea to have the pilots standing, with zero support in case of impact.

-also if the kaiju are so invincible and any non-jaeger weaponry doesn’t make a dent, someone explain to me how in the stinger, hannibal cuts his way out of a kaiju GI tract with a tiny tiny knife.

-soundtrack: it always feels like I have no vocabulary to describe art or music, but I liked how the electronic/percussive elements echo the construction material of the mechas onscreen, kind of like an onomatopoeia. the orchestral undercurrent carries the heroic tone of the movie, but it’s stained too with foreboding by the foghorn blasts. & the beat idk but it reminded me of the give-and-take choreography of a fight or of a dance, possibly also the synchrony between jaeger pilots.

-way better meta about the symbolism in the changing colors of jaeger pilot armor here:

Raleigh goes from a white uniform to a black one, which is a classic Manichean Heresy. One could argue that the switch symbolizes a loss of innocence, but I would say that it goes much deeper than that (though I would also argue that this is treated by the film as a positive thing – Raleigh trades innocence for wisdom in this equation). A Manichean Heresy is an inversion of traditional symbolism. In his white uniform, which would traditionally symbolize purity and righteousness, Raleigh and Yancy make a mistake that ends in his Yancy’s death, the near destruction of G*psy Danger, and Raleigh’s fall from grace. When he returns to the world, as a savior and mentor, he wears a black uniform.

When I realized this, it took me a while to figure out what it meant. It wasn’t until I considered Stacker Pentecost’s uniform that I understood. Stacker shifts from a dark silver uniform into a black one. This transition is less extreme than Raleigh’s, though I think in a lot of ways they mirror one another. It is never stated that Stacker or his partner made a mistake that led to his partner’s death, therefore it makes sense that Raleigh and Stacker would be represented in visually unique manners, since their narratives have different trajectories. Thus Stacker’s transition into the black uniform is likely representative of his gained experience (and his eventual – spoiler alert – martyrdom), because he was presented to us (in literal messianic imagery) as a fixed moral point even from his introduction.

[cryptswahili]

Token Curated Registries probably aren’t going to change the world

Think how much easier Santa’s job will be with TCRs to streamline his extensive list operations (Photo by Mike Arney on Unsplash)

Token Curated Registries (TCRs) are a curious concept. At their heart they are a means of creating a list, a rather prosaic sounding goal. Scratch the surface, however, and they are an entangled web of incentivization and game theory that could cause more problems than they solve.

I’m not going to dig too deep into what TCRs are as there are a number of good such explainers. In short, TCRs tie together lists, tokens and voting in such a way as to allow for curated lists to be created in which items are proposed and voted on for inclusion. The idea is that by creating a tailored list, it will generate value for those included. This will then see others from similar fields wish to be included on it, necessitating they buy the list tokens so they can submit themselves for consideration. Those curating the list likewise receive tokens for their efforts. Consumers, meanwhile, benefit from better lists that aren’t subject to the whims of one entity and where voting is transparent and accessible to all.

The focus of this article, rather, is to list all the things I see as problems for TCRs. Many of these should be immediately obvious just from the summation above. Although I discuss three examples of live or proposed TCRs, I am focused more on the concept as a whole.

Lists? You’re seriously talking to me about lists?

The nature of TCRs makes them hard to get too excited by. A list? Great. Who cares? This is partly as a result of people giving really poor examples of use cases. A list of coffee shops in San Francisco? Really, who cares? These dull examples make the output of TCRs hard to conceptualize.

However, there are some interesting use cases of TCRs. One such example comes from FOAM Space, which is a good representation of how seemingly banal lists can be used to generate something far greater.

FOAM aims to provide a decentralized map through which users can add Points of Interest. These can then be voted on and, if approved, are then added to the FOAM map. The TCR in this example is represented by these Points of Interests on a map.

FOAM

Bearing in mind that I think FOAM is one of the better examples of TCRs currently proposed, let’s look at some of the potential positives and negatives TCRs bring:

I wanted to start at the top with a clear example because there are many different proposals for TCRs but few concrete examples given. There are also a great deal of different TCR implementations being worked on and there is no one ‘TCR’ model that can be referred to as standard. However, they have the same overarching structure and my many issues with TCRs can be boiled down to four core categories:

Weak core proposition

Misalignment of incentives

Limited and poorly applied use cases

Token model

Weak core proposition

TCRs are designed to allow disparate parties to come to an agreement. However, the information being agreed upon can be both objective and subjective. Subjective information brings many obvious issues, but even objective information, as outlined in the FOAM example, is often hard to verify. “Don’t Trust. Verify” isn’t some abstract concept. That anyone can verify the blockchain themselves sits at the heart of Bitcoin. This is lost when it comes to TCRs, because there will always be an element of trust. People can still verify the data recorded and transactions made, but because these transactions are recording objects external to the blockchain they then have to trust that this is correct (the Oracle problem).

Bitcoin enabled censorship resistant transactions, an obviously useful function for anyone remotely familiar with either history or the current global financial system. Decentralized lists are hard to create the same compelling narrative around, at least not one requiring tokens and a blockchain. Wikipedia covers a broader range of content than any TCR could aim to solve, and yet does so admirably. Are there inaccuracies? Yes. Is it subject to people vandalizing it? Sure. Are either of those problems solved by TCRs? No. I am not convinced that TCRs are the solution for the curation from which they take their name.

This was going to be all photos of lists but I couldn’t do that to people (Photo by Jared Rice on Unsplash)

Centralized entities are incentivized to make their lists as good and as accurate as possible due to the competition of the free market. Google and Apple will have their own biases, but their continued success lies in part (the power of incumbency can’t be understated) on their ability to remain competitive and deliver an experience that users want. Any bias they have likely rests at a higher level rather than filtering down to individual decisions e.g. if a coffee shop should feature more prominently than another.

TCRs may not have an overarching bias dictated from above, but there is a greater chance of issues at a lower and individual level. However, platform bias is also likely depending on how demographically widely distributed the curators are. A predominantly American/Western European, wealthy, white, male and middle aged userbase — such is common on many technological platforms — will undoubtedly bring through bias through homogeneity.

There will still be plenty of objectionable things that are accepted into curated registries, just as they affect a system like Wikipedia. FOAM notes the issue with OpenStreetMap, which suffers from vandalism and outdated information. While staking tokens may reduce some of the lower levels of mischief, it won’t stop determined users. Preventing them relies heavily on active governance of token holders, something I do not see as a given despite incentive. Moreover, attaching value to such a system can cause issues of its own.

Misalignment of incentives

There are a range of potential issues with how TCRs implement incentives.

A prediction market like Augur needs to incentivize responders so that the correct answer is provided to the questions set. This is what allows the bets to be resolved, and the payouts made to the correct party. Responders earn rewards for correctly settling bets (although there have been ambiguous questions which have clouded this process). This can lead to some issues. For example, if a losing bettor controls enough of tokens being staked, they can 51% attack the system so that they receive the payout despite being wrong.

This is unlikely to happen with Augur. Poorly written questions aside, the correct answer is usually a clear and objective answer. “Who will win the Super Bowl” is not difficult to answer for most responders, requiring a simple google.

Ryan Selkis aka TwoBitIdiot opined that AdChain’s (which aims to produce a TCR listing ‘honest’ websites for advertisers to use so that marketers don’t overspend on websites inflating viewing figures) TCR implementation was “simple…black and white”.

Unfortunately, even these seemingly clear cut decisions rapidly devolve once you bring a voting public into the fold. Curated lists often depend on more subjective qualities. Early votes on Adchain saw both Facebook and New York Times challenged and rejected. The challenge for the New York Times was brought about due to their journalism in respect to the Iraq War, an element that the TCR was not intended to consider or reflect.

Photo by JR Korpa on Unsplash

This is not an extreme case but rather is the entire game. To prevent such egregious errors, actors have to be incentivized to act in the best interests of a) users and b) the system. Instead, actors are incentivized to act in the best interests of themselves.

Consider these examples:

Token holders receive tokens for voting correctly on a decision. But voting correctly does not necessarily lead to the right decision. Let us assume that the New York Times does not game its viewer metrics. Rejecting them from the AdChain TCR would be the wrong decision. But, if I felt the community was going to reject them, on a financial basis I would have to reject them too — because otherwise I would get no tokens.

I am a business that wishes to be on a list. My rivals are on the list and it is causing my business to lose significant business as a result. Therefore, I either need to get on the list or — if rejected — ensure the list isn’t used as much. As such, I can spam the network with poor submissions to try and make sure that my real submission gets through. Or I buy enough tokens to be able to sway voting my way. Or I issue numerous challenges to block the network. It could cost me a significant amount of money, but if this amount is less than the amount that I am already losing on an ongoing basis as a result of not being on the list then it is still worth doing.

Bad actors or those with a vested interest in appearing on the list will be more driven than honest actors who aren’t on the list themselves.

This is reminiscent of my complaints about the RecDAO system that was trialed on Reddit. It aimed to decentralize moderation of the ethtrader subreddit such that users could vote on whether posts should be promoted or deleted. The obvious problem with such a solution is that those who care about the post have a far greater interest in voting on it. The average person doesn’t care or may not know. However, TCRs rely on achieving a mass of users, because otherwise you might as well just take a count of the 20–30 people making decisions. This needs the average person to be engaged.

Achieving this engagement is unlikely. Voting turnout tends to be low for important events, let alone for ongoing governance. Blockchain governance participation has tended to be very low to date, meaning that those engaged carry an outsized impact. Voting takes time and effort, as well as being constantly engaged.

This low level of engagement means that it is frequently not a 51% attack, but a 5–10% attack. This is exacerbated when you consider that just to challenge an application, the user must usually put up a financial contribution of their own. This means that I have to feel strongly enough to challenge and also confident enough that other voters will vote my way. This is not a small hurdle.

Furthermore, governance usually takes the form of voting on issues on an irregular and dispersed basis. However, most successful TCRs will likely require constant voting. This means that voters will have to be involved on a weekly if not daily basis. I am not convinced this is likely and for this reason I prefer the approach of something like Messari, where the default result of an application is a rejection to others which see the default as approval. This means that a quorum has to be achieved to add new entrants, preventing additions from acceptance following a vote with miniscule turnout.

Regardless, getting people to vote is a large concern. For a TCR to succeed they will likely need to gamify or otherwise hold the interest of users. I don’t think financial rewards by themselves will prove sufficient.

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

Poorly applied use cases

Although currently limited in numbers, TCRs are currently being proposed for use for a whole manner of means. Most of them are simply bad fit for TCRs, with Civil a particularly egregious use.

Journalism is highly subjective and emotionally charged. Using TCRs as a means to create a list of ‘trustworthy sources’ is a marriage made in hell. On a practical level, publications are uneven. Some journalists at Company A will be great, others less so. The Guardian produces a decent newspaper, but their online clickbait journalists are awful. Practicalities aside, it is difficult to reconcile left and right wing views when it comes to newspapers.

I struggle to see how TCRs are going to help us here. Linking subjective moral judgments to payments doesn’t seem like it will end well.

TCRs will have their fits, but will likely be more narrow than originally envisaged.

Token model

TCRs are built upon the premise of the token underpinning the list being valuable for incentivization purposes. This leads to questions such as:

How are tokens distributed initially? Are they distributed widely enough

If TCRs are successful, does this mean the need for thousands or tens of thousands of tokens?

If so, how can hundreds or thousands of lists maintain the value required to secure them?

What happens if the token starts off and is undervalued while the market catches up? This could lead to risks for the project on an ongoing basis if bought up by a limited number of investors and presents attack vectors while the value of the token is realized

How are TCRs going to solve the issues faced by other projects such as friction, regulations and lack of trading volumes?

Of particular concern is the initial distribution. Teams taking large proportions of tokens are bad enough for projects in which they have no utility — no team should be taking significant amounts of tokens when they are used to vote on these subjective matters.

Adchain, for example, saw half of the token supply sold to the public with 20% each reserved for MetaX and ConsenSys. This 40% of tokens were locked for between 12 and 18 months post public sale. I have no idea if either entity are using their tokens to vote but equally if they still hold these positions then they can win any vote they desire. Trusting centralized entities to abstain from voting usually only holds until people vote ‘wrong’.

I don’t necessarily want to like scare people off [by outvoting others with less coins to stake as group norms are built]. But New York Times, they actually lost that [challenge], which like is offensive to me as an adToken holder. So, now I’m personally going in much harder with my own tokens. But it’s interesting to see the curation process play out, to be a witness to it. Mike Goldin, Adchain Lead Engineer (CryptoInsider)

Besides anything else, the idea of a token for a list having value is quite jarring. It just doesn’t feel ‘right’. The assumption that lists should have value in a direct form is unproven. Even if ultimately they do, given wider crypto adoption patterns it is likely a decade or more before the infrastructure is in place for them to be widely used. Other worker tokens seem easier to implement with the potential to be as effective as TCRs. For example, paying users in ETH to add Points of Interests makes sense, with advertisers or companies able to pay to for better spots on the map could make sense (although it sounds horrible). Paying FOAM to maintain a TCR doesn’t make sense to me. But this is what many of the TCRs models amount to.

It always feels like punching down aiming at laughable projects, so let’s look at another well-grounded and useful project that has been at the forefront of TCRs thus far. Messari, led by the previously quoted Ryan Selkis, aims to help the industry self-regulate by introducing disclosure and transparency standards. This can only be a good thing.

Where I diverge from the project is in their belief that a TCR is instrumental to success. This TCR would be used to create a whitelist of projects which have conformed to a set of standards, as defined by the TCR Curators. The idea is that:

Applicants (crypto projects) pay a $25k fee to apply to the Messari TCR (MTCR), submitting their disclosures and other information as required

Curators (token holders) accept or reject their application, as well as setting transparency standards and authenticating disclosures. However, they can also delegate this work to Validators

Validators are selected and paid by the Curators (in the form of MTCR tokens) to validate and curate the whitelist

Consumers use the end product, which is the whitelist and associated database of content

Selkis outlined how this model would work on the Epicenter podcast, in which he provided the example of university trustees (TCR discussion starts around the 30 minute mark). The trustees, or Curators, don’t review every application. Instead, they set the standards that must be met and applied by those at a lower level, the Validators. Again, I think it is broadly a good idea to have a committee setting and approving standards.

Selkis also noted that you have to control the initial distribution and raised the notion that 15–20 funds could be invited to act as curators. Messari themselves would also take a chunk of the supply. Other parties would include exchanges, advisory groups, and other accredited investors.

This raises a few issues. One, the advantages of having a distributed group is lost when the parties are so interwoven. 15–20 funds could and likely would quickly dovetail. Secondly, by having a “relatively illiquid” token to start with you lose some of the incentives for people to do the validation and curation. As an aside, and forgive me my cynicism, but I have seen enough so-called leading luminaries of crypto act in such a manner that I would have little faith in their role as arbiter of any list.

Rewards only flow to the curators and validators In such a case, the idea of a TCR almost becomes something of a tithe. If a group of funds is running the MTCR, it would be in their best interests to force as many projects as possible to apply to the MTCR, thus generating a nice source of stable profits. 100 projects a year at $25k a go is $2.5m, get that to 1,000 projects and it’s $25m.

Photo by Derek Story on Unsplash

As Selkis himself notes, Messari could build a lot of what they’re trying to build without the use of a TCR. The TCR is used to incentivize data completeness and avoid the incomplete/lag in updating data that afflicts the likes of Crunchbase. I’m not convinced the TCR offers sufficient rewards to achieve this though. Why could this not be charged for in a normal manner? The TCR is used to incentivize companies, not individuals, as far as I can tell — so if this information is so crucial would they not pay for it anyway?

What the TCR does is transfer the onus on payment for this information from funds doing diligence to the teams themselves. I’ll happily take the free information, but I’m not sure it’s the best model. If incentivization was used to get tens of thousands of contributors I would understand, but as analysts aren’t eligible for rewards and they only go to the curators and validators (professional firms), I’m not sure how this model of incentivization is really adding much beyond creating a token.

Miscellaneous

There are other issues beyond token distribution when considering launching. Lists aren’t going to launch with any inherent value because they won’t be of use to people. There are means around this, with established lists better placed to transition to a TCR model and thus do a form of Initial Token Offering (ITO) valuing their list at however many millions of dollars.

For example, I am sure that if the Michelin Guide decided to do an ITO, there would be restaurants trying to buy their way onto the list. I am also fairly confident that such a move would irreparably damage the iconic brand and, given Michelin hold a tight leash over listings, this is obviously not a move they would ever consider.

Secondly, the framing of the TCR is crucial. This can be changed over time, but by and large a curator at launch will have more ability to shape what the TCR demands than a late contributor (it is always harder to change something once initially set). This isn’t an issue as such, but TCRs should be mindful of the problems that initial ambiguity can bring (as Augur experienced).

The size of a list will also be important. I am unsure how something like Messari could cope if there were suddenly thousands of projects to review. I assume they would just scale up in a normal manner, but it’s arguably not as easy as other lines of business where there are defined contracts and business needs. Instead, there is simply an uptick in applications which curators can then delegate to the validators. Remember that validators must also constantly be checking all those applicants who have already been accepted to make sure they are still keeping to their prior submissions.

Being too small is as big a problem as too big. If there are no new applications then many TCRs will collapse, because there are none of the transaction fees that applications bring. As such there has to be a fine line trodden between admitting too many projects, and being so exclusive that applications dry up.

Finally, there are issues such as collusion and off-chain lobbying which are readily imaginable. Again, there is not much that can be done about this (which is why you want the tokens distributed as much as possible) but it’s fairly unavoidable. The best you can do is limit it.

Long road ahead

Similar to STOs, I think the absence of as much scrutiny that ICOs have faced means there is less criticism of them. ICOs themselves were long heralded as revolutionary forms of global equity raising that bypassed the legacy financial system. It is only now that they have become everyone’s favorite punching bag.

I actually think TCRs may work better when they are twinned with more basic exclusivity at an individual level and are based upon social capital rather than financial. This sees payment become the cost of keeping the TCR exclusive, but is a very limited use case. It may also work for hobbyists curating lists. Again, this is a form of social capital, rather than using them as the basis of creating value. I think TCRs need some form of identity/reputation accountability, to go along with their financial incentives.

The recent TCRParty popularity list on Twitter, which uses a TCR to form a list of trusted crypto personalities, should provide additional clues as to the problems TCRs face. My initial reaction was annoyance, but reading Alpine’s (the ConsenSys project behind it) comments were illuminating:

My hunch was that TCRs will end up being plutocracies, where the rich get richer and control the lists — Steve Gattuso, CoinDesk

CoinDesk noted that:

Both [Gregory] Rocco and Gattuso are skeptical about TCRs, concerned that they inevitably become plutocratic popularity contests where people amass disproportionate control through token holdings.

People often confuse negativity with dislike or some personal agenda. This is obviously a more negative take than a balanced one but it should be clear I’ve chosen what I think represent stronger examples. However, I also think TCRs face a significant amount of challenges and have more limited applicability than is often trumpeted.

Token Curated Registries probably aren’t going to change the world was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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