#Marfisa Thinks Things

[regainingparadise]

I love Jared Hopworth. So many of the Avatars we really get to know are part of these lineages or cults that are trying to end the world for their gods. Jon and Elias with the institute, the cult of the Lightless Flame all working together to raise Agnes and bring about the apocalypse. Maxwell Raynor taking bodies, the Fairchild family choosing members, the Lukases creating the most dysfunctionally lonely family, other Flesh avatars making pits of evil meat.

And then there’s Jared, who’s just like, “nah. I found a book, don’t care where it came from. I’m gonna fuck up people’s bodies for money. Mostly consensually, sometimes for the mafia. Have fun with your god or whatever idk. Wanna buy a gym membership?”

[canonical-transformation]

Genshin ships: stock market update (Natlan Act 1+2)

(Warning: May contain spoilers for character appearances and dynamics in [Chapter 5 Act 1–2] Flowers Resplendent on the Sun-Scorched Sojourn and Black Stone Under a White Stone. Previous entries here.) This is for entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice: consult with your ship financial advisor before you invest.

4.0 has landed, and our analysts have been watching with interest as Natlan characters have started listing on the Genshin ship market. Here's our recommendations for the weeks ahead.

---

Citlali/Mualani is held together by a single drip marketing quote, but what a quote. BUY OR HOLD.

Mavuika/Xilonen, on the other hand, does not have a proven profit model. No, the potential for a ship name that sounds like "melanin" isn't reason enough to invest. SELL

(Note: Since Xilonen's drip marketing has landed, let's take a second to examine all the cat themed ships. Xilonen/Dehya and Xilonen/Kirara are too hard to call this far out. Xilonen/Lynette and Xilonen/Diona have boring chemistry, SELL / don't bother. And Xilonen/Keqing... oh Keqing would hate her. Hmm. Watch this space, HOLD OR BUY.)

(No, not all cat related ships find success. The recent bankruptcy and dissolution of Osse/Neko should be proof enough.)

Kachina/Bennett — ⚠️ we typically don't cover selfcest ships because there are too many of them. In this case, we'll make an exception to note it's extra unlikely. They're both too busy having coming of age stories and joining each other's teams (not a euphemism) to have any chemistry. SELL.

Kachina/Lumine, Kachina/Aether — sorry, the Traveller is already too busy being the Wise Old Mentor in the first book of Kachina's YA trilogy. SELL— wait does that mean Traveller's going to die 😐

Mavuika/Lumine, Mavuika/Aether — Constantly inviting us to drinks, her shout or Traveller's; long private chats about the family she never talks about to anyone else; giving up her antiques collection as a show of commitment: that is textbook mid-40's cool aunt flirtation. BUY BUY BUY.

Kinich/Mualani — our analysts describe this as "the equivalent of buying the first thing you see in the store", which I think means SELL.

Atea/Mavuika — There's definitely a little chemistry there, but we're unlikely to see further developments. HOLD OR SELL

Atea/Aether — HOLD OR SELL

Atea/Lumine — HOLD OR BUY. If haircuts had sexualities[...]

Small cap market ("rarepairs")

Mualani/that one bandit in her character teaser: nah, no chemistry, she's like that to everyone who tries to rob her. SELL for two-sided, HOLD OR SELL for one-sided.

Tenoch/Tupac — yeah that's been solid enemies to lovers ever since Talking Stick dropped in 4.0. The character model reveals for both of them have only increased the quality here. BUY

Chaac/Waxaklahun Ubah Kan — SELL. Way too early. If you're interested in obscure antiques maybe try Alain/Rene or Marfisa/Parsifal instead?

On that note, our analysts were intrigued by the Heroes of Cinder City. “It's an OT5 RPG adventuring party!” they explain, “like all those tabletop podcasts!” They were, however, quick to note that this was in the same potential rocky area as all Cataclysm-era ships, so HOLD at best.

Little One/Ushi — yeah sure why not. BUY

But coverage of the world quests will have to wait for a future report. In the meantime, let us know what your market predictions are!

Sidebar: phonetics

Wikipedia provides charts for converting writing systems (e.g. romanisations of languages) into the international phonetic alphabet. Below are examples for a couple of languages found across the Pacific Ring of Fire.

May your phone calls with your ship stockbroker be tienari-free!

[semper-legens]

145. The Symmetry of Stars, by Alex Myers

Owned: No, library Page count: 273 My summary: Nature and Nurture. The dichotomy that rules the Earth; the two gods who vie for status in the heavens. Twin gods issue a challenge to each other, to see which will prevail, nature or nurture. Each chooses a pair of twins - Nature leaves them be, while Nurture incarnates herself in the world to guide her twins. But when the challenge comes, which pair will prevail? My rating: 3.5/5 My commentary:

I picked this one up because I thought the summary looked interesting. A metaphysical struggle between primordial beings, abstracted into two pairs of children and a very real challenge. What is actually the most important, the traits inherent to a person or the way you are taught and the things that you learn? The execution of the book, however, left something to be desired for me. I'm not sure the commentary it's making is as interesting as it thinks it is - and the overall analysis of its core conceit felt shallow at best.

The story is narrated by Nurture, who alternates between raising her own twins and spying on Nature's. Nurture's twins are born to a nobleman, a boy and a girl raised in the lap of luxury in their fantasy-European world. Nature's twins are born to a dying mother on an abandoned island somewhere in the fantasy-Middle East. It isn't quite real history, but it's not not real history either, which is sort of where the trouble begins. More on that in a bit. The two pairs of twins seem often unevenly matched because of that - Nurture's twins get more focus earlier on, whereas we never see Nature's response to his twins, just Nurture's view on them. And, indeed, it seems that the narrative isn't really that interested in one half of each set of twins. Specifically, the boys. A big deal is made of Nurture's girl, Bradamante, and her desire to be a knight; Ricardetto, the boy, gets far less focus. Same with Nature's girl, Marfisa, who takes the lion's share of the story, while the boy straight up disappears for a while.

And the reason for that is that gender plays a big part of this story. Both Bradamante and Marfisa want to be knights, want to be strong and fighters in the way of so many women in fantasy fiction. Bradamante, because she wants to prove herself; Marfisa out of trauma at being kidnapped and enslaved. Both have to deal with misogyny from their respective cultures. Maybe I'm jumping at shadows here, but it seems like the Middle Eastern-inspired culture Marfisa is born into is shown as being worse, harsher, more violent than Bradamante's European-inspired one. Which is unfortunate. What's also unfortunate is that this conflict in both storylines hardly goes further than the whole 'I wanna be strong like the boys!' and 'I'm gonna have to work twice as hard to get the same recognition a guy might get'. Not bad, per se, but it's very Baby's First Gender Imbalance. And we don't get much of the reverse with Ricardetto and the other boy - sure, Ricardetto likes to embroider and tell stories, but it's not given the same focus as Bradamante's story. The author here is transmasc, which goes a way to explaining exactly what's going on here - I get the impulse to identify with the masculine girl rather than the feminine boy. But it feels like a huge missed opportunity.

All that said, it's not like the book has nothing to give. My criticisms above aside, there was some subtlety in how the Nature versus Nurture debate played out. While we see Nurture constantly fretting about whether she's smothering her kids, and her scorn at Nature neglecting his, there's other aspects that aren't as obviously highlighted. That Nurture's twins are acting by their natures, and Nature's twins are nurtured by other humans, isn't quite highlighted in as many words, which I appreciated. Overall, it's a good story...I just didn't think it was as good as it could be.

Next, something completely different - it's Rick and Morty!

[fuckyeahgakuenheaven]

Hi there! Sorry this is a little random, but I recently got back into online TCGs and for the sake of nostalgia I was looking through your sites (and slowly losing a battle with myself to not watch the Gakuen Heaven anime for the nth time... it's playing in the background as I type this lol). Anyway, I realised Secret Heaven is still available, so I'm playing those games again! Thank you for leaving it up, even if you don't play it anymore!

I've been wanting to do my own version of a mini TCG inspired by Secret Heaven and Tiny Legend, and I was wondering if you ever released that mini TCG starter pack you mentioned on In the Cards a while back? I don't mind coding the page to display cards manually, but if you still had the files available (and if you'd finished the coding!) I'd be eternally grateful if you wouldn't mind sharing them!

There are a few automated TCG management scripts out there (there's MyTCG, an automated one, and Stack released just a few weeks ago) but they're very heavy for what I want to do, which is a TCG for basically only myself to play so I can have fun collecting cards of my two favourite actors _(:3」∠)_

Sorry for the random message, and thanks for your time!

- Iris

Oh my goodness, this is such a late reply. I hope you'll see it!

Secret Heaven is busted now because of some PHP update (god knows how long ago that happened) but I think Marfisa knows how to patch it up because she was messing with some stuff on Elements for funsies a few months ago and got the card displays working again. If you still want to play SH, I can ask her about getting it fixed as a weekend project or something!

I don't know if I have anything fully functional right now simply because it's been so long and PHP updates so often that everything is guaranteed to be broken by now. But again... I can get Marfisa's big brain in here and I bet if we can get SH working again (or Tiny Legend, that would be fun... hmm) then I could package those files up to share.

I've been thinking about TCGs a LOT recently and was even entertaining the idea of making a survey to see if ANYONE is still interested out there and sending it to everyone who ever played one of my TCGs. (As a one time email, not a spam thing... they'd have to say YES PLEASE on the survey to get any more contact from me.) Torn between Elements and Moonlight Legend as the one to revive if I go through with it.

[versegm]

Me, a glass of coke in hand, a slice of lemon pie on the table: Angelica’s entire arc is about finding a way to remove herself from the narrative. Being a main character when you’re not a fighter is tough. Her beauty will not let her be a background character, but unlike Bradamante or Marfisa, she does not have the physical capabilities to defend herself. All she can do is run, run from the plot, run from her fate, and delay her suitors by setting them against one another. Which is why she ultimately falls in love with a background character, with someone far from the focus of the story. With someone who is neither noble nor superhuman, someone who is her equal in that he cannot force anything upon her. Someone who does not have the power to defend her (and therefore not the authority to remove that defense if it strikes his fancy) but instead someone that she heals and defend for once, someone she actively chose to keep by her side. That’s the moment where Angelica’s narrative got resolved. That’s the moment she fades away, only vaguely brought back during Orlando’s story later on- because it always comes down to Orlando in the end, doesn’t it? That hero! That monster. He who is in love. He who is furious.

Ludovico Ariosto, hand still in the bag of peanuts: I notice that not once did you say Medoro’s name.

Me, biting down the pie with my other mouth: That’s because Medoro himself doesn’t matter! Medoro is a perfectly normal person. That’s the point. That’s not to say he doesn’t have a personality of his own, of course, he has his own backstory and personality and all. Like all of us! But the point of Medoro is that he’s not special. Not a noble, not a king. No invincible skin. No magic item, no curse or blessing. A soldier like there are thousands of them in any war. We’re all someone, even if we’re background characters of that giant novel that is history. Angelica’s lover could have been anyone, fleeing from her fate, fleeing from the spotlight.

Ludovico Ariosto, downing the rest of the bag in one go: I’m guessing your point is once again over who should get to kiss who?

Me, taking a sip out of my coke: Correct! I believe there is something to be done with this princess of desires. Forgotten by the story, as people who only exist through their relationship to a hero often are. Someone suffers from loving just as much as Angelica suffers from being loved. You know who I mean, don’t you? I wonder how these two would match. Would they loathe each other, these women whose motivations couldn’t be any more different? Would they find support in each other, an inspiration to rise up, to bare their teeth for the sake of one another? There are so many ways to play this up. This could be fascinating.

Ludovico Ariosto: You have some interesting ideas you funky little eldritch thing.

Me: Angelica/Fiordispina. Think about it. Think about it.

[orihime00sama]

FGO Part 2 Opening 2 Theories - Characters (2/2)

Fairy

If we go with a “what if Prototype” perspective, this fairy looks a lot like Manaka due to the seemingly short blonde hair, blue eyes and overall blue colour scheme. So it could be Manaka acting as someone’s vessel.

If we don’t go with that, this fairy could be Titania, as she looks quite regal.

Some think that she’s Morgan Le Fay, since Morgan has always been called “fairy princess” in Fate, with Tristan’s interlude being the more recent example. She’s also standing near a body of water, and Morgan is also a fairy of the lake (Salter’s profile describes her as Vivian’s dark counterpart). I don’t think that might be the case because she doesn’t really look that much like Morgan to me. There might be Lostbelt shenanigans involved that make her look different or maybe this is a different ascension or something, but in Apocrypha, Morgan’s hair was much straighter and paler.

A wild theory is that this fairy is actually Oberon, who is either just super pretty or maybe a genderbend. Something noteworthy about Oberon is that he’s usually is the son Morgan le Fay and Julius Caesar... Which is kinda weird due to the time periods they lived in but never mind that.

Someone pointed out that it looks like the fairy is missing a tooth...?

Blondie with Merlin’s staff

If we went with “what if Prototype”, this could easily be Proto Merlin. However, she looks very different from regular Merlin, which isn’t the case for almost every Prototype Servant, with Perseus being the sole exception (compare Proto to Hollow Ataraxia, both versions are datamined btw), even the ones who are different people like Artoria and Arthur. Honestly, if this does end up being Proto Merlin, I’ll be super disappointed because we got robbed of a fabulous fluffy female Merlin for another Saberface.

My two main ideas were that this could be either Vivian or Melissa.

Vivian, the Lady of the Lake, was Merlin’s apprentice and had some kind of relationship with him until things turned sour and she trapped in the Tower, so it would make sense for her to have a similar staff. Though, her outfit makes her look very young.

Melissa actually isn’t a pure Arthurian character, but she comes from Orlando Furioso, where she was the Paladins’ guide and helped Bradamante get to her hubby Rogero. Melissa came to mind because she was also Merlin’s apprentice and even watched over his tomb, so her relationship with him wasn’t as bad as with Vivian and it would justify her carrying a similar staff. Her outfit also reminds me a lot of Bradamante, who actually mentions being helped by “Merlin’s apprentice” in her lines and profile.

A wild theory is that she’s actually the awaited Caster Artoria due to the hair and the sword at her back. If Artoria took to magecraft and never became the king, then maybe that would explain how things ended so badly for the world of LB6.

Three Gals

These ones confuse me the most. The one in the middle I don't even know where to start, all I know is that armour gives me Saber Alter vibes and the visor seems to have a flower? They all have some form of headgear, but Morgan's crown is a lot bigger and more elaborate.

If we follow the idea that the blonde girl with Merlin's staff is Melissa, then the giant lady might be Marfisa (Rogero's badass twin sister who was separated from him at birth) and the girl with the half-crown might be Alcina (their story’s equivalent of Circe, something that the actual Circe mentions in her profile lines for the Paladins). Alcina in particular is interesting because she is Morgan's sister in Orlando Furioso. Together they were the evil sisters to Logistilla's good.

A very crazy theory is that they're all supposed to represent Morgan or maybe The Morrigan (maybe even both because Case Files brings up a connection between the two). The Morrigan are a triad while in Garden of Avalon, Sir Kay described Morgan as if she "had three women in her" due to how she changed. He mentioned her being "innocent like a fairy, then magnificent like a warrior maiden and then gaining the brutality of a witch."

In Case Files there was also a dagger called "Erosion" that had the ability to split the soul from the body and put it elsewhere. It was going to be used by the King Arthur Revival cult to remove Gray's soul from her body so she could become Artoria's vessel. That dagger belonged to Morgan, so it's possible she removed those different parts from herself and made them into homunculi bodies or something, assuming they weren't already split.

Knight

My first thought was Sir Kay. Sir Kay came to mind because I really want him in the game already. Okay, but on a serious note, thanks to Add in Case Files (Morgan modeled Add’s personality after Kay’s), Kay has a connection to Rhongomyniad, a major element teased for LB6. I’ve also seen some pictures comparing the top of the knight’s armour to the little peek we got at Kay, though it’s hard to tell because in the one shot we got, Kay’s right side had a tattoo while the knight only showed his left side. His hair also looks a lot more spiky and messier than Kay’s.

My second thought was Sir Percival, mostly because of the stabby spear weapon, and because as another candidate to the Grail Quest (confirmed by Gareth in her My Room line for the Grail), he’d be a good foil to Mr. “Not Appearing in this Opening” Galahad, who went out to for cigarettes ever since the events of the Temple of Time.

A wild theory would be Sir Galehaut, who in some stories was famous for being Arthur’s equal in power and only surrendered because he was really into Lancelot. Unfortunately, this epic bromance didn’t last both because Galehaut understood that Lancelot loved Guinevere and because Morgan was a jealous bitch who made Galehaut die of a broken heart after sending him fake news about Lancelot dying. The main thing that ties this knight to Galehaut is the fact that the knight looks like a big dude and Galehaut was half-giant. However, Galehaut is mentioned in Gareth’s profile as one of the knights she defeated, so it’s possible that they’re going for a different version of the story.

[dekierey153]

Zeudi Araya

Date of Birth: 10 February 1951, Asmara, Eritrea, Ethiopia

Wikipedia has a pretty good bio for Ms Araya:

Zeudi Araya was the daughter of an Eritrean politician and niece of a diplomat in Rome, she became Miss Ethiopia in 1969. On a journey to Italy, she recorded a commercial for coffee, and was discovered by the director Luigi Scattini, who cast her in his movie La ragazza dalla pelle di luna in 1972. Several roles in erotic movies followed, most of them directed by Scattini. She appeared in the Italian version of Playboy magazine in February 1977. From the early 80s Araya withdrew from acting, and has since then been producing movies.

She was married to film producer Franco Cristaldi, who had previously been married to Claudia Cardinale, until his death in 1992. She now lives with the director Massimo Spano, with whom she has a son.

The only thing I really have to add is that she was one of the first true black female stars in Italy, emerging a few years before Laura Gemser (who could be looked on as her natural successor). I don’t think she’s ever been interviewed at any length about her film career, which is a shame.

There’s a fun interview with her on YouTube (in Italian of course) – the comments alone are worth a look!

Ragazza fuoristrada, La (1971)

Ragazza dalla pelle di luna, La (1972) aka The Sinner …. Simone

Corpo, Il (1974) aka The Body …. Princess

Preda, La (1974) aka The Prey …. Laggaina

Peccatrice, La (1975) aka The Sinner …. Debra

Signor Robinson, mostruosa storia d’amore e d’avventure, Il (1976) aka Mr. Robinson …. Venerdi’

Giallo napoletano (1978) aka Atrocious Tales of Love and Revenge …. Elizabeth

Tesoro mio (1979) aka Atrocious Tales of Love and Revenge…. Tesoro Hoaua

Paladini – storia d’armi e d’amori, I (1983) aka Hearts and Armour…. Marfisa

Giorno prima, Il (1987) aka Control … Sheba

Producer:

Marciando nel buio (1995) aka Marching in Darkness (USA)

_______________________________________________________

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Zeudi Araya was born in Decamerè, Eritrea. At a very young age she was elected as Miss Ethiopia and then noticed by the Italian Cinema environment.

Zeudi’s first movie, "La Ragazza dalla Pelle di Luna", was directed by Luigi Scattini. Due to that extraordinary success Zeudi shot in a few years five movies as a leading actress among which "La Preda" and "La Peccatrice".

With Franco Cristaldi as the producer Zeudi shot, among others, movies such as"Il Signor Robinson" with Paolo Villaggio, "Tesoromio" with Johnny Dorelli, "Il Giorno Prima" with Burt Lancaster , "I Paladini", and "Giallo Napoletano" with Marcello Mastroianni .

As the wife of Franco Cristaldi, and together with him, Zeudi devoted most of her efforts and time in the movie production with particular respect to masterpieces such as "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso" directed by Giuseppe Tornatore, also awarded in 1990 with the Oscar.

After her husband's death, Zeudi Araya, chairman of CristaldiFilm, and shareholder of both Cristaldifilm and Vides Cinematografica, decided to favour her activiy as producer, finalising the production of "La corsa dell'Innocente", directed by Carlo Carlei, in 1992.

Later on, in her entrepreneur activity, in 1993, she founded Zeudi and Franco Cristaldifilm, a company which produced in the same year, "Eritrea 30 anni di solitudine" an historical documentary (88 minute lenght) and a cultural documentary entitled "Gioventù e l'Europa". In 1996, she produced the movie "Marciando nel buio", directed by Massimo Spano.

Following to the acquisition of Lux Film by Cristaldifilm, Zeudi Araya devoted herself to the restoration and preservation of her huge Library of more than 500 pictures and as many documentaries, among which some of the most important classic movies of the Italian Cinema, now distributed in Italy and abroad.

In 2008, she produced the film-documentary "Franco Cristaldi and his Cinema Paradiso", based on Franco Cristaldi's professional life.

She is currently managing the oustanding Cristaldifilm Library, one of the most important in the world and realising brand new projects.

[coe-lilium]

Hey Lilium! Thanks for your answer, it was really informative! I’ve got myself a litte tablet atm which is really working for me. I meant to ask about character design too- what advice could you give on that?

I’m glad it was helpful! 

Here’s my experience with chara des then, bearing in mind that I’ve yet to finalize a single original charades and all I’ve done till now are redesigns, which -for me, at least?- are a lot easier since they give you a guideline, even if just to say “I’m doing the opposite”. 

1. Find a main theme for the project/piece

2. Research-research-research  

3. Bear in mind that you’re creating/altering something for you to like 

4, bonus. once you’re done, consider the audience you’ll show -or not- your work to.     

1. the main theme/idea for all my redesigns is “I love Fate, but I also love history and die a little every time a Fate design has nothing to do with the character period/culture/history. I wonder what they’ll look like with accurate clothes?”. I’m still running with it, but it needed some adjustments along the way. 

The very first attempt, Martha, was as historically accurate I could manage, which… wasn’t a lot. “low class jewish woman of the 1st century aC” was a little too specific and google gave me little to work on and I had to resort to religious depictions. I’m still happy with her, but now I can see that in my wish to make her as historically plausible as possible I ended up with a design too accurate, to the point of being, well, bland. Bland and sticking out like a sore thumb if put next to any other Fate character. If and when I’ll revamp her, I’ll add details and be careful to include something to convey her personality.  

So, 1:1 with history was out, next best thing I had was mixing history and the “Fate”/anime aesthetic. Not for every character, mind (Nitocris looks quite fine in clothes taken straight out of a Egyptian parietal painting), but now that I’ve tried, I’ve settled down for “how they’ll look like with evident historical and cultural inspirations?”, which is what I’ve done for Boudica, Jeanne and Bradamante, what I’ll keep doing for the next pieces and also for the original Servants I’m planning. 

Speaking of originals Servants, since I’m having troubles explaining things in general, I’ll use one of them as an example for the next point.

*under the cut for length*

2. Let’s say I want to design another lady from the Orlando Innamorato/Furioso, Marfisa, as a potential Servant. 

As a first step I collect info from the source material. 

She’s of noble origins, mixed race, “pagan”/muslim (it’s complicated), possibly either north African or Arabian, queen of 7 countries by the time she’s 18, devout, proud, brave, honourable and incredibly skilled as a warrior, has no magic aids or objects but win on sheer ability alone. Twin of Ruggiero (Brad’s fiancee), friend of Astolfo and Bradamante. Had an armor she cared a lot for and went to great lengths to get back when it got stolen. 

(me being me, I also went to academia.edu, found articles/PhD on her and read them to better understand the character, but there’s few chara I’m willing to research to this length for a redesign).  

Considering Servants are summoned at their peaks, physically I’ll have her look in her late teens/early twenties, brown skin and with a hijab (which will require some research by itself).  

Onto deciding the clothes/armor now: 

- the “official” time period of her life should be that of historical Charlemagne rule and life, but the works in which she features have no claims of historicity whatsoever and were published in 1483 and 1516.

- comes from the same material as the Paladins and thus should -imo- looks like she somehow belongs with them even if she’s in their enemy camp and from a different culture. 

- as they are now, the Paladins common (?) aesthetic seems to be, sorry can’t contain the snark, “random fantasy isekai reject”, with Astolfo being the best designed by miles and Charles looking fine in his alt armored skin, the rest being a disaster. This point has the highest chance not to get contemplated in the final design bc I loathe it. Being less snarky, the few positive design details point to their inspiration being rooted more in 1500 than 800 AC fashion, so I’ll keep that in mind. 

So, she’s got no reason to being accurate with a single period (or culture) but could should instead integrate bits from many places and eras. Influences from easily accessible media is welcome, both to mirror the Paladins LN influences and bc the og poems were incredibly successful and printed in spades and read in courts and less noble houses alike. 

Now that I have my guidelines it’s finally time to hunt for visual references. 

Looking for historical islamic countries armor is a obligatory step bc I personally have no idea how they looked like and if I find how they were assembled and what colors were used it will be helpful to build my own ver and know how things attach. The period and place doesn’t count, I simply go for what I like more and think this particular chara would wear. Your mileage my vary, but for me history is always the first step to start from, bc if you use only popular media or artistic depictions there’s the chance to make mistakes easily corrected when looking at how the real stuff worked and also to get more… repetitive?

Then I look for how the character’s being depicted before in art of all periods. In this case all I found was a white lady in european armor, completely useless, but usually there’s a lot more and for other characters this “spot” is where I spend most of my researching time after the historical one. 

Then I look for… video games with historical settings that fit my criteria (remember, popular media). Find something I like and keep digging into a particular game and -if lucky enough- in the deviantart pages of the artists responsible for that or that other design.                            

After I’ve collected a lot of different refs I go here on tumblr or on DA or in dedicated sites to find nice palettes and after I’ve got different options for these as well, rejoice!, research time is finally over!

Now’s time to mix all the influences and draw :D

3. Not a lot to say here, just that if you’re not working under commission then you’re doing this for fun and mostly for yourself, so put in the things you like. You like implausible fantasy/jrpg/videogame/cartoon aesthetic more than IRL/ historical aesthetic? Dang, go for it. 

My mindset got a lot better when I embraced the fact I wasn’t redesigning these characters to “make them objectively better”, there was no “mission”: I was doing this to please myself and my own tastes, and that was enough.  

 4. For example, I know I could cover all the Fate ladies in armor for no other reason than I like ladies in armor and find at least neutral reactions on this blog or my DA page, but you’ll never see me post my works in the fgo reddit, even those I’m more proud of, because I know that subreddit and I have no intention to submit myself to a river of mocking, accuses of puritanism and muh censorship!!. 

I suppose this suggestion’s useless if you want to always widen your audience and/or are looking for employment in the field and need all the recognition you can get, but as I have no intention of doing either I get to decide where to show my stuff and to avoid places where it’s likely the reactions will make me feel miserable. No one needs that noise in their life for a hobby, fuck that.          

Last but not for relevance, as a cautionary tale? Spite/anger at something can be one hell of a motivation to start working, but it’s not enough to let you finish a project unless you start enjoy what you’re creating down the road. 

In case of og chara it shouldn’t be any spite, but as soon as you get tired of your work, stop, put it on hiatus and go concentrate on something else. We’re doing this because it makes us happy, it’s no good to let it drag and become a chore.

[electronicdelusionstarlight]

The Raging Orlando

With all those TV Shows I’ve found out have been done about Renaissance Italy about sex and death and betrayal, I think s High Time we start talking about some candidates for some T Shows Adaptations taken from some works from Italian (Technically Non-Existent) Medieval Literature.

I’ll start with The Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto (The Raging Orlando, link to the TV Tropes page).

What could be basically considered as a Continuation Fic for The Orlando Innamorato by another author (The Orlando In Love), The Raging Orlando is technically the tale about a christian knight under Charlemagne who in the previous book fell in love with a Angelica, beautiful princess if Catai. In this book, he discovers that she had actually run away with a squire from the Saracen Army (Who had actually sent Angelica to the Christian Camp in order to sow dissent between their ranks) and so decides to throw a full on tantrum over it.

No, I’m not exaggerating or paraphrasing, that’s literally what he does.

Highlights from this and the previous book:

1) Angelica, Princess of Catai, is Always depicted as a blonde blue eyed beauty by most artists, don’t know why. I mean, She is an agent for the Saracen army/The Devil (I could be confounding myself with Tasso’s La Gerusalemme Liberata (The Freed Jerusalem) which had a similar plot) and I can understand them deciding to send someone physically desirable by the Christian Knights but still...

2) As soon as she arrives in the christian headquarters, all the knights start fighting over, starting a Benny Hill worthy chase scene about all the knights trying to abduct her for themselves. The scene ends with a mysterious knight in full body armor coming from out of nowhere, defeating the remaining knights and then abducting the Princess too.

3) Angelica entertains for a moment the thought that this new player might want her for themselves only for discovering shortly after that the Misteryous Knight is actually Bradamante, a woman paladin. Not that that might prevent her from wanting Angelica fro herself still, but still...

4) And so we have Bradamante, Paladin of France. She’s in love with Ruggero, son of the Wizard Atlante and knight of the Saracenan Army, which unfortunately means no Angelica/Bradamante Endgame. Her and Ruggero have a... Complicated relationship. While you might at first think of them as the embodiment of the Enemies to Friends to Lovers Trope, you should more think along the lines of the Kim Possible - Ron Stoppable Dichotomy. Bradamante is the Action Girlfriend and while Ruggero is a quite capable knight, he also spends most of the time either kidnapped or imprisoned.

5) Also, Bradamante battles the Wizard Atlante in duel as he’s riding an Hyppogriff in order to win Ruggero’s Hand, when will your OTP even, really.

6) Unfortunately, the epic love story between Bradamante and Ruggero is actually the side plot to the story despite it being far more entertaining and watchable. The main plot focuses, as the title might suggest, around Orlando’s Temper Tantrum.

7) Alright so, after many scenes and chases, Angelica ends up finding a wounded Saracen Soldier in the woods. She heals his wound as they both sought shelter in the house of an old Sheppard, and of course she falls in love with him. They bang, they marry, and they decide to elope to Catai together.

8) Orlando, meanwhile, is still searching for Angelica in the french countryside. He decides to pass the night at the same Sheppard that gave asylum to the two lovebirds. After making Orlando sleep on the same bed the two had banged on (Not even joking) the Sheppard tells him the two had banged, married and left fro Catai a couple of days ago. This starts’ Olrando’s Temper Tantrum.

9) He gets naked, runs in the woods, and start eradicating trees before throwing them around. Yeah, not even kidding that’s literally all he does.

10) There’s a bunch of other side stories, one of them involving Marfisa, The Saracen counterpart of Bradamante and basically a blood knight, basically going to an Island ruled by Warrior Women with another knight and then deciding to partake on an ancient tradition they have on the island where the only way a man can conserve his freedom and not being enslaved by the Amazonian-Like Society is for him to defeat 10 amazon warriors in combat before bedding all 10 of them on the same night (It shows the author didn’t get out much uh?). She succeeds at both tasks (See, we would even have a Lesbian character who DOESN’T get shot at the end of the story since she manages to survive the whole thing).

11) Also Angelica has an enchanted ring of invisibility and resistance against spells, who later gets stolen and even later gets stolen again by Bradamante.

12) Orlando gets cured of his insanity by having Astolfo, an English Knight, ride the aforementioned Hippogriff to the moon in order to get back Orlando’s Sanity, because apparently the fucker was THAT important. he then kills the Saracen king, ending the war.

13) Like, I’m skipping most side stories here guys the thing is pretty long. Like, 3 to 5 seasons long. The’re also the events of the Orlando in Love that could be adapted, which kind of doubles the duration of the whole thing.

14) Anyway, the book actually ends with the wedding of Bradamante and Ruggiero, which happens after a series of things:

A) The ghost of the Wizard Atlante appears to Ruggiero and Marfisa, Force Ghost Style, before they can duel to the death, revealing that they’re brother and sisters and that he has always loved them and just wanted to protect them. Basically, Star Wars Episode VI.

B) Ruggiero gets captured (Again) this time by the king of Bulgaria, whose son wants to marry Bradamante.

C) Bradamante, who’s pressured by her father to marry the prince of Bulgaria, then decides a tourney over who’s gona win her hand in combat, deciding to participate for her own hand (Pretty standard stuff really) since she doesn’t see Ruggiero anywhere.

D) Unknown to her, Ruggiero was freed by the prince of Bulgaria, who didn’t know he and Bradamante were lovers, and asked him to win for him the hand of Bradamante in duel. Ruggero, the poor idiot, accepts without knowing is Bradamante’s hand he has to win in battle.

E) So we have Bradamante and Ruggiero, both in full armor and not recognizing each other, basically fighting to the death in order to win Bradamante’s hand without knowing anything about anything else. Pretty dramatic.

F) I’m pretty sure the duel lasted 1 day long or something. Pretty badass.

G) Anyway I don’t remember how the duel ends I just know that at some point the Prince of Hungary discovers about Ruggiero’s and Bradamante’s love story and decides to be the bigger man before having Ruggiero and Bradamante marry after adopting Ruggiero in the royal house of Hungary or something.

15) SEE ORLANDO, YOU FUCK, THAT’S HOW YOU HANDLE A REJECTION.

Now, we would have to change some thing of course. Ruggero and his sister don’t have to convert to Christianity in the end, and maybe we can have an actually “race accurate” Angelica, but I think this thing would actually be a pretty nifty series all things considered.

Also, I’d like for a more villainous depiction of Orlando while also having the focus shift from his stories toward Bradamante and Ruggiero’s Love Story. I mean, LUDOVICO ARIOSTO HIMSELF admitted they were the most important part of the story, so why not make it so in the adaptation.

Keep the Raging Orlando title tho, I think it encapsulates the situation perfectly.

[crookedlysochild-blog]

Nestle CEO Praised By Third Level However Hedge Fund Still Needs More

Nestle CEO Praised By Third Point However Hedge Fund Nonetheless Desires More

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[regainingparadise]

Relistening to TMA Season 5, I am again struck by how goddam badly Martin and Jon need couples counseling.

I love them both. I ship them very much. But oh lord they have issues

Like, these are two individuals who, under the very best of circumstances, would really need therapy both individually and together. They are both people with plentiful quantities of relational trauma from childhood that neither of them have worked through even the slightest bit.

And then you throw them into the apocalypse. And you add a metric fuck ton of guilt, helplessness, and the dynamics of being "The Antichrist and +1"?

On a surface level--Jon is in a perpetual state of information overload. Martin is in a perpetual state of "can you please just explain the basics of what's' going on in a given situation and not just say "it's complicated" or launch into a gruesome monologue"

But on a deeper level, their childhood relational traumas have left them each with opposing avoidant tendencies: Jon is unwilling to broach a difficult conversation, which leads him to hide information until he's confronted. Martin, on the other hand, has a finely honed ability to ignore information that he doesn't like until he no longer can hide from it.

Biggest example of their avoidance tendencies: Martin's Domain

Way early on, when we barely understand any of how the hellscape works, Jon mentions it, Martin shuts it down hard and deflects quickly with a bid for affection from Jon

Martin is in deliberate denial, but Jon admittedly wasn't particularly clear to start with.

"We all have a domain."

Jon means it, presumably, as "Me, You, and other 'Avatars.'" Jon is used to being grouped with those empowered by the Entities. Martin isn't. (see also: MAG185: Martin" Is that how these creatures see us now? As one of them?") But that's not what Jon says. And this is MAG167--they've only been through four domains, at least that we've seen. Jon is speaking from a place of knowledge, and assuming his listener has that same knowledge.

And when this issue comes up much later in MAG183, Martin has spent 17 episodes ignoring or forgetting that he has a domain, not letting that information in so that he has never processed it. (See also: Mag170: "Sometimes I wonder if I forget things on purpose. Easier not to think about them, I guess. Easier to just let them… slip away. They can’t hurt you if you don’t think about them.").

Martin confronts Jon on his avoidance (because while Martin may be good at ignoring things he doesn't like, he's far better at bringing up challenging topics), Jon is able to manage some A+ communication on his feelings and the genuine challenging of figuring out how to share upsetting information when he has All The Information, Martin accepts that. I just desperately want a therapist to be there and make them continue this conversation and practice ongoing good communication skills!

Though they resolve this, even though Jon has an explanation that makes sense...he was really leaving this conversation to the last minute. Would he have "[brought] it up at the crossroads" as he claims to Helen? Or would he have avoided it entirely, as she accuses, or waited till they were at the threshold, as he does with The Desolation and the Hunt, leaving Martin to confront terrifying situations without forewarning or planning or explanation.

Again, Jon kind of tried to bring up some of the potential issues with Basira and Daisy before entering the Hunt domain, but kept it Vague and Ominous ("Things aren't...good"). Martin took that vagueness as an opening to avoid engaging with potential bad news. The teensiest bit of therapy for either of them about their communication issues could have let Jon add "I know you're exited but FYI here are some specifics that you should know" and/or Martin go "I'm excited to see them but given that nothing is good right now, can you be more specific?"

Instead, Jon approaches difficult conversations by being Vague and Ominous, Martin gets snarky or passive-aggressive at the vagueness, upset or aggressively avoidant at the Ominousness, Jon closes back up like a turtle into his shell, and the conversation only comes back up when the situation has drastically escalated, leaving them both more upset.

Jon wants Martin to trust him, because explaining what he knows implicitly is an ordeal for him, and because his upbringing by his grandmother has suggested that communicating is generally unwanted and burdensome (See: MAG081 A Guest for Mr. Spider).

Martin wants to know what is going on, because he's in an awful hellscape of shifting rules about what can and cannot hurt them, completely dependent on a brand-new romantic partner for his survival and purpose, and also because his upbringing and coping mechanisms as a caretaker rely on him knowing enough to help, and his time as an archival assistant has given him some not-inconsiderable trauma about being left in the dark (See: MAG118 The Masquerade) (There's also another post in my head about how MAG118 primed Martin for both the Lonely and his development as a more confrontational character in S5)

All that to say.

Martin needs therapy to deal with the way he chooses not to absorb information he doesn't like. Jon needs therapy to understand that sometimes it's ok to bring up important topics even if the other person will be upset. They both need therapy to cope with all the guilt and helplessness around the apocalypse so they stop taking it out on each other. They need therapy together to learn how to work through their conflicting coping mechanisms.

[regainingparadise]

More fun with word-frequency in The Magnus Archives:

The top 500 words of Season 5

The top 250 words of Season 5

The top 50 words of Season 5

[regainingparadise]

My LonelyEyes headcanon:

Elias Knows every time Jon reads one of the "Dear Jonah I'm breaking up with you because you're evil" letters.

And every time Elias Knows, every time he's forced to remember how Forsaken he is, Peter Lukas feels Jonah's aching loneliness, the loneliness that Jonah refuses to acknowledge, the loneliness that he can only indulge with Peter.

[regainingparadise]

I need a Corruption!Martin AU. A Martin who, in fleeing his loneliness reaches out for toxic love, love that will use him and give him purpose and belonging and identity even as it destroys him, consumes him.

Because doesn't Jane Prentiss's corruption echo Martin?

Martin, who gave up his adolescence and his independence to care for a woman who hated him, because maybe he could make her love him (make himself be a home for her)

Martin, who fell in love with a man who was contemptuous of him, clinging to the faintest drop of care and devoting himself completely no matter what (drawn by the prospect of being genuinely loved, of being given purpose)

Martin, who, when he lost the one he loves, lost the two people who for whom he had striven to be a home, fled to the empty, toxic embrace of the only one who showed an interest in him (in using him, destroying him, needing him), and yet whose love is so consuming that he nearly let himself be consumed by the Lonely in order to protect the one whose love he desires.

Martin, who takes care of other people even if it destroys him, because he is so desperate for love ("A need as much as a feeling. Love that consumes you in all ways.")

Martin, who so deeply fears losing his friends (he had friends, at least he used to, but he lost them)

Martin, who believes that if he loses the one he loves, he loses himself (is there more to a person than a habitat for what loves him)?

Martin, who creates the love that he had so desired, and in doing dooms both himself and the one he loves. (a love that consumes you in all ways)

The Corruption is what happens when fear of the Lonely meets the ruthlessness and self-sacrifice of the Web.

Because that is Martin: He uses his cunning to make himself a home for those who would love him.

[regainingparadise]

Is it even Mandalorian romance if they haven't tried to knife each other at least once?

I've been thinking about the people I ship Din Djarin with, and realized that there's an inverse relationship between how much I ship a given couple, and how chill they are together.

Don't get me wrong, I'll happily ship Din with almost everyone, but the ones I get super into? Gimme some good angry fights.

(this says more about me than it does about any of these ships, and this is also 100% not a knock on any of the ships listed or not listed here. It's just me doing some pointless meta about my own tendencies)

In order:

Paz. I love him. They apparently fight all the goddam time. You cannot tell me there is not history there. It makes the times they're on the same side all the more impactful (and adorably awkward).

(I also ship Paz with Axe for the same reason)

2. Migs Mayfeld. Migs is just such a snarky shit, they have every reason to hate each other (/Migs has every reason to assume Din is gonna kill him). They've got the whole fun double-crossing history, and in many ways they're opposites and foils, but ultimately Migs respects and understands Din, and Mando is willing to trust him

3. Cobb Vanth: I mean, their first real interaction is "take it off or I will," so no surprise here. Vanth is very clearly 110% into Din, and they get over the violence phase of their relationship way faster than Din does with either Paz or Migs.

4. Boba Fett. They don't really have a murder phase of their relationship. We get a li'l tension and then they're besties. I ship it, but I'm not as into the ship, 'cause like, how can I ship Mandalorians if I haven't seen them fight each other?

5. Luke Skywalker. I love this ship because it's just...so logical, what with the coparenting. It's a ship in a slightly different category because it lends itself so much to the domestic/parent narrative. But if I'm reading Din/Luke fics, I like a nice (un)healthy dose of tension and possibly violence while they get to know each other

6. Omera. I love Omera/Din as a "what could have been if his life was very very different" ship--especially given that she apparently has some violence in her past that she's now escaped and found peace from.

[regainingparadise]

I started writing a TMA meta post about the way certain terms were used over time, and then I got distracted calculating word frequencies/trends in The Magnus Archives.

Here's mentions/appearances of Martin, Sasha, Tim, and Elias in Season 1