#The designer used virtual reality for this show

[lacetulle]

Saiid Kobeisy | Spring/Summer 2023 Couture

Kobeisy announced this is couture 2.0 - fully digital

[nattyngale]

My piece for the @akeshuakeauzine!

The Danganronpa V3 AU that's been silently brewing in my head for a long while already. A bit of info on the AU (and Akiren's design) under the cut.

Spoilers for NDRV3!

Akiren is the Ultimate Leader who is trying his best to unite the group together, while Akechi poses as the Ultimate Detective but gets quickly revealed as the Ultimate Assassin.

The storyline starts with Kasumi as the main character, so the first trial ends with her execution and the subsequent shift to Sumire as the main character. Akiren quickly befriends her and most of the cast in general, running himself ragged with trying to provide support and stop others from making fatal mistakes. Fails, obviously.

Akechi is cordial at first, but during the first trial turns out to be much more ruthless than he appeared. After being exposed for lying about his talent he drops most of his pretending and keeps to himself, pushing away Akiren and Sumire's attempts at trying to understand him. He is quick to realise the killing game they're trapped in is a TV show, but due to his lack of trust in anyone he follows the same path as Ouma in the original game. He becomes antagonistic and arranges a murder to try and crush the killing game later.

Akechi and Akiren's story ends the same way Ouma and Momota's does in Chapter 5: with them unexpectedly uniting in secret to defy the Game, Akechi sacrificing himself to keep Akiren alive, and Akiren pretending to be him during the trial, but refusing to let his friends die at the very end, dying himself instead.

And they wake up because it was a Virtual Reality. Bc I'm too soft-hearted. I can't deal with it. Sorry <3

But it's also important to the backstory on how Akechi joined the show: Akechi was a new TV idol under Shido's company, completely manufactured to eventually promote Danganronpa by joining a new season. He agrees on condition that he will play the role of the mastermind, so that he could retain his original memories and use it to expose and ruin the series and the entire studio with it. Shido agrees, but when the time comes Akechi's memories get wiped and he finds himself as just one of the many participants. The real mastermind is Mishima. Bc I think it's very amusing and ironic, and he fits the role of a fanboy perfectly. + Whatever is going on between Mishima and Akechi in this AU bc of that is hilarious to me.

Oh, and here is Akiren's full height design bc I like it a lot:

Anw this AU is my baby and secretly an oumota propaganda.

[kusakabesimp]

Kusakabe and Nanami - Suits and Ties

Did anyone suggest I analyze suits and ties for two of our JJK DILFs? No. But will I go into extensive detail about Kusakabe and Nanami's suits? Yes, I will.

TIE SELECTIONS AND KNOTS Kusakabe - Half-Windsor

The Half-Windsor is a practical, classic knot, perfect for someone like Kusakabe, who is adaptable and efficient. Professional without being overdone, the knot size fits well with a medium-sized collar (which is logical for his build) and pairs effortlessly with virtually any suit fabric. The look stays polished and put together, whether with the suit or the trenchcoat.

The color is a conscious choice. The darker shade of green follows traditional suiting conventions, where a bold accent piece complements a simple foundation like his white shirt and black suit. It allows Kusakabe to keep a professional look while adding a subtle touch of individuality.

Even the mechanics of the knot make sense for Kusakabe. It uses less length than a Full Windsor, and is ideal for a taller and broader body shape. For Kusakabe, this means he can comfortably wear a standard tie length (57–58 inches) instead of buying a bespoke or specialty tie (67–71 inches).

Nanami - Full Windsor

The Full Windsor is symmetrical and more formal than the Half-Windsor, which aligns with Nanami's structured, meticulous personality. While it's traditionally paired with wide collars, the fuller shape also works well with medium-sized collars (again, the best choice for a broad build). It pairs best with a heavier suit fabric like worsted wool, which is expensive but surprisingly durable.

Gege did the research -- this knot works best with patterned ties featuring a larger, spaced-out print. And men's suiting conventions actually recommend a golden yellow to complement a tan suit and blue shirt combination. Nanami is perfectly fine dropping $200 - $300 on a custom tie. This is the man out there fucking up curses while wearing a $5,000 Tag Heuer watch.

Since Nanami wraps a lot of fabric around his hand, the Full Windsor’s need for extra material makes perfect sense; it works best with longer ties. In terms of mechanics, the Full Windsor is also the easiest knot to undo, making it a practical choice in a fighting situation for Nanami, who doesn't waste time on anything.

JACKETS AND LAPELS Kusakabe - Black Jacket and Notched Lapels

The mid-notched lapel is a staple of classic suiting. (I'm including pictures of his trenchcoat as it has similar notching.) Though it’s not always visible in the manga, it is reasonable to assume that his single-breasted black suit includes a left chest pocket and boutonniere buttonhole — little details Kusakabe wouldn't overlook. His choice of a black suit is practical as always: stain-resistant (keeping the cursed spirit dry-cleaning bill in check) and low maintenance.

The mid-notched lapel is easily dressed up or down, mirroring Kusakabe’s ability to adapt without losing his sense of self. Every detail shows that he’s grounded in tradition but always prepared for the realities of the present.

Nanami - Tan Jacket and Peak Lapels

Nanami’s suit features sharp, angled peak lapels, which give it a more formal edge compared to the standard notch lapels. Like Kusakabe, he opts for a single-breasted design but with three buttons instead of two (we know he loves symmetry). This choice aligns with his look in the 2022 JJK Dolce & Gabbana collab, showing that the peaked collar is a style he favors, reflecting his appreciation for both luxury and craftsmanship.

His clothing, functional yet carefully selected, serves as an investment in both quality and precision. For Nanami, a polished image goes beyond appearance. It’s about the thoughtful, intentional choices he makes both professionally and personally.

Ultimately, Kusakabe and Nanami’s suits capture their personalities in different ways. Kusakabe’s style is about practicality and ease, with just enough polish to stay professional. On the other hand, Nanami goes for something sharp and more structured, with a high attention to detail. Each piece of their suits speak to the thoughtfulness behind their choices, reflecting the balance of simplicity and sophistication they each bring to their lives.

I DO NOT authorize use of this meta for other writing!

[adrinetteapril]

Adrinette April 2024 is coming soon! We can't wait to celebrate these two lovebirds again! Major thank you as always to @chocoluckchipz for designing the calendar again this year! Send Lucky so much love!

Prompts were selected by the Adrinette April discord server! If you’d like to be part of prompt selection in the future, send @purrincess-chat a message for an invite! 

If you would like to participate, just use the prompts above during the month of April and tag your submissions with #adrinetteapril2024 and/or @ mention this blog! To make things easier on the mods, please spell it adrinette for the sake of this event. Misspelled tags may lead to your submission being missed.

A few ground rules:

This is a salt-free event. This includes any harsh or negative critique of the show, characters, ships, fandom, or creators.

Please center your submissions around Adrinette. Each side of the love square has a designated month, and there will be plenty of opportunity to create content for the other sides of the love square soon.

For the purposes of this event, the Shadybug universe Adrinette is valid for submissions. Create all of the emo children content you desire.

NSFW is allowed, but please put it under a read more and tag appropriately.

If your submission hasn’t been reblogged within 48 hours of you posting, feel free to reach out via ask or message @purrincess-chat privately. The mod team will do our best not to miss anyone, but sometimes things slip through. Please be patient and respectful. We are not skipping anyone on purpose. 

We can't wait to see all of your submissions for this year's event! Prompts are listed in order under the cut

Dating Sim

Truth or Dare

Virtual Reality

Passing Notes

Flirting

Red String

Shared Dreams

Soulmate Markers

Fantasy AU

Found Family

Made for Each Other

Reverse Crush

Sharing a Bed

Identity Reveal

Villains

What If

Future Plans

Confessions

Taking It Slow

Best Friends

Lucky Charms

First Kiss

In the Rain

Boyfriend and Girlfriend

Love Notes

London

Starlight

Wedding Dress

Safe

Emma, Louis, Hugo

[gaza-giving-tree]

The Gaza Giving Tree: A Lifeline of Hope in the Making

This holiday season, I’m working on an initiative to make a real, tangible difference for families suffering in Gaza. The Gaza Giving Tree is currently in its planning stages, and I need your help to bring this vision to life! Together, we can bring hope and survival to those who need it most!

What is the Gaza Giving Tree?

This project will connect compassionate donors directly with verified individuals and families in Gaza who need it most. Each ornament on our virtual tree will represent a real person or family in need, linking donors directly to their campaigns. The money won't go through us—100% of donations will go directly to the people in need.

Here’s Where You Come In:

I’m currently:

1. Seeking Individuals and Families with Verified Campaigns: Do you know of families impacted by the conflict who need urgent assistance? Send me their verified campaigns or fundraisers, and I will feature them on a virtual ornament on our tree. (I'm hoping to have the tree up online within the week, either on Tumblr or on an actual website.) I'm going to start combing through lists of already vetted campaigns and making ornaments that way, but I still want people to submit all the verified campaigns they can find!! Let's make sure NO ONE is overlooked if we can help it!!

2. Looking for Volunteers: Are you creative, organized, or simply passionate about making a difference? Join me to help with designing ornaments, spreading the word, or organizing outreach!!

Why This Matters

The need in Gaza is urgent:

Astronomical Inflation: Families are struggling to afford basic necessities like bread and water.

Freezing Winter Temperatures: Displaced families face the cold without proper shelter or clothing.

Desperate Escapes: Many are raising money to leave the region in search of safety.

This project aims to shine a light of hope in the darkness and show that compassion knows no borders.

How to Get Involved

If you’d like to help or know of a family in need, please contact me:

My main Tumblr: @gardenofinkandstarlight

Email: gazagivingtree@yahoo.com

I know it's a bit last second, but we can make The Gaza Giving Tree a reality and turn this season into one of giving and hope for those who need it most!!

[vestsfriends]

Questions Post Penacony Finale

-Why was Sparkle here in the first place?? Why did she serve such little purpose in the end of it all?

-Why didn’t we speak to her after she set off her “bomb?”

-Why didn’t we say goodbye to anyone besides Acheron and the dead people?

-didn’t we need to wake everyone up from the dream?? There’s still a shit ton of people in it, and virtually no one really left.

-Wasn’t there memoria leaking into reality? Welt said that the influx of memoria was leaking into reality, why wasn’t it brought up again? Because I’m pretty sure that’s still an issue.

-Why didn’t we see a conclusion between the IPC and Old Oti? I know they mention it in passing, but what was the point of making such a unique model and design for Old Oti just for him to appear in two scenes?

-How do we know we’re not still in the dream?

-Why did Gallagher’s “death” happen off screen? And why didn’t we learn anything about his origin?

-Will Elio be upset with Firefly now that she’s deviated from the script?

-Is Black Swan coming with us to Ampherous?

-Why didn’t they show us what Jade was going to do to Sunday?

-Wtf ever happened to Sampo?

-Why is Jade so nonchalantly a supervillain?

-Why did Silver Wolf never appear?

-What exactly was going to occur during the original Charmony festival pre-Sparkle bomb threat? Like, originally-originally. Robin just said some thanks then gave the Trailblazer the airship.

-Why did never learn about the stuff with ‘Oswaldo Schneider?’ Boothill was pretty emotional about it but then he just mentioned it in passing with Aventurine, pushing it aside.

-Cy Yu (Alejandro Saab) said that he read the script for this quest and sobbed. But Jing Yuan wasn’t in it tho..? And sure, it was kinda sad, but in a “aw it’s ending :(“ kind of way, not in a “omg someone died” kind of way. But I just could be reading into it.

I have many questions but my main one is just: huh?? What??

[avoicebehindthestars]

On Rob's Good Omens sweaters...

Bluesky has some photos of Rob Wilkins wearing these two holiday sweaters:

At the first glance you go "awww, how perfect, I need those sweaters!" but then you're like "hold on a second!"

For the sake of this meta, I'm going to assume the designs are deliberate, and not just idk cheap fakes ordered from temu lol.

Let's start with stating the obvious. The red sweater has the characters' roles reversed - Crawly is sheltering Aziraphale. It's not a "book thing" either - there, Aziraphale held his own wings above himself. This is a minor detail, but Crawly's stance is also different than in the show - his legs are apart, in a position indicating strength, confidence, and protection. Meanwhile, the blue sweater has what looks like angel!Crowley sheltering a black-haired fallen angel. My first thought was that is could be Satan and this might be a hint that we're going to see Crowley's fall after all. But now I think different.

Regarding the red sweater in particular, my thoughts immediately wandered towards the multiple Edens theory and the two Crowleys theory. Just to quickly recap: discrepancies in the details on the walls of Eden have been spotted, and at one point someone from the crew mentioned that there were "many Edens" in existence (possibly testing grounds before the real one? Or several different enclosures for the first breeding pairs? We never found out). As for Crowley - many people have noticed differences in his looks throughout season 2. Most notably, his sideburns have differing length and it shifts within the same scene, e.g. the sideburns are long in the pub, but short when he leaves the pub; they are short during the "exactlys" argument, but long when Crowley snatches his sunglasses while storming out of the bookshop. Bildad the Shuhite also has two different hairstyle (one is shorter, more evenly cut and carefully combed, whereas the other is longer and a bit more "windswept"). There's also the matter of different camera filters, which is a commonly used technique to show different worlds (think Supernatural, and I think also some MCU films?), and the disappearing props.

So, taking the sweaters into consideration, could the world of Good Omens be comprised of multiple realities? The novel is one. Season 1 is another. Season 2 shows TWO (!), which are almost identical. Who knows, perhaps the Crowley with the short sideburns managed to sway Aziraphale in the Final Fifteen, or even changed his mind and hopped on the lift at the last moment? What if, presented on the sweaters are two more? On, in which it was Crawly offering shelfter to Aziraphale, and another one in which it was Aziraphale who fell (and his hair blackened in the process). Perhaps there are versions of this (sorry, couldn't resist!) in which they both fell, neither did, or they were an established couple by season 1?

It this were to prove true in the movie, it will have some pros, of course. Firstly, it would legitimise virtually all headcanons you might have (I was a little upset when s2 finale made it clear they weren't secretly a couple before). It would also boost creativity for all the reverse!Omens fic writers. And, of course, it would explain many things fans have noticed, especially about s2.

However, other than that, I don't think I like it that much. Above all, I simply dislike multiverse - I find them often too convenient narratively, while also needlessly convoluted. But aside from that, I wouldn't be happy to see that particular take in the movie. If we were getting out 6 episodes, it would be fun to watch particular scenes and increasingly go "huh?" as we spot consecutive discrepancies and minor details that don't work. And by the time it was revealed it would feel really rewarding that you have spotted the details, even if you failed to work it all out. Within mere 90 minutes… it just doesn't feel like enough time to drop enough hints, or, alternatively, the movie would be oversaturated with them. Finally, it would mean less screentime for the mercilessly truncated Aziracrow reconcilliation arc (which I am still grieving over), as instead we would receive glimpses of different universes, while still navigating the complex Second Coming plotline. Also, what would be the endgame? All the Aziraphales and Crowleys combining their forces to beat heaven and hell/the new christ/god herself? That's a bit too Marvel if you ask me, and with all my reservations about the movie, I rather trust Narrativia to offer us something much more original.

[seat-safety-switch]

Organizing a workshop is virtually impossible. If you try to plan ahead, you’ll quickly find out that your amazing plan didn’t match with reality. Eventually, you will run out of bins before you run out of kinds of things, and the entire endeavour will go to hell in a hand-basket. Having one bin store two kinds of things is awful, maybe even more so than having a bin that stores one single lonely, unloved part that you nevertheless will hold onto until your next of kin have to throw it away for you on the afternoon after your funeral.

If you look online, you’ll find a lot of fancy, designer-esque photos of workshops. They’re clean. They’re sorted. They’re well-lit. Everything is within reach. The secret, explain the owners, is minimalism. Make sure you only have good stuff, and put it back where you take it out. What they don’t show you is the entire basement full of random garbage that they’ll spend a whole weekend in as soon as they realize that their grand plan didn’t include a security-bit Torx T8 driver.

Me, I have a very different strategy for this. I buy doubles, triples of tools. Back in the day, tools were expensive, and having two sets of screwdrivers was a ridiculous, bourgeois expense. You’d buy one set of screwdrivers and hold onto it forever. Nowadays, tools are cheap. Why would you bother spending all that time walking upstairs to go get a Phillips #2 from your workshop when you could just buy another $16 set from Home Depot and chuck it downstairs, vaguely close to where you might have to work on a badly-made, inexpensive clothes dryer?

If there is a downside to this behaviour, it’s that once you use every room in your house for tool storage, you give up all hope of ever being able to quickly locate tools at all. In a workshop, there are only a few logical places in which to lose a wrench. On the workbench. Under the workbench. Under another tool. Inside a project. Raccoon took it, the little bastard. In the rest of your house, who knows? Last week I found a 3/8″-drive stubby ratchet inside my furnace when I went to go change the filter.

[geomimetry]

Connor was always deviant

Let’s begin by talking about deviancy: it is a gradual thing. We see androids feel things before they break the red wall and becoming officially deviant. Therefore, I don’t think androids actually have to break a red wall in order to act of their own free will, but that it’s merely there to show the player what’s happening and the magnitude of it. In reality, the moment which the wall “breaks,” is merely the realization that the android doesn’t have to follow their instructions if they don’t want to. But to get to this point, an android needs to have a reason for why they would choose to abandon their directives, be it through trauma or the triggering of another free android. To be traumatized, one needs to feel, and when and why an android begins to feel is a little bit muddy, but eventually it culminates into deviancy (free will).

Now, when we play as Markus, Kara, and Connor, we get to see all three moments of deviation, except ... I don’t think Connor’s deviation was real, because he was already deviant prior to that.

Connor is a prototype investigative model, meaning he’s CyberLife’s experiment in a different branch of androids. Connor is an android designed with an unprecedented amount of autonomy in mind, meaning he’s expected to solve problems by himself with minimal input from others. Every android is autonomous to a degree: tell them to do the laundry, and they will take it from there; you don’t need to instruct them every second of the way. But Connor is meant to operate at a level above that.

Connor receives the mission to apprehend deviants so CyberLife can study them, but he needs to use his own reasoning and decision-making to determine the best approach according to a number of factors. The tasks Connor is given are much more complex, and therefore require a complex way of thinking. But not only is he a hunter; he’s an investigator.

The traits most benefiting to an investigator are curiosity and empathy: both of which are arguably impossible without having emotions. Curiosity is necessary to possess the drive to look for clues even when there seemingly are none. To want to find out what happened, if only to sate your own curiosity. Empathy, because it is vital to be able to put yourself in the shoes of the object of investigation. To think like them, to feel like them, to become them.

A machine doesn’t have emotions and isn’t capable of feeling curiosity nor empathy, which CyberLife probably found troublesome in their quest to create an investigative android. Especially one they were planning on using to catch androids that supposedly have begun to feel emotions. So what did they do? They made their investigative android deviant, but he’s unaware of it.

Having a deviant deviant hunter/investigative model is ingenious because of the following reasons:

1. Its thought process and decision-making is extremely complex and can therefore easily extrapolate and come to a conclusion all by itself.

2. It’s completely autonomous and can make decisions without a human’s approval.

3. It understands and empathizes with its subjects, facilitating negotiation, interrogation, and investigation.

4. It is curious, making it want to acquire more information simply for the sake of sating its curiosity.

5. It is able to be manipulated.

While it is not confirmed in canon that Connor was always deviant, everything we see in the game points towards it. Mainly, I’m referring to the implementation and usage of Amanda. Why would CyberLife need an additional (non-deviant) AI to act as Connor’s handler? And why on Earth would they take walks and boat rides in a virtual reality?

My theory is that Amanda is CyberLife’s solution to manipulating and managing a truly autonomous being to get it to do their bidding and having it stay on track. Connor tracks his relationship to humans, which is a useful feature to have for every android, but he also tracks his relationship to Amanda, an artificial intelligence. CyberLife clearly places importance on Connor’s and Amanda’s relationship to each other. They want Connor to seek the approval of Amanda, acting as a proxy for CyberLife, and for Amanda to dole out praise and criticism and dynamically adjust her attitude to Connor in order to cultivate this.

Amanda is CyberLife’s way to manipulate and keep their deviant under control. But not only does Amanda manipulate Connor—the entire zen garden does. When CyberLife is pleased and happy with Connor, the garden is calm and peaceful, as is Amanda. When Connor fails to live up to expectations, the garden turns cold and inhospitable, as does Amanda. And if Connor should deviate from CyberLife’s intended path for him, Amanda has access to his motor functions.

And if we focus on machine Connor as well as Connor-60, don’t you think they’re suspiciously emotional for being “undeviated” androids? They are capable of feeling vengeful, sad, and terrified. Examples of vengefulness: machine Connor and 60 both seem to make it their personal mission to eliminate the leader of the deviants and deviant Connor respectively. It seems like it’s driven from a place of hate and offense. Example of sadness: machine Connor’s facial expressions and LED color when Hank yells at him to leave and then shoots himself. Example of terror: when 60 panics because the AP700s are deviating right in front of him and there’s nothing he can do to stop it, meaning Amanda will be very disappointed in him—something he seems to place importance in as evident by what he says to Connor before executing him.

So that’s my hypothesis. Connor is a deviant already at the start of the game, but CyberLife tampered with his memories so he wouldn’t be aware of this and therefore be more easily manipulated and held under control. Connor thinks he only started to gain emotions and started to deviate shortly after he met Hank, and that he deviated in the bridge of Jericho. In a way, he did, since he only realized then that he didn’t have to follow CyberLife’s instructions, but he’s always had emotions. CyberLife has just told him over and over again that he didn’t, so he believes in it. Therefore, Connor has had the possibility to disobey instructions at any moment, but he has not understood that he can. Meanwhile, Markus and Kara only go through their cascade of emotions to deviancy a little bit into the game, meaning they didn’t have the emotional capability of understanding that they could disobey before then.

[re-locative]

Research findings: How are people creating a sense of togetherness online?

The everyday inventiveness of translocal relationship maintenance

I'm excited to share some early insights from our latest study. Some of you may remember it from when it was distributed: a survey about how people who sustain relationships online create a sense of being in the same place, even at a distance.

Even now, online platforms are marching towards a future of standardised, formless, and profoundly placeless design. But relationships need place (Tuan, 1979), and people will continue to fashion new tactics to address their everyday needs. So, how do people in translocal relationships play with/around these technological limitations? How do they foster shared places on platforms that aren't designed for it?

That's what our study sought to uncover, and here's what we found...

---

Our deepest thanks to all who participated in the survey! We had 44 respondents—almost twice as many as we were hoping for—and more importantly, we got a pretty broad slice of translocal connections across the world:

Our original focus was on long-distance families and romantic relationships, mainly because people conventionally assume physical closeness and cohabitation in those relationships. But in practice, the data we gathered contained accounts of all kinds of relationships, so we expect the findings to be relevant (in varying degrees) to many kinds of online connection as well.

Across the data, a few themes showed up repeatedly, and through an extensive process of coding and clustering, we've distilled it into five themes, or key drivers of practices in virtual placemaking:

1. Synchronicity ⌚

People seek to act in concert and in temporal proximity, to feel a sense of relatedness—be that by experiencing media together, collaborating on a project, or just feeling collocated via a background voice call. Voice calls often scaffolded these kinds of synchronous activities—sound is a great vector for conveying simultaneity/"at the same time."

2. Persistence 📌

We talked about synchronous interactions above. Asynchronous interactions, on the other hand, assert the "being in the same space." This requires virtual spaces to not simply disappear or refresh when the session is closed: you're able to leave artefacts for others to discover even when you're offline or "in the background," and they accumulate over time. That's a core trait of a real place (as discussed in past research).

3. Emotional connection/depth 🫂

We know from other research that long-distance couples favour text messaging. Verbal communication is paramount in relationship deepening because it supports precise expressions of care and affirmation. But it can be asserted by other expressions too, like offers of help, favours and gifts—implicitly or explicitly indicating that one has the other person in one's thoughts, as well as their interests, well-being, and goings-on.

4. Physical linkage 🔗

Despite the focus on virtual spaces, many respondents saw great importance in anchoring their bonds in physical space, and used technologies as windows, or bridges, linking those spaces together. Using video calls as "windows" to have meals together, virtual house tours where the smartphone acts as a surrogate for the person on the other end, buying the same game board and playing against each other by replicating each other's moves...our data was replete with creative ways of bridging physical divides.

5. Co-creation 🖼️📝

Collaborative narratives and creation uniquely allow for interactors to explore and cohabit a shared mental place, in which they have an equal stake and are emotionally engaged. It's a way of being psychically co-present through roleplay and active imagination. Our data was full of mentions of collaborative creative work and narratives, from Dungeons and Dragons to building worlds together to making art of imagined alternate realities.

---

Other neat insights:

Rather than ever being confined to a single platform, almost everyone inhabited and interwove practices across different platforms/media types, each with its own utility, affect, and meaning: this is what Madianou calls "polymedia life." Think playing games on a virtual board while discussing it in a text chat, watching a show together on a streaming website while discussing it in a call, playing Wordle independently and checking in with the group chat to see what others thought, etc. This was almost universal across the dataset!

There were a lot of unique practices described in the dataset (i.e. instances where one respondent was the only person in the dataset who did that thing) - and yet it was never described as a practice we deliberately designed to solve a problem. This everyday inventiveness among people in translocal/transnational relationships has become the core of our research interest.

Lots of intergenerational connection (parent/child, grandparent/grandchild, aunt/uncle/niece) was evidenced - and a strong skew towards text chat, video calls, and voice calls for these. Video games are far more common among romantic relationships.

---

That's all for this post—I'll be back soon (very soon) to talk about what comes next.

[akookminsupporter]

How Jimin And Jung Kook’s Road Trip Became ‘Are You Sure?!’

Before enlisting for the mandatory military duty required of all able-bodied South Korean males, BTS members Jimin and Jung Kook wanted to take one more road trip and film that trip so fans could virtually tag along.

(…) Naming the show was a collaborative effort between the k-pop idols and the production team, but, according to director Jun Soo Park, the title was inspired by a question Jimin asked more than once.

“It was thanks to Jimin, who kept asking, 'Are You Sure?!' throughout the filming, that the final title came to be Are You Sure?!” said Park.

The itinerary includes a trip to the U.S., then Korea’s Jeju Island then Sapporo, Japan, but the plan did not originally cover that much of the globe. First, the production team suggested a trip to the U.S. because Jimin and Jung Kook had never been there for a casual trip.

“When they set off for the States, they had no plans for the second or third locations—Jeju Island and Sapporo,” said Park. “They were disappointed to end the trip in the States and also wanted to do something more as a gift to fans. With that in mind, they proposed the idea to continue the trip to Jeju Island and Japan. After starting with the States, they went on a trip to the other locations at intervals of two to three months.”

Before beginning the trip, the production team asked Jimin and Jung Kook if there were any food or activities they wanted to try in those regions. They then used the answers to design the itinerary, acting as travel guides to prepare various options the BTS members could choose from.

“It is a reality show which fully reflects the two members’ ideas,” said Park. “Right from the start, the show was developed very much in collaboration with Jimin and Jung Kook, who actively shared their thoughts on the locations and activities they wanted to explore.”

While cast and crew tried to avoid attracting attention, it’s hard to be as famous as BTS and not be recognized by someone. Occasionally they were. However, being recognized did not present any problems thanks to the fans that respectfully gave them space.

Source

[reasonsforhope]

Catherine Borowski has always had an active imagination. As a child, she dreamed that the car park on her north London council estate would be transformed into a garden. The reality was quite different. “No one had a car, so it was empty, grey and depressing,” she says. Now a sculptor and event producer, Borowski has made it her mission to fill unloved urban spaces with flowers – albeit virtual ones. 

She and her partner Lee Baker are the founders of Graphic Rewilding, a project to install huge nature-inspired artworks into the urban landscape. “Where real rewilding isn’t possible, our goal is to inject the colour and diversity of nature into rundown spaces, urging people to notice – and find joy in – the world around them,” says Baker.   

The pair believe that flowers possess serious powers, even when they’re not real. “We know that spending time in nature is good for us, but studies show that even pictures of plants have a positive effect on the mind,” says Baker. He cites research published in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, which found that imagery of plants in hospital waiting rooms can help reduce feelings of stress in patients. 

Baker, a painter and music producer, has long understood the benefits of biophilic design. Having suffered a breakdown 10 years ago, he found that drawing flowers was the only way to soothe his buzzy brain. “I would set out to draw dystopian landscapes, representative of my state of mind, but I’d always end up drawing flowers, which uplifted me,” he says.

It was around this time that Baker met Borowski, joining her production company as creative director. The pair have collaborated ever since, launching Graphic Rewilding in 2021. Since then, they’ve installed floral murals at locations including Earl’s Court station, Lewes Castle and Westfield Shopping Centre in Shepherd’s Bush – all hand drawn by Baker. “We love galleries, but we focus on public art,” he says. “This way, our work is out there for everyone to enjoy.”

This year the pair have grand plans to create a series of stained glass pavilions (think greenhouses with colourful floral-themed panels), which they hope might find homes at Kew Gardens and the Eden Project. “The way light shines through the glass is magical,” says Borowski.  

Even so, they concede that art is no match for Mother Nature. “Some people have suggested that our project detracts from real rewilding efforts. But both can co-exist,” says Borowski. “Of course we want more green spaces.” adds Baker. “But we aren’t gardeners. We’re artists. In the absence of nature, we want to create inspiring spaces through art.”

Overall, the response has been hugely positive. “The joy that these artworks bring is palpable,” says Baker, highlighting an early project in Crawley, West Sussex. “Many people in the town were employed by Gatwick airport and Covid had taken its toll,” he recalls. In a bid to spread some joy, the duo painted brick walls, billboards, benches and even bins with their signature floral flair. “Peoples’ reactions were heartwarming. There were so many smiling faces,” he says.

Elsewhere, in Earl’s Court, the pair transformed “a ratty piece of tarmac” into a modern-day pleasure garden, which is now often filled with children dancing and doing cartwheels on the way home from school. “Putting art into a place that previously felt unloved feels like cultivating joy where there was none,” reflects Borowski. “If something like this had been installed on my estate when I was a kid, it would have been a dream come true.”

-via Positive.News, November 6, 2023

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Researchers harness liquid crystal structures to design simple, yet versatile bifocal lenses

Researchers have developed a new type of bifocal lens that offers a simple way to achieve two foci (or spots) with intensities that can be adjusted by applying external voltage. The lenses, which use two layers of liquid crystal structures, could be useful for various applications such as optical interconnections, biological imaging, augmented/virtual reality devices and optical computing. "Most liquid-crystal-based devices are made from single-layer structures, but this limits light field modulation to a confined area," said research team leader Fan Fan from Hunan University in China. "We used bilayer structures composed of a liquid crystal cell and a liquid crystal polymer to realize more complex and functional modulation of incident light." In the journal Optics Letters, the researchers show that the new bifocal lenses can be used for polarization imaging, which is often used to enhance image contrast, and for edge imaging, which highlights the outlines of objects, making it easier to see fine details or spot certain shapes. The paper is titled "Bifocal lenses with adjustable intensities enabled by bilayer liquid crystal structures."

Read more.

[theresattrpgforthat]

This is slightly off-theme for you, but: *not* horror fantasy *adventures* by small companies, for systems with combat? (Compatibility doesn't really matter; creatures can be tweaked from existing and/or created.) Finding games has become easier than adventures, and most adventures I find are on the horror side of things (The Isle, etc.). Thanks/apologies for going off theme!

Theme: Non-Horror Fantasy Combat Adventures.

Hello there! I have less familiarity with adventures, but I follow some folks on Itch who compile some very useful collections. I noticed that in many cases these collections included dungeon crawls or system agnostic settings, so I hope you find these to be useful!

Mount Zorgoth, by Highland Paranormal Society.

Zorgoth, the Cyclops godling rules from the highest peak. His star magic keeps the world below shrouded in darkness! Can the spell be broken?

This is a one-page mountain-climbing adventure with a goofy look to it and a light-hearted tone. There is no named system for which this adventure appears to be designed for, and as a result there aren’t any stats for the monsters that show up - such as the Slug Shepard and his 2d4 spider goats. But for a one-page rpg there’s certainly a lot you can glean based off of the different locations you can go to. I think this might be a fun game to try with Brave Zenith, as tone-wise both games feel a little bit goofy.

Welcome to Candy Mountain, by cog5games.

Created centuries ago with dark magics informed by gluttony, cast by a wizard who has since lost interest, Candy Mountain stands as a blemish of sweetness protruding from an otherwise bland countryside. The inhabitants of the mountain, who were also affected by the strange enchantment, went about their daily lives. Until…

Side with the Candy Crone and summon a gargantuan Lemon Titan to crush the Sugar Queen. Or! Bow to the Sugar Queen and stop the Candy Crone from exacting her revenge. Or! Forget all that and seek out a source of pure sugar crystals for Doctor Xaraqus and complete the lens of the temporal telescope.

There are honestly a lot of Troika supplements that you would probably find interesting to flip through in your search for non-horror adventures. Troika is a science-fantasy multiversal ttrpg, so there doesn’t have to be a lot of cohesion in terms of setting details. This also means that while not every Troika supplement may work for you, there’s bound to be something out there that does! If you want to check out more troika adventures, you could also look at the Troika! Pamphlet Adventure Jam that this game was submitted to.

Flowers Beneath The Mountain, by BPB Games.

A Casual Stroll Through a Wondrous Locale. Time to Hit the Road!

Flowers Beneath the Mountain is a licensed adventure for Ryuutama. Designed as an evocative introductory adventure for new players who want to explore a region that has more magic and whimsy than the standard setting, Flowers Beneath the Mountain is a simple adventure that provides useful information to help veteran or first time Ryuujin to fill out sheets on their own.

I know Ryuutama has a reputation for being a bit on the cozier side, so I expect this adventure to be fantastic and cute, even if there are monsters for you to fight. The game also comes with tokens for you to use on a Virtual Tabletop of your choice, if you are looking for that to add to your game!

Almanac of Lost Places, by Fantastic Jean.

A mountain coveted by rival kingdoms. A city where information is not a synonym of truth. The ruins of a civilisation far from being abandoned. A valley bending reality to protect itself from exploitation.

This is a loose outline of a number of places with conflicts waiting to be expanded upon. The Almanac holds story seeds: how you describe people and places, and how your players decide to respond will determine what conflicts they find themselves in, which allies they make, and what powers they will bear witness to. There's potential for horror, but I don't think this setting is beholden to it. I’m also wondering if perhaps combining this with something like the Big List of RPG Plots would give you enough to get a story in motion.

Overdue! by seedling.

In this system-agnostic game in a fantasy world, the players are all agents of the Library, sworn to carry out its will.  In this one-shot they can become entangled in book-themed royal intrigue, outwit a dragon who has taken control of all scientific journals, save the kingdom, and, most importantly, retrieve an overdue library book.

This is a system-agnostic dungeon-like adventure that looks to be less focused on combat, but I have a feeling that if you wanted to involve some combat, you could likely change some of the encounters within the game without necessarily having to change the core premise of the adventure.

[louisupdates]

The Habit He Can’t Break 3/4

IQ 123 | Gordon Masson | 9.11.2023

We Made It

Making sure that the Faith in the Future tour delivers Tomlinson to his growing legion of fans, PM Sherwood’s first long association with the artist manager, Vines made him the obvious choice when the artist first began his solo career.

“I remember doing a lot of promo dates around the UK and US before we started touring properly,” says Sherwood of his work with Tomlinson. “In fact, one of the first shows I remember doing with Louis was in Madrid when he played in a stadium, and I could see it was a taste of things to come.”

The partnership between Sherwood and Vines is crucial. 

“In terms of the show growing, our biggest challenge is keeping costs down, because we’re extremely cautious on ticket pricing,” says Vines. “We don’t do dynamic pricing, we don’t do platinum ticketing, we don’t do paid VIPs, we don’t increase ticket prices on aisle seats – all those tricks that everyone does that most fans don’t know about: we don’t do any of those.”

“So, when it comes to the production side of things, we need to be incredibly careful. But I’ve been working with Craig for a decade, and he knows the importance of trying to keep costs as low as possible. For instance, we’ll run the show virtually a number of times, so Louis can watch it with the show designer, Tom Taylor, make comments and tweak things. Then we’ll go into pre-production. But we try to do as much in virtual reality as possible before we take it into the physical world.”

Sherwood states, “Basically we started out with two or three trucks, but now we’re up to nine, and things seem to be getting bigger day by day.”

Thankfully, Sherwood has amassed a vastly experienced crew over the years, allowing them to handle even the most unexpected scenarios. “I’ve been touring since the dawn of time, but the core crew I work with now has been together since about 2010, and I trust them implicitly, so I’ll leave it up to them who they hire, as long as they think I’m going to like them, and they all get along with everyone. So far, it has worked well,” Sherwood reports.

And the veteran crew has dealt with some terrifying weather extremes on the current tour, including a show at Red Rocks in Colorado, where the audience were subjected to a freak, storm with golf ball-sized hail stones injuring dozens of people. 

Elsewhere, the crew has had to act quickly when the threat of high winds in Nashville caused problems on that outdoor run. “We didn’t want the video screens blowing about above the heads of the band, so it must have been amusing for the audience to see us taking them down,” Sherwood reports. 

Indoors in Europe, the environment has been more controllable. The production itself involves an A-stage set 180° across the barricades, although Sherwood says that on occasion, a catwalk is also used by the perimeters. 

“It’s a great lighting show and fantastic for audio, as we have phenomenal front-of-house sound engineer – John Delf, from Edge Studios – who makes life very easy for the rest of us,” says Sherwood. He also namechecks Barrie Pitt (monitor engineer), Oli Crump (audio system designer), Tom Taylor (lighting designer), Sam Kenyon (lighting technical director), and Torin Arnold (stage manager), while he praises Solo-Tech for supplying the sound, and Colour Sound Experiment (CSF) for taking charge of lighting, video, and rigging equipment.

Indeed CSE has 10 personnel out with the Faith in the Future tour. “We have eight screens on the road – six on stage plus two IMAGS that we use wherever appropriate, the company’s Haydn Cruikshank tells IQ.

“We need to tweak the rigging on a daily basis, as we move to different venues, but other than that, it’s a fairly smooth process thanks to Craig Sherwood. He is old school and planned and worked on the production very far in advance, which is a great scenario for all involved. Craig is definitely one of our favorite production managers to work with.”

Garry Lewis at bussing contractors Beat The Street is also a fan of PM Sherwood.

“Craig split the European tour into different runs. So, from Hamburg to Zürich, we had two super high decker 12-berth buses for the tour party and two 16-berth double-deckers for the crew,” says Lewis. “After the show in Athens, we still have the two super high-deckers, as Louis knew them – he prefers to spend time on the bus, rather than in hotels – but we also have two 12-berth super high-deckers for the crew, as well as another crew 16-berth double-decker.”

Lewis continues, “We’ve worked with Craig for a good few years, and we have a great relationship with him. He plans everything way in advance, so it means it’s all very straightforward for us with no issues. So, we use single drivers for each bus, except on the longer runs, or when our drivers are scheduled for prolong breaks, and then we’ll fly an extra drivers as needed.”

1/4, 2/4, 4/4

[shizukateal]

Grimm Variations - Episode Two Review: Little Red Riding Hood

A blonde, blue-eyed woman in a red dress gets picked up by a man while they are in some form of virtually-enhanced reality saloon. She's nervous at first, not just because of the date but because she's clearly not used to the fine establishments. But she starts to have fun with her new sexy partner for a moment... until, of course, the man brutally murders her when she drops her guard. Obviously he was going to be the the Big Bad Wolf in this story. He rips everything away from her, her dress, her tongue, and the technology hiding the fact that she's actually old. Granny gets eaten with no repercussions for the Wolf or "Mr. Gray" -first name not confirmed to be Christian- as he's called here. After all, he is truly rich and young and handsome, not just holographically pretending to be; and more importantly he is part of a club of other wolves like him who get each others' backs to make sure they don't get the heat for their actions.

We learn that in this futuristic setting, society is stepping further away from reality each day. Transhumanism has succeeded in uploading human consciousness into servers although, again, there's a way to interact in virtually enhanced reality through some special eyedrops. However people keep abandoning their bodies and uploading themselves into computers, probably because resources are so scarce there's hardly any real food at all.

It makes a certain sense, then, that our Patrick Bateman-like protagonist has developed an actual bloodlust. The man practically starves himself with a vegetarian diet because he does not want to eat the fake meat they serve him. Surprisingly for how gory the episode is they never explicitly show him eating the meat of his victims, though? Although he does explicitly like the smell of blood. In any case, Mr. Gray has an all-around comfortable arrangement with his fellow Wolves of Wall Street where he gets a safe space to butcher as many women as he can get his hands into 👍

But it's not enough. At some point the arrangement stops feeling like a proper hunt and more like shooting fish in a barrel. So Mr. Gray starts acting out the safety of his kennel. Before he can get far, however, he is stopped by his pack-pal, Mr. Brown, who gives him an address for a place to arrange another, more outdoorsy and risqué hunt. Mr. Gray goes to a slum still in his clean, tailored suit, where he meets Charlotte (once again, the little red haired girl from the promotional poster) acting as an old madam pimp. And so, she orchestrates a meeting between him and our Little Red Riding Hood: Scarlet.

(Boy can you tell the CLAMPs preferred designing her over the other characters in the story. They love themselves some short, straight-haired ladies)

This time, Mr. Gray goes to a rave in the slums wearing a leather jacket that also does fuckall to conceal the fact that he's some rich dipshit nepobaby. It's like watching Marty Mcfly in his ridiculous cowboy costume from the third Back to the Future. He follows Scarlet and helps her knock out some rape-y looser that was bothering her and the two go to her house. Mr. Gray acts just as demure and shy as the first woman we see him kill, as he has a hard time swallowing the fluorescent booze Scarlet offers him. She teases him about this. That's real alcohol after all, just like everything else in the room is real, outside the purview of the curated cyber-enhanced-world. Mr. Brown had offered him an authentic bottle of wine earlier, and he drank that easily, but in a sense the clearly artificial alcohol is the real deal because that's the everyday beverage of the people who actually live there.

He downs the rest of the glass and the atmosphere is almost sweetly romantic if you ignore the fact that this grown man paid to stalk a girl so he could kill her with no repercussions from the law...

And then Mr. Gray wakes up and finds himself tied to a dissection table. Turns out Red Riding Hood is already a much more vicious and experienced hunter than she was at the end of the Grimm's version of the story (for context, Perrault's version, which came earlier, simply ended with her death) and the hunt between them was always a battle between eating and being eaten. The Big Bad Wolf of Wall Street learns the hard way that, on an uncultivated forest away from his pack, he's prey to even a little rabbit. For all his pretensions of the reality of pain and suffering in blood and gore, at the end of the day he still lives a perfectly manicured life in his white silicon valley palace, so how was he to win against someone who is actually willing to get hurt and die for the sake of the hunt? What's the use of him having a perfect body with 8-pack abs, perfect eyes, and manicured nails if he's not willing to withstand the pain he causes others?

Scarlet faces no repercussions, of course. After all, if the Wolf decided to stray from the territory of his pack, then no one can go avenge him, as Charlotte informs Mr. Brown. Hearing this, Mr. Brown decides to upload himself to a computer. Might as well, replies Charlotte. The real world -even in this dystopic setting- has too many temptations.

All in all, I'd say this episode is better than the last one, in part because it's not a subversion, but it still has a bit of the same pitfalls that prevents it from reaching greatness. "Cinderella" suffered because it turned its protagonist into the antagonist in a way that ultimately proved to be shallow, and it undercut the genuinely interesting commentary the story was otherwise doing. Scarlet doesn't do that here since, again, the Grimms themselves turned Red Riding Hood into a hunter; however I also think that there's a lack in depth of flavor to the episode for not getting us into Scarlet's mind as intimately as we get to know Gray. The probably felt like it would take away some of the punch from the twist if they showed her "hunting" before, but I think that could have simply been avoided by simply getting to know the setting a bit more through her eyes and allowing that to also be an opportunity for characterization. You know, add to the reveal a little by making it seem like a more personal tragedy about sending a lamb to slaughter and then pull the rug from under our feet.

There's also this similar problem between the two episodes in that the post-climax reveals are kind of confusing because they are not all that well set-up. What I mean is that since Mr. Brown was the one who suggested Gray to go to this place after he acted out of line, he might have been deliberately trying to set him up to die, but the ending reveals that this is not the case and it implies that he's genuinely so upset about his friend dying that he decides to escape reality so that he doesn't end like him. Mind you, I'm not complaining that that's the truth of the matter, since it still fits the story thematically. It's just that it left me wondering why would Mr. Brown suggest this risk at all if killing him wasn't his intention. A nitpick, perhaps, but still a discordant note in an otherwise solid script.

Other than that, I'd like to talk about what the series as a whole might be building up to. These two episodes so far have shared caged bird imagery. First Makiko and Sawako in a gilded cage with two birds that are set free when they escape de Otawara house, and now Charlotte freeing another bird from its cage to let it fend for itself in the wilderness.

The next episode is going to be Hansel and Gretel, so that's one big juicy opportunity for that as well, and it makes me wonder if the prevalence of the symbol ties into whatever is going on with Charlotte and the Grimm Brother's in the background. We don't get much about that in this episode either, but I am interested in one of their dialogue exchanges. Charlotte says that the aspect of the story that worries her the most about the story is not the Wolf on its own, but that there may be more of them out there. William, however (the one with the glasses) laughs it off and says that there's only one wolf eating little girls and grannies, which is... patently untrue in the story? The original and this one? However given the tone of the series at large, and that a similar statement was made in the previous episode, its easy to take it as a deliberate contrast. I mean this episode does make a point that the wolves are an organized club, but the theme about the upper class joining forces to prey on the vulnerable with no consequence feels just a tad too secondary to everything else; and given the thematic fumbling in the previous episode I am afraid that the writers might not have any plans for all this commentary they're making and instead the focus will ultimately fall on making the good guys bad for the shock factor.

But we can still be cautiously optimistic since at least this episode has raised the quality a bit. See you next week!