#and how everyones designs differ + design choice discussion

[150en]

Etho Ehto Ergo

First image based on:

[rxttenfish]

one of the things that particularly pisses me off about art discussions, either in how nowadays everything has to aim for more and more realism in art styles and even live action to be seen as "real art", and in dismissing more abstract styles of artwork as not "real art" and having no inherent worth, is that they explicitly do not consider realism an art style either. to them, realism is just a given of "good" art, not chosen but rather just default. which i hate, because you CAN pick realism as an intentional style and a purposeful choice to suit a narrative, and all this results in is no one noticing or understanding why you made that choice or why that choice works better than any other possible choice to tell the story you want to tell.

[orphiclovers]

The first scenario of ORV has always fascinated me. "Kill another person to survive." It might be the most common plot point in apocalyptic stories.. Pretty much all of them feature some discussion of morality and how to define it, good and evil, played out by deeply morally grey characters who have to make a choice to kill.

But ORV is a story about stories.

The Star Stream is trying to tell 'the story of an apocalypse' and it does! But in the most crude and unpolished way.

It's almost cynical. 'We are telling an apocalypse story, what's a common plot beat in apocalypse stories? 'No one is innocent and everyone has killed to survive'. Okay, let's make it a literal requirement for everyone to have killed someone to proceed.'

It's robotic, taking a story beat and stripping it down to it's bare essentials, then forcing the incarnations to adapt to it or die.

But the thing is. That's what all writing is. ORV just pulls back the curtain, exposing the internal circutry that makes a story work. Orv doesn't lie to you about the inherent artifice of it all.

The scenarios are perfect little plot arcs, designed to test the limits and reveal the strenghs and weaknesses of incarnations - 'the characters' of the story. It's not some cruel torture, it's literally just the act of storytelling. Writing 101 is put characters through hardship to reveal certain qualities in them or to make them go through character development.

Only difference is that writers usually camouflage the 'scenarios' they give their characters until the circumstances seem 'realistic' and like they happened on their own, like the author isn't forcing their reality to bend this way at all.

Oh, one character didn't lock the door in time due and got bitten by a zombie. And so inevitably this other character has to make the choice to kill them or not. There's as many explanaitions as the author can cook up as to what lead the characters to this moment. How the zombies got there, why these two were in the same vicinity, etc etc.

But, it's all set dressing the author has added to make the audience forget that this is too a 'scenario' given to the characters to test them. There's a time limit and a description and a reward and a penalty for failure, but all of these are cleverly hidden. The time limit can be until the last helicopter leaves in 10 minutes. The unspoken penalty is death. The author arranged how the characters find out some or all of this information in convienient ways.

Star Stream just lays it all out in front you you, straight up. States 'Kill another incarnation or have them kill you' and doesn't attempt to justify the circumstances, because of course, the real reason all this is happening is because the story demands it.

It's a universe that does not hide the author's hand in every tiny little event that happens.

So this too is the question "What if the characters knew they were in a story?" asked yet again. Every single being in the ORV universe knows they are in a story. The system itself makes it obvious - you can look at your own character sheet, you obtain 'stories' when you do something impressive but are constrained by 'probability' and what the audience finds interesting. You're body is literally made up of words written about you're life!

That's why the worldbuilding is so cohesive and so so good. All of it is telling you 'the world is a novel.'

[melled42]

Is ewen bothered by how naturally oily their head wool is from the lanolin?

Ok, so random but i'd like to use this question as a jumping off point to discuss things that are part of ewen's design that either don't come up or there's not an easy way to work it in the story without going off to stuff that doesn't really help move the plot forward.

So skip if you dgaf

I haven't posted the time line piece yet because im still deciding on some of the outfit changes (and now it looks so crap to me i might just redraw it, fix inconsistencies too.) But there are a lot of changes that happen "physically" to them when they get the crown

There's the weight gain, which, despite not needing to eat, going from growing up not knowing where your next meal is to being surrounded by available food... they over indulged. so we got our squishy little short stack we have now. but thats more natural.

Everything else could be considered, at least at the beginning of using the crown, a type of glamor. like if you took the crown early on, they would have gone back to the way they looked before. And because its a glamor, they're the one who made a lot of choices in how it looked. That's one of the reasons their bell is different to the cannon design too, its their choice. They hid of a lot of scars, a lot more than we can really see. They fixed their broken horns (the black, pointy look is very cartoon devil to match their personality). they grew the wool on their head, which would not grow even because of the scaring, even if they weren't constantly shaving it to sell. They wanted to give the look of the soft, fluffy, totally not dangerous sheep people expected of them. Because the wool is mostly from the crowns magic, even after they're more permanently changed as they develop into a god, it doesn't behave like usual wool or hair. They can even grow it at will if they want.

additional not so fun fact. While on the run, wool was a pricey item if you were brave enough to try and sell it, so Ewen was always completely sheered. They only kept some on their head to prove to other sheep that they even were a sheep, and hid it from everyone else under robes. Because of this, they actually have a lot of sensory issues when it starts growing out on their body and NEED to sheer it. To the point where they'll get violent if they can't. But they hide that from everyone, even nari until they start living together. Since the wool on their head doesn't have the same consistency, since its basically unnatural and part of their costume, it doesn't bother them. So yea, the oils would bother them, but not on their head.

[accio-victuuri]

xiao zhan elle september issue cover story Q&A

ELLE: During this rest period, do you think about things that happened on the set?

Xiao Zhan: Of course, I remember a few days after the filming was finished, I had a dream that we were still filming, and the director and I were still discussing how to say that word? How to handle that scene?

ELLE: Do you actually miss the atmosphere on the set?

Xiao Zhan: I like it very much, because I like the feeling of everyone creating together and working together to get something done.

ELLE: When you first entered the entertainment industry and your popularity grew rapidly, you said that it felt a bit unreal and magical, but now you seem to be quite relaxed. How did this change happen?

Xiao Zhan: Rather than saying it’s unreal or magical, after so many years I feel that I haven’t had time to adapt to the fast pace at that time, so when I wake up from sleep, where am I today? What am I doing? I think it’s a process, just like when you first enter the workplace, everyone is very excited, "I’m here to work, please take good care of me", "I’m here, everyone get out of the way", "I can do it, I can do it". (Laughs) But after experiencing a lot of things, I feel that everything needs to be planned for the long term.

ELLE: In several interviews you mentioned that you like to play roles that "can convey energy". Why do you have such a preference?

Xiao Zhan: Because I think it is the life of the character. The kind of energy I am talking about is not just a single positive energy in the general sense. I mean the nutrition that can be subtle and silent. I believe that every character has a complete story line in his heart. This is what I like very much. As long as you dig deep, you can move people. I don’t like to call the villain a "villain", as if it is defined as a bad character from the beginning, but it is not. He may have his own difficulties.

ELLE: It sounds like “transmitting energy” is just a general term. Is it actually about understanding different people through performance?

Xiao Zhan: Yes, if we break it down to each character, they all convey different things. But if we say they are “good guys” or “bad guys”, I think that’s meaningless.

ELLE: So do you think acting is a form of communication?

Xiao Zhan: Yes, you can say that. I think it’s great to say that (acting) is a bridge to communicate with the audience. Just like when a play is broadcast, I will read some of the audience’s comments and impressions, and feel that they have a rich feeling about the work. When I see some comments that are exactly the same as my thoughts when filming, I feel very magical, as if this bridge is really connected. We don’t know each other in life, and we haven’t communicated, but he suddenly got my thoughts at the time, and I felt that, oh, acting is a very beautiful and magical thing.

ELLE: Do you watch some science fiction movies, TV shows, and literary works?

Xiao Zhan: Yes, I used to like watching "The Three-Body Problem". I have watched some science fiction movies recently, the American TV series "The Stars", and recently I am watching "The Replica". They are all about infinite flow and parallel time and space. Because I think there may really be parallel time and space. Every choice you make will split into a different parallel time and space.

ELLE: Do you imagine Xiao Zhan in a parallel universe?

Xiao Zhan: I really wonder, for example, is he still an actor? Maybe, is he still filming now? Is he still singing now? Or is he still a designer? Is he working for others or is he his own boss? (Laughs) Really, I really wonder.

ELLE: What do you think the future will be like?

Xiao Zhan: Wow, I think the world might return to its original state at that time, and the world might become a better place, and people would return to the most basic communication with each other.

ELLE: This is very interesting. Why do you think so?

Xiao Zhan: Anyway, at least now I am a little disgusted with the ubiquitous Internet. When we were young, when there were no mobile phones, we would chat while eating, and we would call our friends downstairs to play hide-and-seek and various games. I think that time was very precious.

ELLE: Will the profession of actor still exist by then?

Xiao Zhan: I think there will be. I believe that as long as life goes on, drama will continue. Because everyone needs an output, needs emotional resonance and sustenance, whether it is images or sounds. So I think that even if the world is destroyed, as long as there are still people, drama will definitely exist.

-END.

source

[what-eats-owls]

Show vs Tell, Or: Please Stop Making Things Difficult for Yourself

I said a while ago that I'd write a brief essay about the most misused craft advice in writing once I wrote 10k words, and for once I actually held myself to that! So now, I'm here to tell you about Show vs Tell, or why people make it more complicated than it needs to be.

First, a basic primer for anyone who hasn't heard this term before: "Show vs Tell"/"Showing vs Telling" refers to "showing" the audience information instead of "telling" it to them. You may be thinking, gosh, that sounds unspecific to the point of being readily misapplied, and you would certainly be right! Lots of folks throw it around without fully grasping what it means, how to use it, or when it doesn't actually apply. And I'd really like everyone to stop making it harder on themselves when there's a very straightforward way to conceptualize it.

So for starters, Chuck Palahniuk has an old but good essay about eliminating "thought" verbs from prose that holds the hell up. But I'm going to tell you an even simpler way to conceptualize the difference between showing and telling:

Eliminate the inner thoughts entirely.

Ask yourself, if my narrator's interior monologue was inaccessible to the audience, how would I convey the same information—literally showing it?

Forget for a moment that your medium is the word, and imagine you only have dialogue and visuals. If this was taking place on the screen or in a graphic novel, how would you convey that this character has a crush on someone in their class? That they're hotheaded? That they're struggling with a decision?

Here's a perfect example of this from the opening scene of Howl's Moving Castle.

Devoid of context, we have a girl trying on a hat in a mirror, and also trying on a fake smile. Then her expression sours and she pulls the hat down over her face until we can only see her frown. She's wearing a plain dress and the hat is simple, despite the elaborate hats and ornaments on display around her.

You don't have to know anything about this character to understand what's being conveyed in this moment: This girl is deeply uncomfortable with trying to be pretty and flirty, but in the safety of privacy she wants that, even though she feels inept and self-conscious about it. She's in this world, but she's not part of it. Even brushing up against it for a moment makes her shut down and reject it with hostility.

More importantly, it's all communicated with a simple gesture and design choices. Not by Sophie thinking to herself, I wish someone would take me dancing—no I don't! I work too hard to have time for dancing!

That's showing. And it's more resonant, because we've all felt silly trying something on in a mirror! Or, say, if you want to show a character has a crush, having them get flustered and laughing too loud. Or showing that they're a hothead by having them snap at a simple disagreement, etc. etc.

This also extends to worldbuilding, dialogue, and stakes.

Worldbuilding: If your story is set in a town run by a crooked sheriff, you could have the narrator say "everyone knows Sheriff Smith is squeezing the shops for bribes." Or the sheriff can stop the narrator for "smelling like weed" while the sheriff's drunken son speeds by, about to total his third BMW.

Dialogue: If your character is angry, they can say "I'm furious." Or they can slam dishes in the sink and insist "I'm not angry" while openly crying. They can snap "I'm not discussing this again." They can demand "What is he doing here?"

Stakes: You can have an all-seeing oracle say "If you do not return the Mystic Orb to the Sunlight Altar by the solstice, the world will plunge forever into darkness." (And as we'll get into it below, sometimes you actually need that.) You can also have intermittent but increasing periods of total darkness occurring as the party travels to the Sunlight Altar. You can have the Mystic Orb start cracking the longer it takes, and the sun getting a little dimmer with every fracture. You can have people's shadows growing bigger and bigger and acting autonomously.

But showing isn't the end-all-be-all; telling absolutely has a place. Sometimes it's better to quickly and plainly state information and move on, such as a little earlier in the scene, when the other hat shop girls have spotted Howl's castle:

"Look, it's Howl's castle!"

"I've never seen it so close!"

“Do you think Howl will go into town?”

“He’s gone!”

“No, he’s just hiding in the fog from those planes.”

“Did you hear what happened to that girl, Martha, in South Haven? They say Howl has torn her heart out.”

“Now I’m too scared to go out!”

“Don’t worry. He only preys on pretty girls.”

This tells us some stuff directly: Who owns the castle we see in the first few seconds, that he's hiding from soldiers, that he has a reputation for preying on beautiful girls. We can infer also that he's a bit of a coward, he stays away from civilization, and that his reputation for cruelty has spread over multiple regions.

This happens so quickly, and it's couched in enough character between the teasing and the gossip, that it doesn't stand out as capital-t-Telling. That's exactly what expository dialogue should do. "Showing" us all that information would take a lot of screen time that can be saved in ten seconds of dialogue.

It's also not just about saving time; it's setting up an image that Howl initially fulfills when he helps Sophie escape the soldiers... only to be punctured when she actually goes to his castle and sees the real Howl. Telling is good for setting expectations that you know will be subverted later.

So yeah, tl;dr: If you're tied up in knots about "am I showing?? am I telling??" just ask yourself how you'd convey the same information in a movie or graphic novel, without access to interior monologue, and evaluate if that'd be better. Most of the time the answer is yes, but not always!

[coldgoldlazarus]

I firmly believe in a Futch Samus

But I think something that might help the discussion is that her presentation, and how she is presented, are two different questions. And this is where most of her official depictions (and to an ever greater extent, the deluge of so, so much Zero Suit fanart) fall short.

Especially when she's coming out of her powersut at the end of the games, is something that bugs me. Show her hair messy and matted as fuck from that helmet. If she is in fact wearing eyeliner like that one post suggested, it should be kinda smudged and leaky by this point. Give us defined abs, not just because she should be portrayed as way more muscular in general anyway, (though that definitely does apply too) but because she's just run five consecutive marathons and fought at least one new space horror and is dehydrated as fuck. (On that note, in more casual scenes like the ZM endcards, show her with a little healthy pudge instead, let her be properly watered!) If she's fresh out of the Zero Suit, she'd probably even have some leg hair.

And just in general? Again, muscles for sure, I think this is one thing everyone is in agreement on. (Her Zero Suit model in Dread is definitely an appreciated step in the right direction.) Scars, too, especially in depictions chronologically placed after Corruption, where we know for sure that the Phazon had some severe effects. (Though other scars in addition would be interesting and evocative.) The extent of her mutations is something I do like being more up for interpretation, and there's been some fantastic different takes out there, but I do feel like at the bare minimum there should be at least something indicating her Chozo and later Metroid influences, even if it's subtle. (I like to go for a prominent beaklike nose for the former.) Age is another debatable one given the ambiguity of the timeline, but some kind of indication there might go a long way.

Samus can be feminine, Samus can be hot, but she shouldn't be Conventionally Attractive Supermodel style hot, with an hourglass waist and unblemished features. And honestly, with her usual portrayals thus far, the choice of presentation kinda fades into the background noise of Default Sexy Woman™, whereas it could be a lot more good and characterful if they paired it with a stronger character design, if she's buff and scarred and still chooses to pretty up afterward. And they could stand to even go further on that front, too, I've seen some great redesigns where she has more ornamentation and jewelry like the Chozo.

She shouldn't be supermodel hot; she should be the kind of hot that comes from and speaks to her power and experience.

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

An interesting thing about Kaz is the way he views a hierarchy within everyone he meets, an attitude probably defined in him by the Kerch culture of trade and the environment of Ketterdam. Kerch is a country that in many ways is designed to reflect the American Dream as it is portrayed in classic literature such as The Great Gatsby: as an ultimately unattainable and useless lie, designed to control and quell the masses in the danger of extreme capitalism. The social hierarchy in Ketterdam is well-established and discussed throughout the novels, though mostly in Crooked Kingdom since the plot stays almost entirely within city limits, and the attitude of viewing a miniature hierarchy amongst those around you as part of the overall societal structure is evidenced in Kaz, and possibly reflected in Wylan; a link both to their different upbringings within the Ketterdam social structure, and their position as literary foils. (I wrote a whole long thing about how Kaz and Wylan had/have the potential to become each other, so feel free to check that out for more detail if you want it). The city’s hierarchy and the unattainability of joining the rich upper echelon of society is cleverly hinted at from the very beginning of Six of Crows, when Kaz is jumped and then wakes up in what he expects to be the deb of a rival gang. He instead finds himself in Councilman Hoede’s Manor House, which I believe is on the Geldstradt, and the way he makes the distinction is by realising that the decor in the room he’s in “takes real money”. We know that people like Pekka Rollins or Tante Heleen have become truly rich from what they do in the Barrel, and so it’s strange to suggest that you’d need “real money” for this since we would generally use that phrase to refer to a large amount of money. What Kaz actually means here is “old money” or “family money”; you need the kind of money that the Merchant Council have been hoarding for generations, making supposedly risky trades when they have millions of savings to cushion the blow if things go wrong, not the kind of money that comes from the popular gambling dens and brothels of the Barrel. He means the kind of money that Daisy and Tom have in Great Gatsby, people who’ve never worked a day in their lives and yet like to think of themselves as very successful at life when all they’re truly succeeding in is spending their parents money, not the kind of money that Gatsby scraped and saved and began to chase through undisclosed illicit means. Even when men like Gatsby and Rollins make their money, and their name, they are never equal in the social hierarchy to people with old money. (To be clear, not that this is a defence of either character, I have criticisms of both, especially Rollins).

But the hierarchy Kaz places upon himself and upon the others is slightly more subtle, and arguably subversive. He looks down on Matthias because he “stinks of decency” and because he supposedly hasn’t struggled, arguably gaining slightly more respect for him when he learns of him losing his parents and baby sister but still maintaining the idea of ‘everyone has a sob story and you were clearly more lucky in your options to deal with it than I was, it’s not my fault if you made the wrong choice’. We as readers obviously know that Matthias had no options but to go with Jarl Brum and spent the next 6 years of his life (I think that’s the right amount of time, please correct me if I’m wrong) being emotionally manipulated and abused by him, but Kaz simply refuses to accept has suffered because it would be psychologically damaging to him to admit that Matthias was able to go through that and still come out a good person, when Kaz sees himself as having become truly demonic. Matthias looks down on Kaz for the exact same reason, unable to understand - especially since he knows far less detail about Kaz’s trauma - how someone who ever had a core of decency couldn’t maintain it through their pain, he assumes Kaz was never a good person, or never had the potential to be one. Kaz also looks down on Wylan, arguably far less for his attempt to maintain a core decency but because he views Wylan as having had the option to do so. Kaz seems to have more respect for Wylan in Crooked Kingdom than in Six of Crows, when he knows more about (but never, it should be noted, the full extent of) Jan Van Eck’s abuse to his son, once again showcasing that he struggles to accept the idea of someone feeling bad when they have supposedly suffered less than him. His trauma has clearly warped him in many ways, and one of them is losing the ability to see relative pain and how different things can affect different people in different ways; he effectively views everything in the manner of ‘I had it worse, and I’m fine so you need to get over yourself’. He labels Nina “a snob” for staying away from the Crow Club and the Slat despite being a Dregs member, and her response is “she didn’t much care what Kaz Brekker thought”. I think that Nina is possible the person Kaz holds the most respect for in his platonic relationships, and that is mostly because she simply couldn’t care less whether he respects her or not.

His relationship with Jesper is more complex; he judges Jesper for his addiction and yet continually eggs him on, giving him a line of credit to play cards at the start of Six of Crows and having the first step of his planning in Crooked Kingdom to make Jesper play all night, although it’s unclear whether Jesper has ever shared anything about his mother if anyone knows then the most likely parties are Kaz or Inej and yet Kaz forces Jesper to give up his revolvers in Crooked Kingdom, his most treasured possession and his constant connection to his late mother, he consistently infantilises Jesper, but mostly in his head and this is possibly an interesting link to the final nail in the coffin of their relationship; Kaz sees Jesper as a substitute to Jordie. I think it’s possible that he likes to see him as younger because that’s how he remembers Jordie - it’s also important to remember that Kaz is now several years older than his elder brother ever was so seeing him in someone his own age is possibly even more painful because that’s a point Jordie never reached (he was only 13 when he died). Jesper is someone that Kaz feels the need to keep at arms length, not because he doesn’t respect him but because he fears having a close relationship with someone who could so easily slip away from him like Jordie did. I think we can also arguably see aspects of Jordie within Jesper, the naïveté of thinking you can make it Ketterdam followed by the city swallowing you whole, killing Jordie and driving Jesper to his slow self-destruction - “I’m dying anyway, Da. I’m just doing it slow”. (If y’all have read many of my analytical posts you may have begun to notice that’s one of my favourite quotes)

Then we have Inej. Kaz places Inej on a pedestal whatever she does. I’ve spoken before about how she claims to be bad at picking locks whilst he claims to have done “a shoddy job at teaching her to pick locks” because he’s incapable of accepting that she is incapable of something; if there are flaws, they must be his because she cannot have any. In a lot of situations this can be harmful, going back to the romance of Daisy and Gatsby where Daisy is placed on a pedestal and idealised so much that she become more of an image than a person, so when she does not live up to his every high expectation Gatsby is destroyed by it. But with kanej this seems only to elevate their position, possibly because Kaz isn’t claiming that Inej is flawless, but rather that she is capable of working on her flaws in a way that he isn’t; it is almost a form of envy. For example, Inej also has a fear of touch and human contact, but she purposely forced herself to cope with small amounts of it, such as allowing Nina and Jesper to hug her even though it makes her flinch, because she fears it becoming a debilitating condition, as it has done for Kaz (not that she knows that initially when it’s first implied that she too fears contact). In the bathroom scene when she admits to him that she also struggles with touch, it has such a massive effect on Kaz not because he refuses to accept that she has flaws but because he sees her as so much stronger than himself and wishes that he could be more like her. Although both of them are ultimately unable to go any further than a few light brushes of contact, it’s suggested that what trigger Inej more than the touch itself is the sexual implications of those touches based on everything she went through at the Menagerie. Kaz doesn’t see Inej aligned with with himself or the other gang members, but as above them - and not in the way he labels Nina as a snob, but in a genuine manner he refuses to acknowledge her as low in society because he sees her as deserving of so much more. He notably never refers to her as “a canal rat” and he never even comes close to defining her by her time at the Menagerie, a start contrast between him, the supposed low of the hierarchy, and Van Eck, the supposed upper, he yells at her “you little skiv! You little whore!”. However, there is one way in which Kaz arguably looks down on Inej and it’s in a similar way that he looks down in Matthias: how dare she still try so hard to remain truly good, and decent, and to find her Saints and to politely ask them for forgiveness, when it would be so much easier to let the world beat that out of her? Arguably, it’s not that he judges either of them for their faith, but it’s that he fears them judging him for losing his, be that in religion or in the world at all. (I don’t think we know if Kaz was raised in a religious household or not, but based on societal structure in Ketterdam and the way most of the population in most of the countries are religious I think it’s safe to assume he at least grew up with an understanding of Ghezen). Kaz fears that they’ll judge him for failing to maintain his core of decency, which is exactly what Matthias does, and so he aims to offend or challenge them before they can him.

Ok I’m not gonna lie to you guys it’s like quarter past one in the morning as I’m writing this, and oh my god it just got so long out of nowhere… I might have lost my point somewhere in there, I don’t even know, this came from one quote I was thinking about and I’m not sure I even wrote that quote in there so, yeah, I guess. If you bothered to read this far the tysm I hope it made sense

[lurkingshan]

Love for Love's Sake Episodes 7 & 8

Well holy shit, that went in some directions I never imagined, and it was very dark indeed. I can't believe this intriguing little show is already over. So let's unpack what happened here.

My interpretation of everything we learned in these final episodes is that Myungha already died by suicide in the real world after a series of hardships, including the death of his grandmother, a long-term struggle with depression, and rejection from his ex and his mother, and the author gave him a chance to live again in the game world. The ending suggests he will now stay in the game world with Yeowoon and get another chance at life where his core objective is to make himself happy, and any expectation we had that he would have to return to the real world is out the window, because his life there has already ended.

But what exactly is this game world? I don't think we'll ever fully know for sure. Certainly, the show did not explain the how of it, or tie together all the vignettes we saw of Myungha and the author discussing their philosophy on life in a clear throughline to how we got to the game. The game world was purportedly based on the author's fictional novel, but all along it has taken on the features of Myungha's real life, including all the significant people we saw in his first life flashbacks. His grandma is here, his mother is here, his ex is even here in the guise of Yeowoon's agent. Myungha's memories and consciousness seem to inform the way this world was built, even as he did not create it. The author is given the role of Creator, somehow designing this world for Myungha to try to find happiness via seeking to make someone with very similar experiences to his happy.

Now, on this point, I don't think everything that happened in the original iteration of the game totally holds up. The way the author was messing with Myungha and forcing cruel choices on him really does not track with a desire to help him find happiness, and the point where Yeowoon seems to discover the game and somehow intervene to pull Myungha back in was lacking some clarity. And I wish the show had grounded us in Myungha's experiences earlier on rather than holding everything back for the sake of mystery--I do think that choice got in the way of a more coherent emotional arc for our protagonist.

But despite those quibbles, I still was able to connect with Myungha's struggles. This is a boy who has been so mired in his own misery that he doesn't know how to let anyone else in. He is too afraid to trust and let someone care for him in the way he cares for others. I wanted to reach through the screen and strangle him when his own emotional paralysis caused him to destroy the game--Yeowoon was telling him exactly what he needed, but he couldn't find the strength within himself to give it to him. And this is why knowing Yeowoon is exactly what he needed to see a different path for himself, because Yeowoon has experienced many of the same hurts but still finds within himself the ability to trust and rely on Myungha. Yeowoon is the stronger of the two of them, and Myungha needed to learn from him to overcome his own cowardice. Their happy reunion in the game world felt earned, and I believe in Myungha's ability to try again at both life and this relationship without holding back this time.

This show definitely wasn't perfect, but it really did some interesting things and left us with a lot to think about. I am looking forward to reading everyone else's interpretations of these final episodes, and Myungha and Yeowoon will be staying with me for a long time.

[elysianholly]

Fanworks vs. Published Works

Okay, so, I was on Reddit and there was this discourse of fanfic v. published work, and how the lines are beginning to blur more and more, particularly among readers, and how dangerous this is for fandom spaces because fanfic is not designed for the same sort of engagement one has with a published work. They look similar and feel similar, but equating them can be devastating for fanfic writers, particularly if people start reviewing and critiquing fanworks the same way they do published works.

The comparison on that subreddit—which I had never encountered but might well have been around forever and new to no one but me because sometimes I do live in a cave—was that fanfic is like a potluck. And I love that because it's 100% accurate.

At a potluck, you make something for people to enjoy out of love. It’s really shitty to go to a potluck, then walk up to someone who made what you believe is a subpar casserole and start in like you’re a food critic. You’re missing the point of the potluck. And you’re kind of a dick.

In a restaurant, the rules are different, just like in the publishing industry. You select a restaurant, you pay for a meal, and if the meal isn’t to your liking, you can leave the restaurant a review on Google or Yelp or the platform of your choice (assuming you didn’t just throw a tantrum in the restaurant itself, but that’s another discussion). And sure, YMMV from other diners’ experiences, but even if everyone loves this restaurant and you don’t, it’s perfectly acceptable to leave a subpar review listing the reasons why it didn’t meet your standards. It’s fodder for future diners to consider at this point, less for the restaurant itself. The way book reviews are meant to be for readers, not the author. The author will see it, they might get annoyed, but unless they want their career to go up in smoke, they won’t respond. Just like restaurant owners who go nuclear on bad reviews, word spreads when someone can’t take criticism.

And no, it’s still not cool to critique someone’s potluck dish even if that person is a professional chef. They still elected to invest their time, talent, and creativity to bring that dish to the potluck and are getting nothing out of it but the satisfaction of their dish being enjoyed. The potluck should be a safe space for everyone—the chef knows to expect unsatisfied customers at work; when they’re at play, when they’re relaxed and enjoying something with a chosen community, it’s really shitty to start acting like a customer in the restaurant. You don’t have to love what they brought but keep it to yourself and go try something else.

As a published author, it bothers me a lot more when people invade my fanfic space to be critical than it does any of the 20+ works I have for sale on Amazon and other vendors, and this is why. Fanfic is more personal because it’s unpaid labor created out of love and a desire for community. It’s not a commodity, and treating it like that is how you murder joy and, for some creators, sometimes the drive to ever create again.

So don’t be a dick at the potluck, okay?

[zahri-melitor]

Spoilery thoughts on Batman #148:

This story was pretty clearly drafted to be a 5 or 6 issue story, probably originally resolving in #150 as bringing the family together is a nice round number issue sort of event. My best guess is that the Nakano and Vandal Savage plot and some more of the back ups around the captured villains got cut to the bone to speed things up after Zdarsky was told #150 was needed for Absolute Power (and #149 is apparently doing the epilogue to set up for whatever goes on in Absolute Power). There’s a couple of really clear “and we just skipped 3-4 pages” sort of moments in the shape of the script for this issue (and in hindsight in #147) that if it had been allowed even an extra issue the story would have more space to breathe.

And despite that revised pagecount, Zdarsky still manages to deliver the moments he wanted to bring for Dick, Babs, Jason, Tim and Damian, so I’m impressed by that. Cass unfortunately did get relegated, but if I’m being objective about this, DC’s still waffling over whether Current Cass is adopted or not, and Zdarsky was already juggling a big list of characters (plus part of the point of having a big cast is that you don’t HAVE to focus on all the cast).

I did like how much space Zdarsky still found for the Damian-Tim-ZEA Robin plot. That did NOT resolve the way I predicted from the costume’s first hints in the background (I was totally on team ‘Tim puts on the costume sacrificially to try to get through to ZEA Bruce thinking he can handle this, and gets brainwashed’), but it was satisfying in terms of acknowledging Tim and Damian’s relationship (it was giving me Gates of Gotham vibes, which are the best Tim and Damian working together vibes), there was more discussion of the different elements both bring to the role of Robin and what’s good and bad about each, and how ZEA Robin doesn’t understand what makes you Robin. It was a pretty balanced fight scene. Tim gives Damian an assist, Damian gives Tim an assist, Tim’s a bit too overconfident and pays for it, Damian was a bit petulant about having to sit part of it out (though being tied up is like, PURE Robin aesthetic).

As far as the costumes go for the Robins Fight scene: honestly, switching Tim into a darker costume that was black and green with red accents complemented Damian’s black and grey with red accents aesthetic well, and contrasted with the ZEA costume being so bright red and yellow (which is playing off the original red, yellow and purple ZEA suit). Jimenez also gave everyone a different mask shape, which also helped distinguish everyone when you have three ‘Robins’ appearing in the same fight. All the Bat redesigns at the moment are leaning into darker palettes, and I appreciated the choice to go back to green as Tim’s ‘colour’, rather than red, given: his pre-2006 history used to use green quite often as his distinguishing colour; he can share it with Babs (team green for the computer nerds!); it’s not a colour they’ve particularly focused on for Damian for ages; and it gets him out from under having to share colour palette with Jason, given Jason can’t keep a costume consistent for a year.

It’s fine. It’s not my favourite Robin design I’ve ever seen, it’s not the worst Robin design I’ve ever seen (even on Tim), and it made the fight a lot clearer to follow.

I really liked that Barbara’s contribution was Oracle based and it made her inclusion make sense. I cackled at Dick getting to punch Daniel Captio (I was having serious echoes of the Cave argument in Bruce Wayne: Murderer/Fugitive, and from Tim’s delighted face for that punch I think Tim was too).

In terms of Jason, having him volunteer to take on the Lazarus-linked part of the plot and tell Bruce “let us have control of our own decisions” IS the resolution and apology for the mind alteration plot (which I am still pretty sure was a Rosenberg driven decision, not a Zdarsky one, in Gotham War), and look. That’s the sort of resolution you get a lot for comics plots. They’re cool. It was never going to end up as a big song and dance.

I like that the resolution pulled everything back to Failsafe. Good way to round off 2 years on the title. Nice extended story arc, with shout outs all the way back to #125.

I did have to laugh at Nakano calling Cass, Steph and Duke ‘child soldiers’ though. Those are all actual adults, sir! Even Duke’s supposed to be 18+ now.

[rationalisms]

sorry to discourse about the sexuality of video game characters but re: the whole "playersexual" debate...

this idea that people always either subtly imply or outright state in arguments around this is this sort of snide "well why would any of these people caaaaare about something so frivolous as gender when they have Real Problems!" (which you can also swap as needed in sci-fi with "well obviously in The Future everyone would have learned to be bisexual").

which is like. wildly homophobic obviously. outrageously so. this idea of gay people as someone who's just hung up on irrelevant or superficial parts of a person unlike people who Care About Someone's Soul, OR the idea that gay people are not sufficiently progressive enough and need to get with the times, is not even a new or innovative strain of homophobia. and yet i constantly see people repeat it confidently in discussions around "playersexuality" or video game romances with zero thought or care to how insensitive and cruel of a statement they're making. it's bugfuck insane.

also, it's not even like bi people are winning with the current status quo either, because these characters are almost never actually textually bisexual, they're just whatever sexuality matches up with the player avatar's gender. very few of them are openly attracted to the same gender outside of the romance path, or at all part of the wider lgbt community. (and no, a few missable party banters here or there with wink wink nudge nudge style comments does not count as either of those things.)

i would rather there be characters whose orientation is incompatible with mine and whose romance path i therefore might never experience, than there be a world which either implicitly or explicitly features absolutely zero gay people.

(as a complete side argument, i find this obsession with having to Experience Absolutely All The Content in one go and it being somehow a bad thing if there's things you might not see in this specific playthrough of a game a really weird idea too. and it's imo also not a good philosophy for game design, especially crpgs which by nature are supposed to branch widely and allow the option to experience the story differently depending on the choices you make. but that's only tangentially relevant.)

anyway. lesbian party members or bust.

[bananathebookworm]

TLOVM S3 Eps 10-12 Ramblings

Ep. 10

Love Keyleth letting herself be angry at how much everyone brushed off her concerns. I'm reminded that she almost took a level or two in Barbarian because of her frustrations.

Scanlan's still out, but I love this conversation between Kaylie and Pike.

In the campaign I really loved the conversations Keyleth had with Kerrek about her doubts and frustrations surrounding her role and responsibilities. I'm glad they still had elements of that in the conversations with her dad.

Stilben! The town where it all began.

"I have passed through fire." I will always love this line and the meaning behind it.

I love when the cast pops up as random people in the crowd.

I'm fully in love with Keyleth in this series. She's really stepping up and gaining that confidence.

I love that the party is getting these moments to deal with personal things away from each other. It's allowing for certain dynamics to shine. The twins. Keyleth and the Ashari. Pike, Grog, and Scanlan. Love it all.

Ep. 11

Keyleth's "Where do you find your strength?" moment is here and I love every goddamn second of it

Earth Elemental Keyleth!

I actually like the changes made to Scanlan's "resurrection," even if the impact is different from the main campaign.

"Listen you old twat." I love Kaylie so much.

Wish it had been the entire group teaming up to kill Ripley like in the campaign, but at least Vex was the one to end her.

"At least there's room for both of us on this thing." Unexpected Titanic shade...

Keyleth's face emerging from the sand while the twins are discussing Percy's soul made me laugh harder than it probably should've. The visual was just... perfect.

I love Keyleth. That is all.

"I had to leave to understand how much I need you all." Cool. That probably isn't foreshadowing anything important.

Ep. 12

I really love the design of this fight

And again: I love Keyleth.

I really like the mirroring of Vax and Keyleth's personal journeys this season. Vax learning to work with the Matron and Keyleth learning to trust herself as she harnesses the various elemental powers. I also really love the contrast of Vax in the Matron's realm surrounded by flowing lines of fate and Keyleth learning to feel the Earth and her connections to people through the jagged pathways.

I love the visuals of this ritual. Vax in Orthax's realm, the way various magics look from each caster, Percy in purgatory vs Percy in the chamber. I love it all.

Fuck you Orthax.

Assistance bear Trinket on duty.

Interesting changes made at this point and again I have the sneaking suspicion that it was partly because they weren't sure about a season 4 yet.

Der Katzenprinz!

General

They really use colour so well in this series. Every setting feels unique and evokes specific feelings all with just the colour choices.

Controversial Opinion (Maybe?): I like the changes they made to Scanlan's departure.

[temporalhiccup]

Intimacy in TTRPGS

(art by @geezmarty)

It's been a while since I geeked out about ttrpg design and I thought I'd dive into it! Some time ago there was discussion about intimacy and romance in games, and I wanted to talk about that today.

In particular this is about the Reveal Your Heart move in Apocalypse Keys and how it's a response to games that came before it.

Above is the Comfort or Support move from Masks: A New Generation. It's representative of what a lot of similar Powered by the Apocalypse moves are like (and many PbtA games since Masks have emulated this too).

In my experience with Masks it created a lot of lovely drama, "on a hit, they hear you" suggested that on a miss, they didn't. This often lead to delicious moments filled with angst: misunderstood feelings, good intentions not being enough, or being interrupted at the worst possible moment!

My main issue with this move and those like it (and it came up with various groups and players) was that most of the time it's hard for a player to correctly guess what would actually comfort or support another character in the moment.

It was also interesting that this was a move that was mostly about the person you were trying to comfort or support! Like most PbtA games, you're statistically more likely to roll a 7-9, which meant the target of the move was the only one who benefited mechanically.

This lead to a lot of awkward play. If we were lucky, the target of the move would speak up and offer a clear alternative "Oh that wouldn't actually comfort my character, he doesn't like being hugged or touched. I think what he'd want to hear in this moment is that he matters to you, that you think he's an important member of the team."

But most of the time something would go wrong somewhere - the target player wouldn't feel comfortable with speaking up, the triggering player would insist that this is what their character would do, etc. So the move would effectively not trigger, or we'd pretend it would and everyone would be awkward.

It just reminded me too much of my own personal experiences, where I would have to pretend I was happy with someone trying to comfort me because they had good intentions and it didn't matter if I was actually comforted or not. Seeing it play out, again and again, in Masks was something that always made me feel uncomfortable.

The trigger includes keywords like "offer" (suggesting acceptance is not guaranteed), "in a way that could be meaningful to them" reminds a player to place the target of the move's preferences first. Both results require the target to "open up to you", if they don't, the rest of the move just doesn't trigger.

Thirsty Sword Lesbians, which has a lot of Masks DNA in it, addresses this in an interesting way. It spells out a few things by refining the trigger and response of Emotional Support.

It felt a lot better in play, but for Apocalypse Keys and my own design preferences I wanted to shift the move into a different direction!

Reveal Your Heart (like every move in the game) taps into the relevant central themes. In this case the PCs are Omen-Class monsters who struggle with staying in control and handling difficult emotions (as well as the horrifying truth that they may become a Harbinger one day, and bring about the apocalypse instead of stopping it!).

The trigger here is dependent on a revelation of some kind, what are you revealing to another? This suggests vulnerability, or at least an innate truth of self. "try to sincerely connect to another" replaces the awkward and difficult task of trying to figure out what would comfort another person. This is a move that prioritizes an attempt towards intimacy, whatever that may look like. This is usually much easier to figure out, the question then becomes "how vulnerable are you going to be in this moment?"

Like in most Apocalypse Keys moves, I wanted each narrative choice to lead to a mechanical reflection. This further supports the idea that the narrative and emotional are mechanical and structural truths in the game - roleplaying and characterization are not separate aspects, they are connected to the act of playing. It also gives the players room to interpret what that means, "they gave you hope", what does that hope look like to you? How does it quell and calm the Harbinger that shifts and aches in your soul?

But! In general, I love how much intimacy and romance have flourished in the indie ttrpg space! It's definitely improved my play experience, and it's something I love to design around in my own games!

Essentially this move offers the players the room to name the feelings they have and lay bare the nature of their relationship. By the end of the move there's usually a sense that we've learned something essential about the relationship between the characters. No matter how small, it bears significance.

Many of the moves in Apocalypse Keys focus on relationships and intimacy of some kind, it's just very very queer that way.

[genshinemblem564]

Writing Prompts

Might use these, might not. Either way, here you go.

___________________________________________

• Isekai'd reader (normal or sagau) who doesn't trust authority figures because of the abuse of power from both police and politicians.

Diluc: I have to ask. Why do you only trust the vision bearers in the knights.

(Y/N): It might be because the people who were supposed to protect us back home constantly abused their power until my trust in any authority figure deteriorated to the point that I can't trust them unless I know them on a personal basis.

Diluc: Do you, um, want a drink?

(Y/N)(strained voice): That sounds lovely.

• Sagau imposter au Feral reader. The reader has been running and hiding for so long that they don't talk, just grunt and scream (roar). If anyone tries to approach them after the hunt, they start growling and trembling, they're terrified. It's not that they can't talk, they just don't see the point in it if no one listens.

• Sagau post imposter au, a reader who is self isolating, not out of hatred, but fear, technically. I don't know how else to describe it. Reader can forgive them easily, but no matter how much they want things to go back to normal, healing takes time.

• Morbid summoner. They've learned to keep these thoughts to themself, but everyone can still see their face contort in discomfort at their own thoughts.

Cordelia: I wonder. Is there any feeling worse than unrequited love?

Summoner starts slowly sinking to their knees and leaning against a wall.

Summoner: (muffled screams)

• Summoner who is just over this crap. Any villains who start monologuing, unless the goal is to buy time, will be met with a swift (dominant hand) hook.

• Sagau reader whose definition of a personal question is different from everyone else's. They are a bit too comfortable when discussing their body and "preferences". Matters of the heart, however, are what flusters them. This leads to many different scenarios. If the acolytes write fanfictions about them in your au, Miko, as the only one I can imagine being brazen enough, asks several of these types of questions with a sly grin as she imagines all of the new material she has to work with. It also leads to some awkward moments when their mouth moves faster than their brain.

Kaveh: The drapes in this design can NOT match the carpets.

(Y/N): Why not? Mine do.

Kaveh: Well, that's your choice, but for the design I'm going for....

As Kaveh continues, Cyno looks over to see you cringing. This leaves him confused for a moment before realization strikes, leading him to spit out his drink and begin howling with laughter.

___________________________________________

The reason some of these have writing along with them is simply because some of these rotted my brain more than others. Anyway, if you want to use these, feel free. I hope you like these.

Don't ask me what Kaveh is going for in his design, I didn't think that far, I just thought it was funny

[theheirofthesharingan]

You know, I think a lot of hate and misunderstanding towards Itachi comes from the fact that he is designed like he is 30 or 20-something by the time of the massacre. Pleople would empathize with him more if he looked like the child he was. In some flashbacks he looks and sounds more like Sasuke's father than his big brother. He is expected to act perfectly and to take the best decisions in all that involved Sasuke, as if he was the responsible grown-up in charge, and not just another child.

Yes, that's also a major reason. The first time he was introduced, he looked like a 16-17 year old to me, and in all the flashbacks he looks more or less the same. I don't relate to the sentiment of anyone hating him for this, though, or thinking he wasn't a child when it's been repeatedly told to us, but I guess usually it's not so for everyone.

I read somewhere that the reason he looks older than he is, is because of Sasuke's perception of him. Kishimoto draws him with more nuance, and he does look like a child in manga.

When, for the first time we see him as a child in Sasuke's flashbacks in manga, he looks like a 12 year old. He's very similar to how Sasuke would look without the marks on his face. Anime messed up giving him an adult voice and the similar appearance. Boruto does a better job at portraying him as a child in appearance and voice.

And, yes! Itachi having to act like an adult could have been explored with his Boruto look and voice too. It would be much more tragic to watch him slowly lose his grip on his sanity when he looked like a baby he's meant to be.

Another reason for the lack of sympathy from a lot of people towards him is that his story is told to us through a series of unreliable narrators. Sasuke, for example, gives us two different versions of Itachi. The evil and the good one. The good one (in the flashbacks before the massacre) shows us he was a good and kind boy. Kishimoto uses Itachi as a plot device to further Sasuke's story. If some information regarding Itachi is important to establish Itachi as a character, but is not relevant to Sasuke's arc, it will not be discussed. Otherwise we'd have gotten some information on the time Sasuke trained under Orochimaru and his own guilt for pushing Sasuke into that path. I'm not saying you have to give us all in real time, but after his death, through Kisame (who'd be a better person to talk about Itachi to Sasuke) we could have gotten some more info on him. But nope.

Obito is also an unreliable narrator. As is Hiruzen. Sasuke tells us about Itachi, his brother. Obito tells us about the tragic figure/martyr Itachi, and Hiruzen tells us the perfect Shinobi Itachi was.

There's very little of real Itachi himself in all this.

Sasuke didn't know everything about his brother. Obito didn't either or it didn't matter to him enough to reveal more details about Itachi to Sasuke. Hiruzen also had his own guilt and lack of information on Itachi, therefore he only tells us what he knows and considers right about him.

Everyone is telling us about their version of Itachi that they know is right. Itachi is probably the only character whose story is told us like that. For other characters the narrators are very much reliable. Madara's story, for example, is told through Itachi, Obito, and Hashirama. And Hashirama is the most reliable narrator, so we can ignore what Itachi and Obito said about him. It isn't the case with Itachi. In his case we have to draw the conclusions based on all the information we've received from other people.

I don't agree with people who say he's inherently cruel or evil. (I wrote about it here) Unlike many others, if given a slightly better option he would have made better choice. Who else in the Narutoverse had to make the hard choices that Itachi did and he stood by them? People can stay mad with countless 'he could have/should have done this differently' but they're speaking from an outsider's POV who has the luxury of not having been through the trauma the character they're criticizing did. Everything they hate him for can be countered using manga penals. I know this is the bird-eye view of things, but these penals are self-explanatory.

Itachi is one character who did everything wrong, but with proper context that 'everything wrong' can be explained, understood, and to some extent, even justified. If people are going to remove, twist, distort, deny, or downright ignore that context to continue their hate, then I have a very bad news for them. More on this here.

It's why I tend to disagree with most of the discourse on Itachi. People dropping the context depending on their convenience to talk shit about him. And I applaud Kishimoto for creating Itachi. Imagine creating a minor character in a 700-chapter long manga and people being mad about his fanbase. He's a very popular character and some folks like to feel intellectually and morally superior for hating on popular things. They also like to think they're different and hence very special.