#but!! I think I executed my vision fairly well

[sri-rachaa]

Man of the year || Milo Greer

[alevolpe]

Please tell us about Luna (and Artemis)!

Alright!

Luna as I mentioned here was a part of the rebellion group that included Beryl and the 4 kings back in the silver millennium, she was a crucial part of the operation as she was the only one with direct access to the Moon Kingdom and the Queen.

Though let me take it back a second and explain who Luna is. The name Luna isn’t her name per se, but more of a title/position in the royal court that is passed down. The role of a Luna is given to a human woman whose job is to be a caretaker, specifically she’s the caretaker for any reborn senshi.

Say the current Mercury does anything that gets her executed, the new Mercury will be reborn on Earth and it’s Luna’s job to take her from her human parents and raise her til the age where she’s mature enough to be independent.

Additionally, since it happens that a whole life of a Luna can pass by without her even needing to take care of any senshi ( read more on how old the senshis are here, in the comments) she also is entasked with small roles as advisor for the queen and mediator during Earth expeditions, both of these jobs are her responsibility ONLY if it has to do with the senshi.

Our Luna didn’t raise any of the senshi, they are all adults when she is given the title of Luna, despite that Luna still tries to be there for (most of) them like a mother would. She feels for them and understands the terrible situations they’re in. That said she’s not treated well by all of them, really the only ones that treat her nicely and with respect are Mars and Neptune, and in her own way Mercury.

Luna is very passionate, even in her current life, she’s very driven by a sense of justice, while also having a very compassionate heart toward the people she’s supposedly betraying. Though she’s never swayed to think that what she’s doing isn’t right, the people of Earth deserve better and for that, the Moon Kingdom has to fall, even if she knows it means most likely means the death of the senshi and the princess.

She’s eventually discovered and executed, Mars tipping off the Queen to her doings. Mars is a very interesting character in silmil and she’s def the most “lawful good” out them all, but with her future vision, she does what she has to make sure the pieces fall into place for a better future. She knew Luna’s execution was the only opening for such future, so she regrettably did what she had to do. There’s 0 animosity between them, more like a mutual respect and liability. They never talked about such issues openly between each other, but there was always a silent mutual understanding. Mars understood Luna’s actions and Luna’s understood Mars’.

Skipping to the current time, the same Luna that was executed was reincarnated into the body of a cat, my theory is that cats are nimble, low key creatures who are able to fairly easily integrate into society while still not being human and so that’s why the Queen chose such form. She didn’t want Luna to be a human cause she doesn’t need Luna to stick around long, cats live much shorter lives and she only needs Luna to care of the senshi during their ‘transitioning training’ period and then die, having fulfilled her purpose.

All Luna’s memories were erased, only keeping very foggy, but clear goals in her mind. Awaken the senshi, find the princess and stop the evil Dark Kingdom. I like to think Queen Serenity chose this past Luna to reincarnate instead of just getting a fresh new soul because Luna already carried that sort of experienced motherly vibe with her, making it easier the ease the senshi into accepting their new destiny, but also maybe as a sort of taunting punishment. This is your punishment for your betrayal, you’ll unknowingly help defeat the same group you were a part of all those years ago and that empire you tried to destroy, will rise once again, with you knowing no better and dying before even getting to witness it.

As for Artemis, my ideas with him are definitely not as fleshed out. I most often tend to see him as the royal advisor of the Queen, his name also being a title. He really believes the Queen to be a sort of superior being, but he does also have a deeper attachment to her, seeing the more human side to her, which no1 else really gets to see.

He’s a bit more on the cynical side when it comes to the Earth people. Not that he sees them as completely inferior, but he believes people like them need beings like Serenity to mantain peace and order, even if they don’t know better. Humans are inherently selfish and self-destructive, he witnessed it, being a human who grew up on Earth.

He regularly interacted with Venus, being another victim of her manipulations, even if not to the level of Serenity, and holds her to a standard higher than the other senshi, seeing the rest of them as unmotivated and ungrateful of being a part of the court.

Unlike Luna, he retained his memories when he got reincarnated. Lying and withholding information to the true extent of what the senshi, the princess and the kingdom truly entail to the future of the girls and Earth itself, even from Luna.

He believes he’s doing the right thing, that Queen Serenity knew better and that this is how things should be. Though in the back of his mind something doesn’t feel right, he feels hurt and betrayed. Why was he reborn as a cat? He understands why Luna was, but why him, he showed nothing but devotion and loyalty to the Queen. Did he really not mean anything to her or does she really know best and knows that Artemis’ fate is ultimately inconsequential to the rise of the new kingdom?

This conflict within him is a major part of his growth as a character, learning to unwind and truly rethink what being human means through the girls and especially through Mina.

Regarding their relationship, I really do not ship Luna and Artemis. Through the majority of the first arc Luna is left in the dark by him and lead to make decisions that ultimately will cause the girls more harm than good. They are coworkers at best and even after stuff get a lil cleared out, Luna still holds a huge resentment toward him never really gets resolved (in my hc, Luna doesn’t live past the 2nd season, sorry, ik, I love her too).

This is long I know , sorry. LOL, but hopefully it clears some things up and of course all I write int his asks is still a draft, so stuff might change.

[hotwaterandmilk]

No Accounting for Taste

I've never been accused of having "good taste" when it comes to, well, any type of media. However, when it comes anime/manga I find I'm accused of being contrarian or ignoring genuinely "good" titles in favour of "bad" ones fairly often.

While that's not exactly groundless, it doesn't paint the full picture of what I find interesting and why it intrigues me so I thought I'd write about it a little.

I like a lot of popular, agreed upon "good" titles where a masterful artist or team or artists executes a beautiful vision that may not get everything right, but still manages to tick the majority of boxes and leave the audience remembering the experience for years to come (something like Shoujo Kakumei Utena or Cowboy Bebop, for example).

However, these series don't tend to be the ones I obsess about and collect things from and that comes down to the fact that I just love an interesting mess. Something that catches my attention in a unique way despite not having the story weight/talent/etc. to pull it all off.

You know those series with a fantastic concept but terrible execution? Or series with a couple of genuinely fascinating characters and mediocrity across the board otherwise? Yeah, those are what I love.

That doesn't mean I turn my head and ignore these flaws (Akihabara Dennou-gumi for example has a fantastic backdrop of alchemy, but that doesn't excuse the disgusting fanservice or explain piss-poor overall production).

If anything, I find those flaws intriguing in their own right (how does something with so much promise end up failing to stick the landing? Why were these the directions these titles took?) and learning about why they happened can continue to fuel my interest in the titles years after I've first experienced them.

And of course what is "good" and what is "bad" is extremely subjective, not everyone will agree on what the "best" title of all time is no matter how many fans you survey. I think what matters to me at the end of the day is that, for whatever reason, an eclectic assortment of titles have just hit me at the exact right point in my life for me to become engrossed by their eccentricities, flaws, and yes, even their successes.

That's why you'll find me sharing the odd scan from genre-defining titles like Sailor Moon, but when it comes to tearing apart art books and tracking down obscure pieces of stationery, I reserve that kind of dedication for Wedding Peach because it just hit me different 25+ years ago and I still can't shake it (despite the series being what it is).

Anyway, Saturdays are a real brain fog day for me because Friday is when I take my weekly meds so, err, this isn't a particularly articulate examination of my interests or anything. I just got to thinking last night that I find Ryuu-ou Mahoujin more intriguing than GALS! despite the former being a short-lived, break-neck paced mess of a production and the latter being a clearly thought out and popular title from the same author.

I'm also currently re-watching Kamichama Karin and it is such a hot mess of things I can't stand and things that make me genuinely go "what was Koge-Donbo* thinking?" but these flaws compel me to keep pressing play on episode after episode.

I just feel that at the end of the day there's enough room in the world for all of us to enjoy different problematic faves and to highlight successes without pretending failures don't also exist. Every project whether it ends up "good" or "bad" has a team of individuals doing their best on it and I think that's something that resonates with me even if the end product is a total mess.

Sometimes a project veers away from the course it was meant to take and never becomes what it could have been, but those trace elements of brilliance can get noticed by someone who experienced the title at the right time and vibed with the core concepts regardless of the execution.

So creators, take heed, even if the project you work on doesn't end up an iconic series with millions of fans there will always be weirdos like me out there that love the memorable parts of what you did manage to do while also noting the bits you got wrong. Sometimes one person's trash really is someone else's treasure (and yes you'll have to pry Wedding Peach et al. from my cold, dead hands).

[anghraine]

I've talked before about why I'm annoyed by the defensive leap to "things have to be changed for different mediums!" as the go-to response to any criticism of any adaptational changes ever.

The short(ish) version is that a) it's virtually always presented as something critics of the change have never heard before, despite being incessantly repeated about everything, but more importantly, b) the underlying rationale that a specific change is intrinsically good because some change there was required by the medium (or because change in general is required by the medium) strikes me as unreasonable in the extreme.

With regard to the second issue, the statement that adaptations require changes, in part because of differences in medium, can be 100% true without supplying any reasoning whatsoever for why a specific change was a good one. Yet it's far and away the most common response I see—this sort of kneejerk insistence that all changes should be accepted uncritically because in general, changes have to be made at some points. And that's just a weak line of reasoning, IMO, which makes its inescapability all the more irritating.

That said, I was thinking about this particular argument in the context of something I mostly agreed with, and realized that there is another reason I find it both unsatisfactory and annoying.

The argument is sometimes accompanied by other arguments about how adaptations are fundamentally artistic works in their own rights, anyway, with nothing worthwhile gained by examining their relationships to their sources. However, I don't think these arguments go together particularly well.

The first one, the one I find so deeply annoying (I don't like or agree with the second, but it's not as irritating to me personally), essentially denies the artistry of adaptation. The thing is, if you assume that particular adaptational changes follow automatically and inevitably from the medium, and don't represent actual choices between alternatives, there's no artistry at work. Doing something when you have to do it and have no other real option isn't a meaningful choice, in my opinion—not just morally, but artistically.

Art requires the exercise of judgment. You have to actually make choices to do things in a particular way, when you could have chosen differently. It's your choices as an artist that speak to your artistic vision, and this is true whether we're talking about adaptation or not.

In adaptation in particular, though, keeping something the same as the source material is a choice. Changing something is a choice. These are artistic decisions that could have been made differently, that were made for reasons. Those reasons may or may not be persuasive for other people, and the execution of those choices may or may not be effective in the judgment of others. These are not just direct consequences of medium carried out by automatons.

Art requires vision and vulnerability. Among other things, you constantly have to make choices that depend on your vision for your project, and open you up to criticism in terms of that vision, its connection to the reasoning that culminated in particular choices, and the execution of those choices.

Note: I've said "you" in an implied singular kind of way, but this is true whether we're talking about a single artist, or a large collaborative production like cinematic adaptations. Artistic decisions intrinsically open you up to criticism if they are decisions in any meaningful way, while if your hand is forced to the point that you aren't exercising artistic judgment and choice, then we're not talking about art.

And I get that total fidelity purists can be annoying and equally uncritical of the source material. But you can't fairly argue that adaptations are art and then deny that artistic judgment and decisions are being made.

[esxvspy]

YTTD THEORY ABOUT THE THIRD MAIN GAME IN THE LOGIC/SHIN ROUTE

(Spoilers obviously if you haven’t played all the way through the game)

So I saw some else have an idea similar to this, but here’s what I think the card roles are going to be then I’ll explain why

Shin - keymaster

Keiji- sage

Sara - sacrifice

Gin - commoner

Ok so shin is 100% going to be the keymaster, that’s easy. I figured he was going to be ever since we saw his key necklace in chapter 2-2. He also quite literally holds the key to their escape/survival. He can either lock Sara and co out, like in chapter 1 and kind of chapter 2, or he can open up like in chapter 2-2. And he needs to choose what he wants to seal the fate of the others.

Sara is also easily the sacrifice. She can either sacrifice the others and earn her life, like we see her almost do in chapter 3-1b w ranmaru. Especially now that joe is not there, this could be the case, the angel of death like keiji says. Or she could be their goddess of victory, and sacrifice herself in order to save the others.

Keiji is probably the wisest out of them. He can see things others can’t with his “detective vision”. He knows way more then he seems to let on, and he’s very good at staying quiet and keeping secrets when needed.

Gin is going to be the commoner then. He’s fairly normal and average at first and just like the commoner card he’s almost always at danger. But he always tries to help when he can and has proven to be useful.

Like I said someone else pointed out the symbolism w this, but I think it’s more then that. If I’m right and these are the cards that they get, then that probably means that Sara and keiji are biting the dust. (Maybe gin too but I hope not 😰.) Sara will be executed just like joe, and this probably means, just by looking at shin’s death in 2-2 and Kai’s “death” (I really don’t believe he’s dead) in chapter 1, then keiji is probably going to do something against what the floormasters want. Like shin’s collar coming off and Kai’s “suicide” (still don’t believe he’s dead). Idk what he’s going to do or how it’s going to be done, but yeah.

This would also line up almost perfectly with the memorandum from 2-2. Assuming gin dies as well, and sole survivor shin, then it fits perfectly.

Anyways that’s my Ted talk of the day

[sohushygrayness]

Project Number: 4: Kitchen Company App

Project type: Epic.

Goal: to design an Application interface that can be used for a business that sells Kitchens.

Planning.

Materials: Microsoft Powerpoint

Time: 6 hours+

Budget: £5.99 (the cost of one month of Microsoft Office).

Learning: PowerPoint, UX Design, UI Design

Research:

Skills: Microsoft Powerpoint, Design Principles

Execution

I start with perhaps a fairly crude blank design. I envision a blank white background with a PowerPoint icon that I find by searching ‘Kitchen’.

For the sake of ideation, we’ll call this company The Kitchen Company. I don’t have experience of logo design and perhaps i’ll come back to this section. Once the Application opens we then land on the home page. There are many things to be considered at this point. I’ve stuck to a commonly accepted design in which we have the search bar at the top of the application. Then the main section underneath the search bar will be where this company advertises its main idea. Underneath this, I’ve then opted to go with free sections which are as follows: firstly we have a “view your plan“ section. Although this section would work well for somebody who already has a plan, it may not work as well if the customer doesn’t have a plan. So, perhaps for those that don’t have a plan, this could be, the section where the customer can click to start planning their kitchen. Then we have the rate your purchase section and perhaps on the right hand side of that we have a section that will be geared towards cookware. Underneath this we will have our product catalogue.

We then move into what I’m picturing as the planning plan stage of the application and customer journey. My vision for this section is twofold: firstly, for those who haven’t made a purchase we would show them the product range on the top half of the screen and then on the bottom half of the screen we can use a augmented reality to to help customers plan their kitchen. However, if they have already made their plan then this is where they can visualise it in augmented reality. I’m picturing the customer have an ability to make a 3-D holographic of the kitchen at the click of the bottom. We would keep the surge bar at the top of the app, in case the customer needs to type something to find it however I’m still undecided whether this would be needed at this point in the customer journey.

Then we move onto the Contact tab. This is, admittedly the page that I am least unsure of. I would assume that the 2 preferred methods of contacting this company would be the phone and emailing. However, I would personally prefer to have it as only the phone option and perhaps expand on this with an FAQ, maybe a ticketing system? In my mind I’m envisioning perhaps needing to see a picture of an item which may limit us to either email or chat.

Lastly, the final tab will be, I think the profile option. My first initial design here is to have a login or sign-up option. However, would this be appropriate? I am making an assumption here that anybody who has downloaded this app would either use it because of how good the AR technology is within the App or because they already have a Kitchen and want maintenance advice. I still think I should keep it but not restrict some features of the App without an account. 

Reflection: this has been a fun experience. A lot of the initial design has been trialling things and seeing what I think if I was a customer. I will say though that this is yet to be finalised and this is version 1.0 of this design. I will return to it.

Outcome:: N/A

Lessons: 

‘Checkout’ or the purchasing page shouldn’t be its own tab which was what I had in my first initial design.

[crownshattered-arch]

|| SO gonna reconstruct Anne's backstory, so this post is going to explain the new details, as well as explain Adrian, Anne's twin brother (younger twin)~ These things are super open to change, so they might not actually stick in the finished product. A lot of this has to do with how Fontaine works once we know more about it~

Background info!!

To start with, I'm changing their last name. Thinking about something with the root word "Diabolus". Any ideas of what to do with that would be SO appreciated!!

Anne and Adrian are in no way related to Diluc anymore. Their family has no apparent roots to Mondstadt anymore. Yeah, Anne looks a lot like Diluc, but that's just coincidental~ The Diabolus (working name until I change it XDD) family has lived in Fontaine for generations and has been an aristocratic family that is quite close to the Hydro Archon. However, everyone in this family has, for generations, seen Focalors as a joke.

Even though they are high class nobility in Fontaine, this family runs the criminal underworld of information in all of Fontaine...as well as all of Teyvat. That organization is called The Underworld, and Anne is the current head (this hasn't changed). She has branches in every nation with an executive acting as the head, but with the changes to her character, she doesn't need a Fontaine "executive" since she already runs this branch herself. She runs the Fontaine branch as well as the whole Underworld (though I may have Adrian do most of the Fontaine branch stuff...maybe idk)

Info about the twins' family!!

Anne and Adrian are hella close. They've been inseparable from birth. Anne is the older twin and Adrian is younger, and Anne has always been much stronger than Adrian. She was a strong and tough girl who always loved running around and getting into things, but Adrian was rather sickly as a child and couldn't always keep up with his sister. Whenever he couldn't keep up, his mother would keep him company.

As children, Anne was a lot like their mother--brave, strong, and so emotional and free-spirited. By contrast, Adrian was just like their father when their father was a child--quiet, shy, ill-bodied. But the two had each other, and that's all that mattered.

Their mother loved them very much and gave them enough love for both of their parents. However, their father was not a very affectionate parent. He loved his children, but in his own "proper nobility" way. He didn't play with them. He was always working. He was very distant from his children. Anne didn't really like him because of this, even as a young child, but Adrian still wanted to get his attention in any way possible.

I'm not sure when this will take place nor do I know much of the details, but at some point (maybe when they were around 10..?) SOMETHING happens that puts the family in danger. I really don't know the specifics and I would like to bounce my ideas off of someone, but what I want to end up happening is at some point Adrian is with his mother and sees her get brutally murdered right in front of him (like a shot through the head or something, something to really scar him) and I want something to happen later where Anne defends Adrian from a potentially fatal attack, getting her hand deeply cut in the process but also giving Anne her vision. Anne then burns herself with the intensity of her vision (her passion is INCREDIBLY strong and unstable, after all) and Adrian gets his hydro vision shortly after to heal his sister.

So their mom dies and Adrian sees it, and the two get their visions within the span of a few days at most~ But that was a long time ago. It has affected Anne, of course, but it really affected Adrian. He's now terrified of losing anyone else that he loves, so he does whatever he can now to keep his loved ones (especially Anne) safe, even if they don't need it. Even if they don't want it.

At some point fairly recently, their father retired and appointed Anne as the new head of the Underworld and the head of the family itself. She didn't want this, but she didn't want Adrian to be stuck in this role either, so she took it. That much hasn't changed.

In Anne and Adrian's original story, they have a very close connection to Lia (who I made for the same story, actually). I want to keep that connection. So, whenever Lia in her genshin verse fled Snezhnaya, she found the Underworld (either she was told to go there or she happened to find them) and Anne and Adrian kind of took her in for a bit and allowed her to lie low. They would NOT normally do this, so I need to figure out why they would do this for her (they are not a charity here). But in the time they kept Lia hidden, both twins fell in love with her, and Lia didn't return the feelings. They still keep tabs on her in Mondstadt. Anne just wants to make sure she's safe, and Adrian is a bit more...obsessive. (THIS DOESNT ALWAYS APPLY!! If I have a ship with Anne or Adrian that has lasted for a few years before the current story timeline, said twin did not fall in love with Lia. But if they weren't in a relationship when Lia was under their care, they fell for her.)

Info about Adrian himself!!

Hydro, thinking I may make him a bow user... Maybe a catalyst. The only reason I would make him a bow user is because his body is still kind of weak, but if Baizhu can be a catalyst user, so can Adrian XDD

Anne is scary because she's powerful, not just as the head of the Underworld but also because she is crazy strong with her pyro vision. However, Adrian is scary because he is unhinged. He's unpredictable, and if you cross him (or ESPECIALLY his sister) your life is in grave danger. Your only hope is to get on Anne's good side so she can restrain her brother.

Adrian is so loyal to Anne. These twins have a lot of death/grim reaper/devil motifs. So one way you can think about the twins is that Anne is Hades and Adrian is Cerebus. He is like her dog when it comes to work (but she doesn't treat him like a dog, she treats him like her younger brother who she loves so much. But he's very dog-like).

I don't exactly know what Adrian's job in the Underworld is... Maybe he will be Anne's right hand, but I think he will mostly be her most skilled informant. If she needs to personally send someone to get information, she will send her brother...unless she's worried he will make a mess of the situation.

BE CAREFUL WITH ADRIAN. He is totally yandere material. He can be nice at times, but he also highly obsessive when it comes to the people he cares about. The only reason he doesn't make "accidents" for anyone Anne is dating (thus taking his sister away from him in his eyes) is because Anne won't let him. Anyone else, however, he will cling to in an unhealthy manner. This will NOT be romanticized. This is just me exploring what Adrian's trauma has done to his mentality. But do not go into interacting with Adrian and assume he is some nice guy.

Adrian is my one token straight muse XDD I just don't see him being shipped with a guy...maybe this can change, but until then, these siblings only like girls XDD

More TBA..??

[rozinaaa]

Exhibition Time

There's going to be an exhibition on for one week in December, where everyone on the cohort will showcase one work (or thereabouts, it depends on what actually constitutes as one work in the first place anyway) in a retail space, where there is already plenty of footfall, due to the fact that it is literally a retail space within the town centre, which means that people will actually view the work, well I'd hope so anyway.

Collectively as a cohort, we viewed the space last week (on 14th November) just to get an idea of how everyone's work would work in that specific space (which in this case is shabby, bright, and extremely yellow, so in other words, not pristine at all, the complete opposite of the white cube), so it would be interesting to see how this turns out.

On top of that, there are roles that everyone has to take up in order for this to be a collective effort, where everyone contributes, essentially working as a team in order to make the exhibition work as effectively as possible. The roles in question are: Visualisers, Project Managers, Communications, Technicians, and Invigilators/Interpreters. For me choosing the role was essentially a no brainer, since I knew what I wanted to do from the start, essentially ruling out anything that wasn't my strong suit, or anything that didn't really pique my interest.

I chose to do the role of the Technician since I feel that it's very fitting for me (mainly personality wise), and also because I was the most interested in that role since it allows me to build up my skills, which in this case, would focus on the physical aspects of the exhibition, such as installing work, doing any painting, putting up any signage etc, which to me, seems pretty exciting, and is something that I look forward to doing.

Now, for the more negative aspects, mainly focusing on why I didn't choose the other roles. I chose not to be a Visualiser since my visions are highly unrealistic and impractical for the timeframe, and the physical space of the exhibition, which means that I need to be fairly conventional in my ways, which in turn, essentially cramps my style, so just trying to be realistic about my visions was impossible.

I chose not to be a Project Manager because of my undiagnosed ADHD rat brain, because whilst I do have good intentions about scheduling things, I just cannot simply get up and do the task at the right time, which makes doing things really hard, since I'd have to factor literally everything else in, as well as struggling with determining how long it will take to do a task (in this case, breakfast for me can either last 10 minutes or 2 hours, and there's no in between, and I never know which is going to happen), since it varies, where sometimes, I struggle with doing basic tasks that I know I have to do before a certain time, essentially forcing myself to do it against my will, if I want anything to get done. However, with that said, I'm fine if there's a schedule set by someone else, because at least I know that it's essentially non-negotiable, that I either show up and get a good reputation for being reliable (which is what I want), or that I'm deemed as unreliable if I don't show up (which is what I want to avoid), so it's fairly ironic that I actually want to have a schedule set by someone else, since I don't have to then think about it, and deal with the annoyance that is essentially my own executive dysfunction, whilst also trying to avoid dealing with the stress that comes with deadlines, essentially keeping everything within moderation.

I chose not to work in Communications, because no matter how hard I try, I always struggle with social media, and convincing people to do things or take action (which ironic since I spent a year doing exactly this, but to no avail) is not my strong suit, not to mention that I am not interested in being a brand or a content creator since they seem fairly limiting and restrictive. I'm not really that active on social media, and in an ideal world, I'd have no social media accounts, but that isn't the case, since I'd still need to be reachable in a world where everyone is connected, so to make it up, I have social media accounts which I have, but lurk on, essentially mindlessly scrolling, so in this case, I'm mainly on social media out of obligation, although with everything going on at the moment, I simply do not have the time to use social media at all, which is actually a blessing in disguise, unless I need to log into Instagram in order to view an artist's work, simply because they don't have their own website, which I personally think is a bit ridiculous to be honest, because I'm then forced to keep it in order to not shoot myself in the foot as an artist.

Finally, I chose not to be an Interpreter/Invigilator because that sounds like a fairly boring role to have if I'm being honest, where I'd literally have to traipse around the exhibition space, essentially being a security guard, and to be honest, I have better things to do than just that.

So, that's my justification of why I'm essentially a Technician, mainly owing to the joke and the fact that I am the designated tech person wherever I go, essentially being the dad friend (even as a cis woman, knowing that I'll never be a dad) of any group that I find myself in, where I tell more dad jokes than my actual dad, essentially outdadding my dad. Hell, my default aesthetic is the fact that I look like I'm going to come and fix your internet, paired with looking like I'm from the 80's, which also links to the theme that I have on my site, but I'll elaborate on that later. I know it sounds super duper corny, but it feels like I was born for this role.

I think I might head back to the exhibition space at some point to look at the space itself for a second time, just to get an idea of how it'll work, and how I might display my own work in that space, as well as how others might display their work, along with picking up on any details that I might have missed the first time round.

[devsgames]

okay okay you got me @pigdeons

This initial thought was brought on from a memory when years ago a rando person online tried to put me on blast for arguing that objective markers are generally a good thing.

Their argument was essentially that "good" games shouldn't have objective markers at all, because it's not "immersive", and essentially that if a game has objective markers it means that the Level Designer failed to make a "good" Level Design because it doesn't lead the player effectively. I think this sentiment is fairly common too; that if a game has "good" level design then it should successfully lead you around a space by default with no assistance, or else the Level Designer has failed.

So first off, I think "good" design is a myth. Generally, I don't believe design is "good" or "bad", and referring to it as such is something that I just fundamentally do not agree with. Rather, I believe that design just has varying levels of success for different types of audiences - it's subjective to who is playing and what methods are used, and this is determined by many factors (culture, psychology, thought process, learning style, etc). Rather, I think the goal of any designer should be to try and cover the widest range of cases possible.

One person might navigate a series of objectives successfully with zero issues without the use of something at all times telling them where to go, while someone else might flounder completely without something holding their hand the whole way. Both of these are valid players who should be catered to, and one doesn't need to implicitly be held to a higher standard on the basis of personal preference or game vision.

I also think that generally in level design, if you're building any kind of objective-based gameplay that isn't a straight hallway with one exit and no distractions where the gameplay is hard scripted to execute in an exact way...well then you're going to lose players.

Someone will always get turned around. Someone will always press the wrong button. Someone will always be too slow. Someone will always forget what they're supposed to do. Someone will always struggle to find the path to get to point B.

Do I wish that players just knew where to go and what to do all the time so we could just build worlds that are implicitly understood? Totally! Unfortunately that's just not how Level Design works, especially not when building a whole game.

At this point in my career I have watched hours of players playing the levels I have made, and I have never seen a group of players - in playtests or in the wild - all have the exact same perfect experience navigating a space of any kind. I've seen people beat levels with no help, blind, first try with no problems at all, as well as players who have to toddle their way meticulously from point to point. Unless your level design is so dirt simple that a mullosk could do it, it simply doesn't happen and you'll always have people who will struggle through it. It's the same in real life - if you sit and watch people on any street corner for any amount of time you're going to see someone at some point or another get lost. It's just how people are.

Hence, there's always people out there that step-by-step influence will be vital for, and objective markers are something that lifts a skill floor up for those people to engage with your game. For some, that moment of confusion could be when they quit, and a guidance tool like markers could be the thing that prevents that.

I also think anyone who says levels should be perfectly navigable with no non-diegetic assistance 1) have almost never built a level before and 2) has never built a level in a context that necessitated actually shipping a game.

Games that don't use objective markers are often explicitly designed around that premise, and a ton of resources go into ensuring these systems don't need to be added. You'll see immersive sims thrown around a lot as an example of this, and that's because it's fundamentally part of that genre to be "immersive". You'll also notice that they're generally smaller, more focused bites of gameplay compared to the scale of other games, and these small spaces are iterated on way more frequently by way more people. They'll often have you exploring a single building or series of rooms in isolation rather than, say, a whole world. It's because there's SO MUCH work in making a world that directs you well without something explicitly guiding you, and even then these games will fail at it. The sheer amount of resources a Level Designer would need to execute that successfully for a wide number of players is staggering - I personally could never imagine building something without any non-diegetic UI and expecting it to "just work".

But hey, I'm just a Sr. Level Designer, what do I know. :)

As a case study: when I worked at Ubi I was on a project where one of our directors scrapped all the objective markers in the whole game, mid-production. Because the game wasn't fundamentally built for it from the ground up, and it was an open-world game with many objectives intricate enough to be distracting and demanding of the player's attention. It took a year for them to realize the scale and attention such a move would require simply wasn't available with the resources we had, and eventually we re-added all of them. Fun!

I also believe people use 'immersion' as a strawman to disingenuously attack design they simply don't like on the basis of it, and I see that happen a lot with stuff like non-diegetic UI markers.

I mean, to some players "immersion" is not having a HUD while playing, and to other players "immersion" is 'I want to have to press a button to breathe and blink and sleep for 8 hours in game to recover stamina'. Ask someone what makes a game "immersive" and you'll never get the same answer, and this is largely because "immersive" just depends on a player's values and what they like in a game. Therefore, I think it's just a fundamentally weak argument to imply that games shouldn't have markers at all, just because some people aren't "immersed" by them. I mean hell, half the games people tout for not having objective markers still have tons of non-diegetic UI. This is all just stuff I think stems from the wider cultural torrent that is ~video games~ though.

Anyway I'm rambling.

The fundamental idea here is that I think if you can put objective markers to assist you in guiding the player through your game, I think you should because no Level Design will ever be good enough. It's often cheap, easy to do, and frankly helps far more players than it hurts. I think it should be treated like an accessibility tool and control of it should be given to players to choose how much of it they want, where, etc. so that players who need the help get it, rather than have people campaigning to cut them out entirely from games and hoping the level design "just works".

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk :)

My hot take is that objective markers in video game UI is very good and that virtually every video game should have them, and that the pros vastly outweigh the cons.

[adobe-outdesign]

I bother you for a review of the Sobble line, my beloveds?

I see a lot of hate for this line, but honestly, Sobble is pretty cute. An anxious little Pokemon that weaponizes its tears is a fun concept (#relatable), and visually, I like a lot of what's going on with it.

The little chameleon-style mitten hands and feet are nice, the fin on top of the head adds a perfect touch of color, and the little tear markings under the eye are a nice way to hint at the theme when its not actively crying, which in turn is paralleled by the blue circle at the tip of its tail. My only visual nitpick is that the eyes could've stood to have some yellow in them to make them pop.

I gotta admit, however, that it does suffer from a kind of generic body shape. All of the gen 8 starters have the same basic form, and so it feels like the nice visuals of Sobble are held back by an underwhelming and generic execution that make it less memorable than it potentially could have been. It's still perfectly good, just not as memorable as it could've been.

Drizzle gets some points for at least being unique in the line, but it was always my least favorite stage due to, once again, feeling generic—except this time, it doesn't have the strong balanced visuals Sobble has to compensate.

I think part of the problem with Drizzle is a lack of clear focus or direction, which stems from the whole line. Sobble's concept is that it's a timid and fearful chameleon that uses its color-changing abilities to hide, but it evolves into... a super spy (probably because spies are stealthy, which once again ties into the invisibility thing, except Inteleon is more of a basilisk lizard than a chameleon anyway). So Drizzle's left just kind of being emo, I guess to tie back into the sadness thing? I feel like if they just subtly hinted at the spy thing and focused on that from the beginning instead of randomly changing themes, the line would've been more cohesive, and Drizzle here would have more direction.

Visually, putting the bland body shape away, it retains some of Sobble's good elements, like the mitten hands and tear markings. However, the color palette changes randomly here to include green and purple, which go away again as soon as it evolves (the green areas could've easily been yellow, for example). The fin is generic looking and lacks the nice structure and colors of its evo/pre-evo as well. It's not the worst thing, but it's fairly bland.

This might be a hot take, but I actually really like parts of Inteleon's design. Even if the line could've focused on it more, the idea of a spy chameleon with basilisk attributes is pretty cool, and I like some of the biological aspects, like it having nictitating membranes and a sharp, knife-like tail.

I also like the head area. The fin looks cool, the face is properly lizard-ish, I like the expression and the yellow eyelids, and the built in "glider" is neat. It's nice to see it finally get a more distinct shape after two stages of generic round heads. Also, the wetsuit markings are clever for a water-type. Also also, it looks pretty good in motion:

However, I do agree with the general opinion that the body shape is a bit off. First, it's ridiculously thin, almost like an anole or long-tailed grass lizard; it feels like a strong breeze could break its arms. This is also emphasized by things like the long, human-like legs and human hands (lizard hands are more spread out, and don't have joints in the same places as human hands). If it just had more lizardish anatomy—think like Kecleon, Salazzle, Heliolisk—I could see myself liking it a lot more.

I also feel like it could've stood to be a little more chameleon-like, as that's the only reason its a spy to begin with. Nothing wrong with the basilisk elements, but why not give it some cool weird chameleon eyes that look like night-vision goggles, or let it keep the mitten hands? Emphasize that and the stealth and the concept would be a bit clearer.

Also, some small visual nitpicks: The stripe down the tail adds nothing and isn't needed. Also not a huge fan of the white diamond on the stomach as it seems out of place (even if it is supposed to be a suit). Mostly, though, it's just the anatomy that throws me.

The g-max is the best out of the starters on the grounds that it's at least not an item that becomes larger, even if the entire body still hasn't grown much. Also, the concept is pretty fun, with it using its long tail as a sniper tower.

However, I also feel like this doesn't make much sense. First, what does a sniper have to do with spies? Just because they both use guns and are stealthy, I guess? But secondly, this thing is 100 feet tall. Isn't the point of snipers to be unnoticeable? Who is gonna get sniped by this thing because they didn't notice the 100-foot tall lizard tower of death? It's fun on paper, but doesn't hold up when you think about it actually in-battle.

Also, it's weird that the tail starts out spiraling and then suddenly straightens out, especially when the fin curls around. Why not just make the entire thing spiral-shaped? I feel like that would be a lot more natural as opposed to the suddenly perfect straightness going on here.

Anyway, overall: Sobble is cute and has a nice design, but suffers a bit from a generic body shape. Drizzle lacks direction, and Inteleon is pretty cool looking but stand to be more chameleon-ish, both conceptually and visually. The g-max is fun but doesn't really make much sense when you stop to think about it.

In fact, the more I think about it the more I think this might be my fav gen 8 starter—though that isn't saying a lot.

[steveharrington]

Oh yeah I mean. Barb vs Chrissy is very distinct Barb is treated like a normal character introduced fairly naturally over the course of two (?) episodes, I don’t think we even learned her last name until season 2 with her parents (which makes sense. I don’t say my last name often in conversations). Meanwhile season 4 is like. Here’s Chrissy. Cunningham. She’s a brand new character! Here’s everything about her from her interests to her family to her dickish bf to her traumas. Here’s a fun middle school anecdote that doesn’t make sense with the timeline we’ve already established. Then she dies after existing for like, 30 minutes of screen time (most of which she wasn’t in). NONE of that felt natural. And the only characters who had any real reason to care were Jason and to a much lesser extent eddie (maybe max at a stretch. But neither of them really knew her. Her major role in the season was to cause problems for the gang by turning Jason into a secondary antagonist) who were ALSO introduced at the beginning of the season and dead by the end so she’ll basically have no lasting impact on the show. She could show up as a vecna vision and most of the characters would have very little idea who she is

They might try to wring some out bc she was kind of well-received (obviously the duffers rely on fan feedback in the worst way. Kali I will avenge you) but it won’t be earned AT ALL.

Chrissy managed to have a developed personality but ultimately I think she kind of failed the sexy lamp test. Like if Eddie had allegedly stolen and broken Jason’s prized possession the story wouldn’t have changed much she existed SOLELY to die (which is why I think too many people are like. Giving credit for how Chrissy was vs Barb. Barb was an actual minor character Chrissy was a list of traits tortured and killed for real reason, though gender plays a heavy role in how both were written and received. )

hmmm i don’t really agree :/ personally i don’t think chrissy was poorly written/introduced into the show at all, esp within the context of the season. all the things you listed that feel unnatural for us to know about her (her interests, her family, her boyfriend, her traumas) have an inherent place in the story because they matter when unraveling the mystery of vecna. we know about chrissy’s trauma from her mother and her ed because that’s what vecna takes advantage of. it’s showing us this to establish that he targets people who are already struggling with an internal conflict and plays on their fears/traumas. the exact same thing happens to fred! we meet him as fred benson, editor on the newspaper who likes nancy and has this traumatic past involving a car accident for which he feels a lot of guilt. it’s just the way new characters who will soon be vecna’d are introduced this season because it gives context to why they’re vecna’d. if anything, i think chrissy and fred were treated wayyyy better than patrick in terms of humanizing them and giving their trauma screentime. patrick is the Only vecna victim to not have his trauma delved into and explored beyond other characters talking about it.

as for stuff like learning about her relationship with jason and her little backstory with eddie….idk i think that was also fairly well executed and not unlike other character introductions we’ve seen? stranger things loveeees to have two characters recount a past shared experience from long long ago. mike and will at the park, joyce and hopper under the bleachers, jonathan and will as kids playing with legos, robin and steve in click’s class, etc etc so i don’t think chrissy and eddie reminiscing about middle school to find some common ground during an awkward meet-up is that out of place. i know there’s some conjecture about how old chrissy is supposed to be and if that would line up with her and eddie being in middle school at the same time and tbh i don’t know Much about it but she’s wearing an ‘86 necklace which i assumed was her graduating year, making her a senior and eddie two years older than her which isn’t that much of a stretch for them to have been in middle school at the same time

i don’t think chrissy could be replaced with an object to evoke the same reaction out of jason. really if i’m being honest i think jason is almost sympathetic for an st villain (i say almost because the whole spiral into puritanism and the tackling of erica just got. weird.) like……..he is under the very justified impression that eddie killed someone. a body was found in eddie’s house. the body of his girlfriend! i know jason is a shitty guy and very much douche who doesn’t respect women coded, but there’s really nothing in canon that explicitly suggests that he didn’t actually love chrissy. i’ve seen people be like “well he thought she would never do drugs, he didn’t really know her!!” yall eddie was also surprised by her doing drugs. it was clearly her first time buying drugs. no wonder jason wouldn’t think she would do that BUT i digress.

i think st does have trouble writing women sometimes, but i personally think those problems manifest mostly with nancy. i’m not trying to be a duffers apologist but i really didn’t find issue with chrissy’s introduction and characterization and death, mostly because she’s treated the exact same way as fred, a man, and treated better than patrick, a black man

[gravegroves]

It's not that Billy isn't grateful that the bastard sprung him out of the secret government lab he'd woken up in and subsequently spent weeks or maybe months being poked and prodded.

But out of all the closeted queers in Indiana that could have taken Billy under their wing, Murray goddamn Bauman is probably the last one that should legally be allowed to care for another human being. On the flip side, he may have single-handedly convinced Billy that heaven must be real, if only because Murray has most certainly dragged Billy to some version of hell. A better hell than he'd come from, but hell all the same.

Billy's starting to really hate classical music.

The fact that he's still bedbound doesn't help the situation any. If he could walk he'd smash that damn sound system with his bare hands or just fucking leave. But walking isn't an option while his body tries to heal, so if Murray doesn't soon turn off the 9th repeat of that Bach-Rachmaninov-Mozart bullshit he's blasting throughout the bunker-like structure Billy has been forced to call home for the past two weeks, he's going to strangle himself to death with the IV tube still lodged in his arm. Hopefully he'll shit himself after the fact and Murray will be forced to clean that up too.

"Turn that crap off or take me back to Hawkins you balding piece of shit! At least my dad only beat me!" Billy roars at the water stained concrete ceiling and grits his teeth against the pain when the move pulls on what feels like all the stitches in his body.

Murray glides into his field of vision like an unwashed spectre and throws himself onto the couch opposite the one Billy's lying on, still dressed in that same ratty bathrobe that probably hasn't been on the laundry pile in years, smiling that maniacal smile that Billy is less and less convinced is put-on by the day.

"Self degrading humor to mask the pain. You'll fit in here just fine." Murray sing-songs before getting back up and scuttling his way out of the room like the cockroach he is and into what Billy thinks might be the kitchen. Doesn't exactly know the layout of the hovel they're in, being bed-bound and all that.

The music cuts out and all the muscles in Billy's body slowly unwind as he breathes a sigh of relief.

Murray comes back with a flask of something foreign and pours a generous glass before handing it off to him, either unaware that Billy probably shouldn't be mixing alcohol with the cocktail of drugs he's still on or, more likely, doesn't give a shit. Billy downs it before the man can even open his mouth, too quick to really appreciate how it goes down smoother than water.

"You fucking philistine. That's good Stolichnaya." Murray grins before downing his own helping straight from the bottle.

"You a commie?" Billy asks, such a carbon copy of Neil he can almost feel the man's hand up his ass directing his words like a fucking puppet and he bites his tongue hard enough to hurt. Not that Billy's a big fan of the commies or the government or Neil or anyone really, but he's fairly sure they're the worse guys if this whole situation were a contest.

"Nice ideology, poor execution. No, but I'm gonna teach you how to speak like one Billy-boy!" Murray says, snatching away Billy's empty glass and filling it for him once again. "No one learns Russian well when they're sober though, so drink your heart out. It's gonna be a long year."

Billy stares.

"The fuck am I learning Russian for?"

Murray grins.

"Gotta go save a bigger Bastard than you or I."

"And why the fuck would I do that?"

Murray throws his hands out wide, "For the greater good, Billy. And maybe Steve Harrington will touch your dick about it, who knows."

Drugs really have a way of loosening Billy's tongue as it turns out, and it had taken a good day and a half for the worst of the effects to wear off after Murray had gotten him out. The Bastard hadn't let the opportunity to pry slip by him though, that's for fucking sure.

Billy scowls.

Besides, Steve Harrington doesn't even know that Billy's still alive. No one does. And even if he did… well.

The greater good will have to be enough, he supposes.

[featherymainffins]

Haha yeah, it's been a bit of time!!! I think I'm doing fairly ok, had some trouble with university and also went no-contact with my mother and i have a tattoo now (got it for my birthday lol). How about you, are you doing well : D?

I wouldn't call it impressive but it's pretty fun when it's not infuriating dkshkjdhk. What will be impressive will be the moment I finally manage to play the waltz I composed some time back correctly. I keep fucking it up even though the melody is really easy. Oh that reminds me, I have no idea if I ever posted my new ukulele, whom I call Henry, to Tumblr? I got him for Christmas because I really wanted a wooden ukulele but of course I had to customise it, and I know that I have showed him to people on Discord but unsure about Tumblr because it's possible I deleted before that. And no, it isn't a secret jdkfhkdjf. I've just been modding Baldur's Gate 3 since like early December and at first I was like "I'll just make one single head so that my characters is accurate and then I'll stop." and um yeah I have not yet stopped. I'm mostly making heads both my own and just making pre-existing but unusable heads usable for players (which can be either a nightmare or easy breezy depending on why exactly it isn't usable. Like nightmare nurse heads? A breeze, easy as hell, at least resculpted their ears for all races as to avoid the task being too low effort lol. Oh yeah the textures sucked hell but like the 3d models themselves were fine. On the other hand...Gerringothe Thorm? Awful, no good, a horrifying experience, would do it again but yeah I wouldn't recommend. That is because she is a monster and naturally does not use the same skeleton as humanoid characters nor is her UV map anything close to normal and her textures sucked and Chainner was not available when I was making her meaning I don't even remember how the hell I upscaled those textures but I did and it was a nightmare. So yeah.), but sometimes I also make armour if I have a particular vision. I post some progress stuff and general BG3 modding stuff on my sideblog @featherymuffins-moi (long story but when i started making mods i jokingly wrote moi, meaning me in French, in the author field that mods have and then I forgot to remove it when I decided to publish the mod so ever since then I'm "featherymuffins - moi" on Nexus) if you wanted to take a look but I haven't posted much there, you can see more of my stuff on Nexus, but I also have some stuff that's private for now that I haven't really posted, usually because it isn't really super release-ready yet or because I keep forgetting about it but I can show you some photos of, for example, Wrestling, which is a head/character I made like a week ago and proceeded to make armour for them immediately. I haven't posted Wrestling as a head anywhere yet because...idk...

Yeah, I was just mentioning the Toymaker analysis specifically because that is something I really want to do and I feel kinda bad about how I seem to be incapable of doing it in a decent time frame? Like I feel like the list of my tasks/projects/hobbies keeps getting bigger and never gets any smaller dsfsfsf.

Right, right, right, so I'm actually not sure if I was posting about it before I deleted or if I finished the book only afterwards, but around New Year's I read this book by Stephen King called Dreamcatcher, and uh, it's very difficult to recommend because the ending sucks shit. But if you ignore like 5 sentences that completely ruin everything and pretend they do not exist then it's a good book. So that's what I do. Funnily enough I do not like it for the plot, the plot is in itself fairly unremarkable, but I like the themes present and the execution of them. Like what is actually going on is your typical sci-fi horror stuff and is cool I guess but what I like way more than that is the psyche of the characters and who plays what role in the narrative etc etc. The book is long, has about 700 pages, I do have a PDF if you're interested (I have a physical copy but I'm in the process of analysing my fucked up idiot meow meow and it's a real damn hassle to analyse characters when you have to flip through pages and can't just skip to your highlights you know? So that's why I also have a PDF now.). There are also audiobook versions. I do not know if they're good. I hope they are because I would actually like to listen to one later. I can provide a link to at least one.

And this is getting like real long so I should cut it off but just a bit of info about the character whom I'm like insane about, the only problem is that he's hard to talk about because the themes, they do slap way goddamn harder when you do not expect them. But the total basic gist is: the freak in question is called Mr. Gray and he's an alien from what was an alien hivemind before the rest got absolutely annihilated in a battle, and he's just,,,,he's so everything. You know how that one meme is kinda like "Stop giving me your toughest battles I am not your strongest soldier I am your weakest soldier." or whatever the counter-meme to "God's strongest soldier" was like? Yeah well he's definitely the aliens' weakest soldier. I'm willing to bet the whole hivemind cluster that go to Earth was the race's weakest soldier. They have to be from alien Florida or something. It's also really funny how he like almost always says complete bullshit? Like sometimes it's really funny because he'll be like "Hmmm yes well you see unlike the primitive human race that cannot be considered sentient, we truly think and aren't weighed down by these 'emotions' of yours." and in the next breath he'll be like "We came to Earth because your mom. Lmao." When he doesn't want to answer a question truthfully he'll either just ask you a question or he'll say something that is so clearly either a lie or a straight up shitpost. Alien fungi is funnier than some Tumblr users for real sdkjhsfkss.

But that's just the absolute basic gist that doesn't say anything but if you would like to hear more about the alien I can definitely talk at length about like everything about him including the themes, I just didn't want to talk about him too much in this reblog because it's,,,,so long jksdhskjdhk.

Hey! How have you been? Sorry for disappearing, I deleted my Tumblr for a bit and then I uh forgot to remake it because I was 3D modelling in Blender for 3 months and learning how to code. Long story. I still haven't done the analysis of the Toymaker that I promised back in December. So there is that. But the good news is that I am not currently spending my days 3d modelling all day every day, which does actually make the possibility of me ever doing an analysis much more possible.

Also I might have a book recommendation for you. I have been recommending it to literally everyone around me lol. It has weird little men. Who are fucked up and pathetic but in a bit of a cute way? Depends on what genres of books you like tho. There is also an audiobook version if you prefer that. Oh and a film adaptation but that one...well...it is technically a good adaptation but it also kinda completely glosses over any of the deeper themes. Like yeah the plot is very faithful. No themes present though. Not sure about the quality of the audiobook but I personally want to listen to it later because I want to see what direction they took my favourite freak's voice in.

Anyway, I hope you are doing great!

Ira oh my goodness you're ALIVE!!! 🙈💖💖💖 hello my dear friend, how are you doing? it's been so long!! 🥰 ooh wow, sounds like you've been super busy!! please don't worry at all - real life can always pull us away from our Internet sillies, but i'm so glad you've been doing something so interesting with your time!! 3d modelling in Blender and coding is so impressive - are you working on something specific, or is it a secret? 😉 oh pal, don't worry about the Toymaker analysis at all! if i had a penny for every time i've said i'll do a fandom-related thing and then didn't, i'd be very rich indeed 😂 if the mood strikes you i would be delighted to see it, but don't let fandom fun become another job, you know? :3c ohoho i am very curious about this book recommendation - what is it? 👀 you know i love weird little men!!!! and it's always fun to see what gets other people fixating hahaha i'm so glad you're back buddy!! welcome home, settle in, and i hope to talk to you more soon 🙏💖

[anghraine]

Hey, maybe you have spoken on this somewhere, and I just missed it, so if so my apologies, but I would love to know why exactly you dont like 1995 p and p, my family and I have always loved it

I've talked about it many times over the years, but only a little lately, which may be how you missed it since I can be fairly tedious on this point. There are so many different things I dislike about it that it can be difficult to summarize (though I particularly dislike its approach to Darcy).

To attempt it, though:

Taken on its own terms, the 1995 P&P is quite good TV and a good period drama. Taken as an adaptation of Austen's P&P, I think it combines a superficial appearance of fidelity with variously caricatured, over-simplified, or simply bad interpretations of the characters and relationships. This is so consistent across the entire production with the exception of Jennifer Ehle's Elizabeth—who I don't love as Elizabeth but who doesn't seem treated with quite so heavy a hand—that I don't see this as an acting issue, but more of the vision of the creators which is executed quite well by the actors, but which I dislike.

For instance, Benjamin Whitrow's Mr Bennet is well-acted in terms of what I think they wanted him to be, it's a good performance, but also, a lot of the bite of Austen's approach to him is minimized (all the more by contrast to the very OTT Mrs Bennet).

So when I say that I hate Colin Firth's Darcy in particular, it's not that I think CF does a bad job as an actor (though I do think he was miscast for other reasons), it's that I think the production's fundamental approach to the character is ill-conceived and that carries over into writing, direction, framing, all kinds of things. Even when I first watched it as a teenager and liked a lot of it, the presentation of Darcy always bugged me. I don't like the treatment of the Darcy-Elizabeth dynamic at Netherfield, I don't like how they handle his letter, I don't like the wet shirt scene, I don't like the general humorless oversexualized brooding.

On top of that, the fact that its very specific interpretations are often regarded so completely uncritically makes it difficult to be impartial. You get things like Elizabeth's lines about marrying for love and joking about ending up a spinster—a moment invented by the 1995 P&P and not necessarily true of Austen's character, but re-created over and over in subsequent adaptations because of the 1995's enormous influence on perception of what P&P is. As a consequence, it can be intensely frustrating for those of us who disagree with its interpretations and dislike the P&P 1995-inflected fanon that permeates Austen fandom, because we can't get away from it.

I got into Austen fandom just a couple of years before the 2005 came out and so many 1995 fans were so offended that anyone would ever make another version of P&P because most of the fandom took it as an article of faith that Austen's vision had been perfectly distilled and represented in the 1995, and that everyone agreed with them. Even before the 2005, that utterly uncritical perspective on the 1995 was so inescapable that it was deeply aggravating for me as a fan of the book who didn't much like Andrew Davies's whole deal and would only dislike it more with time.

So I'm not pretending to be unbiased, but I truly believe it is very flawed as an adaptation of the novel, that its portrayal of Darcy is especially flawed, and that the issues in Davies's approach to Austen, which would become more glaring in his later Austen adaptations, are already present in the 1995 P&P and it's far from the one true version of P&P that so many of its fans present it as.

[thedilucharem]

A Collection of Headcanons - Sparring Edition! (Part 1 of 2)

Overview of the Win-Lose Ratio

Zhongli - 1:0 (read: one to zero)

Childe - 5:3 (wins more than he loses by a large margin)

Diluc - 8:7 (wins more than he loses by not as much of a margin)

Beidou - 1:1 (wins and loses a proportionally equal amount)

Arataki Itto - 2:3 (loses more than he wins by a large margin)

More under the cut!

Zhongli

There was one incident where the other four did try to fight him all at once, but after they couldn't get up by themselves, Zhongli simply told them that it wasn't fair to begin with.

Not because it was four-to-one, but because it would have to be about fifty-to-one for them to have a chance.

Naturally, that ratio is 1-0.

So Zhongli doesn't spar for the simple reason of the fact that even if he went easy on them, he'd beat them all anyway.

"As much as I would enjoy throwing myself at you all and taking delight in your bodies scattering like chaff in the wind, I am freshly retired. I would much rather enjoy the pleasant calm and peace of mind that comes with drinking a cup of osmanthus tea instead."

Childe

Childe treats the spars like a competition as well as opportunities to push himself, and as such he unsurprisingly has the broadest win-lose ratio among everyone else.

A definitive part about his fighting style is that he loves being up close and personal with whoever he's fighting for the thrill of it. Melee most certainly suits him best in that regard.

He enjoys testing himself by using all the weapons he's mastered over the years against his sparring partners.

Sometimes he'll be using just a polearm and on other days, he'll be dual-wielding blades while also throwing projectiles at his opponents.

He treats his wins and losses as improvement and critique so that he can ultimately become better, often implementing them mid-spar to test them out.

Beidou

Beidou is usually the one asking for spars. She can't afford to lose her edge given her profession and it helps that she finds it fun and refreshing.

While Beidou may not be as specialized as her companions and her (assumed) injured eye is some semblance of a disadvantage, she makes up for it with hardened experience and practical application.

She is the first reason why using Visions is banned because apparently, her full-counter does damage beyond the person on the receiving end doing five seconds of airtime.

I think her fighting style is based on hard and heavy hits that are meant to end the fight quickly, as the disadvantage of being blind on one side would become noticeable after a minute or two.

She uses the spars with them as a way to try and figure out how to properly compensate for her eye, as just swinging a big sword around in a limited radius can only do so much.

Diluc

Diluc treats these spars as transactional first, but it very quickly becomes one of his favorite things to do with the others as he considers himself fairly good at it.

His fighting style is versatile as he has demonstrated, agility, strength, and adaptability in the past, but the claymore that he wields would serve as cumbersome against some opponents.

As he has seen a lot more in his life than most others and does vigilantism on the side, he would have a healthy amount of training as well as experience, influencing how he fights them specifically.

Dare I say, he gets a little too into it sometimes, which is why he is the second reason why the use of Visions in the spars as he and everyone in the vicinity had a tendency to burst into flame.

Every loss and concession in his mind's eye is a lesson to be learned and then properly executed on whatever vagabond is on his to-hit list on his nights of patrol.

Arataki Itto

When I say that this dude has the potential to match up with them and even excel them in some instances, I am deadly serious; it'll just take him a little while to get there.

His fighting style is very much 'I hit it until it stops moving' with a combination of 'I'll power my way through it until I collapse' and it works about 60% of the time.

When it comes to more experienced, specialized, and disciplined opponents, though, that 60% becomes a 5%.

His strength is a boon when it comes to critical weaknesses and flaws in his approach, but like I stated before, raw and brute force can only do so much.

His goal is relatively simple: beat all of them soundly and without room for any compromise or debate. If he can do that, he'll be the best, and goddamn it, he is the best (in his mind at least).

Part 2

[nikadoesanart]

“Other Worldly” Ability Users

Since I’ve been seeing a bit of talk of this panel/page (chapter 76, page 12) as of late, I might as well discuss it next!

For reference I read akai-koutei’s translation of the chapter so check it out here if you haven’t already (or to refresh your memory on it).

Also I do mention things from up to chapter 90, Stormbringer and Dead Apple towards the end so keep those spoiler warnings in mind!

Quick summary of the pages leading up to this panel: the fight between Teruko and Sigma is coming to a conclusion and Teruko is trying to convince Sigma to surrender. She claims that he’d have to fight prodigies, going off of Sigma calling himself an ordinary man. She then tells him, “Welcome to our world” and Sigma seems to envision this group of ability users due to her words.

Analysis: why/how is this vision shown

As for why I believe it was Sigma imagining this, it’s mainly due to the panel order. As for how he saw it, I believe that it’s equally likely that he either used his ability at this moment to find out what Teruko meant by “prodigies” and who is a part of this “world”, OR Sigma grouped these people together himself based on information he had received in advance from the likes of Dostoyevsky (ie. ability users to watch out for)

Analysis: the selection of the people in the vision

Teruko, Fyodor, Dazai, Tecchou, Chuuya, Fukuchi, Fitzgerald, and Jouno are all considered to be “of a different world” because of their sheer strength, skill, and/or wit.

Some of these entries should be fairly obvious, given how powerful some of the skills are directly in combat alone (Chuuya, Fukuchi, Fitzgerald Tecchou). Continuing with the capabilities of their skills: Teruko, Fyodor, Dazai and Jouno are included due to how game changing their skills are in a fight. Dazai and Teruko can easily render their opponent powerless with a single touch. The restrictions and capabilities of Fyodor’s ability are currently unknown, but it is hinted that it involves death or fatal injury upon contact. Jouno, the least obvious member of this grouping, has hearing so powerful that he can read people’s heartbeats, and with that read people’s reactions. It wouldn’t be far fetched to believe that he can also predict people’s movements with this (ie. the shifting of their weight or a change in breathing), making him very difficult to outsmart in battle.

In regards to wit and intellect being a factor in this grouping, this really applies to everyone in the group. Maybe not so much chuuya and tecchou, (and possibly teruko too) as they’re more combat oriented and skilled then strategizing. For starters, we know quite well just how good Dazai and Fyodor are at predicting others’ actions, and with that being able to strategize far in advance. Fukuchi is a skilled and trained fighter, and as we learn from his fights we’ve seen so far (up to ch 90 at the time of writing this), he more than knows how to strategize in a fight, as well as with larger decisions. We also have evidence of Dazai, Fyodor, Fukuchi’s, and Fitzgerald’s capabilities of strategizing as leaders. Chuuya must clearly be skilled in this too, seeing as he is an executive, but when it comes to fighting we know that he’s more focused on the combat of the fight than the strategy of it.

Analysis: the people that weren’t included, even though you’d think that they would have been.

→ Akutagawa and Atsushi aren’t a part of this group, despite being considered the “new double black” and Atsushi’s ability being described as one of the strongest that can cut through almost anything → even together, the two of them barely stood a chance against Fukuchi. Even when working together, the infighting and their own self doubt of their own individual capabilities is likely part of what’s keeping them from being in this group. We know that they don’t compare to the likes of Dazai and Fukuchi when it comes to wit/intellect/foresight. It would be interesting to see them fight someone else in the group though, like maybe Chuuya (as in for sparring/training purposes, doesn’t have to be as enemies)? They’ve beat Fitzgerald when working together but on their own, they struggled.

Chuuya get your butt over to Mersault, break out Dazai, and fight Fukuchi with him, please

→ Fukuzawa and Mori aren’t in this group, despite Fukuzawa being able to draw his sword so fast that it can’t be seen and Mori being the one that taught Dazai his strategizing skills. This is likely because their abilities would be considered much less extraordinary by comparison, as Teruko can age anyone and Dazai can nullify abilities for example, which both may not seem combat oriented but they can render their opponents powerless with a single touch vs Fukuzawa having a more simple support ability that only does so much and has specific activation requirements

→ Tachihara also isn’t included despite being a Hunting Dog and his ability having already been revealed by this point. Although we still don’t know the full limitations of his ability as of chapter 90, we do know that he can wield it very skillfully (ie. moving a life size mannequin with convincing realism, being hinted that he could do something about the vampirism). We know that his wit and intellect doesn’t compare to those in the group, as he admitted that he needed Mori’s help with realizing that Fukuchi is an enemy and why (though to be fair, he was under the influence of the writing in the page.

Post @chazukekani’s Stormbringer summaries addition: having Chuuya be included makes even more sense now due to the uniqueness of his ability (without spoiling too much, not only is Chuuya’s ability a god’s power implanted in him, but also how using Corruption is tied to ability singularities)

Post DEAD APPLE novel addition: why was Shibusawa not included in this group? Based on how Ango refers to him, Fyodor, and Dazai as aliens, then shouldn’t he be included too? The government was also keeping Shibu alive and safe because of how unique and valuable his skill is.

“But the government kept protection’ him anyway because he was a valuable skill user who could counteract a nationwide invasion of skill users.” (p 121 of the Yen Press translation for the Dead Apple novel)

Chapter 76 came out late 2019 so plenty of time after DA released. It could point to Shibu’s canonicity being questionable and (more importantly) there’s also the fact that he’s long dead by this point of the manga, but I don’t know why else he wasn’t included because Asagiri did say in his DA novel afterward that DA has had some influence on the story.

“Chronologically, the story takes place after the second season of the anime—in other words, after the war with the Guild, which puts Dead Apple somewhere between the ninth and tenth volumes of the manga.” . . . “The novel also ended up affecting the main story in numerous ways,” (p 196 of the Yen Press translation for the Dead Apple novel)

That’s it for my analysis of this! I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts on why certain people were or were not included in this grouping, as well as feedback on my own reasonings!