#christo d5

[anzuhan]

[exmeowstic]

im so normal about christo i promise

[chromaji]

ITS ALLLLL ABOUT THR FAMILY FOUND FAMILY RRAAGGHHH

[nyarlylicious]

Let’s talk adopting collectors editions that were damaged and otherwise seen as trash. I found this one on ebay for $66, with everything inside still in wrap, and the box having at worst a hole in the back that’s not even ruining the character artwork. A simple, two second fix was enough to make it look fine to me, and I saved around ~$30 getting my hands on one that was more pristine.

When it comes to collecting, I end up valuing the stuff other people would consider worthless—catch me buying damaged boxes since I also save a lot of money. This Switch LE of Disgaea 5 Complete was cheap because the box was ‘damaged’, though far less visible than this one here. I’ve been wanting to get my hands on the PS4 LE of Disgaea 5 for months now, not only so I can compare it to the switch’s Complete version, but just because I love to display the box artwork and the PS4′s release had tastier Christo art. (I’m biased, he is my angel demon husband)

I was lucky to snag this one, given everything inside it is unopened still. I do have to ultimately make the decision to crack these, though, if I want to play D5 on my ps4 (See: I do.)

Here’s an interesting thing to note: The artbook differences! Christo’s got a few more stuff on his page in the PS4 artbook, and also the Toy’sworks page is included. Good. I want a scan of that chibi C-sto.

[crowreans]

trails in the sky - kevin i love kevin so much hes my guy of all time while im hyperfixating. i already know all that happens in the 3rd but im running through it myself just to get all of the achievements and i cant wait to put him in the deepest part of the therapy box again and shake it violently. i love his self-loathing and mental issues and guilt its like looking in a mirror. i love the complete switch that he had at the end of sc. i love how his "weird way of talking" is the kansai dialect in the japanese version. i love how he still just feels like a complete dork despite everything. i want his gender and the way he talks in both en and jp and his personality. hyperfixation to the highest degree. i should write him. i should learn kansaiben.

trails of cold steel - (has only played through cs2) crow :) i like to pretend i hate him for stealing my name but im enamored with him. i wont give explicit spoilers bc i have friends following this blog that im trying to drag into trails but he was so right at the end of cs1. he should do it again

ys - geis hes so funny to me. in one game he goes from "stay away from all of this and mind your business" to "youre the only one that can help us all" in the span of like three conversations. im so obsessed with him. i should go back to ys 7 just so i can see him again

the world ends with you - i like rhyme a lot. it seems like she gets put to the side a lot which makes sense since she had so little screen time in the first game but shes my daughter. to me

rune factory - kiel !! hes so little i want to hug and squish him so bad i like how gullible he is and how much he spreads rumors and its not even malicious or on purpose. i married him on my second rf4 playthough and hes my favorite in my little comfort therapy game

.hack// - silabus is my favorite. in the whole series. dudes like the nicest dorkiest guy ever. he gives me dopamine and i wish he didnt get set to the side as g.u. went on. i could only ever dream of being this nice and friendly and dependable but unfortunately rabid and unhinged and weird fits my personality way more. i still want his gender

hi-fi rush - korsika shes so cool dude. i play it in japanese sometimes and her boss fight singlehandedly got me into actually parrying. but also i would totally let her kill me

samurai warriors - hanbei was my favorite since like day 1 since i pretty much immediately mained him. i like how hes a really formidable strategist but he just drags his feet and wants to be lazy all day every day. me too my guy. massive L to his irl counterpart tho

disgaea - christo ! disgaea isnt really known for anything like Top Tier Storytelling or Character Development but well. i like how hes a horrible liar and manipulator but winds up helping the rest of the party despite them being demons and him being an angel. d5 is also my disgaea game of Ever since the ones after that are. not great

your turn to die - keijis probably one of the more interesting characters ive seen out of a rpgmaker game. he gets so close and pushes everyone else to put their trust in sara but it takes nearly the entire game for him to say a single word about himself but he Still has things he could be hiding. hes so interesting to me i want his life story

Tagged by @g1ngerbeer 10 fandoms/10 characters/10 tags ok let's see if I'm doing this right yeehaw

Trails of Cold Steel - ITS SO HARD TO PICK JUST ONE but well if I have to its gotta be Rean. The guy ever. He's done absolutely nothing wrong and the universe hates him. I love him sm. Shakes him in a snowglobe.

Star Wars - Anakin is the problematic fav ever. He's just the worst. God awful. King of bad decisions making. Virtually a demigod but is exceptionally stupid about it. Icon.

Splatoon - Does Captain 3 count. The fucking, faceplanting after doing something cool. The Booyah. The peace sign. They're so funny.

Monster Hunter - I LOVE UTSUSHI he's just so funny. Uses the word bodacious unironically. His pupil's No. 1 fan. He sparks joy your honor.

The Magnus Archives - Jon is so poor little meow meow. Just, so meow meow. Incredible character arc of bastard to pathetic to soft marshmallow with god powers and a martyr complex. Immaculate.

Legend of Zelda - Every single iteration of Impa is the GOAT. Guardian, protector, friend, she's got it all. BIG fan of Skyward Sword and Hyrule Warriors iterations specifically.

Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint - YJH IS SO. Local man having depression and mental illness due to regression, and then some asshole comes around and throws approximately 50 wrenches into his plans. Unfortunately, he becomes immensely attached to said asshole. His life is a nightmare and it's funny to watch.

Pokémon - N Harmonia was baby's first blorbo and I miss him sm. We love a cult survivor learning about how the world actually works, good for him.

Percy Jackson - SPECIFICALLY the Lightning Thief Musical especially the production I watched understands Luke Castellan better than anyone ever will and I am spinning it in my head all the time

Fantasy Life - Yuelia my daughter light of my life dearly beloved she's an angel she's grace she's done nothing ever wrong and I would die for her

Ok ok can I tag 10 people. Let's see. @foolsbangle @harasharaved @dracolunae @ashenknightt @the-carrotella @rosenmarille @ephemeralcemsilee @crowreans @charxan @kulvefaggoth

[otherion]

[prinneh]

DECEMBER 25TH. → happy birthday, christo! also, merry christmas to all of you disgaea fans! please stay safe and have a happy holiday! (❁´◡`❁)

[felikatze]

CHRISTO IS VOICED BY XANDER MOBUS?????

[iylisss]

Playing d5 on switch put me back in Christo love mode

[asuccessfulbusinessman]

I’ve started liking the Disgaea series and seeing the trailer for 6 made me go “man, I wish I had this arrogant fucker in D5 instead of Red Mangus.”

Red Magnus is currently my highest level unit, because he’s strong and hits things. But my new criteria for how much I like a character is if their dub work is more annoying than that of a Prinny. 

Like, no spoilers because I want to suffer like I did with Lucchini, but Red Magnus looks to be a lot like Ibaraki Douji from Fate. Either he’s actually not as strong as he lets on - and is putting on a facade (which is being hinted at subtly, and Disgaea is about as blunt as a brick with Killia, Christo, Seraphina, and Usalia)... or he’s just a joke character. Again, just like Ibaraki Douji from Fate.

If he’s putting up airs, the very stilted and elongated repetition of Red Magnus saying “RED MAGNUS,” is excellent for his character. If he’s just a joke character, then it’s just annoying with no benefit.

[anzuhan]

[wonderalmighty]

“OH dear.” OK I KNOW WHAT D5 implies for christo and Lamington but for me CHristo is lamingtons son and yes I rp both

[andromeda1023]

The Colorado segment of the Rocky Mountains is on full display in this photograph taken by an astronaut onboard the International Space Station (ISS). Cloud cover stalled on the eastern slope of the mountains, allowing for this image of the entire Front Range, as well as several other ranges—San Juan and Sangre de Christo—that together comprise the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. The Colorado Plateau is readily recognizable due to its flat profile relative to the adjacent mountain ranges.

The snow-capped peaks along the Front Range mark the boundary between the Rockies and the Great Plains to the east. The Front Range is also a section of the Great Divide. Often referred to as The Continental Divide, it is a hydrologic boundary that delineates the direction of water flow between east and west, toward the Atlantic or Pacific oceans.

Nearly fifty years ago, Apollo astronauts visited the San Juan range for geology training. The rocks and terrain of the San Juan Mountains made the area well suited for teaching astronauts to recognize different types of rocks for sampling, and to record their observations for further analysis by scientists back on Earth.

Astronaut photograph ISS061-E-32065 was acquired on November 6, 2019, with a Nikon D5 digital camera using a 50 millimeter lens and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by a member of the Expedition 61 crew. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Caption by Alex Stoken, Jacobs Technology, JETS Contract at NASA-JSC.

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146135/the-colorado-rockies?fbclid=IwAR1wXXc8BrL-IMrHTSWsS_1bkGRZ3xOErVakrZVgPMKpgVeNTLAU26LLl40

[skartlie]

A Disgaea trick or treat give exchange event (@disgaeatrickortreat) for @waterscraps. It was hard to choose when you said between Seraphina and Christo since both of them are my favorite D5 characters with Killia. Hope you like it.

[nyxabird]

The problem with Zeroken’s design

I feel like rambling today, so. Let’s talk about Disgaea 5. Or more importantly, let’s talk about one of Disgaea 5′s characters, Zeroken. Now, I love Zeroken. Anyone who’s seen me stream know I love Zeroken. I go to massive efforts to make him a strong little boy and despite his flaws, I think he tends to be an adorable and charming character. But there is one major, meta flaw in Zeroken and that’s in his design.

Now, I want to say, I like Zeroken’s design. I think he’s cute! And I think his appearance fits well with his personality. The problem is that his design is flawed; it commits a sin of media called “informed attribute”.

For those who don’t know, an informed attribute is something about a character that is told to us through outside sources and that isn’t actually in the actual series the character is in. For instance, a lot of anime will say that a female character is a tough fighter, but every time you see her, she doesn’t actually have any strength and she’s constantly in trouble. It, essentially, is just saying “oh yeah this character is actually this” even though there’s no evidence of it. A lot of the time, informed attributes feel like they’re tacked on for the developers to get brownie points, but that’s not related to this subject, so I won’t discuss it.

So let’s get back to Zeroken. What’s his informed attribute, you may ask? It’s his race. So first, here is a picture of the kid.

I want you to look at that and think about it. What race do you think he is? For me, I always thought he was just a humanoid demon like about 50% of the classes in Disgaea 5. Like the Warrior or Gunner or Sage or Lady Samurai or any of those. And that seems right, right?

Nope.

He’s a werewolf.

Did any of you who heard of him actually guess that? Did you have any idea he was a werewolf, or intended to be one? I bet most of you didn’t, because of the people I knew (one who’s played D5 since it came out) had no idea either. So how do we know he’s a werewolf?

Because his intro trailer said so. Something I’d never even heard of, and neither had they, until they went browsing in the wiki one day.

The only “hints” to this in-game are his Overload (Superluminal Wolf) and the fact that some of his moves (in Japanese, at least) have voice clips of him howling. And that’s not even remotely an actual hint, because that could just as easily be his theme. Non-werewolf/-wolf characters have used wolf references or howling, so it’s not even remotely a hint to the fact he’s meant to be a werewolf.

Even his design doesn’t hint towards it at all. There is nothing distinct about his design that hints he’s anything but a humanoid demon. There is nothing in the game that is actual proof/a hint that he’s like that, except some throw-away lines (such as Seraphina calling him a dog) that aren’t evidence on their own, because it’s just as often used against non-wolf-related people too.

I really think this was just a huge error in his design that NISA did, a mistake that was made that no one actually bothered to think about being a mistake when they really know how to do better.

Why do I know they know how to do better? Because they’ve done it before.

This is Fenrich, from Disgaea 4, who is in fact a werewolf. Could you tell? I bet so, because the tail gives it away really fast. Even if you wouldn’t immediately label it as a “wolf”, you still can see, at a glance, that he’s not Yet Another Humanoid Demon. More than that, some of his skills make it even clearer that he’s a werewolf; he has skills that have him running on all fours, for instance. Even if the game didn’t tell you what Fenrich is, you could guess from the evidence in the game.

And Zeroken doesn’t have that. And why? There’s no reason for that. There is no reason that Zeroken doesn’t have anything that really hints towards his nature. It was as simple as giving him a tail, really, because the game had already established that race as looking like that. And you can argue game canons/timelines/AUs as much as you want, but races/classes in general stay the same/use the same depiction; some do change, such as the Armor Knight changing genders, but overall it’s fairly consistent.

I have no idea why they failed on the most basic part of Zeroken’s design. There’s some theories that his hair is meant to resemble a tail, but I honestly think that design in general is a bad design and just a way people get themselves out of having to depict stuff with tails. It’s a cowardly design decision to me, especially because it’ll never be able to tell you what they are at a glance, failing that aspect of their design. (I also think it looks incredibly crappy and stupid, but that’s a personal feeling of mine)

In general, whenever I or my friends write or do anything with Zeroken, we’ll add in his tail, and just hand-wave it as having been cut off during the Lost invasion and regrown somehow after the war. Because quite frankly, NISA (or whoever designed him) failed. They just failed, flat out, on making his design clear that he isn’t just yet another human-looking demon and is actually one of the beast folk. The rest of the design is good, as I’ve said before, and I really like it... but no matter how much I like it, it is a failure in informing us what he is.

Magnus and Usalia are easy to tell what they are from the start. Seraphina is a bit harder, but you could reasonably figure out what she is from the evidence. Christo’s whole arc is about trying to hide what he actually is. Killia’s design is also problematic in this way, but he actually has hints to him being a beast folk (the claw-hands that are clearly not gloves, the scales on his chest), so even if we don’t know what he is, we know he’s something different, not just a humanoid demon, though there’s no hints as to what he is in-game. (Dragonewt, by the way. Killia’s a dragonewt) Killia is more complicated, though, so I won’t get into that unless someone actually wants me to discuss my feelings on that one.

Zeroken has nothing. Every “hint” could just be as easily as applied to a normal humanoid with a wolf theme. And it’s incredibly disappointing

I guess my point is “NISA, you were fucking cowards by not giving him some aspect that made it clear what he was.” And it doesn’t even have to be a tail. When I (and I’m sure other people) talk about this, we’re not just inherently wanting what people usually call the “clean and cute” sort of things (though why they call it that/what’s wrong with ears/tail as a distinction, I don’t know). We just want something to be clear. Ears, tails, claws, even fur in distinct places. Something, anything, that shows you that there’s something else here besides another “human”.

You can’t just say “oh btw this person is this” when it comes to major aspects like their race. You have to show us. You have to give us evidence. “Informed attribute” is okay when it isn’t a part of the series they’re in (such as telling us a horror protagonist is gay) or wouldn’t have come up canonly, but things like their goddamn race? Or like trying to talk about sexualities in a romance game? Just... no.

If you’re going to design something, put effort into the design and actually show us. “Show, don’t tell” is the rule of visual media, and unfortunately for poor Zeroken, NISA failed him hard on that front. I have really strong feelings about this sort of thing, this thing of making beast characters have no actual traits whatsoever so they look totally human, and it really needs to stop.

[caveartfair]

Why Highly Creative People Often Work in Pairs

Paul McCartney and John Lennon on Stage, Maryland , 1966. Harry Benson TASCHEN

Highly creative people often work in pairs, but two people working together doesn’t necessarily translate to twice the ideas and twice the brainpower. It does, however, help with productivity. As James Somers wrote in his New Yorker profile of Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat, the Silicon Valley duo that transformed Google: “Everyone falls into creative ruts, but two people rarely do so at the same time.”

Author Joshua Wolf Shenk, who wrote a book on the benefits of working with a partner, Powers of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs (2014), found during his research that one of the most compelling things about these duos is not their output, but rather how ubiquitous they are. Whether it’s revolutionizing home computers or writing pop songs, creative duos have been busy transforming seemingly every facet of our lives since the days of Adam and Eve.

These creative pairs can exist as close collaborators or couples, working together to achieve shared goals, or as friends or acquaintances who further each other’s independent achievements. Take, for example, a famous pair of modern painters: Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin. In early 1888, Van Gogh, then in his mid-thirties and already known to be a mercurial and emotionally unhinged artist, moved from Paris to Arles in the South of France. Soon after, he was joined by his friend Gauguin, per the request of Van Gogh’s brother, Theo, who paid him to do so.

Gauguin was eager to live and share his work with a fellow artist; as soon as he arrived in Arles, he bought a massive roll of jute canvas. The two roommates cut their canvases from it, made portraits of each other, critiqued each other’s work, and swapped paintings. Gauguin even painted Van Gogh’s portrait while he was working on one of his famous sunflower paintings.

Self Portrait Dedicated to Carriere, 1888-1889. Paul Gauguin Seattle Art Museum

Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, 1889. Vincent van Gogh The Courtauld Gallery, London

However, the two painters disagreed on almost everything; they would get into heated discussions about the work of their forebears, like Rembrandt and Eugène Delacroix. In a letter to Theo, Vincent once described their conversations about artists as “excessively electric.” He added: “We sometimes emerge from it with tired minds, like an electric battery after it’s run down.” Their differences extended to their core artistic values: Van Gogh aspired to capture the essence of life, while Gauguin sought to depict the products of his imagination.

Just before Christmas in 1888, Van Gogh and Gauguin had their final row. Some believe that the falling out was so intense and devastating that it may have played a role in Van Gogh cutting off his ear (or that Gauguin sliced it off for him). Two days later, Gauguin left France for Tahiti. Their creative relationship and their time as roommates lasted a whole 63 days. But in that time, these two giants of modern art produced some of the most significant and memorable works of both their careers. Looking back on their creative relationship, Van Gogh is often cast as the true genius, who was pushed to greatness by Gauguin’s criticism and support. So while Van Gogh’s sunflowers may appear to have little to do with Gauguin, the latter is a critical part of their origins.

Creative pairs and (not always romantic) power couples are everywhere. According to Shenk, we’re not primed to acknowledge the great prevalence of such duos due to our inability to detach the idea of a “couple” from any romantic implication and our obsession with narratives of lone geniuses. “We have an impoverished understanding of relationships, generally,” Shenk recently explained, “especially as it pertains to creative work.”

He offers the examples of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, who, through years of one-upmanship, pushed each other to helm the most influential tech companies the world had ever seen; and John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who, at one point as Beatles, wrote songs like mad libs, taking turns to add to each other’s song lyrics. Broad City’s Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer make their friendship the subject of their hit TV show. These duos all seem to share a mystifying essence, a sort of covert chemistry or language that manifests in wild success.

Shenk calls it “creative intimacy,” noting that it blooms when two (or more) people share what he describes as “an extraordinary rapport and sense of self-identification,” as well as an “extraordinary difference.” In most successful and innovative pairs he studied, Shenk was shocked to find “that any two people could have that much in common,” and “that any two people could be that different,” he said.

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates at “D5: All Things Digital” conference, 2007. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Indeed, art-world titans Christo and Jeanne-Claude had some shocking similarities, though they supported each other through their differences. They were both born on the same day, June 13, 1935 (Jeanne-Claude in Morocco and Christo in Bulgaria); and they were both 23 when they met and fell in love in 1958. By 1960, Jeanne-Claude left her husband of three weeks to have a baby with Christo.

While Christo taught Jeanne-Claude about art, she opened his eyes to the creative potential of working at a massive scale. Together, they created groundbreaking installations that often involved surrounding or wrapping land masses or gargantuan structures in fabric, like the islands of Miami’s Biscayne Bay and Pont Neuf in Paris. For decades, Christo was credited for being the artistic visionary, while Jeanne-Claude was cast as his secretary or muse. It seemed almost impossible for outsiders to understand that two people could have a creative relationship in which both contribute equally.

According to Shenk, this is “in part because of this overwhelming myth of the lone genius and the way that that shapes discourse about creative work.” Conceptually, Jeanne-Claude and Christo functioned as one artist. “The only things I do myself is write the checks, pay the bills and pay the taxes,” Jeanne-Claude once told a reporter. “Everything else is Christo and Jeanne-Claude, including the creativity. It’s about time that people correct this mistake.” Until Jeanne-Claude died in 2009, the two worked as one. Christo told The Art Newspaper last year that it was their differences that fueled their creativity: “She was extremely argumentative, very critical,” he said. “She was always asking questions.”

Though the prospect of working with a friend, lover, or family member may sound like a terrible idea, as Shenk points out, all relationships are a form of collaboration. And for the most successful creative pairs, he said, “there may be a very fluid movement between the so-called personal and the so-called professional.”

Jeanne-Claude and Christo, 1996. Photo by Weychardt/ullstein bild via Getty Images.

Architectural gods Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron have built their success while maintaining 60-plus years of friendship. Before they ran one of the world’s most renowned architectural firms and became famous for designing institutions like Tate Modern’s Switch House in London and the Pérez Art Museum in Miami, they were childhood friends. Born less than a month apart in 1950, they grew up 200 yards away from each other in the Swiss town of Kleinbasel.

“Whatever we’ve done, it’s always something we’ve done together,” Herzog told WSJ. Magazine in 2018. As children, they discovered a shared desire to create with their hands, and were equally obsessed with roller-coasters and ships. But in interviews today, de Meuron speaks little, and Herzog takes the lead. “I think we accept our own weakness and the strengths of the other,” de Meuron explained.

Like shoes, arm holes, and pant legs, the fashion world is also teeming with pairs: from Dolce & Gabbana to Rodarte’s Mulleavy sisters and the Olsen twins (who have a famous Morse code–like handshake). Designer duo Viktor & Rolf have managed to upend our very understanding of what clothes can do—like a laser-cut ball gown that gives the illusion of a model cut in half, or sheets and a pillow attached to a model’s body to make her look like she’s sleeping upright. In short, they could arguably take the prize for fashion’s most creative pair.

Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren met when they were both 18, while taking exams to get into art school in the Netherlands. They collaborated on a project for a design contest, and as soon as the judge called for “Viktor and Rolf to come to the stage,” they knew they were meant to be a pair. “I don’t think we ever made a conscious choice to start working together,” Snoeren told The Guardian.

Now 50 years old, the pair behind the fashion house Viktor & Rolf still sit beside each other at the same table when they work. And still best friends, they share a “nonjudgmental partnership,” Snoeren said, “whatever the other is saying is valid and we talk about it.” Horsting added, “It’s like a constant ping pong game.”

Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren, 2013. Photo by Pascal Le Segretain via Getty Images.

Despite their ubiquity, not all creative partnerships are properly understood. In the case of Van Gogh and Gauguin, some scholars believe that Van Gogh was in love with Gauguin. A Harvard Magazine article relates that the men had a “stormy homosexual affair.” Historically, we’ve tended to ignore the parts of a relationship that aren’t easily defined; and in this case, the creative nature of the artists’ relationship gets lost.

But so what if they were lovers? Two people can be in a relationship that is at the same time romantic, sexual, productive, and creative. But, as Shenk lamented, “there’s very little space in the culture to hold a model of that kind of relationship.” He added that the conversation around creative pairs can be inhibiting, as well, preventing others from opening themselves up to the possibilities of such a relationship. Take, for example, writer Tom Wolfe, who parted ways with his editor and close friend, Maxwell Perkins, because people began to question whether Wolfe was the sole author of his work. The myth of the lone genius puts pressure on pairs to make the authorship of their work clear.

But the ubiquity of creative pairs, relationships, and collaborations highlights a larger truth: There’s a strong alternative to working alone. Even on a cultural and historical level, we all learn and borrow from each other, because no one exists as an island—not even the lone geniuses.

from Artsy News