#cos the camera i want doesn't exist in this world

[purplealmonds]

Continuing to fire on all cylinders to make this Sky 🤝Mononoke collab a reality! 🐲⚖️🌊

Process GIFs and artist commentary below the cut. ⬇️

Left: Process GIF Middle: Just the background, cos I really like how it looks! Right: Illustration without the collab logo

And here are my notes on my inspirations and references. There's a lot of 'em, so instead of embedding relevant images one by one I put them in a callout sheet! For accessibility, I also included transcript (with bonus ramblings) below each sheet.

Ofuda circle modeled in Google Sketchup 2017, then lightly transformed in Photoshop to flare out. I tried my best to hand-draw these, but it the results came out really clunky and stiff. I figured if Mononoke shamelessly utilizes 3D in their show, I can too!

Krill and sky kid composition roughly inspired by the Ayakashi DVD cover illustration. On the surface level, the krill's black-and-red color scheme mirrored that of the bake-neko. Not to mention, in the world of Sky, the krill would be the best fit of a mononoke-like entity. The red background is also a nod to the red skies seen during a shard eruption in Sky.

Sky kid gesture based on the Festival Spin Dancer's Tier 3 poses and the Medicine Seller's iconic pose in the Zakishiwarahi episode as inspiration. This was the idea which springboarded this illustration into existence. I wanted to do my take of the Medicine Seller's pose, but in a more dynamic manner: rotate the pose to a profile position and set the ofuda in a diagonal, flared out arrangement.

Cape inspired by tenbin design featured in the 2024 Mononoke movie. This one's an interesting one - I wanted the cape to be a stiff material that doesn't "flap" when in flight - similar to the Aurora wing capes. It ended up looking like a kite of sorts, which I'm not entirely opposed to! I haven't had the opportunity to showcase the back view of this cape design, but I envision it having some mechanical aspects to it - the "wing" which are flared out in this illustration fold in like moth wings, and a little bell is attached to the "tail" part and it jingles a little whenever the sky kid flaps!

Bandana is based on the Scaredy Cadet's hairstyle from the Season of Assembly. Mask design utilizes the 2023 Days of Style mask and the Nintendo Pack mask as bases. Pretty self-explanatory. I basically went onto the Sky wiki and found the cosmetics that most closely matched what I was looking for. Then if necessary, I went to the Office space to do photoshoots to get the appropriate camera angles for them all.

Seasonal pendant inspired by the classic Medicine Seller's necklace and the eye motif featured in the 2024 Mononoke movie. Possibly the only one-to-one homage to the classic Medicine Seller design here, but his garnet necklace was too good of a match to the seasonal pendant. A side tangent: does the new Medicine Seller possess a necklace, let alone a mirror? So far all the shots of him don't feature it. Fascinating.

Dark dragon krill anatomy references a custom figurine crafted by @/escaflowne_n07 on Twitter. Until I found this, I was honestly at a loss finding reference for this - be it on the internet or during in-game photoshoots. The lighting on the krill in-game focused on its menacing silhouette rather than its structure. And not to mention, getting a close-up shot almost always set off the dark creature's aggro. I have no idea how this guy found the references to put this model together - well done!

Mantas, elder constellations, and sun dog references murals in the Cave of Prophecy. Krill aside, the overall illustration was leaning a little too much towards Mononoke so I tried finding opportunities to insert more Sky into it. Added bonus is that now there's storytelling in the background: during a shard eruption, a giant krill rises from the frothing waves of dark water to hunt down a flock of mantas.

Clouds behind the sun dog reference the ones featuring heavily in the Umibozu episode. This illustration has a lot of ocean theming, so I figured this would be appropriate.

Rendering style of the background is lightly inspired by the 2007 Mononoke illustration. Mainly having a 2D inked style to contrast with the more polished render of the sky kid. Funnily enough, this was a tertiary inspiration, which lead to the discovery in the next point!

Dark water waves and sun dog composition heavily references Hokusai's "The Great Wave". The waves were modified to be bottle-green of the Golden Wasteland's dark waters. The sun dog is in the spot where Mt. Fuji is in the original composition. these were all hand-drawn by the way! I merely emulated the style of the source material. As a side note, I also borrowed the spotted sea spray rendering for the krill's red spotlight.

Background pattern taken from the ofuda design featured in the 2024 Mononoke movie poster. Mainly to add some gritty texture to the sky. I worked pretty hard to replicate this ofuda design as a high-res asset so I wanted to use it more!

[emiplayzmc]

One random fact about each and every one of my Addisons because I CAN:

-Target (Main Pink, jewellery maker, Cyber Shoes manager, tea shop owner)'s fav Light World flowers are bleeding hearts and foxgloves.

-Sample (Main Blue, Cyber Shoes II customer service) has insomnia. Only in his worst mental states can he actually sleep, but only very lightly.

-Banner (Main Orange, fashion designer and caterer) has a borderline unhealthy obsession with making Victorian-era clothes specifically for themself to put on display in their own closet. They can count on one hand the amount of outfits they've actually worn of that time period.

-Broadcast (Main Yellow, news / shopping channel host. Their only host.) is aromantic. YIPPEE.

-Spam (Addispam, email-man and ever-changing intern) learned how to make cars in his spare time by himself before he made it big. He never had actually used them, though - just kept them in an unused alleyway and mix-n-matched them in his spare time between delivering emails and internships.

♤~♤

-Click (Banner's boyfriend, baker and party caterer, Pink) lives in an attic above his bakery. It's small, but it feels like home to them. It has a stained glass window overlooking a highway on the other side of Main Street.

-Vice (Sample's co-worker / girlfriend, Service's Trojan, cashier at Cyber Shoes II, Orange) breaks into Sample's apartment at night to raid his fridge / watch TV for a while. She doesn't know that Sample is awake every time she does this and just lets her get away with it (they live in the same complex). She loves the nights that he makes stuff with leftovers for dinner.

-Snap (Broadcast's co-worker and best friend, camera-man, Green)'s favourite drink is a Shirley Temple. They've never been a fan of alcohol.

♤~♤

-Gamble (Mobile and Clickbait's father, casino owner, Blue), despite being an online advertisement, doesn't know much about how to actually use the Internet beyond posting his casino ads. Mobile tries to help him learn by giving him social media accounts, but he's basically like a grandpa using Facebook.

-Mobile (Clickbait’s elder sister, mobile advertiser [mainly in gambling / lottery / casino apps] and casino bartender, Yellow) prefers to go by Cooper / Couper, or Coop / Coup, her middle name - a reference to Martin Cooper, inventor of the mobile phone.

-Clickbait (Mobile's younger brother and Click's Trojan, clickbait advertiser [mainly making Couper's ads more flashy and clickable], casino bartender, Cyber Shoes II supervisor, gossip columnist, Pink)'s only 'true' friend is a young Werewerewire named Amp that he met in the Dark Web.

-Service (Manager / owner of Cyber Shoes II, Orange) has tapped Vice, Clickbait, and Sample's phones to monitor their activity on their phones, much to their displeasure.

♤~♤

-Hanahaki (placeholder name, Purple)'s favourite flowers are lavender and wisteria vines.

-Patient 0 (placeholder name, Pink) is one of the oldest Addisons to exist and hates being one. Not like Spamton and Sample do with just 'being a Darkner in general,' but actively hates the Addison species, and has days where he wants to destroy his casing to be unrecognizable as one... unfortunately he has enough damage to his endoskeleton as is without uncovering his entire inner skeleton.

♤~♤

[sailorblossoms-snowbaz]

Baz can't be trusted here (on unreliable narrators and the comphet of it all)

Something very notable to me is that time the author (when talking about how she approached the "love triangle" in CO) said that “it's normal to date people you’re not even attracted to” because yes. I immediately agreed with that when I read it, I've seen it in real life... but it kind of blew my mind anway, because you normally don’t expect a romance author to say that when talking about her characters, and you especially don't expect to see that portrayed in their work. It's not the expectation ("I can see Agatha and Simon are not into each other, but they must have been at the beginning" it's an assumption and an expectation." They never actually express that! "It wasn't always like this, it used to be good" it's never what's said! When Penny talks about their relationship seeing better days, she likely means their friendship, because she says "I don't believe they're in love." They express feeling like they're supposed to be with each other, that they're supposed to want it) (I can and have elaborated before but not here, that's not where I'm going right now) I think this is very important to identify and acknowledge because once you start with “not in love and not attracted, then why the hell they dated?” you arrive at so many answers about who these characters are and what they're looking for. About how a relationship that existed partly because they were trying to find a place in the world makes them feel more lost than ever, and how that's a good thing, because it means they're asking questions they never even imagined existed before, questions that will help them figure their shit out (and figuring it out what they don't want, which is what they had, it's also progress).

But what brings me here right now is Baz. When people want Simon and Agatha to be "real," (as in romantic and/or sexual) the arguments they bring up (it's normal to have romantic or sexual feelings for different people at different stages of your life, which is true, but it's not what's happened with them, we don't have to insist it is for their experience to be valid or to matter, comphet is a real thing that exists etc) are things Baz has very present. I mean, look at his family. He has heard the stories about their parents, and despite her aunts' best efforts, he sees his dad's relationship with his stepmum as valid and even good for the man. He expects Simon to have had romantic feelings for Agatha, and to have been attracted. Even when Simon it's voicing how wrong it all felt (including not feeling shit when he should probably had) Baz still assumes he must've been into her at some point. But note that these are assumptions to Simon comes to find upsetting, that he fights against when Baz voices them when it would be easier not to. I think the most telling part it's when Simon practically looks at the camera in the style of the office and says "what I liked about her is that I didn't like her" – it's comfortable that she didn't awake anything in him. It's safe that he didn't experience romantic or sexual feelings with her ever, because those feelings are too overwhelming to him, too dangerous. Note how he was always losing his shit around Baz, how he comes to believe, when he finally identifies those feelings, that Baz would be the death of him. Very telling too is that while Baz hears and accepts Simon's "nothing compares to you," what Simon reveals here (which can be sum up with "this is part of why he calls himself a baz-sexual") it's shocking. It's likely also hard to internalize, because Baz has programming he had to work against, which includes seeing himself as monstrous and undesirable.

Which brings me to the point about comfort: Agatha is comfortable because she didn't awaken anything in Simon. It's comfortable that he doesn't have to manage or process shit around her, he's perfectly chill in her presence (which is certainly not "baby is in love" or "baby is discovering attraction" behavior) (especially given Simon isn't known for restraint and being chill) (his behavior around Baz, however...) She's comfortable because she's a childhood friend, she's familiar and trusted. She's also uncomfortable. We could make a list of moments that reveal Simon's discomfort with her, which is less about her and more about just not really being comfortable with going through the motions of being her boyfriend (because he likes the idea of it, what it represents, but doesn't actually like being her boyfriend, hence him being "shitty" at it while being aware).

I have compared how Baz sees Simon comfortable beside her vs how he didn't see the discomfort that was very present between Simon and Agatha in a previous scene. I think the gist of it it's discomfort at being reminded of/being perceived as a couple vs comfort at being able to simply be friends again. Again, many reasons for Agatha to be comfortable (childhood friend, familiar, trusted, etc). It stands out but "the guy who's on edge 24/7 can be at ease around a childhood friend" it's probably not something that should stand out that much. It shouldn't affect Baz, and yet...

Here I'm reminded of a recent post where the author mentions Agatha and Simon's friendship won't ever be fully relaxed again (which I find easier to believe than the alternative). In that goat scene, there's comfort that's specifically about them being able to feel like friends again, free from outside pressure and influences... while, at the same time, we're reminded of the pressure, the optics that pushed together in the first place with Baz's thoughts. The framing alone makes it so it's not fully comfortable... and what are the current standards of comfort for those two anyway, given that they have been used to discomfort while dating? Given that this very moment is followed by some level of discomfort when both have their version of "what happened there is nothing to be jealous of, it's just a moment of friendship" with Niamh and Baz? How can we know if there isn't an undertone or some lingering awkwardness that's sort of brushed aside or pushed through in this particular moment? (Simon is shirtless until he gets close to Agatha, he's fully clothed then).

I've spent so much time noting the discomfort between those two (because of the comphet of it all) that it always stood out to me that Baz highlights comfort (hence that long ass posts) and while I don't think he's entirely wrong (for reasons already stated)... he's actually not someone who can be trusted to assess shit when it's about Simon and Agatha. Every time Simon processes or reaches conclusions about how wrong he felt dating her it's in Baz's presence (because he wants Baz to understand, even when he himself doesn't) but Baz is still affected. The wounds are still fresh. At this point, he has spent a longer time believing Simon was destined for someone else than he has spent believing Simon wants to be his. It fucks with his emotions and perception, even if he logically knows he should know better. There are years of programming he has to go against. He might be good at reading others in certain circumstances (clocked Shepard's deal with Penny pretty quickly) but the "golden couple" and interest in himself are huge blindspots. Note that he thought they were happy together even when Agatha explicitly told him otherwise (when Penny was observing the same thing and essentially saying "this isn't it, please go back to being friends" – granted, she was looking more closely, but still). Note that in this very moment, Baz is looking at them and being affected by the optics of them standing together, and how that very much would fuck with him (notable that that's how Simon describes the relationship too, optics! when he should be talking about feelings! as "a picture where I look like who I am supposed to be" and what are the feelings? "feeling like a fool" and expressing discomfort) (Niamh seems affected too, but she doesn't seem like one for nuance, or to be trusted in her perception either – doesn't she still calls Simon "her boyfriend" to Agatha despite being corrected?)

Baz links the image of them standing together to the sun. He has to look away. It burns. If you can't even look at something long enough... you won't notice the details.

So how can he be trusted in his perception of how comfortable Simon truly is, about the type of comfort he's feeling (because there's the bad type, the "turning off my brain and not pushing myself to figure out what actually want" type) and where that's coming from? If there's a struggle Simon is pushing (or attempting to push) through would he even notice? Or would he be too blinded, too burned to look closely?

[grace--le--domas]

PJO- Some Show Recommendations for the showrunners if s2 is greenlit

Season 1 was kinda...boring? Honestly, that is the last thing I expected a PJO adaptation to be. The books aren't perfect, but they are fun! There is friendship, adventure, humour, all while still the characters grapple with some pretty serious stuff. The show (except for the first two episodes and the finale) feels stiff.

Show is too exposition-y, the pacing is off and it of course breaks the cardinal rule of show- don't -tell.

Thankfully, the concerns are easily remedied. Coming of age stories are a dime and dozen, and I think that the showrunners could actually learn from the TV shows and movies of past. So, I compiled some recommendations for them :) Read on if extensive analysis is your thing :)

Buffy The Vampire Slayer- Honestly, this is theee coming of age story. It follows Buffy (the chosen one), as she navigates high school, college and eventually adulthood, along with slaying vampires. And instead of a sullen main character, we as an audience are treated to a sassy, take-no-prisoners variant of the chosen one trope. There are so many similarities between Percy and Buffy- both are loyal to a fault, sarcastic and stubborn. They understand that they cannot escape their respective destinies, but they'll be damned if they don't see things through their own way. Both are brave to a fault, and adore their found families. The writers could take some inspiration from BTVS and Buffy's character arc (to an extent). Bonus- BTVS has great examples of melding humour in serious situations.

2. Mission Impossible Series- This one might be a bit controversial, but hear me out. I know most people consider the MI films popcorn flicks-and they are- but most the movies in the series are paced excellently. There is a sense of urgency in MI films- which was severely lacking in the PJO show. Have a deadline, let me feel anxious for these kids.

MI also has some excellent action scenes. And before you say, well PJO is not an action series, I would like to say that I agree- but the beauty of adaptating something is that you get to change things. Well paced action sequences, even if they are about a minute or so, are necessary break up the exposition dumps. It breaks the monotony. It makes you feel afraid for these kids, who are running from one dangerous situation/monster to another.

3. Dune (2023)- Thematically, Dune is vastly different from PJO. I am including it in this list for several reasons- editing, cinematography world building and sound editing.

To put it bluntly, I don't feel connected to the world of the PJO series at all- which is a shame because it is an incredible world! Greek mythological creatures co-existing with the modern world! Modern myths! Greek gods!. But it is all introduced in the most boring, exposition-y way possible.

The cinematography doesn't shine until the last episode. I want interesting shots, fluid camera movements- just anything that breaks the monotony of scenes. For example- I loved Poseidon's introduction, why wasn't this type of cinematography present in the rest of the series. Shoot the gods differently, make use of different camera compositions. Experiment a little for god's sake.

Coming to sound, yeah this one was the most disappointing of all. There are no memorable sound motifs, which is a shame because sound can convey so much more than words in certain scenes. I say Harry Potter music and you instantly think about the charcteristic symphony. This is missing sorely in the tv show.

Sidenote- I would have chosen Nathan Barr as the music composer (missed opportunity Disney). Look up his work, and you'll understand why I said this.

Coming to editing, yeah the editing is clunky at best. That is all I have to say about that for the moment.

Let me know if anyone wants a part 2 :)

[experthiese]

my first one is messy and honestly not the way I'd want it, so here's my shot at a public vs. private information post, version two.

"but pluto, where does my muse fall on this?"

I don't know! I don't write your muse! realistically speaking, even lupin's canon can't even seem to keep itself consistent with what's known and who by, so I'm not really all that fussed about how you choose to interpret this list. go with whatever feels right, and I'll play along accordingly.

so, let's get started!

PUBLIC.

He is the grandson of Arsène Lupin, phantom burglar of France.

He is the son of Lupin II, attempted founder of the Lupin Empire.

Like his predecessors, Lupin III is a master thief who targets valuable items from all across the world. He's a household name, and even has official merchandise (including the infamous plushie claw machines).

He's affiliated with what's informally known as the Lupin Gang: his 'inner circle' of friends. The current active members are Jigen Daisuke, Goemon Ishikawa XIII, and thieftress Fujiko Mine. She's more of an independent force, and is just as likely to betray Lupin and co. as she is to aid them. More members may be present, as dependent on verse and muse connections.

His eternal rival is Inspector Koichi Zenigata of the ICPO. Zenigata is the only person able to consistently get close to Lupin, and has managed to capture and detain him over one hundred times. The issue, of course, is that Lupin has been able to break out over a hundred times.

He's polyamorous and can often be found surrounded by short-term lovers whenever he's out spending his heist gains. He makes no attempt to hide this or deceive anyone: he's poly, not a cheater.

He's a polyglot, able to speak as fluently as a native regardless of where in the world he travels. Despite French and Japanese being his mother languages, he has no noticeable accent when speaking outside of them. Lupin also knows a select handful of dead and computer languages.

He's a master of disguise, able to forge documents as the need arrives and change his entire appearance at will. He can fake scars, injuries, identifying marks such as birthmarks or tattoos, and adopt the face, voice and mannerisms of anyone he pleases. His masks do have tells, however: such as not showing sweat after a period of exercise, while real skin would.

His chosen weapon is a Walther P-38, kept holstered against his chest.

There's a tongue-in-cheek saying that, for a Lupin, walls and gates and security systems simply do not exist. Many believe them able to get anywhere and everywhere, regardless of any preventative measures attempted. While this isn't entirely true, it is exceedingly difficult to keep Lupin out of somewhere, with even supposedly 'top security' buildings having been compromised more times than I care to count.

He was married to Rebecca Rossellini, Italian heiress, model, actress, and general celebrity.

He was the star of the Lupin Game online phenomenon, where he was tracked day and night by drone cameras, whose footage was live-streamed across the internet. People were encouraged to take photographs or video clips if they saw him.

SEMI-PUBLIC.

His calling cards lay out the rules of his heist. He will appear on the date and time listed, and he will leave empty-handed if he's unable to complete his theft before the end time listed on the card. The heist's no fun if there's no game involved.

Lupin doesn't kill unprovoked. That's one of the rules of his game. Taking another's life only becomes an option once they cross the line and endanger the lives of himself or his friends. Under all other circumstances, he'll always shoot to disarm first.

Not only does Lupin have copycat thieves aiming to impersonate his crimes, but this no-killing rule is one of the biggest copycat downfalls, often being the thing that gets them discovered. Thief he may be, but Lupin has a strict code of ethics that both he and Zenigata are very well acquainted with.

He has an IQ of 300, and can temporarily raise it to 301. He's incredibly intelligent, far more than he's often given credit for, but prefers to hide it behind a silly and easily underestimated persona.

His marriage to Rebecca wasn't his first, nor his last. However, the only real 'love match' was his attempt to settle down with Fujiko, while ultimately failed and lead to a separation. All other marriages are used as a means to an end, a way to get himself closer to whatever treasure he's aiming to steal.

He was the star of dark web phenomenon Happy Death Day, where people would bet on the date Lupin would die. This inevitably ended up attracting prominent assassins who would compete to kill Lupin on their predicted date, and after a particularly large confrontation, most of these competing players have been declared dead.

He's AMAB, just androgynous enough that many databases find it difficult to make a definitive decision one way or the other. As a result, this field is often left marked inconclusive.

He's bisexual, and appreciates pretty faces of all genders. His love for womanising and vocal adoration for his beloved Fujicakes just tend to overshadow the times he pursues everyone else.

SEMI-PRIVATE.

He stayed in France for the early years of his childhood and was raised within his grandfather's sprawling Paris estate. Arsène taught him the ways of Lupin family thievery from the moment he could stand, and he had already mastered several of its skills by the time he was able to write.

He attended the later years of elementary and early years of Junior high school in Tokyo, Japan. However, he left the system before graduating.

He targeted dark web drugs trafficking and money laundering giant Marco Polo in an online heist, draining their crypto wallet and making off with millions in BitMoney currency. He was also involved in the arrest of its three executives: Chuck Glay (Peekaboo), Kunal Robinson (Chap Tip) and Sonia Boutella (MooMoo).

He can pilot any vehicle, be it for land, sea or sky. It's safe to assume that he owns at least one mode of transport for each, and tends to favour cars, submarines and planes respectively.

He's been declared dead many times. One time 'Lupin' was even publicly hanged, though this was later revealed to be a clone. Lupin himself had no hand in the clone's creation.

He has chapodiphobia: a fear of octopi. This fear extends out to squid, cuttlefish and anything else under the cephalopod umbrella.

He's... somewhere under the nonbinary label. Most likely genderfluid, though he lacks the vocabulary to express this (nor does he have much desire to explore / pin himself down to any particular label).

His marriage with Fujiko ended poorly, and left a rift between them for some time. While she was the one to actually leave, a lot of their inner conflict was a result of Lupin and his discomfort at being truly transparent, even to her.

PRIVATE.

He has connections to the Grand Duchy of Cagliostro thanks to his efforts to save its ruler, Clarisse, from an unwanted marriage.

He's incapable of dreaming, lacking the subconscious needed to activate REM sleep. This void was once said to be the consciousness of an idiot or a god, though it's impossible to tell what one Lupin is.

The only marriage still standing is the one with Onabes, an art collector. He's the husband of Lupin's Miss Marie persona, making him Onabes' wife in the eyes of the law. Lupin has requested divorce several times, but Onabes is yet to sign the necessary papers.

He's got an occasional telepathic ability, though this link has only been shown between him and Fujiko, and it only seems to activate in times of life-or-death danger. Lupin's aware of this ability, and once called it the miracle of love.

He has safehouses in every conceivable corner of the globe. Some are luxurious mansions with grand estates attached. Others are rickety wooden shacks held together by hopes and dreams and prayers, with no running water and a single flickering lightbulb. All of them are owned under false names.

All gadgets are handmade, as are any smoke bombs or chemicals he uses. Lupin's a capable scientist when he wants to be, an often occupies himself by engineering new little toys to try out.

[fantasticharmonymiracle]

Let me say that I have infinite respect for @thelastaerie for providing us with a ton of fantastic and masterfully written fics about Kay and Marc's love story, truly. However, the entire fandom needs to be true with themselves and realise that if Freier Fall was irl Kay would never, EVER even consider getting back with Marc.

Let me elaborate:

Marc was definitely in love with Kay especially towards the end of the film but that doesn't mean he loved him because he never made the effort, as we know, and never saw Kay as his first choice. He technically was Plan B in case Bettina, which she did, didn't take him back. As romantic as we want to paint it, it doesn't put a good foundation for yet another toxic fling almost fifteen years after.

Also, very problematic is the fact that Kay pursued Marc in a questionable way like in the woods. I didn't hear any consent being given for that hand job or whatever happened (haven't seen the film in a while) and also, Kay clearly saw that Marc was basically married and with a baby on the way. It's not ethical at all to go after a taken man, regardless of the fact that you think he's a closeted gay man and you feel the itching urge to play the saviour angel and drag him out of the closet. I feel like both of them would realise it was certainly a heated time of their life but also not the best to jump back into and bring back chaos into their existence.

Bettina, she's a boss BUT that shower scene I cannot stand to watch, it feels way too violent and if a sequel happens I'm not sure how they should deal with the whole co-parenting deal without addressing that bit.

On top of this all, they may be both men but the punches they threw at each other are not acceptable whatsoever irl. It's not sexy nor a sign of true love. It's plain violence and a cheap substitute for grown-up talk. I get it, in films one has to emphasize emotions to draw the audience in but if I was Kay and I had Marc beg me to get back together... Like fuck I would after that and after I was literally thrown under the bus to save his sorry ass.

In terms of character as well, Kay comes across as a weirdly crafted excuse to drag the plot cause a wannabe cop smoking weed and taking ecstasy is surely "attractive" on camera but doesn't make sense in the real world. Why would you pick police as your career choice? Conquering the enemy from the inside is surely not gonna last that long, innit? This being said, considering the wild nature of Kay I doubt he'd fit well with Marc, even after his potential development and acquired emotional intelligence. I see older Kay as an accomplished something in whichever field having the time of his life in Berlin, or just a deranged junkie somewhere in Germany. Certainly, if we go with option 1, not one that would lower his standards for Marc, still. He wouldn't slow down for him again after being treated like shit.

Irl Marc would probably see the experience as an awakening but it wouldn't do a 180 on him, he'd still be the Stuttgart cop who now admits to himself he likes blokes OR would have a massive identity crisis, drop out of police and have a very hard time for the next 10/15 years, still not good unless we want a Trainspotting kinda love story (meaning the hopeless, scum of the earth vibes).

To end this rambling, not a good match but good entertainment. Certainly magical to read fiction about them because they allow so much freedom for the imagination.

Ps. @thelastaerie PLEASE do a fiction inspired by their other films together (wink wink that military one I can't watch because ffs I don't speak German -yet)

Apologies if this post is utter shite, I'm in the back of a moving car about to chunder and can't put my thoughts into coherent sentences. The main idea is somewhere round here.

[variousqueerthings]

okay I didn't go into Victory of the Daleks whilst watching cos I think it's trash, but let's do the Measurement on it!

sexism rank objectification (female character is ogled/harassed/turned into a sex joke by the doctor and/or a lead we’re supposed to root for and/or the camera): 9/10

sexism rank plot-point (lead female character is only there to serve plot, not to have her emotional interiority explored): 3/10

interesting complex or pointlessly complex (does the complexity serve the narrative or does it just serve to be confusing as a stand-in for smart, this includes visually): 6/10

furthers character and/or lore and/or plot development (broader question that ties into the previous ones, at least two of these, ideally three should be fulfilled): 5/10

companion matters (the companion doesn’t always have to be there, but if the companion is there, can they function without the doctor– and overall per season how often is the companion the focus or POV of the story): 5/10

the doctor is more than just “godlike” (examines the doctor’s flaws and limitations, doesn’t solve a plot by having it revolve entirely around the doctor’s existence): 6/10

doesn’t look down on previous doctor who (by erasing or mocking its importance, by redoing and “bettering” previous beloved plotpoints or characters, etc.): 7/10

isn’t trying to insert hamfisted sexiness (m*ffat famously talked a lot about how dw should be sexier multiple times, he sucks at writing it): 8/10

internal world has consistency (characters have backgrounds, feel rooted in a place with other people, generally feel like they have Lives): 3/10

Politics (how conservative is the story): 1/10

FULL RATING: 53/100 (if I can count….)

Christopher Eccleston I hope you never watched the last two episodes, in which the Doctor was personal friends with various members of the royal family and supports its structures, and the Doctor is personal friends with Winston Churchill....

also I've gotta be honest, Matt Smith's acting isn't giving it in this in terms of the Dalek Trauma, but then none of the episode is

I liked the Doctor going "Amy- Amelia!" when worried for her safety

OBJECTIFICATION: At least there's none of that really. Second miniskirt, but youknow. that's Amy's wardrobe most of the time.

PLOT-POINT: nothing is really explored about Amy in this episode, but I guess not every episode needs to be doing that. I think her relationship with the Doctor continues to be written a bit to the left of what makes sense for them, considering the past, but I'm willing to consider that she just wants the adventure and not to think too much about things

COMPLEXITY: I mean, it's not complicated at all. if anything it's a bit simple. bringing the Daleks back like this, in a way that previously was reserved for Very Special Episodes. marks the beginning of the end of the Daleks as serious villains....

CHARACTERS/LORE/PLOT: because the Daleks make very little sense in this, it's kind of dumb lore, but way more interesting is the tidbit that Amy doesn't remember the events of previous seasons

now I've previously disliked this plotpoint, because I feel like it never properly gets resolved despite the cracks in time later on being... uncracked. however it is cool when it's first mentioned!

COMPANIONS MATTER: Amy does mostly one thing, which is remind the guy who's actually a robot what it is to be human, so he doesn't blow up, and she does it by reminding him... that he was in love once.....

“hey Paisley… ever fancied someone you know you shouldn’t… hurts doesn’t it… but kind of a good hurt…” <- look I’m biased but I’d just explode if I were a secret Dalek bomb RIP to all of us aros, but we're not really human

this wouldn't needle so much, if I didn't know that this is so much of M*ffat's thesis. romantic love is better than any other forms of connection

“GODLIKE” DOCTOR: the Doctor is kind of the point of this episode in that they needed his voice to make the plot work, and then he's badass, and then it ends. it's not "godlike," but it's just. not a good episode. the end.

PREVIOUS DOCTOR WHO: So this also ties into the lore -- I kind of like right now how it definitely does acknowledge the previous narratives and it's weird that Amy doesn't know that it happened... highly suspect

“SEXINESS”: we're fine on the sexiness overall. minimum trying to be sexy outside of the general weirdness of the miniskirts as a Choice

INTERNAL WORLD: it's not good folks. it's trying to be so big and impressive and so we've got random planes in space and Churchill is Personal Friends With The Doctor and it's got this whole wink wink we know we're going to beat the Germans, because we know the Future

vs, say, M*ffat's last foray into WWII (which, granted he didn't write this episode, but this is his show now) in which you really got a sense of the fear and the unknown and the Deeply Human, because we're not just hanging out with the Most important people

it's just not recognisable as a Place and Time, beyond the need for some kind of coolness factor

and speaking of The Most Important People--

POLITICS: uuuuuuurghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh okay

I have seen someone say that this episode is actually a critique of Churchill, and honestly I was this close to skipping it, and then that dragged me in to actually give it a go and

no it is not. I mean, yes, Churchill is characterised as someone who will try to win however he can, but he's actually trying his best in a difficult situation and as the Doctor says: “the world doesn’t need me. The world’s got Winston Spencer Churchill.”

UUUUUUURGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH OKAY

the doctor personal friends with winston churchill

the fucking. Hey-Ho Britain Propaganda! We'll Beat The Bally Germans Ey Lads!

FULL RATING: 53/100 (if I can count….)

It loses on the politics of course, and on the internal world-building (again related to the politics), and Amy isn't really much of anything in this episode beyond... there

it does well on... not doing the sexy sexism I guess. and it's not terrible towards other Doctor Who stories, although maybe it deserves less on that because fuuuck the shit it does with the Daleks is an insult in and of itself

it's just not a good episode

[demonfox38]

Completed: Okage: Shadow King

I think the game would prefer to speak for itself.

In my previous game evaluations, you may have seen me mention my best friend classified co-conspirator @jeannettegray. As of writing right now, her avatar on multiple services is this:

This would be an image of Rosalyn, one of the lead characters of today's evaluation. Having been given this knowledge, I bet you can put two and two together to figure out how I ended up playing "Okage: Shadow King." Because, let me tell you. I might be a nut for niche RPGs, but I definitely wouldn't have heard of this title without her influence. So, thanks again, JG!

"Okage: Shadow King" is a 2001 PlayStation 2 turn-based RPG developed by Zener Works. It (arguably) stars Ari, a young boy most known for…well. Nothing. Really! That's his schtick. Not that he doesn't have his own personality, but he's literally overshadowed by a bombastic set of characters hell-bent on taking over the world, reforming it to their desires, or stopping the chaos around them with their own tilted bents. To free his sister from a peculiar curse, Ari forms a pact with Stan, the titular Shadow (Evil) King, traveling around the world and defeating other Evil Kings to restore his power. Along the way, he picks up additional characters (including a handful of said Evil Kings, a dipshit scientist, and a mortified hero) and discovers the true nature of the world, all while finding a way to…well, step out of the shadows of others, I suppose.

Possibly by being the most sarcastic bitch in the world!

Now, if you read "2001", "PlayStation 2", and "RPG" above, you may pre-emptively have come to some conclusions about why this game is so damn niche. I checked the release dates just to confirm our mutual suspicions. This had a two months' head start on "Final Fantasy X" and was released in what appears to be the best month for it to come out (more on that in a bit.) So, I wouldn't say definitively that one game ate the other's supper. But, realistically, it only had a couple of months in the spotlight before went into…you know. Components of its own name.

There is definitely something weird to "Okage: Shadow King." I mean, weird beyond the intended vibes. I did some reading on Zener Works to see exactly what they are, as that's not a company familiar to me. It seems like they had a handful of titles in the late 2000s, as well as some mobile game properties (and a pending lawsuit against another company, if Google Translate was correct on their website.) This game is not only their only PS2 game, but seems to be the only RPG they ever built. Additionally, some general information on Wikipedia claims this was originally intended to be a PlayStation release but was then asked to be moved to the PlayStation 2 literally a day before the console's existence was revealed to the world at large.

I’m bringing up the development history because I don't want you to start playing this game and come to the conclusion that your PlayStation 2 is dying. (I mean, they are frailer than race horses, but it's not the console's fault exclusively that things are acting strangely.)

This isn't to say the game looks bad. Anything but! (Well, I guess there's some general distance fog, occasional camera issues, and Madril's kind of an ugly town, but stick with me here!) Honestly, given the character design for this game, I thought that perhaps there was some creative staff overlap with those that worked on stop-motion film/Hot Topic darling "Nightmare Before Christmas." This doesn't seem to be the case. Somebody in the design team was just a major nerd for that film. Like, blatantly stole the hill from that movie kind of nerd. The design team had their inspiration, and damned if they didn't nail it. So, if you're into the aesthetics of that film in particular, this game is a must play for that alone.

Also, one of the character modelers went on to work on "Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night." You know you've got the charming spooky look nailed when the former design team for several "Castlevania" games wants you in their company!

Honestly, the music is pretty good, too. There's a couple of tracks that go a little too heavy on the use of chanting or bagpipes for my taste, but otherwise? Solid. Also? It reacts to you being inside/outside a building and whether or not you are about to die in battle. Responsive music programming! I love that!

The major attraction for this game is its writing, bar none. It's the world's most sarcastic RPG, and I say that with full affection. Like, all of your dialogue options can be boiled down to good/bad/sarcastic. There's no sane man in this universe. They've all been run down and driven to frothing vengeance by those in manic passion for power. Hell, the only thing that even remotely restores sanity in this game is giving up power.

Even with the game's bombastic nature, it can come out swinging with its plot twists. Like, you'll catch some. Obviously, there's a reason that the girl with demon horns and a pink miniskirt has aspirations for becoming a pop icon. Some seem obvious after the fact, like, "Of course, you can't trust butlers for anything. That's always how it goes!" Even the nature of the world itself will explain some issues you rub up against gameplay-wise. The one that really caught me off-guard was the opening for Chapter 5. Like…I don't want to spoil it for you, so I won't get into it too much. But, let's say the bit with Ari having to stand up for himself and regain some sense of personality and appearance was surprisingly resonant for me.

So, this makes a pretty good YouTube longplay video, especially if you're listening to one sans commentary. How about the game part?

Well…how much do you like "Quest 64?"

Not that the two games are all that alike. (Well, actually, maybe in the good music/character design bit.) But, I bring up my tolerance for "Quest 64" in that I love that game despite its online reputation as being the worst RPG on the Nintendo 64. (I mean, have people even seen the opening cutscene for "Aidyn Chronicles"? JFC.) I have a great deal of tolerance for funky RPGs is what I'm trying to say. For me to call an RPG bad, you'd literally have to present something like "Hoshi wo Miru Hito" to my face. Like, poorly functioning, poor audio, and having no final boss bad.

This is a novice RPG written relatively new into its console's library. It's got issues.

If you're gonna play it, you're going to need to have patience with it.

Looking at how it operates, I suspect the game designers were fans of "Megami Tensei" games (like "Shin Megami Tensei" or possibly the "Persona" series, although the timeline isn't quite the smoothest for the latter.)  At least, the occasional Stan chats prior to combat, the focus on supernatural entities, the enemy abuse of curses, buffing/debuffing importance, and HP consuming moves are screaming that to me. There are some tweaks to it that are odd. For example, characters share a special ability pool (LP) instead of having their own points to spend on special moves or magic. This seems to fluctuate based on who is in your party and how magically gifted they are. There may also be some "Chrono Trigger" influence? Maybe? Possibly? I mean, you've got a party of three that trails you and can join up with you to attack a single target. It feels familiar for a reason.

Also, it's one of those RPGs where you can't trade the main character out of the party. And, if he dies, it's an instant game over. Yep. Like, there's an implied plot reason for why this could be so, but damned if it isn't irritating as hell.

Some of the mechanic focus is strange to me as well. Like, there are several levels of curses (think poison/sleep/confusion/reward penalties), and some of these curses can be stacked multiple times to have more severe effects. Meanwhile, the elemental system is just a triangle. It is also a strange triangle if you think too long about it. It's better just to think blue > red, yellow > blue, red > yellow instead of wondering how exactly fire defeats lightning and how ice works almost opposite to every other RPG on the planet. It also has a distribution issue both within your party and the monster populace at large. Like, you only get one fire elemental guy. But, to compensate for this, most of your cast will learn spells to cover the elements that they aren't. And then, it seems like there's not the most even balance of enemies out there, anyway? Like, it seemed mostly blue/red early on, with yellow appearing towards the end to be a pain in the ass. I don't know. It was weird. Like, "Fire Emblem" handing you so many sword dudes when there are so few axes to grind and more spears to dodge. It could be personal bias, but you know that feeling, right? Not as rough as taking a fire starter in Pokémon, but maybe taking a water starter.

Pacing is also a weird issue in this game. Like, there are some dungeons where you step one foot into and can win instantly, and others that require grinding for 10 levels. Your party member pool is strapped to the same three people for almost half of the game. (Trust me when I say you want Kisling out ASAP. Dude's a creep and a dud.) Hell, in trying to get my party evened out to level 60 for use in the final dungeon, I accidentally ended up gaining, like, 37 levels for the main character. Also, Chapters 4 and 5 seem to be significantly bloated, with a great deal of fighting taking place in or around the second town. It's like, blink and Chapters 1 and 6 are gone. Very odd.

So, okay. I've got a few creative differences with the dev team. What I really don't get is how the loading issues, audio volume multiplier, and save erasing bug made it into the wild. Like, I know. Novice game made by inexperienced team on new hardware. But, c'mon. Sony had a QA team on this. They had to pick this up.  

What's frustrating about these items is that I could see both how to fix them and how they just weren't fixed. Like…

The game loads fine when it's one large horizontal map. The loading issues come into play with more multi-roomed environments like homes, dungeons, and towns. Other games work around this by having multiple chunks on one map, then teleporting the player around as they enter and exit spaces. Or, hell, implement a visibility flag and turn that on/off as needed. Could the maps not be congealed, for some reason? Couldn't someone at least give the player a loading screen so I’m not sitting there wondering if my PlayStation 2 is having optical drive issues?

The audio volume multiplier is a weird event where a single sound is being played many times, usually when multiple of the same attacks or spells land at once. All that requires to fix, theoretically, would be implementing a volume maximum to not be played over, then making that volume be whatever the default value for the base sound is.

I saw the save erasing bug happen a whopping 3 times over 40 hours of gameplay, and I had been rotating my saves like a good girl. So, it wasn't something I couldn't recover from. But, holy shit. No. Absolutely not. That could have been real bad. Like, I can only guess what's happening here, but it seems like a file is being purposefully deleted before some new file is written in its place (as opposed to some file updating process) and that the writing process subsequently screws up. This would prevent bad progress flags from being recorded, I suppose, but the opposing situation of losing an entire damn file isn't pleasant, either.  

Considering how much dicking around the publishers asked for in getting this game on the PlayStation 2, I'm going to assume that they're also to blame for these issues getting out. As in, "Well, we've got to ship this by October!" and wham! Bugs pressed.

Even with all of the quirks to the game, it's not the hardest RPG to get through. About the roughest time I had was with Big Bull, and the troubles there involved dealing with Ari dying in two hits and Kisling just generally being unhelpful. Honestly, most of the problems in the game can be solved by ganging up on weak enemies and having a dedicated healing item spammer. (Healing items are super cheap, so might as well cram as many as you can in your pockets!) The rest is just talking to as many people as you can and reading as many signs as possible.

Also, here. Just take this video guide on gear locations. Life is short; don't trouble yourself with something as silly as gear hunting blindly. (At least it's not as silly of a side quest as dodging lightning 100 times or learning a new sport!)

I feel a little bad for coming down on "Okage" as hard as I did at the end. It's funny, thought provoking, and respectful of the player's time. For as fresh and different as it is, I'd play this over several contemporary members of its library. But, for some of its quirks, it does require a little patience. You've just got to know whether or not you've got that on hand.  

Frankly, for its price, "Okage: Shadow King" is quite the bargain, too. Hell, it's even available on the PlayStation store! Can't argue with the fair distribution it has in a modern market.

And, hey! Now I know more about JG's icon! So, it's always nice to have some additional context, especially when characters and stories are important to your friends. But, I do have to wonder how Rosalyn won over Stan for that place of honor. I mean, other than by being classified as a hero.

Then again, it might be a little disturbing being followed by something like this online.

[ndnp-art-ct3]

Alex has a couple clones that kinda just... Exist.

Creating a clone of yourself is something that wizards at a high enough level can do. To progress in magic, you have to practice magic, so some wizards create clones of themselves for various purposes, and then put them away after. Alex made a couple, and then just... Didn't do that.

rambling under the cut

Fuck it, all of this is under the cut. I can ramble as much as I want.

So what's generally done is that clones are created, then magic'd away. This doesn't kill the clone, it moreso... Puts that clone in storage, until a spell is cast that brings that clone back.

Alex didn't do that. Instead of putting them away, he wanted to keep them around. He sees them as separate people, so he treats them like they are, whether they look and sound like him or not.

This works since... Well, clones are never exact copies. While the appearances are near-flawless (They all have a number next to their "AP"s, and there's one huge exception I'll get to later), the personality tends to differ from the original.

If you saw this post, you'll probably know that Alex's hat is actually sentient. That's his brother, Todd. But Alex didn't make clones of Todd, he only made clones of himself. So how are there still multiple Todd's? It's not entirely accurate to call Todd a sentient hat. He's actually a sentient pocket dimension that can be accessed through an opening in the hat. All the hats on all the clones go to the same pocket dimension. So there can be multiple hats, but they all go to the same Todd. All the hats are him.

Most of the clones (two exceptions) live inside the pocket dimension. There's a dedicated "Clone Area" that all of them have access to, which consists of a lounge area that's connected to a personal room.

A, aka Alex #0 Nobody really knows exactly how A happened. Magic isn't perfect. It has the capability of creating a... Glitch, essentially. A "Clone 0" isn't meant to happen. A doesn't really do much. He doesn't really feel anything at all. He kinda just sits around, or does what he's told. Despite this, Alex is confident that he'll figure him out. He wants him to live his own life, to want things, to be his own person. But if all he really wants to do is sit around, then that's fine too.

Lex, aka Alex #2 Lex is a pretty reserved guy. He usually keeps to himself, but he likes to interact with the other clones from time to time. You can usually find him reading either in his room, or in the lounge area.

Alexei, aka Alex #3 Alexei always keeps to himself, being the shyest one in the group. He usually stays in his room on his computer. When he isn't being silent, he tends to speak very quietly. He's the kind of guy to hide behind someone else when he's near someone new. Usually Lex.

Axel, aka Alex #4 Axel doesn't live in the Clone Area. He has his own apartment in the Midopolis sector of Westerfield. He tends to be pretty awkward around new people, but he'll get pretty comfortable with you if you get to know him. He works at a restaurant, and he knows how to play a variety of instruments, and he sings better than Alex despite having the same voice. He doesn't really perform well in front of groups, preferring either a small group of people he knows well, or a camera.

Alexus, aka Alex #5 Alexus doesn't live in the Clone Area. He lives in the Stratoplane sector of Westerfield. (...Space, basically. He lives on a floating station in space.) He has a very stoic demeanor, and he works at a small vigilante organization, helping out usually within the town of Westerfield, but sometimes outside. He has a few co-workers, but that's a discussion for another time.

Al, aka Alex #6 Al is 6 inches tall. Nobody knows why. He's very cheerful most of the time. He has a very tiny room that's normal-sized for him. He's a simple guy, fascinated by the wonders of the world.

I don't know what else to say, but uh... If you have any questions or interest about my characters or lore, first of all I Love You, second of all my askbox is open and also I Love You

[medichamcham]

Here to nag you about Role-swap Giorose cuz its all I can think about :p

Since its a role-swap, I'd imagine that their personalities would be slightly different, just slightly. Role-swap!Rose would be a little unnerving to some because of how calm he, whether it be stealing or threatening, his face is always calm, but with a cold undertone. He has a steel hard front that can't be shaken by many. Rarely, is one successful in making a dent in his faced of calmness, let alone a crack. Few have ever managed to get this man angry, and no one wants to. Oh, and his organization would be called Team Cosmos since Team Rocket wouldn't exist.

Role-swap!Giovanni, would mostly be the same as his original self, but he wouldn't be so dangerous as a person. He's the Chairman after all, he has a reputation to keep up! He's charismatic and can grab anyone's attention with his well thought out speeches. Of course, with well known celebrities, it wouldn't be a shocker if he held a front for the cameras and public. 'Cause deep down, if he could punch someone and get away with it, he would do it. Another thing about him is that he can read people very well, any front that one has does nothing to him, since he is the CEO of Rocket Corporations, so he's always careful of making deals with others. If it doesn't benefit him, then he won't care.

If there's anything you want to add, go ahead :p

YESSSSS OMGGG THIS IS SUCH A DELIGHTFUL READ IM GOING CRAZYYYYYY !! i agree that giorose roleswap is such a delicate au !!! its like... you really have to read into their nuances to make this whole thing believable... its a good brain challenge hehe.

i love the idea of boss rose (ill call team cosmos rose this way i suppose) just being,,, Ice Fucking Cold. like genuinely terrifying tbh lol but he's juuuust charming enough to make you think he isn't. i can't see him wanting to control the world though, so maybe he has a very skewed way of thinking his work in organized crime is improving the future somehow?

chairman giovanni is so very fun oh god, i like to think he runs the indigo league in kanto instead of galar haha. i love how he's far more selfish than chairman rose is and keeps his machiavellian thinking in business... and perhaps silph co is his biggest competitor, or maybe even ran it to the ground and has a hold on kanto at a region-wide scale like macro cosmos?

AAHHH dont get me started on potential designs... like uuughh they'd look so fucking good i just know it

[thegeneralreturns]

IF I ABSOLUTELY HAD TO RANK THEM: The Academy Award nominees for Best Picture

10. Maestro - With its dialogue gaudily written in a style reminiscent of the Golden Age of Hollywood--keeping all of the cadence and none of the wit--kudos must be given to co-writer, co-producer, director and star Bradley Cooper for making a movie about the first great American conductor of classical music that's utterly fucking excruciating to listen to. And as an actor, he doesn't find a character here, getting lost in an impression and hiding behind prosthesis. He did give one of the best performances of 2023, but it wasn't as Leonard Bernstein, it was as Rocket Raccoon. Though I will say this film is impeccably made, and even though he can't make a connection himself, he did a great job in setting up Carey Mulligan to succeed. She gives one of her best performances as Bernstein's long-suffering wife. Bradley Cooper is a wonderful director, and he's a pretty good actor once he gets out of his own way. But could someone who loves him please tell him to step away from the typewriter?

9. The Holdovers - Da Vine Joy Randolph is the front-runner for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. And she deserves it, as the rest of The Holdovers can't keep up with her. Alexander Payne's early-seventies boarding school pastiche is all artifice and cliche (most of the time agreeably so, I'll admit), but when Randolph's school cook starts emotionally cratering in a very real, visceral, uncomfortable way, the movie seems to wake up... only to lull itself back to sleep once the camera is off of her. I have often said that one can only review the movie one is given, but, well, I'd have paid the premium price to go see the movie about Da Vine Joy Randolph's Mary. As it stands, I'm glad I caught The Holdovers on Peacock.

8. Poor Things - If Tim Burton suffered from a permanent hard-on, this is the movie he would make. Yorgos Lanthimos' feminist, socialist riff on the Frankenstein story has a lot of ideas and a ton of jokes that land, only for him to vanish up the prolapsed asshole of his own technique. It feels as though we're assaulted on the quarter-hour with iris shots and fish-eye lenses that seem to serve no other purpose than to inform the audience that this film is capital D Directed. I recommend this movie, don't get me wrong. It's smart, it's hilarious, the sets and costumes are impeccable, and Emma Stone gives an all-time belter of a performance. But it's really frustrating to have all this in the hands of a director that's the equivalent of an eight-year-old who wants us to watch him do cannonballs in the pool.

7. American Fiction - Cord Jefferson's American Fiction was sold as a biting satire of the inherent racial prejudices of the American literary industrial complex, from publishers looking for authenticity to the heaps of plaudits delivered by guilty white readers who want to bear witness to black misery without being told how much they suck for that. But I gotta tell ya, I think Jefferson could have gone farther. He could have been a little bit more vicious, went for blood, because what we're left with a satire that doesn't really seem to be mad at anyone. But the human drama and comedy that exists apart from that? That works wonderfully. Jefferson populated his film with real, loveable people that any audience would want to spend more time with. It's only surprising that Sterling K. Brown got nominated for an Oscar if you haven't seen the movie yet. And Jeffrey Wright's transformation into America's brainy, slightly depressed uncle continues apace.

6. Barbie - It was a cultural juggernaut that made all the money in the world, and spawned enough thinkpieces to choke a team of Clydesdales. Did its admittedly lofty ambitions jibe with its tone and approach? Not always. But did its jokes land? Yes, Barbie was the funniest movie of 2023. But I don't think I can say what hasn't already been said... Except America Ferrera was really good. I'm serious, I saw people get all butthurt about her Best Supporting Actress nomination, but these people couldn't reason their way out of a wet paper bag that was open already. And this isn't even about that monologue, either. Ferrera provided an oasis of plausibility in the middle of all this neon pink madness. Never once does she wink at the camera, or dive in and join the scenery chewing. She's funny, but funny in a real way that provides much needed counterweight to the musical numbers and jokes about Skipper dolls with expanding boobs. If it weren't for America Ferrera's work, Barbie would have been caricatures bouncing off of one another, and any weight this movie has is a testament to her skill. She was given a truly thankless task... Or it would have been, if she didn't get that nomination. Good for her.

5. The Zone of Interest - One does not explain Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest, one can only experience it. A man and his family settle down into their new house, only the man is the commandant at Auschwitz, and the twentieth century's greatest evil is happening just beyond the garden wall. We never venture into the camp itself, we never see what goes on, but for one-hundred-and-five minutes, we hear it. This family idyll is constantly underscored by gunshots, screaming, barking dogs, and the ever-present drone of the crematorium. This is one of the most unsettling experiences I've ever had watching a movie... the first time around. I don't think it would work dramatically for a second viewing. For as much mileage as Glazer gets out of his approach, it's still a gimmick. Not a cheap gimmick, mind you. It's a free-range gourmet gimmick from a place that's hard to pronounce, but a gimmick nonetheless.

4. Anatomy of a Fall - I don't know whether to ding Justine Triet's plug for the website didshedoit.com before even the studio's logo at the beginning, or to commend her for it. It tells us what kind of movie we're in for. A man falls from the balcony of his French chalet, and it's determined that it was either suicide, or he was pushed by his wife, and we spend the next two-and-a-half hours going through interrogations, investigations, re-enactments, and a full-blown trial trying to get to the bottom of a question that we were told at the beginning, through the mention of that website, that we weren't getting an answer to. It's only arrogance if Triet can't pull it off, and she very much does, presenting us with information in a way that leads us to question how we got to our conclusions. I'm usually resistant to movies that try to get us into a dialogue with ourselves, but the answers I got from... uh... me, were quite enlightening. I think it's odd that the Palme D'Or went to a simple courtroom movie, but as far as simple courtroom movies go, it's the best I've seen in decades.

3. Oppenheimer - Those who claim that Oppenheimer glorifies the life of the father of the atomic bomb quite frankly haven't seen it. I have never seen a biopic that holds its subject in such lively, blistering contempt as this one does. Cillian Murphy's J. Robert Oppenheimer is a man blundering towards a scientific breakthrough that will irrevocably worsen the world, and the only one who can't see it is him. Christopher Nolan's usual icy disregard for the people at the center of his narrative mazes comes off, in this case, as a kind of deadpan disapproval of a man who, brilliant though he may be, just can't see the train coming. Geniuses are still just men, only their mistakes are an entire magnitude larger, and virtually unfixable.

2. Past Lives - What a wonderful movie this is. A boy and a girl in Korea separate after her parents emigrate to America, only for them to reconnect decades later in New York, after she's married someone else. But the held breaths and things left unsaid aren't just romantic, but encompass the entirety of both their lives. It's not just about lost love, but lost opportunity, and being a stranger to themselves had one other thing gone different. Boy loses girl, and the realm of possibility winnows down to one for both of them. More than what these people say to each other in Celeste Song's marvelous debut, but what they don't say. What they can't admit to themselves. What they think the other can't take. Past Lives is quiet and delicate, but boy is it powerful.

And the Best Picture of the Best Pictures is...

Killers of the Flower Moon - This is a master working at the height of his powers. This is a top-shelf effort from the greatest filmmaker the United States has ever produced, depicting in minute detail the slow-motion genocide of the Osage people for oil money in the 1920s. At the center of this is Leonardo DiCaprio's Ernest Burkhart; a dimwit roped into this evil by his charismatic uncle, played by Robert DeNiro. It is through the lens of Burkhart that most of this story unfolds; a man whose grief and good intentions and convictions melt away once someone stronger and wealthier than he is tells him to do something that violates them. Now, there are some who recoil at this approach, preferring instead to center more on Ernest's Osage wife Mollie (played in a performance for the ages by Lily Gladstone). And I want it known that I'm sympathetic to this view. The movie they want may very well have been a great one, and it may very well have been better than this one (Hey, anything's possible), but it wouldn't have been this movie, which I wouldn't trade for anything. Mollie Burkart is the kind of character that would be the hero in another film, but Martin Scorsese doesn't make movies about heroes. He makes movies about weakness and failure. Hell, his movie about Jesus centered on a hypothetical moment of temptation. If Ernest Burkart hadn't existed, Scorsese would have had to invent him.

[phanfictioncatalogue]

Wizards (Non Harry Potter) Masterlist

A Familiar Kind of Love - auroraphilealis

Summary: Born in a world full of magic, Dan spends his days running an apothecary and curing the sick. Potions and antidotes are his only friends, and he lives a happy life of quiet solitude - until a familiar he never wanted takes it all away. Forced to make a decision that’s life or death for one of them, Dan and Phil have to learn to co-exist together, entering a journey of self-discovery… and a familiar kind of love. Ace/Aro

Blessed with a Curse (ao3) - Mirian_Rodrigues

Summary: A prince accidentally wrongs a wizard and is cursed so that no woman shall ever love him. Fortunately, the prince is gay and now that the wizard is a little calmer he notices that the prince is super cute.

Sparks fly, and not because of a magic spell.

Broomsticks and Magic Tricks - sexyendscreensmut

Summary: Dan's a wizard and there's absolutely no fucking way he's going to fall for some idiot who has big blue eyes and a goofy smile.

Carry Me (ao3) - jestbee

Summary: He's not obsessed. It really doesn't matter what Louise says.

"You're looking again."

"At what?"

"Your roommate."

Phil isn't looking. He's checking.

"Pass the butter," is what he says instead.

"You have butter."

"I need more butter."

It is our choices (ao3) - Furud, kittoblin

Summary: Where Dan is prince of England and Phil is the Auror in charge of protecting him.

“Am I expected to believe this?” He said getting serious “Because I’m not buying it. Are you one of them? I’ll listen if you make a rabbit appear”

“It’s not that kind of magic. I am here to protect you from any potential threat that might come from the wizarding world. And to teach you a few things about it”

something extraordinary, i’m sure (ao3) - celestialfics, creativityatbest

Summary: Dan accidentally summons a water-leaching demon while trying to cook his noodles one day, and luckily for him, Phil arrives just in time to help (and maybe hit him over the head). Adventure and magic ensue.

The cauldron of life (ao3) - TheOrangeAurora

Summary: When Dan was born, they knew he was different. Born into this world, but without emotion, he always felt different. Now, grown up and a master of magic and potions, he has made life in his little town and has been content. That is, until the day he comes across a potion that has a promise of making him finally feel.

Based on the prompt: You are born without emotions; to compensate this, you started a donation box where people could donate their unwanted emotions. You’ve lived a life filled with sadness, fear and regret until one day, someone donates happiness.

The Disney Mirror Ritual (ao3) - dangirlphillie

Summary: Dan and Phil have a question that needs answering. The obvious solution is to perform a dangerous ritual in none other than Disney World.

or The One Where Dan Tries a Creepypasta Ritual And It Works

The One With The Dragons (ao3) - CanDanAndPhilNot (enbycalhoun)

Summary: Phil is a young creature collector and the famous wizard and dragon training expert, Daniel Howell, catches wind of Phils rare Miniature Red Reaper.

The Prince and the Mage (ao3) - TheDyingRedRose

Summary: Red~ Prince Daniel takes a liking to the new mage of the castle.

Thorn In My Side (ao3) - fourthingsandawizard

Summary: Dan gently touched the black leaves with the tips of his fingers. “Phil? Is there such a thing as a plant-sona? Because I think I just found mine.”

Phil grimaced, sticking his tongue out in disgust. “Dan! Stop ruining plants for everyone!”

“Ruining?” Dan asked, shooting a mischievous smirk at the camera. “Or improving?”

—————————————————

Phil puts his Herbology skills to use in a video teaching Dan how to build a DIY floating terrarium. Puns (and disaster) ensue.

when i sing, you sing harmonies (ao3) - The_Blonde

Summary: "Dan’s two minute sonatas reduce to one minute and then to a sad thirty seconds of something lilting and beautiful. It’s sad in such a way that Phil, having begged Dan to play, actually can’t stand and listen to something so full of longing. Sad in a way that it could have been written for Phil (but not possible. Dan doesn’t even know Phil). Sad in a way that Dan could just walk over, take Phil’s heart from his chest and say can I have this? and Phil would say of course, it’s yours".

Or: Witch Phils and the Piano Playing Dans that they just want to make happy (with a sprinkling of magic).

[home-atlast]

The Prologue.

Everything her family does could not get out of public's sight. Her mother is a German-born screenwriter and director, while her father was a former actor who is currently working in the political life. Sutan, the grandfather, was a national figure and public servant in his good old times.

The Start of the Gloom Year.

Her family was far from malicious rumours spread by the media, until one of her father’s movies, which he played the lead role, became a huge success in Indonesia. A film that managed to draw in 80,317 viewers in the first three days of its release, even this film was eventually screened in various neighboring countries including Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore.

The strong chemistry between her father and his co-star actress gradually turned into rumors, judging by how close they were that people’s speculations about them dating began to circulate.

“Sye, how would you react if your Dad and I want a divorce? No, you shouldn't be concerned that this matter will make it challenging for all of us to move forward in the future. I'll do my best to restore our old bond.”

“Just go with anything that makes you happy, Bu.” Sherlaine answered the question. Her mother gave her a slight nod, then rubbed the kid’s head as she kissed the top of her head and mumbled the word ‘thank you’.

Not long after, the news of the divorcement of her father and mother was broke, turning the whole country into a chaos. And in the same year, her father decided to leave from the world that raised her name.

Hatred and Fortitude.

The news of their father's marriage reached their ears. However, as an 11-year-old child, Sherlaine didn't ask much. She thought her mother must have been too exhausted in dealing with everyone's questions, she could not be a reporter for her mother as well, neither she wanted to.

Sherlaine still occasionally met with her father, or spent the night at her grandmother's place when her grandmother asked her to visit her. The relationship between the two was fairly good even though Sherlaine created a wall in between herself and her father, a wall that doesn't exist for her mother. She felt like her father is close to her pulse but far from the sight.

Contrary to her father, despite her mother's demanding work schedule, she still managed to make time for Sherlaine. Although she sometimes requested Sherlaine to go on vacation to Berlin, the place where her grandparents reside, if her job requires her to travel abroad or focus on her usual film projects (which typically took 3-12 months) of work to complete.

Her Long Journey.

As she entered the university world, Sherlaine studied at the University of Indonesia majoring in Communication Science. She was determined to pursue the same field as her mother, because her mother herself was her role model.

At the university, she was an active student both academically and non-academicly. Her warm and generous personality was also one of the reasons why she easily made friends with anyone.

After graduating from college, Sherlaine enjoyed a full year of herself traveling around the world. The new thing that grew along with this new activity was taking pictures. The camera was a witness, her view of an object.

The Daylight Start to Unveil.

She majored in art history and museology for her master's degree at the University of Heidelberg a year later. Sherlaine spent her first academic year in France (where she took museology studies at the College du Louvre: on the preservation, conservation, and restoration of cultural assets). French language proficiency, in-depth understanding of certain artifacts and monuments, museography was also studied there.

Reside in One Place Until Forevermore.

Now, Sherlaine is currently working as an assistant producer at one of the national television stations. Oftentimes, the news about her excellency in working is picked up by the news media, and the names of her mother or father are frequently included.

[rangeof-light]

The Prologue.

Everything his family does could not get out of public's sight. His father is a German-born producer, screenwriter, and director, while his mother was once a widely-known actress with a reputable background. Sutan, the grandfather, was a national figure and public servant in his good old times. Her mother was a former actress who is currently working in the political life, following in her father's footsteps.

The Start of the Gloom Year.

His family was far from malicious rumours spread by the media, until one of his mother’s movies, which she played the lead role, became a huge success in Indonesia. A film that managed to draw in 80,317 viewers in the first three days of its release, even this film was eventually screened in various neighboring countries including Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore.

The strong chemistry between his mother and her co-star actor gradually turned into rumors, judging by how close they were that people’s speculations about them dating began to circulate.

“Xel, how would you react if your mother and I want a divorce? No, you shouldn't be concerned that this matter will make it challenging for all of us to move forward in the future. I'll do my best to restore our old bond.”

“Just go with anything that makes you happy, Pa.” Axel answered the question. His father gave him a slight nod, then rubbed the kid’s head as he kissed the top of his head and mumbled the word ‘thank you’.

Not long after, the news of the divorcement of his father and mother was broke, turning the whole country into a chaos. And in the same year, his mother decided to leave from the world that raised her name.

Hatred and Fortitude.

The news of their mother's marriage reached their ears. However, as an 11-year-old child, Axel didn't ask much. He thought his father must have been too exhausted in dealing with everyone's questions, he could not be a reporter for his father as well, neither he wanted to.

Axel still occasionally met with his mother, or spent the night at his grandmother's place when his grandmother asked him to visit her. The relationship between the two was fairly good even though Axel created a wall in between himself and his mother, a wall that doesn't exist for his father. He felt like his mother is close to his pulse but far from the sight.

Contrary to his mother, despite his father's demanding work schedule, he still managed to make time for Axel. Although he sometimes requested Axel to go on vacation to Berlin, the place where his grandparents reside, if his job requires him to travel abroad or focus on his usual film projects which typically took 3-12 months of work to complete.

His Long Journey.

As he entered the university world, Axel studied at the University of Indonesia majoring in Communication Science. He was determined to pursue the same field as his father, because his father himself was his role model.

At the university, he was an active student both academically and non-academicly. His warm and generous personality was also one of the reasons why he easily made friends with anyone.

After graduating from college, Axel enjoyed a full year of himself traveling around the world. The new thing that grew along with this new activity was taking pictures. The camera was a witness, his view of an object.

The Daylight Start to Unveil.

He majored in art history and museology for his master's degree at the University of Heidelberg a year later. Axel spent his first academic year in France (where he took museology studies at the College du Louvre: on the preservation, conservation, and restoration of cultural assets). French language proficiency, in-depth understanding of certain artifacts and monuments, museography was also studied there.

Reside in One Place Until Forevermore.

Now Axel is currently working as an assistant producer at one of the national television stations located in Setiabudi, South Jakarta. Oftentimes, the news about his excellency in working is picked up by the news media, and the names of his father or mother are frequently included.

[tiergan-vashir]

I am a Senior Software Eng that has to unfortunately deal with this technology as it is sweeping through my industry. Let's be clear: GenAi is the new hype train grift - just like crypto/blockchain/nfts were before it.

Tech companies are aggressively pursuing it, because they want to incorporate it everywhere and cash in on investor money as fast as possible so money gets funneled from every day workers to billionaire pockets in large numbers before the government has time to regulate it.

GenAI cannot functionally exist without its data. And in its current form - that data was stolen wholesale from thousands if not millions of people without consent or compensation. Worse - when AI Gens train off the work of other Ai Gens, their models actually degrade meaning they LITERALLY need to consume the creative works of humans to continue to improve over time.

No other technologies have that kind of requirement.

People often bring up other innovations that changed the world such as the camera or the computer - but that is a deeply flawed analogy. The camera didn't require devouring the works of thousands of artisans without their permission to fuel its creation. Improving upon camera more and more also doesn't require continued intake of photographers/painters' works without their consent to make it better.

Repeating this talking point just plays into the hands of tech CEOs who have more money than we will ever know who want you to make these comparisons so they can make their cash as fast as possible before the rest of us truly grasp just how bad things can get - not on a science fiction skynet level (marketing hype to make you think LLMs are going to become sentient) - but the actual harms they are already committing.

The flagrant theft is also just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is ethically wrong with it. It is bad all the way down.

Here is a great YouTube video breakdown that also goes into things on a technical level: https://youtu.be/-MUEXGaxFDA?si=76-NYzA8IhEsKrRQ

Racism, misogyny, and malignant bias is just kinda what you get when you scrape the whole internet for data though, so because of the above problem Ai companies need to label all the bad things to carefully try to remove it. Ai companies love to pretend they are basically building skynet - but all of it relies heavily upon invisible, exploited human labor, paid pennies to label all the horrid content: https://twitter.com/billyperrigo/status/1615682180201447425?t=DNWPM-9Z3uUIpVPHnB0C7g&s=19 ( I last heard some of these workers unionized because of the horrible conditions)

You can also read what actual Ai Ethics Researchers who understand AI better than we ever will in our lifetimes have been writing about.

Some great folks to follow on Twitter are:

Timnit Gebru - renown Ai computer scientist who founded the Distributed AI Research Institute and was fired from Ai Ethics job at Google for basically doing her job too well: https://x.com/timnitGebru

Abebab Birhane - Senior Advisor and Ai Accountability at Mozilla: https://x.com/Abebab

She wrote an excellent paper about how the LAION 400M (smaller version of the LAION 5B used in many art gens) is rife with misogyny, racism, pornography slanted towards marginalized women, and malignant stereotypes: https://twitter.com/Abebab/status/1445723482231173120?t=0-NGDPYdwBmsyW_Ho1EB6Q&s=19

Ben Zhao - Neubauer Professor, Department of Computer Science at the University of Chicago who helped spearhead the effort to build GLAZE - software that helps artists protect their work from being trained on by AI: https://x.com/ravenben

Margret Mitchell - Ai Research Scientist who works on algorithmic bias and fairness in machine learning and co-led the Ethical Artificial Intelligence team at Google with Timnit before both were fired because Google felt antsy about things getting too ethical: https://x.com/mmitchell_ai

On the subject of generative AI

Let me start with an apology for deviating from the usual content, and for the wall of text ahead of you. Hopefully, it'll be informative, instructive, and thought-provoking. A couple days ago I released a hastily put-together preset collection as an experiment in 3 aspects of ReShade and virtual photography: MultiLUT to provide a fast, consistent tone to the rendered image, StageDepth for layered textures at different distances, and tone-matching (something that I discussed recently).

For the frames themselves, I used generative AI to create mood boards and provide the visual elements that I later post-processed to create the transparent layers, and worked on creating cohesive LUTs to match the overall tone. As a result, some expressed disappointment and disgust. So let's talk about it.

The concerns of anti-AI groups are significant and must not be overlooked. Fear, which is often justified, serves as a palpable common denominator. While technology is involved, my opinion is that our main concern should be on how companies could misuse it and exclude those most directly affected by decision-making processes.

Throughout history, concerns about technological disruption have been recurring themes, as I can attest from personal experience. Every innovation wave, from typewriters to microcomputers to the shift from analog to digital photography, caused worries about job security and creative control. Astonishingly, even the concept of “Control+Z” (undo) in digital art once drew criticism, with some artists lamenting, “Now you can’t own your mistakes.” Yet, despite initial misgivings and hurdles, these technological advancements have ultimately democratized creative tools, facilitating the widespread adoption of digital photography and design, among other fields.

The history of technology’s disruptive impact is paralleled by its evolution into a democratizing force. Take, for instance, the personal computer: a once-tremendous disruptor that now resides in our pockets, bags, and homes. These devices have empowered modern-day professionals to participate in a global economy and transformed the way we conduct business, pursue education, access entertainment, and communicate with one another.

Labor resistance to technological change has often culminated in defeat. An illustrative example brought up in this NYT article unfolded in 1986 when Rupert Murdoch relocated newspaper production from Fleet Street to a modern facility, leading to the abrupt dismissal of 6,000 workers. Instead of negotiating a gradual transition with worker support, the union’s absolute resistance to the technological change resulted in a loss with no compensation, underscoring the importance of strategic adaptation.

Surprisingly, the Writers Guild of America (W.G.A.) took a different approach when confronted with AI tools like ChatGPT. Rather than seeking an outright ban, they aimed to ensure that if AI was used to enhance writers’ productivity or quality, then guild members would receive a fair share of the benefits. Their efforts bore fruit, providing a promising model for other professional associations.

The crucial insight from these historical instances is that a thorough understanding of technology and strategic action can empower professionals to shape their future. In the current context, addressing AI-related concerns necessitates embracing knowledge, dispelling unwarranted fears, and arriving at negotiation tables equipped with informed decisions.

It's essential to develop and use AI in a responsible and ethical manner; developing safeguards against potential harm is necessary. It is important to have open and transparent conversations about the potential benefits and risks of AI.

Involving workers and other stakeholders in the decision-making process around AI development and deployment is a way to do this. The goal is to make sure AI benefits everyone and not just a chosen few.

While advocates for an outright ban on AI may have the best interests of fellow creatives in mind, unity and informed collaboration among those affected hold the key to ensuring a meaningful future where professionals are fairly compensated for their work. By excluding themselves from the discussion and ostracizing others who share most of their values and goals, they end up weakening chances of meaningful change; we need to understand the technology, its possibilities, and how it can be steered toward benefitting those they source from. And that involves practical experimentation, too. Carl Sagan, in his book 'The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark', said:

"I have a foreboding […] when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness."

In a more personal tone, I'm proud to be married to a wonderful woman - an artist who has her physical artwork in all 50 US states, and several pieces sold around the world. For the last few years she has been studying and adapting her knowledge from analog to digital art, a fact that deeply inspired me to translate real photography practices to the virtual world of Eorzea. In the last months, she has been digging deep into generative AI in order to understand not only how it'll impact her professional life, but also how it can merge with her knowledge so it can enrich and benefit her art; this effort gives her the necessary clarity to voice her concerns, make her own choices and set her own agenda. I wish more people could see how useful her willingness and courage to dive into new technologies in order to understand their impact could be to help shape their own futures.

By comprehending AI and adopting a collective approach, we can transform the current challenges into opportunities. The democratization and responsible utilization of AI can herald a brighter future, where technology becomes a tool for empowerment and unity prevails over division. And now, let's go back to posting about pretty things.

[lysella]

me: *searches for APS-C camera that’s powerful (great image quality, fast AF, has EVF, tilt screen, etc) with non-interchangeable lens, but small and light enough to fit into a handbag*

also me: *buys Huawei P30 Pro*