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recentanimenews · 5 years ago

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The 42 Greatest Anime Moments of Monkey D. Luffy

May 5 is the birthday of One Piece's main character Monkey D. Luffy, and over the past couple of decades of his existence, he's given us some moments that will stay in our minds forever. And so I've decided to chronicle 42 of his best ones, antics that will hopefully remind you how much you love the free-spirited, determined, ridiculous Birthday Best Boy. One note, though — while this list does contain some of those sweet, sweet fight scenes, I've already written a list that ranked his 20 greatest knockouts against bad guys. So, in order to not repeat that list entirely, I've tried to mix it up a little bit.

1. Luffy Wakes Up From A Great Nap

I can't think of a better anime debut for Monkey D. Luffy than "wakes up in the barrel that he miraculously survived a whirlpool in and immediately knocks out some pirates by accident." It's everything fun about the dude rolled into one.

2. Luffy Gets Coby To Hit Him

One thing that doesn't get mentioned enough about Luffy is his haphazard, yet skillful ingenuity. He knows that Koby will never get to join the Marines if he's associated with pirates, so Luffy, his one brain cell working overtime, gets Koby to punch him in order to prove that they're not friends because would friends brawl on the floor of a restaurant?

3. Luffy Gets The Straw Hat

A moment from the first chapter of the manga that was delayed until Episode 4 of the anime, Luffy getting the straw hat from Shanks is iconic. It sets in motion his entire journey and creates a symbol that represents freedom, adventure, and destiny.

4. Luffy Gives Nami The Straw Hat

Luffy giving Nami his straw hat is more than just a simple, comforting gesture. It's Luffy telling Nami that if she wants, she'll be a Straw Hat now and for the rest of her life. Nami may have problems, but she'll never have to deal with them alone ever again.

5. Luffy Gets His First Bounty

By gaining a bounty when he takes down Arlong, Luffy is introduced to the wider world of pirating, the World Government, and eventually the Grand Line. Though Buggy's reveal that he knew Shanks and Mihawk's appearance hinted at a wider world, this is Luffy's first real step into it.

6. Luffy Smiles At Death

Luffy obviously doesn't want to die. But as he smiles at the crowd and his crew while Buggy brings a sword down onto his neck, he grins. Because he didn't die in vain. He never became Pirate King and he never found the One Piece, but he did live his life exactly the way that he wanted to. And that's more important than any title or treasure. I'm glad he didn't die, though. They never would've found the Grand Line if Zoro had ascended to the role of Captain. They'd probably still be arguing in the Loguetown harbor.

7. Luffy Holds Up Hiriluk's Flag

Wapol wanted to destroy Hiriluk's flag and thus eliminate his legacy. But Luffy — smoking due to being recently shot by a cannon and holding up the flag — proved that's not something you can just do. As long as someone is there to fight for it, a flag is forever.

8. Luffy Disagrees With Vivi

Vivi, frustrated, enraged, and embarrassed about the treatment of her country, was more than ready to sacrifice herself for it ... and only herself. But Luffy wasn't hearing it. If she was going down, they were all going down. It wasn't just Vivi's fight anymore. The Straw Hats had reached Ride or Die status.

9. Luffy Beats Crocodile

I did a list of Luffy's best knockouts so I'm not gonna list every major punch here. However, the ones that are especially meaningful deserve recognition. And this one, where, after two defeats, Luffy battered Crocodile up through the streets of Alubarna, is inarguably one of the most memorable. It's a triumph that's a long time coming, equal parts brutal and satisfying.

10. Luffy Lets Himself Get Beat Up And Meets Blackbeard

Mirroring Shanks' restraint when he let himself get harassed by the Mountain Bandits, here we see Luffy decide not to fight Bellamy and instead he listens to Bellamy's foolish proclamations about why dreams suck and why you shouldn't have them and why Mylo Xyloto is the best Coldplay album, probably. However, even if he didn't need the pick-me-up, Blackbeard meets him outside to reaffirm that dreams never die. It would be a super nice remark ... if anyone but Blackbeard was saying it.

11. Luffy Is Immune To Enel

Until this point, Enel is borderline unstoppable, able to strike down anyone in his path and — with the help of his "mantra" — barely takes any damage in the process. And it's made him pretty cocky. But to see Enel's face distort in cartoonish disbelief when he realizes that Luffy is a Rubber Type Pokemon and that he's impervious to Electric Types is so joyously satisfying.

12. Luffy Decides To Get Rid Of The Going Merry

With the Going Merry slowly becoming unusable and actually becoming a handicap to the crew, Luffy figures that it's time to find a new ship. It's a sad moment, but you can't help but see Luffy's side. A good pirate crew needs a good pirate ship. And if the Going Merry suddenly sinks, Luffy is dead. Like very, very dead.

13. Luffy Faces Usopp

Usopp relates to the Going Merry, fearing that its "weakness" and "inadequacy" represents his own. And so when Luffy decides to get rid of the ship, Usopp lashes out, causing Luffy to have to "put down" Usopp. It's a difficult decision, but it shows that Luffy isn't all laughs and "I'm gonna be King of the Pirates!" declarations.

14. Luffy Does Not Recognize Sogeking

And then, after the most heartfelt showdown in the series, Luffy doesn't even recognize Usopp's Sogeking disguise, despite the fact that he has most of Usopp's traits, most of Usopp's weapons, and showed up only a little while after Usopp left. Oh, Luffy. Never stop being you.

15. Luffy Goes Second Gear

Power-ups are pretty common in anime. But Luffy saying that he needs to take his skills up another level so that he won't lose his friends still feels pretty special. And then the music kicks in and Luffy beats Blueno to a pulp and it's one of the most hype scenes in the entire series.

16. Luffy Declares War On The World

He'll always have a target on his back, he'll never be able to rest easy again, and the World Government will pursue him as long as he draws breath. Luffy knows this, but when the time comes to save Robin from CP9 in Enies Lobby, he doesn't hesitate to take on the whole world. It's just what friends do.

17. Luffy Refuses To Fall

When Luffy and Lucci fight, it isn't a quick contest. They go to absolute war on one another. And when Lucci thinks he's won, having left Luffy spitting up blood on the floor, we see that ... no. Luffy will not leave his feet. He has too much pride, too much grit, and too much determination. Defeat is not an option here. He will stop fighting to retrieve Robin when he's dead.

18. Luffy Is Reunited With Garp

For a long time, Luffy's actual flesh and blood family was a mystery. Shanks is kind of a cool uncle and Ace is someone that Luffy considers his brother, but where did Luffy, ya know, come from? As it turns out, his grandpa is the cannonball-throwing Marine Vice Admiral Garp, who is not only just as goofy as Luffy, but also really, really, really strong for being 76. What's his secret? Low carbs? Eiichiro Oda, please let me know.

19. Luffy Punches The Celestial Dragon

Luffy can't stand bullies or anyone that relishes the misery of others. So when a Celestial Dragon shoots Hatchan in the auctioneering house, Luffy walks right up to him and turns his face into a catcher's mitt.

20. Luffy Loses His Crew

Luffy's darkest hour (so far) comes when, in a fight with Kuma, Kizaru and the Pacifistas, his whole crew eventually gets wiped out and spread across the world. All the while, Luffy is powerless to stop it — his Gum Gum skills no match for Kuma's abilities. It's a truly pitiable thing to see Luffy beat his fists on the ground in futility, something entirely unlike any scene in the series before.

21. Luffy Covers Sandersonia

Back in Little Garden, Luffy agreed it wasn't necessary to actually have a reason for the fight between the giants. They were having an honorable contest between warriors. That was enough. Later when Sandersonia's scars were about to be revealed after a battle, Luffy covered them up. He had no interest in killing them or exposing their secrets. That is not what the battle was for. The contest was simply one that he wanted to win so he'd eventually get back to his crew.

22. Luffy Decides To Save His Brother Before Reuniting With His Crew

When Luffy learns that Ace is to be put to death, he must make a choice: Get the gang back together or dive into the depths of Impel Down and try to rescue his brother. He ends up choosing the latter, which shows a great deal of trust and respect for his crewmates. He knows they're strong enough to be OK without him for now.

23. Luffy Embraces Mr. 2

This is just plain wholesome. Luffy's love for his friends is might be the best thing about him.

24.Luffy Falls From The Sky

Luffy's story isn't just about his quest to find the One Piece, but the formation of a legend. And when Luffy and the other Impel Down escapees plummet from the sky into the Marineford war, you can practically see that legend being written.

25. Luffy Faces The Admirals

Yes, Luffy's attempts to kick a frozen log at them goes nowhere. And yes, Luffy is almost immediately knocked down by Kizaru when he tries to rush past him. But the guts in that kid! Facing down three of the most powerful men in the One Piece universe and demanding they give Ace back to him. That is moxie, my dudes.

26. Luffy Goes Comatose

Ace is dead. The mission has failed. A brother is lost. And all Luffy can do is go numb and lifeless. He has no words or actions to explain or react. A chunk of his soul has been ripped away.

27. Luffy Realizes He Still Has His Friends

Yes, his attempt to save Ace was a bust. But in the most hopeless of times, Jimbei asks him what he still has. And Luffy remembers he still has his friends — friends he has been there for in the past and who will most certainly be there for him later. They are still there. And because they are still there, Luffy's existence has worth.

28. Luffy Gets An Upgrade

Reuniting with his crew in Sabaody, it doesn't take too long for Luffy to find a way to show off the results of two years of training. He's been doing some grinding, so his skill tree has some new branches. He's unlocked some new abilities, and he's reached his evolved form. When a Pacifista comes at the Monster Trio (Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji,) they beat the bear out of it.

29. Luffy Decides To Make Fish-Man Island His Territory

For the most part, Luffy doesn't really care about the dominance sought by other powerful characters. But after he's gotten to know the citizens of Fish-Man Island and he sees the terror caused by Big Mom, he tells her straight-up he's gonna defeat her and take Fish-Man Island under his protection. It's the closest that Luffy has ever gotten to being a character in Goodfellas.

30. Luffy Allies With Law

And then, shortly after talking trash to Big Mom, Luffy teams up with Trafalgar Law in a plot to overthrow Kaido, another Emperor of the Sea. It's a real leap forward for Luffy. One day, you're just a kid from East Blue punching everyone that seems mean. The next, you're taking an active role in changing the power structure of the entire world. That's just how it is sometimes, though. As Logic once said, "Who can relate?"

31. Luffy Has Been "Picking Fights All Along"

Luffy knows he doesn't just tumble from one situation to another. He isn't just a poor guy caught up in the gambits of powerful evil forces. No, Luffy has definitely chosen to live a life where he will interfere with your best-laid plans if he feels inclined to. And if that includes a lot of fighting, well, so be it.

32. Luffy Reunites With Sabo

It's been pretty much non-stop action since the beginning of the Post Time Skip era, and that hasn't really allowed for a ton of emotional moments for Luffy. But when he reunites with Sabo in the coliseum and his scream comes out as a mix of happiness, confusion, and surprise, he finally gets one. Cry it out, buddy. We love ya.

33. Luffy And His Allies Head For Doflamingo

From orchestrating a breakout in Impel Down to creating a charge toward Doflamingo with all the allies he met in the tournament to win the Flame-Flame Fruit, Luffy has slowly gone from being the captain of a small crew on a ship with an animal head on the front to being the full-on leader of a Pirate Alliance. Luffy 2020 is what I say.

34. Luffy Goes Fourth Gear

Years after the reveal of Second and Third Gear, we get Fourth Gear, a power-up that even more freakishly transforms Luffy's body. It's not graceful, nor is it particularly beautiful to behold, but it gets the job done.

35. Luffy Beats Doflamingo

Doflamingo — a man that's been a thorn in the side of nearly everyone in the world for about 15 years of anime history — finally gets taken down. And still, it's only a stepping stone to Wano. Somehow, Eiichiro Oda creates these moments that seem like the biggest events in history, and yet, they're only just the beginning.

36. Luffy Refuses To Fight Sanji

Luffy knows Sanji is conflicted and not really a bad guy. And he's also aware of the fact that he'll be creating an even bigger issue if he fights back against his chef. So he just takes the kicks, hoping Sanji sees there's another way out of this. Sadly, it'll be a few episodes before he realizes that.

37. Luffy Waits For Sanji — And Then Punches — Sanji

Sanji finding Luffy because his captain's stomach is grumbling super loud is so cartoonish and lovely — because what is Sanji's role if not to feed his captain? Of course, Luffy enjoys Sanji's rain-soaked cookin' and then he punches Sanji for still being a twerp that won't admit what he really feels.

38. Luffy Clashes With Big Mom

Luffy stood beside Whitebeard, but this is his first real showdown with a Yonko. And it doesn't go very well. Big Mom is easily able to block him, which shows that, while Luffy has come a long way, he's still got a bit farther to go.

39. Luffy Places The Hat On Katakuri

Much like the previous covering of Sandersonia's shame, Luffy covers Katakuri's mouth with his hat after their duel. The two combatants fought and earned each other's respect. And so Luffy leaves Katakuri with his pride.

40. Luffy Knows He's Arrived In Wano Due To The Swords

That giant baboon is using a sword? Obviously this must be Wano, the land of samurai. That's Luffy logic at its most pure.

41. Luffy Promises Tama She Will Not Be Hungry Again

For the most part, heading to Wano seemed like a pretty impersonal act. The only reason he thought about going there in the first place was because Law seemed pretty confident it was a solid idea. But then he meets Tama and learns that she — along with most of the country — is starving. So his journey to take down Kaido gets some personal stakes. He's now shouldering the hopes of an entire group of people.

42. Luffy Is Beaten By Kaido

OK, so Round 1 didn't go so well. Luffy pummeled Kaido with everything he had and Kaido one-shotted him with a melee weapon attack. Luffy has to rethink his strategy and expand his move-set and maybe, with some luck, Round 2 will be a tad more even. I can't wait to see what Luffy moments we have in store when One Piece returns!

What is your favorite Luffy moment? Do any on this list stand out to you? Let me know in the comments!

Daniel Dockery is a Senior Staff Writer for Crunchyroll. Follow him on Twitter!

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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junker-town · 4 years ago

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Secret Base Hall of Fame: Casey Fossum

Photo by Andy Lyons /Getty Images

One day fifteen years ago, this man ruined me.

“Eephus” is a stupid-looking name for a stupid-looking pitch. Only a few players across Major League Baseball history have regularly thrown it, and Casey Fossum is one of them.

Many of the greatest pitchers of all time have found success mostly by changing speeds. If you can throw 95 miles per hour one minute and 77 the next, you make it tough for the batter to lock in and time it right. This only really works if you can make it look like either one might be coming out of your hand. You can’t tip off the batter. Your delivery needs to look the same.

If you wanted to right now, you could give yourself an oversimplified demonstration of how high of an art this is. Wad up a paper ball or something. Throw it as hard as you can, paying close attention to how your arm and your body moves when you throw it. Now mimic that same throwing motion, but only throw it half as hard. You’ll then have some iota of how difficult this is to do with a baseball from 60 feet away.

But the eephus? That only hits the mitt at 55, 50, even 45 miles per hour. Here is what Fossum’s looked like.

Some GIFs make a sound, and this one sounds like a slide whistle. It’s cartoonish in appearance, and it can work if it’s deployed smartly — in one newspaper report, teammates noted that he only threw about three eephus pitches per game. Deploy it too often, and they’ll catch on to you. You have to keep it a weird, sad surprise, like a cigarette butt in a load of laundry.

I don’t know why the 25 or so notable eephus pitchers in baseball history picked up that pitch, but greatness is not the common denominator. Casey Fossum was not at all a great pitcher by Major League Baseball standards; in fact, among pitchers to make at least 100 starts, Fossum finished with one of the worst ERAs of all time. But you will not hear me denigrate his abilities for two reasons: first, he was, of course good enough to stick around and make those 100-plus starts in the first place.

And second, the video game version of Casey Fossum inflicted upon me a great and terrible humiliation. One that made me swear off baseball video games forever. To this day, I have not returned.

It’s 2006, I’m 23 years old, and we’re in my apartment. This story is about Casey Fossum and not me, so I’ll only pull the curtain back a little.

If you look to the left of the TV, you’ll see a weight bench. I have a friend who likes to drive around and pick up random junk that people have left on the curb. One day he stopped by unannounced, back when people just did that, with the weight bench in the back of his truck. “You want this? I’ve already got one.” Sure.

We lugged it up to my place, and it wasn’t until a couple days later that I tried to use it, stood up, took a close look at it, and realized that it was a child-sized weight bench. This possibility never occurred to me because I didn’t realize such a thing existed. Was I mistaken here? Another friend stopped by. “No, yeah, dude, this thing is for kids. It’s gotta be.” I’m too lazy to try to sell, it, and I’m certainly not going to pay a junk hauler to drive it away, because I don’t have the kind of money you need to do … anything, really. So it’s sat there for a year. It doesn’t do anything and it isn’t going anywhere. Takes one to know one, pal.

If we can direct our attention back to the right, I’m firing up Major League Baseball 2K6 on my Xbox. I don’t know why! I don’t even like playing this game! I felt, and still feel, that realistic baseball video games are a bad idea. They should either be oversimplified like the R.B.I. Baseball series, or off-the-wall lunacy like Mario Superstar Baseball. The art of getting good wood on the ball can’t possibly be simulated by a single button-press, but that’s what this game has stuck you with, so batting really feels more like bet-placing than anything.

I’m in the lobby of this game I suck at and don’t enjoy, waiting for an online match. This is only gonna piss me off, because even by 2006 standards, my internet connection is terrible. I’ve lost Yahoo! Chess matches due to lag, that’s how bad it is. I get matched up, and as the loading screen appears, I hear some kid’s voice crackle through the mic. He probably isn’t older than 12.

Online gaming with kids is a pretty weird experience that we all just kind of have to get used to. You’ve been robbed of your superior social standing. You’re not any more dignified than they are. This is not a friendly game of Mario Kart with your youngest sibling, and you can’t laugh it off as a friendly match that’s all in fun. That’s not why people play online games. We play to win, not to have fun. Who took the time to upload a custom avi? Who carefully monitors their rating? Who patiently waited in the lobby for five minutes to find a ranked match? You did, dummy, just like they did. You’re taking this equally seriously and you cannot even try to pretend otherwise.

I’m beginning to think I might collect my first-ever win when I see that he’s chosen the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, one of the worst teams in baseball. The only real draw for selecting this team lies in Scott Kazmir, their young ace with a high-90s fastball and a terrific slider. I’m further amused when this kid doesn’t even start him.

He starts Casey Fossum.

At this time, I have no idea Fossum has an eephus pitch, or what an eephus even is. Unlike the real-life Fossum, the kid throws this thing so often that his fastball is actually the off-speed pitch. It goes something like eephus, fastball, eephus, eephus, fastball, eephus. When he strikes out the side in the first inning, all I can really do is laugh. I’ve never seen a pitch that looked like that. It moves like the clay pigeons in Duck Hunt. But it’s fine, I’ll figure it out.

He strikes out the side in the second as well. I just cannot figure this guy out. The eephus is such a strange pitch that even when I guess correctly that an eephus is coming, I still miss somehow. I can’t even make contact. Worst of all, I can’t even work the count, because the vast majority of his pitches are landing over the plate.

Around batter number five, I hear him over the mic:

What, lil’ bitch

What what, lil’ bitch

What, lil’ bitch

What what, lil’ bitch

This will continue throughout the rest of the game. He doesn’t stop.

Heading into the third inning, I talk myself through a strategy: listen, if he’s going to keep throwing the eephus, just assume he’s throwing one every single time. If I’m late on a fastball, I’m late. Just hit the eephus. If I time it right, I could hit that thing 500 feet.

He then strikes me out on three straight fastballs, all of which I am comically late on. I immediately abandon this strategy.

What, lil’ bitch

Lil’ stupid-ass bitch

What, lil’ bitch

What what, lil’ bitch

I don’t have a mic, and thank God for that.

Beyond completely destroying the opponent’s sense of timing — a thing already compromised by the lag — there’s another special utility to the eephus as deployed against you in an online game. It makes you look like a total idiot. You’re finished with your swing before the ball is even halfway to the plate. If you bet the other way and guess wrong, you don’t even begin to swing until the ball’s basically in the mitt. Video Game Fossum doesn’t even have to fool you with pitch placement. Every ball goes over the plate. He’s attacking your your ability to time, sense, react. He’s directly attacking your intellect.

Nothing will tilt an online gamer quite like being obviously and repeatedly outsmarted and made to look like a dummy. Someone will find out you’re susceptible to one particular parlor trick and beat you to death with it. There’s the phase in which you recognize what’s being done, how it’s happening, and what you need to do to counteract it. What comes after is the phase in which you realize that there’s nothing you can do. Your opponent has run this playbook a hundred times against a hundred clueless marks. You’re next on this merry-go-round, and you’re here to lose.

Hey lil’ bitch

What’s up lil’ bitch

What lil’ bitch

What what lil’ bitch

It’s the fourth inning. 12 up, 12 down, all strikeouts. This is a perfectly-targeted attack on my ego.

I think I’m smart. I think I’m an excellent tactician when it comes to video games, my abilities forged in the fires of Madden ‘93, Perfect Dark, and Rainbow Six, but also informed by the dark arts of weird old DOS strategy games. Games like Warlords and Nobunaga’s Ambition that required mastery of troops and economies to conduct campaigns of great conquest. Games this kid is too young to have a clue about.

I also think I know a lot about baseball. I watch it constantly. Even in 2006, I’m poring through Baseball-Reference every day. I want to write for a living someday, and if it can ever somehow happen, it feels like baseball is my ticket in. I’m a professional baseball writer in training. I should know what an eephus pitch is.

I think I’m a pretty laid-back guy. I don’t get angry easily. I’m really easygoing. I get along well with people. At the tech-support call center I work at, my supervisor notes in my reviews that I’m very good at de-escalating, which is to say that when mad people call me, I’m good at helping them feel more understood and less mad.

All these things mean a lot to me. They’re the basis of my ego. Hey, look at that guy. You know, he doesn’t have his shit together at all and is actually kind of a doofus, but hey, he’s a smart guy who knows stuff and is good with people. That’s something.

All those pillars are shaking. I’m a shiftless bum who can’t hit a 55-MPH pitch to save my life because I don’t know anything about baseball, and on top of that, I’m being absolutely driven up the wall by a Video Game Casey Fossum and some random 12-year-old who’s outsmarting me every chance he gets.

He is way better than me at everything I thought I was good at. My self-esteem is being annihilated.

Lil’ old bitch

What what, lil’ bitch

Lil’ old bitch

What what, lil’ bitch

One thing that to this day makes me an absolute loser is that I take online gaming etiquette very seriously. I never abandon a match, no matter how badly I’m getting destroyed. Someone can say incredibly cutting things to me and I’ll say “Thanks!” and pretend I’m not mad, that this doesn’t matter to me. Kill ‘em with kindness, you know? I’m above this. I’m better than this.

When you’re 23 years old and nothing feels like it’s breaking the right way, if it’s even breaking any way at all, it’s a lot more difficult to feel that way. But I try, I really do. I refuse to abandon the match. I am determined to solve this puzzle. This can only last for so long. Even if I can’t win this game, I can at least light him up a little bit, proving to both of us that, yes, I figured him out.

What, lil’ bitch

What what, lil’ bitch

Lil’ old bitch

What what, lil’ bitch

Imagine the experience of losing 50 consecutive rounds of rock-paper-scissors, and you might have a sense of what this is like. I’ve fouled off a handful of pitches, but I haven’t put a single ball into play. This kid is a genius, but it’s not really about that anymore, it’s about how fundamentally bad at this I am. Can I at least be okay at a video game? We’ve settled that I’m a stupid baby who doesn’t know anything and gets mad at things that don’t matter. Can I have this, at least? No.

I hope this kid thinks I’m someone his age. I hope it never occurs to him that he’s thoroughly embarrassing a grown man so badly that he’ll write about it a decade and a half later.

And I’d like Casey Fossum to know that for one day, on two televisions, he was a god.

Having surrendered every other claim I thought I had, my sense of honor is the last thing to go. Somewhere around the seventh inning, I disconnect. I don’t have time to navigate through the menus. I have run out of oxygen. I unplug the console from the wall. It was a tornado, for all that kid knows. I never play an online baseball game again.

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junkverse-archive · 8 years ago

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Lina Inverse/Edward Elric, 26

okay, full disclosure: I’m not caught up with the FMA manga, and I haven’t watched either 03 or Brotherhood in aaages, and I probably need a refresher on Slayers, too. also this is probably at least a little OOC but WHO CARES LET’S GO

Lina Inverse had been with them for all of a week. Edward still wasn’t precisely sure where she came from -clearly not Xing or Ishbal, and Lina’s explanation of her homeland being “encased in a magic shield created by a dark lord up until, like, a couple months ago” didn’t really help matters. But he knew this much: she was very full of herself, ate like she had three stomachs, and could fly.

Edward was determined to find out how.

So, they had come to an arrangement: Edward would teach Lina alchemy, while Lina would pass on her so-called magical knowledge to Edward. And somewhere along the way they’d try and get Lina back home (wherever the hell it might be.)

So far the magic lessons had been a bust - for all of Lina’s persistence on tapping into your inner energy and thinking explodey things and worrying mentions of invoking the powers of dread gods Edward hadn’t been able to cast so much as a spark. He might’ve thought it was all bunk if he hadn’t seen her launch an arrow made of ice just by speaking a couple of words and posing like an archer.

The alchemy lessons, on the other hand, were going swimmingly.

Perhaps too swimmingly.

“When are you guys gonna give me something hard?” Lina asked, with a huff. She was tying her hair back, the red strands frizzing from sweat and the heat of the day, as she surveyed her latest transmutation - a newly-repaired wagon that one of the local farmers had brought by for the Elrics to fix. Edward had to admit, it was a good job -the broken axle looked good as new, the seam where the material had knit barely visible.

“We have been giving you difficult things,” Alphonse said. “For a beginner, anyway. You’ve gotten really far in a week.”

Lina preened. “Well, naturally.” She frowned, and muttered, “still can’t figure out that no-circle thing, though.”

“There’s alchemists who work their entire lives and never figure it out,” Edward said. “And it took me…” He paused, thinking of how to phrase it, “making some very stupid decisions.”

Lina cast him and Alphonse a curious look, glancing at Edward’s automail arm and Alphonse’s body, but let it go.

“I’d still like something harder,” she said.

Edward shrugged. “Fair enough. Help me get this wagon out of the way so we don’t break it again.”

Soon the Rockbell’s yard was cleared, the wagon now sitting beside a nearby storage shed. Alphonse retrieved some chalk they had waiting on the porch, and cleared the patch of yard they had been using for transmutation exercises.

“All right, I’m going to make something, and I want you to figure out how you would go about it,” Edward said. “You don’t have to recreate it exactly -find a solution that works for you.”

Lina shrugged. “Shouldn’t be too hard.”

Edward had to fight back a retort (he wouldn’t, normally, he certainly didn’t spare them for Winry. But then Winry didn’t often make things explode). Lina had taken to alchemy with ease, true, and she was remarkably talented with it. But she was also remarkably smug about it, and it grated on every single one of Edward’s nerves.

Maybe he could fix that.

Edward gave the dust of the yard a cursory sweep, kicking aside a few spare screws that had somehow made their way outside from the Rockbell’s workshop. He paused, turning over the general idea of what form he wanted in his head until he got something he was satisfied with.

A clap as his hands met, and then blue sparks as he touched the ground, the earth rising beneath his hands, twisting and taking form. The effect was near-instantaneous, but Edward saw it almost in slow-motion, watching the details of the object coalesce into being as he thought them.

And then, with a crack, it was done. Alphonse sighed beside him.

“Brother, you really have awful taste.”

“Oh, please,” Edward said. “It’s awesome and you know it.”

It was, indeed, awesome -a statue of a dragon, well over Edward’s height, posed as if it was from a coat of arms (albeit a coat of arms clearly designed by a fifteen year old.) Huge, tusk-like fangs curled up from its snarling mouth, front claws reaching out towards an unseen enemy. Its wings were spread wide, while the rest of its body rolled and dipped in and out of the dust, its spade-ended tail curled around the rest of its form. Sure, maybe it was a little overwrought, but it definitely looked cool.

Edward turned towards Lina and said with a smirk, “You think you can do better?”

Edward had expected a boast, or a quip, but Lina said neither. Her expression was oddly... thoughtful, index finger pressed to her lips, opposite hand resting on her hips. After a moment she held a hand out to Alphonse.

“Chalk, please.”

Alphonse nodded, placing a small piece in her outstretched palm. Lina stood for a moment, tapping the chalk against her chin, before walking to a patch of earth beside Edward’s dragon, kneeling down, and starting to draw her transmutation circle. Edward watched as she carefully and methodically drew out the inner and outer rings, the runes and anchor points, watched as she would stop every so often to check her work, alter or rub out and rewrite a rune before moving on.

After about ten minutes she stood up and nodded to herself, satisfied.

Sparks again, the earth within the transmutation circle rising and twisting, and then -

“Oh. Wow.”

Lina’s dragon was about the same size of Edward’s -but less like something taken off of a church with some highly unorthodox ideas about gargoyles and more like a sketch from life. Wings pulled taut, jaws open wide as if it were about to breathe fire, its body coiled and twisted over itself. The only thing missing was the feet -Lina seemed to have elected to make both the feet and legs into a loosely detailed support for it, making it seem like the dragon was still rising from the earth, and would finally burst forth at any minute.

It also, for some reason, had cartoonish, googly eyes.

“I was wrong,” Alphonse said, almost to himself, “you both have awful taste.”

#sonochinosodomy #Slayers #Fullmetal Alchemist #crossover #fanfic #my writing #the tone of this is all over the place but whoooo caaaaares #text #answerin' asks

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hbombedtopeace · 6 years ago

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We must go deeper: gaming industry and the quest for immersion

The first computers were created for utilitarian purposes, but since there is nothing we won’t do to avoid boredom, they also paved the way for the creation of a new entertainment industry. About fifty years later, video games represent an important part of mainstream popular culture, having published significant works of art, launched lucrative franchises, and moving enough money in its finances to rival Hollywood. Gaming is, in many ways, still an emerging field, but with the potential to be as defining to our times as filmmaking has been for the 20th century. Of course, by virtue of its origin, no other entertainment branch is as tightly linked to “common”, accessible technological advancements. The greatest annual event of the industry (the Electronic Entertainment Expo aka E3) not only showcases upcoming releases of major game developers, but hardware advancements – on a yearly basis. Gaming tech is developing rapidly, and major efforts in these developments have always focused on furthering the one advantage games have over any other forms of media: immersion.

Immersion, defined quite drily, is “a perception of being physically present in a non-physical world”. Less drily, if we consider escapism to be the point of entertainment, then it might be the peak form of escapism: becoming a different person in a different world. Good fiction strives to be immersive, but video games, due to their interactive nature, have an edge in this. You always control the actions of an avatar; you always have a medium to affect your agency on the world of the game. The more impactful one’s agency feels, the more immersive a game is. However, the medium that separates player and avatar will always be there – or will it?

Hardware innovation in the gaming industry has been trying to eliminate this barrier for years now – with varying degrees of effectiveness. A few years back – think 2009 – the buzzword all over the gaming scene has been “motion controls”. Nintendo has released its Wii console, and it felt incredibly futuristic. I myself remember encountering a Wii for the first time: I was about 12, and it was over at the flat of a friend whose tech-savvy father managed to acquire a console from abroad quite early. I’ve never been a sporty kid, but I couldn’t have been more delighted to play a simulated game of tennis: it really felt like jumping ahead into the future, holding a controller in my hand, waving it around like a tennis racket, and seeing the cartoonish figure react on the screen in tandem with my movement. I wasn’t the only one dazzled by the console’s capabilities: the press coverage on motion controls in general sounded incredibly optimistic on what possibilities these miracle machines have opened up. Other major hardware developers followed in Nintendo’s footsteps: Microsoft has brought out the Kinect, Sony introduced the PlayStation Move. However, if we take a look at the hardware market today, motion controls have failed to become the widespread innovation they hoped to be, and only a handful of software offers motion control compatibility. What happened?

What happened is that game journalism failed to do its job properly. Journalism in this field is oversaturated with shills, and thus, on aggregate, is mostly incredibly uncritical of major developers (this allows devs to ride uncritical waves of hype to success, and its utter lack of ethics might be the topic of a future post). Motion controls were indeed a fun development, but due to an almost complete lack of physical feedback, motion controls ended up not enhancing, but breaking immersion. Simply put, if your avatar’s hand is supposed to rest on a flat surface, it will be somewhat off-putting to have your hand raised in the air, with no physical support. These sort of minor annoyances all eventually added up and, coupled with the difficulty of developing for motion sensors resulted in the gimmick’s loss in popularity.

But if there is one thing that fuels the games industry, it’s cycles of hype: if motion controls were not the way to go, where else could we turn?

Enter VR.

Ever since computer-generated worlds became a concept, fiction writers have played with the idea of a computer simulating an entire world altogether. Early works in this topic include Gibson’s Neuromancer or Stephenson’s Snow Crash (which proved itself to be eerily good at predicting what sort of technologies we’ll be developing in the future, inspiring the creation of both Wikipedia and Google Earth). Snow Crash especially discusses virtual reality through the concept of the Metaverse: a piece of virtual landmass, accessible via network connection, which is important enough to warrant its own “real”-estate market. And, of course, you accessed the Metaverse via donning a special set of goggles.

This all might sound incredibly familiar if you’ve ever seen an Oculus Rift or any of its competitors. Virtual Reality headsets, as opposed motion controls, don’t change the control scheme of a game too much. However, they do bring the game world closer to you – the distance between you and the game is physically reduced. Moreover, the headset does account for your movements, allowing you to look around in first person, and observe the game as if you really were a part of it. Additionally, some forms of motion control can be incorporated into these experiences as well – although the wisdom of blindly stumbling around in a room can perhaps be debated.

VR is not without its drawbacks, though. For example, extended use of the headsets is known to cause nausea, which is something of an issue when the recommended length of a gaming session is usually somewhere between two to three hours. We, however, seem not to have learned from our mistakes, and the hype train rides on without much disturbance, criticism frequently drowned out by the cheering masses.

I don’t mean to sound like a spoilsport here. Ultimate immersion sounds as much fun to me as to anyone else. However, I can’t help but think that the point of escapism is very much to escape our physical constraints as well. Thus, I don’t think immersion is merely a question of hardware. One of my favourite games critics, Yahtzee Croshaw, once proposed that immersion is enhanced the most if the control scheme of the game is so intuitive that it effectively functions as an extension for your own nervous system. And, honestly, the most immersed I have ever been in a game has not been through any sort of fancy hardware, but sitting behind my own screen, controlling my character in Dishonored, jumping off rooftops and performing physical feats I never could, using very fine-tuned controls.

Hardware advancements will always be difficult to introduce, and I’m not sure the most of us would want to strap ourselves into overly complicated rigs to play our favourite games. In contrast, a well-crafted game can draw you in just by how great it just “feels” to play it. Perhaps the industry’s focus should be less on cluttering our living rooms with more and more advanced software, but on crafting more involving experiences – harder may that be to sell at E3.

But, hey, hell do I know, I’m just a nerd with an internet connection.

#VR #Motion controls #Gaming tech #E3 #Immersion #Assessment #UCL

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sydneyganimation · 7 years ago

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Relationship Unrecognizable Process

9/16/17 2:53 PM - Knowing what I know about animating and how to use the tablet from my experience with the object unrecognizable project, I felt a little better going into this one. However, it did take me a large chunk of time to actually figure out what I was going to do and settle on one idea. The main problem was that I didn’t want to do something too simple. I was going to go with the ocean washing away the object like we decided on in class...but it felt too simple and recognizable. I'm bad at simplifying things and would rather challenge myself. But this project idea was very tricky and I was stumped on what to do. It got to the point where I opened up Animate CC and just sat in front of it writing curses in cursive over and over on the tablet until I came up with an idea. I then got The Idea. It doesn’t seem that great, but my idea was gotten from when I knocked over my water cup on Friday at my house with my friend and I had to run to get something to wipe it up so it didn't stain the wood. I settled on the idea that I would do water dripping and falling from above, have it land on a table next to a sponge, have the sponge sink down and then soak up the water, then get lifted up and wrung out. I could've easily done this animation in 150 frames, but decided to add more to the story. The struggle with this was that the motion was pretty straightforward. I had to go back and try and add some character to the sponge. The reason why this session took so long, two and a half hours, was that I kept going back and deleting sets of frames and inserting frames to change movement, slow down movement, and add character to the sponge. It was so frustrating… how… many… frames... I deleted. But I guess this is nothing, I can only imagine what animators who do complex scenes must go through. 9/17/17 3:21 PM - Usually for me the first half of a project is more difficult, but the second time around was this time. I struggled with making i to 309 frames, because all of the movements I wanted to do were pretty straightforward. I did accomplish the task but it was still difficult. It only took about an hour and a half to complete this last bit, and seeing at as a whole I was very proud. I tried to put a lot of squash and stretch to give a more cartoonish look to the sponge. There were multiple times in this session I realized I could've easily just copied the whole sponge item and dragged it down and kept the water the same instead of redrawing it every frame. But I feel like it doesn't have that same sort of sketchy look to it that is my art style, so I kept redrawing it. I'm very used to using a mouse on a computer and drawing with an object I can see right in front of me, so again this is very different. I think the main problem using a tablet is that the drawing is not right in front of me, I have I look up. Nevertheless, I'm proud of the outcome of this animation that I was struggling to make! Approximate Total Working Time: 4 hours

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smartworkingpackage · 7 years ago

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Learning From the Feynman Technique

They called Feynman the “Great Explainer.”

Richard Feynman (1918-1988), an author, graphic novel hero, intellectual, philosopher, physicist, and No Ordinary Genius is considered to be one of the most important physicists of all time.

He pioneered an entire field: quantum electrodynamics (QED).

In the 1940s, his invention of the Feynman Diagram helped bring much-needed visual clarification to the enigmatic behavior of subatomic particles.

His work helping scientists understand the interaction of light and matter earned him a share of a Nobel Prize in 1965.

His work has directly influenced the fields of nanotechnology, quantum computing, and particle physics.

In 1986, his research and explanations were critical in helping to understand the cause of the space shuttle Challenger disaster.

In addition to his groundbreaking research, Feynman was brilliant, eloquent, and an exquisitely passionate thinker. In the world of science, he stands unequivocally for his ability to synthesize and explain complex scientific knowledge. His lectures are the stuff of legend —Albert Einstein attended Feynman’s first talk as a graduate student, and Bill Gates was so inspired by his pedagogy that he called Feynman, “the greatest teacher I never had.” Gates purchased the rights to his lectures and made them publicly available on a video portal nicknamed “Tuva” in honor of Feynman’s famous failed quest to reach the Russian region later in his life.

“I do think that making science cool to people when they’re young and therefore getting more people to go into it in an in-depth way, I think that’s very important right now,” Gates said, when announcing the purchase.

Feynman’s lectures, many of which were delivered during his time at California Institute of Technology, were aimed at students who had no previous knowledge of particle physics or deep science. Taking the mystery out of complex scientific principles was Feynman’s forte. His lectures were underscored by a conviction and passion for science.

If Einstein created the ‘beautiful equation,’ then Feynman brought an unparalleled sense of beauty and romanticism previously absent in the world of scientific research. A vast majority of Feynman’s life was as vividly eccentric and illustrious as the unpredictable movements of the atomic particles that defined his life’s work. When he wasn’t in the throes of researching particle physics, he spent significant time dabbling in the arts, sketching, and even playing the bongo.

The Feynman Technique

Have you ever had a coworker who used business-speak, or had a teacher explain something with language that was difficult to understand?

You’re not alone. The Feynman technique for teaching and communication is a mental model (a breakdown of his personal thought process) to convey information using concise thoughts and simple language. This technique is derived from Feynman’s studying methods when he was a student at Princeton.

At Princeton, Feynman started to record and connect the things he did know with those he did not. In the end, Feynman had a comprehensive notebook of subjects that had been disassembled, translated, and recorded.

In James Gleick’s biography of Feynman, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman, he recalled his subject’s technique. “He opened a fresh notebook. On the title page he wrote: NOTEBOOK OF THINGS I DON’T KNOW ABOUT. For the first but not last time he reorganized his knowledge. He worked for weeks at disassembling each branch of physics, oiling the parts, and putting them back together, looking all the while for the raw edges and inconsistencies. He tried to find the essential kernels of each subject,” Gleick wrote.

You can use this model to quickly learn new concepts, shore up knowledge gaps you have (known as targeted learning), recall ideas you don’t want to forget, or to study more efficiently. Taking that concept further, you can use this technique to grapple with tough subject matter, which is one of the great barriers to learning.

Feynman’s technique is also useful for those who find writing a challenge. Feynman had an interesting relationship with writing. Instead of committing his knowledge to paper like many other scientific figures, he chose to use speech as the foundation for many of his published works. He dictated most of his books and memoirs, and his scientific papers were transcribed from his lectures.

“In order to talk to each other, we have to have words, and that’s all right. It’s a good idea to try to see the difference, and it’s a good idea to know when we are teaching the tools of science, such as words, and when we are teaching science itself,” Feynman said.

Feynman relied heavily on verbal and spoken communication, and when he turned to his cartoonish diagrams of highly scientific principles, for example, he could tap into ideas with shapes, squiggly lines, and drawings. It stripped away clunky language and allowed the power of verbal storytelling to take root.

Explaining the essentials of particle physics is extremely difficult. Before Feynman’s diagrams that earned him a Nobel Prize, there wasn’t a clear way to explain their meaning.

Attribution for Feynman diagram: By JabberWok at the English language Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, http://ift.tt/2vsCaSx

This is the first-ever published diagram by Feynman helped scientists track particle movements in illustrations and visual equations rather than verbose explanations. What seemed almost improbable at the time is now one of the greatest explanations of particle physics — the squiggly lines, diagrams, arrows, quarks, and cartoonish figures are now the established nomenclature and visual story that students, scientists, and readers will see when they learn about this field of science.

Essentially, the Feynman Technique is this:

Identify the subject

Write down everything you know about the topic. Each time you run into new sources of information, add them to the note.

Teach it to a child

If you can teach a concept to a child, you’re way ahead of the game.

Start with a blank note and write the topic or subject you want to teach. Then, below that topic, write everything you know about it. But, the trick is to write it plainly and simply —so that a child can understand what you’re talking about.

Doing this takes into consideration a few things:

Speaking in plain terms: Children don’t understand jargon or a lexicon of dense vocabulary. Science is full of complex terminology, which is the reason Feynman’s diagrams became so valuable. His charts illustrated things that other scientists delivered marathon lectures about.

When we speak without jargon, it frees us from hiding behind knowledge we don’t have. Big words and fluffy “business speak” cripples us from getting to the point and passing knowledge to others.

Brevity: The attention span of a child requires you to deliver concepts as if you were pitching a business idea during one short elevator ride. You better get the concept out before those doors open. Children also don’t have the ability — or mental capacity, to understand anything longer than that.

If you had difficulty putting thoughts into your note, that shows you have room to improve. This is also where the power of creativity can help you reach new heights in learning.

For Feynman, much of the pleasure in science was in this first step —unraveling his levels of understanding.

Identify your knowledge gaps

This is the point where the real learning happens. What are you missing? What don’t you know?

Highlighting knowledge gaps will help you when you collect and organize your notes into a cohesive story (which is the next step.) Now you can call upon your source material (lecture notes, ideas, etc.) when you run into questions about how much you do know about your topic.

If you don’t know something, hit the books. Go back to the source material and compile information that will help you fill in the cracks.

Organize + simplify + Tell a story

Start to tell your story. Piece together your notes and begin to spin a tale using concise explanations. Bring the most vital pieces of your knowledge about the topic together.

Practice reading your story out loud. Pretend to tell the story to a classroom of students. That way, you’ll hear where language stops being simple. Stumbles could indicate incomplete thoughts.

Use analogies and simple sentences to strengthen your understanding of the story.

This sentence, written by Feynman, encapsulates the power of this technique. What started as a question about our existence has been translated into a single sentence that can be understood by a middle school student.

“All things are made of atoms—little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another.”

Basically, Feynman says that if you know nothing about physics, the most essential scientific knowledge to understand is that everything is made up of atoms. In one simple sentence, Feynman conveys the foundational existence of our universe. It’s a master class not just for scientists, but for writers of any stripe. Get to the hypothesis in as few words as possible. Avoid clunky, verbose language.

Drawing on passions

Feynman was a believer in a multi-disciplinary approach to learning and found connections to his work in creative outlets like drawing and music. He never stopped asking questions—who, what, and why?

Einstein had his violin. Werner Heisenberg played the piano. Richard Feynman had bongos. And a passion for art. He was able to eloquently communicate, but he could also see the beauty in art, and the stories that art tells. It was as much a distraction as much as it was an unending source of inspiration he could connect to his work in particle physics.

“I wanted very much to learn to draw, for a reason that I kept to myself: I wanted to convey an emotion I have about the beauty of the world. It’s difficult to describe because it’s an emotion. … It’s a feeling of awe — of scientific awe — which I felt could be communicated through a drawing to someone who had also had that emotion. I could remind him, for a moment, of this feeling about the glories of the universe.” — Feynman discussing the intersection of art and science.

Making things stick forever

The next time you stare at an empty notebook page, think about turning that page into an opportunity.

As Feynman illustrates in his mental model, learning can be a lifelong pursuit. This technique is designed to help you study for exams and learn new subjects, but it can be easily adapted to pursue deep work. Dedicating a notebook to a place where your knowledge can grow and evolve your ideas and provide inspiration to continue following a path of ongoing learning critical to the fundamentals of deeper, meaningful work.

Today, researchers are still parsing through Thomas Edison’s notebooks and are constantly learning about how he cataloged his ideas and innovations. For Feynman, after he was done cataloging his knowledge with his technique, he had a comprehensive record of his knowledge that became a notebook he was incredibly proud of.

Armed with the Feynman technique and Evernote, anything is possible. How could you use this technique in your work? Share your story in the comments.

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