#genuinely i think it altered my personality slightly due to its timing in my development into a person

[amygdalae]

i dont really miss being hyperfixated on bloodborne tbh like the dopamine and serotonin rush i got from it back in HS was profound and it got me through a tough time but i dont miss how obsessive i got at its peak like id lose sleep and forget to eat cuz i was thinking about Bloodborne i was SO bloodborne pilled i talked abt it all the time

[shotfromguns]

Overall, I think Avengers: Endgame was... about as good as we were going to get, given who was involved in making the film and what had already been established (or had failed to be established) in previous films. It was for sure massively better than Age of Ultron and a noticeable improvement over Infinity War. But there were still plenty of flaws (including things they easily could have fixed) and a few things that outright frustrated the hell out of me. 

My thoughts on Endgame follow under the cut. There will obviously be spoilers. This is for @pantsvaporation, but anybody else is welcome to read/comment/etc. as well.

I was pleasantly surprised that there was a minimum of obvious “actors swinging at CG enemies that hadn’t even slightly been described to them.” And while there were definitely places the film could have been tightened up, I had been expecting the three hours to feel noticeably slack, whereas the plot never seemed to me to drag at all. In retrospect, maybe I should have been less surprised by that, given that it was directed by Russos, who were also responsible for CA:TWS, which remains the most perfectly paced action movie I’ve ever seen.

Given the length of the film, however, I am fucking furious that the only (and MCU first-ever) LGBT “representation” we got was one of the Russos as a nameless extra in Steve’s support group who was framed as a mlm through the pronouns of who he was on a date with. 181 fucking minutes, and you couldn’t find room for less than 60 seconds to show us Valkyrie with a girlfriend? Carole Danvers got that amazing (as my girlfriend often describes my current look) ‘90s dyke aesthetic after the time skip, but she couldn’t have a wife? And, of course, anybody and everybody else was given a Big Case of the Not Gays, including and especially the male characters people have enthusiastically been shipping with each other due to the historical nigh-complete dearth of women in the MCU films (Tony, Steve, Sam, Bucky... and I will have more to say about Steve).

I did cry a few times, especially towards the end, which I honestly hadn’t expected to. But it all felt very... emotionally manipulative? For example, I didn’t cry at Tony dying, per se. I did cry at Pepper reacting to his death, his daughter, Happy, etc. It felt like they sort of realized that by this point Tony had become extremely unsympathetic and that they’d probably overly telegraphed that he was going to die, so they needed to make us sad about it by ensuring we were thinking about how other characters would feel about his death, versus how we ourselves felt about it.

And we sure did get a whoooooooooole lotta time to show the audience how sad everyone felt about Tony to ensure we did, too. But there was (a) very little for Natasha, who died in this film saving the universe even more tragically than Tony did, given that she didn’t even know her sacrifice would work to get the Soul Stone, let alone whether the rest of the plan would work even if she did; and (b) almost none for the characters who died in Infinity War and didn’t get a Comic Book Death resurrection through Bruce snapping or past!Nebula breaking literally the entire premise of the film (more on that in a bit). The Vision got a two-second reference, not even by name. Loki got just a flash of a cameo, with Thor not bringing him up once that I can recall, being completely focused on their mother even in a time when they were both still alive. Heimdall didn’t even get that much, nor was he even referenced; nor were any of the Wakandans who died so that Scarlet Witch didn’t have to lose her creepy robo-boyfriend (which, whoops, she did anyway). Regardless of how obnoxious some of these character and/or their fans may have been, they still very much should have mattered to the other characters, who should have been mourning them just as much as they were mourning Tony. And yeah, sure, anybody who didn’t get Thanos’d had had five years to mourn the ones who died in Infinity War, but (a) to anybody who’d just been brought back, they were still freshly dead, and (b) even the people who were around for those five years are probably dealing with that grief all over again, not least of which because they had the others who died then returned to them, and because not everybody (especially not Thor) had even properly gone through the whole grief process in the first place.

On the topic of Thor, boyyyyyyy howdy was it frustrating how thoroughly Endgame finished off the way that Infinity War had started cutting the entire legs of his Ragnarok character development out from under him. If it weren’t for the momentary appearance of a handful of characters from Ragnarok, the movie literally might as well not have happened: Thor no longer cares about being a leader for his people, he’s back to leaning on weapons instead of relying on himself, and he seems to have completely forgotten Loki after having finally reconciled with him. And making Thor fat as a joke was not only fatphobic and unfunny but really undercut the narrative’s ability to make the viewer take his trauma seriously, because of a continuously competing tension between “you’re supposed to laugh at how he looks” and “how he looks is supposed to make you sad” that was never really resolved. There was no “you’re laughing at this, but then you realize what it actually means, and you feel like an ass for having laughed.” It was clearly set up to be, “you’re laughing at this, but then you realize what it means, and you feel a little sad, but don’t worry, there will be plenty of more times when ‘Thor is fat now’ is a punchline.”

As for the film’s humor as a whole, while there were some genuinely funny moments that were well positioned in the narrative, the movie overall felt like it frequently ran into the same problem as Star Wars: The Last Jedi, where the writers were so desperate to have characters constantly quipping that they constantly undercut their own poignant moments.

Probably the biggest actual plot hole is, unsurprisingly, the time travel. They initially did an... okay job of justifying why the characters couldn’t just change the past (though it wasn’t until Bruce got to have his chat with Mx. Yellowface that it actually got in any way coherently explained). But after they did all that work of establishing that they couldn’t just change the past, for capital-R Reasons...

They did uhhhhhhh a whole fucking lot of changing the past. A few of these things could be at least fanwanked away. Maybe past!Steve forgets future!Steve telling him Bucky’s alive because he got knocked unconscious immediately afterwards. Maybe Tony’s chat with his dad had always happened. Maybe Steve had always spent decades with Peggy. But there is no way Sitwell et al. wouldn’t remember Steve pretending to be a member of Hydra, which would significantly alter the events of The Winter Soldier if they weren’t smart enough or lucky enough to verify that Steve wasn’t also a mole and therefore realize he was an “imposter” before one of those Hydra sleeper said something to past!Steve to make him suspicious. And Loki grabbing the loose Tesseract and poofing is a massive change in the timeline.

Their enemies did a whooooooole lot of changing the past when past!Nebula brought past!Thanos and The Gang through to the future, including effectively permanently restoring Gamora, i.e., someone who’d been “irreversibly” sacrificed to obtain the Soul Stone.

Once these things happened, there was literally nothing to explain why (a) the future!Avengers couldn’t at least bring back Heimdall, Loki, all those Wakandans, the Vision, Natasha, and Tony by pulling them from earlier points in the timestream, and (b) why the future!Avengers couldn’t just take their set of Infinity Stones to a point before all of this shit happened and prevent it from ever having happened. Which isn’t to say the writers couldn’t have cooked up some sort of internally consistent explanation, e.g., “this Gamora is basically stolen from the other timeline, which still exists on its own independent axis, and the Avengers wouldn’t kidnap their friends out of another timeline and leave that version of themselves without the person they want to restore just to have that person here.” But they didn’t bother, which presumably means no one involved in making the film even noticed the utter inconsistency.

Speaking of utter inconsistency... Steve. Steven fucking Rogers. Hooooooooboy. That ending was the biggest, stupidest, cheapest piece of schlock I’ve seen in a movie for a long fucking time. Let’s leave aside the fact that he chose to leave behind two perfectly good boyfriends and the fact that he barely said boo to Bucky, despite the film having reminded us how important Bucky was to him by having his name literally be the thing that so shocked past!Steve that future!Steve was able to beat him. You’re seriously telling me that Steve was still pining soooooooo badly for Peggy that he would literally risk the entire timeline so they could have their Hetero Happily Ever After? (Bucky, Sam, Tony, Angie: I’m so sorry, bbys.)

Yeah, sure, Peggy and Steve being parted was sad when it happened. But they’d been colleagues for a handful of years, then maybe sorta friends, and then kissed once, in a speeding car, just after they finally admitted they’d both been crushing on each other pretty hard the whole time because they were on the way to possibly both die. That is not “the love of your life” who you spend the rest of time sighing over. That’s, like, the guy I casually dated for a bit over a month in 2011 because, while we hit it off amazingly well, I didn’t want to get serious when he’d be moving in about a year once his postdoc was done, who sure enough moved to the east coast a year later and then abruptly died of a heart attack a few years after that. Is it tragic that he’s dead? Absolutely. Have I sometimes thought, “Gosh, I wonder what could have been”? Sure. Did I decide that I would never ever again date or even look at anyone else, because he was the only person for me in all of space and time? Lmaoooooo no. I am, in fact, deliriously happy with my current girlfriend, who I also happen to think is way better for me than he ever could have been.

It was already established that Peggy got married in the original timeline (in CA:TWS, Steve watches some footage in which she mentions that during the war he’d saved the man she eventually married). This means that either (a) Steve supplanted her original husband, which is pretty gross, especially if he didn’t tell Peggy “oh hey btw you originally married this other guy, wanna go check him out first,” or (b) Steve was Peggy’s husband all along, and she just obfuscated that. Either way, in the timeline we end up with, somehow for 50+ years this incredibly well-known woman and sometime Director of SHIELD was married to a man she kept absolutely secret and hidden, which somehow no one ever discovered the secret of or even ever commented on, apparently. It also means that, when Steve showed up on her doorstep, both of them agreed that (a) it was more important for them to play house than for Steve to ever openly use his abilities again and (b) Steve would sit on his ass and twiddle his thumbs through every major crisis he knows is coming over the next half-century. If the MCU serum slowed Steve’s aging the way the comic serum did, this might be slightly understandable, because they could justify it as, “Well, Steve will go back to adventuring after he closes the loop with his original timeline, and this will basically be an extended vacation.” But Steve did age (and they presumably had no expectation that he would not), meaning that he wasted decades of active time at most acting secretly and anonymously from the shadows. You really think that these two incredibly dedicated and driven heroes would both agree to that? Sure, I could absolutely believe they’d take the opportunity to finally get that dance. But there’s no way that Peggy wouldn’t have booted Steve’s ass out of bed and back to the 21st century, and it’s highly unlikely Steve himself would have so much as seriously considered staying for more than a more leisurely farewell and proper closure.

Steve’s Hetero Happily Ever After also further complicates the issue of that time travel plot hole I mentioned. If the stones were plucked from one or more divergent timelines (or changes made while grabbing the stones then caused the creation of divergent timelines at those points)... how did aging!Steve end up staying in the same timeline as the rest of the future!Avengers? It seems like it should be impossible for all these things to be simultaneously true, which means either I’m missing something huge or at least one of them is a huge fuck-up in terms of the plot’s internal consistency. EITHER the changes to the past happened in (or spawned) one or more divergent timelines, which is why, e.g., Gamora could be brought forward from her past and now be alive in the future without altering the past that led to her being brought forward in the first place, in which case aging!Steve would have spent his life in an alternate timeline and old!Steve wouldn’t have been able to come visit all his buds on the day young!future!Steve left to return the stones; OR everything took place in a single, unified, undivergent timeline, which would mean Steve could drop into the past and take the long way back to the exact point in spacetime he left, but the changes to the past would have altered the past events, meaning that because Thanos and The Gang skipped forward and Loki is at large with the Tesseract, the events of Thor: The Dark World, Thor: Ragnarok, Infinity War, etc. never happened, and we’re also back to having no reason why other dead people couldn’t be pulled forward from their past timeline, why Thanos couldn’t be stopped by time-traveling the stones to before he retrieved them and using them to stop him, etc.

Various other issues:

The “monstrous” single woman who can’t get pregnant sacrificing herself so that the virile man will have his wife and children restored to him is... not a good look. Also, it’s weird how “we don’t trade lives” when it’s about a robot coded as a white man sacrificing himself to save half the universe (though apparently even at the time a whole bunch of Wakandans was fine, whoops, remember all the Black people who died trying to stop Thanos from getting to the Vision, weird how those lives were okay to trade), but when it’s about Natasha or Clint throwing themself off a cliff, immediately they’re both all, “Yeah, it’s gotta be done for the greater good.”

Thor getting to be the one to axe Thanos’s head off instead of, you know, like, oh, I don’t know, Nebula? The woman he abused and tortured pretty much her entire life? Bad. Inappropriate. Disappointing.

Everybody kept talking about how the characters who got Thanos’d in Infinity War were their “family.” For Rocket, I believe it; one thing the GotG films actually did well was to establish that level of relationship for those characters. But the Avengers? Lmaoooooo. The MCU Avengers were not a fucking family. The MCU Avengers spent every single movie at each other’s throats. If you wanted us to believe they were even friends, you should have given us at least one film of them seriously working as a team instead of against each other.

Holy shit, do I not care about Clint Barton’s Manpain(tm). Also, if you want us to see how far he’s “fallen,” maybe do something other than giving him the worst mohawk I’ve ever seen (including one done backstage after a show and one a friend gave me in my bathroom in college) and a boring tattoo and having him badly pick up an ugly katana-esque sword to kill objectively bad guys.

Bringing Scott back was easy enough that a rat walking across a panel after five years of that shit sitting in a storage facility could do it, and yet no one else tried even once? Somebody saw all that shit set up, and went, “Welp, guess they’re all just dead,” instead of, “Hey maybe this running equipment indicates an experiment in progress that we should maybe investigate”?

The “let’s line up all the named women” shot in the final battle was the most patronizing display of pandering I’ve seen in the entire franchise. Not only did it make no sense for them all to be in the same place at the same time with no men even in the shot, but... they were utterly ineffectual? It was like, “Gosh, how will Carole ever make it through that??? Oh, she’s got US, GIRL-FRIENDS, DID WE MENTION WE’RE ALL LADIES, BUT NOT QUEER OR ANYTHING.” And then... Carole immediately blew straight past them, because her power level is so off the charts compared to almost every other named woman in the MCU, many of whom are simply very, very skilled peak human heroes versus being superhuman.

Speaking of superhuman abilities: Why wasn’t every time-travel suit an Iron Man-style suit like Rhodey’s? Obviously he needed an exoskeleton bit to walk, but since Tony took the time to build him a beefed-up full suit, why didn’t he do the same for everyone else?

Along that same line of stupid decisions made around the Vitally Important, We Only Get One Shot At Fixing This time-travel mission, why didn’t they wait until everyone was in better shape? Thor was clearly still an emotional wreck, and if Rocket hadn’t been on the ball, it would have cost them one of the stones. As soon as you’re traveling back in time to fix something, unless there’s a hard limit on how far you can go back (which there wasn’t), you literally have the rest of your lives to get ready for it, so can and should take as much time as you need to prep (and even over-prep) for that mission. A little more lead time also would have given someone the opportunity to go, “Hey, wait, why don’t we first make a quick stop to just grab more Pym Particles, so we have more flexibility with destinations and do-overs?” Or even, “Why don’t we make these suits modular? That way, they can join into a single unit for each team on the way there, thereby saving a bunch of charges, but also split off into individual suits with everyone having enough juice to get home individually just in case someone gets split off. That will leave us with a bunch of extra Pym Particles in case something goes wrong.”

Other than meta reasons like “we want there to be a big epic fight,” why was it such a struggle to fight Thanos? The Avengers very nearly beat him in Infinity War, when he had five of the six Infinity Stones. Here, he had none, and they still barely squeaked out the victory by the skin of their teeth.

Thanos’s rapid switch from “I’m gonna kill half of all living creatures to uhhh save the universe somehow” to “I guess I’ll just wipe out everything and make an entirely new universe” once again highlighted how deeply stupid his original plan was. If he has the capacity to re-create the entire universe, why doesn’t he just... make more resources, if that’s such a fucking problem? I mean, also, spoiler alert for the real world: It’s not. It’s always been an issue of distribution, not amount. People aren’t starving to death because there’s no food; people are starving to death because of capitalism. So unless you target your population elimination at capitalists exclusively, killing off a bunch of people is going to maintain exactly the same problems of unequal resource exploitation and distribution.

Speaking of which: Why is post-Thanos Earth presented as a mellow semi-paradise (except for everybody being sad about all the dead people)? The loss of half the world’s population would have been catastrophic, cascading into many more deaths. Nor would it have solved inequality... or even resource “over”-utilization. Earth hit a population of 3.85 billion (i.e., half the current ~7.7 billion) around 1972, which many people currently alive have personal memories of not actually being particularly idyllic. This also highlights once again how deeply stupid and nonsensical Thanos’s original plan was, given that his “solution” could easily become obsolete in another 50 years... or even sooner, given that Thanos also cut all non-human creature populations in half, which would have not only reduced related resources available for human consumption but devastated ecosystems worldwide.

There has been a huge official campaign to persuade audiences to not spoil the movie for others. As a general principle, I’m a fan of encouraging anti-spoiler culture, but I think it says a lot about this movie in specific that the studio has put in so much effort to try to stamp out spoilers: i.e., they’re worried that the only real draw it has is people finding out assorted plot points. If your film can be easily replaced by a bulleted list of who’s alive or dead at the end of it, it’s... not actually a good film.

ADDENDUM MAY 5, 2019:

Okay, so, per the Russos, the reason Steve's Hetero Happily Ever After DOESN'T break the entire rest of the film is that it happened in an alternate timeline, and he just jumped back to the MCU prime timeline later... somehow. I still think that's shitty, lazy filmmaking, because in three hours they absolutely should have, you know, made that more clear (or... at all indicated that's how it played out). But at least it keeps their time travel mechanics from completely breaking their own plot.

But that means that in THAT timeline there were two Steves. Which means the BEST-CASE SCENARIO is prime!Steve hooked up with that timeline's Peggy after being 100% honest about who he was, alt!Peggy... chose a different version of Steve over her own Steve, for... reasons?, and then together they found and revived alt!Steve, at which point prime!Steve was like, "lol sorry bro, she's my wife 'cause I missed my chance with prime!Peggy, but at least now you're not frozen for any longer than you already have been."

Other options include:

Prime!Steve pretended to be alt!Steve while leaving him in the ice, counting on him not getting rescued until alt!Peggy would be nearly dead.

Prime!Steve helped rescue alt!Steve, then left alt!Peggy and alt!Steve to have their personal Hetero Happily Ever After while he... married some other random person?

Prime!Steve straight-up murdered alt!Steve to take his place.

Prime!Steve and alt!Peggy rescued alt!Steve, and she married both of them. (Somehow I don't see Disney going for that option.)

ADDENDUM MAY 12, 2019

I just read another interview, this one with the writers. Buckle up, because there’s even more embarrassing shit.

McFeely: I mean, we did all of this before Ragnarok.

Markus: Yeah, initially we were writing drafts prior to Taika coming onboard. And it was once they got underway and they were off in Australia making the movie and it was clear that they were discovering new facets to Thor, Chris Hemsworth wanted to make sure that this new loosened-up Thor didn't vanish immediately upon returning to the Avengers world. And so he and Taika flew to Atlanta and we had long meetings with them and watched some footage and got a sense of the new Thor tone, and it worked perfectly with where we wanted to go.

... ... ... ... Literally WHAT FUCKING PART of Infinity War and Endgame matches AT ALL with Thor's character development from Ragnarok? I was all ready to go, "Oh, okay, that makes sense" at the reveal that this was written before Ragnarok. But then, nope, they admit that they just have no fucking idea what they're doing and think they actually integrated its changes WELL. JFC.

McFeely: So where we hit upon it was in order to become their best selves, Steve had to find a life, and Tony had to lose his.

Boring idea and poorly executed to boot. (Not to mention the extreme cringiness of “finding a life” necessarily requires “marrying a woman and having babies in the suburbs.”) How are they getting paid money for writing this trite?

Fandango: So people are asking... Does this mean an old Captain America was hanging out this whole time while another Captain America was saving the day?

Markus: That is our theory. We are not experts on time travel, but the Ancient One specifically states that when you take an Infinity Stone out of a timeline it creates a new timeline. So Steve going back and just being there would not create a new timeline. So I reject the "Steve is in an alternate reality" theory. I do believe that there is simply a period in world history from about '48 to now where there are two Steve Rogers. And anyway, for a large chunk of that one of them is frozen in ice. So it's not like they'd be running into each other.

HAHAHAHA HOLY FUCKING SHIT okay so NOT ONLY do the director and writers have COMPLETELY DIFFERENT IDEAS about what the fuck happened at the end (did they... not discuss this with each other? at all?), but the WRITERS' version is the one that is THE MOST OUT OF CHARACTER. HOLY SHIT.

McFeely: So we've always thought that the most perfect conclusion to [Natasha's] arc would be to die for her new family, or to sacrifice greatly for her new family.

GAG GAG GAG GAG GAG GAG GAG

McFeely: We toyed with not doing that, and we had another version, and several women on the crew said, "Don't you dare take that choice away from her. The heroic thing is for Natasha to do it, not for Hawkeye to do it."

these are definitely real women who actually exist

Fandango: Do you think there's a world where we see the adventures of Captain and Peggy either on the big or small screen?

Christopher Markus: Possibly. I think maybe all I did was Steve was a stay-at-home dad and Peggy went to work at S.H.I.E.L.D. I don't know that there were any adventures.

lmaoooooooooo

Imagine being this bad at knowing your own characters. Imagine thinking either Peggy OR Steve would just give up their life to play house when there's important work they could be doing.

[jordanknightcdc]

Final Project Assessment

When looking back at this project as a whole there is an endless wealth of possible topics to discuss. I have thoroughly enjoyed “Crafting through the Cathedral” and have found it to be the most enjoyable and informative project I have taken part in. The opportunity to use a space so rich with history that connects to my personal interests so strongly has been enthralling. I have also felt like I have developed my feelings of direction and destination thanks to taking part in more tutorials and taking on board the guidance. I also introdued using a blog in my practice which has increased the depth of my project largely due to being able to articulate myself better. I would like to cover the many other areas that I have enjoyed. However, I don’t have close to enough time to go through it all, so instead I,am going to dived the following topics into periods of time that I have deemed the most challenging, beneficial and interesting for myself and my methodology moving forward.

Starting point- Research and navigating the use of a blog

During the beginning of this project I was really focused on making sure this project and the others following were of a higher quality across the board. This was in direct response to my end of year exiting tutorial where I was told I could be doing more and better (paraphrased). This feedback was really important to me as it was very true and I felt I could be also. This was the catalyst for my introduction of using a blog. I had used them in the past for my diploma but I I tried to change this when starting the degree and I was not happy with the results. I became far too invested in the presentation and found articulating myself very difficult with being able to edit or adjust my thoughts.

However starting this project with the blog and ending with it I feel like it has only benefited me and will continue to do so moving forward. The current situation of the blog will develop and change but is currently making my methodology much better. This is due to me not having to think about spelling, sentence structure and use of language all at once. It has allowed me to post my interviews as well unlike what is possible with a sketch book.

Despite this I did struggle with my blog and research initially. I think it was a combination of experiencing information overload and trying to best decide what interested me most. The idea of refining my ideas was unpleasant as I just wanted to keep looking at diverse stories. I initially focused on the very broad subject of narrative which I will mention later and how I approached it. Upon revaluation of this stage I can see it was a way of averting a final thought or subject and I’am glad I moved on from it. 

Midpoint- Interviewing and concept readjustment 

A large part of my research was informed by interviews I chose to conduct under the theme of finding original narrative from the people of the Cathedral. This experience was the defining factor in me changing my projects focus and how I wished to convey my work. The interviews I conducted all seemed to feedback into a singular matter of scepticism, faith and doubt. This is something upon being initiated I ran with as it is something I find genuinely engaging and relevant to my own personal interests. This sparked a euereika moment when all my ideas of faith, narrative and my intimate concern of the place of faith became aligned. This then led into my interview with Chris Pullin which was the most informative of all my interviews as he gave me real insight into his own faith and the perspective of others within the Cathedrals environment. It illuminated many questions I had but also gave me many more to answer.

Moving forward from this my interviews became more focused on addressing faith and doubt later becoming a body of work focused on the matters of religious belief, conduct and its place in the ever developing world. 

Final stage- Making and the developing body of work and thought

The most taxing and rewarding part of this project has definitely been the many stages of making the concept went through. I had created so many versions of my work and different directions it could go. This was really frustrating but very important in retrospect as it allowed me the chance to rethink refine and develop my piece in a very critical and natural way. I describe the process like a perpetual funnel constantly go from a broad state into a refined idea then back again. I was constantly striping my concept back and what I was trying to communicate. After time it became a part of my process and methodology, unpicking every decision. I have come to realise doing this inst being overly critical or fussy (like I did) but is instead a crucial aspect of your integrity as a maker, to be ale to justify everything your doing. Not just blag or lie about its “possible” meanings but to have a body of work that has been thought out and refined to the pinnacle of what you can at that time. 

This new line of thinking was brought to me during a tutorial with my tutor. I have discussed it previously and wont rehash it but purpose it served was to make me consider what I’am making, if I’am happy with it and if not how can I change this. It was the most memorable and informative tutorial I have had thus far and is something I will continue to reference in my practice due to its impact upon me. 

The impact the tutorial left has fed not only into my theory but also my making. It made and makes me consider the quality of the work I’am producing and why im making it. I had multiple instances of having to remake my work because of my awareness of the quality and craft of my work. I’am aware that the work is now a isolated object that I cannot defend or justify and I have to be comfortable that it is a representation of me. This is a matter I’am stilling trying to address within my work by ensuring it is as best a representative as it can be. 

I have learnt more about making on this project than I have on any other degree project. This is in part because I set myself more work than I probably needed to in a inefficient way. However it forced me into a position of having to try many different techniques and materials to achieve the results I wanted. This impacted my making positively because of the exposure I experienced by jumping into the deep end as it were. I will in future alter my approach to making despite it improving my skills as it was bordering on being too much exposure and I risked failing the work as a whole.

Final thoughts- Moving forward and how would I improve

After now completing this project I feel a great relief and sense of pride in the work that my peers and myself have created. It is a magical though to know that we will now become apart of the Cathedrals long and great history in a small way. I’am pleased with my outcome despite there being many things I would change and improve. I feel this satisfaction because I know that I have pushed myself as much as I could and have not refused to change like I have in the past. The way it functions and the matters it touches upon are all something I’am proud and excited to discuss in this piece and hopefully beyond within my practice. I see this project as stepping stone and turning point within my practice. It has given me pause when considering my future as a craftsperson and what that will look like. I feel slightly closer to that developing answer now.

However there is much I need to address in the way of improvements and future consideration for my work. First I will quickly address the issues with the final outcome in a list below:

The use of some poor materials in the construction. Mainly the base and paper used for the graphic.

The lack of investigation into the possible ways of manipulating coins in beyond what I have achieved

Using more secure and adjustable fixings for coin tracks.

Each of these could have their own post but that would be less informative as they are very clear problems I would address if I had more time on this work. I do want to say that upon making the piece I see a new path that I could peruse and how I could make the use of coins in an interactive way much more interesting. It would involve me going in a automata direction most probably. There is a endless wealth of great automata makers that I could mention but the main point I wanted to make is the ways in which I could use sound, movement, scale and interactivity when it comes to coin based pieces. It is a really interesting point to be at in my work as I feel I have to freedom to now redefine what my practice is and can be in the future. As the next project comes to develop I want to focus on what kind of work I’am going to be making moving forward and how I can translate that into my work best now.

I cant wait to see the work in the crypt and how it is received by the public. It will really inform how I make user responsive work in the future and if I will.

[hikarimurasaki]

Hemomancer

LeBlanc was right when she said that the information well really needed some update. It needed an update badly. She had spent three days almost working full time and it had only been mildly acceptable in her standards. She had applied everything in her knowledge as well as what documents she was able to bring from Piltover, which meant areas which were not in her expertise (for example, weaponry and transforming equipment) or she was not interested in were not detailed or even accurate. At the moment she was brewing herself a cup of tea and looking over her own work, considering it a well-deserved break from her "job". It was not exactly exciting, reciting and writing down what she had already known in an academic format, but the experience had its pros. Improving the Rose's internal archive was a trip down the history of techmaturgy; she had revisited the earliest days when the crystals from Shurima was extracted, then worked into the cheaper, more popular synthetic version, and the following innovations in machinery that followed. It had not been that long ago, she realized. Time flies.

Did the Ferros clan know, back then, that the crystals sing? Did they know that they were alive?

That was meaningless conjecture, Ellen decided, as she continued stirring the tea with one hand while noting on her blueprint. This job was a dangerous one. She should develop some personal defense if she wanted to stay alive.

"Hello, Miss Paige," a smooth voice spoke up from above. She turned her eyes up to find Vladimir standing across the table, a mug in his left hand and a book in another.

"Hello," said Ellen. "You can sit, if you are willing to tolerate my items."

These items were her drones, open and under alterations, and several technical paraphernalia. Vladimir nodded as if it were no big deal and sat down, gracefully avoiding the places where the items sat.

That surprised Ellen a little, but she did not question his decision.

"The job must be quite dull for you," said Vladimir. "these are all the things you already knew."

"It's a good trip down history's lane," said Ellen. "I rarely get the chance to do such… comprehensive revision."

"I hope you are not being sarcastic."

"I am not. I never got to do such things even back in college."

Vladimir shrugged. He glanced at the items she was working on curiously. Ellen wagered that meant he was interested.

"How much do you know about techmaturgy, Vladimir?" she asked.

"Not much," answered Vladimir. "I know that it uses magic and is capable of recreating what magic can do."

"That is… not wrong," Ellen said. "To be fair, its purpose is to do what normal people can do better. More efficient. Magic… the ability to wield it, at least, was not a thing known to Piltovans."

Vladimir gestured towards the drones.

"What are they supposed to do?"

"Oh, these? They are not exactly helpful at the moment. Originally I wanted to create small devices that are capable of independent flight and relay images back to a master machine, but it turned out that they required too much energy for their size. I was not able to get my hands on any crystal that can power it for a significant amount of time. I now know that I don’t have to."

To demonstrate her point, Ellen searched for the familiar humming sensation of power and called upon it. The drone immediately started to glow and levitate off the surface of the table, though its flight pattern was slightly off.

"It clearly helped the invention take flight," Ellen noted. Vladimir snickered at that.

"Was the pun intentional?" he asked.

"What pun… oh. It's gonna be no. You have a thing for puns?"

"Ah, you can say so."

The drone slowly dropped down and the light went out.

"This means that you are natural at using magic," Vladimir assessed. "Some people may have potential, but they cannot start it up themselves. So what do you intend to do with this?"

"Because the fuel chamber is no longer necessary, this drone can carry extra weight, and as a result, extra function. I'm looking to add the ability to generate an energy barrier. I worked on barrier technology when I was in Piltover, it should not be too hard. The catch would be to manually activate it. I've never tried that before."

"And what use would it have?"

"It's my self-defense. Well, people have been hammering the fact that this organization is shady and dangerous in my head, so I thought it wise to devise some countermeasure." Ellen said.

Vladimir seemed genuinely astonished.

"Then you don’t know how to fight?"

"Is fighting something everyone here knows how to do?"

"How can we be shady and dangerous any other way," Vladimir replied pleasantly with his signature smile. He took a drink from his cup as he finished the sentence.

Ellen Paige frowned. Although she knew it made sense, being called naïve again irked her. However, fighting - the ability to hurt another person - she had never thought it was a necessary thing to know. Could it be said that she lived a life too sheltered? Hmm, maybe she was really naïve. How dare she live a life without hurting somebody?

"Anyway, you have the right idea," the white haired man continued, his book already opened. "The Rose… does have enemies. The chance you are targeted may be slim, but it can happen. Noxus is famous for its assassins."

The last sentence was spoken with more fervor than Vladimir's usual elegant tone. He must have had some unpleasant encounters with assassins before.

"You must be able to deal with them."

"Oh, it's not when they are out to get you. It's when they are not. I hope you never have to experience that." Vladimir smirked. "If they were my enemies, they should be dead."

Such a confident declaration, spoken with equal incredible nonchalance. The uncaring tone Vladimir adopted gave Ellen slight shivers. She suddenly had the long-due revelation that the man before her was something much more… sinister.

She forced herself to look up at him and found that his mood seemed to have sunk. He was back at reading his book again, instead of appearing politely interested in her stories.

Was it because of her reaction? Did he just… read her?

Apparently, Vladimir was a much more intuitive and observant person than she had thought.

"Is that the same reaction everyone had before you?" she asked.

It was his turn to be surprised. Then he laughed. A simple, good-natured laugh.

"Yes, most people, if I'm being totally honest," he said, turning a page. But he was looking at her instead of the book. "but no one has ever asked what you just did."

Ellen wagered that meant he saw it as a good thing.

"You would not blame them for being scared, would you?"

"No, I likely would not," Vladimir said in acceptance. "Do you know… what I am?"

Don't you mean "who"? "You're Vladimir no-last-name-given, a magic user, and my colleague? That's all I was allowed to know."

"I am the Hemomancer. My specialty is blood magic."

He seemed to think that she could figure out why that was sinister and should be feared with that information alone. He would be correct.

"I see why that is dangerous."

"I… also have a propensity for murder. I am obliged to kill."

Ellen stirred the tea.

"That is to say, you do not enjoy it?"

"I do."

"Then how is that an obligation? It is a choice."

"I didn’t ask to be born with it."

"Your magic?"

Vladimir nodded.

"How you use it is still your choice," Ellen said, before realizing this was getting argumentative. She thought it was wise to be more… agreeable, "isn't it?"

"Sometimes I fancy it is," the Hemomancer smiled. "Most of the times, I don't think so. It is still annoying when everybody stops acting normally as soon as they know what I am.”

His tone implied that his feelings ran deeper than simple annoyance.

"Sorry," said Ellen. Vladimir shot her a questioning look. "You didn't like it. People abstaining from conversation with you out of fear. Though, to be fair, you opted out first."

"It's not your fault, Miss Paige. And I apologize. Normally people tend to avoid me. I was just used to it."

Vladimir looked up at her with an almost goofy smile, but there was something in that expression Ellen couldn’t quite grasp. He said

"I decide who to kill, at least. Therefore it’s not reasonable to assume I'm going to kill them just because they are in front of me. You disagree."

"I have different opinions about killing people, say, maybe doing none of that is better," Ellen said. "But it's your power. It's your choice. As long as what you do is legal or you do not get caught." It's your problem, honestly. She thought. Laina had driven it in pretty deep that people would always kill each other and the world would always suffer, even when one decided to not harm anyone, as much as possible. Ellen would be inclined to agree. It did not mean that she must do the same thing as humanity. She could choose to do differently. So could everyone else.

Vladimir made his choice. It was not really appropriate to blame it on his innate magic. But that was Ellen's opinion only. The man could do whatever he wanted.

"Ah, I see." Such a pleasant world you have been living in, Ellen could hear that thought at the back of his mind. Right. She could not say she had suffered much. She did not have a tragic, horrifying past. Did that fact mean her opinions and thoughts were invalid, idiotic and naïve compared to those who had suffered? Did it mean she did not know when and how people suffered? Ellen would beg to differ. She would not call herself ignorant (she was before, about the Brackern, but that was due to different reasons) of the world around her. She might not have been through pain and fear of death, but she was certain it was not wrong to not want to hurt other people.

Maybe if she had suffered in the past, her thoughts would be different. 

People become selfish when they have been hurt.

"…most of my activities are authorized, either by the council or by LeBlanc. Same thing, honestly."

"Has LeBlanc already achieved her goal of reclaiming Noxus?" asked Ellen.

"Oh, the current situation is a bit more complicated. LeBlanc still has a lot to do to fulfill her ambitions. Plural. I mean that to me it is the same."

"So, uh… what do you do? Killing people? Does that not make you an assassin?"

There was that smile again.

"You're making me sound like I don’t have a proper job. To put it simply, I brute-forced my way into the Noxian High Command," Ellen did not particularly want to know the details of that. Must be bloody. "My powers are available at their command, as well as the Rose here. And no, I am not an assassin. I am definitely better than that."

"Oh. Sure. Do you want to continue where we left off?" said Ellen, believing there was nothing more she could add to this line of conversation. 

Vladimir seemed happy enough to let it go.

"That would be wonderful. So, about your self-defense, would you consider investing more on the offensive?"

From that encounter onwards, Ellen Paige occasionally met the Hemomancer in the library. As it had become their custom, the two would have a polite conversation regarding miscellaneous subjects whenever they ran into each other. Vladimir turned out to be quite a knowledgeable and intelligent man. Thus, his voice and manner had always been pleasant to Ellen. But they had never got further than that, unlike Ellen and Laina. The Piltovan scientist still could not bring herself to agree with Vladimir; something about him still made her uneasy, but she tried her best to dismiss it. The mage, on his part, did not object to this treatment. In fact, he seemed quite pleased when they conversed. At the end of the day, (hopefully on his part), they were both satisfied. Is this what people call "agree to disagree"?

[nemrut]

Fanfiction: The Changeling by Annerb (Harry Potter)

Summary: Ginny is sorted into Slytherin. It takes her seven years to figure out why.

Rated: Fiction  T - English - Drama/Angst -  Ginny W. - Chapters: 11   - Words: 189,186 - Reviews: 392 - Favs: 1,248 - Follows: 1,008 - Updated: Apr 19 - Published: Apr 19, 2011 - Status: Complete - id: 6919395

Link: fanfiction.net

So, I burned through this in the last few days and I have to say, it has been quite a while since I last enjoyed a Harry Potter fanfic this much. The way I understand it, there are three stories planned, two of which are complete as of this point, the first one about Ginny through the years 1-6, culminating with the Battle of Hogwarts, than the period after the war and before her return to Hogwarts to finish year 7 and then the last story which has yet to be posted about year 7.

I think the way this story stands out to me is the way it handles the Harry Potter cast in general, in that it has an excellent handle on each and every character. Every person is pretty much their canon self. Malfoy, Snape, Fleur, the Weasley's, they're are all perfectly in character. I think this is pretty much the most perfect depiction of Draco Malfoy that I have yet to see in fanfiction. He is exactly as he is in the books, no dumber and no smarter.  Ginny, of course is changed but not in a way that replaced her character with someone else entirely but rather that she is still  Ginny, only changed through her different life experiences.

I didn't mention Harry, because him I felt the one changed the most, but also in a good way. With Ginny being a different character and thus actually a bigger influence on him did allow for some genuine changes in his character and an openness to reflect on himself and others in a different way than before. He is still a good character and distinguishably himself but a bit more developed.

The OCs, speak all the Slytherins and some Ravenclaws I actually really enjoined. I completely agree with @Newcomb in that Antonia, the whole time, reminded me also of Ophilia Karait, only not as a cheap knock-off but rather based on the same character archetype, that of the immensely competent, cunning and mysterious older Slytherin girl.

Here is a confession of mine: I fucking love the immensely competent, cunning and mysterious older Slytherin girl archetype. Honestly wish there were more of her pulled off competently. Her taking Ginny under her wing is something I was super happy about. As such, her presence was enjoyable whenever she appeared and she never overstayed her welcome as she's used sparingly. (Here I confess that I also was shipping her with Ginny, but it never broke the story for me as the Harry x Ginny thing is being built up rather organically)

Ginny has two friend-groups in Slytherin, one being her two best friends Smita and Tobias and the other being the girls of the parlor and I find that while the latter group may not have been developed as much as I would have liked, I still appreciated each and every character.

The friendship between Tobias and Ginny worked really, really well for me. It's true that Tobias is not a groundbreaking character, however, there is such a profound sense of friendship in the way that he interacts with Ginny, that he actually became one of my favorite characters in the fic. I thoroughly enjoyed his interaction with others and the interesting parallel he served to Snape. In a way, it was  very subtle and clever critique of Snape. Tobias and Snape serve very similar roles, only Tobias never allowed himself to be broken and twisted by life as Snape and never took it out on the helpless by being incredibly bitter and mean-spirited.   Spoilers after the cut but the conclusion before for those who do not want to click further:

It has its flaws but nothing at all game-breaking and if you at all like Harry Potter fanfiction and the wizarding world, you owe it to yourself to at least check it out. 5/5

The story also had me genuinely fooled that Tobias and Ginny had grown apart, that what happened to their group, the incident at the Ministry and Smita's absence were enough to break apart their group, especially with Ginny spending less and less time with him, clearly not knowing how to handle this. So much so, that I it was an actual surprise that Ginny told Neville that Tobias had been spying for them. I guess my only complaint in that regard is that I wish there had been a hint or something to foreshadow this, or maybe there was and I missed it. Which leads me to Smita and while she is the less impactful person, her role I actually enjoyed even more. Yeah, her character doesn't leave much of an impression, I honestly had already forgotten her name but it's so rare to see such a realistic portrayal of the development of friendships in a medium where friendships are celebrated to the point of giving you unrealistic expectations of them.

Sometimes, people grow apart, for better or for worse. Smita was an incredibly important person for Ginny for a few years but that's simply not something that necessarily will always stay that way and that's fine as well. There wasn't a big fight or an ideological rift between the girls, just different priorities and life took them on different roads. Sometimes friendships can't be saved and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I honestly loved this.

The Parlor was something that I also loved. It's a clever invention, one that feels particularly fitting into the Harry Potter mythos and works exceedingly well in the story as it serves to explore Ginny's characters in a multitude of ways, as both a regular member desperately seeking advice, companionship and a place to belong and later as a leader who is responsible for each and every single individual in it and is probably the thing I am looking forward the most in the third story, to see Ginny trying to rebuilt the Parlor, to invite new girls into it and see on whom she will ultimately pass the torch to.

In general this has been a great story exploring Slytherin, one of the best I have seen in fanfiction. There is no Slytherin wank, no bashing. Slytherin is not a "pit of snakes". It's not Game of Thrones with schoolchildren where every character is Littlefinger, Varys or Cersei. No senseless scheming or arbitrary ranks or whatnot. They are just kids for the most part, but it is still distinguishable from the rest due to its unique nature.

As a whole, Ginny has been an excellent character to use for this, genius even. Since she is a year younger, the story gives us a new cast to play with and at the same time, removes her from canon events enough that the focus is always on her journey and not necessarily derailing the plot, although the canon elements are still happening in the background and shaping her life. Ginny finding her place in Slytherin has been a gripping journey, one told expertly with not a spelling mistake in sight and with smart stylistic choices.

For example, I loved that her first year was basically a haze, as both her worldview being shaken and being controlled by Riddle had a tremendous impact on her, one that she couldn't shake for a while. It was carving her own space with Quidditch, the life-line that the Parlor threw her and making friends with Tobias and Smita that ultimately allowed Ginny to get on her feet and finally claim her place in Slytherin, which was, on a whole, really satisfying to read.

Ron dressing in Slytherin colors to cheer on his sister was also one of the more heartwarming moments in HP fanfiction that I've seen in a while. It deserves mention that I also loved how her family reacted to her being in Slytherin, how they tried but their prejudices would get in the way at times and say thoughtless things but which they also ultimately were able to overcome.

As to the negatives, I guess I agree that there could have been a bit more characterization on the Parlor girls, although I guess that will come in the third story. Still, some more distinction among the girls outside of what they pursue wouldn't have hurt. And while I appreciated the story not having Ginny derail the plot by overtaking it, as this is very much a Slytherin Ginny story and not a Dark Lady Ginny story, I have to admit it's a bit weak that Ginny's influence on Slytherin hasn't really altered anything so far. Sure, I guess there will be a slightly more positive perspective on Slytherin as a whole, especially in the younger years, but the fact that Ginny and the additional Slytherins who stayed had virtually no impact on who died and who didn't is a bit weak, especially since Ginny had a device that was able to suck up all magic which, in hindsight, was a bit OP, way too good and ultimately still pointless. "I'll have twenty" indeed, that thing is probably the best magical device after the Hallows and  better than the freaking cloak.

I liked that the Slytherins faced stark consequences for their bravery. There was death, injury and fallout from that, stuff that the second story explores in an interesting manner, only that the impact is really only felt by them, not by the plot at large, if that makes sense. Their impact is restricted to them alone, not the larger picture. Could have led to more or less deaths of canon, something like that. Make things better or worse and not have them stay exactly the same. Looking back, that is really disappointing. The second story, while still interesting from start to finish, does get a bit overly angsty at times, especially Harry but at the same time, Harry's conflict with the Ministry is something that I really appreciate and found to be the most realistic I have seen and I am including canon in that. I quite like the trajectory that is being set up and I hope this will ultimately lead to Harry to becoming something other than Auror and that this will allow the story to throw off the last shackles of canon. Snape (and I don't think there is any chance of Ginny naming any of her children after him, if they have any) has been handled really tastefully, I have to say. Also rather in character, he hasn't been glorified or bashed. Instead, there was nuance in the way the story used him and different characters saw him differently and all for good reasons. As I said earlier, Tobias is a nice contrast to Snape and while admittedly he wasn't in as extreme of a situation as Snape ultimately found himself, he managed to handle himself much better than Snape did at that age. Characters in general haven't been whitewashed, the Malfoy's being great examples of that. Even after their turn, they didn't do a 180 but rather remained their slightly antagonistic, aloof selves who aren't suddenly super regretful and nice but rather awkward, distanced people who don't quite know what to do.

Narcissa going "you might not have helped me but rather doomed me as a traitor if I'm still getting thrown into prison" was one of my favorite lines in the story. Not a lot of stories do that. Even Harry, he's not being treated as the next Merlin or something but rather the rock to the scissors that was Voldemort. Sure it was important but that doesn't mean they like him any more for it or value his input outside of the public perception of him. The fact that Harry is not leading the Ministry in any shape or form and rather has only some minimal influence that he has to carefully balance is fascinating and super believable.

I think, ultimately, that is the greatest strength of this story. It is so very grounded and mature that it never overextends itself and knows exactly what it is it wants to do and then efficiently does it. This is not a story that has been written on the fly but rather was meticulously planned and edited and the effort is shown and has paid off in every line.

[ramblesandmumblesofanerd]

Batman: Arkham Reviews Part 3 - Obligatory Origins

Warning: Lengthy Post Which Contains Spoilers

After the explosive finale of Arkham City, every fan was curious as to how exactly Rocksteady would top their previous game with the inevitable sequel. What happened after the events of Arkham City? How are the characters coping with the aftermath of the previous story? Are the villains planning an attack? Will Batman be able to forge ahead and work through whatever come his way? All of these questions and more will not be answered as a completely different company, Warner Brothers Games Montreal, will prolong our wait for the sequel we actually want and instead give us the obligatory origin story we may or may not have wanted. Will this game stand up alongside its predecessors, or will it simply fall flat? Let’s take a look at 2013’s Batman: Arkham Origins to find out.

The main story of the game takes place several years ago on Christmas Eve, when a younger, rougher Batman has begun to make a name for himself as a vigilante the GCPD needs to put down. On this evening, Roman “Black Mask” Sionis has hired eight assassins including Deathstroke, Deadshot and Bane to kill the Batman in exchange for fifty million dollars in cash. Now, for one evening, Batman must defeat these eight assassins while keeping Gotham safe through side missions. Can Batman defeat them while trying to forge an uneasy alliance with Lieutenant James Gordon and the GCPD? Well, we already have two games that show he already has, so what do you think?

Firstly, while the game certainly feels more impressive in terms of how much larger the map is in comparison to Arkham City, this is only because the game designers took the map from Arkham City, added few new areas and another part of Gotham connected by a tedious bridge. While it is interesting to see Arkham City when it was still called Old Gotham, it does feel slightly lazy in spite of the additions made to show the city in it’s prime. There are also new areas to explore in New Gotham, but only if you are willing to make the trek across the aforementioned Pioneers Bridge. Until you unlock the fast-travel mechanic, this journey will feel quite tiresome, as you are forced to glide, grapnel and repeat across the bridge until you finally make it to the other side. This may sound trivial at first, but when the story demands you repeat this task a few times you begin to realize why Arkham City was so small in comparison to Arkham Origins. Also, the city seems emptier than it really should, as all civilians (i.e. not criminals) have been ordered to stay indoors due to the overbearing presence of the assassins. While this does make sense, it makes Gotham City feel exactly like Arkham City due to the overwhelming amount of nameless criminals you will find hanging out in clusters on the streets and rooftops.  This is until the aforementioned fast-travel mechanic is unlocked after dealing Enigma’s “puzzles”, which is just a loading screen that becomes tedious and actually somewhat annoying. So, this is a slightly lose-lose situation.

Speaking of exactly the same, the gadgets are a little less innovative this time around. The player is essentially given all of the gadgets they are familiar with since game one with only one new item being one from Robin’s arsenal in a DLC Mission from Arkham City, the Concussion Detonator. Even the Freeze Grenade has been reskinned as Glue Grenade, which does the exact same thing it does in Arkham City: freeze opponents/steam from pipes and create a surface to stand on in water. There are even certain gadgets that do not make any sense due to previously established context, such as the Grapnel Boost. In Arkham City, the Grapnel Boost allows Batman to grapple to a surface and use to force to launch himself into the air if the player presses a certain button. When the player unlocks this upgrade, Batman and Alfred have an exchange in which the butler reminds his master that the upgrade was in the experimental prototype stage, meaning it was just made. In Arkham Origins, which takes place years prior, you already have the upgrade. While I understand the need for this upgrade in order to make traversing the city less tedious, this make no sense in terms of context which has always bugged me.

So that’s a flop for both the map and the gadgets, but what about the characters? Well, we have a younger, more aggressive Batman not voiced by Kevin Conroy in favor of a decent performance by Roger Craig Smith working alongside a prissy Alfred Pennyworth voiced by Martin Jarvis and a reluctant James Gordon voiced by Michael Gough. We are provided with a younger Joker wreaking havoc alongside the assassins played by Tom Baker who does an impressive impersonation of Mark Hamill. We are given an amazing portrayal of Deathstroke performed by Mark Rolston, whose fight was, by far, the hardest to beat and therefore the most satisfying when the task is actually done. We’re even given a more intelligent version of Bane before he became the hulking bruiser we have seen in previous games, voiced by JB Blanc who makes the character all the more intimidating. And that’s about all the characters I actually care about. The rest of the characters, be they in the main story or in their own personal side missions feel bland and just tacked on to get die hard fans to go “Oh, look! I know that character!”. Even some of the assassins feel like tools rather than characters, such as Copperhead who uses fear inducing poison to slowly kill her targets. Sound familiar? This encounter between Batman and Copperhead is just used to explain away how Batman is always able to fight against Scarecrow's Fear Toxin. It is a shame, because I like some of these characters and I would have loved to have seen them be more developed rather than just be slapped on in order to fill the quota for bad guys in the game.

And finally, there is the bugs and other issues. Unlike previous games in my personal experience, Arkham Origins in littered with bugs and glitches which causes problems in the game for many players. The most notable is when the game will freeze in the midst of playing. This is due to the console in question (mine being a Playstation 3) trying to load the game and it’s assets while you are playing it. Sometimes the process is more than the console can take, thus causing the freeze and crash which requires a full restart of the console. Thankfully this only happened once in my experience, but there was another notable issue that occurred in a game mode that has never been used in any prior or future game in the Arkham series: multiplayer mode. On paper, a multiplayer game featuring Batman characters sounds impressive, but the execution leaves little to be desired. Unfortunately the gameplay does feel somewhat bland with the typical “Capture the Point” and “Team Deathmatch”, with the only alterations being Batman and Robin trying to take out the two gangs from the shadows and the opportunity to play as either Bane or Joker depending on which team you are assigned. The multiplayer however, before it was inevitably taken down by Warner Brothers Games, was truly a pain, as it took one forever to load into a game due to the need of three players per gang and two more players to be the Dynamic Duo. I can only assume barely anyone wanted to play the multiplayer is the simple fact that no one demanded it. When we played the previous Arkham games, we never thought about having a multiplayer mode because we were having so much fun being the Batman.

So with an unnecessary story, convoluted map, cookie cutter characters and all of the glitches, do I still recommend this game? Oddly enough, yes. While Arkham Origins is not a perfect game or even the game we wanted at the time, I still found myself enjoying the it for what it was. The story did actually have a twist or two I did genuinely get a kick out of on my first playthrough, especially with a young Joker being thrown into the mix. Speaking of whom, full props to Tom Baker for doing spot on imitation of Mark Hamill’s iconic voice for the role, as well as other actors such as Roger Craig playing the role of a young, angry vigilante who does not respect the law just yet. While, yes, there are some bland characters thrown into the mix just to make the game as immense as Arkham City, I cannot say I outright hate them as they provided a challenge in their own ways, I just did not find them as interesting as other more prominent characters or their future incarnations from the previous Arkham games. And once you have dealt with the glitches and the lack of innovation, the game does actually become enjoyable as you do want to see how certain character became the people we know them as in Arkham Asylum/City. Is the game for everybody? No. But if you are honestly curious about it, I do recommend you take a look. But for those who are not curious, we do have one more game to talk about.

Until then, never stop rambling, TM

[ratajota]

since watching kids cartoon analyisis on youtube induces a state of verborrhage, im gonna say a few things about nelyn that ive slightly tought about and just dont sound right to me anymore:

- there are many, MANY things that nelyn does that make absolutely no sense that were basically driven by my own teenage libido, which is, the endless gay longing of sweating while thinking about holding hands. a way late teens and adults dont normally behave. nelyn, im so sorry. in which:

1 - joining the telvanni and succeeding was one of those things. partly inspired because i just wanted my friends oc to be his friend and develop them together. it gave me a bullshit excuse in how in earth would nelyn manage to become a real hortator while having the charm and charisma of a rat in dunmeri political terms, and how in earth could nelyn become so magically powerful. i made it so nelyn magically succeeded despite everything just pointing to this not working. hell, he would make a better redoran.

there was this whole arc (which i would not discard) where he got an apprenticeship at port telvannis, since he needed Mage Papers to get a shot at being a proper telvanni, worked his ass off to be independent and sustain himself, while receiving all sorts of academic mistreatment and backlash. basically, rigurous magic methods versus the purely intuitive unmethodic magic of nelyn, and also, he can´t read. the sheer discrimination of it all. he learned much more and grew more as a person by doing labor in the island than in academy, then went back to vvardenfel. originally, he did become an Alternative Alteration Smart Master Wizord, but this is just out of character. at most, he is a crazy philosopher greatly influenced by other crazy boethians

2 - those brief times with teldryn and julan that were continuously scrapped and rewritten because guess what.... didnt make sense because they all strongly clash personality wise. with teldryn, theres this great naivety of liking the first person that treats you more or less okay, with julan, which i constantly had to stop writing and twist things because they would get REALLY heated up and hated each other forever because they are both determined hot headed little shits and really had no reason to travel together (nelyn would Never give him the pleasure of letting him believe he was the neverbrain). also, this reeks a lot like transmasculine fear

i will not talk about hassim. thats too embarrassing. but consider that whole ordeal also another mistake

notice how nelyn has no acquaitances or FRIENDS and only guys that he has weird homo tension or unrequited/failed relationships with? this is called the author was a queer 16 years old with very little life experience and a lot of idealization.

3 - the weird themes around masculinity. Nelyn obviously goes from being curious, sensible/sensitive, negociating, perceptive and wary of the world and spirits, being very connected to them, to completely brazen and colluding with everything in his path, twisting everything to fit his destiny and reshaping his narrative. it makes a bit of sense if you understand that he came from a place where everything went more or less swimmingly for him, that he was doing great, was loved and everything he did was fantastic, and he harbored a quiet resentment for the very few things that were not allowed for him (ethnic belonging, a bloodline, normality as in not being a witch, the empire seeping in windhelm). it is public knowledge that morrowind simply treats anybody like shit, and boy was nelyn greatly offended. Nelyn never really acts or approaches the spiritual matters of morrowind with genuine respect and love as he treated those of skyrim, he did it with great interest, yes, but there was this very strong intention of FIXING THINGS HIS WAY, instead of feeling he was talking and negociating with a force of nature. again, aedric vs daedric stuff

there´s this thing where nelyn goes from being a very disorientated tourist having constant meltdowns (which always end in some sort of “fuck these people” realization that drives him forward - he is simply unable to sink and give up, its something hardwired in him for some reason) to a hortator, with all that word means. i took the mantling stuff into the story as well, nelyn becomes as golden as nerevar and doesnt really return to his senses until the main events are over and allows himself to suffer.. this all is casually happening as he transitions. theres this clear narrative where he stops being a victim and becomes the one holding the reins, or maybe the whip. metaphysical demonization of transmasculinity trope?

nelyn is also greatly overpowered, but for a long time, it´s absolutely useless and more of an obstacle to basic normal function. being almost unable to battle despite knowing how to use axe due to the overwhelming sensations of either the dagoth corruption or daedric energies. again, in a point of the story, he goes from passively perceiving things and communicating with them (often going very wrongly for him), and learns to materialize his will and force reality to do what he wanted, no longer listens to the world around him.

this all by itself is neutral, it does not have a relationship with gender, but at some point i just made nelyn trans just because, with little thought. i dont know if i can freely talk about this since people get their jimmies rustled, but i dont think anyones gonna care in this dying platform. it all casually ties with the hortator and conqueror themes. many times after 2017 i came across nelyn and wondered how does a person that looks, feels, and thinks like two different people at the same time can be the same person. the obvious answer is yes, these two are contained by the other one at the same time, there´s always a presence of this mystical nelyn in the more emotional matters, and theres always a hortator nelyn coming to the rescue in his earliest moments, driving him forward.

4 - nelyns transition doesnt make sense, and so doesnt the lore i constructed around it. flesh magic, good, ok, we get it, totally lore friendly. but theres no real reason why would someone with little to no problems with their physical appearance, who didnt think that an operation that is not life-saving exists, or that someone very androgynous would jump right into such drastic things just because a wizard told them they could do it. i have a lot of conflicting views of him, his image and his presentation, but his hypermasculinization, when we dont really know what it means and is necessary to be a man in morrowind, and supposedly there is gender equality in skyrim is like... wherever is this sudden short hair and stern manliness coming from? i know, PROJECTION

5- there have been a Lot of arcs that were thought about after the end of the main quest, telvanni mage nelyn, oblivion playthrough, just descent into madness, and most recently, a return to skyrim with an eventual return to morrowind. for some reason, they all meet this dead point where nelyn just breaks and cannot deal with it all anymore, with no more willpower or knowing what he wants to do, when his character for a lot of time was based on that. someday i will know the reason for this

6- i dont even remember how much i twisted the mq into something of a huge scale but definitely unrealistic