#note to self: add gloves to fours character design
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twin-chains · 5 months ago
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Been thinking about Four (and Mini) recently
I imagine Four has only ever split twice in their life. The first time they drew the four sword, it was super disorienting for the colored links to come into being but all four of them came to the conclusion that defeating Vaati could fix it. And once they put the four sword back, Four was back to normal. Becoming four people was weird and took a while to process but they figured it was a one time thing and didn’t dwell much on it.
The second time though, it was hell. Four was not only split for much longer, but the colored links developed personalities of their own as they became farther apart. They formed bonds with other people and didn’t always get along.
The second adventure keeps them up at night. Four questioned their identity, who are they? Where did the four links go? Are they a culmination of the four colors or are the colored links different parts of Four? Who would Four have become if they hadn’t drawn the four sword? Is part of them evil for joining Shadow? Was Shadow their counterpart? Why doesn’t Four have a shadow anymore? Will they lose a piece of themselves if one of the colors dies? If the four sword broke while Four was four, what would happen? Is Four broken? Will they always be broken? Can Four be repaired or will they never be whole?
When they put the four sword back, Four took a much longer time to recover, physically and mentally. They worried splitting up would become a reoccurring thing and as time went on, they found themself itching for the four sword once more but refused, scared of what it would mean.
But as they started adventuring with the Young Chain, Four was forced to draw the four sword once more (with gloves on) and the urge to split was greater than ever. So close to the sword, Four had to physically stop themself from drawing the sword and burying the issue left a mental toll on them. The longer it went on, they began to get more agitated and antsy.
Four gets in their own head a lot, especially around the four sword, it doesn’t help that they’re also pretty awkward with the others. Four looks up to Clover, doesn’t know how to talk to Tears, is intimidated by Twi, and is conflicted about their revered predecessor Mini being much younger than them.
Mini especially gives Four a hard time, utterly confused when Mini doesn’t have the same issue with splitting. Or had a shadow link. And they can’t exactly get all the information successfully out of 10-year old, leaving Four with more questions than answers.
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nitrochiralfan · 2 years ago
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The Mamiyas Symbolism with the characters
I wanted to discuss the groups Mamiyas there is so much symbolism played in them I wanted to write a post about the fours Mamiyas, This is all interpretation feel free to disagree or add. I am going to talk about it in this post so if you haven’t played the game yet beware of spoilers down the line.
The fours Mamiyas are very self explanatory if you played the game but here I am going to elaborate on it and what it means. Later in the game its revealed that that the Mamiyas encountered in FallDown were illusions that manifested themselves based on the influence of the members of the pink house. I also think that the Mamiyas appearance are not only based on the members of the pink house but also the main fours themselves.
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Minato’s Mamiya:
Minato’s mamiya appears as a boy with a gas mask, when looked closely at the clothes he wears it starkly resembles a musical conductor with the gloves, bow ties and long coat are part of a musical conductors clothes. Minatos Mamiya resembling a music conductor references Minatos love of classical music.The gas mask in Minatos Mamiya plays importance to Minato himself as a person.Minatos cheerful public persona could be considered a mask to hide his true self. the mask could mean in how Minato hides his true self from others in fear of ostracized.
Minato’s Mamiya symbolizes Minatos desire to be loved for who he is.
Minato’s Mamiyas true identity is Touma Morichika, Haruki’s brother and Minato's preschool music teacher. the musical conductor outfit in Mamiya’s design references Touma’s occupation as a music teacher. 
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Ryou’s Mamiya:
Ryou’s Mamiya is a child with a rabbit mask, Ryou’s Mamiya is very self explanatory. The rabbit mask resembles a plush toy. Ryou’s Mamiya entire design being both a young boy and a plush toy notes Ryou’s childlike innocence that is shoved because of pain and responsibility.
Ryou’s Mamiya symbolizes Ryou’s childlike longing for a parental figure.
Ryou’s Mamiya true identity is Arisugawa Osamu, one of his mothers boyfriends that took an interest in his well being by bring him books to read and taking him to amusement parks. Ryous Mamiya behavior towards his well being can be taken from how Osamu treated him. another thing that can be notes in Mamiya’s child design could reference the fact that Osamu is a children's book author. In the way His Mamiya himself his father is how Ryou viewed Osamu as a parental figure of sorts due to being the only one to ever show concern towards his well being.
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Haruki’s Mamiya:
Haruki’s Mamiya is a little girl in a nurses uniform.the nurse uniform in her design could look like a nurse treating there patient Haruki is considered a sickly patient due to his unwell constitution. Haruki’s Mamiyas notes Haruki’s heavy wanting for companionship and love.
Haruki’s Mamiya symbolizes Haruki’s desire to be healed from his wounds created from the loneliness he felt.
Haruki’s Mamiya true identity is Mayuri Niigaki, Haruki’s nurse who taught him how to seduce woman, Mayuri opened up to Haurki when they were patient and nurse because she realized they are painfully alone.. Haruki’s Mamiya being a little girl in a nurse uniform comes from her.
I saved Keito’s Mamiya for last since Keitos Mamiya is a lot harder because I find Keito the most complicating character out of the main four.
Keito’s Mamiya:
Keito’s Mamiya is an invisible friend that only Keito notices. Keito’s Mamiya could resemble an imaginary friend that you would have one that would only be seen by you and is invisible to everyone else. This notes Keitos personality, his childlike sense of wonder and imagination. His Mamiya symbolizes not only Keito’s childlike imagination but his fears of the mundane and growing up
This is my interpretation of what the Mamiyas I could be wrong though if you think so feel free to check I am open to discussion.
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outbythehighwind · 4 years ago
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Tifa’s Fighting Style
One of the things that impressed me most about FF7R is Tifa Lockhart’s combat. Her mechanics were dazzling. Her combos left me awed. Her style was so realistic, but... what was it? Naturally, I did some digging, and happened to stumble across a blog where most of the work had already been done. So this post is courtesy of Flowerslightning, with thoughts and elaboration on my part. THANKS AND CREDIT TO THIS WONDERFULLY INSIGHTFUL BLOGGER (do check out her tumblr for more fantastic content).
First, let’s note that Tifa’s combat design is very much in the field of fighting games. To some degree at least, developers take inspiration from real-life arts. The style of Tekken’s Lei Wulong, for instance, is based on the Drunken First. Street Fighter’s Chun Li uses the model of Chinese Kenpo.
The FFVII devs - to my knowledge - have revealed nothing on Tifa’s inspired martial arts background. She adopted the monk style (the fisticuffs of FF-verse) from a traveler named Zangan. That’s all we know. She trained (obviously very hard) as his pupil for the 2 years between Cloud leaving Nibelheim and Sephiroth burning the town. Zangan then brought her to Midgar and continued his travels. The only path for discerning real-arts inspiration is through observing Tifa’s fights - though even such attempt is limited. Her style is not as straightforward as Lei’s or Chun Li’s. She seems to employ a mix of martial arts, specializing in the offense and using speed and dexterity to her advantage.
Here are the main styles that Flowerslightning deduced, supported by some of Tifa’s abilities.
1. Muay Thai [demonstrated by Somersault].
This is the known as the “Art of Eight Limbs” and is commonly referred to as “Thai boxing”. It differs from traditional kickboxing (which has its roots in Japan) most notably in being an 8-point instead of 4-point striking system. In other words, Muay Thai employs elbow and shin strikes in addition to kicks and punches. Tifa’s kicks, I would say, are actually more akin to kickboxing, for Muay Thai places emphasis on heavy kicks involving the shin bone. Yet her acrobatic style is very akin to the latter.
In addition to the key boxing techniques of both the Thai and Japanese art, Tifa’s elbow maneuvers provide further evidence for the former. This is most evident during her fight with Loz, where she uses her elbows for offense and defense. One could say she expanded her Thai-based skills during in the 2 years that followed saving the world.
Running a new bar and raising two under-10-year-olds would have left at least a... smidgen of free time, right?
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2. Muay Thai [demonstrated by Refocus].
Some may suggest this move of Tifa’s is a Taekwondo technique (we’ll get to that lovable sport soon, don’t you worry), but I agree with Flowerslightning in that her jumping style is more Muay Thai. Almost all Muay Thai techniques use movement of the entire body, rotating the hip with each kick, punch, elbow and block. This to me is the obvious discerning factor. Tifa exquisitely throws her whole body into the majority of her combos and limit breaks, ground and aerial alike. Specifically through that neat hip rotation. Refocus is but one example of many.
PS. Don’t you just love her boots? The gloves are really something but, those red boots... Just look at them.
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3. Taekwondo [shown in Overpower].
Literally the “Way of the Hand and Foot”, this is a Korean martial art set apart by its emphasis on kicks. Head-height kicks, jump spin kicks, swift kicks, the list goes on. (But of course, there’s plenty of hand blocking and take-downs too.) Did you know that Taekwondo is part of South Korea’s military training program as well as their national sport? Its skillset is heavy in self-defense.
Tifa is mostly an offensive attacker (and wow, do her strikes deal devastating damage). Yet her aerial maneuvers and acrobatic footwork certainly have elements of Taekwondo. What makes the Taekwondo kick-style unique is its elaborate, advanced forms. Xtreme 720s, for instance, are underpinned by precise technical soundness and accuracy.
Yes, these are literal 720° mid-air turns with a SERIES of kicks timed in utmost precision. They require extraordinary strength. Something Tifa deceptively pulls off with ease, no?
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4. Hēi-Hǔ-Quán [displayed in Starshower].
Flowerslightning deduces this ATB ability to be a Boxing combo. Though to me it looks more like Hēi-Hǔ-Quán (lit. ‘Black Tiger Fist’, a Shaolin striking art from China). Watch her hands closely: the thumbs are curled like the fingers rather than wrapped around them to form a fist. Tifa’s wide stances and acrostic kicks are a little less tiger-esque than Hēi-Hǔ-Quán, but there is definitely resemblance of the style there too.
All in all, she seems to employ a mixture of Shaolin arts and Boxing. Her finger-positions for fast jabs (as in Starshower and the Loz fight) are predominantly of the Tiger Fist. Her more powerful strikes, meanwhile, include Boxing crosses, hooks and uppercuts. The sewer cutscene demonstrates this clearly, when Tifa & Cloud encounter the Sahagin.
And damn, do we love the back-to-back Cloti in that scene. Surely I’m not just speaking for myself here.
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5. Boxing [displayed in Unbridled Strength].
Tifa’s aforementioned fist moves and powerful finishing punches are no doubt reminiscent of boxing. Also, she always enters a fight with her fists closed in a boxing stance (whether she will employ Shaolin or other hand techniques is irrelevant). Take her cutscene against the Whispers where she, Cloud and Aerith arrive at Sector 7. She begins with a cross and follows with a rotated hook - one of the most basic boxing combos.
BONUS FACT: Rather than orthodox, Tifa always employs a southpaw stance (right hand and right foot forward). This is the preferred stance of a left-hand fighter. Is Tifa left-handed? Considering her fighting alone, yes is the plausible assumption. Here are a few examples:
     - Unbridled Strength has her delivering a finishing blow with her left hand. We would expect such a move to be done with the power hand.
     - Her single strike that hurls Loz across the church is also with the left hand. This punch is not part of a combo; she could have used either hand.
     - In guard position, her left is the rear hand, to both attack and protect herself.
     - And of course, in southpaw stance, she always begins with a left-hand strike.
However, all of Tifa’s general actions (to my observance) - like bartending, catching Aerith in the sewer, carrying the Buster Sword into Corneo’s quarters, etc. - suggest that she is right-handed. So why use the left, the weaker, as her dominant hand in fighting? Could she actually be ambidextrous? That is a possibility. But weighing up the evidence in addition to Tifa's ingenuity, this could well be out of fighting strategy.
Southpaw can give Tifa a strategic advantage, you see, because of the tactical and cognitive difficulties her enemies would have of coping with a fighter who moves in a mirror-reverse of the norm. In other words, she takes advantage of the fact that most fighters lack experience against lefties. Doing this:
     - opens up chance for a variety of surprise combos;
     - puts her human enemies in danger of KOs by what would otherwise be ordinary strikes; and
     - enables her to trick her opponents should she unexpectedly convert to orthodox during fights.
Pretty damn awesome, huh?
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6. Gymnastics [dodging maneuvers].
Gymnastics, like fighting arts, enhances balance, strength, flexibility and agility - the four areas Tifa excels at. Now, we’ve talked a lot about her strong points. But what of her weaknesses? Players will have noticed immediately that Tifa has a major setback. She can accurately be described as a glass cannon, due to her low HP and defenses that counter-balance her speed and dexterity. That is precisely what makes playing as her so compelling; you get that sense of life or death intensity. The fight feels REAL. She is the least OP character in the party, in addition to by far being the most difficult to master. Utilized properly, she can be the strongest of them all. And wow, is that rewarding or what?
Because of her weak defenses, Tifa must constantly remain on the move, and gymnastics is the quintessential means in doing so. Hand springs, aerial cartwheels - you name it, she’s got it. As if those kicks and uppercuts don’t scream epic enough already. Doesn’t it just make her even MORE amazing?
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So I’ve added Hēi-Hǔ-Quán to Flowerslightning’s conclusion: that Tifa’s combat is Mixed Martial Arts, with her dominant skills as Kickboxing, Taekwondo and Muay Thai. And of course, the interweaving of Gymnastics, which adds an elegance to her epic kickassery.
Tifa lost her teacher after just two years, and spent the last five managing & running a bar, serving as AVALANCHE’s funder & treasurer, and effectively solo-raising Barret’s little daughter. Add two more years, and we have a completely absent Barret, a very sick child in addition to the one she is (now permanently) raising, and a depressed, distant Cloud who has left her to struggle as a solo barkeep, full-time nurse and single mother. How on earth did she find the time and will to master her fighting techniques?
Yes, we are talking about fiction, but this woman is nothing short of incredible. Not simply as a fighter - that isn’t even the start of it. Tifa is, to me, the character who has had it the hardest. Yet she perseveres. And not only that, but she gives. She gives and gives, and doesn’t give up, even when everyone else around her has. In addition, she is the only ‘ordinary’ member of the party: Cloud, on top of military training, had his senses enhanced with Mako & Jenova cells; Barret literally has a gun for an arm; and Aerith as the last Cetra possesses exceedingly strong magic. Tifa, like with everything she does, worked hard to hone her skills. And that, to me, is incontestably admirable.
As Flowerslightning put it, she was “ready to go through hell and yet still remain soft”. And those virtues she held to, where most people would have quit. Compassion and perseverance to the end, the two traits that uphold her - to me - as the most inspiring hero of fiction.
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momentofmemory · 6 years ago
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MCU for the ask meme!
bless you what even are friends for if not to give the other permission to indulge their obsession du jour. I’m going to stick to the films for length/in case Netflix Marvel comes up later. 
Favorite Male Character
This will be surprising to exactly 0% of anyone who pays even the tiniest bit of attention to the way my blog is skewed, but without question it’s my boy Steven G. Rogers. I fell in love with him in TFA, suffered through Whedon’s interpretation, and then WS came along with the Russos and just. Kicking ass in an elevator? Powering through four bullet wounds and one stabbing wound? Pulling down a helicopter? Catching Thanos’s gloved hand? Wielding mjolnir while facing down an entire army? 
And I’d say sign me tf up, but while those are great that’s not why I'm a fan. Because ultimately, to quote James Buchannan Barnes, I signed up for “that little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb to not run away from a fight.” It's not Steve's strength that makes him Cap. It's his heart.
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Favorite Female Character
Natashaaaaaaaa. I was so excited to have her in the og6 way back when Avengers 1 came out and I really like the way she developed into the Only Mature Adult of the Avengers by CA:CW. I love how she found her family and fought to make the best of a really bad hand, how surprisingly loyal she is despite having every reason to not to be, how she never gave up after the snap, and even how she sacrificed herself at the end. And I don’t personally see her dying as a way to create Man Pain™ or to further someone else’s arc any more than Steve’s death was for Peggy in TFA.* It was her choice, for something she believed in, that she wanted. And to paraphrase Peggy, “Did you believe in your friend? Did you respect her? Then allow her the dignity of her choice.”
Anyway I love Natasha and would be very fine with her coming back to life and having space shenanigans with Steve please and thank.
*Though I will note the defense is for in-canon; I think metawise to kill off two (2) of your terribly small number of female leads for the exact same MacGuffin is, in a word, problematic.
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Least Favorite Character
Would someone please explain to me why General Thaddeus “I’ve been obsessed with controlling powered people for the better part of a decade” Ross was at Tony’s funeral?? I dislike him both as a character and just the inconsistency in how he’s written.
Favorite Ship
Honestly I’m pretty chill with most ships but I’m also not really in to ships, so... I guess I'll just flip the question and say anything goes except for Bruce/Nat, which was a terrible, terrible idea and basically a self-insert fantasy for certain players and ignored previously established character relationships. It was also a bad idea to add yet another B plot to a movie that already felt like it was trying to cram in 3 A plots and about 6 different and sometimes even opposing themes.
(I dislike AoU I’m sorry.)
Favorite Friendship
I adore Steve/Nat friendship with my Whole Heart and honestly think it’s the most well fleshed out in the MCU. I think it works so well because their chemistry relies almost entirely on shown action or contextual dialogue — Nat recommending dates throughout WS, how smoothly they fight together in AoU/IW, the way they look to each other for guidance in every film (also 90% of their shared screen time in Endgame is glancing at the other for their opinion/reaction and it KILLS me). Plus, it’s a two-sided relationship in that they clearly both help each other, which I am very here for.
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Favorite Quote
“Vengeance has consumed you. It's consuming them. I am done letting it consume me.”
Worst Character Death (if any)
Frigga’s death in Thor 2 is the worst case of fridging in the entire MCU and you can’t change my mind.
This made me so happy you have no idea Moment
Starting from when Cap picks up the hammer to when he yells assemble in Endgame was the greatest theater experience of my entire life and also probably just one of greatest experiences period. I along with the entire theater lost our minds and just the energy and joy was incredible?? Just so many details were perfect call backs, from “on your left” to “queens” etc. I have watched way too many audience reaction vids on youtube to be healthy.
Saddest Moment
The one-two punch of Peggy and Steve’s conversation followed by his “I had a date” line at the end of TFA guts me every time. But also Yondu’s death in GotG2? OH and the motherflerking “Cheeseburgers” line by Morgan in Endgame. I made it through the entire effin’ death and funeral scene and then that one just hit me out of nowhere.
Favorite Location
The production design for all of Wakanda is just beautiful and incredibly well-thought out/researched. But specifically the room where the heart shaped herb grows, because the lighting and colouring are on point, and the in-between space.
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okayideas · 7 years ago
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2017/09/03 self-evaluation
I set my targets for the past two-week period here. There was an error in my stated metrics: when I specified 2 minutes per level, I was reading level times from a build that had an error in the timer and not comparing them to an external clock. Correcting that to real time of 1 minute per level, I achieved my targets, with a queued post for tomorrow of the Android game build.
This is going to be a lengthier self-evaluation post than usual.
Mikado Entertainment System
My Mikado Entertainment System drafts can be divided into three groups. The first four songs were arranged using an unstable synthesizer program which I modified ad hoc from song to song.
I then wrote a more stable fuller-featured synthesizer program, which I used for the rest of Act 1. There may have been some bugfixes and extensions as I went forward, but no per-song patching that invalidated earlier songs. This synthesizer was also designed to play background music in an Android phone game, and there were some design compromises for that purpose.
Between Acts 1 and 2, I wrote a different synthesizer program, focusing more specifically on features I wanted to have for Mikado Entertainment System such as tempo changes and lowpass filtering. I kept the code Android-compatible in theory, but I didn’t worry about limiting CPU or RAM usage to the limitations of a well-behaved mobile game. (This might seem paradoxical for an 8-bit sound engine, but sometimes an effect that could be implemented easily in hardware requires difficult math to emulate in software.) I then used this codebase for Act 2, with some bugfixing but no per-song patching.
My first step in getting the songs into album-ready shape is going to be to port them all to the Act 2 version of the software. I expect this to be easy for the bulk of Act 1 (because I designed the Act 2 data file format with ease of porting in mind), but relatively difficult for the first four songs (which barely even had a defined data file format).
My second step is going to be to take those four earliest songs and polish them up to just the level of the Act 2 first drafts, rather than going directly for album-ready condition.
Android game development
When I set my goals, I thought that I could reuse the same set of a few enemies for a large number of levels, with different map shapes and objectives being enough to make the levels feel different. It’s possible that this could be true if the maps had different visual tilesets and audio, but I’d rather not rely on that eventuality in my design. Treating the gameplay abstractly, it turns out to resemble a Diablo-like game in that changing the shape of the map has very little impact on how things play out against a given combination of enemies. I ended up making 15 kinds of enemy in the course of populating 10 levels.
The finished game might need to have a couple hundred enemy types. I am comfortable with this: the engine is easy to add new enemy AIs to, and most enemies won’t need too many frames of art. Literal palette swaps would probably come cross as too lazy, but there could be groups of variant enemies with different details added to the same base graphic (e.g. a common chassis with different weapons mounted on it).
I feel that I’ve now coded about as much abstract game as it makes sense to code, proving every part of the concept that can be proved without reference to a specific plotline and characters. This means that story and art design needs to be happening in the near future, rather than coding. I’ve been working out elements of this with my collaborator.
Sewing
I need to keep pushing myself on sewing. Last week, I backed off from attempts at glove-making because I wanted to make a complete item and I wasn’t confident that I could do that for gloves. Making complete items is important for keeping myself motivated, and I don’t regret last week’s choice of priorities, but now I particularly want to go back to gloves and try to get them right, or at least considerably less wrong. The first thing I will do differently is start with fabric that has a much higher stretch factor.
I do have long-term objectives for things I want to be able to sew. I’m choosing to leave those unstated for now, although they would probably be fairly unsurprising from what I’ve chosen to share photographs of.
Writing
I feel good about having some written some prose recently. Keeping my hand in writing as a practice is important to me even though there’s nothing I specifically feel much desire to write. With that said, I don’t think I’m likely to post any writing in the next couple weeks, unless I decide to share design notes for the Android game.
Tabletop games
While I’m taking stock of creative endeavors, I may as well note that an opportunity in tabletop game development may be coming up for my collaborator and me. My collaborator is making a proposal to host a weekly game night at a bar, and this could involve me inventing games specifically for use in that context, or streamlining existing games to be more bar-friendly. This might not end up blogged here.
Targets
My targets for 2017/09/17 are: * Port all the Act 1 Mikado Entertainment System songs to the Act 2 synthesizer engine, without trying to make any actual improvements. I expect the ported drafts to sound the same as the current ones, and I won’t actually blog them unless they do sound different in an easily discernible way. * After porting, polish the first four MES songs to a quality level comparable to the Act 2 drafts. The current drafts often just take the main phrases of the melody and ignore everything else, and polishing them will involve going back to the actual Mikado score and following it more closely. * Schedule permitting, put in significant parts of roughly 4 days planning the Android game with my collaborator, or produce roughly 4000 words of design document for the game with my collaborator’s sign-off on the decisions in it. These are ballpark numbers and I won’t necessarily hold myself to them as metrics. * Make a wearable pair of gloves (possibly novelty gloves with fewer than 5 distinct fingers, but not mittens) without a pre-existing pattern, or make 3 documentable failed attempts at that, or make 2 documentable failed attempts and then successfully use a pattern.
I am giving myself permission to abandon these goals in favor of spending large amounts of extra time on collaborative tabletop or video game development, if opportunities to do so arise. Otherwise, failure to meet them would indicate that I have a serious problem to immediately address.
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