#you can just put portrait up and have your character look however you want

[ph-cutie]

why is evrart's portrait so weird? a visual and written analysis.

Most of us on this website have warm sentiments towards him, but I feel confident in saying that his portrait art looks, or has looked, somewhat off-putting to a lot of people, and that this fact was intentional. So if you've always felt a little strange looking at him, but couldn't put your finger on why, I've got you! This is a remake of a 1k word, 12 paragraph post I've made on reddit this same day, but tweaked to be in a more tumblr cadence :3

FORENOTE: This post is solely about the portrait art. Not the man portrayed in the model and concept art, or his general features. Just making that clear.

BACK TO BUSINESS: I've made a little diagram circling out and numbering the most jarring parts of this image.

TLDR: this piece draws on mild anatomical distortions and body language discrepancies to catch the viewer offguard. if you want to know more you're a VERY lucky person, because i've got nearly 800 words explaining each point for you, under the readmore.

UNUSUALLY LONG&WIDE LOWER FACE: Probably the thing most people actually notice. Even compared to other images of him, his jaw is quite exaggerated. wouldn't stand out had the rest of him been unremarkable, however he is *very* remarkable.

STRAINED SMILE - MUSCLE TENSION: I'm not super into the "true and genuine good person smile" vs "deceitful scary smile" dichotomy, I myself am cursed with a jimmy donaldson smile. However, his smile does not look restful/easy-going. It's very horizontal. Corner 1 is pushing excessively into his cheek, corner 2 isn't even angled up. Lower lip is stuck out. CONCLUSION: looks forceful and a little painful on his end. Not the weirdest part of the image, but it creates problems later down the line with his other features.

FOGGY GLASSES: They say that eyes are the windows of the souls, and his design messes with that by fogging up his glasses. But even that has another layer to it, so let's peel it! His right eye (to the right of the image) is looking at the viewer, however, the glass obstructs it to such a degree that we do not get any functional information from it beyond the knowledge that it exists. His left eye is drawn much clearer, however, it's not looking at us. It can't tell us anything about what it's owner is feeling, it has nothing to do with us. For people who care about eye contact, this part of the drawing was made to be frustrating. The connection is juust out of reach :)

LACK OF VISIBLE EYEBROWS: Eyebrows are one of the most expressive parts of the face, and he's lacking them for whatever reason. Not much more to say on that for now.

NONSENSICAL PLACEMENT OF HEAD ON BODY: Compared to the concept art, where his shoulder is a little below his earlobe, the portrait's shoulder is portrayed as above THE ear. Basically, there is no neck/separation between his head and body. The rest of the drawing doesn't give a clear explanation on why this is (such as if he were clearly portrayed as sticking his head forward), so I deem this to be a genuine anatomic perversion. (AFTERNOTE: APPROXIMATELY 20 PEOPLE ON REDDIT HAVE TOLD ME "no that's actually the back of his chair you can tell from this slight hue shift" MAYBE IT IS. BUT I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT ANYONE REALLY NOTICED THAT LITTLE PIXEL LINE, AT THE SIZE OF THE PORTRAIT WHICH IS PORTRAYED INGAME. THE PAINTER KNEW WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE. SO DONT BOTHER ME ABOUT IT )

ARCHED CURVATURE OF THE SHOULDER- MUSCLE TENSION AGAIN: But I'm not done with his shoulders! His shoulder have an arched shape, which means he's hiking them up. Much like with his smile, it's a forceful posture, associated typically with some kind of discomfort. (SAME AFTERNOTE AS POINT 5)

LACK OF DETAIL IN THE CLOTHES: While we can choose what we look at, the human eye will always be drawn to the most striking or detailed parts of images. Artists know this. Often-times, we wish for the viewer to look at the face of a character- hence the popularity of anime girls with glossy, candy-colored eyes. Claire's zone of maximum detail density starts at his nose and ends at the bottom of his double chin. His clothes, meanwhile, are basically just flat shapes. His background is very simple too. SO basically, the remainder of the image is a graphical desert, and his jowls are the oasis your eyes will always wander back to :D.

THESIS: Claire's anatomy is mildly distorted in points 1 and 5, which immediately throws off the audience. His body language is strained, borderline convulsive in points 2 and 6, while his features at 3 and 4, which we look at for information (is he happy? angry? in pain?), are left blank. This discrepancy leaves us emotionally confused and unsatisfied. Thus, the vague sense of something being wrong with no further information. Point 7 is just a little garnish to maximize the above effects. Tada! that's it.

WHY DID I WRITE THIS?: People usually focus on beautiful art and what makes it as such- I've seen many brilliant analyses of Lieutenant Kitsuragi's portrait and why it comforts us. But I find it equally interesting to break apart pieces that just don't emotionally click with us, that feel off, and I also love Evrart Claire, and find him to be a good example of this that nobody seems to have previously discussed. So I took on the challenge! I find his portrait art actually really cute now so this is mostly drawn on from the feelings of Ghost of ph-cutie Past. I genuinely doubt anyone will read all of this so if u have, I thank u from the bottom of my heart <3.

[amatres]

bg3 rlly convincing me that most crpgs should just be top down, its for everyones safety

[ataleofcrowns]

Hi, just wanted to say, I love your game!

I don’t work right now, unfortunately, so I was looking up to ten best free games in itch.io and yours was like the 5th or 6th. I clicked on it, not thinking it was going to be much because I don’t always see good quality products that are free, and lo and behold… it was absolutely glamorous, amazing, wonderful, (if you’re picturing that Madonna meme you’re on the right track haha 🤭🫣)

I’m basically trying to say I really love your game, and I’m grateful to you that it’s free. I don’t know if that’s a bad thing to feel grateful for, but for however long it’s free for I’m really glad. IF games are what I fall back to when times are though cuz it combines a lot of my extreme interests in one beautiful story. Unfortunately I can’t just buy all of them and I have to search for them on platforms like itch.io .

I didn’t even expect to find an IF, let alone one as good as yours. Thank you, dear author, really. I’ve only just started and I’m really hooked. I just wanted to pause to thank you real quick.

(Plus your art style is soooo beautiful; I’d love to know how you learned it or what references you used to get the visual middle eastern look! Your character drawings actually look like people from the Middle East, which is surprising as I’ve not seen a lot of people draw faces like that.)

Anyway, have a good day/night, and once again; thank youu ❤️❤️

Thank you so much, I really appreciate the kind words!! I'm very fortunate that I get monetary support through Patreon so I don't have to think about having to put a price on the game, and I'm happy to share it with others 💖

As for all the character art in the game, those are all portraits commissioned from @artbygaia as credited!! I gave her specific references and faceclaims based on what I wanted the characters to look like (which you can find on my pinterest), and she adapted it all wonderfully, definitely did a stunning job on all of them.

Donate to her ko-fi if you can and want to show some appreciation!!

[remus-poopin]

What are your top HP fics based on writing? Like things that are just beautiful to read

Wow I think I’m answering this 3 months late sorry aghh. Again, I don’t read as many fics as I would like to, but I’ve been changing that recently and these are 4 that have really stood out to me in terms of writing!

Savour the Moment by - @evesaintyves

This fic made me both sad and hungry

This is a truly beautiful portrait of Molly and her relationship with Ginny. I really love how effortlessly this weaves in the food and cooking imagery with the emotions of the characters. The descriptions are so detailed and vivid that you can practically taste the cakes and pies off of the words alone.

Grief is hanging over this fic heavy, grief from Molly with her brothers and grief yet to come from Ginny. These two very different women, who also feel things very differently, have an extremely engaging back and forth of attempted connections. Both of them want it but aren’t able to easily get there with each other, and that struggle was very compelling to me.

Really such a great fic, I always find myself coming back to it

Favorite quotes:

“Molly has always tasted her memories. Perhaps that's why she's always been a bit thick round the middle: food relishes the good times, is the physical stuff of love. Ever since she was a little girl: plum pudding was Christmas and summers were cherry ice cream and chocolate flake. The time she broke her ankle jumping down from a tree, to this day, is the chalk flavor of Skele-Gro and a limp cucumber sandwich from the St Mungo's cafeteria. Her mother is sweet milky tea and her father is cottage pie with mushrooms, his favourite, flavoured with the smoke of his pipe in the air.”

“She learned to cook at her own mother's elbow and she is full of warm, creamy, ginger-flavoured memories of it. But Ginny's never liked being in the kitchen with her mum. She wants to be out with the boys, flying on broomsticks, getting jostled and scraped and braying coarse laughter through a mouthful of blood. That's why, when she thinks about Ginny, it's not the cream tea and swiss roll flavours she expected when she learned she was finally having a girl. It's rain-drenched popcorn at the Quidditch match and the salt of a kiss on Ginny's sweaty, gritty forehead.”

Sparkling Cyanide - @saintsenara

The house elf plot-line in the hp books leaves MUCH to be desired when it comes to fully and unequivocally condemning slavery. Due to this, you might find that me and my black ass are, shockingly, not its biggest fans.

However this fic is a brilliant look into elves’ oppression and enslavement AND their culture and agency.

This fic focuses on the death of Hepzibah Smith and the conditions surrounding and leading up to it. Specifically the subjugation of Elves and how that system encourages the idea of them as docile, unintelligent, and submissive (And how this perception can be wielded against the wizards that enslave them).

What I find so striking about this fic is how language is centered as a tool to illustrate the functions of colonial mindsets. I think this does a fantastic job at subverting the trope of “improper English = stupidity” that HP uses so frequently.

This was an extremely satisfying and moving read!

Favorite quotes:

“Come quickly and stop faffing,’ Mes Ebhsebbá says to Eokhí. She is clicking her fingers at Eokhí, like there is magic in her fingers. There is magic in Eokhí’s fingers. She is able to make the whole house fall to the ground if she is wanting to.”

“They is not knowing that we is knowing how to take the lives we is wanting from them. And that is why they is not thinking about how many weapons they is putting in kitchens.”

The Seven names of Mrs Zabini - @artemisia-black

And if I said that she did nothing wrong then what?

I’ve mentioned this fic several times before but I don’t think I’ll ever be over it. The way this is written is actually masterful; the attention to details, the poetic language, the characterization. I’m going to scream.

There is just something about this fic that entrances me. This is actually my favorite genre of story, the “good for her!” category, and whenever I read/watch these I go temporarily insane.

Because this is in first person we’re really getting into Mrs. Zabini’s mindset and the traumas that inform it, and this is extremely effective/convincing in making you stay on her side even while she is committing cold blooded murder.

Another thing I love about this is how the actual murders are so casually placed in the story, in comparison with how rich the rest of the imagery that Mrs. Zabini is describing. It’s almost like an afterthought. It makes her sound so much colder and more calculating than if there was a long depiction of each individual killing, so I thought that was a really brilliant writing choice.

If you love Gone Girl definitely give this a read!

Favorite quotes:

“There is a reason that Venus herself emerges from her half shell as a fully formed woman, blinking naively into existence. This is what men actually desire, a goddess who knows nothing of the world and so is more easily amused by the trinkets he throws at her. A divine being who is blissfully unaware of her own divinity. A being who had no thought but him and who cannot function outside of him.”

“I had gone to my wedding bed expecting a transformative experience where his penis would alchemise me from a girl into a woman. An expectation I had imbibed from a society that exalts the wonder of the male member. Instead, as I lay there shivering with his rotten seed running down my leg, I felt used and disgusted at the man I had been condemned to spend the rest of my life servicing”

“And as I rattled around our isolated country house, I believed him. Hiding myself from mirrors, starving my body in order to obtain the concave stomach and taut thighs that he so desired. But when I corrected one perceived flaw, he would find another. Peppering his insults with crumbs of tenderness that lured and trapped me in reality of his making.”

The Secret in the Heart of the Forest by @myrskytuuli

This one has it all: accidental cannibalism, ancient rituals, Snape sass, feral Lily, elf politics, generational trauma, fairy induced psychosis, and most importantly the Marauders + Sev and Lily + Regulus and Narcissa all teamed up. Oh yeah I’m eating this up

This one is longer than the others so I’m really going to try to make this as brief as I can but this fic is actually insane because it’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a hp fic and I think I could talk about it forever.

I was genuinely so giddy reading this. There were so many twists and turns and it remained gripping the whole time. This is a psychedelic fever dream, introspective character study, horror adventure and a beautiful tale of friendship all wrapped in one. I absolutely loved everyone’s characterization here, they’re all so beautifully flawed and you can really understand where they are coming from on a personal level but also on a sociological level, I think the author did a MASTERFUL job at this.

The worldbuilding is INSANELY good (the interlude chapters revolving around each of their mothers made me cry repeatedly. And Elieens chapter is just incredible, I have no words). And the pacing is just excellent, I never felt like any of the growth was forced or unearned.

This storytelling is also amazing, whenever there was a theme or reference brought up before in the story that got tied back in again, my mouth would physically drop because it was so seamless yet so meaningful and impactful.

(Sorry but I just need to talk about characterization for a brief minute because this has some of my favorite characterizations that I’ve ever read of some of these characters:

This is my absolute favorite Lily. Like ever. She feels so real here with her anger and flaws and quirks. She is neither villainized nor deified but a full fleshed out character. I just love her!

This is also my favorite James! James is usually a tough character for me to stay engaged with but this fic does an excellent job at balancing his strengths and flaws while keeping him compelling.

This Snape is PERFECT!!! I actually don’t think I can describe how much I love this depiction, all I can say is if you’re a Snape lover who enjoys him being a lil shit you should read this.

Also Peter is just incredible here, too often is he forgotten but this fic really does him justice.

Ok I’ll stop but just know that I could go on and on about all of these characters)

And seeing these characters who would normally hate each other come together to build meaningful bonds while they grow with their own issues is actually cathartic.

If you are a Marauder and Snape fan this is required reading, I really can’t recommend this enough!

Favorite quotes (there were way too many omg):

“Sirius had been angry for a long time now. Sometimes Sirius wondered if he had been born angry, if his first cry had never truly ended”

“Remus had said nothing after that. He was becoming a champion of saying nothing.”

“‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘I won’t forgive what you did to me.’ Severus said back with conviction.

‘Good.’ Sirius said with equal conviction.”

“At this point, Lily had arrived like the loyal shadow she tended to be around Snape, spitting out an angry ‘What the fuck?’”

“Sometimes he burned with the need to yank himself free of Lily and the blade of love hanging between them. To hurt her when she stepped over Severus' abused body like an avenging angel that looked down at him and made him look small, dirty, used and worthless. A worm crawling in the mud.”

Ok that’s all for now! I definitely think you should give all these a read!!

[akosijayjay]

January and February dump

This is my most recent work of Lloyd, and my most recent work in general. I made this in the computer room at school with a painful high-sensitive mouse. We have these special course thing in our junior high, so every tuesday after class, I get to be in the computer room. For six hours... (My course is Visual Graphics Design. I'm kinda regretting it now since I've been thinking of becoming an architect... I can't change my course now since it's too late. Which is stupid.)

I'll try to draw more there! I really like drawing with a mouse cause I like the challenge. And since I'm not accustomed to a high-sensitive mouse, it'll be a bigger challenge for me!

I made these two in traditional then polished them digitally since I straight up just used a pen. I rarely use a pencil nowadays so I can learn to fix mistakes without erasing it. Usually it ends up looking like chicken scratch but I'm getting better.

My Harumi one is so bad lol.. When I was making it, my classmates around me were messing around and moving the chairs in the process, making me have to draw strokes with shaky lines. It's not that noticeable though since I made the lines thicker.

I was planning to make something for Rebooted's anniversary but I got busy... (And lazy) The PIXAL one was inspired by an animatic I saw.

If you compare the previous Arin portrait, yes, they don't look the same. I'm trying to find a look for Arin, as I do with every character, that I'll be satisfied with.

By the way, I'm kind of basing Arin's hair with my classmate's hair. Which is funny because my other classmates compared this artwork to my classmate, who looked nothing like Arin but have similar hair, commenting they're the same. (I'm not mad because I actually find this a bit humorous)

I was trying to make an animatic and this was going to be the sketch. But then again, I got busy and lazy. (Mostly lazy)

I accidentally changed their facial features a bit by accident on the second page because I forgot to reference the first page. It was tiring flipping pages every 5 seconds, ok! Also, I drew it after 2 days when I drew the first page, and I didn't have a design I liked for them yet. (...I just noticed Jay has different eye colors in both pages...)

I think I'm sticking to these looks for Lloyd. I'll try to make it accurate to this. (I think I did great with the first image of this post. Though, I made him too round for my liking.)

Discard the growing beard post redesign Lloyd has. That beard thing was supposed to be where his chin was until I realized it was too small. And it's still too small.

Child Lloyd is so cute! The eyeshadow wasn't intentional at first, but then it got me thinking, what if Lloyd had an emo phase? And now emo child Lloyd is my headcanon.

Pre redesign Lloyd kind of reminds me of TommyInnit, and I find it quite funny. Maybe it's the facial gesture, I know a lot of TommyInnit fanarts with that silly face.

For Dragons Rising Lloyd however, I want him to have long hair with his post redesign face. I'll try to make full body designs of the 4 Lloyds.

You guys probably don't care, and this is the first time you've seen me because I don't have an exact artstyle and I dont post as much, but I'm going to put descriptions now since this blog is going to be a silly little art dump! And blog posts are supposed to be descriptive. Which I should've done in the beginning and explained my works..

Anyhow

If you liked my art, thank you!

If you saw me before and told me I did well, thank you and I'm sorry!! I know my previous posts have gotten comments and I'm sorry I didn't respond.. I'm not trying to be ungrateful, I just don't know how to express my appreciation for your positive feedback! Or just reply in general... I get nervous even when I'm wearing my mask..

Please don't hate me, I'm just really anxious to show my work to people I don't know to the point where I might think people disliked my artwork when it's the opposite..

(I'll probably copy paste this in future posts now lol. But I AM thankful that some of you guys think my works are great!)

[gatheredfates]

Hello my lovelies! 🦈 You might be asking yourself 'Sea, this is weird, You don't update during the week!' and you would be correct. I was supposed to push this update out by the end of my long weekend as an addition to this; however, due to a bunch of irl stuff I won't go into here, it was delayed. I have endeavoured to rectify it now rather than waiting out the week so peoples' resources are properly showcased. This will not be a common occurrence!

However, as of today (06/04), the following resources have been added to Sea's Community Compendium for XIV Creatives.

FREE COMPANY / COMMUNITY FOCUSED / EVENT SPACES

The Final Fantasy XIV Tumblr Community — A public Tumblr community where you can share FFXIV content and meet other players.

*NOTE. Tumblr communities are currently in beta and cannot be joined/applied to directly at this time. You will need to request an invite from @spotofmummery in order to join. When communities are out of beta, the disclaimer on the Compendium will be removed to properly reflect its public status.

LORE

The Rabanastran Record — A resource on Dalmascan lore, history and additional notes incorporating missing information via FFXII content. Is regularly maintained and updated when new information is given in game/lorebooks or on request. Created and maintained by @stalwart-spirit on tumblr.

Pandæmonium Raid Series Transcript — This is a full transcript of the quest dialogue, battle lines and NPC dialogue from all of P1-12! Created by @divinitymanifest.

MISC

FF14 Battle Portrait Tutorial — Have you ever wanted to create a battle portrait for your WoL similar to the ones you see in Endwalker story events and dungeons? @twitter-sakuranokaze has put together a guide on just how to do it!

CHANGELOG

A 'lore' checkbox has been added to the google form to better reflect the update to the Compendium's sorting. It was the one part of that change I forgot to do, so it's now up-to-date!

Free Company / Community Focused / Event Servers has not been updated to Free Company / Community Focused / Event SPACES to better reflect Tumblr communities and potentially encompass other smaller communities not easily covered by Large-Scale or Misc.

Bookmark links to certain resources have been added/amended. Again, not sure why they broke... but they're working now!

Want to submit? You can either fill out the google form here, send me an ask with the relevant information contained on the Compendium, or join my Discord at SEAFLOOR (21+ only)!

Is my space suitable for the Compendium? Most of the time, yes! Below the read more is some more information/stipulations. Again, all the below information is accessible on the document! 🐡

Below are the following things I do not accept on the Compendium:

Personal/Single-Character LFC ads.

Content intended for or can be used for bullying, harassment and OOC gossip. E.g. ‘Secrets’ blogs, receipts, callout posts, etc. This does not include in-character tabloid blogs used to generate RP.

Communities that do not have an RP/writing element (large-scale exempt).

Anything I find personally distasteful or goes against the spirit of this project.

Common-sense rule applies.

FAQ.

I want to put my community on the compendium but we have an application process. Is this okay?

Yes! Just note somewhere in your application that's a requirement. The only thing that is mandatory for the Compendium is that you must be open to new members or have a public-facing/accessible facet. There's no point advertising a community if no one can join it in some way!

I want to put my community on the compendium but I only have x number of members —

Also totally okay! People don't start with large communities. Activity is a must but, whether your server has two or two thousand members, if you're looking for new people to join, I'd love to help you find people.

I want to put my community on the compendium but I worry its too niche?

Okay, and? If your Eorzean Fishing Alliance has four members but you roleplay every second weekend, I still want to know about it.

What resources/communities can I add if I'm not the owner of them?

Mutual consent is extremely important to me, so anything that isn't a large-scale community OR a publicly accessible resource must be endorsed by the owner/admin/moderators in order to be added to the compendium. I operate under the assumption that a resource posted to a public space (tumblr, googledocs, youtube, etc) is open to all. A large-scale community is one with a significant member count or openly advertises itself as being accessible to everyone for whatever purpose it serves. If in doubt, please get in touch with me. I'm happy to contact your community owners for you!

How active does a community need to be?

If you find a community has not been active in about two/three months, send me a message and I'll take a look at it. Communities have ebbs and flows, especially event spaces that may take hiatuses depending on member interest/life events. I'm not strict in my implementation provided a space isn't dead. If a link or anything is broken, absolutely contact me about that.

I have [insert a question not stated here]?

No drama! Send me an ask or use the #Compendium channel in my Discord!

[bossboudicca]

✦ opening up art commissions ✦

vvv details below vvv

so here's me, putting myself out there. let's see how this goes.

Since I'm just starting down this path, my list of things I'll do will be short (for now). Here's what I'm cool with and not cool with:

Full color bust portraits of characters (portions of the chest, shoulders and up) is pretty much all I'm comfortable doing for other people at this point.

I like to use discord for sharing references and progress, if you have it feel free to add me to discuss things. username is bossboudicca with the same icon. otherwise messaging on Tumblr is totally fine!

Not yet super comfortable doing crazy complex facial expressions or wild backgrounds

Nothing with a lot of fur (scales are okay I think...?)

I've pretty much just done star wars and baldur's gate but I'm definitely willing to do other fandoms

no reselling or commercial use stuff unless it's discussed first (pfp and icons are fine just credit me 😁)

Honestly just message me if you have questions, there's so many different kinds of characters out there with a wide variety of appearances

Starting things out at $10.00, one flat rate since it's all going to be headshots with color.

For now, it's just PayPal. However, I'm willing to look into other means of payment if people end up wanting it.

Before payment, I will first send you an undetailed screenshot with no highlights or shadows but with enough features that you can say yay or nay. If you like it, then we proceed. If not, no worries at all :)

At the end of the day, it is at my discretion if I choose to do a piece or not (no crying!)

So yeah. Tell your friends?

Here's some more of my pieces and a link to my side blog where I reblog my art and other commissions (from me and for me by others). The posts over there are not in chronological order, so some things may be a bit old and my style has since changed. Everything below is pretty recent.

[ghostoffuturespast]

Tips For VP When You're Rolling Without Mods

I've just recently gotten into virtual photography (mainly for Cyberpunk 2077) and I don't use mods. I play on console and vanilla PC. (I've noticed images are much crisper on PC but I'm still using the basic photo mode.)

There are a lot of amazing VPers and modders out there who make phenomenal use of mods and put a lot of time and love into their photos which is fantastic! It means we get to see all sorts of beautiful and super cool creative photos of OCs and characters and enviro shots that we'd never be able to see in the base version of the game. It's great!

However, if you don't have access to mods it can be intimidating to start taking photos when all you have is a vanilla version of the game. Unfortunately, these tips will not solve the dilemma of trying to take photos of your otps... But I'm here to tell you that vanilla is a perfectly fine flavor and despite the limitations, with a little ingenuity and problem solving, you too can take awesome photos.

Now, do I take the world's greatest photos? No. But I'm having fun and I enjoy the challenge of having to get creative with the limited set of tools at my disposal and I like taking candid photos. There's something magical about capturing a moment as it's happening.

So, here's what I've learned so far. All the photos below were taken on PS5 and, apart from adjusting the in game camera settings, are unedited.

Lighting

Good lighting will do almost all your work for you in photography. However, unless you're carrying your own light around it's something you have very limited control over in game (and IRL), so you'll have to rely on what you find. There are going to be a lot of instances when you want to take a photo but the lighting just sucks. You learn to work around it. Once you learn to spot good light sources though you'll know them when you see them.

Portrait and character shots can be tricky without mods, NPCs don't always cooperate. But with a little patience and timing you can grab some really wonderful shots. You may need to hop in and out of photo mode a few times in order to get them though, especially if they're moving around.

For portrait style photos you're looking for radiant or diffused sources of light that'll highlight your subject, think ring selfie lights or when you walk into a naturally well lit room without direct sunlight coming in. Strong directional lighting works very well too, it's high contrast and can be very dramatic but you have to be more considerate of the angles and it's harder to utilize when you can't pose or move your subject. Color of light isn't so important (unless you're looking for specific mood lighting), you just need enough light to prevent your subject from looking washed out and blending in with the background.

For landscape or environmental shots you can change the time of day if you're looking for a particular vibe, and weather can add extra ambiance, so there's a bit more freedom with taking these kinds of photos. Different times of day have different types of light, different tones. Warm or cool. And lens flares and glare can make fun effects. Urban settings also generate a lot of their own light, which makes it much easier to photograph as a subject.

Take the time to get to know your light sources as well. Rotate your subjects or camera, if you're able, and check out what the lighting does at different angles.

Play with the sliders

Exposure, contrast, highlights, depth, focus, and field of view are your friends. Get acquainted with them and figure out what settings you like, what works best in what situations, and don't be afraid to push the boundaries! Crank the settings to min and max just so you understand what they do. Hell, even some of the preset effects and camera angles are stellar too depending on what you're trying to accomplish.

Since there's no way to adjust saturation in game, I will typically bump down the exposure and up the contrast and highlights to make subjects stand out more and give the illusion of being more vibrant. I also know photos have a tendency to export darker on PS5, so I've learned to err on the side of making them slightly lighter than I want them. And it's personal preference, but I bump the film grain all the way up. Makes me feel like I'm using an old school camera.

Take the same shot with multiple settings in case something goes wrong or if you don't like the way something came out, or just to see the differences. It'll also give you a reference point for later in terms of what settings work for what kinds of photos you're trying to take.

Find the right angle

Be prepared to do some goofy ass shit for the sake of your photos. Getting in NPC's faces, moving around so characters heads will track your position, cheesing poses, climbing on furniture, scaling buildings and billboards, stealing trucks to use as step stools. It's all part of the fun.

You're gonna look ridiculous playing the floor is lava on desks, doing the slav squat on light posts, standing on top of street sweepers, or crouching like a gremlin on a ledge; but hey, you got the photo. Different angles (high, low, close-up, far) can also help frame your subjects, tell a story, or provide extra visual interest as well. And don't forget you can incorporate the environment too! The landscape can help set the scene, tone, and mood of your photos. I did some kind of parkour to get the photos below.

Break the wall

The camera has a pretty limited range of movement, but sometimes you can break it or it'll break on it's own accord in certain scenarios. (Or V. Break V, your tripod.) Use that to your advantage. Phase through surfaces, rubber band off objects, utilize being able to pan farther than you normally would. Poke holes in physics and embrace the accidents. For instance, I've discovered that you can pan back much farther than normal when you jump onto the top of lamp posts. Like double or triple the amount you normally woud. No clue why, but it's very useful for landscape photos.

If you've played the game a few times and don't mind breaking your immersion you can also take photos during missions and gigs. You won't have the full range of camera options if you pull up photo mode during dialogue, but in between snippets of talking is a great time to snag photos of your favorite characters or places that become unavailable outside of quests.

The photo below was a happy accident and it's still one of my favorite shots I've taken. It looks like something out of a movie. I glitched through the wall, got stuck and ended up behind a fence way outside the range of where the camera is normally stuck around V. Total Bob Ross moment all because I was trying to see how far I could push the camera.

Don't force it

Sometimes you get an idea for a cool shot, but something in the execution is lacking. Maybe it's the lighting or the way it's framed or you can't time it right. Don't sweat it and move on. Or revisit it later. Save often. Not everything has to be a masterpiece and that's okay. Everything is practice.

The most important thing

Have fun! :)

[let-us-cultivate-our-garden]

Belos would have wanted to have a well-written, cinematic ending that would fit a show antagonist. It's actually a bold choice to hint at the villain being a 3D character and then subvert it. He wasn't born pure evil, but that's what he became by the end. His story and his POV don't matter to his victims, all they see is what he did, so that's all we get to see (portraits aside). Belos doesn't get to die crying and raging as his brother looks down at him; just strangers' feet and then nothing.

Update: So when I originally posted this I thought anon was serious. Turns out they were being sarcastic. My apologies for not catching this! However, I still see similar sounding comments that do mean what they say, so my point still stands. Below is the original post:

Gonna have to disagree with you, anon. Setting up a character to have more depth and complexity that ties in directly with the lore of the show only to "subvert" that is just bad writing. If Belos is just going to represent societal ills, bigotry, etc. then why bother with giving him plausibly sympathetic motivations? If you're not going to bother with exploring how people with good intentions can irrevocably corrupt themselves in the process then why even suggest it? Just make Belos a standard villain like Ozai and leave it at that. The message still remains the same.

Also, Belos was never set up to be a fully-fledged character; his role was the Evil Emperor and it was only in Hollow Mind that we got a glimpse of a deeper story. They then expanded upon that story in Thanks to Them and even showed Caleb's apparition in For the Future. Don't forget Gus triggering Belos' traumatic memories of killing Caleb and trying to recreate him with the grimwalkers. With all this set up, the audience expects a pay-off and there's nothing. Because it's suddenly Bold and Daring to have a villain who is thoroughly evil instead of the standard for most genre stories.

Belos' story may not matter to his victims but it matters to the audience because the show put all those details there and they add up to...nothing.

Sorry, but the idea that hinting your main villain is complex only to say he's not is just weird? What's the point in this?

Don't jerk the audience around like this. Characters are tools in a story; they don't want or deserve anything. But the audience should have a coherent story told and this wasn't it.

[aventvrina]

Author portrait. Get to know the author behind the blog! repost, do not reblog.

Basics.

Name/nickname: Z/Uzi/Uzir all from Uziris Age: 29 Pronouns: She/her Years of writing: 13 on tumblr, 16+ if we count MSN

Reflection.

Why did you pick up writing? - I picked up writing around the same time I picked up drawing. It was just something I kinda always did on instinct, I gotta thank a lot my cousins for putting up with me being my first beta readers. But honestly it was mostly do I could make my own fun with my characters. Do you have any writing routines? - I fear I am a very in the moment writer. I've tried all my life to change it but if I'm not feeling it it's not coming. (Yes, I did suffer a lot writing my thesis how could you tell?) However, when I'm in the mood I only have two options, either I write a thesis and two books in one setting or I write one paragraph that satisfies the urge and call it a day. There's no in between. What's your favorite part about writing? - Character exploration. Love to put to words the gremlin's thoughts and explore the living hell out of everything they do, think, own, feel. Every little detail offers so much, a gesture, a pause, a glance, it's so telling I love it. And well, breaking them in too, I don't mean this in a literal sense, but more so, in putting them in challenges (good or bad) that put to test their foundations and see what comes of it. Let's get that inner development!!

Three things you like about your writing.

One. Oh man this isn't really something I think about? I just kind of go with what comes to mind at the moment. I guess I like the simplicity? I try to go for something that's easy to read through and get the gist mostly cause I know a lot of times my writing can come off weird by trying to put to words what makes sense grammatically in one language for another. Two. I'll be very honest I am coming at a blank here. Maybe the length? I know it's stupid to like lengthy replies but i'm a yapper by nature and I guess that also translates into writing which I don't mind at all. A lot of times I have to slap my wrist over length and erase a few paragraphs cause there's no need to offer that much info for something small, I wish I knew how to be short and concise but alas. Three. How direct it is? I could go and try to double read or rewrite stuff but honestly the less i think about it the better it comes off. So all my replies are first tries. I do sometimes put some previous structure to it so i remember what i wanted to go for but in the end, whatever comes out is what i was telling myself at the moment without thinking too much.

A question for the next person.

Write a question for the next person to answer. Once you've answered it, leave a new question for someone else to answer.

When life throws you lemons, and gets you down, does writing become something that you're drawn to as to get you through it, or do you feel like it does the opposite?

This heavily depends, I have used writing and rping to work through bad times before, it helped me as much as it damaged me but then again it's not like i had much choice back then. Nowadays I rather keep it at arms length. As much as I feel that it could help, this is supposed to be a hobby I enjoy, if i come with a spoiled mood to it, it'll ruin the fun. I will look at what I wrote and be reminded of what I was going through rather than whether I enjoyed it or not. Specially if I'm going through a very rough time, as it has happened before.

Tell me about your favourite roleplay experiences ! what was a thread that you really enjoyed ?

I don't know if anyone here knows what IScribble is but it was one of my first rp spaces where i rped both in writing and drawing. It was genuinely fun, met one of my irl best friends there and we kept rping through MSN with OCs. Despite the obvious cringe plots/ideas and very, very bad english, it was one of the most fun i have ever had rping where we started with two ocs and ended up crafting a whole entire community and lore surrounding them. And of course, ended up with a life-long friend.

Thread wise though, it has to be back on 2017/18 when i was rping in a Firefly themed closed rp group. Since it was closed, all our characters had to personally know each other and their stories merged together on the ship, during one of the events there were huge breakthroughs in a significant character relationship that still lives rent free in my head cause it was completely spontaneous. We had nothing planed except that they were acquainted from a mission before boarding the ship, all else that transpired was just pure back and forward jumping on the characters reactions to each other and it was -chefs kiss- We ended up having a lot of fun before the rp shut down and we all moved on with life (mel from hell if you're out there love ya! sol to my sid & jane to my petra)

New question: When you're in a writing funk what inspires you to write?

Tagged by: @artisaen & @iniziare (smooching you both) Tagging: @liecoris, @shrineofprophecy, @wolfkcst, @pairidaezah & you!!!

[psyga315]

A breakdown of an analysis of female portrayal in media

Originally the entire post was going to be a takedown of the post, but to iamafanofcartoon's credit, a lot of the points they make are valid. However, given their bias towards RWBY, some double standards come up ironically as they bring up double standards.

"A lot of people are incapable of viewing female characters as anything other than an innocent saint or a portrait of pure evil. Arguably the best characters are morally ambiguous ones who live in the gray area between good and evil, but women are much less often afforded that distinction than their male counterparts."

This is the biggest piece of irony ever when you remember how they treat Ironwood, someone who has moral ambiguity (at least in Volume 7) or even how they regard Ruby lying to Ironwood as something that isn't something morally ambiguous, but rather 100% guaranteed the right thing to do.

"I’m been having a huge problem connecting to media. The only women around are very young or very old and their main defining feature is usually motherhood."

They say as the protagonists of RWBY are women who are very young.

"A lot of the time if there is a military high ranking female character or just female leader that is masculine or butch she will be the villain to be defeated by the traditionally feminine or at least more feminine heroine/love interest of the hero."

Oh, military being evil is just a trope in of itself. You should be familiar with it because you like to bring up a certain someone who fits that trope to a T over and over:

Wonder why he gets shit.

I'm going to pause and heavily commend I Am A Fan for bringing up the overuse of the term Mary Sue and how it's now used as a phrase to shut down any female protagonist who just happens to be just a little too much in the screen time, especially given its ironic origin being that it was to parody the "I get into Starfleet, befriend literally everyone, and then tragically die" trope that cropped up in several Star Trek zines.

There's a lot of debate with Rey and the sequels, but we'll leave that for another day. All I will say though is that holy shit, the defense for Rey here is top notch, especially that part where they compare Rey's handling of weapons to Luke's handling of weapons.

A lot of the post starting from when they criticize the overuse of Mary Sue is actually a really solid read and I recommend you giving it a look, even if you don't agree with what they say.

That said, it comes crashing down over to here:

"You heard of The Bechdel test: Two women have to talk about something other than a man. There is no time window."

Ignoring the fact that the Bachdel test isn't meant to be taken seriously (something that the linked page literally points out), RWBY failed this test numerous times.

Ruby: (putting the pamphlet away) Yeah! Great idea, sis! (holding out her hand as she clears her throat) Hello, Weiss! I'm Ruby! Wanna hang out? We can go shopping for school supplies! Weiss: (seemingly enthusiastic) Yeah! And we can paint our nails and try on clothes and talk about cute boys, like tall, blond, and scraggly over there!

That's just the straight up example. "But Psyga, she was being sarcastic!". Okay. Well, the condition is that they have to be talking about a man and not specifically someone they're dating, so pick your poison with these two Bumblebee exchanges. One has them talking about two men!!!

Blake: I had someone very dear to me change. [...] you're not him. And you've never done anything like this before. So... I want to trust you. I will trust you. But first, I need you to look me in the eyes and tell me that he attacked you. I need you to promise me that you regret having to do what you did. Yang: (wipes her eyes of tears, then says as calmly as possible) I saw him attack me, so I attacked back.

Yang: Do you… (loud exhale) Do you think we should've told Ironwood about Salem, before he put so much on the line for Amity? Blake: Sounds like you do. Yang: (sighs) I trust Ruby, but I think he deserves to know what he's stepping into. We all did.

But you wanna know the most batshit insane part? Stretch the definition, and you can have RWBY fail this test first try.

Glynda: I hope that you realize that your actions tonight will not be taken lightly, young lady. You put yourself and others in great danger. Ruby: [Roman and his gang] started it! Glynda: If it were up to me, you'd be sent home... With a pat on the back... (she notices Ruby's smile) ...And a slap on the wrist. (she demonstrates with her riding crop, which Ruby barely avoids as she gives out an "Eeek!) But... [Ozpin] would like to meet you.

Like, I would bring up that Rick and Morty pointed out how it's not meant to be taken seriously, but then I remembered it's called Rick and Morty and not Rikki and Morticia, so it might not even be in I Am A Fan's radar.

"Go watch RWBY or Legend of Korra. Both involve a deconstruction of tropes. Both involve women standing up against an authority that demands respect based on being authority, not based on respect. Both shut down the white male savior trope so hard, that men and women who love the patriarchy despise both shows."

What they don't tell you is that the "standing up against authority" bit in RWBY only lasts for two Volumes and it ends up making the main character's deep-rooted depression outright suicidal because their actions in doing so had lasting consequences to their psyche. Not to mention that up until Volume 6, they had been following the instructions of authority.

A straight white male one at that who in Volume 4 went into the body of a person of color and has to possess him in order to continue giving instructions. And that's when the girls start to question his authority and even yell at him. If that's not fucking yikes, I don't know what is.

Korra's standing against authority is more "let the bad guys depose the authority and then we'll clean up the mess" but that's neither here nor there.

Also, I don't think adding a fe in front of male counts as shutting down the white male savior trope.

But of course, anything that Team RWBY or Korra does is immediately held to a double standard and ripped into for anything that they do NOT because they’re flawed or because of writing decisions. Its because they’re LGBT women that they’re held under a microscope.

No, it's because people explored the long-standing consequences of their actions and what it means for upending society as a whole. I haven't been in the Legend of Korra discourse but I definitely know the discourse of RWBY to know that them being LGBT has nothing to do with them getting criticized.

In fact, two of the four girls aren't even LGBT in the first place and the other two are B but you keep denying that and call them L.

Or have you noticed that every fixit fanfic for both series involves defending the Patriarchy while supporting toxic masculinity and trying to revive the White Male Savior trope that both shows have tried so hard to bury six feet under?

Have you noticed that RWBY involves four girls defending the patriarchy while supporting toxic masculinity and trying to revive the White Male Savior trope that it ironically tried to bury six feet under?

Because after Volume 3, the plot is about them going from Kingdom to Kingdom and protecting the Academies, which the last King of Vale had essentially turned into castles to house powerful relics.

When all four of these relics are gathered, they summon two brothers who will pass judgement onto mankind and are seen as, so far, one of the only ways to truly deal with the true threat of Salem, i.e. they are the white male saviors.

Despite being even more trigger happy and axe crazy than Volume 8!Ironwood.

And just to show just how much of a tangent I Am A Fan's post is... That's the very last paragraph. Do you see why I call them FNDM-GPT?

EDIT: This motherfucker reposted this from March! https://iamafanofcartoons.tumblr.com/post/711784852348878848/we-need-to-address-how-media-and-media-critics

[illarian-rambling]

Questions from this ask game!!!

I want to know more about Mashal!!! (I understand if you don't want to answer them all, haha, feel free to just pick a few!)

1, 4, 9, 10, 24, 31, 35, 40, 41, 47

Oh boy, you get to hear about my boy! For context, Mashal was a knight who was kidnapped and had his mind transplanted into a robotic body as a test run for a mad mage's try at immortality. He doesn't remember much of his life before, except for the fact that he was human and that he'll kill whoever did this to him. That said, let's do these asks!

What is your character's reaction to a minor inconvenience? Such as getting their jumper caught on a door handle?

Mashal is remarkably patient, so he probably wouldn't let it ruin a good day. However, if he's already having a bad day, something is probably getting broken. Not necessarily out of anger, but if we're talking about the example of getting his coat caught on a doorhandle, he's just gonna keep walking until the coat or the doorknob goes. Then he would feel bad and try to guiltily fix it.

What do they consider to be an unforgivable action? Why?

Being lied to. Mashal is very honest, mostly because he himself can't stand it when people conceal the truth. Betrayals also cut deep since he trusts people so completely. Also, if you're hurting innocent people, prepare for the full Terminator experience. He always stands up for people who are trapped in awful situations like he was.

What is your character's trigger point? What makes them angry, sad or makes them go off?

Oh boy. When Mashal gets angry, it's a zero to sixty flip, full transformation. Being around the mage who basically murdered him will cause him to lose his shit, focused on nothing but trying to kill her. Magic, in general, can also flip that trauma trigger. He gets very paranoid and twitchy around large rituals, though he gets better about this as the series goes on.

What kind of jokes make them laugh?

Anything unexpected or out-of-pocket will get a shocked gasp, then a laugh. He thinks Astra's wacky metaphors and Ivander’s snide sarcasm are hilarious.

What are your character's special skills?

Killing? That's only mostly a joke - Mashal is a very skilled swordsman who is only made better by the fact that he's made of metal. But he wouldn't include that in his talents. He would tell you first that he's a decent artist. Landscapes are his specialty, but he's been getting more into portraits lately. He also likes to cook. Yes, he has no sense of taste, but the process itself is enjoyable and he likes feeding his friends.

Your character has been invited to a masquerade ball. What mask do they wear?

He would be so indecisive lol. I imagine he'd just ask Astra what she's doing and match her. However, if forced to pick, he'd choose something that looks like an impressionist painting of a human face. Then he'd chicken out and go with a sun motif instead.

What attracts your character to another person? What kind of person do they go for?

Confident, good at telling stories, adventurous enough to drag him out for shenanigans, not afraid to be brash, passionate about something. Actually, Astra's intro is linked to my pinned post if you want any more descriptiors for what Mashal is into ;)

Your character's friend has just been mugged. What's their reaction?

First things first, he'd make sure the friend is ok. He'd walk them home, make dinner, and stay with them through the night. Once they're in a better state of mind, he'd ask them what they want him to do, be that go to the cops or go after the mugger himself. He probably wouldn't want to kill some random mugger, but depending on if his friend was badly hurt or not, he might put the fucker in the hospital. If not, he'd just intimidate the hell out of them while dragging them into a jail cell.

Your character has been punched into the face. What's their reaction?

"Oh gods, is your fist alright? I mean, why the hell did you do that, but gods beyond, all your fingers are broken!"

Punching a robot is a bad idea lol, even if he's an apologetic one

What is your character's reaction when someone does something nice for them?

Mashal has a bit of a stutter in moments of high emotion, so he'd probably just be doing that for a while. Then, because he's a knight at heart, he'd give them a proper courtly bow and probably a very awkwardly formal thank you. He carries every kind turn in his heart for ages, so he'll remember the gesture forever, no matter how small.

Also, I know you didn't ask, but here's some Mashal art!

He's my sweet, killer robot boy and I adore him. Thanks so much for the asks!

[janearts]

How do you get your art/character interactions to be so expressive and organic? I've loved your art and ocs for years and keep coming back once in a while to skim through your Dragon Age and Elder Scrolls art to get inspired, so I wondered if you did specific art studies to get to where your art is right now?

Thank you for the compliment! I've got three answers (or exercises) for you and you can take them as you like 'em underneath the cut.

They are in order from Most Annoying to Most Pleasing.

The Noble Still Life

My parents threw me into art classes at around 6 years old. I don't mean to imply that that somehow makes me a better artist out of the gate--it truly doesn't--but it does mean that I've been doing still life studies for a sad but significant portion of my life. And as much as I hate drawing stupid fruit arranged with other stupid shit on stupid pieces of fabric, still life studies were really helpful across the board and especially with developing a sense of how shit works. ... Even if I go on to blissfully ignore what I've learned and draw fabric folds however the hell I want and put shadows wherever I damn well please.

The Ye Olde Master Study

As part of secondary school, we were also trotted out to local museums and parks and whatnot and told to just... have at it. So a lot of my sketchbooks from that time are filled with studies of library-lion-this and portrait-of-supposedly-important-man-that. Then, back in class, we were asked to imitate the old masters. Old Masters studies are really fucking fun and some of my favourite commissions have started out with phrases like "Can you recreate this Benjamin Constant painting but with my character as Empress Theodora?" or "How about a different Constant painting of Theodora?" I also do master-ish studies with my own digital paintings, like this one of Samson and this one of Bree. I think it's a fun exercise because it pushes me out of my comfort zone even if the end result doesn't look all that sophisticated or much like the original.

The Desperate Scribbles of the Human Form~

I should put gesture drawings and anatomy studies before master studies because in theory you need to know how to draw bodies before you start trying to paint in imitation of Caravaggio. (Now that I think about it, a deep knowledge of fruit is also essential to Caravaggio... but I digress.) In my art class, gesture drawings were more about flow and movement than it was about your unnerving ability to draw an elbow. Our teachers broke us using the Boiling Frog Technique, which was to say that they lulled us into a false sense of security by allowing us to sketch the person modelling for 10 minutes. Then 5 minutes. Then 3 minutes. Then 2 minutes. Then 1 minute. Then 30 seconds because they were sadists. It is unfortunately an effective way of teaching 1) how bodies move and 2) how to capture the essence of a pose rather than the strict reality of it.

But I really like anatomy studies and I really, really like drawing hands. And more hands. And even more hands. And then some more hands just in case. And then, just to shock and surprise everyone, a torso. A good chunk of my sketchbook is just me drawing faces and hands and eyeballs and hands and faces and sometimes feet when I can't remember how ankles work.

Other Weird Tips That Don't Quite Count As Studies:

If you don't wanna sketch in a museum or go to a park or stare at a stranger's ankles to figure out how ankles work, then go pull up fantasy stock photos on DeviantArt or take a photo of yourself and then get to sketching. That's what I do!

Watch a shitton of animated films. There's a fluidity & theatricality to how characters move in animated films that I love. Sometimes it seems like every inch of the character is expressing the emotion they're feeling. I find it personally inspirational even if I feel like gnawing off my own hand every time I attempt to draw my own frame-by-frame animation.

Study film. I studied film very, very briefly and a wee snippet of that was studying storyboards (as in: in library, with book) and doing some storyboard art projects (as in: at desk, with sketchbook). I treat every comic I do as if I was storyboarding the animated scene from the disjointed animated film in my brain and then polish it up to make it more readable/enjoyable.

Hope that helps!

[rosy-avenger]

Yo. Tell us more of your Knives Out visual language takes.

Or don't. I'm not your dad.

(Unless your dad asks you really specific questions about cinematography, in which case, uh yo, we're out of milk)

Anon I wish I could make gifs because just talking about it doesn't have the same impact. Alas.

I particularly appreciated the shots that communicated Marta's economic status as compared to the Thrombeys. My initial post was about Meg's iPhone, but that wasn't the only example. Others:

-Marta drives a semi-crappy Hyundai, in contrast to the cars the Thrombeys drive (especially Ransom's vintage BMW)

-the shot of Marta's phone with its cracked screen, and later her beat-up sneakers

Then aside from the effective communication about Marta not being wealthy, there were some other good cinematography moments:

-the halo of knives being visible behind all of the family members during their interviews, but it's always off-center with nobody standing directly in front of it, until near the end when first Benoit, then Marta, sit so their heads are right in the center (the hole in the center of the... knife... donut?)

-during Richard's interview, he says something about Marta really being part of the family, and the audio of that line is played over a clip of Richard sitting in the living room and gesturing Marta forward like he's welcoming her into the family conversation; but later when we see the full context of that scene, he's actually calling her forward so he can use her as a prop in his political discussion. The movie is a mystery story with a lot of confusion about the circumstances of Harlan's death; this type of callback shot is a really effective way of showing that the Thrombeys can and do misrepresent their experiences to make themselves look better. It's a reminder to the audience not to take anything at face value.

-really fast blink-and-you'll-miss-it thing: the OS on Harlan's laptop is Windows XP or something similarly way out of date. Very typical for an older person who got used to one OS and never wants to update to a newer one.

-an obvious one: when Marta is giving Harlan the medications, the camera pans sideways and the sheathed knife on its stand moves into frame in the foreground, passing over Harlan's throat.

-when Marta and Benoit are talking on the patio and the outdoor light shines from over Benoit's shoulder (visual metaphor for the illumination of the truth?)

-I saw a thing about how Ransom's clothes are expensive but worn, like he doesn't take care of them; but while watching the movie I interpreted it as that he's cosplaying being poor like some wealthy people do.

-with a couple of brief exceptions, every time we see the portrait of Harlan, it's in the background over Marta's shoulder or Marta is the one looking at it. I interpreted this as showing that while the family focuses on what they can get (or rather, what they stand to lose) out of Harlan's death, Marta is the only one who loved him as a friend and genuinely misses him.

BONUS! Not a cinematography thing, but an imdb-trivia type thing that inexplicably is not on the imdb trivia page: in the sequence of reading Harlan's will, all the reading of the will is done by Frank Oz's character. However, he keeps having to be prompted by a woman attorney who never speaks herself, and none of the other characters interact with her. To put it another way, Frank Oz plays a character who lacks agency and needs to be directed by a character who no one else acknowledges. One might call him a puppet.

[seeminglydeathlessredshirt]

Ramblings on Suzerain

Dialogue options that certainly don't foreshadow the events of my term.

Suzerain is a political visual novel where you play as the president of a regional power in a Cold War-era alternate world. Put bluntly, there is little else like it out there and what there is is…well, we'll get to that a bit later. The game also has an expansion where you lead a different nation in the region but I don't have it so if you want a verdict on it, you'll have to go somewhere else, sorry.

While the presentation is a bit basic, it gets the job done, mostly when it comes to visuals. Character portraits are all distinct without being distracting, the map is detailed and pleasing to look at, and the text is easily readable(this is especially important, there is a lot of reading.) Music is the same handful of tracks and I found myself getting a bit tired of them fairly quickly, although the "shit is going down" track did end up training me to focus even more on what's going on.

The gameplay itself is, unsurprisingly, very simple. What it lacks in complex systems, however, it more than makes up for in the RPG player's favourite phrase to argue over the meaning of: choice and consequences. You inherit a nation that is at the precipice due to the actions of your predecessors, and it's up to you to fix every last problem. You must deal with problems like recessions, ethnic tensions, foreign relations, constitutional reform, and much more. It's extremely overwhelming, but that's the point. Politics isn't easy, and even seemingly minor choices will come back to haunt you hours down the road.

Despite being overwhelming, a lot of the problems the nation will face will be very familiar. The Cold War of this world is almost identical to our own, and you can choose whether to side with the capitalists, the communists, or just go your own way. All your decisions are tracked on a political compass, and though the names may change, the ideologies are laid out the same. And even when there's something that just isn't clicking, every nation, major character, and organisation has its own codex entry that's just a single click away. The game will occasionally be a bastard and have a decision where the right course of action is something you'd only know from someone's codex entry, so be ready for that.

The writing itself, like the presentation, gets the job done. There were many moments where the prose felt exceedingly dry and only grabbed my attention because of the events that they were describing. This isn't the case 100% of the time and the writers do much better when a scene is mainly focused on character dialogue and conflict, but the rest of the time it feels like the textual equivalent of watching C-SPAN. Despite this, Suzerain is probably one of the best examples I've seen of this niche genre, and it's not even close. While something like The New Order will compensate with things like a wider range of nations to play as, it loses out on many QoL features, has a much narrower range of choices and consequences, and has to deal with the fact that it is a Cold War visual novel messily strapped to a WW2 strategy game.

Overall, I'd recommend Suzerain. It tackles a subject matter that not many games really bother with, and does so with a level of maturity that seems so rare in this medium. While a single playthrough will set you back about 10 hours, there are so many different impactful choices to make that all lead to unique endings. While I must set it away for now, I'm absolutely coming back to it in the future to see how things could've gone differently, whether I finally succeed at building True Communism™ or choose to go down a worse path. I'm just a regional power, it's not like I can end the world.

…right?

[sweetestpopcorn]

Thank you for writing what I always wish Daemon and Rhaenyra's story was in canon. The truth is that I was never a fan of Daemon x Laena, however, I loved the portrait you made of her in your fic and I can imagine her being that way completely, however, as far as Harwin is concerned, I know that I have a rather unpopular opinion, that of having children bastards with him seemed to me a totally unnecessary addition by Martin to weaken Rhaenyra's character as future queen and destine people to death, their relationship also did not seem to me based on love, but on desire, he never knew how to give Rhaenyra a stop or advice to stop having children who were clearly his and who would question her as an heir, I admit 1 but 3 seems to me a very big impudence, more knowing that there was no way for them to look like their mother (another favor from Martin to rhae) . In addition, in the case of Daemon and Laena, at least they were husband and wife, something that Harwin and Rhaenyra were not, I feel that their relationship is very romanticized, honestly they were lovers, it is not that they could have a family life in the eyes of the entire court and clearly To me it seemed like a patch in Rhaenyra's life for being married to laenor... and not being able to have been with the man she wanted. It has already been seen that he had 3 children with Harwin in quick succession... Daemon came back and it was over and once he had 3, what does it matter a 4? Lately, since the premiere of the abomination on hbo, there are many harwin fan girls who endorse him a lot and I don't understand it to be honest, his children weren't destined to be kings either, I'm of the opinion that it wouldn't even have happened if there wasn't dance. A true ally who thought with his head and nothing else would have acted differently, I think. I'm sorry to have such a negative opinion but it's tired to see people selling him as Rhaenyra's great love when he wasn't, in my opinion, of course. It also tires to always see the children born of their love affair as more loved and developed by the fans than the next kings of westeros🤣. I hope you don't mind my opinion but the Strong boys didn't fulfill my Targaryen supremacist quota so I'm more than happy reading your story, where you represent Harwin in a way that I can imagine quite simply at least in relation to Rhaenyra and good-natured, but for me that's it. I hope not to see like a bad person haha, I can be very direct in saying my opinions and sometimes they are questionable, i know ❤️

Greetings ✌️

Hi there 🤗

I hope you are well (and still there X'D) because this was such a big delay on my part 💔 but better late than never!

First, thank you so so much for your beyond kind words ❤️ I write what I wished the story could be as well, so I am happy others like my choices 🩷 asoiaf Daemyra are prime steak and adding anyone else in the picture is putting ketchup on it so I am just serving the steak and removing the ketchup 😂 just prime fillet mignon which is asoiaf Daemyra.

I absolutely agree with the fact that George added the "Velaryon" princes to add more drama to the mix and to make the whole claim thing more balanced and less just about Rhaenyra being a woman. Of course that ultimately I would argue that George didn't do it very well because although the "Velaryon" princes should have been a HUGE thing the fact is they were an afterthought of the Green Council - brought up only by Criston and Alicent - and none of the lords either pro or against the Blacks and/or the Greens ever mentioned them.

I think George succeeded at making it a big thing for the fandom and at making other people look at what Rhaenyra's behaviour said about her and at the lack of legitimacy of her three eldest heirs and going "Yeah I'm neutral" or "Yeah I am Team Green" (the latter a very small minority not even 10%), but he definitely failed at showing that this was a such a major thing for the characters. Besides the Greens mocking the "Velaryon" princes and Rhaenyra it's like... no one really cared, and this would contradict the very strong (no pun intended) hatred that many of the asoiaf characters have concerning illegitimate children. So yeah... I think that should have been explored a LOT better.

In my story, however, that issue is removed, and I have had many fans who consider themselves neutral tell me that actually in my story they are Team Black because there are no "Velaryon" princes, and the fact that Rhaenyra married Daemon - a Targaryen - and only had Targaryen children + her being her father's choice of heir would make it very hard for the Greens to have a step to hold on to. And this is not because I have embellished Rhaenyra or Daemon mind you. I have lost count of the times I had people say that Rhaenyra is annoying, childish, spoiled, arrogant, stupid, oh personal favourite "window-licking clown"... or that Daemon is cruel, and an assh0le, and that he doesn't love Rhaenyra. Hells, I had someone say that until a point they thought I was actually a Team Green fan X'D but the issue of the "Velaryon" princes that made the issue less clear is removed, and in such circumstances it's almost impossible for someone to not stand the Blacks - which just adds to how weak the Greens' claim is and how dependent on the existence of the "Velaryon" princes it also is. And also mind you, I made a lot of choices to make Alicent look better - for instances, it's Otto who wants to marry Helaena and Aegon, she has reservations, and at the start she is not very on board with many of her father's plans. I also added more depth to Aegon, and explored his relationship with Sunfyre for instance, and downplayed many of his "advances" at maids and women. I also don't shy away from showing what a sh:t sister Rhaenyra was, and this is another complain I frequently had - how she treated her siblings.

I might be Team Black but I give credit where credit is due and I like to explore the fault the Blacks had, and the good the Greens had. They are still the villains, but they clearly were the villains in canon to. That's not changing and someone can be the clear villain and still have reasons.

Moving to canon now and to why Rhaenyra in canon had three illegitimate children I have a simple answer: because she could and because she didn't care.

I think it is always important to consider that pre-Dance was the pinnacle of Targaryen power - they had never been as powerful before and never would again. All of them were raised to believe they were more god/goddess than man/woman and all of them were arrogant to a fault. And as I have said before, why shouldn't they be? Truth was they were superior to almost everyone in almost every way, and truth or law was whatever they said it was.

Even in good freindly Walserys wee see this. If he wanted a woman to rule he could do it. If he wanted people to patch up and be friends he simply demanded it. And if he wanted his daughter to marry a gay man and have children with him that would happen thanks to his Hand's son :D

Rhaenyra was just the same, and you see her have this attitude. Her reply to "Your sons are bastards" was always to either kill or threaten. Hells, she had the audacity to hear Aemond call her sons Strong and be like "Well who told you that lie?! We must get to the bottom of this!"

Rhaenyra:

Viserys:

Everyone else:

Meanwhile Aegon II said and well - oh GOD I am defending Aegon II 🤢:

As to what drove her to Harwin Strong, I mean, people can tell themselves whatever they want, but at the end of the day it was mainly three things:

Daemon was not available - had been exiled under penalty of death two years prior

2. Harwin had courted her and likely she liked him well enough

3. She was married against her will to a man who left her alone during the celebrations of their wedding and never consummated the marriage at 17, and wanted someone to love her Harwin was there, she liked him well enough, and likely she knew HE liked her well enough to keep his mouth shut and take his affair with him to the grave Spoiler :D he did! Rhaenyra:

Now as you say and well, very clearly Harwin was a source of comfort for her above anything else, and I agree that it speaks volumes how many children they had before Daemon returned, vs. how many they had after he returned and how quickly she again fell in Daemon's arms and got pregnant. Given the timeline it's very likely that Harwin was actually still alive when Rhaenyra got pregnant with baby Aegon. My brothers in Christ literally the day Otto arrived in King's Landing following Harwin and Lyonel's deaths, word arrived that Rhaenyra had married Daemon. Even if we are to believe it was only after Harwin died what a fine way Rhaenyra had to mourn the "love of her life"... by banging her former lover and marrying him. Someone who could have been involved in Harwin's demise btw.

And they say romance is dead!

Delusions and wishful thinking aside, one can argue who the love of Daemon's life was. The love of Rhaenyra's life however should be undebatable for anyone with reading skills and basic comprehension and that someone was Daemon. See all of this for book passages showing that Rhaenyra loved Daemon at every damn stage of her life: as a child, teenager and adult as agreed by all sources. And every damn time this b:tch returned Rhaenyra just turned around and went:

And fell in his arms and maybe pieces of furnisher like bed or in the rocks of Blackwater Bay if you believe Mushroom X'D

About the show I don't consider it so I am not even going to go there, I will just say that how anyone can have any ship in Redacted outside Renada/Alicia or Helen/Diet Almond Milk is a mystery to me because they all absolutely suck and apologies but having a man look at you like he's going to tear your oesophagus from your body and wear it for a necklace is not romantic, or the only interaction you have with him is just some witty banter where once again you are showing what a fine Girlboss you are. But wtf do I know about the fandom's standards?! I know they are lower than the Titanic.

I don't think you sound like a bad person or anything of the like, if anything it says a lot that many of the so-called "Targaryen" fans only seem to like Targaryens who are less Targaryen and don't look like Targaryens, and the same people who love the "Velaryon" princes and call themselves Team Black fans hate Aegon and Viserys and go on to posts made by their fans to call them monsters. Their greatest sin? Why they are very pure Targaryens with Targaryen parents who enjoyed banging each other's brains out, had no reservations about incest, and looked so Targaryen that Aegon's hair was almost white.

Wincest is not for everyone.

Now, personally, I have nothing against the "Velaryon" princes. I actually like Jace and Luke and feel bad for Joffrey because imagine your siblings being Jacaerys, Lucerys, Rhaena, Baela, Aegon, and Viserys, and you are Joffrey... ain't no ointment for that burn. #cancelLaenor But I don't buy for a minute that even if there were no Greens that they would just be one big happy family and that Daemon would gladly tell his legitimate kids step aside for Harwin's illegitimate sons to take their place.

Sorry, I have oats with my milk not delusions or Disney. Daemon is a grey character and if you think that equates to his d:ck not working when he's sad or conflicted thEn we didn't read the same books :)

Well this was a long answer XD hope you are still around Anon to see me enter my Joker Era because I am so DONE. I really need some good asoiaf content and to touch some grass because after almost five years... I don't know how much I can take it.

But oh well. If my Joker Era can make anyone laugh it's what we here for fam.

All the love to you 🥰❤️