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tehuti88-art · 2 years

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9/30/22: r/SketchDaily theme, "Free Draw Friday." This week's character from my anthro WWII storyline is Hauptsturmführer (Captain) Erich Arzt, without cap (top drawing) and with cap (bottom drawing); he's also a physician, so he can also be called Dr. Arzt. Fun fact, "Arzt" means "doctor," so that would literally make him Doctor Doctor. He looks friendly but is definitely not a decent person. There'll be more about him later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se.

Regarding his design, he's a Siberian husky. Um...I guess that's it.

I'll be going off theme for the next month to do Drawlloween, which I've been doing since SketchDaily introduced me to it in 2018.

TUMBLR EDIT: I think I went over quite a few details about Captain...Doctor?...Arzt in previous entries, maybe Trudi Detzer and Eva Heidenreich? Let me check...

All righty let's just do this entry by entry:

Vincenz Immerwahr: Arzt is all, "Why sure I'll join your weird threeway relationship, I got nothing better to do...except PLAN A MURDER HAHAHAHAHAHAURKH AKKH URKKHHKKH." *dies*

Trudi Detzer: Alllllll kinds of skeeze going on here. But the fullest picture of this character to date and URKH AKKH URKKHHKKH. *dies*

Stephen Gerhardt: Brief cameo appearance!

Eva Heidenreich: He's here! Now he's gone. Now he's back! And now URKH AKKH URKKHHKKH. *dies*

Hedy Rader: Wow, I forgot he shows up here. Just for one line. But a funny one. Incidentally, it's kind of weird Col. Heidenreich is contemplating writing SS smut, considering how much of a prude he is regarding DEGENERATE!! stuff, but well, he's a big ol' hypocrite anyway...

I think maybe that's it. I recommend checking Trudi's and Eva's entries for a decent picture which I could very well end up contradicting a bit at points here, though hopefully not too much.

I don't know much about Arzt's early life. I'm assuming he had a nice, normal childhood and adolescence, probably from a well-off family, probably did well in all his subjects and sports and such. Nothing you would call an obvious red flag. I don't know if he has siblings or not, usually I'd lean toward no but perhaps he does. He's one of my younger characters so he doesn't serve in the Great War, but becomes a physician for the Waffen-SS. (I'm assuming he sees a bit of combat before switching to just being a doctor.) He's highly intelligent, charming, good looking (not the typical Aryan looks since he has black hair, but he does have icy blue eyes), and very popular with both women and men. And yeah, I mean that socially, and otherwise. Unlike with Gen. Immerwahr, who's just so important and influential that he can get away with whatever he wants and nobody will bother him for it, Arzt isn't nearly as important, so he has to be more discreet. He definitely doesn't flaunt the fact that he goes both ways. But it's rather an open secret anyway; nobody has any actual PROOF of it (as Klemper's case shows, the SS doesn't even require proof, a rumor is enough), but there are stories. Arzt's discretion goes a long way toward protecting him, and his charming manner likely helps too. I mean who can't help but fall for the guy.

(This is probably the thing that rankles the SS more than his preferences, the fact that he remains a bachelor, and fathers no (known) children. Yeah, that kind of rankles them. But what can you do.)

Artz is actually a pretty good doctor, BTW. He isn't interested in any of the bizarre human experimentation his fellow SS officers engage in; he's interested in established medicine. This leads to a weird running-joke rivalry between him and Dr. Mengele in the story. They have a LOT in common (I feel like I have to point out Mengele is a side character to make it clear Arzt himself isn't directly based on him), but Arzt constantly disparages Mengele as a "quack" for the experiments he engages in as a camp doctor. (Mengele disparages him right back, though for different reasons.) Due to their professions they're often in close contact with each other and so have to tolerate each other's presence, and this leads to lots of catty comments. Unfortunately for Mengele, Arzt is a bit more quick witted with such things and so usually gets in the last insult, though Mengele is more well known, plus he survives the war, so, I guess there's that?

As mentioned in the other entries, Arzt is the one who leads to Lt. Gunter Hesse transferring to the Allgemeine-SS after he's injured serving in the Waffen-SS. He meets Gen. Immerwahr, Hesse's superior officer, while asking for a letter of recommendation for Hesse; Hesse is reluctant to do so himself, as he'd reported Immerwahr to...the Allgemeine-SS!--for inappropriate conduct! (Immerwahr made a move on Hesse and even though he backed off, Hesse didn't like that.) And now the Allgemeine-SS, which refused to follow through on the complaint, needs a letter of recommendation from the guy who had a complaint lodged against him, for the guy who did the complaining! Good times all around. Anyway, Arzt was the one to suggest the Allgemeine-SS as a new job, so he asks Immerwahr for the recommendation, and Immerwahr finds this all so hilarious he goes ahead and writes one. And hits on Arzt, because wow, this hot doctor who's like half his age just showed up at his place out of nowhere. Arzt isn't a homophobic prude like Hesse. He's like, sure why not, whenever you're free. And leaves with the letter. Hesse gets into the Allgemeine-SS though he's awfully confused about this all.

Arzt IS interested in ONE particular type of experimentation. He's quite curious about all types of sexuality, especially those regarded as degenerate by the Nazis (for this reason, Heidenreich dislikes him, probably even more than he dislikes him when later on Arzt and his wife become a thing), so he's willing to try out pretty much anything at least once. I think probably the best term to describe him is versatile, though even that is rather lacking. But anyway, he never turns down an unusual opportunity when it presents itself. This tendency earns him a reputation among women as kind of a playboy, and that's the idea of him that seems to spread the most, even though he's just the same with men. He doesn't deny this half-deserved reputation since it probably helps him keep out of trouble, too. Plus, given how popular and openminded he is, he's more than likely got the "patronage" of at least a few very influential people (Immerwahr, and later on Eva Heidenreich, among them), so that can't hurt. (Hesse, even though he works in intelligence, likely doesn't know the extent of Arzt's carryings-on, though he surely has an idea; but his experience with Immerwahr taught him to pick his battles.)

Arzt's intense curiosity, and willingness to try things out (including some risky things), are likely due to him being a high-functioning sociopath. He has very little fear of danger, and very easily gets bored, and doesn't even have to try to get people to hit on him, so his mindset is "May as well go along with it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ " Men, women, dom, sub, sadist, masochist, anything in between, at least it gives him something to do.

Arzt accepts Immerwahr's invitation to his place and joins him for dinner. Immerwahr owns the biggest estate right in the middle of the city, and it's crammed to the gills with art and antiques, much of it DEGENERATE!! in nature, plus he illegally employs various "undesirables" such as Jews and lesbians (i. e., people unlikely to talk) for his household staff, so of course Arzt finds this quite intriguing. (The naughtier, the better.) Immerwahr is rather versatile too, though he's much more interested in men; his favorite ploy is to invite them back to his private quarters to admire "the view." The room really does have a nice view of the city square, though most time there is spent looking at other things. Of course Arzt goes along. Immerwahr likes him well enough, and Arzt finds Immerwahr interesting enough, that they make it into a semi-regular thing. When Arzt shows up one day and finds Immerwahr has invited along a third party, Waffen-SS captain Oskar Ettlinger, Arzt is all on board, though Ettlinger is a bit more skittish (he's married and in the closet) and needs some convincing. Well, Arzt is pretty convincing. The three of them become a casual item, and when not otherwise engaged, they like to pass the time relaxing on Immerwahr's balcony, smoking and sipping drinks and chatting. This is how visitors usually come across them, and it looks pretty normal and reasonable to those few not in the know.

Arzt likes social gatherings, as they give him the opportunity to meet interesting people, have interesting talks, make interesting connections. He knows all the best people, even if they don't know him very well. One kind of ironic incident, in light of later events, is a small gathering he attends at the country estate of Col. Rupprecht Heidenreich, the chief of SS intelligence. Some members of the Dobermann household, as well as Hesse (who often stays on their estate), are visiting too, and someone comes up with the idea of a friendly competition, a horse race--Heidenreich comes from a long tradition of horse breeding and wants to show off both his riding skills and his prize stallion, Blitzschlag. Also joining the competition are Hesse (with his mare, Gewitter), Insp. Dobermann (he's not terribly thrilled to be involved but whatever), Sgt. Stephen Gerhardt, and Arzt. (2nd Lt. Senta Werner would've liked to join in but she's just a woman so she merely observes, along with Adelina Dobermann, Eva, and Private Konrad Helmstadt, because Helmstadt doesn't really care to be involved and he's just there to keep an eye on the wimminz, too.) The race is a VERY close one, with Heidenreich, Dobermann, and Hesse almost neck-and-neck while Gerhardt and Arzt are very close behind, when Heidenreich pulls a nasty move that causes Gerhardt's horse to topple, taking him with it--Arzt immediately drops out to tend to him (his ankle is twisted), and Dobermann--the intended target of the dirty move--pulls back as well, while only Heidenreich and Hesse finish, Heidenreich winning by a hair. (Addy is disappointed that both her father and her close friend Hesse lost, and Senta is disgusted by the cheating, while Eva is quite smug, and she and her husband pretty much eat each other's face in front of everyone after he dismounts. DEGENERATE!!)

It's on Immerwahr's balcony, though, that Arzt retires to one evening to drink and get away from the buzz of his latest party; parties are nice, but he has a limit, and there isn't anything especially interesting going on. He's sitting at a small table just outside the doors, sipping on his wine, when the doors abruptly burst open and someone storms out. Arzt watches the tall blond woman in the flattering red dress stalk to the balcony edge and grip it until her knuckles turn white, then slump against it as if defeated. He pauses, then picks up the wine bottle and fills a second glass; the woman hears the wine pouring and stiffens before turning to see who else is out there. Upon noticing Arzt, she approaches, and he holds up the glass of wine, saying, "You look like you need it."

Of course he knows who Eva Heidenreich is. She doesn't know him quite as well, though she vaguely remembers him from that impromptu horse race on her husband's property quite a while back, and yes, she knows her husband cheated. She accepts the drink and joins Arzt, who is a very good listener. It turns out Heidenreich cheats at more than horse racing, and he cheats quite frequently--from the very start of their marriage, in fact. Eva has "overlooked" this as much as she can, but now there's a rumor that one of the numerous women he's had affairs with is a lowly entertainer in a nightclub--a half-Jewish woman. Eva can overlook plenty of things, but coming from her "morally upright" husband, the same guy in charge of ensuring the racial hygiene laws are followed, this is just a bridge too far. She refuses to let this one slide. Unfortunately, although she's quite influential, she's still an SS wife and that makes her secondary; Heidenreich is a lot more powerful than she is, and like Immerwahr, can do pretty much whatever he wants. Not only that, but he's more powerful physically as well, and the previous night when she refused him, he got what he wanted anyway. Tonight's party has proven to be almost overwhelming, with her wearing her slinkiest dress and walking around arm-in-arm with her husband, the two of them playing the adoring couple while she secretly wishes she could murder him. She stops just short of saying this last bit out loud, but Arzt gets the gist of it. Eva's hatred of her husband practically oozes from her. He knows something that might help take away some of the sting, though. Apparently offhand, he mentions a room full of decadent art Immerwahr keeps locked in one of the halls--the exact same kind of art Heidenreich always decries as DEGENERATE!!, and the key is kept in a vase outside the door. Maybe Eva would like to go look at that art. Maybe Arzt could join her after a tactful period of time. Eva doesn't need any further hinting. She finishes her drink and leaves. Arzt waits a brief while before finishing his own drink, heading back inside (he spots Heidenreich at the other side of the room, chatting away amiably with a group of people), then exiting out into the hallway. He finds Eva wandering around in the private art room, admiring the displays, and kisses her. She's pretty willing, this time around.

(A note. Heidenreich actually knows exactly what's going on. Eva had gone to him to excuse herself to go look at Immerwahr's collection, and since she's already been cheating on him in an attempt to get back at him (she hasn't had as much luck as he has, since most SS officers are too afraid of angering their boss Heidenreich to sleep with her more than once--Hesse, who actually believes in upholding SS ideals, outright refuses), he figures there's more behind her exit than a sudden interest in degenerate art. When he sees Arzt leave shortly after, he easily figures it out. None of these people are as stupid OR as subtle as they pretend to be.)

Arzt is clear with Eva from the start: He's willing to help her try to get her husband jealous, and/or provide a distraction from her troubles, but that's all it is, a distraction. There won't be any serious relationship and neither of them will be tied down. Eva agrees. It's a bit hard to keep this in mind, however, when Arzt invites her back to his place, a cozy cottage in the suburb, and Eva is surprised to find another woman already there, significantly younger, slim, pretty, and apparently quite at home in Arzt's house. This is Gertraud "Trudi" Detzer. Eva is a bit steamed; Arzt had said nothing about somebody else LIVING with him. Turns out he has a standing arrangement with Trudi; while tending to an injury she'd incurred (he just happened to be the closest doctor around), he was surprised to discover that the young woman was actually male, or more specifcally, intersex--Trudi was born biologically male but with both male and female sex characteristics, and decided to present herself as female. In addition to all this, she's lesbian. In short, she's all kinds of things the Nazis and SS despise, and if they were to find out about her, she'd likely be sent to a camp to be experimented on by somebody like Dr. Mengele. Arzt, however, has different plans. He might not like medical experiments, but he likes other kinds of experiments, and he finds Trudi incredibly interesting. He offers her a deal: He won't report her to the SS, if she agrees to live with him and lets him do basically whatever he wants to her. It sounds like a nasty arrangement that nobody in their right mind would agree to, but Trudi knows the alternative is far worse; she's much tougher and more practical than she looks, and figures, she can handle one man, compared to however many people she might have to handle if she's sent to a camp. She agrees, though with the added stipulation that Arzt's protection extend to her mother, as well. She moves into his house under the pretext of him treating her for a "medical condition," and that's the situation when Eva arrives to pass the time.

Trudi has no romantic or warm feelings for Arzt whatsoever--theirs is a purely transactional relationship, plus, although she's agreed to this arrangement, a few times he's stepped over her personal boundaries into outright force. So she and Eva have a few things in common, although Eva would never deign to admit it. She isn't jealous of Eva's presence, just curious--she can tell the two don't love each other, and wonders what sort of deal they might have going. Eva, well, she's jealous. Arzt's stipulation that this is not a relationship notwithstanding. When she and he retire to his private quarters she makes a point to be as raucous as possible in the hopes that Trudi can hear it. Arzt calls her out on this afterwards, asking if she's jealous of Trudi, and why; Eva is too embarrassed by her own insecurity to answer. She does decide to keep carrying on with him, however, because so far she hasn't been able to find any other guys with the chutzpah Arzt has. (Part of this is because Heidenreich isn't Arzt's boss--he's in charge of the Allgemeine-SS, not the Waffen-SS--though most of it is just Arzt's lack of fear. He finds risky situations like this stimulating.)

Trudi is polite to Eva but for the most part appears to ignore whatever this is she and Arzt have going on. Eva figures the young woman is harmless and spends occasional afternoons at Arzt's place while her husband is busy at work. It's enjoyable, at least. One day while they're lying together, she finally finishes the thought she'd left unsaid at their first meeting: "I wish my husband were dead." Arzt isn't frightened, but he's rational: He treads very carefully.

Arzt: "You surely don't mean that."

Eva (giving him a look): "And why wouldn't I? You think I'm a liar?"

Arzt: "I think people say things they don't mean when they're angry."

Eva: "You think I'm merely hysterical?"

Arzt: "I think you're angry. And for good reason. But it's not the best frame of mind in which to make big decisions."

Eva: "Big decisions?"

Arzt: "There's a reason you're confiding this to me, ja...?"

Yes actually, there is. Eva asks Arzt if he knows anything about poisons. The moment she found out he was a doctor, the gears in her head started spinning--it isn't just hopes of making her husband jealous that inspired her to carry on with Arzt. She's using Arzt, too. He knows that, and doesn't care. Yes, he knows about poisons, he says; "But it isn't poison you should be interested in." When Eva asks why not, he replies, "Because that'll be the very first thing they look for. And everyone knows, the one who wants to use poison the most is the angry wife." Eva's disappointment is obvious, but Arzt isn't finished: "You need to think like a man," he says. This is advice much similar to what Eva's mother gave her when she was younger; "And what would a man think right now?" she asks. "Right now?--something completely inappropriate," Arzt says; "But a man would also think about how to pin this on someone else." "And how would he do that?" Eva asks, to which he replies, "He would think of a bomb."

A resistance group known as the Diamond Network, led by a Jewish camp escapee named Josef Diamant, is active in the city; Heidenreich's SS are constantly investigating them, but they're very skilled at flying below the radar, and they have secret operatives everywhere--for example, the civilian chauffeur who drives members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände (commandant, adjutant, guards) to and from the labor camp is a member who provides a steady stream of intel, directly from the mouths of the SS officers themselves, to Diamant. The Dobermann household, where Hesse often stays, is a literal way station of the Network, with most of the help staff being involved and even Dobermann himself being fully aware of this. (Poor Hesse has no idea.) Although killing is very low on their list of objectives, and they go out of their way to minimize harm to civilian parties, the Network is well known for its use of explosives targeting SS and Nazi officials. The Diamond Network, therefore, is the perfect scapegoat for the murder of Col. Heidenreich. Arzt's specialty may be poisons, but he also knows a little about bombs, and about the way the Network does things. If Eva is serious, if she's 100% SURE that this is what she wants, then he can help her. But she has to be sure. Eva says, "I go to sleep beside him at night, I wake up beside him in the morning, and all I can think is how much I want him gone. None of this is worth it anymore."

So, okay. She's sure.

Arzt instructs Eva to take some time to cool off first; he'll get working on the bomb, but she needs to approach this slowly and with a level head. In the meantime, they'll continue their current arrangement so they can keep each other updated. He suggests she try to put her husband at ease by asking him to take her on an outing, make it seem like old times. Eva and Heidenreich go on a weekend getaway by themselves, and though Heidenreich isn't easily fooled, the distraction proves helpful in getting him to let his guard down a little; he figures Eva's cooled off a bit since their last altercation. She's a very skilled actress--she despises every moment she's with him, but effectively hides it. Arzt, meanwhile, works on assembling a bomb that at least superficially resembles those used by the Diamond Network: Diamant used to be a jeweler and watch repairer, so most of his bombs feature elaborate clockwork components. Arzt mimics this the best he can, which isn't very good considering he's not a jeweler or watchmaker, but it'll suffice to mislead the Allgemeine-SS. He uses gears from his own pocket watch in making the device, and when it's finished he lets Eva know. He'll use an untraceable private courier to deliver the device to the Heidenreich estate, where it's fully expected that the guards will open and inspect it. Arzt has hidden the bomb in plain sight by not concealing its clockwork components; many of Diamant's bombs resemble toys, a sort of taunt to their victims, so Arzt made his bomb look like a toy horse with a glass belly, the gears visible within. (Recall that in addition to running the SS intelligence office, Heidenreich is a horse breeder.) The idea is that everyone will assume it's from the Diamond Network and try to figure out how to disarm it. Here's Arzt's twist: It'll already be disarmed, and harmless. The only way it can be made dangerous again is if someone re-arms it with a separate explosive component. That someone is Eva.

So, one day the package shows up at the Heidenreich estate, and the guards at the front gate intercept it. Open it up carefully and look over its contents. One especially lucky guard gets to gingerly pry it open and poke around inside--but literally all he can find is gears. It does look like a Diamant bomb, but either he forgot to arm it, or it's intended purely as a taunt. They figure it's the latter, but decide to give it to Heidenreich anyway, since he'll surely enjoy the irony of owning a Network bomb that looks like one of his beloved horses. As the guard is taking the package to Heidenreich's personal office, Eva intervenes; after expressing concern about the safety of the item and being informed it's harmless, she offers to take it to him herself, and the guard hands it off. Eva pauses outside her husband's office to open the device up and place within it the component that actually will make it explode (Arzt gave her very clear instructions how to do so). Closes it up again, takes it inside. She tells Heidenreich the guards deemed it safe, and hands it over, then excuses herself to go see to something else. Heidenreich opens the package and draws out the horse figurine, looking it over curiously; he smiles as he admires its clockwork innards, then pops open the little glass compartment. Something immediately starts ticking. Heidenreich's smile vanishes and he has a fraction of a second to realize what's about to happen before it does.

Eva is a good distance down the hallway and still walking when the explosion rattles the windows and startles her to a halt--she knew what was about to happen, too, but is stunned nonetheless. She turns and runs back. Several of the guards are arriving too; one holds her back while the others go through the ruined office door, get a look at the scene, then immediately back out and decide to call Allgemeine-SS headquarters. Headquarters calls Lt. Hesse, who's asleep at his apartment in the city because it's late at night; when he hears that there's some sort of emergency situation at Heidenreich's house, he promptly gets dressed, grabs one of the SS cars, and heads out. (Hesse doesn't just enforce racial hygiene laws, he also investigates alleged crimes involving other SS members; so that's why he's involved.) He arrives to find guards trying to console and restrain Eva, who's screaming and sobbing (like I said--good actress); the others lead him to Heidenreich's office and he sees not only the destruction of the big wooden desk and everything around it, but what's all over the walls and ceiling as well. Shaken, he orders the room roped off and kept off limits until a team of investigators can arrive. He questions the guards and Eva as soon as she calms down, getting the basics of what happened; Eva seems infuriated that a bomb got through even after the guards inspected it and declared it safe. She begs Hesse to find out who's responsible and he promises to do his best. The guards confirm that the bomb was unarmed when they inspected it; they can't figure it out. Hesse calls a few trusted colleagues to fill them in, arranges for them to come out and collect evidence in the morning, and heads back home to catch a bit more sleep since he knows this is going to be a long one.

Col. Heidenreich gets a HUGE funeral--closed casket, of course--and the head of the SS, delivering the eulogy, vows that the parties responsible will face swift and brutal punishment. They accordingly begin cracking down even harder on suspected Diamond Network operatives, because who else could it be. Hesse is a bit more circumspect--he believes the same thing everyone else does, but he needs to collect some proof, pin down a specific subject, before he can act.

Despite his assurances, the investigation doesn't get far, until he's approached by Sgt. Stephen Gerhardt, a Wehrmacht officer who also resides at the Dobermann estate. Hesse had given Gerhardt a few details of the case when he asked, and thought little more of it, assuming he was just curious. Gerhardt now posits a theory: Somebody within Heidenreich's household armed the bomb, AFTER it was examined at the gate. Hesse brushes him off--"You're not an investigator, Herr Gerhardt, perhaps you should stick with what you know"--but the suggestion niggles at him the more he thinks about it. After all, there's literally no other possibility. He returns to the Heidenreich estate to question the guards again, trying to pinpoint which one might have something against the colonel; he at last focuses his attention on the last one who had possession of the device and presumably brought it to Heidenreich's office. The young officer is still shaken by the event, and seems genuinely upset and willing to help; when Hesse asks him for details about what happened when he brought the package to Heidenreich, he starts to answer, then blinks and suddenly remembers that he didn't actually deliver the package himself--Eva Heidenreich intercepted it. She was the last one in possession of the bomb, before Heidenreich received it.

Hesse remembers Eva attempting to seduce him some time earlier, and his heart sinks. He requests that she be brought to headquarters for questioning. At first she's defiant, seeming offended that her husband's men would dare suspect her of such things, but when Hesse brings up not just her possession of the bomb but her and Heidenreich's numerous affairs--"You're not stupid, Frau Heidenreich, I know you know everyone was aware of what was going on, because that was the point"--she visibly relaxes and then, to his surprise, gets a rueful smile. Hesse had promised to solve her husband's murder, and he kept that promise. He knows Eva couldn't have pulled it off on her own, however, and asks who else was involved; "Only me," she insists, "you think I'm not smart enough?" "I think you know little about how to make a bomb," Hesse says, to which she simply replies, "And you think I can't learn?" This is before the Internet, of course--it's not like she could've just looked up "How to arm a bomb" on the Dark Web. Hesse tries to coax her into naming her accomplice(s), suggesting that her punishment won't be as bad, but she calls him out on that promptly--"You just said I'm not stupid, Herr Hesse, so don't lie to me now, we both know there's no way out of this for me," and he's forced to stop trying. He does ask why she didn't just divorce him, a question that rankles her: "And give up everything? Everything I worked for! Everything I sacrificed for, while he had everything handed to him, just because he's a man. Maybe you don't know but this is just how it is for us, Herr Hesse, we do all this work to get so far and it can disappear in an instant because some man simply decided so. He doesn't need a reason. Why do I need a reason? He was an a**hole, and I hated him. There's your reason." Hesse finally realizes the depth of the Heidenreichs' hatred for each other, and ends the interrogation; he knows he won't get the identity of the accomplice from Eva. He does suspect it's one of the men she's had an affair with...but that doesn't exactly narrow things down.

(Something of which Hesse isn't aware. Sgt. Gerhardt didn't just pull his theory out of nowhere. He got the idea from Josef Diamant himself. Gerhardt is a Jewish American spy in contact with the Diamond Network, and Diamant is offended that anyone would blame Heidenreich's murder on his people--the bomb is a good fake, but not good enough: "Only an SS idiot like Herr Hesse would even think I'd make such garbage!" As well, the Diamond Network doesn't target private residences for bombing like this person did. When Gerhardt gives Diamant the details Hesse gave him about the crime, Diamant pauses before suggesting Heidenreich's death is an inside job: "I don't like the thought of it, but nothing else makes sense. Somebody in there is trying to pin this on us. Do you think we'd be foolish enough to go after Herr Heidenreich?--it's suicide.")

Eva waives her right to a trial--knowing there's no way it could be fair, and there's no verdict possible other than guilty--and is brought to a public area set up outside the labor camp, where a scaffold has been erected. Diamant was right in saying that assassinating someone of Heidenreich's importance is an extremely reckless move with extreme consequences, and Eva's execution--for that's what the punishment is to be--is open for the public to see, as a warning. She refuses the hood--"I want everyone to see"--and when given the chance to explain herself to the crowd, she announces, "My husband was an a**hole, and anyone here would have done the exact same." The noose is placed around her neck, the trapdoor released; Eva plummets, kicks, falls still. She never gives up the names of any accomplices.

One of the many people watching is Capt. Arzt. He feels no sadness, no real regret; it was too bad Eva got caught, but she knew the risk. If she had named him, he wouldn't have bothered trying to hide or flee because those are things a coward does--but she didn't. He's a bit impressed by her defiance. Her loyalty, he doesn't care one way or the other since she was just an interesting diversion to him, but it's to his advantage that she didn't give him up; reasoning that if she'd wanted him to be punished along with her, she wouldn't have stayed silent, he stays silent too, and resumes going about his normal life without any further concern. She made her choice.

Not long after, though, while he's relaxing at Immerwahr's place with the general and Capt. Ettlinger, Lt. Hesse and one of his men come calling. Immerwahr invites the two to join them but Hesse declines. In Heidenreich's absence, he's assumed temporary command of SS intelligence (in another ironic career twist, Eva recommended he take her husband's position, as he was the only "truly honorable" SS member she knew of), and quietly continued the investigation into Heidenreich's murder. There's been a development: A tiny bent gear found in the rubble of Heidenreich's office has been traced back to a particular watchmaker, and the watchmaker's records state it was a custom pocket watch made for a member of the Waffen-SS. The name in the records is Erich Arzt. An insignificant little piece of metal did what Eva Heidenreich refused to do.

Arzt feigns surprise and ignorance at first, but as soon as Hesse mentions the watch gear, he knows it's over. He stands up, removes and sets his pistol, dagger, and sword on the table, and offers his wrists for Hesse's companion to shackle. He also offers a belated defense for Eva, explaining that her husband mistreated her, and this is why she turned to him for help; he assumes all responsibility for the bomb itself, and says no one else was involved. Aside from this, though, he expresses no remorse. He pauses to take a last sip of wine from his glass and leaves with the officer as Hesse confirms that neither Immerwahr nor Ettlinger were in on the plot; the other two Waffen-SS officers are as bewildered as anyone.

As they head out to the car, Arzt explains that a young patient of his named Trudi is staying at his house, and asks that she not be "molested" as she has no knowledge of the murder plot; he also gives the combination to his personal safe. Hesse looks rather perplexed and uneasy--wondering why Arzt is offering up this information--but says nothing, and they get Arzt settled in the back seat and depart. It's a warm lovely day, the sun shining and the birds singing, and Arzt looks up and briefly enjoys the breeze passing over the open-top car. Then bites down on the little cyanide capsule he took from his pocket and slipped into his mouth while removing his gun and taking a drink of his wine. He's still conscious enough to hear Hesse yell at his companion to stop the car when he starts seizing and bleeding/frothing from the mouth; but by the time they pull him out and lay him on the ground, he's too far gone to notice anything anymore. He dies within minutes. Hesse is so frustrated and infuriated that he screams and kicks him in the side. It doesn't matter, Arzt can't feel it.

Yep, Eva was right. Arzt knows poisons.

The only thing left to do is resume their trip to Arzt's place to search for further evidence in the murder plot. Trudi greets them, and is stunned to hear of Arzt's death. (They wrapped him in a tarp and placed him back in the car for the time being.) She lets them in his private study, which was off limits while he was alive, and stands aside while they search. They locate the safe and open it up to find some random things including Arzt's will; Hesse skims it, furrows his brow, then tells Trudi that Arzt left his house and most of his belongings to her. He assumes the two are lovers, but Trudi seems just as bewildered as Immerwahr and Ettlinger were--"We weren't lovers. We weren't even friends. Why would he leave it to me?" Hesse doesn't know, and by now he doesn't really care. They return their attention to the search while Trudi turns and quietly leaves. They find some sort of records related to a medical experiment and an esoteric organization known as the Thule Society, then they find Trudi's medical file. Hesse glances at it in mild curiosity, and is promptly confused--the name on the file is GERTRAUD DETZER, yet the name inside the file is GERWIN DETZER. He figures it's some sort of mixup and Trudi has a twin brother whom Arzt was also treating until he reads on a bit more, and gets even more and more confused. His companion sees the look on his face and asks what's wrong; Hesse stammers, "Fräulein Trudi--she--he's a boy?" That of course makes zero sense to his friend, they were just talking to Fräulein Trudi and obviously she's a girl. Hesse asks where she is and they finally notice she's no longer standing there; they quickly go through the rest of the house, and in Trudi's room they find that several dresser drawers have been pulled open and emptied, and the door leading to the side yard is unlocked. Trudi knew they would locate her medical file; she made a phone call, packed a few things, then hurried out to the car that arrived shortly after and got the hell out of there. Needless to say, Hesse is beyond pissed off, by now.

There are a few key details here that both Arzt and Hesse overlooked; if they hadn't been so singlemindedly focused on Heidenreich's death, they might have noticed what was amiss. The SS has been leaking intel like a sieve and Hesse can't pinpoint where it's coming from. It turns out Arzt was the main leak--though unwittingly. That's because Trudi is a member of the Diamond Network: She'd caught another of them in the act of breaking into Arzt's house, but allowed her to escape. Surmising that the young woman living with the SS captain could be a potential ally, Diamant recruited her; Arzt discovered this and threatened her, but clever Trudi simply turned herself into a double agent. She remained living under Arzt's protection, feeding him carefully selected bits of information given to her by the Diamond Network, while simultaneously reporting all of Arzt's activities--as well as anything he'd told her while they were alone together--to Diamant. She was always there, sitting in the other room, while Arzt and Eva Heidenreich met; meaning the Diamond Network had suspicions that Arzt and Eva were up to something before Gerhardt, Hesse, or anyone else did. And the car that she called to shuttle her away from Arzt's house and into Diamond Network custody?--is the same limo used to transport members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände, chauffeured by the Diamond Network operative Andreas Cranz (the other big leak in the SS).

So in the end, only one person with knowledge of the Heidenreich plot--Eva Heidenreich herself--ever faces punishment for it, and Hesse is forced to end the investigation, highly disillusioned.

Arzt's role in the plot doesn't end with his death, however. Toward the end of the story, I haven't worked out all the details yet, but some of the characters have a run-in with a Waffen-SS panzer division whose members are strangely fanatical and seem to possess almost unlimited stamina. Of course it's assumed they're high on meth, but it soon becomes clear this is something even more than that. The good guys barely escape with their lives; the only thing that stops the panzer commander (an as-yet unnamed master sergeant I've mentioned before, he has some goofy earlier interactions with Master Sergeant Schulte wherein they yell vulgar slurs at each other and then trade chocolate and cigarettes) is a gunshot to the head. Literally nothing else works. The good guys can only surmise they're on some kind of SUPER meth and leave it at that. After their escape, however, a few details come to light: These Waffen-SS members apparently participated in Project Doomsday, the Nazi medical experiment that plays such a prominent role in the story. This doesn't seem to make sense, as the Doomsday serum--which confers immense strength, intelligence, stamina, and ability to withstand pain on successful test subjects--works only on people with a VERY rare blood type mutation, and successful subjects can be counted on the fingers of one hand with room to spare--all of them were in the rodent side of the experiment. (Remember there are two parallel storylines in the Trench Rats universe, a rodent one and a canine one.) This here was an ENTIRE PANZER DIVISION of seemingly successful test subjects. How is that possible? They couldn't all have the same very rare blood type AND blood mutation.

This plot point is left hanging at the end of the story but gets picked up in the epilogue story, Ultima Thule, which takes place a little while after the war has ended and everyone has started settling down. Rumor reaches the two sets of main characters that Project Doomsday, which was believed ended when its headquarters was raided and the doctor in charge was killed, is in fact still going strong. It's merely been renamed--Project Ultima Thule--and repurposed--rather than increasing strength and intelligence yadda yadda, now it's focusing on conferring immortality itself. Some Nazi doctors who managed to escape capture fled to the mountains and have been keeping the project going. It quickly becomes clear that the members of the Waffen-SS panzer division were involved in the early stages of this updated project (before the doctors fled)--updated, as in the serum now works on ALL blood types. (Fun fact, if the characters had had the chance to check out the arms of the SS members in the previous story, they might have confirmed something was amiss--many Waffen-SS members had their blood group tattooed on their arm.) The serum has been majorly tweaked, and not only has its main limitation been removed, but it's gained a new and much more sinister purpose.

How was this possible when the doctor in charge of the project, Dietmar Kammler, was killed before he could resolve this issue? It's yet another instance of the characters overlooking something right in front of them. I already mentioned the project was successful only in the rodent side of the story--nowhere in the plot, so far as I know, are there any successful canine test subjects. Most of the characters probably assumed the same thing I did, that Project Doomsday was limited to just the one side, and the canine Nazis never bothered with it. Welp! That's not correct. Communication between the two groups is quite limited, but at some point Kammler must have gotten in touch with the canine Nazi doctors and given them all the important information to tweak the serum, probably because he was having such s**tty luck himself. (Sabotage, in his case. But anyway.) Two of the doctors who just happened to gain access to this information were Mengele, and Arzt. Mengele, since he's the one most interested in weird experiments, did the bulk of the work fixing the serum, but Arzt played a pretty big role in spreading the word about it and securing further funding: He was either connected to or actually a member of the Thule Society, whose logo--a broken sun cross swastika (remember that?)--Trudi once spotted in his office without knowing what it was. As you can tell by the name, the Thule Society had a hand in Project Ultima Thule, and Arzt came up with the idea of testing out an early version of the updated serum on the panzer division, misleading them into thinking it was just some variant of the meth they were always being given. This was why they were so difficult to defeat earlier.

After Arzt's death, Mengele is the one left to take up the mantle of the project. He irons out the bugs and passes it on to the remaining doctors before going into hiding and eventually fleeing the country. (So he never plays a direct role in Ultima Thule, no; he's not among the doctors who presumably end up dead at the series conclusion. A-hole lives on into the 1970s in South America!) Among the rodent faction, the party left in charge of the project is SS Major Ludolf Jäger (who sports a nice big BROKEN SUN CROSS SWASTIKA tattoo on his shoulder--yep--he's a member of the Society); among the canine faction, I currently know of nobody in particular who is left in charge, though there's the group of Nazi doctors, and then among both factions, there are the experimental test subjects doing their bidding. On the rodent side, known test subjects include Lance Corporal Indigo Rat (killed by shrapnel in the previous story) and Jäger himself (a volunteer); on the canine side, they include PFC Konrad Helmstadt, and Lt. Hesse.

Notice that three of the four test subjects named here were killed in the previous story: Indigo by shrapnel, Helmstadt and Hesse by gunshot to the chest. Yet here they all are, alive again, though not quite themselves--in contrast to their standard uniforms, they're all (even Indigo) dressed in a weird white variant of the SS uniform, their eyes have an odd milky blue haze to them, and they all act like automatons, largely unaware/unaffected by what's going on around them. (Jäger is the lone exception to this last one--because he's the only one who took the serum voluntarily, while still alive.) They're also apparently unfazed by any attempts to injure or kill them, similar to the panzer division. Eventually, the Trench Rat surgeon, Burgundy Rat, discovers that the Nazi doctors also engineered a chemical that partly counteracts the serum by overriding its hypnotic effects (I don't know for sure yet, but perhaps Arzt came up with this as a failsafe--sounds more like something he'd do, rather than the gung-ho Mengele). Indigo is the first to get this tried out on him--he's jabbed with a needle of the counter-serum or whatever it is (they've located some within the Alpine Fortress where all this is taking place) while attacking his former comrades, and for the first time shows a reaction, yelling and dropping to the ground writhing in pain. After several moments, though, some of the milky haze clears from his eyes, he blinks, and starts recognizing everyone around him. He's literally been brought back from the dead. He has no memory of anything after getting hit by the shrapnel, except a vague impression of being somewhere else and meeting someone. (There are hints of an afterlife given in the story but it doesn't dwell on this, since I try to avoid overt religious themes.)

The Trench Rats share this discovery with the canine faction, and they get their hands on the chemical and manage to use it first on Hesse, then on Helmstadt. Hesse, who'd been killed by Diamant while attempting to take the Dobermanns into custody, is extremely confused to suddenly find himself in an icy area, dressed in white and surrounded by different people; as he learns more about what's going on, he decides to switch sides, since the Third Reich, the SS, even his loyal master sergeant Schulte and his lover Sophie are all gone and he has literally nothing left but to help his old friends the Dobermanns. Helmstadt's reaction is decidedly different--although initially confused (his last memory is about the same as Hesse's), he's as devoted to the fallen Nazi cause as ever, and continues actively attacking and working against the Allies. They make another interesting discovery: There's another means of counteracting Ultima Thule's subjects, and that involves putting a bullet in or otherwise destroying the brain--exactly what happened with the panzer commander. (This is also why characters like Schulte, who was shot in the head, aren't resurrected for use in Ultima Thule--only those who were killed by other means.) So this is the big weakness in the project, and the Allies determine they have to make use of it to end the combined efforts of Kammler, Mengele, Arzt, and the rest once and for all.

Of course there's more, but that's the extent of Arzt's part in it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Erich Arzt 2022 [‎Friday, ‎September ‎30, ‎2022, ‏‎3:00:06 AM]]

[Erich Arzt 2022 2 [‎Friday, ‎September ‎30, ‎2022, ‏‎3:00:22 AM]]

#artists on tumblr #ibisPaint x #SketchDaily #original characters

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wintwholesale · 2 years

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Smarty cat

#SMARTY CAT TV#

I turned it off and let them get used to it again. I made the mistake of leaving it on, and my two cats were scared the first time they saw it move right after they exited. I recommend turning this auto-mode off in the beginning until your cats are used to their new robotic bathroom. In the app, you can set it to automatically clean six seconds to 20 minutes after your cat uses it. The app has a daily rundown of the times your cat used it and the cat's weight, so for multi-cat households, you'll be able to distinguish which one is which (unless they're the exact same size). The Smarty Pear app (available on iOS and Android) alerts you when the drawer is full, which can be roughly once a week, so you can mostly forget about it until it's time to change out all the litter. The Loo Too also uses ultraviolet light for cleaning. (Make sure you use clumping litter.) The company sells drawstring drawer liners, but any bag should work. Can you blame them?Īutomatic litter boxes like Leo's Loo Too have an internal barrel that slowly spins around once the cat has exited, separating clumps from the rest of the litter and depositing them into an odor-proof drawer equipped with a liner. If you don't scoop often, not only will your house start to smell, but your cat may stop using the box. Scooping a litter box might be the worst part of cat ownership. The name's a bit of a mouthful, but the data it produces is really helpful. But Smarty Pear's newest automatic litter box tracks your cat’s bathroom visits and weight in its connected app and sends you a push notification every time they go. Vet experts I've talked to have expressed hesitation in recommending automatic litter boxes for the reason I listed above-if you’re not scooping the litter box often, you might not notice the lack of clumps until it’s too late. That's when I found the next best thing: Smarty Pear's Leo’s Loo Too. I work from home and am psychotically obsessed with every move my cats make, but we can’t be with them all the time. So it's important for cat parents to observe bathroom habits. If they can't go, the buildup of toxins can be fatal, and it happens quickly. Some medication (and a hefty bill) later, he was able to urinate-problem solved.Ĭats are prone to urethra blockages and urinary tract infections (UTIs), particularly males. An emergency vet visit discovered he has lower urinary tract disease. I noticed he was visiting the litter box frequently without actually going. Awards 1965 – winner of the Myer Poetry Prize 1967 – winner of the Ampol Arts Award for Creative Literature 1968 – winner of the Myer Poetry Prize 1973 – winner of the Dame Mary Gilmore Medal 1978 – winner of the Grace Leven Prize for Poet Donald Bruce Dawe AO (15 February 1930 – 1 April 2020) was an Australian poet, considered by some as one of the most influential Australian poets of all time.A few months back, my cat Huxley started acting strange. Although some have rumored that he's gone to Canberra to be a politician.moreĭonald Bruce Dawe AO (15 February 1930 – 1 April 2020) was an Australian poet, considered by some as one of the most influential Australian poets of all time. There's a disgraceful episode at the studio, and Barry goes back to being a cat, full-time. Barry hates dogs! His confidence starts to ooze away. But he keeps on winning - until a new quiz champion, Bluey, is brought in from the bush.

#SMARTY CAT TV#

To their astonishment, Barry starts to answer the questions - correctly! It's amazing enough that Barry can talk - but his general knowledge is amazing! Barry becomes a TV quiz champion, and soon he's starting to act the star. His owners, the Dimwiddies, don't realise just how special he is until one extraordinary evening when they're watching the TV quiz show Pick-a-Dilly. To their astonishment, Barry starts to answer the questions - correctly! It's amazing enough that Barry can talk - but his general knowledge is amazing! Barr Barry is not only very handsome, but he is also a very special cat. Barry is not only very handsome, but he is also a very special cat.

#Smarty cat

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paragonrobits · 3 years

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A friend asked me to give a stab at a Tierlist Maker for Video Games Not Yet In the Video Game Hall of Fame Tier List Maker, so here's my list for it!

This is based primarily on what I considered to be overall value to gaming history as a whole, with games with greater influence or impact ranking higher than those that had less impact on those to follow, or on culture. All the entries are those that have been nominated to the Hall of Fame, but not actually inducted as of this post's writing. Games that I personally like are generally rated higher, though mostly because I'm more familiar with them and thus can judge their impact from a personal POV.

(Tier List explainations, below!)

SHOULD BE IN ALREADY

Final Fantasy: I mean seriously. How is this one not already in yet?? It is not, as my research suggests, the first true RPG; that likely goes to games like Ultima. It is certainly an incredibly influential one; FF is a name closely associated with JRPGs in general, and its diverse class system is one of the strongest things to do with it, as noted by challenges like beating the game with a party of Black Belts. FF is THE name of RPGs in general and I'm startled it hasn't made it in, though I suppose that's owing to more notable entries (Hard as that is to imagine). It doesn't hurt that the majority of my favorite FF titles are those most similar to this one, such as FF6 and FF9, in terms of approaching the general world setting and class systems. Most significantly is that this game popularized RPGs and made them accessible, in ways that previous games such as Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest did not; the field of gaming would be VERY different without it; RPGs became VERY popular, to the extent of RPG elements being almost universal among other games in the modern day. (I am also pleased and amused to see 8-Bit Theater mentioned on the actual Wikipedia page. Now THAT'S notability!)

Sid Meir's Civilization: HEY NOW HALL OF FAME JUDGES, DON'T YOU BE MOCKING CIV, ALRIGHT. CIV IS FUCKING AWESOME. Okay, jokes aside, I'm genuinely astonished as the Civ series is considered the first true main game of the 4x series, and it shows; the entire genre centers around expansion, resource usage and diplomacying or conquering your enemies, and considering the impact of this game and its sheer popularity, to the extent of the meme of the game getting people to play for Just One More Turn, I'm a bit disappointed that it's not already in the hall of fame. I also note that I am personally more familiar with the spin off Alpha Centauri, a sci fi variant, which is still one of my all time favorite games.

Half-Life: Given this game's popularity, to the point of its release alone consigning the likes of Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines to cult classic status and its engine spawning a whole THING with GMod and the usage of physics mechanics in FPS games, one thing of note is its use of scripted sequences; at the time, an unknown in most games of the time. There may be something to be said for how the entire game is spent as Gordon Freeman, behind his eyes, possibly engendering a lack of separation between self and character that would be later emphasized in games like Bioshock. It's influence on games cannot be denied, with publications using it as a bookend between eras of gaming. One consistent element of what seems to make this game so distinctive is its approach to storytelling, without simply imitating film techniques which don't always work well with gameplay.

Candy Crush: This is an example of something I don't personally play myself, or even like very much, but I'd be remiss to dismiss it out of hand. There's no denial that phone games are one of, if not THE biggest market of games in the here in now; if now in scale, certainly in quantity. You might call it the TF2 Hat Economy theory; people aren't spending BIG bucks, but they are spending a LOT of little bucks all the time. It proves that highly accessible games that are generally free to play, with optional purchases, are a legitimate means of game business, and this certainly revolutionized how games were seen by the money-makers.

Super Smash Bros Melee: I loved this game as a kid, but truth be told i have a bit of a love-hate relationship; i REALLY dislike the competitive community that has fixated hard on this game, so any thoughts on it will have a slight element of pause beforehand. Even so, I can't forget the thrilled delight I felt watching the trailer for this game in supermarkets for the first time as a kid. at a time when getting any new games at all was a HUGE deal in my family. So, there is a lot of feeling behind this one! Ultimately, I have to concede that while i have complicated feelings about this game, its worth noting that the vast majority of things that made Smash iconic, and influenced the competitive scene AND the games inspired by Smash AND shaped the course of the series going forwards, largely owe themselves to Melee in particular. 64 was far more slow paced, while Melee began the trend towards much more fast paced action (and while I doubt it's SPECIFIC to melee as a whole, it may have been a trend for the genre from then). Melee is STILL widely played, especially on the competitive scene, and this sort of longevity always bears evidence of notability.

Goldeneye 007: I have to admit that despite being a kid in the 90s, despite someone who put most of their time into gaming, and despite being someone whose favorite system at the time was the Nintendo 64, I mostly missed out on the trend of history by honestly not being that much into this game. I have to say that I DID play it, however; I just never managed to get past the first level or so. I have strong memories of triyng and failing to sneak around a snowy lair of some description; it wouldn't be until the mid-2000s, playing Deus Ex Human Revolution, that I got the hang of stealth. All the same, personal indifference really doesn't matter much because HOLY SHIT THIS GAME HAS SOME STAYING POWER. IT HAS INFLUENCE, FRIENDORITOS. Perhaps chiefly, at the time it was made, consoles were not considered viable platforms for first person shooters; Goldeneye revised that notion, and created a whole revolution in multiplayer and shooter games. We would later see the ultimate consequence of this in games like Halo, which further revolutionized the whole genre. Ironically, the stealth attributes I was so bad at were part of what made the game so unique! It's one of those games that may not have aged well, by modern standards, but its import to gaming as a whole goes a long, long way.

Guitar Hero: I expect this one might be a bit hard to justify, but on its own, this game is INCREDIBLY innovative, though its not entirely the first of its kind, having mechanics based on earlier games. The very first entry has a respectable library of 30 songs, which is impressive considered at the time it was made, its not likely people expected it to get as far as it did; bear in mind that the massive libraries of later games were the result of years of this game series being a massive steamroller of a franchise! At the time, this one was an unknown. It has an interesting history as being a successor of sorts to an arcade exclusive, and inspiring a genre of imitators and spiritual successors on its own; of great note is the sheer impact this game had. With so many of those successors, the increased value of liscened soundtracks, and the way the game's concept became so influential, its astounding this one isn't already on the hall of fame. (It's also very fun, but fun alone doesn't make for memorability, sad to say.)

DESERVES IT AT SOME POINT

Myst - an iconic and incredibly atmospheric puzzle game, I'm genuinely surprised that I haven't heard talk about this one in some respect; it bears note as a rare game with absolutely no conflict whatsoever. I actually rank this one on par with the 7th Guest in terms of atmospheric games, though their tones could not be more different. So why do I think this game deserves it at some point? It was an incredibly immersive and beautiful game, lacking in genuine danger or threat, encouraging the player to explore and tackle the puzzles of the game. This sort of open-ended lack of peril makes it an interesting precursor towards certain flavors of sandbox games around now. It's worth noting that it was a tremendous achievement, given technical limitations of things such as the CD-Rom it was stored on, maintaining a consistent experience, as well as tying narrative reasons into those very constraints. It has been compared to an art film; if so, it certainly is the sort that invited imitators and proved to be a great technical achievement.

Portal: PORTAL! What can I honestly say that hasn't already been said by other people? The amazing integration of a physics engine into innovative puzzle solving, combined with a slow burn sort of minimalist plot reveal concerning the AI proving itself to be a kind of reverse HAL 9000? This game got a HUGE number of memes back in the day, and I expect anyone reading this can probably reference a few. The cake thing, certainly, and its relevance to matters of deception. There is much discussion over the game's utility in academic circles, which is certainly quite notable, and for my part, I'm interested by the point that at first the game gives you a lot of hints towards what you're supposed to do, gradually making it less obvious for the player you're on your own entirely, using your experience with the game to get past the puzzles from there, and its excellent game design. Ultimately though, I place this below Half Life in hall of fame urgency, because while I probably like this one more, it doesn't have the same impact on other games, per say. (That's a lot of awards for it, though. Wowza.)

Resident Evil: Is it fair to call this one the major survival horror game of its era? No, because it's apparently the FIRST, or at least the first to be called such. It's certainly up there with shaping the genre as a whole, both its immediate predecessors and modern games. The flavor of a survival horror can even be judged about whether its close to Resident Evil's style of defending yourself with limited resources vs controlled helplessness. It's also worth pointing out that I quite like the restricted, cramped setting of the mansion, rather than an expansive city; Biohazard was a real return to form, even if its something I mostly watched through funny lets plays because OH NO ITS TOO SCARY I CANT WATCH.

Asteroids: It's called the first major hit of the golden age of the arcade. I'm forced to say... yeah, it absolutely deserves it. The actual implementation and hardware of the game makes for interesting reading, and so its innovative nature ought to be noted: it lacked a soundchip at all, making use of handmade circuits wired to the board. It's reception was great, beating out Space Invaders and needing larger boxes just to hold all the money people spent on it. It also invented the notion of tracking initials on the top ten score, which has implications for arcade challenges.

Ms. Pac Man: This one consistently ranks HIGH in gaming records of its time, though there is admittedly some confusion to whether it or Donkey Kong was a better seller. Interestingly it appears to shape most of the gameplay mechanics people remember most for Pac-Man, such as the improved AI of the ghosts. It's more highly regarded than the original game, and on a personal note, I remember being a kid and seeing this arcade machine at ALL the laundry places my family usually wound up going to.

Frogger: It's placing on this list is not solely because CUTE FROG. The accessibility and wide appeal of the game bears a great deal of consideration, the flexibility of its formula, and just how many dang times it's been ported in one form or another. (And also, cute frog.) It also gets points for the creator being inspired for the game when he saw a frog trying to cross a road, hampered by the vehicles in the way, and he got out of his car and carried the frog across the street. The game is also evident of broad appeal, and some money-makers resisting it, goes back a long way; it was apparently dismissed as a kid's game by some, which just goes to show that some problems are older than quite a lot of gamers alive today.

Uncharted 2: this is one of those games where I cannot honestly say I have personal experience to draw from. Of the playstation's big games, I remember the Jak and Daxter series; I remember Kingdom Hearts, and I remember Ratchet and Clank, and I remember Infamous, but the Uncharted series remains

something of a 'I don't go here?' obscurity in my personal playbook. It does look memorable and charming from what I've seen, and one consistent element I've seen in comments about it is the cinematic nature of the game; it feels very much like a fun heist movie, based on what I have seen of it, and the notable thing is how the game FEELS cinematic.. in a literal way. As in, it combined elements of cinematography with game design, and that's no mean feat: what works for movies are unlikely to translate well to the interactive side, and it shows how that can be done for other games. The extensive praise does the game a LOT of credit!

WORTH NOMINATION AT LEAST

Angry Birds: As noted before, I'm not the biggest fan of most phone games, given that i prefer a more passive experience than most provide. As such, Angry Birds isn't something I've played as of this writing, but I have to appreciate the straightforward and simple gameplay; it reminds me a bit of the Burrito Bison game series, which I HAVE played, and I'm going to go out on a limb and assume it's because Angry Birds is probably the innovation that coined that particular style of gameplay. It's an example of what made phone games profitable and worth the time of developers to work at them; its easy for casual players to get into, and there's a fun sort of impact involved. Given the popularity of phone games, this one has a LOT of influence in getting that rolling, similar to candy crush, if not as much.

FIFA International Soccer: Simulation games are a tricky business; it can be really difficult to get them right, and this game provides an example of it being done in a way that a lot of people REALLY loved, set up an entire game series, and revived the 3DO system after a very bad year. Of note, apparently it was commented that it was more of a simulator than a console game, and this is rather funny considering how simulator is its own genre nowadays! Such do things change. It seems to have been a revolutionary game and simulation; setting the shape for modern sport games of its type, and tending more towards realism (accounting for acceptable breaks in reality) than was typical of the time. This one's position is thus picked for its impact as a whole; while it may not necessarily be a household name now, the series continues on, and is popular enough that even after 20 years, it's still been going.

Elite: I nominate this game in this position for being a startlingly early entry into what we would now consider open-ended games, even with an element of exploration and trading; if one stretches definitions a bit, a precursor towards gameplay of the like scene in 4X players who strive to avoid conflict, if possible. Its technical breakthroughs are some very interesting reading and make for good game history; a vast and complex game (not just by the standards of the era, either), and opening the door for persistent world games such as World of Warcraft.

Wii Sports: A significant game, and much as how other titles mentioned above were famed for gateway entries into gaming for an unfamiliar audience, or those that would want o play on a more casual basis. It seems notable to me for being most suited as a family game, or a more casual experience of multiplayer than usually associated with games like this; this has greatly influenced Nintendo's design philosophy, and one can see elements of this all the way through the Wii U onwards. It's essentially a fliparound from Mario Party; less competitiveness, but definitely meant as a group thing. Controversy is evident, because like with Mario Party, injuries did result from it.

Call of Duty: I place this one here because, while it DOES hold a very significant role in gaming history, with countless imitators, spiritual successors, being a game-changer in ways that its modern reputation might surprise you with, ultimately it is less so than other games such as Goldeneye, Halo or Half-Life. It's development in AI pathfinding and tactics is incredibly noteworthy from a mechanical perpsective, and the sheer level of awards it won is notable. In the end this game's popularity and continuing influence means that it shouldn't be overlooked.

Metroid: You can't spell 'Metroidvania' without this game! A relatively open ended exploration-based game with further options opening as new tools were found give it an interesting vibe, and the oppressive atmosphere distinctive to the game says great things about its sound and level designs. It wasn't the first open world game, or explorer, or even the first to open new aereas based on equipment, but it had ALL of these elements in a very memorable package. (Samus Aran as a female protagonist is something I'm a bit reluctant to give it credit for, as her identity was obfuscated for most of the game, and only revealed in a fanservicey way in a secret ending. All the same, credit where it is due, I suppose!) It's music seems to endure as a mood setter, too!

Pole Position: Perhaps not the FIRST racing game, but still considered one of the most important from the golden age of gaming, and the one to codify many of the firm rules of the game series. It's three dimensional gameplay is incredibly innovative for its time, and having played it and games like it in the past, I'm struck by how smooth the whole thing feels. No wonder it was popular! It is notable for having been designed specifically as a 3d Experience, meant to execute techniques like real drivers might attempt, which makes it a different sort of beast in that it tried to do more realistic actions; in some ways, a precursor to modern trends of realism in many games, for ill or best. Ultimately I think this one is worth a nomination because of its influence towards racing games (a popular and long lived genre, to say the least) as a whole.

OUTSIDE CHANCE

Nurburgring 1: On the one hand, I feel a bit guilty putting this one so low; it is recognized as likely being the earliest racing game in history, and given that I just finished noting Pole Position's influence, it feels a bit mean to rate this one as relatively insignificant all the same. However, in terms of notability, I never even heard of this one, and it was tricky finding information about it. Accordingly, that may say something about its influence, though this position DOES make it noteworthy as the first of its kind, albeit with Pole Position refining and introducing elements that shaped the genre.

Dance Dance Revolution: It feels a bit strange, putting this one fairly low. This thing was a MONSTER back in the day; entire arcades were built around the dancing control peripherals it required, rhythm based games or mechanics specifically invoked it by name, and it was an absolute cultural touchstone for years and years. So, why place it low? Partly, its because I can't just shove EVERYTHING into the 'deserves a nomination' folder; I do think it's fairly reasonable for this one to at some point get a nomination in the future, though ultimately there's games more noteworthy on the whole. It's specific rhythm qualities continue outside of its genre, and are quite influential to gaming as a whole, though unfortunately the series seems to have lost something in notability over time; popularity is a factor, but so is the impact on other games.

NBA 2K and NBA Jam: I put these two together because they touch on similar touchstones for me, and they really did popularize basketball games back in the day. Jam in particular seems to be invoking the Big Head mode that were a big thing in games at the time, at least going from the screenshot. They were very popular and highly beloved games back in the day, though I don't know if they have much influence on later games. I note that interestingly, they take opposite approaches; 2k focuses on AI and realistic experiences, while Jam was deliberately less realistic and more actiony in its over the top gameplay.

Nokia Snake: This one really impresses me for the sheer number of releases, in various forms, it's had! Interestingly, there seems to be little consensus on the name of this game; most just call it Snake or something on that theme. I went with Nokia Snake because... mostly, it sounds funny, and that's how its done on the list. This one is fairly low, but I Have to give it credit for having hundreds of releases!

Farmville: My mom liked Facebook games, a lot. And I am certain this one was one of her main ones! I rate it fairly low, and no doubt her spirit is yelling imprecations at me across the void of time, space, and abandoned socks; all the same, this one is ranked low because of the sheer number of displeasure aimed this one's way. (And to be fair, she complained about it. A LOT.) It is thus notable for unusually negative reasons; an example of exploitation, pressuring players to pester their friends to play it in an equivalent to electronic chain mail, and microtranscations.

Tron: I'm inclined to give any game that takes place in a computer land and uses programming or mechanical terminology a free pass! Interestingly, this has some association with the Snake game, as they have similar gameplay and Snake games are sometimes called Light Cylce games, after this one. It has an interesting history; the graphical system was chosen largely because it was believed it was more likely to be achieved before the deadline.

NO BUSINESS IN THE HALL OF FAME

Mattel Football: I do feel a little mean putting anything in this category; firstly because I don't want to make actual fans of something sad, and secondly because I believe you can probably find notability anywhere you look, if you are inclined. And here is the chief difficulty with this one: I could not find any real information in this one. It has no Wikipedia page, a google search only led to undescriptive links of SALES for the game, but not any information on the game itself. Notability is my main resource for sorting these entries, and honestly? If google has nothing on you, that's a pretty poor sign. Sorry, Mattel Football, but you look like a poor man's Game And Watch. You're no Portal, Myst or Pole Position.

#tier lists #tiermaker lists

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readerbookclub · 3 years

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Before introducing our newest book list, I want to say sorry about this month. It’s been underwhelming to say the least. So far this year was very chaotic (packing up to move countries, having the plane tickets cancelled, and getting into Oxford?!). Between everything that happened, I neglected this club. But I’m very excited and well-prepared for next month, so it won’t happen again at least in the foreseeable future. We also have several enthusiastic new members who’ve messaged me, so hopefully our discussion will be even more lively this time!

Now back to our newest book list. Not to brag, but I think this is the best one yet. Time Warp is a collection of books that bend and play with time. It’s such an interesting topic that includes books from many different genres. Several of your recommendations also fit in perfectly. So let’s jump right in!

Typically stories play out over the span of weeks, months, or even years. But what if a writer were to shrink that timeline? Not to days or hours, but the mere seconds it takes to ride an elevator? Well, that’s what Jason Reynolds did in our first book, a story that lasts for a single elevator ride:

Long Way Down, Jason Reynolds:

A cannon. A strap. A piece. A biscuit. A burner. A heater. A chopper. A gat. A hammer A tool for RULE Or, you can call it a gun. That’s what fifteen-year-old Will has shoved in the back waistband of his jeans. See, his brother Shawn was just murdered. And Will knows the rules. No crying. No snitching. Revenge. That’s where Will’s now heading, with that gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, the gun that was his brother’s gun. He gets on the elevator, seventh floor, stoked. He knows who he’s after. Or does he? As the elevator stops on the sixth floor, on comes Buck. Buck, Will finds out, is who gave Shawn the gun before Will took the gun. Buck tells Will to check that the gun is even loaded. And that’s when Will sees that one bullet is missing. And the only one who could have fired Shawn’s gun was Shawn. Huh. Will didn’t know that Shawn had ever actually USED his gun. Bigger huh. BUCK IS DEAD. But Buck’s in the elevator? Just as Will’s trying to think this through, the door to the next floor opens. A teenage girl gets on, waves away the smoke from Dead Buck’s cigarette. Will doesn’t know her, but she knew him. Knew. When they were eight. And stray bullets had cut through the playground, and Will had tried to cover her, but she was hit anyway, and so what she wants to know, on that fifth floor elevator stop, is, what if Will, Will with the gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, MISSES. And so it goes, the whole long way down, as the elevator stops on each floor, and at each stop someone connected to his brother gets on to give Will a piece to a bigger story than the one he thinks he knows. A story that might never know an END…if WILL gets off that elevator.

***

Our next book warps time in a slightly different way. What if every time you woke up, you found yourself in the same day (a sort-of Groundhog Day situation)? But unlike Groundhog Day, you wake up in different bodies. This thrilling book was suggested to me by one of you, and I absolutely loved the premise:

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton:

Aiden Bishop knows the rules. Evelyn Hardcastle will die every day until he can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest at Blackheath Manor. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others. With a locked room mystery that Agatha Christie would envy, Stuart Turton unfurls a breakneck novel of intrigue and suspense. For fans of Claire North, and Kate Atkinson, The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a breathlessly addictive mystery that follows one man's race against time to find a killer, with an astonishing time-turning twist that means nothing and no one are quite what they seem.

***

Now we move on to an exciting genre: time travel! This next book was recommended to me by @earphonesandquills and I just had to put it on the list. A sci-fi love story between two people on opposite sides of a war:

This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone:

Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future. Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There's still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war.

***

Typically, the protagonists of time-travel books are very intelligent people. But what would happen if someone wasn’t so competent? What if they fucked it up? That’s exactly what the protagonist in our next book does. Coming from a perfect reality, he messes up and finds himself in a horrifying dystopia (aka our world):

All Our Wrong Todays, Elan Mastai:

You know the future that people in the 1950s imagined we'd have? Well, it happened. In Tom Barren's 2016, humanity thrives in a techno-utopian paradise of flying cars, moving sidewalks, and moon bases, where avocados never go bad and punk rock never existed . . . because it wasn't necessary. Except Tom just can't seem to find his place in this dazzling, idealistic world, and that's before his life gets turned upside down. Utterly blindsided by an accident of fate, Tom makes a rash decision that drastically changes not only his own life but the very fabric of the universe itself. In a time-travel mishap, Tom finds himself stranded in our 2016, what we think of as the real world. For Tom, our normal reality seems like a dystopian wasteland. But when he discovers wonderfully unexpected versions of his family, his career, and—maybe, just maybe—his soul mate, Tom has a decision to make. Does he fix the flow of history, bringing his utopian universe back into existence, or does he try to forge a new life in our messy, unpredictable reality? Tom’s search for the answer takes him across countries, continents, and timelines in a quest to figure out, finally, who he really is and what his future—our future—is supposed to be.

***

Our final book is something I never knew I needed until I found it. I have spent way too much time day dreaming about a scenario where I find myself in the distant past. I imagine myself telling people about electricity and planes and modern medicine. But if they asked me to actually make something, I wouldn’t be able to. And that bothers me. This book is the solution. It’s a non-fiction guide on what to do if you were to find yourself in such a scenario (as unlikely as it may seem):

How to Invent Everything: A Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler, by Ryan North:

What would you do if a time machine hurled you thousands of years into the past. . . and then broke? How would you survive? Could you improve on humanity's original timeline? And how hard would it be to domesticate a giant wombat? With this book as your guide, you'll survive--and thrive--in any period in Earth's history. Bestselling author and time-travel enthusiast Ryan North shows you how to invent all the modern conveniences we take for granted--from first principles. This illustrated manual contains all the science, engineering, art, philosophy, facts, and figures required for even the most clueless time traveler to build a civilization from the ground up. Deeply researched, irreverent, and significantly more fun than being eaten by a saber-toothed tiger, How to Invent Everything will make you smarter, more competent, and completely prepared to become the most important and influential person ever.

***

That’s it for this month’s list. Hope you like these books as much as I do! As always, please vote here.

Member’s List (message me if you want to be added/removed): @solitarystudies @adhyayana-v @gordinmegan @appleinducedsleep @morphedphase @lilian-evans @bowieziggyfan @calebprior25 @bluebellraven @love-witch-magic @badasthesun @theeezoneee @montaguest @wanderlustingdreamer @csloreen @elfspectations @astreamoflight @engineeriblr @chemistrybaby6-022x10-23 @pepperpaprikash @bubblylion

#book list #books #book club #booklr #long way down #time travel #sci fi #the 7 1/2 deaths of evelyn hardcastle #this is how you lose the time war #how to invent everything #all our wrong todays

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lacetulle · 4 years

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Hey there! Aspiring fashion designer here! I'm getting more and more into fashion and designing/ planning more and more outfits and I was wondering if you have any tips to get more into haute contour and fashion in general. Your blog has really helped me get a grasp of what I like and I all around love it!

I’m happy this blog could help in figuring out what styles you like! There are a ton of different mediums to get into fashion! I’ve compiled a list of options via videos, websites, and books. So strap in, this is a long post.

Since you already have an idea of who you like, I always suggest reading up on that brand/label/designer and going through their archives. For me, when I realized how much I loved Dior and knew I wanted to learn more, it was overwhelming at times because the label has such a long history. If you really like newer labels, like Zuhair Murad, Elie Saab, Iris van Herpen, etc., it’s a little more manageable to read up on the history and designers just because they were founded in the ‘90s/‘00s.

In terms of websites, I have a few to talk about.

Vogue. This is the easiest avenue to get into fashion. I’m not knocking it, because I use it the most for photos, but as far as websites go, it’s the most dumbed-down. But I mean that in the best way! The features, trend reports, and runway news appeals to even the most casual fashion fan. Vogue focuses mainly on big name/commercialized brands (Dior, Valentino, Gucci, etc.) rather than smaller ones (like Guo Pei and Ralph & Russo, two big couture names these days, get minimal coverage with Vogue). Vogue is a great resource for runway looks...it was my gateway into studying older runway collections. All in all, in terms of websites, Vogue is the tip of the fashion media iceberg. If you want to get into the more meatier parts of fashion, there are better sites.

Harper’s Bazaar. Like Vogue, it’s easy to navigate and leans more towards the more well-known fashion brands. Pre-covid, they always had a weekly street style recap as well. They have great lists but stay away from the business side of fashion. I typically use Harper’s Bazaar for the street style/every day fashion inspiration and news.

Who What Wear. A great site for following trends. They don’t focus so much on brands, but it’s a great resource for seeing what’s trending and options to buy said trends. For example, Who What Wear is the first place I went when I wanted to find a list of brands who were starting to sell masks.

WWD. Supposedly most designers prefer WWD to Vogue coverage. And it shows, since parts of the site require a subscription. WWD is one of the more technical sites and could be overwhelming for someone who doesn’t really understand the industry. They talk about the comings-and-goings of creative directors, financial news, and general fashion trends/news. It also has runway recaps and photos, which is typically what I use it for. If you’re really want to be in the know with breaking fashion news, they do offer email newsletters as well for a more condensed version of the site. Also, a super helpful page I’ve had bookmarked, their fashion dictionary.

Business of Fashion. The name is pretty self-explanatory. BoF is another one of those meatier sites that could be overwhelming at first. It’s also one that has a subscription service. BoF has great profiles of designers, so I’ve used the site as my starting point when learning about someone new. The BoF500 also showcases anyone and everyone who has a hand in shaping the industry.

The Impression. The cheapest of the subscription sites and the one I had until I cancelled a few months ago (not because it sucked, but, you know…corona). I mainly used them for their runway pictures. They were so fast to upload them, with details and backstage footage. The big draw is the fashion week/runway photography, but the talk about street style, short films and ads from brands, as well as fashion trends. At the end of every fashion week (New York, Milan, Paris, etc.) the put together a recap list of biggest trends, top shows, top models, and break down the numbers. I love the site for its minimalism and whenever the industry decides to have fashion weeks again, I’ll renew my subscription.

Magazines: Most people would say Vogue is the holy grail for fashion magazines, but I don’t think it’s that great (at least the US version). Vogue Paris, Italia, and UK are better in my opinion. And just because I don’t think the print version of US Vogue is the holy grail, doesn’t mean I don’t like it. I have a subscription and read it every month. Other options I really like are Harper’s Bazaar (any country’s version), Elle, InStyle, and W.

Videos: Other than the first one listed (which can be found on Netflix or Hulu, depending where you live), everything can be found on youtube. And now i’m constantly getting fashion recommendations on youtube, so it’s an easy rabbit hole to fall into.

First Monday in May. I’ve talked about this documentary before, but it bears repeating. It’s a gorgeous journey of how the Met Gala and Costume Institute Exhibit was put together. It’s about the ‘China: Through the Looking Glass’ exhibit in 2015. They interview big designers about how China has influenced some of their collections, and takes on the debate of whether fashion should even be in a museum. It was the first fashion documentary I ever watched and only made me fall more in love with fashion (and want to see every fashion exhibition).

The September Issue. Vogue’s September issues are always the biggest of the year. This documentary follows the process of designing the famous September issue of Vogue. I believe it was filmed in 2007 or 2008 so it’s dated, and digital media has changed the game, but it’s a good watch to see just how influential and important the September issue is in terms of forecasting fashion trends for the following year.

Savoir Faire: Christian Dior Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2011. A 50 minute video on how one, just one, piece from the couture collection was designed. It’s a great insight on just how much work goes in to creating a couture collection.

7 Days Out with Karl Lagerfeld. Another great showcase of the week leading up to a couture show, this time with Chanel. The documentary follows the 2018 show, which is one of Lagerfeld’s last few couture shows before his death.

Battle At Versailles: The Competition that Shook the Fashion Industry. It’s no secret that Paris is the epicenter of fashion. The couture houses are all based there, so France is typically where you needed to be to be a world renowned designer. In 1973 French and American designers competed against each other and brought American designers into the spotlight. There’s an hour long documentary on youtube and there’s a book that I’ve linked below. I’ve seen the video and I’m currently reading the book, so you have options here.

Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams. A good look at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs exhibit for the 70th anniversary of Dior. This documentary gives a nice, condensed look at each of the artistic directors of Dior and showcases some of the most iconic Dior looks. I knew about it, but didn’t go see it. I only saw pictures, which were beautiful…but to see it all come together on video was a dream. They talk to Celine Dion for a minute at the end, and her words sum up my feelings best about Dior, “I would love to wear one of these dresses one day, maybe in one of my lifetimes, or every night in my dreams.”

Books:

Inside Haute Couture: Behinds the Scenes at the Paris Ateliers. A gorgeous book with tons of photos about the intricacies that go in to a couture collection.

Kate Spade New York: All in Good Taste. I originally bought it for my coffee table collection, but it has some great style tips.

The Battle of Versailles: The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the Spotlight and Made History. Just in case you’d rather read about this legendary fashion show than watch. I’m currently reading it, so I can’t give you my final take on it. But I’m loving it so far.

Dior by Dior: Christian Dior’s autobiography. Who better to tell you about the history of Christian Dior, than Dior himself.

Elsa Schiaparelli: A Biography. I’m a big fan of Schiaparelli and would love for her legacy to be more widely known. She was a very private person, so when this biography dropped I was excited to read more about her. Elsa Schiaparelli was Coco Chanel’s biggest rival and was a household name in her time, but most people know Coco’s name over Elsa’s today. This is a nice dive into Schiaparelli’s life, since most people focus on Chanel’s legacy (and let’s be honest, Chanel is very idolized, which is so unfortunate, given her Nazi ties, but I digress.)

Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano. I tend to rave about the designs by these two, so it’s a good look into their journey in fashion.

The Beautiful Fall: Fashion, Genuis, and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris. If you’re interested in Lagerfeld (pre-Chanel days) or Yves Saint Laurent, it’s a great retrospective look at their rivalry.

Champagne Supernovas. If ‘90s fashion is something of interest, this book is a great read on how some big name rebels (McQueen, Marc Jacobs, Kate Moss, etc.) in the industry remade fashion as we know it.

Any of the Met Gala books: Camp: Notes on Fashion, Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, Manus x Machina, Heavenly Bodies, etc. My first one was the McQueen book, and at the time I didn’t know it was the official book from the Costume Institute Exhibit. They’re not all hardcover coffee table-esque books, but if you can’t attend an exhibit it’s the next best thing. They’re all great in-depth resources for learning about a certain area of fashion. They can be expensive, so I wouldn’t suggest investing in them unless you’re truly interested in that specific aspect of the industry. This year’s exhibit - whenever it opens - is About Time: Fashion and Duration. The exhibition book is already available and I think it’ll be an incredible exhibit of how current designers pull from older designers and trends.

The Fashion Book. It’s expensive. It’s massive. And it gives you a wealth of information. It’s essentially an encyclopedia for fashion. It’s not just designers; it highlights models, high profile photographers, style icons, and all those who influenced fashion.

I know this was long, but these have been the resources I’ve used over the years. I hope this can help you along your journey and if anyone has other things to add, please do!

#ask me anything

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not-xpr-art · 3 years

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Art Deep Dives #2 - The History of Fanart

Hi everyone!

This post is part of my Art Deep Dives tag, where I ramble about art-y things, often with some relation to art history in some way.

just so you know, these essays aren’t formal in anyway lol! I just do them for fun & to hopefully be interesting in some way to someone!

This week I’ll be talking about the history and importance of fanart! It’s not the entire history of fanart, just some key moments and points in it that I feel are important!

(this essay is about 2500 words long btw!)

Part 1 - What even is fanart?

I think when a lot of people hear about ‘fanart’, they often think of it as a new thing, something that came along at some point in the last century when media begun to be mass circulated around the world.

But, of course, fanart has existed long before media like Star Wars or Doctor Who were created, and even long before photography was invented, even if it wasn’t necessarily referred to as ‘fanart’ at that time since the concept of ‘intellectual property’ hadn’t been introduced at that point.

So I think at first we need to define what we even mean when we refer to ‘fanart’...

Put simply, it’s artwork made by people who are interested in something created by someone else, such as a TV show, film, book, podcast, video game etc. However, by this definition, where do original characters created by the fans as part of franchises fit into the picture? Or celebrity fanart? Or artists who use famous people’s appearances as the base for their own characters? Or what of artworks of media that have long since passed copyright laws (such as Shakespeare works, Austen works, etc)? And where do illustrations of books fit into this?

So perhaps a wider description would be, artworks made by fans of and inspired by something “belonging” to someone else (either a piece of media or... themselves). The issue of this description is that most portraiture would fit into this. So... are we about to call Thomas Gainsborough or Joshua Reynolds, two of the most famous British portrait painters of the 18th century, fanartists?

I think a lot of people in the art world would scoff at this concept, because even now the feelings surrounding fanart are pretty negative. They see it as less of a valid form of art and instead as ‘derivative’ and ‘unoriginal’. I’ve heard both non-artists and artists alike talk about fanart as ‘not real art’, and then in the next breath they’re praising portraits made by Leonardo da Vinci or Vincent Van Gogh.

I also think it’s important to note that fanart isn’t exclusively portraiture too. Often artists will draw landscapes, still life works or even abstract pieces based on their favourite media. And as previously mention, a lot of artists and writers create their own characters within a world created by another person. So, for all intents and purposes, that is a form of original art, but it is often still put down in comparison to people who make up an entirely new story and world for their characters.

Part 2 - Renaissance artists and Bible fanart!?

One of the most common defences I’ve seen for fanart is that Renaissance artists’ basically did Bible and Mythology fanart, and their artwork is considered ‘masterpieces’ so... that’s that!

Right?

Well, if we’re sticking with the definition of fanart being something based on a series of characters or concepts owned by someone else, then Religious or Mythological based art would definitely fit into this.

(Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Virgin of the Rocks’, currently being held in the National Gallery in London).

But I think it’s important to note that the art world was a very different place in Renaissance Europe. Concepts and characters didn’t belong to any one person or group of people, instead everything was a lot more homogenised. There’s a reason why when we think of figures like Jesus or the Virgin Mary, we have a very particular idea of what they look like (a very white-washed idea, I might add). The same thing goes for portrayals of figures from Greek or Roman mythology. There were often motifs associated with these deities that dated back to Antiquity, and Renaissance artists looked back to this for their inspiration. But there was no one specific point of reference for these ‘characters’ other than the Bible, which didn’t actually ‘belong’ to anyone, not even the church.

So, I think it’s valid to bring up Renaissance artists and how the modern concept of ‘originality’ in art was less important to artists or patrons, and much of the art they did was exclusively works based on something the artist did not come up with. In my first Art Deep Dive, I talked about how History paintings (which were often Religious or Mythology based) were valued for being the product of an ‘artistic genius’ and their connection to spirituality in comparison to portraits or landscapes that depicted the real contemporary world.

But do I think it was actually fanart?

... Probably not... Although I wouldn’t begrudge anyone believing it is, because in a way it does somewhat fit into the definition of fanart. Instead this was to look at how society’s relationship to art has changed drastically in the hundreds of years since that era, as has the purpose of art itself.

And I think it does bring up some interesting discussions of why we are so obsessed with ‘originality’ in art at the moment when it’s not something that was really important before, though!

Part 3 - What about portraiture?

So... What about portraiture huh?

Now, portraiture has existed for as long as art has, essentially, but it took until the Renaissance era and beyond for it to be associated with patrons. Portraiture was more than just ‘old-timey photography’, since it was linked distinctively to a sign of wealth. I mentioned Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds earlier, who were two very influential portrait artists of the 18th century, who both fed into a market of middle and upper class patrons wanting their portraits done in this era.

(This is a piece by Reynolds of the Actress Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse).

And in a way this makes portraiture probably the earliest example of fanart as we see it today.

Except, a part of fanart that people who do it (including myself) often bring up is how it’s connected to a sense of passion and love for something. In a way, portraits done purely as commissions for an aristocrat for profit doesn’t necessarily fit into our modern notion of fanart.

This brings us back to that darn description of fanart again. Because in our current world fanart can be defined as work of celebrities done as commissions. Except, perhaps, if you’re a known portrait painter (no one says the designer of the postage stamp did fanart of Queen Elizabeth, despite the fact that it... kind of is?).

So, why is it that a portrait of the Queen is simply a portrait, but one of Billie Eilish is ‘fanart’? Who decides these parameters? And also who decides which one is more ‘worthy’ or ‘valuable’?

Places like the National Portrait Gallery are filled with portraits of famous people from history. But it’s never referred to as the ‘National Fanart Gallery’. I think in a way this boils down to who is doing the art, who the art is of and why they’re painting it. It is funny, though, that the distinction between fanart and portraiture of famous people is so similar that it requires such detailed specifications as to which is which.

So, I think it’s clear to see that where portraiture fits in the history of fanart is a contentious one...

Part 4 - Shakespeare, Fairy Paintings and other 18th/19th Century Curiosities...

From the late 18th until the late 19th century essentially saw the birth to what we now know as ‘fanart’, in a way. The growth of middle-class audiences in the early part of the 1800′s meant that there was a new found desire for landscape, genre and portrait art. And coupled with the growth of secularism, history paintings in their traditional sense had lost appeal.

There was also the small matter of media being so much more accessible and wide spread to bigger audiences due to the industrial revolution. Books were being printed more easily and sold and a reasonable price, not to mention that a significant portion of the population could now actually read, or at the very least were given some form of education. More travel and trade (and also colonialism) also lead to an increase of new kinds of media being explored. Birth of the Gothic genre, Science Fiction, Fantasy, etc, all forms of fiction that we’re very familiar with now were only just entering the public’s consciousness at this point.

Much like now, technological advances were both a blessing and curse to the people of this era. And also like now, art was used as a way to express what was happening in the world. A great example of this is JMW Turner’s Flying ,,, which shows an old ship being transported into harbour by a steamboat, something that was very new to this era. It spoke of the new technologies overpowering the old, and the fears a lot of people had because of this.

This lead to the development of Fairy Paintings, to move to a new time of history painting that was more based on folktales and works of fiction by writers like Shakespeare, and were often used as a form of escapism. William Blake is a prominent figure in this type of painting, along with some Pre-Raphaelite painters.

This is a piece directly based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth by Henry Fuseli and is completely undoubtedly fanart in essentially every way. Many of his works, and the works of his contemporaries, were based on the works of writers like Shakespeare.

This piece, along with most of his other works, was also exhibited in the Tate Gallery way back in the early 19th century. Fanart like this was openly welcomed into galleries in this era, something that’s a far cry from my art teachers in school and college actively discouraging us from doing any kind of fanart for our projects.

The mass appeal of these kinds of art lasted well into the 20th century and even after the advent of photography, which created an entirely new kind of media to be consumed.

I actually think that a lot of this animosity towards fanart stems from a lot of fanart being born from drawing from photos as references, which is why I think artworks that are fanart from an pre-photography era are valued above artworks done now.

Part 5 - The Beginnings of Intellectual Property and Copyright Hell...

Earlier I mentioned how fanart could be defined as work done inspired by media belonging to someone else. However, this begs the question whether a single person or company can actually own such things as characters and story concepts.

Copyright as we know it today essentially originated in the 18th century. Now, I’m not going to go into all the history of copyright here (partly because it’s confusing af), but essentially throughout the 18th and 19th century all across the world, intellectual property laws were brought in for books & later extended to other media types. They basically prevented any other person or publisher being able to copy, distribute or adapt the piece of media. As many may know, copyright laws run out after a certain amount of time (I believe either between 70 or 100 years), by which time they enter the Public Domain and are free to be used in anyway by anyone.

Copyright laws can be a real detriment to fanartists, however, particularly when large companies like Disney cracking down on any small hint of one of their characters in the last few years. This feels particularly insidious to me given how most Disney films are based on old fairy-tales and legends. But in using these centuries old stories and giving them the ‘Disney flavour’, they have been able to essentially repackage the original story for their own profit. Disney of course aren’t the only company to do this, but given how Disney own basically everything media-wise now, they are the biggest perpetrator of this at the moment.

It’s important to note that to this day, copyright doesn’t extend to ideas or themes. As well as this, copyrighted media can be used by people who don’t own it either by asking for permission or via ‘fair use’. But as a lot of Youtubers would tell you, this is often something that is ignored by large companies in favour of holding monopoly over the entire thing.

This is of course not to say that copyright can’t be a good thing. I believe that artists and creators deserve to have the rights to their individual works. The issue is surrounding big conglomerate companies using copyright not as a way of protecting and supporting their in-house artists, but as a way of boosting profits.

My thoughts are that copyright laws should exist to prevent other people or companies from stealing or overtly copying/adapting a work made by someone else, not preventing a small freelance artist from selling a couple prints of a drawing from a film Disney made 20+ years ago based on a stories written hundreds of years ago.

(I know it’s not as simple as this, but you get what I mean lol)

In a big way, copyright laws were what created our modern notion of fanart, since prior to that no-one really had ownership of their works in the same way that copyright allows you. So, even thought I’ve been quite pessimistic about it, fanart really wouldn’t exist without it so... it’s not all bad lol?

Part 6 - Why is any of this important??

I realise that this is a strange question to ask at the end of this essay, but I really wanted to leave my true personal thoughts until the end in order to keep at least a vague sense of being objective through this lol...

To me, fanart is something that made me fall in love with art in the first place, particularly digital art. I was able to find communities of like minded people and make some really good friends, all because of fanart.

I’ve also spoken to other artists who say how fanart allows them to connect to their favourite shows or characters or celebrities, and a way of expressing their love for something! It’s also often a gateway for artists to get into art as children, and some have said how fanart has allowed them to be more creative in general!

Fanart is something so intrinsic to fandom culture, so much so that it has existed for as long as people have loved things (even long before the internet). And I know that a lot of public figures who receive fanart, either of themselves or of works they’ve created, often express genuine happiness of being the inspiration for someone else...

So, fanart is important to us because it’s escapism, it’s freedom, and it brings us together in such a genuine way!

I wrote this essay because I wanted to truly explore where fanart actually came from, and what I ended up discovering is that the artworld has never been clean-cut separated into ‘original art’ and ‘fanart’!

The history of fanart is messy, confusing, but one thing is very clear to me: it doesn’t just run parallel to the history of art as a lot of people assume, it is instead interwoven into the fabric of all art!

So for my fellow fanartists, keep on doing what you’re doing, because your passion and love is palpable in your work, and really isn’t that what fanart is all about anyway??

~~~

Phew... Can you believe I actually did try and keep this short lol?

Anyway, thank you for reaching the end! And a special thank you to the people over at Artfolapp (my username is dangerliesbeforeyou over there btw!) who gave me their thoughts on fanart!

As always, my ask box is open for anyone who’s interested in discussing this further, and I also have an Art Advice Tag if you need help on improving your art!

#art deep dives #fanart #history of fanart #art history #art discussion #essay #history of art #blog post #i'm just... really passionate about fanart ... can u tell lol?#i may do a follow up of this one day since this is far from everything i want to talk about #but i figured 2500 words was enough for now..

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theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin · 3 years

Note

So I adore your character Frank. I mean Adore him with a capital A. I started reading your fics when I was like 13 or something and now I am 21 years old.

I re-read your fics for nostalgia's sake a few days ago and. . . I have to tell you that I think Frank was and is one of the most influential characters in my life.

I know he isn't a huge character, but Frank just set up my type of favorite character going forwards in life. Due to this fic, I have always gravitated to 'whipped' characters, to character whom really should be terror in and of themselves but have been rendered harmless towards or for a singlar person.

I might have any ways, but I KNOW Frank at least cemented this in me. He just. . . Has intrinsically interwoven himself into my psychic.

I have named my ocs after him, basied characters off of him, compared all my favorite characters to him. Hell. My girlfriend wanted to talk about baby names, and I suggested Frank in at least partially love for this character (It is also a family name, But your fic sweetened it additionally)

I mean this, completely truthfuly, that your oc Frank has been my favorite fictional character for many years. I hunger for Frank content like a starving man hungers for a bit of roast beef.

I love your other characters too.

Lilly? Superb.

Rabbit? Fancy.

Lenin and the many Toms? Thats what I'm talking about.

But Frank? Frank to me is special.

So. . . I was wondering if you could tell us a little more about Frank? In anyway I mean. Or perhaps not at all. Whatever you think is most appropriate.

Frank?

You’re not alone, I’ve gotten a lot of people who really like Frank and definitely wish he wasn’t such a minor character. That said, if Rabbit wasn’t my answer to South Park’s Towley then I feel like Frank would be. He’s great and all but he’s just... well, he’s not a main character.

But I have to say I’m very flattered by, well, all of this. First that you’ve stuck around for seven years (Jesus I’ve been here too long), that you reread my stuff, and that Frank has had such an influence in your life.

And with a plea like that I really can’t say no, can I?

So, first off, I’ve mentioned this off and on but I am writing an original fiction version of “Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus” and yes I know I’ve been saying it for years but I really am almost done with what will be the first novel at this point. With that, Frank is a much larger character in that story than the original fic, still secondary but an important secondary character. So, it’s a little weird for me to go back and talk about the fic version. But given I’d have to get into the whole world building of that we’re just going to go ahead and ignore that. Just dropping this that, if all goes well, we do get more Frank than usual.

As for Frank himself from the fic... Well, the thing is we don’t really know too much about HP vampires except that they’re kind of a joke and taken less seriously than even werewolves. I don’t think they have any magic in and of themselves (maybe weird vampire magic that doesn’t really stand up to a wizard with a wand) and are probably about the strength of Buffy vampires. They kind of got the short end of the stick. I imagine they’re all desperately poor, living off blood pops, and just passed out in Knockturn Alley or running around eating pedestrians in Albania. And this is pretty much Frank’s existence before Lily says, “I want to be a drug dealer! Help me vampire man!”

For Frank himself, a lot of what I’ve wanted to say about him can be found in the various side fics. “Lily and the Narcotics Emporium” from way back in the day has pretty much all my world building on him.

He’s not all that old really, I think I dated him around the 1800′s, and is desperately poor. He’s basically a starving, drugged out, mess in the 1940′s when Lily finds him in the literal gutter. As a result, Lily Riddle is the light of his life, she pulls him out of the pit of depression and poverty and gives him not only purpose but hope for his people’s future. He poisons and kills wizards all day, it’s great! This is how he kind of ends up in his yes-man/whipped position. I mean, Lily is also terrifying so that certainly helps, but it’s mostly fueled by this weird devotion/unending gratitude that Lily doesn’t know what to do with.

Further, Riddle Inc. is really Frank’s show. Lily has some ideas but it’s mostly him that does all the work and certainly keeps it going for DECADES in her absence. Which really makes it clear that he could have done all this by himself, pretty much any time he wanted, but he’ll never actually figure that out because Lily Riddle is great and would she like coffee today. So, Frank really should be the head of it himself, but he insists to everyone without directly saying it that he’s just the secretary. And everyone believes because, my god, does he act like it.

And I think my favorite part of Lily and Frank interacting is that Lily also has no idea what to do with all of this or why they’re even like this. Lily has no idea how important she is to Frank and just how much she changed his life. She’s starting to get an idea that drugs are bad and maybe she was a terrible influence on the wizarding world for half a century, but she really doesn’t understand just why Frank is her secretary. So every now and then he drops some “we are eternally grateful” type line and she sort of just stares because from her perspective he’s just always been around and of course she found him in the gutter. Where else would one pick up a Frank? That was very convenient.

That’s about all I’ve got off the top of my head. Anything anyone want to ask specifically about Frank?

#ask #lily and the art of being sisyphus #riddle incorporated #frank

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adventure-hearts · 4 years

Text

Question: Why is Sora becoming a fashion designer perceived as a “non-empowered” or “non-feminist” choice, in 2020?

To begin with: this analysis isn’t about if Sora’s Epilogue career choice was foreshadowed or developed enough. That issue belongs in a more general discussion about why some fans felt dissatisfied with the Epilogue, in particular those jobs that were considered to be unexpected or more left-field.

It also isn’t about individual fans’ personal disappointment with the character’s trajectory. Obviously, there are many factors at play that could lead one to be unhappy with how Sora’s turned out — dub changes, the cultural background information that isn’t always evident, or just personal reasons. No-one needs to agree with Sora’s job or feel compelled to justify their personal dislike.

Nevertheless, I will propose the following four explanatory hypothesis for why people might harbor a negative view of Sora’s career choice:

1. Being a fashion designer goes against Sora’s previously-established personality, interests, and values. 2. Her future career isn’t empowering. 3. It’s regressive, because all the female characters just ended up with stereotypical, traditional feminine activities. 4. Sora stopped being a role model for gender non-conformity in girls.

In this post, I’m going to try and demystify those points of view, in order to try to show that Sora’s career is both fitting and empowering.

***

Hypothesis 1: Being a fashion designer goes against Sora’s previously-established personality, interests, and values.

I believe this perspective is more connected to a general misunderstanding or lack of appreciation for Sora’s character arc.

To make a generalizing statement, many fans felt frustrated when Sora went from being presented as not particularly “girly” (playing football, wearing more practical clothes, being friends with boys) to “suddenly” becoming more feminine post-Adventure (playing tennis, wearing more feminine clothes, being paired off romantically with a boy, doing ikebana). This “dramatic change” culminated in her in her becoming a fashion designer in the Epilogue.

Similar complaints exist about Miyako’s endgame. In both cases, dissatisfaction is based on the notion that a girl who doesn’t present as typically girly or has “masculine interests” in childhood wouldn’t gravitate towards “feminine things” later on. Some people believe that, in 02, becoming more traditionally feminine was associated with growing up and becoming more mature. Consequently, Sora and Miyako’s Epilogue jobs were a “correction” to their earlier presentation as young girls who challenged traditional gender roles.

While I think this is an understandable complaint, I must emphasize that a more deeper analysis of Sora’s character arc might help explain her trajectory in a more straightforward way.

Consider:

It’s clear that Sora is coded as not a "girly girl” in Adventure. Not only does she have a unisex name, but she is often presented as a contrast with the hyper-feminine Mimi.

Despite of this, I would argue that Sora was never portrayed as a full tomboy. For example, she speaks in a feminine way; her manners are delicate, even dainty; and she undertakes roles that involve being caring and nurturing, such as Big Sister / Group Mom — and, at one point, even damsel in distress —, which are normally associated with femininity. You never get the impression that Sora considers herself to be “one of the boys” or that she constantly struggles against gender expectations. Even her digimon partner is pink!

In Adventure, Sora’s preference for football over ikebana and annoyance when her mother asks her to act more “ladylike” are explained as a being a reaction against the pressure of Sora’s position as heiress to an old Ikebana family. To give the Cliff Notes version of the story: Sora rejected feminine as a way of rebelling against her mother’s perceived lack of love for her, and against the pressures of her position as ie-moto Crown Princess.

After Sora made up with her mum, she became more open-minded and gradually began to embrace and enjoy more feminine things, including tennis (it’s weird to me that people consider tennis “girly”, but I digress), cooking, and flower arrangement. As a teenager, Sora is also often seen wearing skirts and more feminine clothes, suggesting a more ‘womanly’ presentation, and she even ends up becoming romantically involved with a boy.

I don’t see any evidence in Adventure or 02 that Sora wouldn’t be fond of art, design, or fashion. On the contrary: she practices and enjoys flower arrangement. Sora’s hobbies and personality traits in Adventure and 02 include sports, flower arrangement, resourcefulness, responsibility, sensitivity, and an eye for detail. Is that really incompatible with a future career in fashion design? The fact that she comes from an Ikebana family directly influences her career choice, notably the fact that she uses traditional Japanese elements in her designs. This establishes a strong connection between her Epilogue Job and her arc.

TL;DR: Sora wasn’t really a tomboy to begin with, and her becoming “more feminine” as she grew up is explained in the series as being a direct consequence of her Adventure character arc.

Hypothesis 2: Her future career isn’t empowering.

I think this stems from from the belief that being a fashion designer isn’t an important enough career.

Since Sora is a Chosen Child, fans would expect grown-up Sora to be saving the world or being involved in Digimon issues, instead of doing silly things like making dresses and kimonos. After all, she is supposed to be a Strong Female Character™!

This point of view probably relates to the perception of creative professions — or anything related to art and culture — as “superficial”, “not serious” or “useless” for society. Fashion design, in particular ,is often seen as vapid or superficial, rather than a legitimate art form that can full of beauty and meaning. It’s the old story that if a career isn’t “powerful” or “useful”, then it’s less valid. (It’s interesting how no-one seems to question if becoming a footballer or a rock star would be “impactful” or “strong” enough for the two male protagonists.)

This might be also be tangentially connected to fans’ dissatisfaction with Sora’s decreasing importance in the team as the story goes on. Many people would have preferred to see her in a position of leadership, or in the front lines of the battle. In this sense, her career choice could be perceived as the writers sidelining this female character even further.

In short, Sora’s career isn’t baddass enough.

Counterpoints:

There are many reasons why Sora wouldn’t want to be involved in fighting as a grown up. I’ve written about it earlier, but I think nothing illustrates her choice better than the short film To Sora. While it’s fair to question to what extent this decision was linked to Sora’s increasingly smaller role in the team (meta-wise), it’s still based on established character motivations. Sora doesn’t work in digimon business because... she doesn’t want to.

Sora becoming a fashion designer is also a huge step for the character, in the sense that it means that she also does not end up taking over over as Ikebana grand-master. Instead, she forges her own independent path: she does something she wanted to do for herself.

Moreover, based on the little information we have, Sora either works on a relevant position or works in her own name, considering she is able to run fashion shows and make creative decisions. This means Sora isn’t just an artist with a vision: she’s in a position of power within the business.

We don’t have many clues to estimate how successful she is, but options range from her running her own small independent label, to being head-designer of a company, to becoming a proper superstar designer with her own successful global brand. All of those possibilities mean Sora has achieved considerable career success. If she’s doing some form of haute couture, then Sora’s arguably one the most “career accomplished” among the all group (if you use the usual questionable methods society uses to evaluate “accomplishment”, namely fame, power, and money).

And think of all the skills and talents necessary to be a successful fashion designer! Creativity; innovation; vision; diligence; hard work... to think of fashion design as an unimportant or “minor” profession is really reductive. Don’t you think icons like Valentino, Yves Saint-Laurent, Alexander McQueen, Coco Chanel, Vivienne Westwood, Hanaé Mori or Rei Kawakubo aren’t respected and influential? I’m not saying Sora’s at that level (yet) — I’m just saying she might be.

TL;DR: In the Epilogue, we learn that Sora followed her individual dreams and is triumphing in a challenging and important industry, producing high-quality art in her own terms. She even has the potential of becoming powerful, wealthy, and famous. She’s the definition of an empowered woman.

Hypothesis 3: It’s regressive, because all the female characters just ended up with stereotypical, traditional feminine activities.

This view is based on the observation that all the boys ended up with “important” careers, while the girls ended up with “feminine” jobs or, in Miyako’s case, not even a career at all. In other words, fans believe that the Digimon Epilogue wasn’t exactly good at providing progressive role models for girls.

I do have some issues with this view.

First: Isn’t the idea that traditional “feminine” activities are automatically lesser in itself sexist?

Why do we assume that a fashion designer or a school teacher is “less” than a writer or a doctor? I’m not saying the Digimon Epilogue is problem-free or that promotes gender equality (it is, after all, a Japanese children’s cartoon from 2000), but considering the reality of working women in Japan, is the Epilogue that bad and regressive?

(Also, there are twice more men in the team than women, so there’s more room for wider representation on the boys’ side. The four girls in Adventure always carry the burden of having to stand for half the population. As I mentioned in section 1, the fact that Sora was perceived as a “tomboy” means her career choice receives even more criticism.)

Second: Is being a fashion designer truly a “traditional feminine activity”?

I would argue that considering fashion designer (especially in the “higher ranks”) as “woman’s job” is both stereotypical (“clothes are a woman’s thing!") and historically inaccurate.

Here’s a fun fact: As of 2018, only 40% of womenswear fashion brands are designed by women and only 14% of the 50 major fashion brands are run by women.

Think of the most famous fashion houses you know; you’ll find that the majority are almost all founded and/or lead by male designers. Looking at the list of Japanese fashion designers on Wikipedia, just over half of them are men.

In other words, the fashion industry was and continues to be overwhelmingly dominated by men, it’s plagued by lack of diversity and opportunitues for women, and women fashion designers a lot of obstacles and discrimination. So much for Sora having a “woman’s job”!

And don’t even get me started on how difficult it must be to conciliate this career with being a mother of two.

TL;DR: Sora is working in a male-dominated field were being successful as a woman is still incredibly difficult. Not that different from playing in the boy’s football team!

Hypothesis 4: Sora stopped being a role model for gender non-conformity in girls.

I think the previous sections have already negated this to some extent.

First, Sora was never that gender-conforming to begin with and she began embracing femininity long before the Epilogue. Also, the two things aren’t mutually exclusive. Liking football and wearing jeans doesn’t mean you can’t like fashion and wear dresses.

Second, being a fashion designer is a respected, demanding, and possibly lucrative career. Sora is both an artist and a successful businesswoman in a leadership role she chose for herself.

Third, fashion is a male dominated industry and fashion design isn’t “a feminine occupation”. Sora is still going to have to break barriers and face a lot of obstacles based on the fact that she’s a woman and a working mum.

TL;DR: Sora’s challenging of social expectations, her “less typical” childhood presentation and hobbies, and her being a source of inspiration for little girls isn’t invalidated by her becoming a fashion designer.

Conclusion

Upon reflection, Sora’s career not only makes sense for the character, but it’s a very empowering one.

Sora Takenouchi remains a feminist icon, thank you very much.

PS: I’ve always suspected that, on a meta level, Sora’s Epilogue career was very loosely inspired by Stephen King’s IT, which was listed by director Hiroyuki Kakudou as an influence for Digimon Adventure/02: more, specifically, the character Beverly Marsh is a red-haired girl who grows up to be a fashion designer.

#digimon #analysis #meta #takenouchi sora #the epilogue

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

Text

Donald Duck: Christmas on Bear Mountain Review!

Happy Birthday Uncle Scrooge! Yes it was 73 years ago that everyone’s favorite stingy adventurous billionaire entered this world. And I only NARROWLY missed it as I only found out this was coming up when looking up various character birthdays during the writing of my review of “The Three Cablleros”. I now have a word document with all the various important duck characters birthdays so this doesn’t happen again, but i’m glad I did my homework as I can celebrate one of my faviorite character’s birthdays. And Scrooge is one of my favorites. While I relate to donald’s everyman slacker spendthrift was a tad more, I still love this old bastard. He’s badass, quick witted, and earned every bit of his fortune square outside of one moment of weakness. But he has his flaws: He’s horribly cheap, quick to anger, and very dismissive and distrustful of people for good reasons and bad. He’s a complicated, interesting character and one that still works today in the reboot.. if with some slight tweaks to make him less of a greedy monster by modern standards. He’s one of my favorite comic book characters, and one of Disney’s finest, so it only felt right to honor him by going back to his roots with his very first appearance and a story that like him is 73 years old today. It’s also one I had never read until today’s review. So does this storied tale still hold up? How diffrent was Scrooge? and are there any actual bears in the story? Well come along with me as we take a trip up to Bear Mountain and find out. This story, if you didn’t know, is by Disney Legend and Scrooge Creator Carl Barks, easily the most influential and well known duck artist.. felt like it was worth mentioning since without Carl none of this would be possible and as usual his art is gorgeous and unique to him. On with the show.

We open with Donald and the Boys depressed, as Christmas looks to be pretty drab. While the boys are sad they don’t have a winter Cabin like everyone else...

Donald is even more bummed he can’t afford dinner or presents as he mentions this to the boys, being flat broke. It’s also a nice character beat that Donald, despite his usual hedonism.. would be just fine, with his depression coming from the fact he can’t even give his boys a proper Christmas let alone presents. It’s a stark adult fear and something that really hits as I find the money to buy Christmas presents for all my friends and family during my current unemployment, though commissions, have been helping.

But yes i’m doing my first Christmas review before thanksgiving’s even come in. But given the serendipity of Scrooge’s birthday and the fact I wanted to read it at some point before covering the last chapter of life and times anyway, since said story takes place DURING this one. I’ll explain how in a moment. Plus frankly with me already having to do my christmas shopping while I have money, I still feel the spirit of the holiday, so I honestly figure why not.

But all that aside, the Nephews muse things might be better if their rich Uncle Scrooge would remember them, but probably not. We’ll meet scrooge, if you care to continue, after the cut.

We then cut to Scrooge’s mansion. Two things to note. The first is that he has a mansion here. Now for us Ducktales fans, it’s not unusual, he lives in one in both series. But being even MORE frugal in the comics meant after this he mostly lived in the money bin to save .. well money. So he dosen’t have the mansion after this and Don Rosa explained it, as he did really most aspects of scrooge’s life, in life and times, having him decide to sell the place after also deciding to reopen the bin. Just a neat fun fact. The other fun fact is that his angry pose and expersion here were later homage in “Last Crash of the Sunchaser!”, in one of Ducktales 2017′s easily most heart pulling moments: the ending of the episode showing Scrooge truly alone once again. It’s also a nice refrence to Life and Times as at this point scrooge was just as miserable and alone according to Rosa’s masterwork, with the boys and Donald coming into his life being the thing that revitalized him. So let’s get on that shall we? Scrooge is wallowing in his misery, having never had any fun according to himself and thinking maybe giving a present could be fun.. and decides on his Nephew as the one to give it to. But in typical Scrooge fashion instead of just giving his Grandson a gift, he’s going to have to earn it. He sends a letter to the Boys and Donald offering up his cabin, fully stocked with goodies and presents. A bit pricey for who Scrooge would become, and a bit odd to see him not complain.. but it still sets up his character as someone who wants people to WORK for what they get, but can genuinely get behind someone who shows good character, in this case he’s hoping, but Doubting, Donald will end up showing himself to be brave. And it’s STILL more plausible he’d buy luxury items to prove a point to himself, than it was in that one Ducktales comic I reviewed where he spent presumably millions to teach a ten year old a lesson about getting everything you want. Which yes really happened.

Still not over that one, what the actual hell, let’s move on. Basically if Donald passes the test, he’ll get a real true present and if he doesn’t, well Scrooge will have fun anyway. It is easy to see the difference in character here: While parts that would later become bedrock, his code of honor and his wanting people to EARN things instead of just having them handed to them, as well as him sometimes being a huge dick about that are there, he comes off more as a golden age villain cackling in his lair than the awesome but flawed adventurer we’d all come to know and love. I mean while he’d be no less kind to the Boys and Donald about their poverty later, this time he’s especailly bad tempting them with a nice christmas they couldn’t afford and planning to scare the bejeezus out of them. But I do like seeeing where Scrooge came from, STARTING as a decrepit old bastard and transitioning into the adventurous old bastard we all know and love. I have come to realize I do have a soft spot for characters earlier appearances, seeing what changed, what was there all along, and what was tweaked. It can be a mixed bag: with Marvel for instance sometimes you get Spider-Man, who was starkly anti-social and on the verge of understandably lashing out at the world a LOT in the first few issues, and prone to issues you wouldn’t see in a superhero comic back then. Hulk started out much smarter, greyer and meaner, eventually leading to the Joe Fixit persona being created as a result of this decades later.

On the other hand some examples are less enjoyable like Sue and Reed Richards, who back at the start were a sexist “panicky female” stereotype and a sexist mentally distant jackass, while Hank Pym and Wasp were again, a sexist mentally distant jackass, and another stereotype this time thinking almost entirely about fashion and boys. All four would go on to be MUCH better characters with age, with the occasional slip up. I bring this up because Scrooge... is still a good character even here. While he’d become even BETTER, he’s not bad at all here, just a bit different is all.

Back at the plot Scrooge reveals his plan by scaring the shit out of his butler: To dress up as a bear, head up the mountain and scare his nephews to see if any of them have any bravery. While Donald whimpers over the thought of bears and we get an okay gag of him thinking a squireel was one, Scrooge is forced to turn around due to the weather and gives a villain monologue about never having given anyone nothing in his entire life. I swear to god he’s basically Mr. Burns in this one.

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Then again I would also FULLY expect Scrooge to do this to Donald in the barks stories, just maybe not have it be lethal. MAYBE.

While Scrooge harumphs over his bad luck the boys and Donald enjoy a wonderful sleep. Despite Donald’s fear of bears, which the boys insist are hibernating, accurate, the boys force him to go out and get a Christmas tree by the age old tradition of whining until he does so. After going out back to find a tree to chop down Donald finds dead, ugly looking tree that’s weirdly heavy. To no one’s suprise, and to Donald’s natural luck, there’s a baby bear inside and as Donald gets a nice Christmas eve dinner ready for the boys, though after hearing some rustling he assumes a bear is present.. which it is. A baby bear. Awww. The little guy toddles around, and we get af ew pages of antics, with the boys chasing the bear, donald being a coward, and the bear getting into things and ending up on a rollerskate, which is referenced in life and times. However while the boys eventually find the baby.. it’s MOTHER, angry it’s cub is missing finds them and once Donald finds her, the four naturally hightale it out of there. The bears then eat all their food.. though the boys assume “there goes our presents”. Uh guys.. the presents aren’t gone you just don’t have them right this second. They aren’t showed destroying them or anything just leaning on them slightly. I mean the well stocked pantry and any candy in the presents are toast but there’s still a pretty sweet saxaphone there. Take a look.

See the most their doing is likely wrinkling some clothes, at worst flattening that skateboard.. or whatever that Mama Bear is sitting on. I mean I get in the larger sense they can’t get them because bears, but still. Once they pass out the boys send in Donald to get ripped apart by a bear.. er to tie up Mama Bear so they can get the house back, rightly pointing out that they’ll freeze to death anyways.. even though they you know have a car and could just leave. Then again knowing Donald’s luck i’td probably jsut lead to this.

The boys aren’t slacking though and are going after the cub while Donald passes out in fear next to the bear. Scrooge arrives, but is spooked by the cub and is proud to see his young nephews valiantly chase the bebe, and is impressed by Donald’s seeming bravery, decides, after fleeing in terror which is funny. Not in line with what he’d become but STILL really funny. But anyways he decides to throw them a proper christmas as a reward. So the next day and, thanks to Don Rosa one part of life and times later, we end on Christmas Day as for the first time in decades, Scrooge basks in the warm glow of family, and is happy probably for the first time in years. He gifts Donald a bear skin, he faints, haw haw haw the end.

FINAL THOUGHTS: This story holds up extrodinarly well. While some aspects like Scrooge being generous or cowardly don’t jibe with his later character, it’s forgivable since, again, first appearance, and it’s an entertaining story. Granted his plan hasn’t aged well, but it’s still a fun Christmas set story with some good gags and an entertaining villian. While not Scrooge or Donald or Barks finest hour, it’s still a good bit of hollday fun that gave us one of the best characters of all time. And for that, ill be forever greatful. If you liked this review, you can comission one of your own via my ask box, direct message or discord (technicolormuk#6550), if your more comfortable not doing buisness on here. UPCOMING REVIEWS TO KEEP AN EYE ON THIS SPACE FOR Loud House Coverage: Band Together/ The Other One Ducktales: The First Adventure! Ride of the Three Cablleros: The Three Cablleros Ride Again!

Until then you can check my backlog on my various pages and remember, there’s always another rainbow.

#ducktales #scrooge mcduck #christmas on bear mountain #carl barks #donald duck #huey duck #louie duck #dewey duck #christmas #comics #reviews

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marksinn · 3 years

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Contemporary Typographic Design

The past year of design study has shown me that everything from the past has its place in influencing the present and the future. Multiple names have shone through in previous research pieces, all of them important and influential in their own fields. With specific regard to typography I’ll re-reference Jonathan Hoefler (Abstract, 2019) who spoke about the creation of a typeface being seen as “designing oxygen”: it’s something that is just everywhere, and to the untrained eye is a fact of life.

Like air, text at its base structure, is functional and common. But in the hands of typographers and designers it is a medium to expressive diversity and, over time, show the progression of how we can get information across through not only the words, but through their appearance as well.

Wim Crouwel – structure

“A message that should be explained on paper to other people should be as straightforward as possible without coming in between my personal ideas and thinking. I am the one who is structuring the message and not mixing it with my personal feelings.” - Crouwel, 2015

A Dutch-born designer who worked through the middle of the 20th Century to bring identity to multiple public venues – from museums, to post offices to airports. Known for his creation of New Alphabet, a self-proclaimed experimental yet unusable font (online), it allowed him to start the consideration of design changing to meet the developing technology of the 1960s. Crouwel has works in various collections and museums for his artistic spin on what had been such a functional part of art until this time period. A follower of Josef Müller Brockmann, Max Bill, Karlt Gerstner he worked with a grid system to perfect his typefaces. Through the 1950s he met and worked with many of these influencers, translating their styles into his own interpretation. When struggling to find the typefaces his Swiss colleagues were using, he would cut it out of magazines imported from Germany and Switzerland, and when Univers came on the scene in 1958 it represented a new way of thinking to Crouwel (2015). It was during this period, from 1958-1963 that he found himself experimenting with typography: using sans-serif fonts, more straightforward designs, considering the aesthetics and combating this against the function of the text. The function was always the driving force, but he worked to find out how much of his own opinion or style should come across in his work.

GAIL ANDERSON – diversity

“It’s time to embrace what are no longer just grey roots.” - Anderson, 2018

Known for her work at Rolling Stone, with the US Postal Service and for the multiple books she has co-authored, Gail Anderson is a pre-eminent black designer who, despite winning multiple awards in the genre, sees herself as a “master type obsessive more than a master typographer” (2018). In looking through many of her works, a theme I’m noticing is her tendency to mix typefaces. Her partner in design, Stephen Heller, goes into great detail describing her eclectic styles utilising “old and new forms” to create something “which is neither modernist nor post-modernist” (2008), to me allowing her work to seem utterly timeless. Posters for modern Broadways shows that wouldn’t look out place in a wild West saloon, Rolling Stone covers that look as enticing today as they did when they were created 25 years ago. Another thing that strikes me in almost every interview I read from her, is her desire to pay it forward. This is a phrase that’s overused as a term for people pushing others to be better than themselves, but Anderson seems to mention is as a justification for what she does naturally. As a female African-American designer she has won awards and immediately used the platform to push the mentality that “It’s all about talent and your ability to communicate effectively” (Rawsthorn, 2011), something she credits the creative industries as understanding already.

HAMISH MUIR – progression

“It is a fact that typography is rarely noticed and of little interest to most people, including some graphic designers: perhaps the raw material, the type forms, are too familiar.” - Muir et al, 1986b

In reading the typography journals Octavo curated by Muir between 1986 and 1992, the progression element of his work was clear. Solid, clear columns delivered information in the early editions, by 1990 the text was being rotated and played with, and by the final edition in 1992 huge letters were being utilised to make huge statements. A quick wander down the ‘Selected Work’ on 8vo’s website shows how his style developed with the time, showing work from the late 90s and early 2000s that now feels stereotypically late 1990s and early 2000s. Rounded, computerised letters represent the blossoming digital age that the world was coming into, bringing life to the concept that “typography is the point where content and form meet” (Muir et al, 1986a). His work seems to push forward at all points, he talks of having a set structure and intentionally seeing how far it can be pushed before you see some potential in what it is at its limit (2017). His posters and type-uses seem to have a very futuristic edge, many of the fonts created by MuirMcNeil in the past eleven years are clearly based in grid-systems influenced by Wim Crouwel and Karl Gerstner (2017), but have a very futuristic edge. Using geometric shapes or glyphs to represent the “too familiar” letter shapes Muir and McNeil show their willingness to push type into the 21st Century, not seeing themselves as “type designers so much as designers making type” (2014). This partnership is another massive part of Muir’s success, he feels that working along as a hindrance to the creative process – with collaboration comes challenge, freedom and a force that helps you to adapt.

966 words. I’m as surprised as you are.

REFERENCE

Hoefler, J. Netflix.com. (2017). Abstract: The Art of Design. [online] Available at: https://www.netflix.com/title/80057883

www.designculture.it. (n.d.). Designculture • Wim Crouwel. [online] Available at: http://www.designculture.it/interview/wim-crouwel.html.

‌ www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Wim Crouwel interview: Wim Crouwel – A Graphic Design Odyssey exhibition | Design | Dezeen. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYGRAAgYhpM [Accessed 9 Apr. 2021].

‌Talking About Swiss Style: Wim Crouwel. (2015). YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQCZuN1khPk.

PrintMag (2018). Gail Anderson Receives National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement. [online] PRINT. Available at: https://www.printmag.com/post/gail-anderson-national-design-award-lifetime-achievement [Accessed 11 Apr. 2021].

gailycurl.com. (n.d.). About / Contact - Gail Anderson. [online] Available at: https://gailycurl.com/About-Contact [Accessed 11 Apr. 2021].

‌Heller, Stephen (2008) AIGA | the professional association for design. (n.d.). 2008 AIGA Medalist: Gail Anderson. [online] Available at: https://www.aiga.org/medalist-gailanderson/.

‌Rawsthorn, A. (2011). Design Gets More Diverse. The New York Times. [online] 20 Mar. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/arts/21iht-DESIGN21.html?pagewanted=all [Accessed 11 Apr. 2021].

Muir, H., Johnstone, S., Holt, M. and Burke, M. (1986a). Hamish Muir | Octavo 86.1. [online] Available at: http://hamishmuir.com/8vo/work/octavo-86-1 [Accessed 12 Apr. 2021].

Muir, H., Johnstone, S., Holt, M. and Burke, M. (1986b). Hamish Muir | Octavo 86.2. [online] Available at: http://hamishmuir.com/8vo/work/octavo-86-2 [Accessed 12 Apr. 2021].

‌ Muir, H (2014) interviewed by Andy Butler at Architecture & Design magazine. (2014). interview with hamish muir and paul mcneil (muirmcneil). [online] Available at: https://www.designboom.com/design/interview-with-designers-hamish-muir-and-paul-mcneil-muirmcneil-12-17-2014/.

Muir, H (2017). Interview: Hamish Muir, Graphic Designer | Big Conference. [online] Available at: http://bigconference.co.uk/2017/04/hamish-muir-graphic-designer/ [Accessed 12 Apr. 2021].

‌muirmcneil.com. (n.d.). Two Type System «MuirMcNeil. [online] Available at: https://muirmcneil.com/project/two-type-system/ [Accessed 12 Apr. 2021].

#gms_hncgd1 #wim crouwel #gailanderson #hamishmuir #typography

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crashingmeteorz · 4 years

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me and the ash can’t settle down ch. 2

lu ten goes on his first hunt, and his past comes back to haunt him.

read ch.1 here. word count: 5.8k. read on ao3.

trigger warnings for: death, violence, ptsd

"Tell me, Bǎi. What do you know about bounty hunting?"

The short answer is, not much.

Kōji is pleased with Lu Ten’s physical ability - Lu Ten has no intention of revealing his firebending, of course. Kōji may be unusually accepting, but theoretically housing an enemy is much easier when you don’t have the physical proof of their past in front of you.

So Lu Ten sticks to hand-to-hand combat and sword fighting. Of course, trying to beat Kōji in a fistfight is like trying to knock down a rock wall with your bare hands. Lu Ten tries to use his agility to his advantage, but it becomes clear very quickly that Kōji fights dirty. He bests Lu Ten at every turn, and what’s worse, it’s obvious the older man is holding back.

“These people we’re dealing with,” says Kōji in his rough voice, “they’re not gonna show you mercy so don’t you show them any, got it?”

Lu Ten listens to his new teacher and tries to forget the rigid rules he’d spent his whole life abiding by. It’s surprisingly easy to let go of the concept of fairness, and when Kōji stumbles for just a moment, Lu Ten punches him square in the face.

“Shit,” Lu Ten says panicking as blood pours out of Kōji’s nose. “Shit, shit, shit.” Kōji tries to stem the flow with one hand, which is growing redder by the second, and waves at Lu Ten nonchalantly with the other.

“You did what I asked,” says Kōji, the blood-flow making him sound congested. “Think you might’ve broke my nose though...”

Lu Ten procures a rag and hands it to Kōji, but the floor is already a blood-splattered mess. He can’t help but think that if he had been firebending and slipped up like that, Kōji would be dead.

Kōji pulls up a chair and sits with his newly crooked nose, courtesy of Lu Ten’s fist, and tells Lu Ten to show him what weapons he’s familiar with, to Lu Ten’s extreme relief. None of Kōji’s small arsenal of weapons is state of the art, every single one accompanied by scratches and dents, but there’s at least one katana in the mix. He inspects the blade carefully - it’s nowhere near the quality of the one he made with Piandao, but that was left at home in the palace. A thought arises unbidden: will his father include the katana in his memorial? Lu Ten closes his eyes tightly, so that it hurts, and then holds the blade steady.

He practices his forms blindly, never once opening his eyes as he dances around the room with the battered old katana. Suddenly he’s eight, practicing with some weapons he stole off the palace guards, his father laughing merrily as he lunges with the clumsiness of a child. Now he’s 14, and Piandao is patiently correcting his forms, demanding more but never implying Lu Ten is not enough. Now he’s 16 and his cousins are begging him to firebend at them, but they’re far too little, so he says conspiratorially, “what about a sword fight?” Now he’s 18 and killing one of his fellowmen-

“At least you can use that thing,” Kōji chuckles, and Lu Ten is grateful for the interruption from his thoughts. “You’re a piss-poor street fighter.”

“And you’re a fucking mountain,” Lu Ten retorts, setting the blade down gently. “How the hell am I supposed to get the jump on you?”

“There’s no weight classes in bounty hunting,” says Kōji, wagging his finger like a school teacher, upper lip still stained a bright red. Lu Ten finds a new rag and pours some water over it this time, tossing it to Kōji.

“I thought we’re not supposed to kill these guys?” Lu Ten asks curiously. Kōji had tried to explain his profession, but it had mostly resulted in a series of tangents and old stories about the job. Any important details Lu Ten had gleaned came exclusively from context clues.

“We’re not,” was Kōji’s reply, giving Lu Ten a look that seems to imply he’s said the stupidest thing Kōji’s ever heard. “But you need to be able to defend yourself. You know how to disarm, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Lu Ten replies tersely, looking for a sheath that might fit the sword. Piandao had taught him to disarm, obviously, but he had also said that the katana was a weapon of death. At the time, Lu Ten had hardly listened, too appreciative of the thin, curved design of the blade to really care for its purpose. Now it seemed Lu Ten had always been destined for violence.

“Good,” Kōji says gruffly, but his eyes are alight with excitement, “because I have a tip for us to follow, and we don’t have time for you to sit around all day figuring it out.”

The rules of the hunt are both straightforward and murky, if Lu Ten has understood anything from Kōji’s reminiscences. You track the target, capture them alive, and hand them over to the paying party, but you can work out a deal if things got messy. You don’t encroach on someone else’s territory, unless the bounty’s extraordinarily high. You always follow through and refuse to be bought, unless the offer is good. You never kill a target, unless it’s the only option. When he asks Kōji how to make the call on these flip-flopping rules Kōji brushes him off.

“Comes with practice,” he says, unconcerned. “Eventually you’ll learn to trust your gut.”

The man they’re after is, according to Kōji, your average lowlife. He started off small-time, scamming elderly couples and widows with too many children and not enough food.

“Now he’s gone to flat-out stealing, but he hit up the wrong guy,” Kōji tells him through a mouthful of rice that evening. “Rich kid like you. Influential family. The spoiled brat tried to fight, and he barely survived.”

Kōji suddenly and meaningfully points his chopsticks at Lu Ten.

“Don’t let the same thing happen to you, ‘cause I’m not hauling your sorry ass all the way back here again.”

“Again?” Lu Ten asks suspiciously. “I thought you said I showed up practically on your doorstep?”

Kōji grumbles something practically unintelligible about a couple of bodies in the valley below and practically shoves his face in his dinner. Kōji may put on a callous front, but Lu Ten doesn’t believe it for a second.

“Point is,” Kōji says after finishing his meal, “the rich kid comes from a rich family. Minor nobles, or something. We bring them this guy, they reward us with gold.”

“How much?” Lu Ten asks, not necessarily out of greed as much as curiosity. How much is a son’s life worth around here? How much is his attacker’s?

“That’s usually negotiable upon delivery,” is the only answer Kōji seems willing to give. “We leave at dawn, so get some rest.”

“What, that quick?” Lu Ten asks in surprise, rising from his seat. “We’re just going to leave without a plan? Do we even know where he is?”

In response, Kōji tosses a rolled-up sheet of parchment at him. Lu Ten unfurls it to reveal a wanted poster, and a note scrawled at the bottom that reads “Lower Mùchéng - Frogman”.

“Who the hell is Frogman?” Lu Ten asks.

“My informant, for this job anyway,” Kōji explains as he gets ready for bed. “You find something to keep that sword in? It’s not exactly a stroll in the park to Mùchéng, so we gotta leave early.”

Since that is apparently all the information he’s getting, Lu Ten sighs and mimics Kōji, climbing into the warm bed.

“You always have this laid out for unexpected guests?” Lu Ten asks after a while. On the rare occasion he’d had to intrude on someone’s home, they’d usually just roll out a mat or futon. Kōji, while comfortable, didn’t seem to live the most luxurious life, to provide such a thing for strange guests.

“Go to sleep,” Kōji grunts, turning over in his own bed. Just as well. Every man deserves his share of secrets.

He wakes up before the sun rises. Kōji is still snoring (and hell if Kōji isn’t a loud snorer), so Lu Ten splashes his face with water and dresses. It feels like a strangely serious moment, dusk making everything outside seem muted and foreign. Lu Ten was always an early riser, preferring the warmth of the sun to the cool of the night, but then, most firebenders are like him. As he slips the sheath he found, just a touch too big, beneath his belt, he feels for a moment the same as he did the morning he shipped out for the Earth Kingdom. He was still just shy of 18, then, and his father’s most recent letter had been clutched in his hand, creased from the way his fingers pressed into it.

“My dear son,” the general had written, “I challenge you to find a father who has ever been prouder than I am of you. Let me meet this man, and show him my son, and see if he still feels so certain.”

Kōji snorts loudly, and when Lu Ten looks over the older man is rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Someone’s eager to get going,” he grumbles, and Lu Ten wonders if Kōji’s ever happy. He tells the older man he'll be waiting, and when he steps outside the sun is just beginning to rise. Lu Ten hasn’t ventured beyond the garden since he arrived, and his heart sounds loudly against his ribcage as inhales the smell of the world around them. Something childish inside him whispers “adventure”, tickling his ears and pulling at his lips to form a smile. It’s terrifying. It’s invigorating.

Kōji joins him a few minutes later, a large weapon in hand.

"Is that a mace?" Lu Ten asks in disbelief.

“Mùchéng is that way,” is Kōji's reply, pointing towards the northern mountains, and he sounds more alive now than Lu Ten’s ever heard him. “The city is built practically on stilts. Lots of good hiding places, but I have an idea of where to look. Don’t be too obvious about it now.”

“I’ll be fine,” Lu Ten says easily, the contagious energy zipping through him like electricity. “You’re the one who sticks out like a sore thumb, colossus.”

Kōji laughs, loud and long and hearty, and Lu Ten has to fight the urge to suggest they race to a nearby yew tree, his giddy excitement is that strong.

“Okay, shrimpy,” Kōji rumbles, knocking his boots against each other to rid them of mud. “If you’re so slick, think you can beat me to that tree there?”

Lu Ten grins.

“You’re on, old man,” he retorts, but when Lu Ten steps out to run Kōji sticks his foot out, tripping him so that he falls face-first in the dirt. Kōji laughs uproariously the entire (slow, in Lu Ten’s opinion) run to the yew tree, yelling something about payback for a broken nose. Lu Ten can’t even be upset, as he hauls himself to his feet and jogs to catch up with Kōji. It feels good to have fun again.

They reach the mountain town by mid-afternoon, or Kōji says they do, anyway. All Lu Ten can see is a rocky path and a drop-off point. Kōji smirks at his confusion, raps a quick rhythm on the mountain, and then there is a loud creak followed by a descending platform. Kōji and Lu Ten step on and are slowly lifted into the air by a series of pulleys and ropes. When they reach the top, they are surrounded by a city made entirely of wood. Wooden planks and paths lead the way inward, wooden beams support the platforms and building, wooden stores and homes sit up and down on the mountainside.

“It’s all wood,” Lu Ten says, trying not to let his nerves show. He suddenly feels like a gemsbok bull in a pottery shop. This whole place is a fire hazard.

“Weren’t you listening?” asks Kōji, leading the way into town. “Mùchéng is a refugee city, or it used to be anyway. People came here and built this town to hide from the Fire Nation. When their villages were raided, most of their benders were taken, so this is what they had to work with.”

“You never said any of that, Kōji,” Lu Ten says irritably, unable to stop himself from tiptoeing. “Besides, of all the materials to build your secret city out of -“

“I know, I know, one big cookout,” Kōji agrees. “But it’s well-hidden.”

“So were the airbenders,” mutters Lu Ten, but Kōji either doesn’t hear the comment or just ignores it.

Lu Ten finds himself sticking close to Kōji as they make their way along the planks, like a small child afraid to stray from their parent's side the first time away from home. In any city there are varieties of people, but Mùchéng has a distinctly disjointed feel to it. In this corner, there are children playing under the watchful eye of their parents. Under a nearby archway, a young woman cries as she writes a letter to a loved one far away. The very next ramp drops down to reveal a group of shady characters discussing something fervently. Every single person seems like they don't belong here, but it's clear from the suspicious glances that Kōji and Lu Ten belong here the least.

To match the sinking feeling in Lu Ten's chest, Kōji leads them down the ramp near the probable-criminals. The narrow path is so tight they have to mumble excuse me's as they pass, and the politeness only seems to lower their credibility. They travel deeper, edging along what can only be a crevasse located within the mountain. Lu Ten practically falls into the black abyss but Kōji's arm shoots out to keep him firmly on the ground. The older man points down to a rope ladder, which seems to be the only way in or out of the hole.

"Popular hideout down there," says Kōji, gazing downwards. Lu Ten's never had a fear of heights, but something about the situation makes his stomach turn.

"We'd be pretty screwed if we ran into trouble down there," Lu Ten says, swallowing a knot that's been building in his throat. What is wrong with him?

"Yep," is all Kōji has to say. "You ready?"

Lu Ten lays a hand, lightly, over his katana, and nods sharply. It's clear now that any ideas about this being a straightforward job have gone out the window - and Kōji trusts him anyway. He's not about to back out now. In a moment of courage, Lu Ten descends the ladder first. When a strong breeze causes the old rope to swing this way and that, however, he regrets his decision.

Whatever Kōji's reward negotiation skills are, they better make this trip worth it.

It turns out to be an average bar, once you ignore the fact that it's buried so deep within a mountain wolfbats hang sleeping from its rafters. Kōji sits at the bar with practiced confidence, and Lu Ten wonders if it's just from frequenting places like this, or if Kōji's been to this bar in particular a few times. When Lu Ten sits beside him, however, Kōji rolls his head, twisting his neck left and right a few times, and the tension in his muscles seems to indicate he's not comfortable here.

"We're looking for a skinny guy, probably pretty arrogant. He's got a two-headed rat viper tattoo on his right shoulder," Kōji murmurs. "He may be a small fry, but he's lethal. I'm practically a stranger here, and he's not, so he's got the home-field advantage, too."

"Knowing this stuff upfront might have helped," Lu Ten hisses before taking a swig of whatever Kōji had ordered for them. His stomach is still nauseous, and his throat feels dry for some reason. The burning liquid doesn’t seem to help.

"You're shaking like a leaf as it is, didn't need any more stress," Kōji whispers back.

"I'm not-" Lu Ten begins to reply indignantly, but he's interrupted by a fight breaking out in a back corner. A pair of young men, a little older than Lu Ten, are arguing loudly about money. Everyone in the bar pays attention, and fast, the familiar sounds of drawn weapons ringing out around them. One man gives the other a shove, and that's all the patrons need to start an all-out brawl.

"Shit," says Lu Ten, ducking to avoid an errant swing from his neighbor at the bar. The bartender hit the floor the moment his customers started swinging, and now he, Lu Ten, and Kōji are the only ones not actively fighting. "What do we do now?"

"We stay right here and find our guy," Kōji says gruffly, before promptly smashing a bottle over the head of a man who had tried to engage him in a scuffle. "The fight started right after we showed up. Someone must have recognized me and needed to create a diversion. Come on."

Kōji pushes away from his seat and heads towards the back of the bar, navigating his way through the flying fists and falling bodies. Lu Ten has to cough a couple of times as he follows, his throat feeling tighter than before, probably because of all the dust the crowd is kicking up.

"Won't he leave through the front?" Lu Ten whisper-shouts in the chaos.

"I've been here once before, years ago," Kōji replies. "There's an exit out back. I'm willing to bet we can cut him off from there."

Lu Ten coughs again and follows, relieved to be getting away from the mess of the bar. They get to a wooden door where someone is beating the crap out of someone else, and Kōji effortlessly pushes him out of the way. He yanks open the door to reveal a dim hallway leading to a back room.

"In there," says Kōji as Lu Ten slams the door behind them. "You ready to fight?"

"Sure," Lu Ten says, more confidently than he feels. He lets out a breath that comes out like a wheeze, and he fights the oncoming cough so severely it feels like he's choking on it.

Kōji enters the room.

"Duck!" roars the older man, tackling Lu Ten to the ground as a large arrow whizzes past them into the dark hallway. At the end of the room, one man has a crossbow, and there have to be at least six or seven men besides that. They move at once, attempting to surround Kōji and Lu Ten, so Lu Ten rolls out from under the older man, withdrawing his katana as he does and leaping to a stand. He immediately goes to defend Kōji, but when Lu Ten glances over, Kōji’s already bludgeoned someone and is swinging his mace around furiously.

Lu Ten takes the shooter, leaping forward to slice in half the arrow that had been knocked and jabbing their attacker with his sword. The man yells out in pain, but when Lu Ten gets a good look it's not their target, so he withdraws the katana kicks high, hitting the man in the head and knocking him out.

They're down five versus two, now, and it would feel like fair odds if Lu Ten didn't think he was having an asthma attack. The thrill of the fight is familiar enough that his body responds practically on instinct, but he coughs and coughs the whole time, sounding as though he'll hack up a lung. The coughs wrack him so violently that when he takes down another opponent, two more manage to subdue him, grabbing him by his hair and pressing a blade to his throat.

I survived the war, Lu Ten thinks almost hysterically, and I'm going to die at the hands of thieves.

"Bǎi!" Kōji practically screeches, and the hand at his throat is knocked away by a mound of earth. Lu Ten processes in slow motion this turn of events - he looks out the window, which has shattered, and back to his assailants, who are fighting Kōji from across the room. Kōji is yelling and snarling and practically foaming at the mouth.

He is also earthbending, Lu Ten realizes too slowly, as more rocks go sailing past his head and into the attackers.

He's earthbending. There's earthbending here. Kōji, his friend, is an earthbender.

Lu Ten knows he's still kneeling on the ground, and that four very violent men are attacking Kōji, but it's just so hard to breathe, and earthbending is so loud, why is it always so loud?

There's a shout, somewhere, and another rock rushes past Lu Ten, but this time it nicks his ear. Lu Ten inhales, sharp and violent, and the noisy earth falls away to the crackle of flames and smoke. Someone is shrieking. Lu Ten inhales again, and everything around him is a reddish-orange color. It's good and bad all at once, but even though his lungs are working again, his chest still hurts so bad.

"Bǎi!" someone yells, and Lu Ten wonders who they're talking to. There are lots of Bǎis, in both the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom. He hopes it's not a fallen soldier - the man sounds worried. Lu Ten would hate for him to be disappointed.

"Bǎi!" comes the voice again, and Lu Ten's vision clears just long enough to see a round, worried face.

"Dad?" he asks, and the red-orange fades ever-so-slowly to black.

When Lu Ten comes to, he's surrounded by the bodies of his friends. Last he remembered the earthbenders had crossed no man's land in a desperate move, doubtlessly hoping to keep the firebenders from making way on yet another of their walls. Lu Ten had felt for the Earth Kingdom soldiers, of course, but he never thought for a minute they'd succeed. His father was the general, after all, and his father was very good at war.

But it would seem they had been successful, in the end, and the corpses that surrounded him proved it. They're piled on man-made mountains, crushed between enormous boulders, disfigured beyond all possible recognition. Lu Ten moves to stand, a dull ache in his core, and is shocked to find that his legs still work. A voice in his head insists they don't, but then how could he possibly be standing?

He limps around the massacre numbly, unsure what is up and what is down in the aftermath of what seems to have been an explosion, or maybe a very powerful earthquake. He checks every body he passes, even the ones without faces, but every single one is dead. Lu Ten realizes with a start he is the only surviving member of his regiment. That he, the captain, did not go down with his ship. What a miracle. What a shame.

The idea that strikes him is vile and cowardly, but he's removing his decorations and insignia before he can stop himself. The body at his feet is mangled and torn asunder, as though it has been held down and stretched. Its face is nothing but exposed bone and meat, and when Lu Ten switches out his identifiers for the dead body's, it almost feels like he really did die today.

Lu Ten climbs one of the hills created by the earthbenders and looks to the sky. He can see mountains beyond, the Northern Mountains, he's sure. Maybe he can get there. Steal some Earth Kingdom clothes. Pretend his life is not his own. Suddenly there is a low groan from the ground below, and Lu Ten practically tumbles off the hill in search of it. A man, no, a boy is lying at the base of the rocky hill, his leg trapped beneath it. He's pale, paler than Lu Ten has ever seen him -

"Zhen," Lu Ten whispers, cradling the boy's head. He's known Zhen since childhood, the younger brother of one of Lu Ten's closest schoolmates. Lu Ten had insisted he was too young to go to war, but Zhen had fought bitterly for the great honor of serving his nation.

"Lu Ten?" Zhen says, and when he coughs blood stains his lips. In a moment of weakness, Lu Ten wonders if it would have been easier if Zhen had just died with the rest. Lu Ten removes his coat one-armed, taking care to still hold Zhen's head.

"What are you doing, Captain?" the boy asks, barely keeping his eyes open.

"This is going to hurt," Lu Ten says bracingly, shoving the coat in Zhen's mouth and instructing him to bite down. Finally allowing Zhen's head to drop softly to the ground, he moves over to the spot where the boy's leg is stuck. Lu Ten unsheaths the katana he won in a gambling match from his belt and takes a breath, then slices clean through at the juncture between rock and flesh. Zhen barely has time to react before Lu Ten is creating flame against the skin to cauterize the wound, and even with the makeshift gag, Zhen’s screams of pain echo throughout the battlefield. They are going to have to move the minute the skin has closed.

After what feels like forever, Zhen's leg finally stops bleeding. Zhen has stopped screaming as well, and when Lu Ten stands he sees that the boy has passed out. He bends down, hauling Zhen up by the middle and tossing him over his shoulder. Lu Ten almost keels over with the weight, so he stops a moment, shedding his armor and sword and pack, hoping that they'll find a generous healer on their journey north. Lu Ten doesn't want to try their luck with the Earth Kingdom army. They've already shown their cards.

He heads towards the mountains in a daze, Zhen a dead weight on his back as he navigates the smoke and the rubble. Just getting out of the battlefield feels impossible, but the futility of his task does not slow him down.

Lu Ten needs to help Zhen. He needs to leave the war behind. He needs to be anywhere else right now.

Exhausted, delirious, and unaware of his own broken leg, Lu Ten marches on.

Lu Ten sits straight up in bed when he wakes, gasping for air. It takes him a few minutes to remember where he is, especially since he wakes up in the cool summer evening, and the room is illuminated by a bizarre twilight he can't remember noticing before. He lets his breathing slow as he realizes he's safe in Kōji's house, a bowl of water and a neatly-folded washcloth sitting on the table beside him. His lungs, blessedly, accept the air he brings in, without burning or hacking away.

The job, he assumes, did not go well.

Kōji is nowhere to be seen. Lu Ten wonders for a moment if maybe the older man gave up, packed his things and left, before realizing how stupid he's being. This is Kōji's house. Lu Ten splashes his face with the water and rises to a stand, wincing in pain as he does so. His head feels like someone hit it with a club.

Or a mace.

Pushing forward, Lu Ten walks out back to the garden, where Kōji is watering his plants. He barely even looks up, just makes a small nod of acknowledgment and continues his work. Lu Ten had intended to have this conversation standing, to retain some dignity, but his pounding head protests, and he all but collapses into the nearby chair.

Lu Ten rubs hard at the back of his head, knowing more pain is counterintuitive but digging in with the base of his palm anyway. After a few moments, Kōji joins him in the adjacent chair, his bones cracking as he leans back.

"You could've mentioned you were a firebender," the older man says at last. The wind chimes tinkle gently around them, and the scent of fresh berries carry over to where they sit. There is no anger, or even surprise in Kōji's voice. Just a gentle reprimand, like a father would give to their adventurous child.

"You could've mentioned it was a wooden city," Lu Ten says. Kōji smiles, a small, soft thing. He does not laugh like he usually might, and for some reason Lu Ten feels 15 again, sneaking his secret girlfriend into the palace at night, like his father is saying Lu Ten could've just told him.

"You were right," Kōji says, which definitely throws Lu Ten for a loop. "I should've mentioned some things upfront. I didn't want to spook you away from the job, and I didn't want to spook you away by earthbending, either."

Lu Ten doesn't say anything. Just the sound of the word makes him want to get up and run, which is pathetic of him, considering he probably burnt a building down and Kōji is talking like he took a few silver pieces without permission.

"Guess we gotta start being straight with each other, here on out," Kōji continues. "Either that, or maybe we shouldn't be working together."

Lu Ten's stomach somersaults at the very suggestion. He knows, logically, that this is only his first attempt at a new life, that things don't always work on the first try, and if this life with Kōji isn't what he's meant for, well, he'll find something else. The thing is, though, Lu Ten's always gotten stuff on the first try. It's kind of his thing. And Kōji...Kōji is everything and nothing like his father, just the right middle-ground that makes him feel safe at home and far from the Fire Nation all at once.

"There are some things I can't tell you," Lu Ten says plainly, trying not to let his nerves show. Kōji just sighs.

"Yeah, I don't know what I expected," he says, still smiling. "Is there anything you can tell me?"

Lu Ten hesitates, trying to parse through the pieces of his life and figure out what bits are need-to-know.

"Earthbenders killed my men. My friend," Lu Ten says slowly. "I grew up with him. I've known him since he was nine. They crushed his leg and left him there to die."

Kōji hums appreciatively.

"I was taking the low road to the west for a job, and that's when I spotted you and your friend to the south," Kōji says. "You weren't too far from here, but no, you didn't get all the way to my house on that leg. Also, I have a kid, but they're not around much. About your age."

The last admission is hardly a surprise. Kōji may be loathe to admit it, but he’s a natural caretaker, and there’s a terrible loneliness about him Lu Ten had never understood until now. Lu Ten and Kōji look at one another in a sort of mutual understanding. Neither man has said all that probably needs to be said, but still, the air is lighter and things feel easier between them. Cleaner, somehow.

“How’d I hurt my head?” asks Lu Ten after a while.

“Passed out,” Kōji chuckles. “Hit the floor hard.”

"What happened to the target?" Lu Ten asks, an afterthought he hadn't considered until just now.

"Dead. Fortunately, they still paid up. Showed them the tattoo as proof."

"And the others?" Lu Ten says cautiously.

"Burnt to a crisp," Kōji says simply. Then, upon seeing Lu Ten's nervous reaction, he adds, "Don't worry. I made sure they were dead before we left. As far as anyone in Mùchéng's concerned, some fool kicked over a candle."

Lu Ten nods in silent thanks, even as he feels a pang of guilt for the unecessary death. He trusts Kōji, likes him a lot, but he's not really sure why the older man keeps covering for him. Maybe it's for the same reason Lu Ten's so eager to stick around - they're both missing something they lost, and looking for something new.

"We'll have to get used to each other's, you know. Skills," Kōji says awkwardly. Lu Ten agrees, despite the fear in his chest. "I say we start small. Candles and clay and things like that."

Lu Ten nods again, snapping his fingers and producing a tiny flicker of light. Kōji follows suit, reaching down to pick up a rock and crushing it between his fingers. Lu Ten watches, making sure to keep his flame controlled, as Kōji shapes and reshapes the earth. It's not so bad, here, in this context, when Kōji's earthbending resembles pottery more than anything else.

"What do you say?" Kōji asks, finally bending the rock to sand and letting it float away on the summer wind. Lu Ten similarly closes his hand, putting out his fire. "You wanna give hunting another go?"

"Why not?" Lu Ten says grinning. Kōji smiles back at him, and Lu Ten feels with absolute certainty that their next expedition will go better. "Can I just ask one more thing?"

"Shoot, kid," Kōji says as he rises from his seat.

"Show me where you buried my friend?"

Kōji stops in place, eyes widening in surprise. Then he nods solemnly, leading Lu Ten out of the garden and down a winding valley path, which intersects with the road they traveled to Mùchéng. Lu Ten’s head is still pouding, but he fights it off in order to show some respect to Zhen. Kōji points Lu Ten to a small hill, a lump of freshly-turned earth marked by a large stone. At first, the sight makes Lu Ten's throat well up all over again, until he moves closer and finds that Kōji has shaped the stone into a crude rendering of the Fire Nation symbol. His chest loosens again as he reaches out to smooth his fingers over the stone. It's not so bad, really, to be buried beneath the earth, but it's not what Zhen would have wanted.

"Is it...is it possible we could dig him out?" Lu Ten asks in as steady a voice as he can muster. Kōji says nothing, just raises his eyebrows in confusion.

"I want to give him his funeral rites," Lu Ten clarifies.

Kōji moves forward and moves into a careful stance, his face furrowed in concentration. Slowly, gently, the mound rumbles and falls away to reveal an almost fully deteriorated body wrapped in a blanket. Lu Ten takes a deep breath, mumbles a few words of farewell and thanks, and bends a wall of fire befitting of such a soldier.

He moves to stand beside Kōji as Zhen's ashes scatter around them. Kōji stands with his hands clasped, head bowed solemnly. Lu Ten is in a similar stance, but refuses to look away from the pyre he has created, focusing all of his thoughts on his friend, a tribute that has come much too late. When it is done, only Zhen's bones remain. Kōji buries the bones, just as before, and Lu Ten resets the grave marker.

"Thank you," he tells Kōji. It doesn't feel like nearly enough, but it's all he can say, for now. Kōji just grunts in reply. As they walk back to the house, Lu Ten's stomach settles for the first time in days. He knows it's only temporary, but he thinks he feels at ease.

#avatar bebop au #lu ten #iroh #atla #avatar the last airbender #tw death #tw violence #tw ptsd #fanfiction #operation sfa #my stuff #my fanfic

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