#GAMES ARE ART AND AS BEAUTIFUL AND MEANINGFUL AS ANY OTHER MEDIUM

[imadhatt3r]

MY BROTHER IN CHRIST I THINK THAT YOU SHOULDN'T DIRECT A VIDEO GAME SHOW WITH THAT MINDSET

#hatter blathers #tlou #LIKE FOR FUCKS SAKE #MOVIES OR TV ARE NOT MORE SOPHISTICATED OR HIGHER ART THAN VIDEO GAMES #I FEEL LIKE IF YOU HAVE SUCH DISTAIN FOR THE MEDIUM THEN YOU SHOULDNT ADAPT IT #SAME WITH THE DIRECTOR OF THE WITCHER TV SHOW WHO WENT COMPLETELY OFF THE ROCKER #GAMES ARE ART AND AS BEAUTIFUL AND MEANINGFUL AS ANY OTHER MEDIUM #BEEN ARGUING THIS SINCE I WAS IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

[sunny-cows]

Destiny, a franchise that stands for nothing (rant)

It speaks to Destiny 2’s mechanical excellence that I spent as much time as I did with the game. Bungie nails the X factor of making guns feel good to shoot. The studio has always prioritized the 30-second primary gameplay loop, and it shows. The satisfying sound of the pop of a Dreg headshot tickles my brain in a place I didn’t know I had. Its cooperative raids are by far its greatest value proposition, asking for teamwork, communication, and interesting play in a way that few other PVE games do.

Yet, there’s something profoundly grotesque about Destiny as a microcosm of the industry, to see amazing art direction, sound design, and countless developer man-hours wasted on telling a story that goes nowhere, one that begins and ends at the elevator pitch. Destiny is fundamentally a world of influences. Its design mission statement can be summed up as “fantasy archetypes with sci-fi aesthetics”. The idea in itself has a lot of potential; Mass Effect and Star Wars were able to create something special with that very goal. In the world of Destiny, though, players quickly realize that for the most part, nothing happens to the world.

The environments are static, not so much fully realized worlds to explore and more set dressing as you travel from one group of roaming enemies to the next. Destiny is filled with vistas a mile wide and an inch deep, that could be plugged into any major sci-fi setting without friction. It’s a common problem with Massively Multiplayer games, which often prioritize their worlds as play spaces, speckled with random enemies and activities with little consideration for environmental storytelling.

I call it wallpapering. All Destiny has sometimes is visuals and presentation. Obviously, the game’s environments and characters are gorgeous. You can almost taste the money that’s been pumped into your screen. But when we stand in the European Dead Zone, in the Tower, within the goddamn Warmind on Mars, what do we know about the society that lived there? What do the beautiful skyboxes, the enemy placements, the locations labeled on the map communicate to us about the world, about its relationship with its inhabitants? Very little, without reading flavor text from weapon descriptions.

Locking essential story beats and character moments behind weapon descriptions and lore triumphs is a cardinal sin of linear storytelling for me. It is genuinely baffling how this has been Destiny’s status quo for so long. The vast majority of players will never set eyes on it, and the core campaign stories suffer immensely from the lack of worldbuilding. I’m told that there are interesting lore stories if you look for it, but it’s all so opaque. Why aren’t we playing these stories if they are so much more interesting than the current setting? Players would love to fight against imminent extinction at Twilight Gap or hunt immortal psycho Dredgens in a world with more personal stakes. Sometimes it feels like Destiny takes place in its timeline’s least interesting era.

Lost sectors, hidden chests, mini-bosses, public events, even strikes – there is rarely any meaningful context to give players a stake in the shooting. Zavala, Osiris, your ghost all constantly throw words at you, but the back-and-forth is homogenous, almost numbing. How many players really pay attention to mission dialogue? Perhaps it is a symptom of the medium, the consequence of the endless demand for content that live-service looter-shooters require. The game never gives you a reason to decipher any of its lore – it might as well be white noise.

Bungie’s earlier work with Halo had its own problems with opaque lore, but at the very least the most important concepts and stakes were communicated in a linear campaign. We’ve seen inscrutable “weapon description storytelling” surge in the wake of the Souls-like renaissance, but unlike Destiny, Souls-likes aren’t live-service games that tell multi-year story arcs. At no point in Destiny did I feel like I had a personalized player journey, unraveling the mysteries of the world.

It makes me sad though, when I see what could have been. Due to how uninteractive the worlds of Destiny are, it makes sense that the aspects that have the most staying power in my mind are vignettes that stand out from the homogeneity of the environments. The giant serpent swimming in Titan’s skybox captured imaginations for years. A now-sunset lost sector on the Tangled Shore – “The Empty Tank”, a Nightclub populated by Fallen, complete with a DJ – remains a giddy surprise to this day. These inclusions make the zone feel so much more lived in.

For me, Destiny’s most original ideas are in the lore of the antagonists and the design of their raids. The Cabal Emperor Calus’s Leviathan, a gold-plated, planet-eating pleasure cruise is one of the few areas where environmental storytelling breaks through, as are most of the raid environments. There are compelling motivations to be explored for these antagonistic factions – the Fallen in pursuit of their disowned god, the infinite timelines of the vex, the occult scheming of the Hive, the Excess of Calus.

In practice, our antagonists tend to appear only at the beginning and end of campaigns and functionally serve as set pieces and speedbumps. Raids are a little better at telling an interactive story due to their challenges and mechanics, but they also lose immersion due to teamchat and their gamified framing, especially where players have learned to farm for exotics.

I’d like to look at the Red War campaign. It’s among the easiest to criticize, but I’d argue that it is also the campaign that gets closest to actually exploring tangible themes and telling a compelling story. The Cabal were a good choice for antagonists. They are the most “physical”, least conceptual threat of Destiny’s rogues gallery, and have easy-to-understand motivations of martial conquest and subjugation. It’s important to ground Destiny and provide stakes before jumping into the more cerebral antagonists.

I genuinely believe the best mission in destiny is the opening sequence of the Red War. I knew nothing about the universe, but I saw the Last City being bombed by an overwhelming invading force and I knew the stakes already. Fighting in the streets communicated a desperation to the player, that what little progress humanity had made in this harsh world was at risk of being snuffed out.

The Red War should have leaned into this – but we rarely see civilians, refugees, or the oppression of occupying Red Legion forces. When we are a fugitive in the EDZ, we should be seeing runaway civilians hunted down, helpless to save them. When stumbling through the bombed out city we should be seeing martial law established, the consequences of our failure. There’s an entire chapter on Titan where we are told we are protecting refugees but we never see them. Imagine if the Farm, our base of operations, was actually attacked for a second act low point.

Derivative, sure, but better than nothing.

Returning to mortality after the highs of superpowered combat before was a similarly necessary hook for the campaign, but players get their godhood back way too early in the story. From that point onward, I don’t recall losing a single conflict. Ghaul is trivialized as an antagonist and the Cabal are steamrolled mission after mission.

Destiny takes place in the post apocalypse, but it’s used purely as an aesthetic. Dwelling on themes of collapse would probably change Destiny fundamentally, but a certain degree of acknowledgement is needed to ground the world. The concept of the last city and its guardians is compelling as an elevator pitch, but the last city never feels at risk. Instead, Destiny focuses its energy on celestial conflicts and immortal guardians, discarding any sense of place for the Last City the player tasked with protecting.

An entire chapter of the campaign is spent on Io with Ikora (the character equivalent of watching paint dry). Ikora’s arc is all about losing touch with her faith after the Traveler is caged. This detour is so nebulous that the plot completely loses track of guardians’ immediate responsibility to protect civilians and the mission to liberate the Last City. Even if the writers wanted to focus on theological themes and the silent god that is the traveler, Destiny never explores these concepts beyond vague symbolism and inscrutable platitudes. Parallels can be easily drawn between the guardians' religion and real-world theology. It’s certainly not the first religion to have a savior figure, a chosen holy city, legions of covetous demons. The guardians repeatedly posit themselves as crusaders or defenders of faith. In the past, Bungie’s Halo used Abrahamic names in a caution against the manipulation of mass religion and the perils of blind faith. Does Destiny have something to say or is it a hodgepodge of ideas used as set dressing?

To contrast, Hawthorne is possibly the character with the most wasted potential in Destiny – a hill I will die on. As the only non-guardian member of the main cast, she should have provided a more human perspective to ground the Vanguard. With the Last City being the last bastion of human civilization, what does it say about someone who chooses to live in the wilderness instead? Hawthorne vehemently opposes authority; she sees the Last City as a walled garden and dismisses the concept of the guardians, having survived for years without their aid. When she is suddenly thrust into a position of leadership at the Farm, there should be lots of juicy internal conflict to explore there. I would have used her to question security versus freedom in the post apocalypse, how the Last City is functionally ruled by a closed, immortal junta (the Vanguard). The Cabal’s martial law is ripe to compare and contrast degrees of tyranny.

Ikora is apparently in charge of the Last City’s secret police, which should be a major point of conflict and moral ambiguity between her and the rules-hating Hawthorne. I don’t remember the two ever interacting, likely another casualty of never seeing the civilian side of Destiny’s world.

Almost every character in Destiny’s universe have these sorts of shortcomings. Most lack any relatability or strong motivations beyond a braindead character archetype. Cayde is a quippy scoundrel. Shaxx is a shouty knight. Ana Bray is a quippy scoundrel (again). You know everything there is to know about the character from the first two lines of dialogue. Many are introduced only to be discarded as soon as their cutscene ends, relegated to be a vendor for eternity. Characters who have any ambiguity at all (Caitl, Drifter, Crow, Eris) are quickly sandblasted to be a vaguely encouraging voice in your ear.

Amid the controversy of Lightfall’s campaign failing to deliver any sort of story, it’s clear to me that Caiatl should have been the protagonist of that campaign; the imperial politics of the Cabal, Calus’s opulent aesthetic, Caiatl’s complicated relationship with her father, are all genuinely interesting. Unfortunately, our player character prevents this story from being told. For real Destiny’s protagonist sucks balls lol. The stories struggle to explore any meaningful character conflict because all storytelling needs to be sprayed at our blank slate player character. We are functionally a brick wall. When characters interact, we are an unresponsive observer that sucks the energy out of each scene. In a meta sense, most players tune out the story, in a self fulfilling prophecy of disengagement.

Destiny 2 receives a lot of flack its braindead humor, but it’s honestly a step up from the themeless nothingness that plagues the franchise. Characters like Cayde and Failsafe are popular because they manage to engage on some level, which is more than can be said for non-characters like Sloane, Asher Mir, Ikora.

Destiny needs real side quests (not patrols), that explore faction dynamics, reveal lore, and provide context to the shooting, even fetch quests would be good. Making the worlds more interactive, akin to the Wish-Ender eggs in the Dreaming city would be a good start.

The problem with this critique in the first place is that Destiny, at its core, is not trying to tell a story, it is a virtual toy to be played with. Any storytelling the campaigns could do are handicapped by the systems catering and speaking directly to the player. How many campaign stories now have been crippled by introducing a new subclass or game mechanic?

Do I regret the time I spent with destiny? Not necessarily. Sometimes, you have to see negative extremes of interactive storytelling to appreciate the good. But if we measure storytelling in terms of economy, Destiny is bankrupt.

#destiny 2 #destiny the game

[studentofetherium]

so Planetarian, huh?

in short, a lackluster middle section that’s held up by a strong ending and very strong visual presentation

to get the negative out of the way first, i think that the dynamic between the narrator and Yumemi got grating really quickly. both the gruff pessimism and the naive optimism were annoying in their own right, but the contrast between the only two being the only dialogue for the majority of the game was annoying. it made the whole thing sort of rough to go through and definitely made it hard to become invested in either character

that said, i was at least able to get invested enough for the ending to land. often, a good ending can be as important to my impression of a story as anything else, and in this case, it’s quite a good ending. it focuses on the strength of the story, that being Yumemi’s optimism and hope for humanity, while downplaying the protagonist’s annoying cynicism. i also appreciate how vague it is, that there are any number of ways for her story to go after the screen goes dark, with absolutely no commitment to any given one, which goes hand in hand with the vague future aspirations that come from the themes of space and exploration

but by far the best aspect of Planetarian was its visual presentation, which absolutely blew me away

the very basic aspects of the UI are incredible in their simplicity. Yumemi’s position on the screen, on top of the background and frame, does a great job of centering her in the story as the only other meaningful character. pushing the background into, well, the background, making it so out of the way compared to everything else is a strength, too, as it lets that aspect fall out of focus, while still giving it the space to stand out when the art changes for impact. and then, of course, there’s the background texture, the blue filter over the projector, which is the most minor of details and really just feels like flexing

the projection scene feels like flexing within flexing. it’s absolutely gorgeous and makes the most out of the basic UI setup by stripping away nearly all of its other elements, meaning that Yumemi and her presentation now take center stage. this scene, for me, absolutely stole the show. this alone makes the game worth playing

the raincoat is so cute:)

also the simple change of making the background filter brown instead of blue changes the tone of the game a lot. we’re no longer in the protected planetarium, but instead in the broken and ruined world

Planetarian feels, moreso than any other VN i’ve played, like a VISUAL novel. it’s a story that could be told in other mediums, but every step was taken to ensure that the visuals would do everything to enhance the writing. it’s the standout aspect of the game and the one which will stick with me for the longest time. for a game about optimism and the beauty of the world, it was so important for the game itself to be beautiful, and it is

#planetarian #post-game write-up

[dabidagoose]

What's your fave video game sountrack(s)? =^o

Ok that is a very loaded question so this is gonna be a long ass response, I hope you're prepared for what you've done.

(ok there's a tl;dr at the end if you want it sorry for this lmao)

FIRST POINT my immediate thought was the Ikenfell soundtrack (actually my immediate thought is I can't fuckin' choose they're all amazing but. then ikenfell). On the personal side, I was pretty much obsessed with the game for like three months straight, and i fuckin' love aivi and surasshu's music. I am also a simp for chiptune so jot that down. Moving past what may very well just be personal preference there are some incredibly interesting musical choices and impeccable choices story-wise that hit just. SO fuckin hard. Like emotionally. I won't elaborate on to the context and why the song works so well but the final battle theme is absolutely SPECTACULAR. (I could elaborate though so. ask if you will and i'll write another spiel on why it breaks my heart and soul). But also to reference a less-plot relevant piece I'm gonna bring up Alchemy is for Everyone. The squish bass sounds at the beginning are SUCH a fun environmental sound, it is really just NOT a sound I hear often which makes the track really stand out. And it fits SO perfectly for all the slimes and just. It's so WET. I love it. Makes me wanna wriggle. Which ok is probably also personal preference on reflection because my friend hates a wet song that I love but. Ok it's GOOD. Anyways continuing to the melody the fuckin PITCH bends. This is digital music at it's peak. We get the fun sounds. We get the fuckin pitch bends. Which are so fun because having slightly out of tune notes is such a fun feeling. It's a little off kilter, it's a little different. It's just SO funky and sounds so awesome to bend those pitches just a little bit, take full advantage of the medium and play around with it. Now I'm gonna talk a bit about why I love aivi & surasshu's music so much which. Ok so I believe(?) they coined the term "digital fusion" where you're mixing all these fun fresh digital sounds with real instruments/more traditional sounds and it can work SO fuckin well (for extra musical literature on this subject I'd like to suggest Yoann Turpin and specifically Chip Ship). Which we already get a taste of that where the pitch bends are playing on piano but it really kicks in when the violin takes over the melody and it's SUCH a graceful instrument in comparison to all this funky/awkward stuff we've had. The dichotomy is fuckin awesome. The violin is like a graceful victorian socialite ballroom dancing in after these pitch bends just pinned their arms to their sides and wiggled their hips around. We then get a third spacey instrument (I. have no idea what it is.) and it is. SUCH a switch. We have moved from awkward and stilted to almost too perfect and graceful (I forgot to write before but the high piano at the violin adds so much) to a moment of awe and discovery. We are now exploring the universe, the world of science and alchemy, and it is fantastic. The song almost seems to have it's own little narrative, and this is just a backing track for exploring one of the buildings!!!! This is within the first couple hours of gameplay, it is incredibly non-plot-relevant but SUCH a piece of art. I am absolutely in a slime ball watching amazing science happen so precisely and it is. so fuckin cool. And I could probably go off about every single other song, but in the interest of keeping away spoilers and finishing this post before 2 am, I will not. (Addendums because I can: this is less wet than the one my friend hates, and also this song is MOIST. I would also like to mention It's Showtime and Between the Lines as other song favorites but if I went into them I would never sleep.)

Okokokok. So. So SECOND point (I'm. so sorry.) I looked at my video game music soundtrack (I have two main soundtracks one for just every music but I didn't want to overwhelm it with VG music so I made one just for that that has ENTIRE soundtracks from almost every game I've played which. oops.) and I found two other contenders based mostly on I Really Liked The Games. The Oneshot soundtrack and the Night in the Woods soundtrack. Ok I'm gonna talk about Night in the Woods first cause HOLY shit. holy shit. The fucking astral songs. Those are fucking masterpieces. Such a simple ensemble but it creates such an INTENSE atmosphere. I really love instrumental music can you tell. I specifically want you listening to Astral Train for this one (played it for my senior recital and even though I had to play the violin part on clarinet I maintain it was one of the best choices I've ever made), but we the way the layers blend together is a fucking masterpiece. Since this song had to be designed so that any layer could play alone and each one could join in any order, each part of the quartet has to be interesting, but they still all must blend together and so they each get melody moments but the harmony/bass lines have to be interesting as well and. They ARE. This is such a hard task and it's accomplished SO. INCREDIBLY. WELL. (Side note: also makes for a good ensemble piece for, say, your and your friends' senior recitals, so everyone gets fun parts, a chance in the limelight, and a chance to rest, haha totally irrelevant note right there definitely no connection to my real life). With Astral Train we really get this cool ghostly train feel and through all the Astral pieces we REALLY feel the absolute intensity of Mae's dreams and the music creates such an immaculate vibe. It is unmatched. The rest of the soundtrack contains plenty of bops in a variety of genres too, where the bass songs have to be both playable and fun (Die Anywhere Else my beloved), and we get nostalgic and mischievous music fit for this ragtag team. This is the feeling I've had hanging out with my teenage friends at 10 PM in a parking lot. It is absolutely perfect for this video game. The music is SUCH a bop and really emotionally connects to me cause the game is such a bop of a plot. It is truly fantastic. (Addendum: Ok listening to Gregg rn and. Holy shit bop. I love him. I love this)

Ok now onto Oneshot, which, admittedly, does not have as strong a holding on the podium as these other two do, but curse me for having been emotionally destroyed by the video game because now I am emotionally attached to the music too. But, again, ATMOSPHERE. I am once again gonna be speaking in the interest of spoilers here, so I hope anyone who's finished the game will forgive what I'm not saying, but the entire landscape of this desolate planet is just SO much. The world is so simple and empty, and yet awe is often mixed with this feeling of despair. This is incredibly fitting for Niko, for the hopeful little pal they are, and creates an incredible effect. (I included specific song reccs for the last but I don't quite for this - so I'll just say now that I'm listening to On Little Cat Feet). The visuals are fairly simple, the map small, and just looking at the game the world feels incredibly small. But the music makes it all seem so vast. We really get put into Niko's shoes (or their little cat feet I suppose), and get to see this world for the vast, terrifying, but incredible place it is. The music makes you feel like that child seeing a new world for the first time, (this isn't spoilers past the first chapter but I'm warning you anyways) even though you are meant to be a god, you are still made to feel small and the world still large. The music does so much of this work, and it's incredible. Throughout the soundtrack the underlying angst, the despair, remains present, and the game has so much more impact for the music. No game is incomplete without it's music, and Nightmargin does a fantastic job creating this music for Oneshot. I haven't analyzed the actual music instruments/structure so much, but it's those instrumental sounds again tearing at my heart strings again. I would also like to recommend this game beyond the soundtrack, since it is an incredible story, with some puzzling gameplay, and it has made me feel how no other game has. It is a masterpiece of a game, and I implore everyone to play it through. Get hints if you need to, or play alone, just make it to the Ending. You'll know when you're there. (Addendum: I think I'm very repetitive here but I refuse to edit it so you have to live with this. Anyways gonna say it again: Play Oneshot!!)

Now I have chosen three game soundtracks that had a story that incredibly connected with me, and music to bolster that story and those emotions in incredibly meaningful ways. But there are so many others with great music, but that didn't necessarily connect on such an emotional level. Portal and Portal 2 have fantastic soundtracks, Celeste has beautiful music, Underhero has some funky and spectacular beats, Undertale and Deltarune are famously incredible (although I also did emotionally connect with them... but they're already talked about enough. Lancer beloved.), Clam Man is just. Fun., Oxenfree is also incredibly atmospheric and spectacular, Sewer Rave just has nice beats, and Minecraft is nostalgic as all hell. There are so many games to choose from, that from the moment I saw your question I knew I would be writing a far too long Tumblr post to answer you, because it feels an injustice to just answer one without reasoning, or without bringing to light all of the other amazing sounds I've discovered.

To finally answer your question, I think Ikenfell deserves the top spot in my heart. My instinct was right, there's fresh sounds, great musical structure (see: Between the Lines that I didn't elaborate on), incredibly emotional sounds, and fantastic storytelling within the soundtrack. But I love all of these other soundtracks, so I must bring them up. For they also have spots in my heart.

TL;DR - Ikenfell wins but I also love Oneshot and Night in the Woods and many others so I don't know what to say chief (lies i have too much to say)

#i will not apologize you brought this on the world by asking #i'm so sorry you had to find out i'm such a nerd This Way #i want to ask my friends to proofread this for legibility before posting but lets be real thats not happening. it wont be legible #so sorry about being this much of a nerd. not really but. wow that got long. mm vulnerability my behated #ikenfell #night in the woods #oneshot #only tagging those three cause theyre the ones i got too emotional about. #ok ok im gonna post this now lmao #wait am i legally allowed to mention blaseball cause the garages or is that not allowed #ok i think its not allowed #but the garages r very good i listened to the newest album today and *chefs kiss*

[crownandwriter]

HELLO! A genshin guy matchup request by gumdropfairy

I’m a heterosexual female, I prefer men.

Appearance: I’m 163 cm tall, spoon body type, I also have a long bob that’s almost shoulder-length with front bangs. My skin tone is light-medium shade with yellow tones. My hair is dark and so are my eyes. I have dark under-eyes which I’m def not pleased with and want to get rid of for an eternity. I think my nose is cute because it’s like a button. :0

In-depth:

My mbti is an ISFP and my zodiac sign is a Leo. I come off as distant and awkward. But I also can be dramatic with my passions. To the general public, I am very reserved, I prefer to not talk too much and show too much emotions. I don’t talk much and if I do, I am agreeable and soft-spoken. I like to learn new things and would like to think I carry a carefree persona. I’m also pretty clumsy. I am expressive and I am not afraid to show my feelings, you can say I’m an open book. I like to mind my own business and do things my own pace. I prefer to not to interact with people, but if I have to, I’ll have to drag my feet and body, it’s so draining for me.

A flaw is my short temper and impatience. When I’m upset, I tend to raise my voice, but I can get serious and calm about my negative emotions with a talk and reasoning. Honesty is the best policy for me because my family are always honest with me. So, I can’t lie very well. In terms of interest, I am opinionated and I can discuss openly with what I find interesting. I tend to rant and impatient. A bad habit I do is cutting people off which is very rude but I’m obv working on it. Topics of interest to me are traveling, psychology, astrology, languages, fitness, health/beauty, and food.

Hobbies are reading (webtoon, manhwa and BL hehe), games, photography, studying, online shopping, and working out. I used to do judo in high school so I won’t hesitate to throw a…..something if I get threatened! (Judo isn’t a sport/martial art that you openly attack) I have an affinity for flowers. My favorite flowers are jasmine flowers (my mom and grandma grows this and it reminds me of my heritage), hydrangeas, peonies, cherry blossoms, and water lilies. 

I like sweets, flowers, pretty sunsets, lip products, earl grey tea, chai, and coffee. I dislike waking up early and seafood. Lately, I’ve been into painting, but haven’t started. My dream is to travel, have meaningful memories and be successful in my career.

My love language is quality time and acts of service. I get ticklish when people touch me but wouldn’t mind showing physical touch maybe. I’m a romantic with no love experience. I’ve never had a romantic relationship before. I think to show that I care about someone, I always want to know what they’re doing, if they ate, what they ate, their health and etc. I’m also a romantic at heart, although the idea of soulmates is not really my thing because it sounds ridiculous. I really like poetry (Oscar Wilde, Alfred Tennyson etc.) and Monet. I gush at love poetry but gag at people in real life saying “babe” “sweetie” to each other and kissing.... (cont.)

I hope you don’t mind I cut back some of your entry for neatness in posting! Also…I actually lean towards Childe a little more than Zhongli for you but…I really don’t care for Childe and I struggle to write him. Sorry!

I Ship You With Zhongli!

-Zhongli has his limits, of course, but all in all he’s a patient man. Near-immortality tends to do that to a dragon person, so your quick mood shifts won’t be much of an issue. With a little time, in fact, h may get better at anticipating them than you! Beyond that, he’s skilled in the art of negotiating and calming people down tends to be a talent that goes hand-in-hand. Also? Just his voice is so calming, gosh….

-He is a TALKER. And his manner of speech can be rather blunt, but in that same vein he’s also blunt enough to just straight up ask when he believes he may have offended or upset you. You honesty works well here, Zhongli would much rather nurture healthy communication so misunderstandings can be corrected, instead of you trying to lie and swallow all the small upsets until they fester.

-HIS HONESTY also comes in handy here, because there’s literally no reason for Zhongli to lie to you. He always tries to be honest to the absolute fullest of his ability (subtracting only instances of silence-by-contract) and this would be especially true when it comes to reassuring you against your self-consciousness.

-He doesn’t particularly care what exactly you’d do with your freetime, but Zhongli would prefer you don’t idle it away. So, if you’re going to procrastinate, you ought to be doing something else productive at least--gardening, reading, drawing, it really doesn’t matter as long as you’re experiencing something! This could be good for bad for you, depending on your energy levels.... But he doesn’t bring this up just to nag you, but rather out of concern. Human lives are so short and he doesn’t want you to regret letting any moment pass you by empty-handed. That said, he won’t let you procrastinate too long. You have a deadline and it would be shameful to not meet it. Get to work, so it can be done with and he can reward you.

-He’s not one for the modern terms of affection. He’s heard all manner of sweet pet names and obscure, poetic confessions over the centuries and he’d much rather recite those for you. At his very mushiest, he may occasionally call you by flower names.

-For a few additional things, he would LOVE to meet and spend time with your family. He’s quite good at getting along with most people--I mean, he is rather impressive after all. Also, I think both of you hating seafood is hilarious. The two people in port-city Liyue who won’t eat fish are a couple qlewhgckqr.

Runner Up: Childe

#genshin #genshin matchup

[msommers]

it's one of those nights where i'm thinking about my ocs and what their presence would be on social media platforms if they had them so i dunno man, let's ramble some fun nonsense ((most Assuming modern aus))

MAEVE — ridiculous with how she's literally all over the place. she's huge on instagram and twitter, has several podcasts and guests on even more of them because she likes to talk. big on being open about sex, love, relationships and mental health so she spreads as much information and advice as she can through these mediums. kind of sickeningly sweet, sometimes lowkey horny energy from the photos she posts of her and any partner(s). thirst trap photos of maeve galore, sometimes soft n cute ones thrown in there. likes to guest on things where someone tries to show her how to cook things or how go play video games because she may not be the best but it's Very fun to try. special youtube videos/podcast eps where she'll read reddit stories in audiobook fashion for the kicks.

ELIDE — twitch! gamer!! she'd be most known for her r6 streaming and is crazy good at it ((mains kali, zofia and vigil)), kind of sickening to watch sometimes her instincts and reactions are insane. occasional switch to overwatch if she's feeling like something lighter on action, or shit like the sims and animal crossing if she doesn't want action at all. ((sometimes if it's Really Late at night while still streaming, she'll start reading scary stories or talking about true crime because she Can and finds them fascinating)) she'd have a family youtube but not for showing off kids or anything, but for sharing her experiences and advice on pregnancy, adjusting to life with kids and animals, how to organize your space and time with a growing family, etc etc. ((a fucking sleeper hit in the organization nuts community, her videos on organizing the kitchen and other rooms in the house are Immensely satisfying)). cooking and baking videos!!! would have either a podcast or a mini-series where she goes full history nerd with guests tbh. her insta gives people baby fever and pet jealousy because her family photos are insanely cute. lots of body positivity on all platforms, also some lowkey thirst trap energy in photos.

JORINA — i think she'd have a really satisfying, peaceful asmr channel where she films her work on maps and other art pieces. doesn't talk At All during them, puts captions on her videos of anything she needs to say/explain. she would, unfortunately, have one of those travel instas where she tosses up ridiculously beautiful shots of locations that she and aleksi visit. one time posted a silhouette shot of them skinny dipping in an ocean somewhere and had to be talked into keeping it up because even if Nothing was visible, she still was insanely embarrassed ((but Loved the photo)).

LUCINDA — spooky! crew!! ghost hunt videos!!! the resident medium who does some spooky ass shit that has everyone online freaking out or crying hoax. has her own Extra videos where she likes to explain the historical side of things for the locations that the crew visits, as she likes to research those things before they ever go. an odd success on insta because specific people are obsessed with her wardrobe and family's entire home aesthetic.

EMMA — gardening!! everywhere!!! well,,,probably like two platforms max, but on both she shares so much content on her gardening and general nature activities. has little videos on each type of flower/herb/fruit/etc that she grows to show them off in her garden, and then talk about how the plant needs to be cares for in order for it to grow successfully. that dork who has guides on the meanings of flowers and helps people make meaningful messages through bouquets. the occasional animal video/pic of critters she sees around her place and in any location she hikes around.

#ch: maeve sommers #ch: elide harker #ch: scout jorina #ch: emmalanthe merigold #idk i just think they're neat 🥰🥰 #pure self-indulgence before my nap #anyway i want to have maeve tell me how to deal with mental health issues and read funny sex stories for hours #elide rock me to sleep with your relaxing animal crossing streams where you sing & talk a lot with that ridiculous accent of yours #lucinda tell me spooky stories without realizing how terrifying they actually are bc it's just History and potential Myth to you #ch: old luce tag

[seenvs3000-21]

Using Art to Reconnect

Art and nature have been intertwined throughout history, often the source of inspiration for many acclaimed artists. When it comes to art and nature, my first thought is how often nature is the theme for artists, and it is so inspiring to them. The most obvious is the onslaught of famous paintings that feature nature scenes and nature photography. However, nature reveals its impression in all art forms that are often overlooked, such as music, such is the case for Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, or in any other creative medium!

This is an image of one of many nature themed works by Vincent Van Gogh in 1889, it is named Wheat Field with Cypresses and is on display at The MET in NYC. 

I personally love this painting because of the detail that went into the background aspects which often are over simplified in visual art pieces such as the sky, but here it is rich and brooding.

Taken from: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436535

I think this inspiration from nature is something that everyone can access if we just take the time to notice it. One of the social diseases proposed by Hahn in the course content for this week is the decline of memory and imagination that occurs in people as a result of the decreasing time spent in the outdoors. I think art can be a powerful medium to explore as a way not only to practice imagination but also personal reflection. Nature allows us to spend time spent away from technology and the hustle-bustle of modern life. We are always so caught up in our busy lives that we forget to take the time to slow down and accept the beauty and serenity that can be found within nature. 

Another social disease Hahn proposed that results from a lack of time spent in nature is the decline of self-discipline. This particular social disease speaks to the widespread inability individuals possess in modern society to manage themselves. People are so quick to rely on the slew of things that are always at our fingertips to make our lives easier. If you are bored, you jump down the rabbit hole of games and apps on your phone. If you're tired, have a coffee or maybe an energy drink to pep you right up; but now you have trouble falling asleep? There's medication to help you fall asleep. We live in a world of quick fixes and shortcuts, and in this, I agree with Hahn that it is a plague on society. Nature provides a remedy for the excess of screen time, convenience, and instant gratification, which we are becoming so accustomed to in the modern world.

This is a photo I took this week as the sun began to set over the river during my hike. 

Photography is a new artistic medium I have been practicing with over the last few months. Definitely a change compared to my typical watercolour paintings, but I have found it feels more authentic as an interpretation of my experiences in nature.

Nature takes time; flowers you plant will not bloom in a day, the fall colours do not manifest on the first day of the season, nature is about slow growth. I think art is a brilliant way to reconnect with nature because, like nature, it requires patience, and I think given the world we live in, everyone can use a lesson in patience. Art is a practice that takes time to develop, and it can involve some trial and errors to find the best medium to suit you. Even when you discover the medium that speaks to you, producing singular art pieces often can take time to complete even after years of practice. In that way, art is therapeutic. It provides a very authentic way to interpret nature. It forces the artist to spend time reflecting to create something meaningful to them about their lived experiences.

Additionally, the beauty you can find outdoors can most accurately be depicted through forms of art. My personal preference is to do this by painting my outdoor experiences, and more recently, I have been dabbling in photography, which has become a weekly practice for me thanks to this class! Life is hectic, especially in light of the pandemic's continual uncertainty, but it is essential to make time to disconnect from the chaos. In my experience over the past year, the stresses of completing my undergraduate studies, and the big decisions that come with it, I make an effort to find time for appreciation practices to disconnect from the stresses of everyday living and reconnect instead with the calmness that can be found within nature.

[lonelynightproject]

From abstraction to reality

If you have landed here without context (as usually there isn’t any), this post is a reflection, reminder, and note to self about failure, moving ahead, and not getting trapped in a repetitive pattern of thinking while trying to make a game. 

Failure and learnings from proto 0.1 

The multiplication/growth mechanic with which I had started doesn’t seem to work out and move any further, I’m not able to think of any good progression to it which would create a meaningful context for the players. I tried a few ideas but it felt forced, choices are not interesting and it is difficult to make a mental model of the game for the players to be able to move intuitively. I think I mixed up a few things and also did not take any thematic elements into consideration, due to which the game could not be made playable and it just ended up with a single mechanic with no context/motivation to play. I think I got into the classic trap of low skill, high expectation, where I’ve been thinking of traveling to a place without even considering where I am standing right now. I completely ignored the fact that one can only start from where they are, no matter where they want to go. 

I also confused the mechanic, theme, and experience which I want the players to have, they all seem to counter one another and a seamless play was not possible. I should have stuck to one element and made it a center around which other things can be built. I made the same mistake in my last project and wasted a lot of time doing it over and over again, analyzing, reading theory, and then just being paralyzed with no results which lead to a feeling of frustration and you think I can never ever make a game. Maybe I should have some intelligence and learn from my mistakes and not repeat it every time and waste time reflecting and learning them again. Last year I had made a note that every time I face this problem I will remind myself of this Doha by Rahim - एकै साधे सब सधै, सब साधे सब जाय। रहिमन मूलहिं सींचिबो, फूलै फलै अघाय।। but again, I felt into the same trap and made the same mistake, humans never learn! An idea should be nurtured carefully, not be burdened with all sorts of philosophies, theories, and expectations. 

So, basically what happened, the objective, mechanic, and the feedback loop was not working properly in sync, many of the things were just not possible with the mechanic and I just could not leave certain ideas or think of new ideas which would work with each other. It was an idea that had some metaphoric values, but it just could not work in the game form or I could not make it work. It could have been made as a simulation or an art installation, but the whole point of making a game was so that players, as an active agent, can make the choices, take actions and realize the consequence of their desire-driven actions, what they are doing to other players and to the game environment. 

Moving ahead

After two or three tests and discussing it with Jeff, I realized that this idea was not going to work, so I started thinking of some other ideas around growth. This time I was not thinking of going abstract but something that has a real-world connection and a pattern of growth which can be observed, so that there is a context to work with. It also helps in building connections between different elements of the game thematically or gameplay-wise.

After a few days, one night when I was taking a walk, I saw a few flower plants and started thinking about flowers, and I observed that flowers also have a pattern of growth, how a small seed, a non-living thing when put under a certain condition and nurtured carefully grows into beautiful flowers, full of life, this is just pure amazement. This evoked me to think of the same process in a game form, and I started to think of the journey of a plant from seed to flowers and all the other things associated with it. 

I’ve always lived with this thought that “beauty can only be appreciated, you can not do anything else with it”, so every time I feel beautiful or amazed I just stand still and be there with no actions. On the other hand, I also think why not create something beautiful yourself when you feel beautiful or amazed? And then a conflict arises and the beauty seems to fade away, so I’ve been choosing to not think and just be. But this time I decided to express and contribute to the beauty and amazement by making something myself, at least try to make something, and something was obviously going to be a game. 

Just when I thought of this, my next thought was, why do you want to make a game, is a game a good medium to express this phenomenon or the feeling? Why do you want to imitate nature, what will you get by expressing? Why are you trying to relive moments, trying to unnecessarily stretch something,  nature can not be abstracted, or made any more beautiful, don’t think of yourself as a creator, you can not create any beauty. My mind got filled with all these jumbled thoughts and suddenly I washed them away in a flash and told myself, not this time, not again. You have got to try, you have got to explore, test and see, these thoughts are always going to be there, and you will never get over it, you have got a life, you are alive, and you are allowed to express, create and the only way to do this is to go through it and test it yourself which side is actually true by experiencing how it feels to express, to create and to connect with the creation, and even after making it, if you still have these thoughts, let it be, at least you lived with it and tried to make something yourself.  Next prototype

So, now I’m exploring this idea of growth in the context of flowers, plants, and taking care of a small garden. I don’t know how or if this is going to get into a game, but I feel it can take a form, and soon it will be something playable. I will go with the fail early, prototype fast process, and get the ideas realized in material form as quickly as possible even if that means going with bad concepts, broken game, or no meaning. I will try to make it better once I have something tangible, and not plan or reject the ideas before really testing them. As they say, good designers make bad games and they improve on it until it becomes good. so.. yeah, quotes sometimes help. Also, I’m ok with bad, there is no problem in creating something which doesn’t meet your expectations, as I’ve started to realize that the perfect day is never going to come, no one ever will really understand you. So stop thinking about what could go wrong, and just start from where you stand, anyway there is no other option you can start from anywhere else, the mind can roam around, but that doesn’t really change where you are. and in reality, you only can take one step at a time no matter how far you want to go. 

#journal #design journal #self talk #design logs #board game design #game design log #game design process #creative practice #mind #thoughts #reflection #learning #introspection #design process #creative process #ideas #tabletopgamedesign #game design mentorship #nonsense #the losers club #losers talks #flowers #abstract #reality

[bopinion]

Book of the month / 2020 / 06 June

I love books. Even though I hardly read any. Because my library is more like a collection of tomes, coffee-table books, limited editions... in short: books in which not "only" the content counts, but also the editorial performance, the presentation, the curating of the topic - the book as a total work of art itself.

S. > S. - Das Schiff des Theseus

Doug Dorst & J. J. Abrams

Novel plus / 2013 > 2015 / Mulholland >Kiepenheuer & Witsch

In a way, "S. - The Ship of Theseus" is a prime example of a book that goes far beyond its content and thus becomes a multi-layered work of art. And I am thrilled with it. Two authors are responsible for this masterpiece. Or in this case rather producers. Firstly Doug Dorst. Previously better known as professor for creative writing at Texas State University in San Marcos. The other is J.J. Abrams. Yes, exactly the J.J. Abrams. A team that promises a lot. And keeps.

"The most beautiful book I have ever seen" writes The New Yorker. Book? More like books. Because this work consists of at least four narrative levels, which the inclined reader can explore in an infinite number of ways.

Among them is the novel "The Ship of Theseus" by a certain V. M. Straka, apparently a pseudonym. It is about a seeker named S. Searching for meaning - of everything, even himself, because he suffered a loss of memory. S staggers through an alternation of reality and imagination, finds, loses, switches between time and place, on his way to a destination he does not know. On a ship that drives him. But where to? And who navigates? The novel is a philosophical manifesto about the madness of reality - or what we think it is. Documentary and fiction at the same time.

Above or beside it there is a kind of commentary. Already in the preface, the translator F. X. Calderai welcomes us to an adventure and gives us a kind of basic orientation of the plot and the author. He himself is involved, working through footnotes that are partly confusing and partly meaningful, and brings the unfinished work to a close by completing the last chapter, which is only fragmentarily available, in the author's sense. Really in his sense? For Calderai does not know Straka either, but feels himself to be a companion. But in what way?

The highest level is the path of the book itself. Which the student Jen finds in the library on the university campus. Provided with handwritten marginal notes by the doctoral student Eric, who threatens to fail in the task of finding Straka. And may not even understand the task itself. Between the two, who never meet, a dialogue about the medium of this one edition of the book unwinds. A dialogue about the plot, the author, the translator and increasingly about themselves, because the search must be a personal one. A mission that demands and takes the participants (which increasingly includes the reader) completely.

At the top, as a kind of crowning glory, are the supplements that "live" in this book, either by chance or intentionally. Postcards, newspaper clippings, photos, letters and much more. All of which have to do with the book. Or the plot. Or the people involved. Or nothing at all. What is a clue. What's a code. Are these all pieces of a puzzle? And is the deciphering disk a transparent aid or a black box? Maybe even the ship's black box...

A highly sophisticatedly composed novel that shows what potential a book can have. As reading and as a reflection of life. "As if Franz Kafka and Karl May had written an adventure novel together after a night of drinking." (Süddeutsche Zeitung). A book that you have to get involved with, that takes you on a trip - whether as a journey or self-awareness, whether as a source of knowledge or as the curse of a drug. With which time becomes blurred, even for the reader who can no longer get along with it.

"S. - The Ship of Theseus is a bold masterpiece of the art of printing and storytelling, a haptic jewel of literature that surpasses all expectations." (Rolling Stone). Exactly, the haptics. It's unbelievable what the publishers have done to themselves. The supplements shine on umpteen different papers, show the variety of paper processing, give an idea of how much manual work went into this book. For example the drawn plan of the campus of Jen and Eric, which is actually emblazoned on a napkin. And the book itself - really! - literally smells to me like the first library I can remember. Imagination? Then the book proves that it has captured my mind. So beware: addictive potential!

P.S.: The book has already been described as a scavenger hunt, cheat pack, conspiracy theory, literary thriller, cryptography lesson, reading adventure or detective game. I find "The Ultimate Anti-E-Book" (Die Welt) most apt, because seldom has the haptics contributed to the reading pleasure as much as with this book. But even that - how appropriate - cannot be answered just like that. Lisa Eckstein even pursues this question in her own book. And yet it is quite simple: every answer is correct. And wrong.

Here's just a quick first impression of this "book":

https://youtu.be/kiJJ02RBEac

#Youtube #j. j. abrams #doug dorst #theseus #kiepenheuer witsch #book #book review

[monstersdownthepath]

Spiritual Spotlight: Phlegyas, the Consort of Atheists

True Neutral Psychopomp Usher of Atheists, Legacies, and Reincarnation

Domains: Artifice, Earth, Knowledge, Repose Subdomains*: Industry, Petrification, Memory, Psychopomp

Concordance of Rivals, pg. 16

Obedience: Spend an hour creating something from the dead, such as by making jewelry or clothing from hair, flesh, bones, or teeth. Alternately, mummify or embalm a corpse. Benefit: Gain a +2 insight bonus on saving throws against Divine magic.

(*IMPORTANT NOTE: The Subdomains are my best guess; Subdomains are not listed in Concordance of Rivals.)

Macabre! I hope you’ve got a good explanation for your party about why you’re being a ghoulish scavenger, but personally I’ve yet to be in a party where there were no scavenger types. It seems that every group of people has at least one person who takes handfuls of teeth or other trophies from their kills, but that may just be a bigger signifier about what kinds of people that I hang out with than a true analysis of this Obedience.

It’s an easy Obedience to do if you can quell your party’s fears about your chosen medium for your arts and crafts, because as an adventurer, you’re not likely to have a shortage of usable parts. Hell, just ONE complete body has enough materials to carry you through several days or even weeks of this Obedience because you can just perform some scrimshaw on the larger bones before using the smaller ones as pieces for a larger work. For people who want a bit more oomph in their crafting, I’m not 100% certain on Pharasma and the Usher’s tolerance of using the dead as crafting material for your own Construct minions, but ‘creating something from the dead’ lends itself to some pretty broad interpretations. You can, technically, use them to make Wondrous Items like weaving their leather into a Bag of Holding, even. Crafting magic items takes way more than 1 hour to do, obviously, so you can really only combine this Obedience with your crafting during downtime... Unless they’re potions, in which case they take a mere 2 hours if they cost less than 250gp.

That counts, right? All else fails, though, a Sack Of Rats can be used here. Just pull one out, clonk it dead, and preserve that tiny corpse.

And while my mind is on it, this Obedience couples phenomenally with the Harvest Parts, Grisly Ornament, and Monstrous Crafter feats.

Also, the benefit is great. A blanket +2 on saves versus Divine spells from any source and any alignment? Sign me up! Unfortunately, it doesn’t really protect you from spell-like abilities, and the bonus by itself is rather small, but it’s always nice to have just an always-on bit of extra protection you don’t need to think about. Like Mage Armor!

Boons are gained slowly, gained at levels 12, 16, and 20. Servants of the Monitors, though, can enter the Proctor Prestige Class as early as level 8. If entered as early as possible, you can earn your Boons at levels 10, 14, and 16. You MUST take the Monitor Obedience feat, NOT Deific Obedience. Monitors grant only a single set of Boons.

Boon 1: Creator's Whispers. Gain Crafter's Fortune 3/day, Object Reading 2/day, or Detect Anxieties 1/day.

Crafter’s Fortune and Object Reading aren’t too useful in the day-to-day, lets get that out of the way. Fortune grants a target a +5 bonus to the next Craft check they make, which is GREAT for people in your party who actually create things (like you, potentially), but you don’t need it 3/day unless everyone is making stuff. You can also use it in tandem with the Fabricate spell, of course, but in general you likely won’t need it more than once a day.

Object Reading has its niche uses in a Whodunnit mystery or tracking down the owner of a particular item, allowing you to quickly gather information of whose hands the target has passed, but the +10 Appraise check is actually only worth +1 fact, giving you a minimum of +2 facts... which is all you probably need anyway. It’s up to you whether or not that means this ability is useful, but know that the +10 means that a mere 2 or 3 points in Appraise makes it impossible to fail your reading.

Which leaves Detect Anxieties, which works as Detect Thoughts, but instead of the infinitely more useful analysis of the victim’s surface thoughts, you instead learn of whatever anxieties and fears are plaguing its mind. While still potentially useful, this translates in-game to only providing a paltry +2 to Intimidation checks, which I think should be significantly higher. Perhaps you could also get bonuses to other skill checks if you choose to sooth their anxieties rather than exploiting them?

That being said, it’s a useful spell for scanning hallways and rooms for concealed enemies, and its ability to pass through the same materials Detect Thoughts can means you can peer into some rooms without opening the doors and get a general feel of the room’s mood. All three of these spells, however, remain pretty niche, making it difficult to pick which one to take each day.

Boon 2: Evader of Consequence. You can cast Reincarnate or Mindwipe 1/day as a spell-like ability. You must select which when you perform the obedience for that day. 

Mindwipe slaps a target with 2 temporary negative levels if they fail their save, with the side-effect of instantly wiping out the target’s two highest-level spells or spell slots, as well as erasing the knowledge of two of their highest-level spells known. It’s an alright spell in the hands of players, shaving -10 HP off the enemy and hitting them with a -2 penalty to every roll they make, and eating two of the caster’s most powerful tools in one go can cripple whatever trump card they had in their pocket.

Unfortunately, it’s negated entirely by a save, and a Will save at that. It’s going to be difficult to actually have it land on a caster for its full effect, but at the very least you can still aim it at the enemy frontline to debuff them for a few days.

That being said, Reincarnation is an interesting choice. Normally costing 1,000gp to cast, you pay nothing for this power. It requires only a small portion of a dead body to use and creates a new one in the prime of their youth, allowing the caster to bypass the usual “no old age” restriction of life-granting magic, allowing it to bring back people living way past their time. Also, since Reincarnate works on bodies less than a week old, you can just keep preparing Mindwipe until someone dies!

The true power of this Boon, however, is that it’s essentially a free Raise Dead that needs only a pinch of corpse dust to work, provided you’re feeling lucky on the slot machine of potential races to come back as. Some... complications may arise if they reincarnate as a race that doesn’t mesh well with their build, but the fact you get the spell for free means that you can just keep trying day after day if you need to. On a morbid note, this means you’ll never really be at a loss for parts for your Obedience! ... Or food, I suppose.

Boon 3: Though Only Breath. After completing your Obedience, choose one Craft, Perform, or Profession skill. Until you next perform your Obedience, you gain a +10 insight bonus on checks to create something permanent with your chosen skill, such as carving a statue, writing a play, or drafting meaningful legislature. A check result of 40 or higher indicates that the object you create is of such astonishing quality that it will remain in the public consciousness for generations to come. This bonus does not apply to checks made to earn money.

I hope you’re the party craftsman, because come level 16, everything you do has a chance of becoming something famous and beautiful. Note that, while this ability cannot be used to craft scrolls or potions, using it to craft magical items is perfectly valid. ALSO NOTE, though, that this affects your Craft check, not your Spellcraft check, so allocate your skill points accordingly. Spellcraft allows you to construct any magical item, but specific Craft checks are needed for things like working leather, carving stone, etc.

On the plus side, golems and other magical Constructs often require specific Craft checks to build rather than just relying on Spellcraft, allowing you to craft mechanical minions with greater accuracy than ever before. If your items cost less than 1000gp to create you can get them finished in one day, allowing you to swap your bonuses to another one if need be.

Two things about this Boon are cute: The first is that you can also use it to bolster Perform or Profession, and the second is the final portion, in which an especially impressive construction will endure “in the public consciousness for generations to come,” implying that whatever you make will either be so astonishingly breathtaking or so unbelievably horrifying that people won’t be able to stop thinking about it for centuries. Amusing as that is when making something that costs less than 1000gp, it’s still apparently noteworthy enough to have whispers of it passed from parent to child.

This makes spreading propaganda pathetically easy, by the way. Since Profession checks can be just about anything, you can go buck wild with Profession (Lawmaker) or Profession (Mayor) or Profession (Novelist)! ... Or, as my DM pointed out, a futuristic setting could have you use your Profession (Blogger) or Profession (Instagram Influencer) clout to shape the public zeitgeist. Even if they don’t like you or your ideas, they’ll be talking about you, possibly until long after you’re gone.

Even if you can’t change the world, but you can sure as hell leave your mark in it.

You can read more about her here.

#Spiritual Spotlight #Neutrality Notes #Pathfinder #Dungeons and Dragons

[retphienix]

I’ll partially quote what I said to the person who recommended this to me:

“I make mention towards crying more often than I physically do, but games have done so many times in the past- you could say they are just about the only medium to successfully do that repeatedly.

I'm weak to games, but that doesn't make it easy for me to cry.

Finished the solstice ending, had to wipe my keyboard off, absolutely sensational and I adore any game designed to express that important connection between what's real and experienced, and how, I don't know. How things that might be constructed can be just as valuable and real as you or I. The connections remain and the story holds meaning and weight regardless. I love them, I love all the characters, I love Silver whom now I know by name, I love the world machine, I love and am overflowing with it and it's been possibly a year+ since I cried at a game legitimately?? And I feel grand.“

I’ve gushed about this game to my sister as well, I always struggle to convince others to play games that matter to me, but this most certainly is one now.

I WILL retain this story, just as I’ve held onto similar meaningful tales that have become very much real to me over the years. This is the same, and holds just as much care. It amazes me what stories we can create, or how impactful they can be.

I’m just amazed by what we can all make. Entire people, entire relationships, entire worlds. That’s incredible. That’s real enough for me.

I’ve only played one other game that used NG+ to hide an entire separate story and that was Nier Automata, another game that made me cry. Considering how much of a gamble it is to hide game from the player- it seems to mostly be used by people who care enough about what they have to share that they trust us to keep looking- they trust us to find it, and I appreciate that.

The impact fictional characters or stories can have on someone, and the validity and ‘real’ness of them considering their impacts has been a theme I enjoy thinking of. Admittedly it usually feels sad to think on, because we all know what’s what and what isn’t, but the idea of something existing because it was made by us- that we put it out there and now it exists just as much as we do despite the limited venue we have of it (like the limited amount of pages to a book or endings to a game)- it’s something I enjoy partaking in.

Sure, I know the limits, how real it is here, but I like wondering if it exists beyond what we made. That the universe we created and made a snapshot of has been brought to fruition just beyond what we can see. I like those thoughts, they are comforting, regardless of how painfully theoretical and obviously wistful those sentiments might be.

I still enjoy them because I want it to be real. I want the things that impact me to matter beyond just what they did to me, though I suppose they matter plenty just for that sole fact, but I can still want more for them. I want the stories that matter to me to continue beyond me.

And you know what? I think they do just that in some respect. I’d like to believe they do that entirely- independent of us. But it’s hard not to admit they do continue thanks to the various people’s influences in our world.

The story that impacted me hit another person differently- there it is continuing.

The story that impacted me inspired another person to write a story, quite literally continuing.

The story that impacted me lead to art and emotions and deeper thought and talks of empathy or existence and all of these were the story continuing.

Of course the bleeding heart wishing for the world, quite literally in a way, in me wants the story to just be real, full stop. But it’s hard not to say it is in some way, it certainly creates so much in our world that it’s hard to say it isn’t.

God I’ve rambled. And nearly teared up partially in shame for admitting such wistful “I want games to be real” nonsense, sound insane, but here we are.

This was a beautiful experience that I intend to hold onto for life. Thank you.

#RetPlays #OneShot #OneShot Game

[yesvac]

Podcasting Dungeons & Dragons: How “The Adventure Zone” is Reviving Oral Storytelling

Topic: Podcasts, oral storytelling, “The Adventure Zone”

Date: 14 October 2019

Read time: 10 minutes

When I was young and visited my grandma’s house, I always asked her to read me Go, Dog. Go! by Dr. Seuss before I went to sleep. This was a reasonable request when I was little, but when I began to grow older, regularly reading chapter books on my own, I would still ask my grandma to read me Go Dog. Go! at the end of the night. It was something about how she sat at the side of my bed, squishing me up against the wall, and said those words that had been repeated many times before. And I am not alone in my fond memories of repeated oral story. People love repeated stories, ones told over and over: myths, narratives, family tales. We love these stories not only for their themes and the multitudes of love they contain, but because oral storytelling is a deeply human instinct: in 1998, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin described that “oral tradition… becomes story as it is retold, resung.” So where do podcasts of the modern age factor in? Podcasts are a medium of oral storytelling, and I plan to explore that idea through exploring the podcast “The Adventure Zone.” “The Adventure Zone’s” specific medium of storytelling and its enjoyed popularity teaches lessons about methods and mediums of story, and how they impact storytelling.

To understand how a podcast can do that, it’s important to know what “The Adventure Zone” is. “The Adventure Zone” is a series of publicized recordings (or, a podcast) created and recorded by the McElroy brothers (Justin, Travis, and Griffin McElroy), podcast-artists and comedians, with their dad. In it, they participate in and play a Dungeons & Dragons campaign they call “Balance.” “The Adventure Zone: Balance” has 69 episodes, and seven story arcs, amounting to over 75 hours. During the podcasts, the players not only play Dungeons & Dragons and fight monsters, but also develop each of their characters, and Griffin, the Dungeon Master of the game (for those who aren’t intimately familiar with D&D: he crafts the story and moderates the game), creates a web of story and plot throughout the 75-hour runtime of the campaign. There’s no way to tell how many people listen to “The Adventure Zone Podcast,” because there are dozens of podcast-streaming websites and no publicly posted number of listeners or listens; however, in the past few years, the show has enjoyed a boost of popularity and a geniune “following” of listeners. But why? What compels people spend dozens of hours listening to four men play Dungeons & Dragons? 

As I mentioned previously, podcasts are one of the newest and most explosive forms of oral storytelling. While not many of the younger generation watch news on the television (or watch television at all), almost all of them listen to public radio or podcasts through an app. As Nicholas Mirzoeff discusses in his piece “How to See the World,” the newly created “global network” has allowed us to “create, send and view images of all kinds, from photographs to video, comics, art, and animation.” Podcasting is an aspect of this new global network and may be counted as an image shared through it. Most people own technology that gives them access to podcasts through the internet, and consuming their shared images is easier now than ever. 

Through the medium of podcast, there is a certain shared experience akin to the shared experience of intimate oral storytelling. It harkens back to the days of shared story through oral connections, over a fire with friends or a family story not recorded in a written format but passed along through generations. As Juliette de Maeyer recognizes in her article “Podcasting Is the New Talk-Radio,” podcasts “bring you to places you’ve never been… give you the impression of sharing an animated kitchen-table banter... with a couple of friends. In that regard, podcasts are a “sensational” medium.” In “The Adventure Zone,” during long monologues by Griffin, the Dungeon Master, there’s often background music that recalls the musical theme used before in the campaign or arc, while Griffin narrates a story with meaningful themes of death, family, love, loss and loneliness. Certainly, “The Adventure Zone” is a sensational medium when it uses repeated music to elicit an emotional response. Additionally, this concept relates to Thomas Turino’s idea of artistic connections in his piece “Why Art Matters,” when he claimed that “the connections expressed through art flow from and create a deeper sense and a different type of understanding.” By using the repeated artistic expression of music in the podcast, the creators tap into a deeper level of understanding of the listeners. Many podcast creators do. 

What comes from this emotional response and formed connection is an imagined community by the podcast-listeners. In “How to See the World,” Mirzoeff discusses Benedict Anderson’s theory of imagined communities: that all communities are imagined, because people in it have not truly formed a connection with all of the other members. Anderson describes imagined communities of nations, which often result in patriotism, or imagined communities of readers of newspapers, who feel connections with the readers of the same newspaper. In that case, listeners to podcasts are certainly members of an imagined community, both with the podcast artists (those who record podcasts), in the case that they feel an intimate connection through the oral tradition of storytelling, and with the other fans, in “fandom.” Two fans of the same podcast who have never met can form bonds across boundaries of nation and language because they have an imagined community of being two people who both really, really like this podcast.

But let us rewind a bit, and understand more about the oral medium of storytelling. I want to talk about the oral medium in general and why it’s so persuasive now in 2019. It’s clear that the younger generation of people are less interested in big media the way previous generations have been -- big media meaning CNN, ABC, Fox News and CBS. Even big news outlets like The Atlantic and Washington Post and The NY Times enjoy less recognition and popularity from Millenials and Gen-Z readers. Most people in this age group do not watch the news but instead listen to NPR on their favorite podcasting platform, or any other podcast and talk-radio medium recordings. There is good reason for this. As a Maeyer describes “big news” in 2019, it’s often clouded with “hateful trolls, hysterical fake news outlets, a news agenda led by Russian hackers, and a never-ending spiral of conspiracy theories.” The oft-repeated mantra of “fake news” has led to the younger generation’s rejection of big news outlets with a lack of trust, and it could also explain the younger generation’s attraction to podcasting and oral storytelling as a way to strip the spread of information down to individual voices and intimately shared connections. 

If I allowed myself a paragraph to nerd out about “The Adventure Zone” in my article about “The Adventure Zone,” it’d go a bit like this: That’s not to discredit the importance of the creativity and outstanding qualities of “The Adventure Zone.” For my argument, it’s just one example of a podcast, when there are thousands of podcasts in the world, that connects to its listeners through the format of oral storytelling. But this podcast is the real deal for an example of how revolutionary podcasting can be as a contributer to storytelling. What other form of storytelling requires its consumers to listen and pay attention for almost 100 hours -- and they do it, quite willingly? And it’s not a bore -- “The Adventure Zone” podcast is carefully organized into seven different arcs, all with unique characters, different settings, connected through a complicated non-chronological plot. It’s an intricately woven story with fully developed and realized characters and relationships between them: romantic relationships, friendships, fully-developed and realistic portrayals of family. And one of the reasons why I think its portrayal of these relationships is so popular is because it is created by a family. This podcast is created by three brothers and a dad.  They know what sibling relationships look like. They know what familial loss looks like. And the result of it is something that is so rarely created: a collaboration between a family. And, when it comes down to it, it’s also just a really funny podcast. 

Justin: Uh, I’m, I’m playing, uh, a wizard.

Griffin: ‘Kay.

Justin: His name is spelled “T-A-A-K-O”.

Travis: So like “tay… tay-ko?”

Griffin: So like “tayko…”

Justin: “Tahk”… Well, I mean, the… It’s two “a”s so…

Griffin: Is your wizard named… Are you naming your goddamn wizard “Taco”?

Methods of communication and mediums of storytelling (or, more simply, the ways to tell a story) develop along with the rapidly changing world around us. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Podcasts are widely available to any person with an internet connection and a device to listen on. Creating friends and sharing connections with people who also love the same media is a beautiful thing, regardless of how empty the promise of an imagined community is. Also, one of the reasons I study humanities is because of its focus on humans and their stories. And from what I’ve seen, the shift from bigger, more corrupt and corporate-influenced outlets and big news to individual voices has simply resulted in more intimate storytelling, and a focus on stories from people.

#lmk if you read this and what you think! #my writing #the adventure zone

[jaywhitecotton]

Fuck Elvis

I used to play this terrible game with some monstrous friends at karaoke shows. It was all based on how Michael Jackson died at the right time and if he molested just one more kid we’d be screwed out of decades of music and nostalgia.

We’d then apply other artists to this molestation scale. Like if MJ set the standard at say 7 known kids we’re pretty sure he finger banged, how many could say Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler get away with?

Turns out - it’s one. One for sure, but I’m pretty sure there would have to be at least three before we as a society are willing to let go of Dream On or Bruce Willis’s meteor sacrifice.

Bob Dylan? So hard. Old white NPR people would blame the motorcycle accident and give up everything after to protect his earlier legacy, but comparing Michael Jackson to Bob Dylan’s importance? He’s got to be able to molest as many - if not three more kids - than the King of Pop, right? I mean Jewish or not, he is still white so that has to give him the edge over Jacko in what he can get away with.

Anyhoo

Comics have been acting like comedy has been bringing “truth to power!” and patting themselves on the back, but thirty years of Michael Jackson jokes couldn’t do what one documentary has done.

Proving if you really want any justice these days, you need to first invest in some production value and an editor who knows how to make criminal acts look especially bad.

The reactions are pouring in and people are very conflicted. Many questioning whether or not it’s ok to like an artist because of their lurid personal life.

Look, can we come to a consensus on just one thing?

Human beings have been giant flesh bags of hot garbage since the very beginning of our upright existence. We started out so bad, we’re not even sure of what are real beginnings were actually like.

And its not even people that are the worst either. Look at life itself.

Nature is gruesome and horrifying! Every nature documentary is inherently a horror movie missing the scary cello mood music. If you knew how much ducks gang-raped in real life you would burn any remanence of all those duck-themed shows from the 90’s.

Even the creation of space and time was the result of a destructive explosion that shit us out into the nothingness of space.

Disagree? Thinks humans are great? Cool. Keep in mind a lot of people watched a movie about a guy who sexually abused children and their first thought was “Can I still grab my dick and effeminately scream ‘ohhhhh’ whenever it gets super windy? Because I don’t want to live in a world where I can’t do that!”

To me anytime a person does something exceptional - THAT should be the thing that is celebrated. Like “Wow, you overcame being a piece of shit and had a moment of triumph for our species, well done ya piece of shit!”

Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence, Gandhi and Civil Disobedience, Beethoven’s 9th have all stood the test of time and those acts are worthy of praise.

Are we going to really miss Ignition (remix)?

I’m not saying any of these people’s flaws should be ignored, but seriously - there were plenty of slave fuckers, wife abusers, and piss-on-tweeners out there who not only did that shit - but didn’t even have the decency to form an experimental democratic republic placing power in the hands of the people, much less write a catchy tune.

We have got to start holding a higher standard for what we consider legit and meaningful art.

Is Trapped in the Closet really an achievement for humanity? Is the cinematic legacy of Space Jam ruined by the tainting of I Believe I Can Fly?

Was American Beauty and House of Cards our civilization’s finest cinematic moments? Has there been nothing else to watch?

Can we no longer backwards slide dance at house parties because a guy who dressed like a sequined private eye slept with kids?

I’m not saying you can’t still enjoy those things, or even question your feelings about them. I’m saying don’t make those things more important than they actually are. You can both think an actor should be castrated and get lost in visualized fiction.

Just as easily as you can decide to never watch again. It’s all disposable.

To me the real crime is needing a movie like American Beauty to be the pinnacle of human achievement because you got your first handy in the theater when it came out or whatever.

Not that anyone is exactly saying that, but you big bad wolves get my straw house point.

What is the value of achievement? How do we measure what’s important? I’m not sure. Maybe it’s what the consensus decides should stay. Maybe it’s the individual.

Sometimes it feels like a lot of our general arguments are between the perspectives of group thinking socialists versus self-motivated libertarians. Maybe they’re both right, I guess it depends on the situation.

Personally I think most the arguments about entertainers matters most to the people who have a vested interest in brands and making it in the ‘look at me’ industry.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m in the thick of it having done music and standup most of my life and have the same guttural need for a stranger’s approval, but sometimes I feel surrounded by people who treat every moment of their lives like a biopic. Selling themselves on social media as if they’re the subject of their own Rolling Stone exposé.

People who define themselves by the most disposable of expressions and since trying to be good and known is so difficult, decided it’s easier to just simulate success instead of working harder on the mediums.

You know, frauds.

I’m surrounded by a generation of ‘fake it til you make it’ personalities who thrive on all the shit I find utterly useless, meaningless and the worst crime - boring.

Entrepreneurs in narcissism who communicate through gossip and trade in brand expression, littering the artistic landscape with recycled lateral thinking dog turds.

It’s exhausting,debilitating, and absolutely the future as AI replaces our normal careers, forcing all of us into becoming Instagram models and Influencers.

And everyday I have to have deep sobering introspection trying to figure out if I’m not equally culpable in this terrible trap of meaningless thinking.

Not that there’s anything wrong with meaningless. Not everything has to have as everlasting an impact as Ode to Joy.

I mean really, what actually matters if we all die and whatever impact we had becomes erased regardless of whether or not it takes years, months, days or even minutes after we are laid into the ground?

Most of everyone who has been born has meant nothing and left no trace or measurement that they even existed at all. Think of all the stillborn babies who didn’t even get the chance.

Nature the cold hearted bitch strikes again!

People call me jaded and bitter for these thoughts, but I promise you - I hold no anger or selfish need to compensate my own lacking by exclaiming ‘people are mostly shit and none of this will stand the test of time’. I’m very fun at parties.

It’s just the people desperate to matter that think reality is inherently mean.

Celebrate the achievement not the person, but also - let’s not over inflate the achievement to validate our own petty need for someone to hear our folk song about getting a handy while watching American Beauty or whatever.

A quick story.

One of the most talented people I ever met was a dude from Philly named Perone.

Perone played bass and was known across the city as being this incredible player who for some reason just never found a project he clicked with.

I met him when I was 18 and homeless, living in a 24 hour diner he waited tables at. Everyone loved this dude and for some reason he took care of me. Hooking up free salads, sodas, bread. He was the coolest dude I ever met.

I was learning guitar and we both loved 70’s soul and blues music so we’d jam together which in hindsight was wild.

I had no fucking idea what I was doing and yet here was this genius jamming patiently along.

Teaching me without putting in a show that he was actually teaching me, if that makes sense?

Was he perfect? No. Not at all. He was charismatic as fuck, but obviously weighted down with some demons.

The weirdest thing I could say about him - and I don’t know how to even properly frame this was - he used to draw on bed sheets.

For years he had a dream about a woman he never met and would paint her face on the bed sheets and attach lyrics to songs he was writing next to her face. These sheets hung all over his walls.

Keep in mind he was living with a girl at the time. He had a kid, yet here were all these sheets dedicated to a fictional white woman he was obsessed with, hung like championship banners across his entire two bedroom apartment.

My last conversation with Perone was perfect. I sat strumming his guitar while he smoked meth out of a can of Pepsi, telling me how Michael Jackson was the King.

Every click of the lighter, every inhale and exhale would punctuate just how much Michael Jackson meant to the world and music.

How Motown celebrated their 25th anniversary with a tv special and Michael Jackson came out and destroyed with the moonwalk.

“Dude, (click) black people loved Michael (inhale). White people loved Michael. (exhale)Young people loved Michael. (cough) Old people loved Michael. (click) None of this race or generation shit mattered. (inhale) It was because of the music and HE did that. (exhale) He bridged everything together in that one moment. (violent cough) Michael Jackson is and will always be the King. (click) Fuck Elvis.”

That was twenty years ago. I have no idea if he’s still alive, earned a living with his music or met the woman he’d dreamt and painted for years. Or if instead he succumbed to meth, took his own life and or manages an Olive Garden.

I don’t know and I don’t have to. I miss him and appreciate the things we shared that mattered and helped me grow as a person, but that’s all it ever will be.

Let justice be done and handled by those involved in their situation and value only the things and constructs that have some permanence or growth in your own life.

Either way you will still die, and wether it’s alone and forgotten or if it takes centuries for people to forget you were a miserable deaf cunt who wrote some sweet jams - you’ll eventually be nothing.

Fuck Elvis.

[mi6015handeldalegonzales]

Production Analysis

I have always loved movies, believing that stories on screen that take us back to the future and over the rainbow speak a language that is universal. They may not be real, but through this medium, they manage to influence our outlook on the world. This is what I think films are all about: a combination of technical and creative aspects that work in harmony to share the director’s perspective on life, and invoke specific emotions from the audience. My ultimate desire to be a filmmaker and share that perspective with my own audience is what drove me during my final project.

 I had many options in tackling this animation, be it showing off my skills, explicitly targeting the film industry, or just having fun with it. While any would have sufficed, I wanted to have full creative freedom to produce something that felt both powerful, and uniquely meaningful to me. Hence, I decided to make a personal short following a character that had undergone similar trials as I had in my life.

 Despite that, I believe that the project I ended up giving myself was too ambitious, which was corroborated by Goodfellow. This was due to having to condense the development of a whole storyline and an entire character into a two-minute animation, which meant a lot of scenes, and subsequently, numerous set designs to pack in all the information needed to convey the story. To cut this down, I had to change the story and replace the crash with a scene where the daughter falls and loses her ‘drawing competition award,’ in a bid to avoid creating an entire character arc for the animation. In this scene, the mum was supposed to arrive in her car to save the day, taking out her pen and drawing 3D wings for the daughter (the wings from the award). The story would have ended as the daughter takes flight, with a dedication fading into the sky that said, “To my mum and sister, who have always been the wind under my wings.”

 Despite how I pivoted, however, I still could not finish my changes in time due to my perfectionism. Instead of moving on to the next part of the animation, I kept finding small, negligible mistakes that I would take time out of my day trying to fix. Even as I submit my work now, there is still a lot that I want to change and improve upon. I ended up having to cut down the animation by half, including only the montage section of the initial concept, and ending it with, ‘to be continued’ for the animation to make sense.

 3D modelling was my favourite part of the whole process since I love seeing my sketches take shape in a 3-dimensional space. The process was not too hard, as I had modelled characters before, and I only needed to follow the same procedure, even managing to improve my method based on prior problems. In my previous projects, the clothes were all separate objects, causing too many tears in the model when animating. This time, I made the outfit part of the main body. The jacket was the only exception, but I still made sure to keep the vertices underneath far out from the ones for the main body, to prevent the different meshes from overlapping with each other. What I was not used to, and found more difficult, was giving the model high, defined cheekbones as it did not adhere to the basic round face I would normally create. Fortunately, with a few tweaks and experimentation, I managed to overcome this obstacle.

I’ve always found creating rigs a significant challenge, so I am thankful and fortunate that I was able to use the Advanced Skeleton, which cut my work down by weeks, compared to if I had done it manually from scratch. Even then, setting up the rig and weight painting drained me so much that my productivity levels plummeted in this section of the production process. This was because, having always preferred creative aspects over technical ones, I struggled with the lack of creative leeway in this part of the process. A challenge I encountered was the difficulty in animating natural eye blinks. When modelling, I gave the eyeballs an outer layer to create refraction from the light, making it more realistic. This layer was invisible, so I did not think it would matter that it protruded further than the eyelids. It turned out, however, that when rigging and making the eyes close, this did in fact cause problems. I did not have the time to fix these issues, and thus errors can be seen in the final animation. Still, lessons were learned; something to keep in mind for future projects.

 Ideally, I wanted a soundtrack that would elevate my project and help carry the weight of emotion I hoped would be conveyed by the short. However, it was tricky to find the right accompaniment due to copyright problems. Most free music online gave the animation the feel of a cheap advert, or made it seem like it was an amateur YouTube vlog. Even non-copyrighted lo-fi songs (which were my usual go-to) could not match the atmosphere I wanted. I even asked my housemate if he could produce a sample for me, as he is a DJ that creates some of his own tunes. Alas, that did not pan out as I kept changing the idea of my final piece and did not have the time to oversee the music production with him. Nevertheless, this may have been a blessing in disguise as I ended up finding a beautiful, free-to-use, fantasy-themed piano instrumental which yielded the right mystical and emotional ambience I desired. If given more time, I probably would have added several muffled, diegetic sounds to make the result even more atmospheric.

 The most excruciating part of the entire animation production was the creation of the 2D assets. This was because I did not have any drawing pads for digital art, and I also lacked a phone to take any photos of sketches, thus leaving my laptop mouse as my only option to draw with. Even the simplest assets were immensely tedious to make, which was the main reason why it took so long to make such a short video. I could not afford to get a drawing tablet at that time, so I just had to push through.

 Another, lesser difficulty was the colouring aspect. In one of the final project meetings with Goodfellow, he told me that he liked the colour scheme and aesthetic from the animation I submitted for the Professional Creative Production (MI6011) module and that I should try to incorporate that again into my final work. Of course, I took this as a challenge, not only to live up to expectations and previous standards, but to go above and beyond.

 It turned out to be an ambitious undertaking since colouring is not my forte. Most of my casual artwork consisted of sketches, and I was therefore not very acquainted with colour theory and design. To offset this, I took inspiration from themes of beautiful video games and movies that I liked, but had difficulty in combining everything into a uniform colour scheme throughout the whole work. I needed to make the entire piece coherent, and not like a patchwork painting reminiscent of Picasso’s more surreal works. Make it look like it is all part of the same cartoon and not a total mess of idea vomit dump. This was made even more taxing because I already had the inconsistency between the 3D and 2D characters. I eventually overcame this barrier by finding a reference point, and using hue tool to make everything match.

 In my opinion, the post production process was the most effortless part of working on this project, as I was experienced in After Effects from even before university. Neither did I find the merging of 3D and 2D that difficult, as I used an artificial greenscreen in Maya when rendering.

There were many fundamental obstacles I had to overcome during this project, but the main issue was timing and execution. Nonetheless, I am immensely proud of what I was able to produce, which showcases the tremendous amount I learned in this course, for which I am so very grateful. However, I am in some ways disappointed and unsatisfied with what I am submitting, compared to the scope of ambition in my head when I initially pictured my final film. I had a lot I wanted to give, but much of it was just not practical in the final delivery. Even then, from failure comes lessons, and I believe that despite not achieving everything I had hoped to, I have discovered a lot just from the production process. I have emerged not only more knowledgeable in both the creative and technical aspects of different areas of the pipeline, but I’ve also developed my work ethic, and myself as a person. The project has left me with so many takeaways, and I’m determined to continuously improve from here on out.

[shinssoliloquy]

WHO? WHAT? WHERE? WHY? HOW?

5 Questions you should ask anyone when they’re starting off a project made from the basis of ego and tenacity. I’m really not a particularly smart person, But I’m smart enough to know how dumb I really am.

I’ve always been itching to do this. Twitter was never a great way to display my thoughts and writing on grounds that by limiting characters your characters by tweet you’d either get into long threads of diatribes that likely no one will even read or you’d have to space out your thoughts and mince words in order to fit to these said limitations. Obviously it’s not a bad way per say to fully flesh out your thoughts but there’s obviously some downsides and you won’t be fully capable of fulfilling those quandaries, much so espousing on your thoughts and opinions to the fullest extent. I could write a book but I’m not knowledgeable enough feel like my thoughts are worth putting into a non-fiction book. I could join discord servers but I don’t know a wreath of people who even care. I could still talk off into the Twitter void but that’s only for short bursts at a time, any ideas or subjects I’d like to elucidate or spell out would just get lost, all my themes would shoot off into the negative space that is a twitter timeline regardless of if they’re worth revisiting or not.

But of course, would it even matter if people do care or they don’t. People live off making Youtube videos and content based on themselves because they assume people actually care about whatever benign thought or creative pursuit they’d have in their head. It’s not up to me to judge if my thoughts are worth putting out there but I guess the reason people use social media is to give a voice to the voiceless, have anyone out there a chance of their own success, But how does that affect content input though, How does impact your very own mental psyche. This is a conversation for another post and it’s far from a topic I’ll have any meaningful outlook on, just from my own experiences as an outsider looking in.

WHO?

I always fancied myself a writer more than an illustrator. The whole crux of my need to learn how to draw was from the idea that “hey no one wants to draw my webcomic ideas on something awful or whatever internet messaging board I was using at the time that’ll date this post when I look back on it when I’m 40, I’ll learn how to draw then and show everyone I can STILL MAKE IT” Then I started drawing and never really looked back. Within the few years or so since I’ve made that discovery I never really focused on my writing, much less my creative writing. I’ve had few instances where I’d try to light up my spark by blog posting was making other short lived wordpresses and blogspots where I can peruse and write for a short while until I get bored and go back to drawing everyday. Of course two particular things happened in which I’ve gotten that spark back, to an extent. 1. The corona virus quarantine happened and I was stuck with nothing to do, I dropped out of school to go to a new college out of country that hasn’t really happened yet and aside from my retail job I haven’t had a good outlet for where to put my creativity too. So I ended up just drawing more but also, reading off some books off my backlog. I’ve always been interested in philosophy and non-fiction since reading Kant and Hume at age 12 and Now rediscovered it because of quarantine. Really I’ve always been a better writer or story teller than anything else but efforts to light up that energy in me has been fruitful and I’ve relegated to being another artist in the pile of artists who’s only personality is that they “like art”. Which made me realized how much of a better self sufficient and self respecting the writer can be rather then the animator. Illustrations are fleeting, words stick with you. Of course greats work of art exist and will always exist. Beautiful paintings can grip me just as much as a good work of philosophy can, But lately beautiful paintings have been disgruntled and disavowed from public schema. If you want to provide good art for people to see, use hashtags and make fast fleeting content for people to consume easily and forget about. Such is the way of social media and how they grip you to keep using their products, It’s not a revolutionary idea but it’s a concept that ends up working. In a way I’d like to counteract this by making fast fleeting content but also putting in forth ideas and writings which I can consider good but we’ll see how that ends up panning out. My goals as an artist is for another topic entirely but really I need a way to practice my non-fiction writing skills and having a blog where I can just go on and on about pointless shit is good exercise. 2. I’ve stopped communicating to people that would point me to a direction in life I didn’t really need to go through and because of that I took a detour in my mental stability and mental development, really it wasn’t good for me. but because of that I was able to keep track of where I need to go and have removed all elements in my life that can allow me to find different paths and know where I’ll truly be. I could also just talk to people about these kinds of stuff but it’s hard to really find people who I can talk about the stuff I want to talk about with and nothing really beats writing a whole diatribe about whatever comes to your mind at the time. Why do I have a lot on my mind? You’ll hear that story in another time but it’s MOST likely an autism thing.

WHAT?

Look at section: Who again but to summarize and clarify what I mean. Content is fast fleeting and non-self actualizing, people don’t want ideas they want content, They need personalities to leech off and see themselves in instead of being creatives themselves. As someone who makes art and wants to make more art It’s hard to really judge if my art is worth it for the algorithm or if it’s worth it to bring in audience retention. Not to mention most people who use social media are kids, and the only way to grab kids attention is to play to their interests, play into their already corroded brains by playing onto their synapses, Not to imply I dislike it per say but more so that I feel that certain audience can somewhat affect your creative output. 

WHERE?

I made a Medium account last month after reading an article on Luxury Communism. It was a fine article but what I got out of it was how good it seems to use Medium to communicate and write articles like these, Until I realized that really it can only be used for more academic pieces and while sure I’d like to do that one day something more lowkey and personal was what I really needed. Hence a tumblr, originally a blogging website before being used to oxidize internet discourse and internet creativity in general, was a perfect outlet for these kinds of posts. I’m actually used to using tumblr for one and can edit and know my way around doing these sorts of posts and the archive feature is good if I ever want to look back on old posts as opposed to Twitter. I can use the ask feauture to take requests or have feedback on my posts in a more concise manner. Unlike Medium or Wordpress I can easily hide certain posts or even the entire account if I wanted too and I won’t be seen or be recommended by the algorithm because I won’t even put tags on these posts. If you know where to find me you know where to find me. Although I do think I’ll make this public at some point I atleast need to know if I’ll even use this or if I’ll even keep making the same kinds of posts as I’d want too.

WHY? 

I’ve already explained why you knucklehead, but I guess here were some of my inspirations to make a writing blog. I could list actual writers or twitter personalities or internet reviewers with blogs I can talk about, for example Yahtzee Crosshaw, Film Crit Hulk, Or even the elusive Andrew Hussie when he had a wordposts and while those people were instrumental to my development as a writer and artist I can’t say they were my full inspiration for making this.

Back in 2016, I was introduced to the Procrastinators’ Podcast by consuming Digibro content and having her podcast be linked at the end of one of her videos. I’ve since started concurrently watching her podcast and while I’ve always sucked into Digi’s cult of personality I’ve started appreciated her other friends in the podcast too, everyone except Nate. One of those members I gravitated too was MunchyWearsTinyHats. He was only one year older than me but I could still see myself in him and in effect appreciated him more than anyone in the podcast. We both seemingly grew up watching and reading the same shit, Homestuck, TF2, He introduced me to Nuclear Throne which because one of my favorite games and we both had the same appreciation for Hussie, Sam Hyde (sadly) Performance art, weird abstract art bullshit and of course My Little Pony. If I actually joined RFCK who knows what would’ve happened but that’s just my take. Of course a surface level description of Munchy aside, as someone who consumed everything he was in, I Lived my life vicariously through him and to all the members of the Procrastinators’ Podcast to an extent even though we both became completely different people as we reached our 20s. Currently he’s 20 and I’m less than a year away to being 20. But I feel as if our paths have drifted far enough that I can properly say I became a whole new different person to who I was in 2016. I still have appreciation for MLP, Homestuck and Minecraft and all the weird media shit me and him consumed. Back then I even modeled my art and persona to look like his too, It was a whole thing. Of course all of these posts and videos and personalities are very very out of date and they don’t reflect the content I consume or even the type of person I am now. I had a friend who also liked the PCP, well it was more like a love-hate relationship I feel but it was nice having someone who I could talk about the PCP with since at this time they were the only people or content creators I was consuming, what’s less said about current pcp the better. She’s always told me, I feel sorry for people who model their lives around these content creators and take advice from them since they clearly don’t know what they’re doing. And while I agree with her to an extent, I wouldn’t go as far as to discredit these artists accomplishments since they seem fulfilled with what they’ve made of themselves, not like we’re doing anything different or are any different to them. It’s about trying to live in a world with your own meaning in it and you can’t do that but disparaging the careers of grown men you don’t even know. Again topic for another day but I guess with this blog I’m always copying and ripping off some of their ideas for myself. In 2019, Munchy made a Tumblr where he’d detail and do the same thing and post blogs or writings he’s made or opinions he’s had, It hasn’t been updated in a year and a half but if it isn’t broke, don’t call the gas company asking for a refund. I even stole his alliteration with Shinsuke’s Soliloquy and Munchy’s Manuscripts, Shinsuke being my real God-given name. Of course the posts on his tumblr are really incredibly out of date and downright stupid and I’ll talk about them on their own on a seperate post since I feel like he really just didn’t know what he talked about and they’re baseline at best and wrong at worst. Regardless he still planted the seed of me as a person to make my own blog and talk about random bullshit.

HOW?

Obviously I will still tweet out stuff on my private twitter, Obviously I will still make art. Right now I’m making my own comics and writing a few short stories that maybe? I’ll put here I’m not really sure. Just depends on if they’re worthy on being posted since I’ll make a short story collection with them instead. Maybe I’ll continue the favorite character writing, maybe I’ll make my own picrew. We’ll see and no doubt these promises will become out of date in a week or two. Rather than the right of the moment malaise of tweeting around bullshit and sending it quickly I’ll use this for more concise text, something that I can sink my teeth in and tap away for what like 5 hours or so? Beats the essays i’d be doing but it doesn’t help that I am typing this in total silence, and I guess those essays will just be posted here. Do people post their school essays like they post their poems or their artwork for school? If you want to use my ask blog then it’s right there if you want a topic for me to talk about or just ask me a regular question. I’m bringing back tumblr asks to it’s real purpose. And of course, the only thing sure about me, is that nothings for sure.

#shinsscripts