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zodiactalks · 3 years

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Understanding Capricorn Woman

The Motto of the Capricorn woman is “I Master”. This sums up her cool and well put together demeanour regardless of whatever storms that might be rocking the different parts of her life. This earth sign is grounded and organized. Her ambition and drive often surpasses that of her other zodiac sisters. She excels in any aspects that she sets her mind to. She is a go getter and nothing will stop in her way. As serious as the Capricorn woman may appear to be, she has a fun and humorous side to her that she keeps well-guarded.

In this video, we will talk about personality traits, likes/dislikes, love, relationships, career, money, friendships, fashion, style and a lot more of Capricorn Woman.

Personality Traits of Capricorn Woman

#1. Aloof

The serious and focused demeanour of the Capricorn woman often draws her away from that which is happening around her. She tends to retreat into herself distancing herself from others.

#2. Organized

If you need whatever mess in your life sorted out, chances are this woman will figure out a way for you to get things in order. She loves orderly spaces as well as an orderly life. Any disruptions in this regard are not welcome.

#3. Ambitious

Success is key for a Capricorn woman. As such, it is no wonder that she will stop at nothing to climb to the highest points of the career and social ladders. Woe unto you if you stand as an obstacle on her path to success.

#4. Practical

The Capricorn woman lives on only one universe, the real one. She is a “Do It” kind of person instead of one who is constantly building her mansions and creating wealth in her mind. She seeks out practical solutions for any challenge presented.

#5. Sensitive

Mocking a Capricorn woman does not go down particularly well with her. For this you are likely to enter her book of grudges never to be forgiven. Although independent, she is rather sensitive when one mocks or undermines her efforts in any way.

#6. Relentless

Failure is not an option for the Capricorn woman. She is determined to be the best and most successful version of herself that she can possibly be. No matter how many times her efforts fail to attain an intended goal, instead of giving up, she will simply switch up her tactics in order to attain the intended goals.

#7. Disciplined

Greatness cannot be achieved on ambition alone. One has to have the discipline to follow through on the necessary steps needed to achieve greatness. The Capricorn woman possess discipline in spades. This is partly what makes her sore to such great heights over time.

Likes & Dislikes of Capricorn Woman

The Capricorn woman is straight forward and a realist. She in turn appreciates interacting with people who are as honest, straight forward and frank as she is. Lying to her or trying to be someone you aren’t around her is considered as being disrespectful and vain.

Her family is a priority in her life. She devotes herself completely to catering to the wants and needs of her loved ones. Disrespecting her family is disrespecting her. This is an offence that is not easily forgivable in her books.

Engagements and interactions with a Capricorn woman have to be meaningful to her. They have to be a means that accomplishes one goal or the other in her long list of things to accomplish. Crack jokes all you want around her, heck, she might even crack a few of her own, just don’t stretch out the humour unnecessarily. Unnecessary games and gossip therefore have no place in her life as they simply waste the precious resource that is her time.

Capricorn Woman in Love & Relationships

Love for the Capricorn woman is not a game of chance. It is a logical, rational decision that has to be made consciously. She takes her time to choose the right person to be with. Most times the right person for a Capricorn woman is equivalent to a safe option. However, once she settles on the right choice for her, she will devote herself to supporting her partner and growing them. After all, her partner’s growth is her growth.

Relationships for her are also a rational affair. They have to be sensible and have to align with her rational life’s projection. Should the relationship meet the rationality standards, she will stay loyal until the point it doesn’t. The Capricorn woman is a rather patient one. So by the time the relationship is beyond any form of rationalization, all buttons have been pushed.

Sex with a Capricorn woman has the potential to be exciting and experimental. However, for the most part, sexual encounters have to fit within the routine and order that rules her life.

Capricorn Woman in Career & Money

A Capricorn woman’s career is perhaps the most important aspect of her life. Success in this area of her life takes precedence over all else. Her ambition and drive make her a perfect fit for the life of an entrepreneur. She is also well suited for leadership and negotiation roles. When placed within a team, you can count on her to take on the responsibility of seeing that the goal of the team is achieved at or before the stipulated time frame.

Money is equally as important and is equated with security. How else can you move from one stage of life to the next without it? Her discipline and organizational skills are important when it comes to making investment decisions and other financial related judgements. If you need financial advice, you can count on her shrewd business sense and frugality to get you the very best investments. Capricorn women are unsurprisingly quite good at saving money for posterity.

Capricorn Woman in Friendships

Friendships for this zodiac sign are approached in the same way as romantic relationship. Rationalization precedes emotions. Her pragmatism is evident in her choice of friends. For one to move from someone she knows to being her friend, it will take a long tie and lots and lots of patience. Needless to say, a Capricorn woman does not trust easily.

That said, she is a loyal and devoted friend. She is always ready to offer advice on various life issues should you require it. Regardless of what you may be going through, the Capricorn woman will pull all stops to make things better for you and remind you that you are loved and appreciated. Her rationality and realism will often make her seem detached but be patient with her and you will get to reap the fruits of being friends with a Capricorn woman.

Fashion & Style of Capricorn Woman

Fashion and style, like everything else in her life, is a means to an end for the Capricorn woman. Her choices are of a more practical nature rather than an artistic one. Since her career and overall success is important to her, she is more inclined to subtle but neat business looks.

As serious as she may be, she does like to let loose once in a while, with moderation of course. Her wardrobe consists of a number of casual looks for her dress down days. Even with a casual look, she still requires it to say, “I am fun but I am serious about my life’s choices”. She is careful to put together a casual look that will not evoke any mockery or cause her to be taken lightly.

This woman loves flashy bling that makes a statement either due to its craftsmanship or the brand name. Her frugality, however, does not allow her to spend unnecessarily on jewellery. As such she is always on the hunt for these statement pieces at bargain prices.

#Zodiac Talks #Capricorn #capricorn zodiac #capricorn facts #capricorn traits #capricorn zodiac sign #Capricorn woman #capricorn girl #Capricorn female

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comicteaparty · 4 years

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February 10th-February 16th, 2020 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from February 10th, 2020 to February 16th, 2020. The chat focused on Betrayal by Alex Lewis.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on Betrayal by Alex Lewis~! (https://alexmakescomics.com/betrayal/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace until February 16th, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Discussions are freeform, but we do offer discussion prompts in the pins for those who’d like to have them. Additionally, remember that while constructive criticism is allowed, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic! Whether you finish the comic or can only read a few pages, everyone is welcome to join and chat with us!

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 1

1. What did you like about the beginning of the comic?

2. What has been your favorite moment in the comic (so far)?

3. Who is your favorite character?

4. Which characters do like seeing interact the most?

5. What is something you like about the art? If you have a favorite illustration, please share it!

6. What is a theme you like that the comic explores?

7. What do you like about the comic’s story or overall related content? 8. Overall, what do you think the comic’s strengths are?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

Delphina

Just finished reading! I really found the part with Aune's "book of secrets" such a heartbreaking sequence. Alex using the blue pen kind of reinforces the themes of differentness and being an outsider not only in her outside world, but even just in the context of being honest about her own feelings. https://alexmakescomics.com/2019/06/07/chapter-six/

I also really felt for her in Chapter 8, when talking about her relationship with Aune and saying "the more time I spent with her, the more of myself I lost trying to keep up with her. It didn't matter to me at all. I liked myself better when I was with her." Just again, this theme of finding something to define herself when she'd been adrift, but not always in an honest or healthy way. https://alexmakescomics.com/2019/08/11/chapter-eight/

Eilidh (Lady Changeling)

I like the art style - it's very unique!

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

I like the way the comic ends on sort of an open-ended note. It's not very often that we get completed comics here on CTP, and I think this comic's ending is weirdly satisfying in its incompleteness. Like we don't know whether Aune and Alex make up, but we know that they're both open to it, y'know? I also looked into the Harold Pinter play Betrayal (which this comic is partially based off), and it's pretty interesting the ways they're similar and different. Like the story regards a group of friends and their romantic relationships (and them betraying each other, of course), but the main group of characters is two girls and one boy rather than two men and one woman. I'm curious how many of the changes are due to it being partially a memoir of the author's life and how many are the result of just creating an interesting fictional story about high schoolers.

I also really like the comic's use of flashbacks to tell Alex's story - flashing back to her childhood contextualizes her experiences as a highschooler really well.

RebelVampire

I really like in general how the story is told with a non-linear timeline. Not a lot of stories can actually pull them off successfully, because you run a high risk of confusing the audience. However, despite this one time jumping around a lot, it was never confusing. I think I chalk this up to the fact that the focus on the comic is not the plot itself but the relationships. So you don't need to know the timeline exactly to be able to empathize, experience, and understand what is going on in the relationships. So this is something I really enjoy about the comic. I really love non-linear when it's done well, and this is done well in that regard.

What I enjoy about the beginning of the comic is just how damn awkward everything is. Like, everything about their interactions is exactly why ill never go to a high school reunion. Cause there's this expectation to be super impressed with ppl (hence shallow comments) while also being a mind reader (like knowing someone doesnt go by an old name anymore). It's embarrassing and horrible and the comic really hit at some of my deeper social anxieties that while I've grown from, never will quite be gone. So bravo for making benign horror XD(edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Woah, I was not expecting to read a completed comic here! That was a nice change of pace. I really agree with the people praising the non-linear timeline. Using a highschool reunion as a framing device was an excellent decision

I wonder if the main character was gay or asexual?

Alex_makes_comics

Hello, I'm Alex. I made this comic - and I'm crying reading your comments. I've never had people review this book before. Some of the chapters only had about two views before this week so... This is very big for me. Hooboy. In answer to ongoing questions: changes to the Betrayal script from Harold Pinter's play were made to make it fit my experiences. The play is always a question of who is betraying who in a toxic love triangle. It's a jumping off point for me to talk about my memories. I went to see it and it hit a chord, after which I immediately sat down and wrote this. I love how the title of the play conceals who is betraying who: betrayal is a flexible concept. Hiding behind Pinter's words meanwhile ,when I have to, makes it easier to share my memories with others without self censoring. I am always terrified of people I know reading this book! In answer to the question of orientation, I'm bisexual if that helps anyone

RebelVampire

My favorite moment in the comic I would say is the ending. I like that it's open-ended and that there's no clear leaning one way or another. It's kind of up to the reader to judge the events they just saw. Not to mention, I feel the open-ending nature fits the mood of the comic in that relationships aren't straight forward and constantly in a flux. So having the ending be not entirely clear suits that well. As for a favorite character, I'm honestly not sure I could pick one in this case. Everyone is so human and I feel like picking a favorite would kind of be like picking a side. Or kind of like your friends trying to ask you to rank them in terms of how much you like them. That would be a challenge I'm not up for in this case. As for interactions, definitely Alex and Aune. The relationship there is fascinating from the way the story is told, so I'm never quite sure what to make of it, especially when knowing how the relationship sours. And since its through their interactions we get to know Aune, it almost feels like a character study in a way whenever the two interact.

Before I blather too much in one day, one thing I like about the comic is how different the kid versions of the characters look as opposed to the adults. I feel it's more true to life since a lot of adults do change a ton from how they looked at kids. So while theres definitely similarities, the age progression just felt really natural.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I agree with what Rebel said about the age progression feeling natural. If I could describe this comic in one word, I would maybe choose "realistic."

It does a great job of protraying that feeling of growing up and leaving things behind

Emotions and drama that feel so important as a child and as a high schooler turn out to really not matter that much at all

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 2

9. Given the story’s title, in what ways do we see betrayal throughout the story, and which moment stuck out to you the most regarding the subject? What can be learned from the story in regards to dealing with it?

10. What do you think the story can teach us regarding the nature of relationships and how they change as we grow older? In what ways do these events perhaps relate to your own life or what about the storytelling makes them relatable in general?

11. What do you think the story has to say about growing up in general, both in regards to how we change and how the people around us change? If applicable, why do you think coming of age stories like this are important?

12. How do you interpret the end of chapter 10 where Alex and Aune finally interact? What do you think each character is feeling? Overall, do you think their relationship can be repaired after the damage is done?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

12) i didbt read the ending as starting to repair a relationship. I saw it as leaving your past behind. Also she doesn't seem to understand the damage she did to their relationship, so i don't think the main character would want to reconnect

Kabocha

Oh, dang. So I just binged the entirety of this comic, and there's something about this that feels a little... close to home, I guess? I really empathize with Alex -- the feeling of having someone who you love just kind of up and ditch you like that... That hurts. Granted, her situation was a bit more complicated, but... hhh. I think at best, she might go the route of wanting to be friendly with Aune later, but it just isn't gonna work out. That pain still exists, and even if Aune is past it, Alex pretty clearly isn't. And I think it's understandable. It's not a grudge, but more like that kind of awkward avoidance because you don't wanna get hurt again. just... aaaaaaaaaa. This was a very good read. Thank you @Alex_makes_comics.

RebelVampire

I do think what @Eightfish (Puppeteer) touched onto is the comic's strength: realism. Every event in this comic is so relateable since I think everyone can say they've at least been in a similar situation at least one of those times. So it forms a real connection with the reader so easily, thus allowing it to pull on the heart strings. Let's talk about themes and stuff though! So for in regards to betrayal, the moment that stuck out to me the most was the classroom convo between Alex and Aune where Aune is kind of distant and doesn't seem to really like anyone anymore and wants Alex to do break up dirty work. The reason this stuck with me is you can so clearly see it as a betrayal, and yet at the same time, it's such a benign thing. Like nobody is being literally stabbed in the back, nobody is having money stolen, no one is stealing anybody's lover. It's just...distance and a friendship falling apart for various reasons. Which I think is really the sad part. Since rather than dealing with betrayal, I think this story shows the many different forms it can take. And that sometimes its not this overdramatic thing. Sometimes its a slow burn that just singes for hours and hours.

However, I do like the story's maturity in that it shows us relationships are hard and need active maintenance. Cause without that, they fall apart. Additionally, as we grow older, its sad but common place friendships wont last. People change all the times, especially interests. So in the end those changes will drive people apart. At the very least I certainly haven't talked to my high school friends in years since many of them moved, got married, had kids, etc. Even during high school I had friends drift away. And I think these are pretty universal experiences, which is what I think makes the storytelling as relateable as it is.

As for the end, I kind of interpret it as "not ready." From the expressions, I think both Alex and Aune clearly felt awkward. Like the elephant in the room. They both wanted to talk about it seriously, but also both didn't want to talk about it. Too many feelings still fresh, coupled with maybe not enough desire to fix everything yet. So while I do believe most relationships can be repaired given time and effort, both parties need to be ready. And I just don't see that happening yet from how things ended.

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 3

13. What are you most looking forward to seeing in regards to the comic?

14. Any final words of encouragement for the comic?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

Kabocha

As I said before, I'm really glad I read this. It felt very personal, and it was kinda cathartic to read! It also was kind of nice to see someone else kinda express the awkwardness of meeting again with someone who you felt hurt by. And just... Yeah. Thank you for this comic.

Alex_makes_comics

Hi, Everybody. I'm not sure if this is the last day of Betrayal book club, or if tomorrow counts still, but I wanted to use this opportunity to thank everyone for reading and engaging with my work, before you start on the next webcomic. I have never been through a process like this. Most of the time, I make comics and release them into the internet, never to be seen again. It's a long and lonely process, full of self questioning and self doubt. You've all really restored my confidence. Just knowing that you read and genuinely got what I was trying to achieve is amazing. I was worried about the ending of chapter 11, that it might put readers off, but seeing you all bouncing ideas off each other about "will they"/ "won't they" get back together reassures me that I did the right thing. This was my first completed graphic novel,and I have learned a bit since making it. I am currently working on draft 2, which involves a full redraw. I have about half of the book done. The redraw is going to be 30% more cartoony in style, to give the book a clearer aesthetic. I am aiming for stronger lines and colour themes. I'm also adding new pages throughout. Part of this is to have Aune more visible in the background of scenes between Alex and Jonas, because they're all in one school: you can't avoid people completely in these situations. I'm also making some of the school scenes noisier to play on the "benign horror" elements - thank you for this term, Rebel Vampire! My goal is to redraw everything, update the website, then print a small batch to sell at cons. If anything bugged you about the current draft that you think I have to know, you are more than welcome to tell me. Otherwise, in case you want to know when the new version is out, I have a mailing list here: https://mailchi.mp/e64c62c2d202/alexmakescomics Thank you again for everything. You really don't know how much you've helped me these two weeks. It's been mind blowing.

RebelVampire

What I'm most looking forward to seeing in regards to the comic is just more people finding it. It's a really touching, raw, and personally gripping story. Not only is the storytelling well-done with its use of time, but just overall, its one of the few stories where I can actually say it really got me thinking about life, relationships, and other things. And not a lot of comics can do that.

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about Betrayal this week! Please also give a special thank you to Alex Lewis for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked Betrayal, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: https://alexmakescomics.com/betrayal/

Alex’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/alexmakescomics

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #book club #bookclub #webcomic book club #webcomic bookclub #comic tea party #ctp #betrayal #Alex Lewis

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cowplant-pizza · 5 years

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Strangerville Review

first of all, thank you to ea for giving me early access to this game pack through the game changer program. all of these screenshots have been presented to you by the ea game changers.

Ratings:

CAS 9/10

Build/Buy 8/10

World 9/10

Gameplay 7/10

Story 6/10

Overall 7/10

So I really want to be as honest as I possibly can with you guys. Game changers get a lot of stick for licking EA’s asses but I don’t see the point in lying to you all and singing praises that I don’t agree with so just know that this review is my own words and honest thoughts. Lets begin

You can see both cas and build/buy items here. Credit to @wildlyminiaturesandwich for this!

CAS

I loved the CAS stuff, well, most of it. Everyone was so crazy about those dreads but I just wasn’t feeling them! I love dreads and basically always have my sims of colour donning them, but I felt like these just looked a bit weird? They fell awkwardly around the face and it looked like someone had used some hairspray to give it volume but really failed?? Idk, thats my opinion. I know a lot of people really love them so Im not gonna shit on that but I just felt they could’ve been made to look a bit more natural and a lot less stiff. Apart from that though, and the awful swatches on the cowboy boots and the low rise jeans, I seriously adored the aesthetic of the cas stuff. I loved all of the female stuff and the male tops were to die for. It’s a shame males got less stuff again, some more army inspired clothes or even tattoos could’ve been cool here but we need to remember that this is a game pack and not an expansion. For a game pack, we got quite a lot of stuff in cas. It’s definitely a western style with a cowboy theme, so if you’re not a fan of that, you wont like the cas stuff.

Build/Buy

I’m not a huge builder, but when I do build, I love vintage stuff and clutter! This pack definitely gave us both of these things. The debug menu is chock full of clutter that will be used in loads of different places. The only complaint I have is a) the style is very scify and probably wont be used in a home b) certain items in the debug menu that are to do with the story (ie. a hazmat suit) is just a parcel in build/buy mode. I get why that is but… it would’ve been cool to have the actual suit to place instead of a tiny parcel that the suit would never realistically fit in lmao

World

The world is beautiful. It gives me huge ts3 vibes. It looks like Willow Creek and Oasis Springs had a baby. My only complaints for the world is that you will get infected/possessed sims walking around and ruining the realism for you and also that most of my favorite parts of the world (downtown) are just deco.

Gameplay

The new gameplay is directly linked to the story but I decided to do them as two separate things because I enjoyed the gameplay actions more than the story itself. The new interactions were super cute but very limited and very repetitive. After you’ve done it once and had a giggle over it, it will probably get tiring to do it again… and again, which is what the story expects you to do.

Story

To begin with, I was having a lot of fun with the story, until I hit a bug for whatever reason and I couldn’t obtain an item I needed to continue. A lovely game changer helped me and told me I could purchase the item from the debug list buuuuut that doesn’t really fix the issue in the first place does it. The fact that I had to cheat to carry on really just ruined it for me tbh. The start of the story was new and quirky and it felt super fresh. It didn’t feel like I was playing the sims, but a side game of the sims. However as I progressed, I was constantly reminded that I was playing the sims, as Johnny needed to eat and sleep and poop ect. So I ended up cheating there too and turning off his needs cause I just couldn’t manage both at once. Maybe that’s because I was rushing to finish the story for you guys, but it did definitely feel like you had to choose one or the other. I also decided to quit his job right at the beginning because already his days were so busy I had no clue how on earth I would finish in time if he had to go to work to. So after the bug, you had to start doing stuff and requesting items from people. And heres the catch: you had to be good friends with them. This was taking honestly forever so I had to cheat in order to get their friendship levels up. I don’t want to spoil anything sooo SPOILER ALERT DONT READ THIS IN THE BRACKETS [when you vaccinated a possessed sim and asked them to come and fight mother with you, you had to be good friends with them so they accepted. this was SUCH a drag because you needed 15 spores and 1 fruit to make a vaccine so if they said lol thanks 4 curing me but nah i aint gonna help you just wasted an entire vaccine. so i ended up just using mccc to cheat their friendships up to max so they couldn’t say no]. I know even now that I will not be replaying the story unless I have to to get rid of the possessed sims in the world. I LOVE the world and I really do hope there’s a way (or a future mod) to turn them off because they are really distracting from every day sim life.

Overall

If you wanna buy this pack for the aesthetics and items I would highly encourage it. I personally think the items alone give us enough content to make it worth while. However, as I have said, I do slightly feel like the storyline is forced upon you where as I think it should be totally optional. Not all of us like stories whereas some people love them and I think whoever we are we should be able to opt in or out of a piece of gameplay that we purchase. If you wanna buy it for the story only, I would… eh… I dunno what I’d do. I wasn’t overwhelmed by it. It wasn’t shocking or creepy as advertised. But it certainly was a fun new type of gameplay that I am excited to see them use in the future maybe with some other ideas!

I hope this made sense, I just sort of word vomited all of this down! Hopefully some one will find this review helpful lol

#sims 4 #strangerville #strangerville spoilers #strangerville build/buy #strangerville story #strangerville CAS #EA Game Changers #game changer

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specialtopic320rehearsal · 4 years

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Final Production Review

Lyistrania

A more serious take on Aristophanes classic production with some comic elements throughout. The play is set in an alternative world where women are still very much second class citizens. In this play, the focus is on Lyistrania, our female-led and revolutionist. Lyistrania is the embodiment of the original character Lysistrata and the current FLOTUS, Melania Trump.

In a real sense the one-act play of Lyistrania was a statement on the current political climate, in an alternative world. I think the more powerful aspect of the play was the use of real-world examples of interactions between the characters. As hard as devising is, I tried my very best to create something original with a factual background. Realism in plays is important to me and I think combining it with something to say, especially with the current events happening and the historical plays that I take inspiration from. I think with more refinement and maybe a bigger team the ideas around Lyistrania could become something more empowering, especially for women. I think the most important way to develop the play would be the adjustment of the story a bit more, change it to be more relatable and if I change it back to the original source material and use the themes and stories, like the withholding of sex and taking control of the world because of male inadequacies. This play could also use a few other characters, maybe a bit more resistance from other female characters in withholding things due to consequences as well as maybe another climactic moment in where the men finally snap. I took a lot of inspiration from the Victoria Theatre Department if I’m honest, Nicola Hyland and James McKinnon, from my first few years and the way we adapted original texts, with James it was Frogs with Nicola it was FuenteOvejuna, both had huge impacts in my devising roles and fuelling my creative side based on preexisting texts. Another was in research The Dell’Arte School and watching their physical theatre routines. As well as reading Potholes in the Road to Devising by Joan Schirle, which made me feel better about my own progress and the process, rather than the end outcome. I feel as if I learnt more through the process than through the performance. I especially found comfort and recurrence from the lecturers, in which the five stages of devising were always our aim for each week, it was great to have a physical timeline to be following with our own progress.

The Performance Process I found my process was detailed due to following the five stages of devising as a point of reference and something to keep on track with. I am a very detailed orientated person and my online blog has all of my progress, processes and information I collected to try and make my performance more interesting and realistic. I spent a lot of time on the research process, which is both positive and negative, positive in that I had an arsenal of information to use and adapt for the piece, negative in that I could have spent more time on the physical process of being up on the floor than researching but that's just my personal process, which does reflect in my final performance. Working on a solo meant doing all aspects of a production, which was both positive and negative. The negative was in doing a solo I had a larger workload and often would become engrossed in the textbook side of the production rather than working on the physical moments. I also found myself being caught with work often and unable to attend classes, this really impacted my performance heavily and I know it was self-inflicted. This was also a big reason as to why I created a solo, not being able to commit to a group was the main priority for me and I did not want to let anyone down by having to go to work. This impacted my piece because I did not have anyone else to rely on or check-in with or bounce ideas off but in a way, I preferred to work on my own because I was heavily research-focused. I should have spent more time on the floor, especially in the spare but yet again it comes back to personally faults and work taking priority.

The Performance

In all honesty, I am disappointed with myself and my performance. I know it was because of my own time constraints with work. Having to have my script on stage was a bit embarrassing but I need the script to make sure I didn’t miss some of the more important monologue moments. I think it went better than if I hadn’t had it, I just stumbled a few times on lines but I think without the script I would have been more lost and ended up improvising the play. I think my props were okay, fitting in terms of the dinner setting, possibly too many as they caused a bit of distraction for myself, but fitting nonetheless. Costume wise I choose to go with a pyjama type ideal, making it seem more fitting for dinner time and also making it timeless in a sense of not wearing anything period or century related. I wasn’t expecting so many audience members so my idea of having two rows in a semi-circle didn’t work as well as it could have, especially with Hannah’s input of treating the first monologue like a lecture hall and having three points of contact with the audience. It was a short piece and I think it would have been better as a duo now that I reflect on it. Using the teddy bear as a last-minute puppet was aimed to help me show the break in two characters, which if it was a duo, would probably have made more sense. I did have a lot of fun working through the process, mostly the research part though as I’m not 100% confident at acting or being on stage. I really liked the social interactions with Kerryn and how much help she gave me throughout the whole process.

Reflection

I would like to redo this show as a duo and make it a bit longer. I think it would be better as a duo, especially the reaction moments and the cutoff moments in the script where having a soloist makes for a bit of stilled dialogue. I would also make it a bit funnier I think, possibly along the lines of a sitcom style, rather than serious and informative. I think comedy would suit the tone better. All in all, I think I should have spent less time on the book and research side of the play, especially with the time restraints, and it really hindered my on-stage performance because I wanted to spend more time on building a realistic performance based on factual evidence. I really do enjoy the devising process but more so the creation and writing side rather than the acting side. I think I possibly should have offered my time as a director or something to another group to help with their production and to work in a role that I enjoy but that's something to aim for next time.

A last thank you Kerryn for all of your support and help over the last six weeks, you’ve been an inspiration to me and such a dear mentor. Thank you.

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letterboxd · 5 years

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America Lobotomized: The Rick Alverson Q&A.

“If I have any value now, my responsibility lies in nurturing the limitations of cinema and making them apparent.” —Filmmaker Rick Alverson chats with us about the irrelevance of ‘consumer cinema’, the fascinating failure of masculinity, and causing trouble with Jeff Goldblum.

Musician, writer and director Rick Alverson makes the kind of films that are, as Letterboxd member DirkH enthuses, “hard to love and impossible to enjoy”. One of the decade’s most challenging directors, his confrontational style is take-it-or-leave-it, but those who like to take it find something deeply profound in his take-downs of concepts like the American Dream.

Alverson’s newest feature, The Mountain, departs from the ironic realism of his earlier films, creating a lushly immaculate, desolate poke at American society. Set in the 1950s, The Mountain is loosely based on the controversial American neurologist Walter Freeman, here represented as the fictional Dr Wallace Fiennes.

While Alverson’s earlier films have tapped into the twisted comic talent of Tim and Eric (and friends), The Mountain uses the hefty star power of Jeff Goldblum (also a Tim and Eric alumnus) against itself, with Tye Sheridan (of the vulgar mime act in Alverson’s Entertainment) as a mostly wordless photographer who is selected to follow Goldblum’s Dr Fiennes on an asylum tour. French great Denis Lavant appears as an unconventional healer, in one of his few English-language roles; Alverson unleashes him at will.

“A rigorous, alienating work about the rot at the core of the nation”, The Mountain divided audiences when it premiered at Venice last year, and divides Letterboxd members still. “Easy answers don’t always have to be there,” writes Allison, “but it quickly became pointless and even monotonous.” “A modern master is at work,” counters Tyler. “It’s rare in these times to find a movie so precise. Every cut reveals a wonderful new, immaculately composed shot.”

Tye Sheridan and Jeff Goldblum in ‘The Mountain’ (2018).

Can you talk about when and how you got the inspiration for the premise of The Mountain and why you felt now was the right time to make this film? Rick Alverson: I’ve had an interest that I’ve explored since The Comedy and Entertainment where I’m trying to comprehend what fuels this blind propulsion of American progress in today’s political climate, where we’re romanticizing the white male privilege era of the 1950s.

It’s also something often romanticized in American cinema; if not in its subject matter, then it’s romanticized in its formal depiction. I wanted to take that on and watch it deflate and see how it would hold up to a more nuanced and muddy immersion of the era.

You’ve described the film as anti-utopian. Do you think nostalgia is a dangerous thing? Nostalgia is definitely a very rich intoxicant that’s difficult to pull oneself away from. Commercial American cinema peddles almost entirely on those triggers of compartmentalized representation and clean—marginally pornographic—singular dimensions. I find that troubling to some degree because it pretends to be something else.

The remake of The Lion King kinda sums that up. [Chuckles] Yeah.

Toxic masculinity has been central to many of your films and it’s in many ways the enemy of the moment right now. You’ve been ahead of the game in a way. Is that always your starting point? What influenced you to focus on men at their worst? I was raised at a time with influences that come from particular periods so there was a binary presentation of masculinity and I think it’s something that men are mired in. That has been problematic for men in a way that stripped away the wholeness of an individual.

Frailty, or a nuance of communication, hadn’t been as accessible to a generation of men, and that crippled them in a way which inflamed the damage that they did in their privileged space and [for] everyone around them. It’s a cyclone. In my demographic, we have been exposed to that, caught in it, and wrestled with it. Maybe that’s why I look at it so much.

I find failure in masculinity fascinating, too. The problematic American ‘wandering cinema’ of the 1970s is what made me want to do what I do. It’s the great unsung song of cinema that fell out of favor by the 1980s.

As a working American filmmaker, do you feel it’s your social responsibility to use your medium to comment on and expose what you’re seeing happening in this country? Is this your version of political activism? [Laughs] Maybe. I think that there needs to be a politics of form. It’s the responsibility of filmmakers to not be ignorant of this gesture and what it does to the population. There’s a responsibility of cinema to ask itself some very hard questions before it ends up wrapping into total irrelevancy. What is narrative? What value does it have? How is it destructive? How is it being used for destruction? Is it functional anymore? I think that a lot of consumer cinema doesn’t ask those questions because it’s afraid to expose its vulnerabilities or its potential irrelevance.

How did your experience with Entertainment affect your approach to The Mountain? Entertainment was the first film that played with cinematic influences that I had. It played with things that kind of grossed me out in cinema, with the defaults of metaphors and symbolism to create false profundities.

With The Comedy, I was focusing on a subset of class privilege in nuclear centers like New York City that I find reprehensible. I wanted to engage with it, investigate how to understand it, and make myself uncomfortable. Suddenly the medium felt a little more vital to me. It wasn’t just a propagandistic grandstanding, where essentially I would be showing off my likes and dislikes. I try to play a cat-and-mouse game with my own comfort and hopefully the audience finds some vitality in that.

Your last two films have felt very surreal, stylistically. They’re more lush yet still quite detached. What’s compelling you to stray from the slice-of-life realism you were using with your first few films? I had always wanted to have a career working with non-actors, but as I’ve gradually become more interested in the problems that make me uncomfortable I find myself engaging with them head-on, instead of just ignoring them for my comfort zone. The unreality of cinema has also become increasingly interesting to me.

There are some obsessive-compulsive approaches I took in The Mountain, which viewers might not see off-hand, that sort of heighten that falseness. Nobody leaves or enters the frame unless they go through a door. I’ve padded and loaded the film with limitations and, if I have any value now, my responsibility lies in nurturing the limitations of cinema and making them apparent.

For a long time we’ve been living in a fantasy land of unlimited potential and an abundance of opportunity, but the fact of the matter is we’ve been ignoring the beauty of the finite quality of the world. I think the same thing goes for cinema.

You’ve mentioned before that you don’t usually stick to a script but you did this time, though obviously the film utilizes a lot of long pauses and still imagery. Do you map out this sense of pacing in the script, or is there an element of you finding the film in the editing suite? How important is the sense of discovery in post for you? Editing the movie is incremental in its own way. But for me, the film really becomes alive during production and I find the pacing there. As far as mapping out those things in the script goes, it’s an obligation that I find tedious sometimes. My scripts used to be very short but they’re longer now because they’re a little bit more traditional on the page.

I do relish the moment when something isn’t satisfying our expectations. There’s a very exciting moment there when you let the comfort of distance go on too long. If you curtail it in the right way, it’s like surfing.

This is a reunion between you and Tye Sheridan. He’s grown a lot since Entertainment, very literally too. Yeah, at least 4 or 5 inches.

Was he your first choice for the role? How did he contribute to the film beyond what you and your co-writers had on the page? He was my first choice and we developed the film together. It was an idea I brought to him when Entertainment wrapped. I talked to him about playing a ‘black hole’—something neutral at the centre of everything—that the whole world would move around.

He has a tremendous amount of patience and generosity. He’s very disciplined and we had a lot of fun subverting some of his capacities for empathy and fragility as an actor to make him inaccessible. That was a mission statement for us.

His character is very literally an audience surrogate. He’s passive, then he becomes pacified. I’m wondering what that says about what you think of your own audience? Do you feel unheard and misunderstood? It’s hard to say. I guess we’re interested in the reception of the film because I do want to engage an audience and there’re all sort of experiments in flirtation of audience expectations—in a constructive sense, I hope.

I do think that audiences have been conditioned to prefer pacificity and media as an anesthesia. I’m trying in my little way to interrupt that. Maybe I’m just having a fit in the corner of the room, I don’t know.

So how did Jeff Goldblum come on board? I was very surprised to see him attached to one of your films, unless I’m underestimating his taste in modern arthouse cinema. He’s getting in the mud of it all. He’s up for anything these days. I think he’s having not just a popularity revival but a revival of his artistic interests. Jeff has a tremendous amount of vitality and he was very interested in causing a small trouble with me.

Director Rick Alverson.

In what way? He wanted to subvert expectations of the audiences of how they’ve considered him and what he does for them and we utilized that. He’s really keen and smart and I think he understood that it could have a potency in the film. This is one of his more muted performances, even though the personality of Goldblum percolates out of that. He restrained himself in a way I found really refreshing.

We really want to commend your location scout on a fantastic job. What were you looking for in the production design and the sets? Especially for the final shot. The final shot was its own kind of nightmare. We shot that on Mount Baker on the Canadian border in Washington and we isolated the location based on this expanse that’s usually full of four or five feet of snow most of the year. The night before we shot, they plowed all that snow for the parking lot underneath. Those sorts of things drive you crazy.

My production designer Jacqueline Abrahams—who worked on The Lobster among other great films—is an incredibly keen, hardworking person. We wanted to neuter some of the romance of the era, to make it muddy and give it a bland complexity. Obviously when making a period film, the production design and costume design are the most difficult but nerve-wrecking and exciting tools in the whole toolbox. I think we came at it obliquely enough that it became interesting.

Are you still hoping to make your KKK film soon? Now should be the time, right? I’d like to move back to it, but I’ve moved onto another project for now [a horror movie and a comedy series, according to IndieWire]. It still fascinates me, but I don’t want to be too reactionary. It’s a tough time now, for a lot of things.

Would you say you’re drawn to films similar to yours? What are your favorite recent films that challenged you? Oh gosh. The other day I saw Slack Bay by Bruno Dumont, which I found very funny. I’m sorry, I’m terrible at this question.

I’d say that’s a very on-brand choice for you. Thank you.

‘The Mountain’ is in select French cinemas now and opens in US cinemas on August 2.

#rick alverson #kino lorber #the mountain #wandering cinema #jeff goldblum #tim and eric #tye sheridan #lobotomy #letterboxd

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timeagainreviews · 5 years

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Classic Baddies for the Thirteenth Doctor!

As a fan of classic Doctor Who, one of my favourite elements of the new series has been the anticipation as to which classic villains will make an appearance. Not only is it cool to see more of these older monsters, but it’s also exciting to see how they update their look. Some really nail it too. Keeping the classic design of the Daleks while making them look more tank-like and utilitarian in 2005 was a masterstroke. I liked that they embraced the Ice Warriors’ original look as well. While I may not be as hot on the updated Silurians, or Autons, it’s always fun to see classic villains regardless.

When Chris Chibnall mentioned that there would be no classic villains in series 11, my heart sank a little. Are they necessary for Doctor Who to be successful? Not hardly. But it’s fun dammit. Even if they were cameos like the Macra or the Movellans, these were moments I looked forward to. I have a sort of checklist I like to go through with each series of new Who. Are there classic villains? Check. Does the Doctor meet a figure from history? Check. Series 11 has one of those.

It’s been no secret that a major criticism of series 11 has been its lack of compelling villains. I myself have been vocal about this disappointment. So I thought I would make up a list of 10 classic villains I would like to see the Thirteenth Doctor go up against. I’m basing these off a few factors. Personal favourites, Jodie’s vibe, the era, etc. Enjoy! And feel free to add your own!

1. Autons

First Appearance: "Spearhead from Space" (1970)

I know they have already returned. I know I said I didn’t like their update. That’s exactly why they’re on this list now. I didn’t exactly hate the updated Autons when I first watched them. At the time, I didn’t have any classic villains to compare them to, as they were new to me. I thought they were pretty corny and not very scary, even as they did openly murder people in the streets of London. But when seeing "Spearhead from Space," for the first time, I was supremely creeped out. The newer Autons remind me of the movie theatre scene in “Human Traffic.” Just a bunch of dancers doing the robot. Not very scary. And turning the Nestine consciousness into a big vat of CGI goo, as compared to a giant plastic space squid seems like a crime. They’re due an update.

2. Voord

First Appearance: "The Keys of Marinus" (1964)

These guys creep me out. Their costumes are really stupid, and I still find them creepy. They’re like spiky fish men mixed with Egyptian gods. Ignoring the weird "Voord became Cybermen," storyline, and focusing on the fishman aspect would be the way to go. Could you imagine their costume if updated correctly? I picture a mix between Edward Scissorhands and a scuba diver. I’ve wanted to see Jodie encounter these guys ever since "The Ghost Monument," reminded me of "The Keys of Marinus." Something about First Doctor villains with the first female Doctor kinda works for me too. Speaking of First Doctor villains…

3. Zarbi

First Appearance: "The Web Planet" (1965)

Ok, so this one is a bit of a cheat. I know the Zarbi aren’t really a villain by their own doing. In many ways, these oversized ants are just dumb animals. But the biggest way this is a cheat is because I just want them so we can have the Menoptera! I love those stupid moth cuties. I think an updated one of them could look really fun. Think the aliens from the queue scene in the "Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy," movie. Something between realistic, and fantastical. They would also add a much-needed sense of levity to the Chibnall era.

4. The Dominators

First Appearance: "The Dominators" (1968)

The Dominators are a race of men whose name pretty much describes their modus operandi. Having long ago developed beyond the need for women, these guys seem an obvious choice to go up against a female Doctor. Their look is simple enough to update. They need only to look armoured and militaristic. Their robot drones, the Quarks, would be the real challenge to update, but I’m sure they’d nail it. I would be interested in seeing a more bureaucratic ruling class of Dominators as well. Perhaps instead of having a male and female population, they have the soldiers and the suits. Could be a really interesting way to talk about the insular nature of toxic masculinity. This would fit in well with Thirteen’s villains being chauvinistic shitbirds that don’t like women much.

5. Axons

First Appearance: "The Claws of Axos" (1971)

I’ve heard the Axons get a bit of flack in the past, which is bananas to me. There’s so much potential there. They have a rather psychedelic look, and then they get super gross. I’ve always seen them as very retro style monsters. Jodie’s costume has a real 1970’s "Godspell," look about it, so I always picture her going up against monsters that look the part. They wouldn’t be hard to update either. I would make the golden lines on their humanoid forms slightly raised, like a system of fibres across their skin. And of course, their squidgy red form could be a tangled mass of CGI that kinda bubbles up from the gold lines. The transformation scenes could get very visceral. They’ve got a sneaky nature about them. Like anglerfish, their beautiful golden appearance conceals a horrific monster. They’re known for making Faustian deals with people fool enough to believe their lies. How could we resist?

6. The Mara

First Appearance: "Kinda" (1982)

Many people love the Kinda/Snakedance storyline. I wasn’t sure what to make of either serial, as the quality of both waivers. Over time, though, I’ve come to really appreciate them as stories. I have a love for characters that exist as a sort of gestalt. There’s something very unsettling about a hive mind. As The Doctor has three companions this time around. There’s lots of room for one of them to go off and become possessed by an evil snake god for a while. Either Graham or Ryan becoming hosts for the Mara could be an interesting way to explore their relationship. While the DVD release saw an updated version of the Mara’s snake form, I’m sure the modern show can do one better. They’ve already done giant spiders, now let's see them do a giant snake!

7. The Rani

First Appearance: "The Mark of the Rani" (1985)

While I am aware many people dislike the Rani, and the idea of Chris Chibnall choosing a character created by Pip and Jan Baker is unlikely, I still don’t care. Any character can be made good in the hands of a competent writer. All it takes is one good idea. Personally, I’ve never really gotten the guff she’s been given. As a woman capable of cruel scientific experiments, the Rani is a ruthless Time Lady with more guile than the Master. People want to see Thirteen with Missy because they’re both women now, but we’ve had an evil Time Lady for years, and I’d be interested to see what regeneration might bring for her… or him?

8. Rutans

First Appearance: "The Horror of Fang Rock" (1977)

First Mentioned: “The Time Warrior” (1973)

The Rutans are long enemies of the Sontaran race. I would love to see them amp up the danger by getting stuck in the middle of a skirmish between the two races. I would like to see the Sontarans presented as formidable once again. The Doctor Who video game "The Gunpowder Plot," did update their look, to a decent degree. Either way, modern Who could make a Rutan look much more imposing with CGI, or even practical effects. I’d imagine something like a green man o’ war. Jodie’s Doctor’s tendency to mediate during conflict could land her trying to broker peace between the two races. Could she be successful or would she have to count her losses?

9. Drashigs

First Appearance: "Carnival of Monsters" (1973)

Here we have yet another Robert Holmes creation! (The other two being the Autons and the Rutans) While mostly just mindless monsters that can eat through anything, I’ve always loved these horrific beasts. With heads the size of a Volkswagen bug, and an appetite for anything in their way, these guys could really add in a danger element. I doubt they could really carry an episode by themselves, but they’d make a great threat! They may be alien snake monsters, but you may have a creeping familiarity when looking at them. This is because the puppets used were constructed around the skulls of real dogs! While I’m sure these pups died of natural causes, the information has always given them an air of creepiness and realism. As Third Doctor era baddies go, these toothy terrors were some of the more believable creatures yet! They wouldn’t need much of an update, looks wise. Part of me would still want them to be puppets. I’d imagine Thirteen’s compassion for misunderstood creatures would send her on a danger defying attempt to save their lives!

10. The Scorchies

First Appearance: "The Scorchies" (2013)

Ok, so this one is another cheat. Technically these aren’t "classic Who" villains. They come from the audios, but I’m counting them because they’re from a Third Doctor era storyline! If you count the mention of the Rutans in "The Time Warrior," this marks the fifth baddie from the Third Doctor era. What is it about that period that is so mineable? Originally a species with bodies, they lost their corporeal form when their planet was invaded and they were transported to safety via television broadcast waves! In their new puppet bodies, they go from planet to planet hypnotising their inhabitants and burning them! Why? Because they’re salty. So why them? Well, for starters, look at these guys! Jodie’s Doctor has always reminded me as a bit of mad kids’ show presenter, with her bright colours and friendly appearance. Seeing her with puppets almost feels natural. I love the idea so much that I photoshopped it! It would also make Doctor Who history. While the Eighth Doctor mentioned his audio companions in "The Night of the Doctor," no audio characters have ever made an appearance in the show (at least to my knowledge). Appearance wise, they’d be easy to create. If they wanted to go the extra mile, they could partner with the Jim Henson Creature Shop for an added distinction. I feel like no matter what you do, these little critters could draw a crowd. People would watch just to see if Doctor Who has lost its damn mind! If done right, it could be a fun romp! Who says Doctor Who villains always have to be serious?

Well, that’s it for my list! Did you agree? Do you think poor Natalie needs to get her head checked out? Feel free to reblog with your own additions! I’d love to read what you think! Expect the review of this weekend’s Doctor Who either Sunday or Monday. I’ve not yet re-watched Marco Polo, which I might actually do today, but it’s on my list to write it next week! It’s going to be the first reconstruction I’m doing, so it should be interesting! I’m not sure if I will supplement any of it with the Target novelisation, but I am thinking not. We’ll see! It’s still early into the series!

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bowiemonroee · 5 years

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The Interview

William Monroe has been ordered court-mandated therapy following a DWI and drug possession conviction. Here is his intake interview.

PART 1: THE BASICS

What is your full name?

What? Your cheap paper doesn’t have that information already? Christ. My name’s William Monroe but I never introduce myself as such or any variation. I go by Bowie and that’s it.

Where and when were you born?

Again, more information you should have. August 11th, 1994 in Manhattan.

Who are/were your parents? (Know their names, occupations, personalities, etc.)

My father, if you can call him that, is the CEO of Monroe Pharmaceutical. Yes, the same Monroe Pharmaceutical that charges you an exorbitant amount of money for your medications. My mother, Viviane Monroe is a socialite. Her wealth is from steel. They look like they have a perfect marriage but it’s far from it. He sleeps with his secretary and hookers and she downs Valium to keep that perky little smile up. They make it work. To be fair a divorce would not only harm their social credit but their financial standings as well. As parents, she’s better than he is. She can genuinely fake interest in our lives. He can’t be bothered. She owns her awfulness. He thinks he’s father of the year.

Do you have any siblings? What are/were they like?

Ugh, my fucking sisters. The middle one, she’s following in my mother’s footsteps. She’s a “classy philanthropist”, prim and proper. The good egg, if you will. A complete angel compared to me. So selfless and kind and blah blah blah. Give me a break. She only does that stuff because it makes her feel good about herself. Where’s the selflessness in that? You can’t complete acts of kindness for the gratitude and expect to still be a good person. She also drinks her daily three bottles of wine and complains about how father never came to her dance recitals. Give me a break. And then the youngest. Her life revolves around flowing trends and making them or whatever. She’s one of those girls on instagram posting about skinny fit tea and hairy gummy bears or whatever. Companies send her thousands of dollars in products in the hopes of getting attached to some stupid picture that’ll get thousand of mindless likes. probably all the attention she needs since father never gave it to her Their lives are both shallow and purposeless.

Where do you live now, and with whom? Describe the place and the person/people.

I live with my two dogs in a Penthouse apartment near One World Trade.

What is your occupation?

I’m a filmmaker, an artist.

Write a full physical description of yourself. You might want to consider factors such as: height, weight, race, hair and eye color, style of dress, and any tattoos, scars, or distinguishing marks.

What is this? A dating profile? I’m 6’0, 181 pounds, black hair, green, like a hipster Steve Jobs as my sisters would say, no tattoos, minor scars from falling as a child, no distinguishing marks. I’m boring. What can I say?

To which social class do you belong?

The polite answer is upper class. The real answer is “the richer than you” class.

Do you have any allergies, diseases, or other physical weaknesses?

I’m allergic to pollen and red dye #40. Well, red dye is more of intolerance but whatever. I still eat it because I’m not a little bitch. Physical weaknesses? I had a torn rotator cuff when I was younger but I still have pain in that shoulder.

Are you right- or left-handed?

I’m always right.

What do you have in your pockets?

Money, Black Card.

Do you have any quirks, strange mannerisms, annoying habits, or other defining characteristics?

I’m perfect.

PART 2: GROWING UP

How would you describe your childhood in general?

Eck, I mean, I had everything I wanted, right? I’d sound like a complete scumbag if I said “oh, my childhood was sad because my parents weren’t there and they didn’t pay attention to me and I was raised by nannies and sent to a $13,000 summer camp every year instead. Poor me.” I’m sure you’d love to hear some sob story about how all of that lead me to using drugs for fun. Yeah, fuck that whiny shit. My childhood was great.

What is your earliest memory?

I don’t know how old I was probably old enough to read at least. I was at my Nana’s house and she was watching this film Festen or The Celebration by Thomas Vinterberg. I can’t recall what it was about the film but I fell in love with filmmaking in that moment.

How much schooling have you had?

I went to the Dalton School from K through 12. Then NYU for college…which hasn’t ended yet, but whatever. Perfection takes time.

Did you enjoy school?

Elementary to 12, eh. High School got interesting when I could take more visual art classes. College was better because once those well rounding core classes were done I could get to the good film classes.

Where did you learn most of your skills and other abilities?

I mean, good filmmaking isn’t taught. I can’t pinpoint where I learned things. It’s just stuff you see, like, then add to your repertoire.

While growing up, did you have any role models? If so, describe them.

Role models? Please. Role models are pointless because people will always let you down.

While growing up, how did you get along with the other members of your family?

As kids, my sisters and I were alright I suppose. As good as siblings can be. My father and I never really got along. I guess what the feminists are calling “toxic masculinity” was an issue with him. He didn’t think the arts was a place for a male. I was meant to run a business. Wear a suit. Manage over sheep. Blah blah blah. My mother, I tried. She tried. We cohabitate. It works. The only person I’d consider myself close with is Nana.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Oh for fucks sake, I don’t know. I guess I wanted to be what all little kids want to be. A doctor. A police officer. A firefighter. Then I grew up.

As a child, what were your favorite activities?

I liked art or rather, painting on the walls and floors, reading, making models and dioramas, causing trouble, having tantrums.

As a child, what kinds of personality traits did you display?

I was an extrovert. Very loud and talkative. Charming from what I’ve been told. I could talk my way out of trouble and into extra cookies, etc.

As a child, were you popular? Who were your friends, and what were they like?

Of course I was popular. Throughout school, my best friend for a lack of a better word, was Edmond Hamilton. He was a good kid. Strong and a good listener. He was the bronze to my brains. His father was a senator and his mother a pediatric surgeon. His parents weren’t home much so we through a lot of parties at his house. He had this cousin too, Anthony. He wasn’t wealthy like the rest of us. The senator’s brother, Anthony’s father, had a gambling problem and his mother, a drinking problem. As a result, he just wanted to find people he felt he ‘belonged’ with. Well, of course we’d ues that to our advantage. We could usually convince Anthony to steal stuff for us, do our dirty work. Edmond’s a big wig hedge fund manager and Anthony’s in prison. In high school, I fucked around with Rei you know, just as something to do. I outright told her that but you know, I’m not responsible for her feelings. I also fucked around with Alana Kingsley too.

When and with whom was your first kiss?

I think I was 10, give or take, and it was with…what was her name? Victoria Calloway.

Are you a virgin? If not, when and with whom did you lose your virginity?

Mmm, a little personal aren’t we doc? Well, if you must know, I followed in the tradition of all the male Monroe’s before. On my 16th birthday, my father got an escort and that was that. I know what you’re thinking, how problematic it is. How a child that young can’t make a choice like that, yadayadayada. Save it. I’m fine.

PART 3: BELIEFS & OPINIONS

Are you basically optimistic or pessimistic?

Neither. Both are ridiculous concepts. You can’t generalize yourself in that way. Do I have a brighter outlook on some experiences, sure. Grimmer on others. I’d say I’m more cynical than anything.

What is your greatest fear?

Why bother with fear? Fear is what you have when you think you can’t do something or that you’ll fail. I don’t do either of those things.

What are your religious views?

Religion is awesome. Think about it. The very few have the power over the masses all because they claim to be a voice for some divinity. How genius is that? They can control these people under the guise of a better afterlife? Sign me up to be the leader of that. That and also look at the drama it incites. How would you not love it.

What are your political views?

I don’t care either way but I was raised Republican.

What are your views on sex?

It’s a fun necessity.

Do you believe in the existence of soul mates and/or true love?

No, absolutely not. That’s just a ploy or something that society has made up in order to get people to marry and procreate in a specific set of parameters. It’s absolute bullshit.

What do you believe makes a successful life?

Realism. Being real will lead you to success. But then again, I’m also a chronic, pathological liar. But I’m real about the characters I develop.

How honest are you about your thoughts and feelings (i.e. do you hide your true self from others, and in what way)?

I’m always honest.

Do you have any biases or prejudices?

I think comics are low art. I don’t know if that counts as a bias? And I think I’m smarter than everyone so that might be one too.

Is there anything you absolutely refuse to do under any circumstances? Why do you refuse to do it?

I don’t put limits on myself.

Who or what, if anything, would you die for (or otherwise go to extremes for)?

Maybe my dogs but that’s about it. No one deserves my death.

PART 4: RELATIONSHIPS W/OTHERS

In general, how do you treat others (politely, rudely, by keeping them at a distance, etc.)? Does your treatment of them change depending on how well you know them, and if so, how?

I’m polite to everyone however, our definitions tend to differ I suppose. My politeness is truth centered. I’m not going to sugar coat my words to spare your feelings. That wouldn’t help you grow as a person. All these people with thin skins need me.

Who is the most important person in your life, and why?

Me, myself, and I. Should be self-explanatory.

Who is the person you respect the most, and why?

If I have to pick someone, I’d say Lars Von Trier. Excellent filmmaker.

Who are your friends? Do you have a best friend? Describe these people.

Eck, best friends. I try not to have friends like that because again, people let you down.

Do you have a spouse or significant other? If so, describe this person.’

That’s a joke, right?

Have you ever been in love? If so, describe what happened.

I love myself.

What do you look for in a potential lover?

I don’t look for potential lovers.

How close are you to your family?

I talk to my sisters at least once a week. My parents maybe once a month. About as close as oil and vinegar. We exist in the same salad dressing bottle but like never really together.

Have you started your own family? If so, describe them. If not, do you want to? Why or why not?

I mean, not that I know of but who’s really to say. I’d assume if I impregnated someone she’d probably try to sue me for child support or something. But as of right now, I don’t have any desire to have kids or a family for that matter. If we haven’t noticed by now, I’m selfish as fuck.

Who would you turn to if you were in desperate need of help?

Rich probably. Or Mr. Franklin.

Do you trust anyone to protect you? Who, and why?

Rich, because it’s his job.

If you died or went missing, who would miss you?

Probably my dogs, Benedict and Constance.

Who is the person you despise the most, and why?

Declan Wentworth. That son of a bitch tried to embarrass me in front of the entire school by pulling my pants down during the student body elections. Jokes on him. Not only did I win president, which I didn’t even want because I was only running as a joke, but it made a rather good impression among the girls in our grade if you catch my drift.

Do you tend to argue with people, or avoid conflict?

I don’t argue. I state facts and people get butthurt. That’s not my issue.

Do you tend to take on leadership roles in social situations?

I’m naturally charismatic, what do you think?

Do you like interacting with large groups of people? Why or why not?

I wouldn’t say I particularly like it. I could go either way. But I do enjoy being in charge of them and making them do stuff so.

Do you care what others think of you?

Fuck no.

PART 5: LIKES & DISLIKES

What is/are your favorite hobbies and pastimes?

Ugh, I hate this question. People always ask this when they don’t know what else to ask. As if what I like to do says a lot about who I am. Please.

What is your most treasured possession?

My Varicam, my Minolta.

What is your favorite color?

Black and I don’t care if that’s a shade.

What is your favorite food?

The Tomahawk Ribeye from Bowery Meat Company.

What, if anything, do you like to read?

Mostly things about cults or charismatic leaders.

What is your idea of good entertainment (consider music, movies, art, etc.)?

I enjoy a good film, watching people argue, lying, etc.

Do you smoke, drink, or use drugs? If so, why? Do you want to quit?

All of the above and absolutely not. I’m no quitter.

How do you spend a typical Saturday night?

Typically Saturday night? There’s no such thing for me. I’m either out gallivanting the city or throwing some sort of getting together at my place.

What makes you laugh?

People falling.

What, if anything, shocks or offends you?

The stupidity of others although I shouldn’t be surprised.

What would you do if you had insomnia and had to find something to do to amuse yourself?

I’d go find some shit bar to sit in. Maybe cause a fight or something. Not between me and someone. Between two other people. It’d be interesting to watch.

How do you deal with stress?

Drugs.

Are you spontaneous, or do you always need to have a plan?

Spontaneous.

What are your pet peeves?

Ignorance. Goody two shoes.

PART 6: SELF IMAGES & OTHER

Describe the routine of a normal day for you. How do you feel when this routine is disrupted?

Routine? I don’t believe in routines.

What is your greatest strength as a person?

Everything.

What is your greatest weakness?

Nothing.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

Again, Nothing?

Are you generally introverted or extroverted?

Extroverted.

Are you generally organized or messy?

Messy is a sign of weakness. I have no weaknesses.

Name three things you consider yourself to be very good at, and three things you consider yourself to be very bad at.

Just three? Fine. Filmmaking, pissing people off, talking. There’s nothing I’m bad at so that question isn’t valid.

Do you like yourself?

No. I love myself.

What goal do you most want to accomplish in your lifetime?

I’m pretty accomplished right now so I’m good. Thanks.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Still rich. Still causing trouble.

If you could choose, how would you want to die?

In a blaze of glory probably. Something dramatic of course.

If you knew you were going to die in 24 hours, name three things you would do in the time you had left.

Have a final meal at Bowery Meat, do a fuck ton of coke, set my apartment on fire.

What is the one thing for which you would most like to be remembered after your death?

I don’t care if people remember me after I die.

What three words best describe your personality?

Amazing. Perfect. Talented.

What three words would others probably use to describe you?

Again, Amazing, perfect, Talented.

#I know some of these questions are like intakey questions but just you know play along #just trying to get my muse back.#also forgot a lot about the bowman here #about #also if this aligns with any of your characters beliefs and shiz shoot me a message so we can plot #drug tw #alcohol tw

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razieltwelve · 6 years

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When Starting A Story #1

When starting a starting a story, there are a few things that you might want to consider.

Establish the rules. The rules determine how the universe works in your story. If you don’t know what the rules are, then your chances of writing something that doesn’t contradict itself or come across as confusing are less than stellar. A story can have all sorts of fantastical elements and still come across as believable and logical as long as it is internally consistent. In other words, a story should be very careful about breaking its own rules.

Does your story have magic? If it does, then you need to have at least some idea of how that magic works. Otherwise, you’re likely to make a mess of it.

Does your story have advanced science or technology? If it does, then you again need to have some idea of how it works. The explanations don’t have to be perfect. For instance, we don’t actually know how hyperspace travel would work, but if you have hyperspace travel in your story, it should work in a consistent manner with rules that make sense given the state of science and technology in your story.

Does your story have characters with realistic abilities? If it does, then be careful about straying to far from realism. It rarely makes sense, for example, to have a story in which medieval combat is depicted realistically with no one having supernatural abilities and then suddenly have a single swordsman capable of slaughtering entire armies with nothing more than a rusty dagger.

Know what kind of story you want to write.

Some stories are humorous. Some stories are dark. And some stories are both. Of course, there are many, many other kinds of stories out there, but it always helps to know ahead of time what sort of story yours will be. This is because the way the plot and characters develop is going to be heavily influenced by what sort of story you’re writing.

Imagine you’re writing a light-hearted comedy. It might be intriguing as a writer to have a plot twist in which the happy, slice-of-life set up is disrupted by a horrible tragedy that plunges the characters into death and despair, but think of the reader for a second. You’ve basically promised the reader something happy and humorous. Suddenly filling it with tragedy could intrigue them – but it is far, far, far more likely to simply enrage your readers. Think of how you’d feel if you went into a movie theatre to watch Tropic Thunder only for it to turn into Saw halfway through.

On the other hand, if you’ve chosen to write a story with a darker atmosphere and plenty of twists, then your reader isn’t going to hate it when you throw in the occasional curve ball because you’ve already set the story up that way. Look at something like Game of Thrones. Knowing what sort of story you’re writing from the beginning will help you to establish the right tone and style, so that plot twists and a dark atmosphere actually suit the story instead of coming across as strange and bizarre.

Cause and effect.

I am not someone who goes into super-detailed plot outlines and chapter summaries before writing a story. However, it is important to know what makes your story tick. If you can answer the following questions, then you’re well on your way to having an idea of what the main causes and effects are in your story.

What does the protagonist want, and why do they want it?

What conflict does the protagonist face, and are there any ways to avoid or overcome it?

What does victory for the protagonist look like, and how can they achieve it?

What does defeat for the protagonist look like and how they can they avoid it?

What roles do the other characters play, and how do they relate to the protagonist?

Characters, plot, and settings.

When you start writing a story, these are the three things you should worry about the most. Technique (i.e., the technical aspects of your writing) is something that can be improved with revision and practice. However, actually writing anything will be almost impossible if you don’t have at least some grasp of who your characters are, what the plot will be, and what the setting is.

Who are your main characters? What makes them tick? What are their personalities and abilities? What do they look like? How do they speak?

What is the plot? What motivates the characters, and what obstacles do they face? Where is the story going, and what sort of end does it have?

What is the setting? What sort of world do your characters live in? What is its history? What is its culture and society like? Is there magic? How advanced are science and technology?

Accept that what you first write will probably be bad.

I’d like to be able to say that everything I’ve ever written has been awesome from the first draft, but I’d be lying. A lot of what I’ve written has been pretty horrible to begin with. It’s only natural. Instead of worrying about writing the perfect story right from the start, focus on writing something that you can build on and improve.

Your aim shouldn’t be to write a fantastic first draft. Your aim should be to write a fantastic final draft.

There is, of course, more to consider when starting a story, but these points should help guide your thoughts a little. Starting is usually the hardest part, so don’t get discouraged. Keep on writing and pushing yourself. Every journey, no matter how long, dangerous, or arduous, begins with a single step. The easiest way to fail is to never try at all.

If you want to read more about my thoughts on writing, education, and other subjects, you can find those here.

I also write original fiction, which you can find here.

#writing #writing technique #writing tips #improving your writing #writing advice

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gameingnow · 3 years

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Need For Speed: Underground Review

Fast And Furious From the moment it arrived in cinemas, this film, which met with intense interest from automobile enthusiasts, ignited a new current. In the film, people who organize illegal races on city streets by changing cars that can be considered ordinary in terms of appearance and details, that is, modifying them. From this current, the game world also received its share. Before examining Need For Speed Underground, the newest example of its kind, let's briefly examine Import Racing, which is fashionable in America and in various countries of the world. In countries with good social welfare levels, for example, in a place like America, where a dishwasher gets a salary of 3000USD per month, people can devote more time and money to pleasure and hobbies because they have no livelihood problems. A typical American teenager between the ages of 17 and 25 can make a very comfortable living by working. This part is that young car enthusiasts can't get to exotic vehicles that are overly expensive, so they create their own speed monsters themselves. They create machines that remove stones from standard cars, piece by piece, to Exotics. These vehicles participate in illegal street races and add money to their money and parts to their vehicles. And it continues… The number of people doing this is growing every day. But there are very few people in our country who are engaged in such pleasurable work as it is dangerous. There's no telling why. But all this modified-street racing stuff means nothing to me. Because, thank god, my condition is good, and it seems very repulsive to me to go dim-TISS dim-Tiss with surprise hatched cars. I've been driving a Kompressor Mercedes, and if you touch it, you'll get punched, hemmeen. Anyway, sir, we'll move on to our review in no time. Obviously, after the Hot Pursuit 2 disaster, I was very biased about the underground. I was afraid that graphics like HP2 would be nice again, and the rest would be an empty game. But mostly I was wrong. This game is also not complete, but extremely beautiful. I was a little surprised when the THX logo appeared in front of me after the classic EA cinema when we opened the game. Because instead of creative's eax, which understands more about these things, George Lucas signed with our uncle THX, who develops sound mostly for the film industry. After this cinematography, a bright person turns up on the screen who relishes his Nissan. This brilliant person advises us to drive responsibly in real life and meet it with NFSU when we have a desire for speed. Good thing it does, because after I played the game, my driving changed a lot. I can barely keep myself from burning the asphalt at every Yesil. Sometimes I even lose myself. Then we see the main cinema of the game that brings people to the gas. It can be seen from here that the concept of Illegal street racing is very important. Then comes the main menu, accompanied by hiphop music. After options and statistics, there are 3 ways to go: Go Underground is a kind of Career Mode. Starting from scratch, you're on your way to becoming the king of the streets. At the beginning you are participating in a race with a powerful car in the last Creek. But then it becomes clear that this is your dream. The chick at the movies makes fun of you, asks Which Car Is your car, and you start. There are two kinds of vehicles used to modify and replace your car. The first is money. From the races you make, you earn money according to the difficulty of the race you choose. But the degrees of difficulty are not well adjusted. Some of the races are hard, some of them even easy. For example, it took me a few hours to pass a 6-stage race. The second is style points. As the name suggests, you earn points based on the style of driving. For example, if you leave a short December of 5-10 inches when you pass quickly past a vehicle that is popularly called “lick”, you deserve 100 points because of “Near Miss”. Mistakes You Make in the same way cause you to lose points. But the scoring system is based only on poor vehicles in traffic. So if you hit someone you're competing with and get them out of the way, you don't lose points. These points help you open the pieces. So first you buy the part that you open in your style points, and then with your money. It is also possible to gain a piece by taking advantage of some opportunities that you encounter throughout your career. At first, when you're in financial trouble, by the middle of the game, money doesn't matter. You're trying to earn style points like crazy. It's a design error that doesn't suit such a beautiful game. Races consist of 5 types: Circle Circuit where you compete stage by stage against 3 opponents on a track, Sprint where you try to go from point A to point B, Drag, which is the most enjoyable part of the game, Drift where you show by sliding the car, and Lap Knockout where the last one is eliminated in each round. As can be understood from the name of Quick Race, it is an emergency action option. By choosing the modes I mentioned above, you are competing without any goals. There are also tutorials with detailed descriptions of drag and Drift modes. And in the Free run, you walk around the city carelessly. In Play online, you can compete over the internet. In the game, there are 20 vehicles from such manufacturers as Subaru, Toyota, April, Honda. Likewise, there are tons of licensed parts from manufacturers such as Sparco, Momo, nos, BBS. But since there is no such event as downloading new tracks from the internet, this game is doomed to be forgotten over time. Modification falls into two main categories: image and performance. In the image section, there are a lot of parts, from bumpers to neon, from exhausts to stickers. Every image modification you make to your car increases your reputation. Reputation helps you multiply the style points you get. So if I earn 400 style points at the end of a race, my score goes to 2000 thanks to 5x reputation. In the performance part, you can get parts related to the undercarriage and engine. The famous NOS is here. The graphics are really fantastic. Nfsu uses motion blur, one of the latest graphics technologies, to the fullest. As you accelerate, your surroundings begin to blur, your field of view begins to decrease. That added some realism to the game. On the other hand, as in Fast and furious, when you fire nos, you encounter incredible effects. To see them, you must have a video card that supports DirectX9. But GeForce Fx5200 card those who have more hope. Because this card is officially “crawling”, so to speak, in the game. In this case gf4mx owners are in a short state of graphics Fx5200 owners playing comfortably after the next generation sets the resolution at 1024x768 without effects. As I mentioned at the beginning, it is a little strange that the game has THX certificate instead of eax support. But that doesn't mean the sounds are bad. On the contrary, The Hissing of the Turbo, the explosion of the NOS, the air friction sounds reflected from the barriers you pass by at 200km/h are perfectly prepared. EA also gave importance to the soundtrack. Well-known rap, techno, etc. the pieces that put their artists in the air are in the current game. After this age, I should also celebrate EA for making me listen to such nonsense. There are some points I don't like, but I'm sorry to say. Underground mode hastily prepared. And after we're done, there's nothing left to do. The runways consist of sections of a city. This causes you to constantly experience deja vu. You find yourself constantly passing through the same places. Had it not been for these flaws, Need for Speed Underground could have been a much better game. Unfortunately, EA rushed to remove the game again. But the game is really good, and it made me forget the disgrace of Hot Pursuit 2. Good job, EA, I forgive you. But from now on, I suggest you be more careful. And my advice to you game lovers is not to miss this game. Drive carefully! gameingnow.com Read the full article

#NeedforSpeed:Underground #pc #race

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mi4012andrewvanicek · 4 years

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Ondrej Vanicek Evaulation Essay

In the second semester, we had a task to build our animation project based on one of the Heterotopia principles. I chose one where the build is disturbing the environment and metro station as a building does a really great job in that. I loved the idea of an underground city with a high density of pedestrians a busy place where nothing is really the same every day as posters and advertisements and people changing there very frequently. I played with many ideas on how to build a story around this place. One of the ideas was based on people that travel by the metro every day and I would observe the things they do on a daily basis while waiting for a train to arrive. The second idea was about capturing a contrast between surface and metro station and how the place itself changes over time from new to a ruined building. For the final animation, I chose the second idea, because I liked more the contrast, between the surface and underground and how the place fades away in time. My animatics are stylized to a soviet era. Although soviet stations looked completely different, by making the station industrial themed, it immerse the feeling of the heavily used place. I was inspired by my homeland, where there are plenty of ruined industrial buildings with a lot of tools and old machines, that says a story about buildings past. This mindset goes hand in hand with the soviet setting as well which is also a thing of the past nowadays, but it was once a "great nation". I am also a huge fan of Metro 2033 by Dimitry Glukhovsky. The artworks from the game based on the novel were made by 4A Games Studio also greatly inspired me. It was interesting to see various artists portray the same idea. I was thinking, what I would do differently and how their work fits into the context of heterotopia.I liked how they captured the post-apocalyptic theme. What amuses me is that the game has a post-apocalyptic metro where stations are beacons of peace and the surface is the wild toxic and hazardous place. It is kind of opposite to my rendition of heterotopia.

For this work, I intended to build on my knowledge I gained in the first semester. I think that I improved research and mood board development. I surveyed a general structure of the metro stations around the world as well as the historical and geographical context where I intended to put my story in.During the development of my project, many key features which I intended to use in animatics were successful, but some of them were altered or completely scrapped. When I was creating the storyboard, I was deeply thinking about the camera. I played with different angles and movements, close-ups, and open-ups transitions between still shots and I was also exploring how to properly move the camera in the environment. I was looking into how to catch properly the atmosphere of the place. One of the things I am really happy about is the transition between the surface and the underground. This sequence was inspired by typical cartoon movement between floors or different layers in the cutscenes. The Simpsons did that kind of transition really often in their beginnings. I also like how I chose the pencil draw style for this project. I think it deepens the immersive feeling of the past. I was inspired by black and white television. I have been exploring the past regime by watching old tv reports from Czechoslovakia from 1960 – 1970 on YouTube. It was interesting to see how the environment looked like back then and how this same environment looks nowadays. It was also interesting how people were living, which public transports people used, like for example metro stations and these videos were also useful for me as a great minor mood board and infinite well of references.

However, not everything went so perfect as I wanted to. What I could do better was the sequence when time changes during the story as the train stop by and leave the station, time fades a little bit.

I could do more train stops to show time jumps more obviously or improve it by having more close shots similar to one with a poster that changes over time. From things that were completely scrapped, I could also show more of the surface at the end of the animation. It would be interesting to see the busy surface. I have only referenced this with sounds. What did not make it at all to the final animation is a catastrophic scenario in the metro tunnels where the monster with tentacles rises from an unknown dimension and devastated the tunnels and station and made the people leave the whole place. I realized that this was far fetched scenario and I replaced it with the slightly different one. In the final story, the way how the place was destroyed was changed from monster to biohazard caused by humans itself and I think this is the better option as it added greatly on the realism of the whole story.

For sound, I kept it simple. On the surface, you could hear birds and wind, oppose to the underground where you could here an electric machine sounds, human voices and general noise of the city. But how time passes in the animation the busy sound of metro station turns to the deep blank hollow space with echoes in the background and dripping water. Basically, the sides flip, and the busy part is above at the end of the animation. It was very important for me to capture the contrast between the surface and underground, the difference between the current time and prospering past. I think that adding sound in this context suits well to the theme of the whole project.

While creating the animatics I learned and improved a lot of valuable skills. I tried to build on and improve the skills I learned in semester one. My drawings got significantly improved. I feel more confident about my sketches in terms of composition, details, and shading. However, I still need to improve the lighting in my drawings. In terms of research, my skills have significantly improved.

I have looked into things like the technical, historical, and geographical context of the theme I explored things beyond the actual theme of the metro station and I aimed to put together little details that suit a theme and improves the work overall and I think that this work went really well. I also learned while creating a storyboard that moving camera is actually easier than drawing the storyboard frame by frame and moving objects would be added in AE as moving props. It saved me a lot of time which I could use to polish my project. I did not have any technical issues that I couldn't solve on this project. Feedback from the tutors and also friends and family helped me, as critique and different ideas improved final animatics. I enjoyed exploring the different ideas, talking about it between tutors and friends to figure out the one that works best for my project talking about it made progress much easier and more enjoyable. These improvements in a workflow I made, will carry on to my future projects. Creating a realistic environment and exploring the history of the place was a great experience that sets a stable foundation for future projects very well. But there is still space for improvement. What I will focus on more in the future is digital art. I started learning with a drawing tablet and I cannot wait to try my next storyboard with it. It will also help me to better understand the colors as I do not use colors very often in my creations and that is still something I would like to improve. My experience with After Effects got slightly improved from the first semester however there is still room for improvement. The course exceeded my expectations. I am looking forward to getting more experienced in animation and create better and wilder things in the future. I am especially looking forward to character design and character-driven animations as well as creating dynamic and action scenes in the future.

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actualbird · 7 years

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is there anyway you'd consider adding the "I wanna cut to the feeling" fic on your fic recs list so we can read it over and over again cause lord it was pu r e

you are COMPLETELY RIGHT, ANON. tho tbh i will also use this oppurtunity to make an entire fic rec list because so many good fics have happened since i made my last list

here are all the previous bmc fic recs ive made and here (FINALLY) is my bmc fic rec page. which has, in my opinion, some rlly useful pixel legends. without further ado, heres som GOOD STUFF

i wanna cut to the feeling by sulfuric/ @playertwojer

jeremy can sing but he won’t let michael hear him. michael decides to embark on a Mission to change that and finds out that carly rae jepsen just might save the world, after all.

THE MAIN CULPRIT IN QUESTION. god this fic is SO FUN AND SO SWEET AND SO DORKY AND BEAUTIFUL. i read this while in class and this was a mistake because i could NOT STOP SMILING??? reading this fic just makes you fucking happy GOD

how to repress your every emotion (and why you maybe sometimes shouldn’t): a guide by jeremy heere by sulfuric/ @playertwojer

michael and jeremy go on a camping trip. jeremy isn’t good at outdoors or feelings, but he ends up diving headfirst into both, anyways.

while we’re at it, pls read this fic too because it’s quite honestly the cutest yet most in character jeremy pov thing ive ever read?? like the voice here is so spot on. it’s awkward but beautiful and is that not jeremy heere in a nutshell. love yourself. read this fic

Temporal Vertigo [series] by Micheofftrash

It was a Thursday when Michael Mell went missing.

[A story of dimension-splitting video games, a dozen roses, and a boss fight to remember.]

okay so those past two recs have been fluff so to add contrast, read this series (two fics, totaling 10k) if you wanna fucking CRY. because i CRIED. god, these fics were gorgeous and painful. the first is an almost heartbreaking study in what the absence of a person can do, and the second is the consequences of being that person. im not making sense, but if youre in the mood for something that will hurt, read this. it’s fucking incredible

M.A.S.H. by @hurricanesunny

Jake and Jeremy pass the time trying to tell the future.

fuk u sunny i’ll rec u all i want. jake and jeremy play mash and it’s BEAUTIFUL. i havent read any other jake pov fics but i guess im going to have to use this one as my basis because it knocked it outta the ballpark. hilarious. sweet. sincere. reading this fic feels like holding hands. READ THIS U COWARDS!!!!

Engagement Sequence by Kalopsia/ @danisnotofire

“You shot my fucking client,” Michael growls. The phone, on speaker a few inches away, practically rattles with Michael’s vaguely concealed anger.

“No,” Jeremy says, his voice calm as he carefully folds his one good suit and places it into his bag. He has no idea who he’s talking about, but it doesn’t matter. “I shot my fucking mark.”

There’s silence on the other end, and for a moment Jeremy thinks he’s hung up. But then he speaks again. “I’m going to shoot you.”

“Find me first,” Jeremy challenges, because this is who the Squip has made him, this is who he is, and clicks the red button to end the call.

Jeremy and Michael are both assassins. They’re not looking, but they find each other anyway.

NOTHING i say will do this piece justice AT ALL. this fic KILLED ME. brutal and poetic writing style. reverse chronology interspersed between vignettes done so well. a goddamn compelling story. fuck!!! stop reading me rambling about this fic and just read the fic itself, u wont regret!! getting killed by it!!!!

you say you’re okay (I’m gonna heal you anyway) by DivineProjectZero/ @listentotheshityousay

The thing is, they’re both broken.

SPEAKING OF FICS THAT WILL KILL YOU, WOW!!!!! i dont want to say a goddamn thing about this fic because spoilers but just. magical realism to die for. a painful, complicated relationship. a writing style that grabs u by the THROAT and does not let go. jesus goddamn CHRIST. read…this fic…..

Protector by DivineProjectZero/ @listentotheshityousay

With Michael, he feels safe.

(wherein Jeremy Heere is scared of girls and Michael Mell is his last line of defense.)

i cant fucking believe i havent recced this before holy SHT!! anyway fake dating but completely real feelings??? HERE IT IS. this piece is HILARIOUS but also HURTS SO MUCH. will u laugh or cry?? the answer is yes.

SO TADAA!!! HAPPY READING EVERYBODY. dont forget to kudos and comment on fics u like!!!!

#im tagging u if i kno u so u will just have to DEAL with my love whatever!!!#i havent actually been reading too many fics lately :((( thats why most of the fics here are by the buds omg #bmc fic rec #asks

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spiralatlas · 7 years

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GCAP 2017 Day 2

Consisting of:

More Wheelchair Hell

student games

Tony Albrecht from RIOT games

Jennifer Schuerle: Why ladders are awesome: A game design lesson in spatial design

Kate Edwards: Striking the hammer: the advocate’s journey

So the day started with me banging my newly hired mobility scooter INTO THE WALL of our apartment building and leaving a HUGE HOLE. Which was not great. But the security guard was nice about it after we showed ourselves happy to leave our details, and organised an easier way in and out via the garage. I spent the rest of the day VERY AWARE of this thing's massive turning circle. My husband Cam was an absolute life-saver, cheering me up and getting me stuff.

Also I managed to GET A SMOOTHIE IN THE END. I noodled south to the South Mebourne Markets, a hub of fancy food places which are only open a few days a week, and had a very nice if expensive vegan salted caramel smoothie and also a nice apple and raspberry sorbet from Fritz Gelato.

Anyway, on to the actual conference :)

The student games:

Unbond: a cute platform puzzler I actually managed to enjoy??

Harvest Hands a 3D farming sim, like Stardew Valley in the style of Slime Rancher.

Just Bearly an interesting series of metaphorical vignettes about awkwardness and anxiety.

Carta A very clever puzzle platformer where you rearrange the platforms, won the Student Showcase award.

Lacuna A point and click murder mystery using time travel and a really interesting connect the clues mechanic.

Komorebi (I couldn't find a link): a cute turn-based rpg using cards.

Misc Convention Stuff: I didn't mention this before but they had gender neutral toilets! I felt too self conscious to use the 'men's but it was nice to have the option. Also the volunteers were super concerned and helpful when my wheelchair broke. They didn't end up being able to fix it but tried really hard.

One of the speakers actually remembered non binary people exist one time when talking about gender bias in the industry!

I didn't go to the awards ceremony because it was at night and also I find awards super boring but seeing everyone talk about it on social media later it sounds like it would have been cool to go.

Opening Keynote: Tony Albrecht from RIOT games

He showed the path his career has taken, and where he and his early colleagues have ended up, updating a world map labeled with a network of connections.

He started out in Adelaide in 1999, he realised he was utterly miserable at his (mining?) job and wanted to get into games. His friends and family thought this was a terrible idea.

He went to AGDC and met other people like himself, forming Ratbag games in Adelaide.

Then they got bought out by a huge company and put in charge of a huge IP, based on a movie, with lots of potential... and the project and his company got scrapped.

And then he joined anew little company and exactly the same thing happened again. And then again.

During one of these shakeups he managed to jump sideways to the US branch of the company via some guys he met at a party.

Is this kind of thing nepotism? Photo of Donald Trump and family. No, because it's not just about who you know and trust, it's also about competence. And when you meet someone in person it makes it easier to judge cultural fit. (He did not talk about how this kind of "cultural fit" tends to benefit white dudes such as himself. Also, I’ll pedantically point out it it would be 'cronyism' since it's not about family. Anyway, he’s right that for good or ill this is how things work)

The GFC caused a lot of people to lose their jobs, which was a horrible experience, but also brought down the dinosaurs of the industry, leaving space for the little mammal indies to feast on the dinosaur's bones.

In his final diagram, 22 people (I didn't follow who. People from Ratbag?) ended up covering 57 studios. All of those studios are now in a position to judge if he is any good, both competent and good to work with.

You can't just be good, you have to be known to be good, and good to work with. Market yourself.

Be both humble and ambitious.

Go to parties and meet people, but don't get so drunk you make an asshole of yourself.

Speak at conferences. He showed a photo of GDC and one of a games conference in Tehran, I found it interesting that the latter had way more people who I read as women (and of course was less universally white)

Surround yourself with people you want to be like, and be like the people you want to surround yourself with.

He's now at RIOT, a huge American company, and there are four people from Ratbag there.

Why ladders are Awesome: A game design lesson in spatial design Jennifer Schuerle Opaque Space @Gaohmee Training Astronauts with VR.

Visual stimuli guidance, tell players what to do and where to go. Lights: Points of interest. Colour theory. Positive vs negative feelings, mood. Logical pathways. Repetitive visuals guide players towards a goal.

Firewatch given as an example as being good at guiding the player (which shows that this stuff can be subjective because I got lost so much I had to give up haha) Uncharted, too.

More than just "good architecture". Oni used real architects as level designers and it was bad. The layout was boring and samey.

UX behavioural science.

Player expectations: a rusted barrel with a “flammable” symbol on it is read as "Shoot me and I will explode", which would weird people out in a pacifist game.

Health pack: Illegal to use a red cross against a white background for health. Instead people use a red H, blue cross etc.

Lock down parameters. How long should it take? Mission metrics. Visual themes. What need is this space supposed to fulfill?

Context: what does the player already know? eg in LA Noire you learn early that golden handles means an openable door.

Pacing: tension and mood is created by going from a confined space to large space, from dark to light. Make the player look away before a jump scare.

Explicit: Instructions telling the player exactly what to do. Implicit: in the environment Emergent: What the player makes up in conjunction with what is given by the game.

Some bad corridors:

Minecraft portal: doesn't look like it leads anywhere, looks like a dead end.

Portal corridor has extrusions in the wall hiding an upcoming intersection.

A good corridor: light highlights door, small flight of stairs hints to progression, hint of a curving corridor beyond the door, shows edge of the next room. Raised viewpoint makes it easier to see.

Ladders, interactive objects: must be clearly designed, grab attention, can lead to a surprise because you know where the player is facing and have a reason for things to change.

Buttons control exactly where the player is facing. It controls expectation.

Super Mario is a masterclass of level design. Include objects which illustrate the rules of the world.

Cognitive priming: Foreshadowing. If you show them before they have to do it they will do better.

(Alice?) shows you what you're going to do next with flythroughs, view from a hill etc. Gets players to follow the intended path.

Gone Home is one of the most important walking sims. You explore the world and character.

Players more on board if invested. Give them time to connect to characters and environments.

Give time, show they can trust your design.

Earthlight Arcade: 15 minute virtual space walk on the outside of international space station.

New technology means new challenges, for both devs and players.

Collaboration with NASA requires a commitment to a certain level of realism.

Astronaut suits are fucking annoying. Obstructs view, takes up lots of space.

Airlock: people have expectations that don't match actual airlocks. No up! Corridors tend to be round. Exit is on the side of the airlock, how do you point people towards it?

Cannot move without applying force, pulling on handlebars etc. People lean and it doesn't work. Can rotate in any direction when holding handlebars. (I asked if people get motion sickness and she said no, because they are in control, even if things work in unexpected ways)

The goal is to get the player to: learn how to move. Find the airlock hatch. Climb out feet first.

First attempt: "Ladder" of handlebars leading to airlock. Logos with text on to suggest an up. Didn't work.

Second Attempt: Narrow airlock so you have nowhere else to go but the door out. GIANT EXIT SIGN. Worked, but for the wrong reasons: players didn't notice the sign, there was just nowhere else to go.

People. Never. Read. People. Never. Listen.

Whenever people are overwhelmed, new information is hard to retain. It doesn't matter how clear your solution seems to be if the player doesn't get it. It's your responsibility to make it work.

Earthlight Arcade is at PAX in the freeplay area!

Summary: Make mechanics come first, use spatial design as a support tool.

Design for the human perception. How do humans navigate environments?

Believable carefully crafted environments mean people will follow your lead.

[email protected]

Question: How do you keep track of the player's centre of gravity? You can't with the current model. Don't model below the stomach.

Question: How did NASA feel about this highly innaccurate airlock? There are multiple builds. An easier and less precise one for the public, a more exact one for NASA they add their own models. They have to worry about tethers etc.

Closing Keynote: Striking the hammer: the Advocate’s journey Kate Edwards CEO & Principal Consultant, Geogrify Director of Outreach & Board Member, Take This Former Executive Director, IGDA [email protected] Twitter: @geogrify

Scholarship to GDC.

Pushed against various things (crunch, sexism etc) During Gamergate was a primary target, as was the organisation. Once you have 100 arrows in your back you don't feel any more.

Now works with Take This which focuses on mental health.

Her influences: Watched the moon landing. Tolkein's map helped her on path to becoming a cartographer. Star Wars. Pong.

Writer (wanted to be astronaut, star wars conceptual artist) -> cartographer -> VR researcher -> Geopolitical Strategist at MSFT -> Cultural consultant on games -> IGDA Executive Director -> Raging Advocate

Who am I? Created a unique Geopolitical career at Microsoft and Google. Worked on every Microsoft game 1994-2005 Worked on [redacted] for [redacted] Magazine columnist (other stuff I missed)

But then she was overwhelmed with self doubt and imposter syndrome. Watching the Matrix: "Don't think you are, know you are", she burst into tears.

She realised: Disbelief in your own skills doesn't make them disappear, or be invisible to those around you.

Know the reality of what others perceive in you, even if you struggle to think you have skills or not.

Imposter syndrome: What I know is a tiny subset of what everyone else knows. Reality: they are two overlapping sets of about the same size. The associated image

Comparison is the death of joy- Mark Twain.

Embrace your adversity. Treat it as your crucible, your forge. The Supreme Ordeal of the Heroes Journey.

Embrace your superpowers.

Even if it's self delusion it works. A bruise is a lesson and every lesson makes us better.

Be like Wonder Woman, stepping up out of the trench to stand up and do what's necessary. Only by emerging through the crucible can you do it.

Who am I? Someone who decided to give a shit. Evil triumphs when good people do nothing.

Cultural Change Catalyst

Change culture within: Games: Helped people stop making games that would be problematic in other cultures. Companies The Games Industry

Why do I care? Love. Respect. Admiration. Passion.

Humans have told narratives since the dawn of time and we in the games industry are changing how that works in new ways.

It's not about rage.

It's about righteous rage: A reactive emotion of anger in response to mistreatment, insult ...injustice.

Injustice: Crunch. Lack of diversity. Screwing over indie devs is wrong.

Inaction. Complacency.

righteous rage=advocacy

She became fierce.

Does a lot of cosplay, daughter is a costume designer. Wear it for a day first. First day she wore the Thor costume she felt kickass. I'm not pretending to be Thor I am Thor. An external representation of how she feels about herself.

The fierce formula (drawn for Inktober) authenticity/adversity, maintain conviction over rejection, willpower + (Fear times zero).

"Industry" thought of as a machine where people are cogs. The "industry" is us. If you don't like it, change it.

Video games seen as a waste, causes violence, played by children and boys, cause obesity, motivated by money. Who controls this narrative? Noone in particular. But we need to work together to try to fix it.

Perceptions of sexism going up, concern about diversity also up.

Most people think crunch unnecessary. Read Crunch hurts on takethis.org about the mental health effects.

People say can't change can't happen quickly. Photo of Harvey Weinstein, Bill O'Reilly, Google manifesto dude. People say it takes time, but what it takes is willpower and people banding together. Change is punctuated.

FX network CEO decided to fix things. 2014 12% directors women or POC. 2016 51% directors women or POC.

Why can't games CEOs take a stand against crunch?

Focus on The Cause over the fear.

She would speak up against Gamergate again, despite knowing how she would be harassed later.

If everyone felt this way there'd be a wall of resistance, not just ripples but a tsunami.

Be willing to be relentless. Fervently support each other. Mentor each other. Reach out to people who need help. Act with common will.

Common question: will there be a union? Interest continuously increases. She was vague about whether she thought it was a good idea.

There were suggestions to join with hollywood unions but game creators would never be respected by them.

Everyone in history who made a change was "just one person". If you can't feed a hundred people just feed one.

She isn't trying to change the world, just her corner, that's the part she has chosen.

gameadvocacy.org (not up yet) Reporting on specific issues whistleblowing public collective action on specific targets

Wonder woman from comics: when asked how strong she was, she said "I don't know. It's difficult to find an upper limit against which to test myself"

fiat justitia ruat caelum: Let justice be done though the heavens fall

She's turning 53, doesn't want to have to wait decades for games to be accepted as a medium.

She got a standing ovation.

Closing speech: Reminder that there is a strict code of conduct. If you see something and feel comfortable standing up we will be your shields. If you are not comfortable enough come and find the team.

Lots of thank yous. LOTS.

#gcap 2017 #gcap #migw 2017 #conventions #conferences #game dev

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atrahasis · 7 years

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This is Me Rambling about Meta-ethics and Stuff

I'm going to regret this post.

I'm not good with this "effortpost" thing, so i’m going to ramble about this topic, stream-of-consciousness style. I promise confusion.

Disclaimer: I have no formal training in philosophy and did not read much on related subjects prior to writing this. Others have definitely done these subjects more justice.

Content warning: This post may or may not contain bullet biting or uncomfortable ideas. Also, this is a terrible post.

So one of the central questions in meta-ethics is the metaphysics of morality, right? To me, the metaphysics of morality has never seemed to be a difficult problem. That which I call ‘morality’ appears to just consist of individual’s moral preferences. Moral rightness in this sense then refers to either what one intrinsically morally prefers or to conclusions following from said preferences.

Basically, I don’t know what this moral realism thing is about. Like, it appears when normal folk talk about moral rightness/truth, they seem to be talking about a sort of truth akin to empirical truth or mathematical truth. But ‘moral truth’ doesn’t appear to have the same characteristics as these other truths that would make moral truth like these other truths.

You can go ahead and declare moral truth to be all about maximising the number of positive sum interactions or about maximising the timespan of human existence or about minimising neurally-measured pain. But saying moral truth is about X still lacks that truth-aptness of empirical and mathematical truth. How does one even go about proving this truth.

Basically, i’m not even sure what moral realists are trying to convince me of.

I should not be mistaken as saying that morals do not affect outcomes. Different moral preferences may lead to different actions/policies, and different policies would lead to different outcomes.

Don’t know why I felt the need to say this but I did.

So if I were to label my meta-ethics, i’m probably a non-cognitivist.

I’ll anticipate a number of questions/concerns for the non-cognitivist here.

The first is on how intrinsic these moral sentiments are to the individual, which would in turn affect which moral statements the individual accepts as true. Or, how much can one person’s moral makeup differ in said person given different contexts. On this I am agnostic.

The second is about how much should we expect for humanity’s moral preferences to vary, from person-to-person Some have warned against overestimating human moral variance but I don’t know. I think as long as we’re philosophizing here, we may as well consider the most extreme hypotheticals.

The third is the concern that the rejection of ‘moral rightness’ will lead to some sort of moral relativism, an acceptance of all moral stances since their based on these intrinsic preferences anyway. Well i’m not a moral relativist, since I can’t be made to prefer just any moral stance. To be fair, believing in moral non-cognitivism probably has nudged the moral stances of some individuals. That Jonathan Haidt fellow claims to have moved towards the center as a result of his moral psychology studies. Although an alternate response would be to view those morally far from you to be irredeemably evil.

Which brings us to this concern: Wouldn’t this just mean that morality, moral arguments, disagreements, these morality wars, may as well be a zero-sum free-for-all? Hmmmmm. More on this later perhaps?

Moral realism seems popular though. I suspect this is due to folks feeling that moral truth has this sort of nature to it that makes it similar to empirical/mathematical truth.

If I may be allowed to be accusatory: I suspect that a number, perhaps a lot, of moral realists oppose non-cognitivism because they fear of the consequences of such a belief. They fear a slide into moral relativism.

I shouldn’t be the one to point this out but, believing that belief X is wrong because of the psychological consequences of having said belief, is bad justification for X being wrong. That’s belief in belief.

Is this were the case, than i’d just put ‘moral non-cognitivism’ into the same category as ‘atheism’, ‘arguments against free will’, ‘arguments against Dweckian growth mindset’, ‘Darwininan natural selection’ and ‘Charles Murray-ism’ as positions prone to opposition from believers-in-belief.

The thing is, moral conversion is definitely a thing. I’m not sure as to the underlying mechanism for moral conversion. Perhaps it’s a terminal/instrumental values kind of thing, whereby only individuals’ instrumental values change. Or perhaps humans’ terminal values are somewhat malleable.

Perhaps my largest moral conversion was during my religious apostasy. I’m not sure what gives Divine Command Theory this particular power that it has. I do however remember not being comfortable with some of God’s commands so perhaps i’m overestimating this power of DCT.

Regardless, those interested in converting others to their moral side might want to look into the underlying processes of moral conversion.

So, are the moral wars zero-sum. Not necessarily. It’s conceivable that two individuals may come to support the same policies using different moral justifications.

Also, perhaps a collection of individuals with different moral preferences may be able to live somewhat harmoniously. Here’s an analogy: Praying mantis’ (the insect) values differ greatly from my own. However, their existence does not endanger things that I do value and thus, I leave them alone. Should the same praying mantises be human-sized human-eaters, then would I have a problem with their ‘values’. Similarly, other humans with values different from my own, i am okay with, as long they do not threaten things that I do value. It’s when they do threaten things I value, do we have a problem here.

Suppose if a Hitler clone gets his hands on reproductive cloning technology. He then seeks to outnumber other humans by flooding the Earth with Hitler clones. The Hitler population may endanger the population of other humans. From my point-of-view, extinction of non-Hitler humans by way of Hitler-clones is morally equivalent to human extinction by other means. There’s no reason for me to prefer Hitler clones over the grey goo.

All said, the zero-sum idea does somewhat color my view.

I am however somewhat optimistic that my values will live on in future humans, that future humans would not have values wildly differing from my own. I’m not sure what informs this optimism.

It’s entirely possible that some moral modes were more suited to past environments, from an evo-psych point-of-view. I suspect this is the case with conservative values, specifically in-group preference, out-group suspicion. Perhaps conservative values were better suited to the hunter-gatherer era when prisoner’s dilemma scenarios were low in iteration count, perhaps often being one-off. I just don’t see these values being well-suited to societies with more complex organisation.

Perhaps you may think that punishing moral deviants, such as psychopaths, to be tyranny of the majority. I’m not sure I care to be honest.

So far i’ve been suggesting that individuals may differ in their moral makeup.

This is not to say that I believe that an individual’s moral makeup is comprised of a coherent set of moral sentiments. I believe the opposite is true. This fact is implied when people talk about moral dilemmas.

So, an individual’s quest to find out the ‘correct’ moral position in a moral dilemma, is perhaps just the individual trying to find a position that causes the least ‘internal dissonance’, so to speak.

But atrahasis, couldn’t your positions here be used to justify social darwinistic policies of some sort?

Well, i’m against restricting others’ reproductive rights, and against killing others for fear of them breeding, as matters of principle.

We shouldn’t however avoid difficult bio-ethical questions adjacent to these topics though. We’re going to have to answer questions like whether it’s okay to delete psychopathy-linked genes in designer babies, or is reproductive human cloning in pursuit of proliferating one’s values okay?

#meta-ethics

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recentanimenews · 5 years

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Can the Eyes of Judgment Stand up to the Shadow of the Dragon of Dojima?

It can be a difficult thing to come out in the shadow of a larger, more well known sibling. The expectations, implications, and existing familiarity make it hard for the younger sibling to really shine on their own, as people fail to see it as an individual and instead view it as a copy of the thing they’re already familiar with. In this case, Judgment, the newest game from Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, the team responsible for the Yakuza series, has a lot of expectations stacked up against it from the outset. Like Yakuza, it takes place in Kamurocho. Like Yakuza, it uses the Dragon Engine. And like Yakuza, it features a mixture of free roaming action, quest solving, diversions, and a deep, pulpy noir story featuring seedy criminal activities, gang members, murders, and twists and turns.

After 6 mainline games (and quite a few spin-offs and prequels), the Yakuza series has become a well established around the world, with Kazuma Kiryu becoming a recognizable icon in his own right. Needless to say, that leaves Judgment in an odd position: is Yakuza popular because of the gameplay, or is Yakuza popular because of the character of Kazuma Kiryu and other memorable characters like Majima? And is it even fair to compare the two of them, aside from their shared parentage of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and the Dragon Engine? Well, yes and no, so let’s get down to investigating this game on its own before we talk about its comparison to its big brother.

In Judgment, Takayuki Yagami is a former defense lawyer who, after a shocking turn of events, leaves the world of the courtroom to become a private detective. Three years after his change in careers, players assume the role of Yagami, as a series of serial killings targeting yakuza members drags Yagami’s sense of curiosity and justice into the mix. Judgment is set against the criminal justice backdrop of Japan’s modern criminal system, which carries a 99.9% conviction rate; fans of the Phoenix Wright series may be somewhat familiar with this number, as it too carries a lot of significance in the original series’ backdrop of courtroom drama. One of the most popular criminal dramas in Japan is similarly titled 99.9%, and the idea of defense lawyers defying the odds makes for good television by using the real and sometimes confusing statistic of Japan’s conviction rate as a crux. The twist in most fictional portrayals is that this system is unfair, harsh, or even corrupt, where prosecutors will go to any lengths to get the conviction they require.

No matter what, though, this not-quite-dystopian legal system serves as a great backdrop for noir crime drama, and sure enough Judgment takes advantage of that for the type of world it builds around Yagami. As Yagami finds himself going deeper and deeper into the mystery of “The Mole,” he’ll be required to investigate areas, pick locks, tail suspects, fly drones, and fight off unsavory criminals in his quest to uncover who the real murderer is and bring the case to a close, despite the potential danger it involves. Judgment’s strongest overall quality is its story, as the mystery narrative pulls you in and Yagami is an interesting protagonist, surrounded by equally interesting co-stars.

Gameplay in Judgment will likely be familiar to anyone who has played Yakuza, but in general you explore the city of Kamurocho in third person, going from location to location on foot as you search for clues, meet up with people, and as the game progresses, seek down side cases (this game’s version of the sub stories). Yagami’s base is his office, a place that allows you to decorate, recover health, play records you collect, take on jobs, and even play pinball. Of course, there are plenty of other diversions to partake in, such as visiting Club Sega locations to play emulated versions of games like Fighting Vipers, those infamous UFO Catchers, and even a unique twist on House of the Dead called Kamuro of the Dead! Judgment adds drone races to the mix, taking advantage of the fact that Yagami has a drone he uses for investigations, and a VR arcade with a slew of unique games that go beyond simple recreations of arcade games.

You’ll be able to pursue friendships with various NPCs in the game, ranging from people you meet during the story to clerks at your favorite stores, giving Judgment that slight RPG feeling that the Yakuza games have always had. Instead of focusing on your character (which you can upgrade with Skill Points), your major goal in these side events is to raise your city reputation, allowing you to take on more and more side cases as the game progresses. Perhaps even better than Yakuza, these quests make some actual sense for Yagami to engage in; as a private detective, he takes on almost any job, which gives a nice sense of realism to the proceedings.

Of course no matter where Yagami goes, conflict is likely to follow, so it may come as no surprise that the game features quite a bit of combat. Unlike Kiryu or even Majima, Yagami is a relatively slight man, and his combat tends to focus on the fact that he needs speed and agility over brute strength. He has two combat modes that he can switch between, one that serves to help against large groups of enemies, and another that is better suited for one-on-one fights. He also gets a unique wall run set of moves that allow him to use sprinting momentum to launch off walls and attack enemies with various abilities. As he fights, he builds off his EX gauge, which allows you to use various finisher style moves on enemies, and as you level up, even gives you things like ways to attack while downed, or react to various enemy attacks by spending EX meter.

Of all the Yakuza games, I felt that this system reminded me the most of Kiwami 1 and Kiwami 2, but I did find that I have some small issues with Judgment’s combat. Locking on to an enemy by holding the R1 button is a somewhat nebulous act, and can even feel like you aren’t even doing it; but if you don’t, you can’t use dodge moves at all, meaning that the essential requirement of using 2 button presses to dodge becomes awkward. Blocking is done with the L1 button, meaning that you have to be aware that in combat, in order to react to the enemy, you’ll need to be ready to defend with L1, or R1 + X to dodge.

There are some of the weird Dragon Engine flaws that popped up in Kiwami 2 as well, with Yagami occasionally getting caught on scenery, which in one instance caused me to take Mortal Wounds from a boss as I couldn’t escape being stuck on a random decorative item in the area. These were minor in my playthrough, but I had hoped that the developers would maybe have ironed out those janky combat issues by the time Judgment released. One of the interesting changes is that Yagami does not store any weapons (I’m quite sad about this fact), meaning that unless you pick up random items (hello, bicycles!), you’re stuck with your bare fists for all combat situations. I also noticed that the usual collection of random items are available to use in battles, but in some instances of closed locations, like in an office, all of them were quickly destroyed by the ragdoll system, turning arenas like this into big, empty rooms.

Perhaps the biggest thing that sets Judgment apart from Yakuza is the detective aspects. The story of the game is quite interesting, and the way the player is asked to investigate tasks does make it feel like a procedural drama more than a crime drama, which helps in establishing a reason to view this game as its own entity. However, these types of sequences can be somewhat slow. While I took some time to explore the city and engage in some activities as they opened, the first chapter of the game took nearly 6 hours to complete, and proper side cases don’t even become available until the second chapter.

The Yakuza games do have a history of getting progressively bigger, and Judgment has some of that as well. You can likely expect to rack up around 70 hours in this game if you try to do everything like I did, and probably hit 50 hours if you solely focus on the story and do minimal side cases. Speed is not your friend in Judgment, and at times I found the game to be excessively talky, surprised by how much of the game was actually filled with characters talking to one another. In reflection, I would have to say that at least 50%, if not more, of the 6 hours I played of Chapter 1 was all talking.

Judgment is by far a more narrative game than its siblings, and while many of them had long and developed plotlines, Judgment puts heavy focus on narrative over everything else, which is not as negative as it sounds. Instead, you are given a very good sense of who these characters are, what’s happening, and why you should care about them. I found Yagami to be a particularly refreshing protagonist when compared to Kiryu and Majima; Yagami is a man who tried to play it straight and do his best as a lawyer, only to have that dream destroyed, with the past constantly haunting him. When compared to Kiryu, Yagami feels far more complex, a cynical and wry man whose dreams and ideas of the world have been shattered, but who still has a strong sense of justice burning under that cynicism. It would be fair to say that he’s almost far less charismatic than Kiryu as well, and comes off as almost unlikeable in certain instances; this isn’t a man fighting by any supposed code of honor, but instead a man trying to find purpose after the events he continues to blame himself for.

Yagami’s character depth is perhaps the strongest element of Judgment, and the reason that I enjoyed it despite some of my initial misgivings about how plot heavy it really is. While some of the investigation missions get tiring (the tailing missions especially), I constantly wanted to find out what was going to happen next. Judgment succeeds on the one part it really needed to land: the noir crime mystery story it tells. Yagami’s search for the truth, if not redemption, is fleshed out over the chapters of this game perfectly. If you’re a fan of mysteries or crime procedurals, there is a lot to love in Judgment, and the game even features difficulty options that allow you to focus solely on the narrative, a feature I really appreciated in retrospect after playing the game. While I enjoy the challenge of the Yakuza games, I think the fact that people who just want to experience Judgment’s story will get that option, as the easier difficulty options also affect some of the minigames like picking locks.

Comparing this game to Yakuza is pretty obvious, but a lot of the time I spent with Judgment made me think of the time I’ve spent with the Phoenix Wright games or L.A. Noire as well, and I appreciate that the developers tried to accommodate as many people as possible with these options. Yagami himself does a lot of the heavy lifting here too, as he’s a deeply flawed character who punishes himself far more than he needs to, leading him to make relatively obvious mistakes in judgment; perhaps one of the best aspects of a good noir crime story is a flawed protagonist seeking something, and Yagami really fulfills that role completely, perhaps even better than Cole, the protagonist of L.A. Noire. The game itself is fairly lax when it comes to choices, too, as it will generally steer you into the right answer, and there were never really any options that would take you down the wrong path or affect the story outcome. You’re more along for the ride here than you are making the decisions for where the story goes, which for the sake of how these games generally play, I found totally fine.

Those who know me are aware that I’m into Yakuza BIG TIME. After my partner talked me into playing Yakuza 0 when it was released on the PS4, I completely fell in love with the series. I’m currently on a long quest to play and stream all of the Yakuza games (I’m on Yakuza 3 at the moment), and it’s been a hell of a journey. The story, the drama, the characters, and my goodness, the ACTION! It was all wrapped in a perfect package that was a true joy to unwrap. I have to admit that when I first started playing Judgment, I was still thinking that I was going to play yet another Yakuza game, and when it wasn’t, it caught me off-guard. And that’s okay, because Judgment is its own thing in its own style; the game, despite also being set in Kamurocho, has plenty of unique appeal to it along with its charming cast of characters, like Kaito. I found myself getting more and more absorbed into the story and characters that the game had to offer.

When it comes to reviewing Judgment, I think there are two main questions to answer. The first is: “Does it stand up against the shadow of Kazuma Kiryu and the Yakuza games?”, which I believe yes, it does. You’ll find enough to enjoy here if you love those games, despite the narrative differences, but players who have never tried Yakuza at all should find this a great way to perhaps give the genre a chance without having to worry about all the baggage. The second question is: “Does this game succeed on its own as a crime noir mystery game?”, to which my answer is… mostly. The game is generally solid in this regard, with a great story and unique characters, but at times the game just takes far too long to get to the meat of the story. The pacing either needed to be faster, or the story more directly told, instead of wandering around Kamurocho back and forth between ever changing destinations.

That said, I think Judgment is a fantastic game that fans of Yakuza, Phoenix Wright, or crime dramas will enjoy. It may not have the history of its older sibling, and Yagami is certainly no Kiryu, but he is his own person, with his own cast of characters and stories to tell. And personally I’d love to see a second game in the series take us on even more adventures with Yagami solving mysteries, flying drones, and taking pictures of random stray cats, and I think you will too after playing through Judgment!

REVIEW ROUNDUP

+ Builds on the Yakuza franchise to establish its own flavor of story and characters.

+ Yagami is a unique and interesting protagonist that really carries the game on his back.

+ Variable difficulty lets players of any level enjoy the fantastic noir story here.

+/- Game can be slow and occasionally devolves into running back and forth on the map.

+/- While there is plenty of fun stuff to do, some of it just isn’t very interesting to do after a while.

- There are some frankly tired depictions of sexual harassment that women deal with here that seem to serve little purpose in the game other than being used for comic relief or to establish that bad people are bad.

Is this your first trip to Kamurocho, or are you a die-hard Yakuza fan? What’s your favorite part of Judgment? Let us know what you think of the game in the comments!

----

Nicole is a features writer and editor for Crunchyroll. Known for punching dudes in Yakuza games on her Twitch channel while professing her love for Majima. She also has a blog, Figuratively Speaking. Follow her on Twitter: @ellyberries

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elektra121 · 7 years

Text

Dear Yuletide Writer

Dear Yuletide writer,

I’m very happy we both take part in Yuletide this year - and that I have you as my assigned author (or, as a pinch hitter)! You seem to be a talented writer and very giving person, and also to have quite good taste in fandoms - otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this, would you?

Now, let me say some things about me: I am German, a teacher for biology and German literature and a lover of medieval literature and all things artsy and crafty. Which, of course, includes fanfiction, since it is both artsy and crafty.

In order to help you find some inspiration and ideas for the story you're about to write, I'd like to tell you some things about what I like and dislike and what I love about my fandoms. Here we go:

Likes: Since I had some nasty Yuletide story experiences in the last years that literally had me in tears (and not joyful ones) at christmas(!) - I’ll say it from the beginning:

I like Happy Endings! :)

Especially at Christmas. Really, I do. I mean it. Period. I honestly believe Happy Endings to be one of the things that made mankind tell stories in the first place. This world can be scary and mean and unfair and hard - so why not use our creative mind to create a different world that is peaceful and good and fair (in the end)? Did I mention I like Happy Endings, btw? I did? Good, because I do.

Don't get me wrong, a Happy Ending need not be all sweet sunshine and sugary cupcakes and unicorns. From time to time, I enjoy a good darkfic, but especially at Christmas time I prefer something at least optimistic in tone. (And no, the hero dying twice without anyone acknowledging his lifetime of struggling, or close friends that have to part forever, becoming foes are not the kind of happy ending that I think of!)

I appreciate some good humor, yet for some reason plain comedy isn’t really my cup of tea.

I like the characters in my fandoms! Very much. They are the cause I chose those fandoms for yuletide! And likely you like them, too. So show to me what makes them special, what they can do that no other person could, what drove their authors to tell us about them in the first place, and most of all, what you love about them! I'd love to read about the lesser known sides of characters - but that does not mean I won't enjoy their established traits very much, too. It is both that makes them complex and life-like.

I like the seasons and colours and all of the wonderful possibilities of using them as symbols.

What about porn? Yes, please - if you like. Personally, I’m not so much into the technical details as in the feelings for the participants, the intimacy, the thrill, the thoughts, the small things, a touch of realism. And I' much rather have a story without any sexytimes than one with a scene that does not stick true to the overall vibe. I don't see my fandoms for this year being especially suited for porn - but what do I know? If you have just the ideal idea for the perfect setting, surely I'm not the one to stop you. ;)

In case of kinkyness - if you can justify it in-character and in-story, this is absolutely fine! Maybe a little festish may work wonders to symbolize some deep-rooted feelings or wishes? Of course, if you do not like any of it, that’s completely fine, too!

Speaking of which...

Dislikes: As I’m sure you may have guessed from what I said already, I don’t like fics that include character death(s) and accurately described cruelty. I’d prefer the (main) characters to stay alive. At least at Christmas. Please, please, please - do not let anyone die!!!

I think it would be okay to have Gerlint in the “Kudrun” be cruel, since it is canon and of course the Njals saga wouldn't be a saga without a lot of period typical violence - yet, if possible, don't make atrocities the main point of the story. I won't be able to enjoy it.

What I like about the fandoms:

Brennu-Njals saga

I really like the saga style in general, seemingly an objective account of historical events - yet the opinion of the author all too visible now and then. ;) There is no clear bad/good dychtomy regarding the characters like we are used to in storytelling nowadays, instead every person is shown very much as a complex individual with their own struggles.

Prompt: I'd like to read more about Hallgerd than the saga(s) provide us. She is such a fascinating figure - and it is very clear the author of the Njals saga thinks so, too! He could have easily made her an evil bitch, yet chooses not to do so. I think there is a lot of points you could elaborate on.

For example, what about her childhood? - I'm especially interested in her relationship with her mother and her brother Olaf Pai. (Was there a sibling rivalry - or did she maybe like him very much?) And where does her mysterious name "longbrok" come from?

Second, what about Thjostolf, her foster-father (that very much gives the impression of a would-be- or ex-lover)? Everyone in the saga seems to dislike him, only Hallgerd again and again excuses him (until he slays the husband she loves).

And what makes her relationship to Glum seemingly the most healthy and loving relationship in her lifetime? What about little Thorgerd, who loses her father? What does she think about her mother? (Heck, what does she think about her own strange bethrothal and marriage??? Thorgerd would be an absolutely fascinating person to write about, also. Feel absolutely free to write about Thorgerd!)

And Gunnar? Did Hallgerd ever truly love Gunnar - and why and when does she cease to do so? What did he see in her - not if all of his friends didn't warn him to not marry Hallgerd!

You may absolutely write about all of the people in the tags (or anyone that merits a name in the saga) - yet I'm least interested in Bergthora.

Charité (TV)

Da es derzeit keine englische Fassung gibt, ist es wohl okay, auf Deutsch zu schreiben. Meine Meinung zu dieser Serie ist sehr gespalten. Grundsätzlich finde ich Vieles SO gut! Die genaue Recherche der Medizin- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte, die Ausstattung, generell die Idee einer deutschen historischen Krankenhausserie (und das auch noch mit Bildungsanspruch!). Die Auswahl der Epoche und des Ortes finde ich hervorragend! Und ich hatte soviel Hoffnung in die Vorsetllung gesetzt, jetzt würde neben den tollen männlichen Nobelpreisträgern auch mal gezeigt, wieviel die moderne Medizin der großen Menge an ungenannten Krankenschwestern und Pfleger(innen) schuldet, die z.T. aus reinem Idealismus und/oder christlicher Barmherzigkeit Leben und Gesundheit für andere Leute aufgeopfert haben. Wieviel die Medizin auch der Diakonie verdankt. Nun ja, das... ähm... gelang wohl nicht so ganz. Theologisch wie figurentechnisch lief ja Einiges schief! :(

Prompt: Mein größter Wunsch wäre auf jeden Fall: Mach's für die arme Schwester Therese wieder gut!!! Wenigstens ein bisschen!!! Ihre Story wurde ja so versaut, da weiß ich gar nicht, wo ich anfangen soll. Aber das habe ich an anderer Stelle schon gesagt:

http://elektra121.tumblr.com/post/159506389239/what-do-you-think-about-them-basically-portraying

http://elektra121.tumblr.com/post/159652268064/ard-charit%C3%A9-2017-episode-4-and-5

Sie hat es sowas von verdient, zu Weihnachten ein bisschen Freude und Trost abzukriegen!

Ich glaube, es würde sich für eine Story vielleicht ganz gut eignen, einen Heiligabend in der Charité zu erzählen, was die verschiedenen Figuren da so erleben und wie sie feiern, auch wenn sie arbeiten müssen (oder es freiwillig tun). Es sollte trotz allem wenigstens ein bisschen schön für alle Figuren sein. Selbstverständlich kannst du gerne auch alle anderen Charas vorkommen lassen, speziell Ida und Oberin Martha bieten sich ja sehr an.

Kudrun

I really like the dynamics between the women of this epic. Especially Gerlint - Kudrun - Ortrun.

Gerlint could have been shown so easily as simply the evil queen, but isn't. The author calls her "she-wolf" and tells of her cruel deeds and plans on Kudrun, yet in the same instance, shows her as competent queen, dutiful wife and loving mother who may have deserved death, but not like this and not what happened to her body. I love the complexity in this!

The relationship between Gerlint and Kudrun seems to have something of a hate-love, with not so little sexual undertones in the scene, where Gerlint plans to whip Kudurn by herself, with no one around. If you want to elaborate on this impression (not neccessarily this scene!), I'm absoluteley fine with femslash.

And think of Ortrun, who seems to be the nicest person who ever lived! Caught between two stools, with her duty and love for her mother and brother - and on the other hand side her loyality and friendship (or is there even more?) for Kudrun. Comparing her to the other two women, she seems the weak one - but is she? She was the only one who dared to protest Kudrun's ill treatment - even if only by crying in public.

And how did Hartmuot perceive all this? He seems a knight in shining armour, a good man through and through - and yet he did not gain the one he loved.

Feel free to use as many people from the epic as you like. My favourite, though, would be Gerlint.

So: May the Muses be gracious! Best wishes, elektra121

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