#i went for something different initially but decided to simplify and liked the result | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

woefuleuphoria · 2 years

Text

Major Project Animation Pipeline - Planned Production for my Major Project

Step 1 – Coming up with a Concept:

The concept I settled on was a story about a creative person struggling to write a story. This is something I have struggled with myself, narrative so I knew it was something I would be confident writing about.

I also wanted my idea to incorporate my pre-existing characters (Maurice and Mayx). My character Maurice is an aspiring author, so I knew this concept would be a good fit for the character.

Step 2 – Character Development:

Before I started writing my script, I wanted to develop a good understanding of my main two characters personalities, their dynamic with each other and what drives and motivates them. My narrative is entirely character driven, meaning the events that play out are a direct result of the characters actions and interactions. For this reason, an in depth understanding of my characters is essential before starting my script.

I also developed the personality of the Wizard character that appears throughout the film in my visual depictions of the main characters novel. This character has a much smaller role in the animation, but it was still important that I developed an understanding of his personality before I started developing my idea.

Step 3 - Idea Development:

At this stage I began to develop and flesh out my idea. I developed a structure for the narrative and filled in some essential plot details such as what my characters book was about, a clear conflict and a solution to the story. Having already developed my two primary characters (Maurice and Mayx’s) personalities I found it a lot easier to construct a narrative around these two characters.

Step 3.1 – First Draft of Script:

My idea development also involved writing an initial draft for my script. This gave a general outline of my narrative, although at this stage it was still very underdeveloped. I struggled with writer’s block at this stage in production so decided to move on with other aspects of pre-production before developing the script further.

Step 3.1 – Developing the Script:

Keeping the same general concept and narrative beats I went back to my initial script and essentially rewrote everything. At this stage I cut down and simplified elements of the narrative, made improvements to the character writing and developed set pieces such as the plot of my main characters book. I also gave my character Mayx more to do in the story as before he did not have much of an impact on the plot. In my developed script I gave him more of an antagonistic role, increasing the stakes in the story and making the narrative more interesting.

I also developed the set ups and pay offs of certain plot elements, so the narrative feels more coherent, and the conclusion feels more earned.

Step 4 - Character Design:

I already had an idea of what my two main characters Maurice and Mayx looked like, so I only had to design the characters that appear in Maurice’s book (The Wizard and The Beast) at this stage of development. I gave the characters designs based on the personalities that I’d constructed for them.

The beast was more of a plot device than a character in my film, so I just needed for them to appear intimidating and animalistic. I looked at reference imagery of real-world animals, specifically Lions and Buffalos. My intention was to design an original fantasy creature that had an intimidating and dangerous demeanour.

I looked at reference imagery of Wizards in fiction when coming up with the design for my wizard character. I wanted for their design to be original, but I wanted them to be recognisable as a wizard character. Their design also had to match the eccentric and unimposing demeanour of the character.

Step 5 – Developing Characters Voices:

At this stage I needed to record dialogue for all my characters. I experimented with different vocal performances until I found voices that suited the personalities and appearances of each of my characters that had dialogue.

Step 5.1 – Recording Dialogue:

I recorded all the films dialogue in my room on my own microphone. I may redo this audio in a studio before starting my animation, however, the audio I produced here is good quality so this may be the audio I use moving forward in the animation.

This audio was initially going to be a placeholder that I was planning just to use for my animatic. My initial plan was to hire voice actors to play the characters in my film. After voicing the characters myself, however, I actually like the way they sound so may continue to provide the characters voices.

Step 5.2 - Sound Editing:

I recorded multiple different takes for each line of dialogue in my film. At this stage I had to cut these takes down, only leaving the best line reads. I then edited the dialogue together ready for my animatic.

Step 6 - Art Design/ Concept Imagery:

References:

At this stage of pre-production, I needed to gather reference imagery of existing properties that resembled the art style I wanted to use for my project.

Step 6.1 – Concept art for Backgrounds

At this stage of production, I made rough mock-ups of the backgrounds I intend to use for my film. I needed to get a general idea of how each of the two settings in my film will look and the general colour palette of the film. I also overlayed my characters over these backgrounds to get an idea how they looked together before moving forward with production.

This will also give me a good idea of the colour palette I am going to be using for my finished film.

Step 7 - Creating an Animatic:

Step 7.1 - Rough Animatic:

I produced a rough animatic for my own reference. There are parts of this animatic that I would like to improve on but for giving a general outline of the narrative, and for my own reference this works well.

Step 7.2 - Developed Animatic:

At this stage every key frame of character animation will be drawn out. I would like to go back into my animatic and improve on a lot of the drawings. I would also like to redo certain actions to make them clearer or more dynamic.

Step 8 - Background Design:

Step 8.1 – Rough Pencil Sketches:

Sketch out all the backgrounds that are to be used for the finished animation. These will include:

Maurice’s office from multiple angles

Enchanted forest establishing shot

Maurice’s desk from multiple angles

Multiple pictures of a path with trees on either side (this is for the scene where the wizard is running through trees) I predict I will need around 12 to 24 images for this

The outside of Maurice’s house

Pov of a tree from the Wizards perspective

Maurice’s bedroom from two different angles

Background of trees as wizard runs past them

A close up of Maurice’s alarm clock

Close up of a tree

Multiple close ups of Maurice’s desk (including pov shot)

The forest floor from a high angle, a large tree in the foreground

A mirror and sink shot from Maurice’s bathroom

The forest floor (multiple angles)

Background showing tops of trees

Tree trunk

Creepy forest at night

Step 8.2 – Line Art

Once all the backgrounds have been sketched out in detail it is time to go over each of them using neat line art. I will either be using pencil or pen to create the like work for my backgrounds. Additionally, depending on what method I prefer after creating more concept imagery I may be scanning in my sketches onto my computer and drawing the line art on photoshop.

Step 8.3 – Painting/ colouring Backgrounds

At this stage I will paint my backgrounds on a separate layer to the line art. This will either be done physically using acrylic paints and a light box or digitally on photoshop. The reason I will be painting on a separate layer to my line art is so I can edit the colours without effecting the line art on photoshop if needed.

8.4 – Colour correction and Lighting Effects

On photoshop I will play around with the colours and lighting until the backgrounds are dynamic and work with the colour palette of my animation

Step 9 - Character Animation:

Step 9.1 References:

To give my characters convincing animated performances, I will look at references, or act out scenes from my animation myself to give myself a good idea of how I want each of my characters to move in the animation

Step 9.2 – Rough Character Animation:

Between my key frames I will do very rough sketchy animation to give me a general idea of my characters movements. This will usually take multiple attempts to get the looking right. Here I will be animating rough movements and basic facial expressions.

Step 9.3 - Animation Clean Up:

Once my rough animation has been completed the neater and finalized line art is drawn on a separate layer. At this stage there may still be changes made to the movements of the character, especially when it comes to smaller details on the characters.

Animation clean up may require some additional layers of animation until the outline of the characters and the details look as good as possible.

Step 9.4 - Lip Syncing

If my character is speaking in a scene their mouth movements are matched up with the syllables they are saying and the in-between frames are drawn from here. This also requires multiple layers for the basic mouth movements then the finalized line art.

It is important that the rest of the character animation is completed before this stage so the mouth appears where it should be on the character at all times if they were to move or the shot was to change.

Step 9.5 – Additional Animation

At this stage I will be animating other elements such as tree movements where necessary or Maurice’s laptop.

Step 10 - Colour:

Step 10.1 – Basic Colour

After the animation has been completed colour will be added to the characters. Each character will have to be coloured per fame of animation. I will be using the paint bucket tool on ToonBoom for most of the colouring. Small details may have to be coloured using the brush tool. I will be using solid flat colours for my characters so the colours stay consistent from image to image.

Step 10.2 – Shading and Details

At this stage I will be adding some simple shading to my characters. I will be adding a separate layer on top of my characters in toon boom and applying very simple shading with a low opacity brush. I may skip this stage altogether if I feel my characters work without shading.

Step 11 - Editing:

Step 11.1 - Putting Assets Together:

All assets of my animation will be put together on aftereffects. This means I will be overlaying my characters and other assets onto the backgrounds. Occasionally aspects of the backgrounds will be on a layer above my characters.

Step 12.2 - Camera Movements:

Camera movements such as Paralaxing can usually be done in aftereffects. Note: elements of the background at different distances will have to be drawn at different layers beforehand for this effect to be implemented.

If a sweeping camera movement is required elements of the background will have to be drawn at altering perspectives. I wont be using too many camera movements in my film but I will be having one paralaxing shot at the beginning of the film and another where I track the wizard as he rund through trees.

Step 12.3 - Additional Effects:

Elements of gradient shading can be implemented onto the character at this stage. I will also be editing elements such as the videogame my character is playing to look more digital. I may also add simple drop shadows to some of the characters or assets to integrate them more convincingly with the backgrounds.

Step 12.4: - Colour Correction:

Once the background and characters have been put together in a scene the lighting may need to be adjusted on a separate layer in Premier or After Effects to implement these two assets convincingly. This can be achieved by altering hue, saturations, colour contrast and so on until the elements work well with each other.

#Practice 2 #Major Development Project #Planning #Decision-Making

0 notes

last-of-the-jaded · 4 years

Text

After having willingly given the last month of my life over to MDZS and it’s Live Action counterpart I wanted to compile a list of my favorite aspects of both (including spoilers). Both the original Chinese Novel and it’s stunning 2019 Summer Release counterpart are breathtaking in different manners, but if you are looking for a quick recommendation, I do recommend going for the drama first as it will simplify the further consumption of content if you decide you want to partake in more.

What I love about THE UNTAMED:

The symbolism of the cliff at Nightless City, and how that entire scene marks a clear shift in Wuxian’s mental state as well as the overarching story. Similarly, how in the end it is Wuxian who throws himself off that precipice to sure death. This detail provides a direct comparison between his mental state at this moments and Cheng’s after his core was squashed, while also touching on an unique level of disparity and regret that is unrealized in the novel at this point (considering how this isn’t how Wuxian dies in the written version)

Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo. I’ve made posts about this already so I’ll spare you another essay (Here and Here)

Jiang Cheng’s entire character arc. Seeing him fully fleshed out, utilized, and properly human within the drama made it hard for me to swallow how shallow he often felt on paper, especially in the early chapters. I get that this is partially due to the youth sequences in the book being written completely from Wuxian’s POV, but for me there is something incredibly human and genuine just lacking from the version of Cheng on paper that stood out so gorgeously for me in terms of his drama counterpart. Wang Zhou Cheng did an amazing job bringing out his raw emotion and anger on screen, lines were delivered in a manner that truly solidified this characters growth and vulnerability to me. For such a new actor within his field he did a brilliant job, and is the reason I have so many damn emotions concerning Jiang Cheng’s character arc. (I have a million analysis pieces typed up on my blog if that interests you)

The sequential order for the flashbacks was incredibly easy to consume. It helped to keep events and motivations clear. I understand why the book was able to skip around in a more winding mysterious manner, but from a drama standpoint I massively appreciated being able to consume the events leading up to Wuxian’s demise in consecutive order. The first few episodes were initially extremely confusing to me as a new watcher, and it’s only when the flashbacks hit that the plot-line solidified as well.

The female leads! Yanli, Qing, and Mianmian having larger roles and development was absolutely a plus. Everyone had the same intentions and feel as they did in the original, just more fully fleshed out since they were given time to interact within the world. As a bonus note seeing Madam Yu and hearing her bullshit on screen, said out-loud in the bitchy tone her actress gave her, made her 10X worse and from an antagonist perspective I massively appreciate that they were able to make me despise her so damn much.

Everyone important to the past storyline being involved in the Gusulan Study Sessions under Lan Qiren. This was a simple and effective manner of introducing everyone and having characters feel involved and interactive from the get-go. I was honestly a little disappointed that not everyone was included when I went on to read the novel.

Ning and Wuxian’s interactions early on. Their dynamic in the show was given life, and felt genuine in how it shifted over the course of Wuxian’s trails and misfortune. I love how they included Ning in the early on portions of the series, especially the Caiyi Town waterborn abyss debacle where Wuxian saved his life. It just added more layers to an already intriguing dynamic that plays a massive role overall.

The wolf torture scene. This added a whole new layer to Wuxian’s fear of dogs, while still completing its job of giving Ning and Wuxian a reason to interact and grow. Not to mention the example of Wen Sect Torture Tactics really added to the inhumanity of the sect while sparking our main character’s growth and self-sacrificing nature.

The symbolism behind Yanli’s and Cheng’s dreams. These dream sequences give a glimpse into the heads of two complex character’s and honestly added so much background motivation to their storylines. I loved these details and how much analysis us all as viewers can put into them.

The rain scene. Wuxian telling Wangji he would prefer to die by his hands. The first tears watchers see from an incredibly strong and willful young man who has always appeared stoic. (I cannot express to you enough how sad I was that this scene didn’t take place in the novel)

Wuxian’s mask. I understand logistically why they had to do this from a filming perspective (I mean if you have someone as good looking and Xiao Zhan, damnit you are going to let him look like him as much as you can) but I honestly really enjoyed the smaller details they included to make it work plot-wise. I also appreciate how it was designed as a prop considering it actually altered Wuxian’s features in a manner that made him harder to recognize due to its bulky and carved nature.

The secret underground cave in Cloud Recess under the bathing pool. The whole meeting between Wangxian and the female sect leader. I enjoyed this detail and how they expanded upon it when it came to the burning of their sect home and the survival of their people.

Wangxian’s relationship. Their subtle, trusting, gentle way of showing love. On an additional note I appreciate how it never once felt like I needed to discuss consent with the characters (coughNOVELcough) because everything between them was healthy and playful.

The soundtrack, costuming, and bts. I understand that this was a low budget production (compared to the majority of traditional dramas) and honestly I appreciate what we were given taking that into account. They stayed true to the essence and message of the story. I love the manner in which the costumes became a part of the characters and everyone had a clear style. The soundtrack flowed amazingly well with the scene and tone shifts (this is disregarding how fake their instrument playing looked because I’m still not over how off the finger movements appeared at points). The behind the scenes content on its own could win an award - it made completing the show a million times more satisfying because I do believe that the people working on set had fun (somehow even while filming during the hottest time of the year)

The name of the drama. When you reach that moment when you understand why it is called such - it’s a tale of the rise and fall of Wuxian.

The ending scene. I know it’s not the ‘stereotypical happy ending’ fans wanted, but it perfectly fit the tone and message of the piece as a whole. I love the ending. It felt right.

What I love about MDZS (NOVEL):

The Yi City Arc. It’s worth reading for this part alone. Motivations, logic, and everything just hit so much harder. I do appreciate what the drama gave us, but like, once you’ve tasted this version it’s really hard to go back.

Empathy. In general seeing Wuxian use empathy within the novel just works so much smoother. His little anecdotes and analysis while in stasis reliving ghost’s lives gives it a realism that it’s lacking on camera.

Second Siege of the Burial Mounds. The way the novel sets up this part and actually makes it feel scary with hoard mentality makes it work so much better. It feels like there is a weight to this moment. The waves of corpses are terrifying, and the exhaustion of fighting for hours gives it a level of humanity that makes what Wuxian and Wangji selflessly do stand out even more. Not to mention, the leftovers of the Wen Sect fucked me up. I bawled. This is another detail that I would legitimately read the entire novel over for just to experience.

Wuxian being fucking terrifying at points. Playing with demonic energy and losing control is supposed to be scary. In the novel it honestly felt that way. Seeing him slowly get worse was heartbreaking. Watching how people’s opinions on him skewed, and how he dealt with looks, pressure, and weight on his shoulders, took this arc to a whole new level. The way demons and ghosts flocked to and around him in public added a level of horror that was unsettling and necessary.

Wuxian actually losing control. In the drama they added another flute player to sort of work around Wuxian having to accept the result of his failure. In the novel, there is no such thing - and I love it. It’s another dowsing to the pain and suffering Wuxian has to accept and learn to overcome. It makes him coming back a decade later - to live and achieve and get revenge - feel different.

Action scenes and gore. If something is called “The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation” you expect some blood, and damn do I appreciate that the author made stuff have impact. I wish the drama had a bigger budget so they could have done the wounds and cgi more justice.

Wangji rescuing Wuxian after the first raid on yiling, and choosing to suffer together, hated by the world, rather than lose the love of his life. I love the use of the cliff in the drama, especially the imagery of Wangji trying to hold Wei Ying up before ultimately falling, but the route the author took in the novel is so much fucking worse. Like I cannot even imagine the pain Wangji went through.

Lan Xichen opening Wuxian’s oblivious eyes. Best brother ever. This entire scene, leading up to the final battle, is like downing a shot and waiting for it to hit. It deserves a standing ovation.

The details in the Xuanyu of Slaughter cave sequence. Every little tell that Wangji gave - he really did fall in love young.

Mingjue’s corpse. The separated limbs, angry spirit, holding bags, and everything made sense because of description.

Wangji explaining how he got the brand mark over his heart. All of his scars. Fuck. There’s inferring, and then there is having it described to you from the person directly and feeling as your own heart dies.

Lan Zhan’s insane arm strength. This is a detail that deserves recognition.

Wuxian’s inner analysis of Nei Huaisang at the end. This was fully formed and actually had some payoff.

The clear comparisons between Mengyao’s fate and what happened to Wuxian himself. Once again you can infer in the drama, but having it clearly implied in the book hits different because when someone becomes a public pariah it’s easier to go with the public outcry than try and defend them. “Nobody knew with more clarity than Wei WuXian that nobody would care and nobody would believe”

Ning protecting Jin Ling and Jiang Cheng in a manner directly parallel to how he killed the people they cared for.

Jin Ling’s realization about being unable to hate anyone in the end. You feel for this kid. You want to see him grow up well.

The beginning set up chapter. Hearing what happened in the past vaguely through spreading rumors and small talk without seeing it for yourself adds a level of intrigue. It has greater mystery than just seeing the scene play-out and cutting away.

Everything making sense in general with no plot holes. It’s one of those things where in television no matter how well you do, you can’t possibly include all the needed details. With the drama you have to infer a lot, and sometimes you will get it wrong. In the novel it really is just much easier to make sense of. This also included the pacing as well. Timeskips make sense.

Kissing. Smut. Damn, it’s so nice to have actual payoff for the slow burn.

157 notes · View notes

creativejourneysbct · 3 years

Text

Studio 1 Week 2/3 First Project: Hacking a Board Game - SLAP ATTACK

At the end of our week 2 studio session, we were assigned the task of "hacking" a board game, using some of the skills we had learned that day, to make it more interactive.

First, my group and I considered different board games that we would use as a template to start with. We settled on using an alphabet bingo board. It appeared simple enough; a circular board with a pointer that could be spun to randomly select a part of the board.

We then started brainstorming possible ways in which we could alter the game to make it more interactive. We agreed that it would be beneficial to create our own interface to replace the alphabet bingo one, as this would allow us more freedom to create our own rules and ultimately come up with our own game. So, we started sketching ideas on what our new board interface would look like.

This involved us thinking critically about the overall gameplay and having to come up with some sort of a finalized idea of what the end product would be.

After several iterations, we landed on a plan to create a game where the spinner is spun by a player then, depending on where it landed, all the players would have to do an action IF the lights on the board are turned on. This way the lights are adding an extra element of surprise, as not only is it impossible to predict what part of the board the spinner will land on (and therefore what action the player may have to do), but also whether or not that action would even have to be carried out at all, depending on the light's status.

It then came time to think about what skills from the day we would use to achieve our new gameplay and therefore make the game more interactive.

It was clear that papertronics would be necessary to create the circuit beneath the board that would allow for the lights to turn on when the spinner touches certain areas of the board.

So, we got to work using the copper tape to create a small test circuit as a proof of concept before moving onto anything larger. Since the goal was to have a few lights around the board light up when powered by a single battery, we tested this out by making a smaller, simpler version of the final product, using copper tape, two LEDs, and a battery to make the circuit pictured below.

As can be seen, one of the LEDs didn't seem to work. But, after some more testing, we discovered that the LED was just faulty, and it did work when being pressed. Thus, the concept of a single battery powering more than one LED had been "proven"!

We then took it a step further by making a circuit using the copper tape that went from one side of a sheet of paper (emulating the board) that housed the battery, to the other side of the piece of paper, where the spinner was. We stuck copper tape to the underside of the spinner. This allowed it to effectively close the circuit when passing along the copper tape area on the board, and therefore light up the LEDs.

While the pointer still had to be pressed down for the circuit to be complete and light up the LEDs, it was still enough to prove that the circuit could go from one side of the surface to the other, which is exactly what we needed for the final product.

We then got to work on our first iteration of the board's surface.

Since we didn't have a compass or any other tools that could be used to make a perfect circle, I used a technique I knew from high school art to draw a large circle that was relatively the same size as the original Alphabet Bingo circle to go on top of it.

We cut out the white circle, stuck four colored sheets of paper over it in the alignment we wanted for the board game design, and used it to cut a perfect (ish) circle around the four colored sheets of paper.

We now had a rough prototype of the game we wanted to create. Since the main circuitry hadn't been created yet, we used some random objects to simulate the areas of the board that would activate the LEDs should the spinner land there. We then playtested the game, to see whether or not it was even enjoyable. We wound up quite enjoying the competitive nature of having to react fastest or else face elimination. It was a simple concept, but one that we believed would work and prove engaging for players.

Next, we started implementing the full-sized circuit. We initially attempted to only use one battery for all four LEDs but this proved to be too complex, so we started over and made a new circuit that used two batteries with each battery responsible for only 2 LEDs.

From the top side, we can see that the spinner still had to be pushed down to activate the LED. This was quite a substantial concern for the project, as the desired effect was supposed to be effortlessly spinning the spinner and having it light up the LED automatically.

Determined to persevere anyway, Matt and I split up from the group to work on designing a proper layout for our board game. As photoshop wasn't working on either of our laptops, we used a word processor to create a simple but aesthetically pleasing board that we then printed out in a3. We wanted to make sure the font used was legible and that the board wasn't too cluttered. One of the main design principles we tried to focus on was maximizing the intuitiveness of the game so that anyone could have an idea of how to play it with little to no instruction. We also added simple hand gesture illustrations as iconography next to the corresponding action word to further guide the user's understanding.

With the new board face printed out, we used it when coming up with ways of solving the issue of the light not automatically lighting up.

We went through a range of different methods, such as using a motor and a wheel to reduce the friction and provide a better spin.

We finally settled on simplifying the design so that we would only use one LED situated on the top of the spinner. This worked on occasion but still wasn't lighting up consistently enough.

With the circuitry proving to be much more problematic than expected, another member of the group and I got to work on creating a clear set of rules for the game, which was still a very important part of the game design. At the end of the day, we still wanted to have a finished game that our classmates could play, even if our light-up spinner wasn't operational. This also involved us coming up with a name for the game. Out of thin air, I pulled out the words "SLAP ATTACK" and since no one else had anything better, this was the name that stuck. In fairness though, the name grew on us and accurately reflected the fast-paced nature of the gameplay.

I enjoyed the design aspect of creating the rules quite a bit. We tried to keep it in theme with the board, using the same colors, icons, and fonts to maintain a cohesive aesthetic and design language.

As the circuitry didn't look like it would be operational in time for the showcase, we decide to create a "concept" edition that would act as a model of what we had intended for the board game. It was to be our clean, "best-case scenario" version.

We printed out another copy of the board game design and glued it to some wood to create a firm, stable base. We then drilled a hole through it to make room for the spinner.

Fortunately, this allowed enough room for the rules to go on the side, so we glued them down next to the main circle. I will say, design-wise, I was very pleased with the result we got. The overall look of the board and rules matched in a nice, simple colorful manner and looked very clean.

While we could still get the lights to turn on on the other board, it still required us to press down on the spinner, which defeated the purpose of the game. Or it would light up, but not always, and for the game to work as intended it would need to light up every time it went over a copper tape part of the board.

It was difficult to accept but we were unable to achieve the concept we had envisioned. As it turns out, using a spinner was not as simple as we thought it would be. When seeking help we were advised to use a "slip ring". At the time it was too late in the game to change direction, but next time that's definitely something we can look into.

Finally, for the showcase, we added some blue, green, red, and yellow chips (the same color scheme as the board game itself) to the mix to act as physical representations of the lives of players. Even if it wasn't related to circuitry or the makey makey, the tactile chips added weight to the concept of losing a life every time a player had to give one away after losing a round.

Overall, even though we couldn't implement the interactive elements we wanted to, the classmates who tried our game seemed to really enjoy the fast-paced, competitive nature of the game as our table was almost always occupied with players. So, if nothing else, we were still able to develop a concept that was engaging for players, so I'm happy about that. Plus, our circuit still technically worked, it just needed to be pressed down which didn't work as intended for the board game.

(PS - I wanted to add more photos towards the end but hit the Tumblr photos limit so this should hopefully suffice. Just another thing to keep in mind when making these posts going forward.)

Update - After writing this long, almost step-by-step recount of the creation process, I have been introduced to the "Gibbs Reflective Cycle" in our Intro to Creative Technologies Lecture so I think I'd be remiss to not include it at the end of this.

While I could technically go back and reduce everything I've written to a paragraph long "description of what happened, I have chosen to keep it for 2 reasons; the first is that it took me a great deal of time and effort to make so I simply don't want to delete it all. But secondly and most importantly, even if it's not the best, most effective reflective blog post, I see these posts as a working, evolving skill that I want to be able to look back on and see how much I've changed and improved. So yes, I'm keeping it if only for the fact that It's a piece of history on how I reflected on my first creative project.

So, without further ado, here are my more structured, Gibbs Reflective Cycle paragraphs.

Reflecton

Description

This has been covered in depth in the prior paragraphs but we effectively were tasked with "hacking" a board game to make it more interactive using the skills we had learned in class. This resulted in two final board games being made by my group - one that used the circuitry to allow a spinner to make lights on the board turn on but wouldn't work consistently enough, and another cleaner version that functioned as a board game but didn't incorporate all the electrical elements.

Feeling

During the process of creating this board game, I felt a variety of emotions. When coming up with ideas for the game, I felt a sense of creative burnout. This is a feeling I'm relatively unfamiliar with. In most academic cases coming up with a solution involves further readings and eventually, the solution will become apparent. When coming up with an original boardgame idea, however, I was certainly put out of my comfort zone.

Another part that put me out of my comfort zone was working in the workshop, using the drills, saws, hot glue gun. All of these tools are relatively simple but given my highly limited experience working in this kind of environment, I quickly realized that I had a lot to learn.

All that said, however, I felt a sense of joy when even though we couldn't implement the desired electrical element when the board game concept that we had created actually turned out to be engaging.

I also felt positive about collaborating with my group and using our different skillsets to the advantage of the project. I like designing things on the computer, so I dealt more with the creating of the board and rule sheet designs.

Evaluation.

The positives of the project, as mentioned earlier were the overall coming together and teamwork. The biggest positive would have to be the final game concept that we envisioned actually proving engaging to players.

The negatives, as mentioned, is the obvious one of our main electrical component not working as desired. But that's all a part of this early creative process. Learning to fail. And we definitely learned from it, so it was a valuable failure.

Analysis

I suppose the biggest lesson to learn from this is to identify the "marshmallow" at an early stage. As learned in the marshmallow challenge, it's essential to identify the unknown aspect of the project early on, as if left until later it can be too late and render the project incomplete. In this case, the spinner was the unknown and we left it until too late to ask for help Its simple appearance blinded us to the fact that we were unequipped with the knowledge to achieve our desired outcome with such a new concept. '

Conclusion

As mentioned, getting help for unknown elements in the early stages definitely would've helped improve our final result. We found out about the slip ring too late but had we gone down that route in the beginning it probably would've resulted in a working, functional boardgame.

Regardless, at the end of the day, we still enhanced our understanding of circuits, got creative with game dynamics and design, and created something that was enjoyed by our classmates. And, most importantly, learned how to improve on this next time.

Action Plan

Next time we'll be sure to identify the Marshmellow sooner and get the required support when there's still enough time to implement changes.

All in all, this was still a great introduction to the creative process. We learned a tonne and know how to improve so I'm excited to see what we do next time!

#ctec501

1 note · View note

pink-hero-search-podcast · 4 years

Text

-*IMPORTANT PLEASE READ*-

-Never reveal any info of someone's therapy or personal therapist's name, or full name of neither, unless the person gives you permission.-

-This is fiction, I know that. I made a poll whether I should leave this post here, just to be sure. The results was to leave it up.-

-Thank you for reading.-

-----------

Part Two Here

-----------

My mother works as a receptionist at a therapy clinic. A few months ago, I had the privilege to spend the day there! I've been to the clinic multiple times. I've gotten to know the staff around the place. Whenever I walk in, everyone would greet me with a smile or a small comment, like "you've gotten bigger the last time I saw you" or "so, how is school going for ya?" Lately, it seems kinda mundane.

The therapists are especially nice. One of my favorites is Dr. Alderwood. She's known as the best therapist in the clinic. I would always visit her office during her breaks and would always tell me about her clients and how their progress went. One day, she told me about a new client that she had an appointment with. His name was apparently a hassle to say, so she simplified it to "Steven Q.C.D.D Universe." The kid was diagnosed with MAJOR PTSD, Anxiety, and depression.

It started as a typical day, mom at the reception and me sitting in a chair playing on my phone. Sometimes, I look from my phone to notice small details about the people that come in and out of the building. One day, something was different. I guess the Steven kid came in, since Dr. Alderwood was waiting. It looked like he hadn't slept in weeks. His movements were slow and his voice trembled as he spoke. I've seen clients act in a similar manner, but not with someone who was that young.

Another perk about being a child of an employee is you get free access to the break room! 8 minute after the boy arrived, I decided to head on down to get me a Lion Licker. I was walking past Dr. Alderwood's office, when I noticed a vibrant pink light from under the door. Curiosity got the best of me and I opened the door a bit. To my surprise, the boy was glowing pink! I mean, highlighter pink! The sight was practically blinding me. The kid was also bawling his eyes out. He clearly repressed a lot of things based on the look on his face. I quickly snapped a pic of the scene and rushed to the break room.

A half an hour passed by, I was sitting back in my chair watching TubeTube. I looked up and saw Dr. Alderwood walking with the boy. He looked better than the last time I saw him. His posture perked up and he had a small smile. As he walked to the elevator we made brief eye contact. I smiled and waved. His smile extended and he waved back. It made the clinic seem a little less mundane.

----------

Submitted by Anonymous

-----------

Woah, he has a really long and weird name. I wonder what all those initials mean. It must take forever to write. I feel sorry if I had to write that.

Sadly, it appears I was right about the trauma. The part about him having trauma might have something to do with him turning pink.

There was a post claiming this. THIS is the post talking about it. I initially thought it was probably untrue because it seemed like a troll, since I can't really tell if I am. I might have be wrong, and if it is true, that means there a mothman out there, eating Kraft Singles.

#pink boy search podcast #steven universe #steven universe future #pink hero encounter #suf #announcement #submission

10 notes · View notes

eremiss · 4 years

Note

I do have another, unprompted question that keeps coming to mind whenever I read Gwencred: What happens when she learns he's been swiping and reading her journal all this time? Does she know already and "allows it"? It upsets me whenever he does it, as it's such a perfect not-so-great habit for him (and one of those "wish I'd thought of that" things).

This answer is best described as, “A collection of thoughts interspersed with writings”. It got pretty long, oof haha

Gwen becomes a bit suspicious that Thancred is occasionally a little too insightful around the time of Heroes of the Hour and Litany Of Peace MSQ in Dragonsong War/Post-HVW through a combination of little slips of the tongue on his part and catching him in her room once, which he was able to play off…mostly.

I haven’t hammered out the exact moments of her suspicion and gradual realization, or any sort of confrontation about it, direct or otherwise, but I do have a relatively solid handle on Gwen’s line of thought– where it begins, where she goes while overthinking it, and where it ends up. And I also have roughly written out a point where she’s presented with proof that he was most definitely stealing her saved pages and reading her journal right at the end of StB.

—

Her initial reaction was to kind of try and brush it off. “What? No, no he wouldn’t…” But then she thought about it for a little bit and… “…except yeah, he juuust might.”

She had bigger things on her mind then and half-wanted to think she’d imagined it or, if she hadn’t, that it was a one-off situation. She stewed on it for a little bit and, though she never caught him trying to read over her shoulder or going through her saved pages, found herself torn between ‘yes, he did’ and ‘no, he didn’t’ and not entirely sure how she felt about it.

Rather than accuse him or try to confront him about it, she decided to simply keep her journal close or on her person rather than leaving it in her desk or in her room, and was also a bit more sparing about what she wrote in it. She covered the change of behavior by claiming she had a lot on her mind and was frequently busy, so she needed to be able to take any opportunity she could get to write.

In the following few weeks it seemed like Thancred wasn’t quite so insightful or on-the-ball in trying to get her talking about what was on her mind, or picking at it in ways that offered new perspectives.

But then, strangely, everything seemed to go back to normal. Odd. Perhaps it had been her imagination the whole time. Or maybe he’d gotten sneakier. (it was the latter)

Which left her feeling a bit…paranoid. Still, she avoided confronting him. Partially because she simply didn’t want to, and partially because she still hadn’t fully sorted out her feelings yet. She didn’t want to be wrong and, more subconsciously, she didn’t want it to be necessary/didn’t want it to be true, in a way.

Nothing much seemed to change on his end, as he didn’t act differently or treat her differently, nor draw any conclusions about how she was keeping her journal close aside from one teasing inquiry as to why she was suddenly carrying it around like a teddy bear.

He’d been fairly aware, as usual, of when to seek her out and provide a bit of company, and that hadn’t stopped during her ‘trial period’ either. And he barely missed a beat in terms of talking with her and giving advice, so…?

But the more she thought about it, the more she came to think that brief period sort of was, and sort of wasn’t, proof. They were both apart for a portion of that time, meaning he would need time to catch up to her current situation, snooping or not. Whereas before, when she’d begun to be suspicious, they’d been in relatively constant contact. It’s a lot easier to be insightful about things you know about, isn’t it? And even then, when she thought he’d snooped, he didn’t always have the right answer or good advice anyway; and he didn’t always say or do the right thing. He wasn’t perfect, and he had his own life and his own problems and responsibilities to worry about. So was this even really all that odd? Or was she just reading into it because of her own suspicions?

She talked herself in circles like this for quite a while, torn about whether or not she was being paranoid and what she should actually try to do about it. Confronting him would be the simplest plan, but she really needed to have her feelings on the matter sorted out first, right? and what if she was wrong? Then what?

And then he had all gone back to normal, even though she’d been more protective of a journal… But perhaps he was just a bit more clever than her and had managed to read it again. While that wasn’t ideal, if it was the case, being able to lean on his insight and his advice again had been a relief…

…Oh.

So… If he was snooping, which she couldn’t fully bring herself to admit, then it….was helpful. Kinda.

She didn’t like that he might have been reading her journal or prying, but at the same time, if it helped him talk to her, and thus helped her…? They were still close, they still talked, they still leaned on each other…

Hm…

After a bit of debate, and rather at a loss for what to make of the whole thing or what she should do about it, Gwen stopped being quite so protective of her journal. In part, she was simply tired of it, it was another thing to have to think about all the time, and partially she wanted to see what would happen, or if she’d catch him again. Then, she told herself, they’d have to have a talk. After seeing that nothing she wrote ever really came back to bite her –unless she counted Thancred being more aware of her mood or the increased likelihood of efforts to assist with whatever problem she was tied up in as ‘biting’– she gradually went back to writing as she always had, with a few exceptions, such as her suspicions or venting about friends (which she never did much of anyway).

Her feelings about the whole thing were, are, and will continue to be rather complicated. But they’ve simplified somewhat since the beginning.

She lowkey wants to write something like ‘so are you gonna fess up or do I actually have to catch you red-handed’ in her journal and wait for him to find it. But then she’d have to, you know, deal with the results, and she isn’t entirely sure what would happen, so she’s held off so far.

By late-StB and into ShB, after sort of settling with the whole idea, her mindset is hovering around something like:

– A little bit still annoyed for violating her privacy, and a little bit… nervous and hurt, in a sense, that he hasn’t come clean about it and seems to have no plan to. At the same time as she understands why that’s a rather intimidating proposition, she wishes he’d trust her a bit more and not feel like he had to keep it secret.

– Being more mindful about her phrasing but not censoring herself entirely, which usually results in a lot more writing, marking out and then re-writing to reword and rephrase things. Annoying as it is, and as little as she likes the bit of paranoia and worry (worse at sometimes than others) that inspires it, the rewording and rephrasing does actually help her think about things a bit more thoroughly and carefully than she would otherwise.

– Over time she came to appreciate that he doesn’t share her secrets with anyone (or maybe he does on certain occasions, because sometimes Y’shtola is far too aware of her health) and he hasn’t used anything he’s read against her, at least not so directly as using it as justification to dismiss or discredit her opinions and concerns, nor does it ever seem to affect or change his view of her–negatively and/or outwardly, at least.

(((That’s not to say he hasn’t ever been less-than-happy with something he’s read, particularly about himself, but he’s the type to brood and stew on things rather than immediately go running to confront her over it. Eventually he remembers that he has his own opinions, gripes and flaws, and just because he can work them out in his head while she needs to write them out on paper doesn’t make hers any more intentionally hurtful or antagonizing than his.)))

– She tries to look out for the Scions’ mental health, mostly through making sure they rest and getting them talking about their problems even as she tends to bottle up her own, and reading her journal seems to be Thancred’s way to look after her. He uses her journal like a guide for when and how she needs a hand talking out a problem, or when someone needs to make her step away and breathe for a minute. He offers his opinion and advice and helps her work through hard topics, but he doesn’t tell her what to think. He presses on certain issues when he thinks he needs to, sometimes a little too hard, but in the end the questions and pushing serve to make Gwen reevaluate and reaffirm her reasoning for her decision, and thus lead to her holding to it more strongly. Once she’s proved her convictions he doesn’t try overly hard to change her mind, even when it isn’t necessarily a decision he agrees with. (“I was really hoping you’d change your mind about fighting two primals at once. This did not go as planned. But you’ve made up your mind, so…”)

– It is a Struggle for Gwen to fully explain and vocalize her concerns and worries, particularly when it comes to more tangled or complex issues and things she blames herself for. Most because she’s self-conscious about rambling or ‘word vomiting’, which tends to happen when one is in the midst of trying to process their thoughts and feelings on a situation, and also when one feels they need to justify why their thoughts are what they are; and, going along with that, she doesn’t want to say the wrong thing or give the wrong impression of a situation. Writing things down gives her the chance to work stuff out herself and get all of the pieces in order and in the right place, even though it doesn’t grant much opportunity for outside perspective or trying to view things from a new/different angle.

And once it’s written down and in order, then she’s ok talking about it. But, ah, well, you know… it’s all worked out and in order, so nevermind, don’t worry about it.

How much she really needs someone to be able to fill in the gaps and ‘see the end picture so they can help sort the pieces’ in order to properly discuss or address whatever is bothering her is really brought to light during Stormblood when she and Thancred spend moons apart. Gwen finds that, even after she’s sisterly-levels of close with Alisaie and Lyse and even after they prove how well they know her and how she tends to think/act, she can’t really talk with them quite the same way as she can with Thancred. They don’t mind her rambling, but they both tended to try and stop her and address each little thing as they came up, rather than going along and letting her train of thought keep going forward, either giving minor fixes along the way or waiting till the end and addressing all at once like Thancred tended to.

Why, though? Other than personality, anyway.

Well, it’s easier to reach the finish line when he already knew where it was, which meant he used her rambling to fill in a few holes and adjust the route, rather than trying to blindly follow the winding path she was making.

By reading her journal Thancred can much more easily ‘meet her halfway’ or jump straight to the end or the important parts of a problem because he already has a general understanding of the situation and her mindset. Already being aware of what she was thinking let him more easily straighten out crooked ideas or misconceptions and redirect lost trains of thought, which helped her clear up questions or finally reach a resolution. Talking with someone else also offers a chance for different perspectives, and helps her get better about reevaluating situations and problems.

In particular, being able to reliably talk to Thancred got her in the habit of seeking advice for a current/upcoming problem, rather than asking for an opinion after the fact.

((Her time in Doma in StB, aside from making her realize how bad she is about talking to others about her problems in general, also served to make her reassess how she goes about explaining whatever is on her mind, as well as explaining why she’s feeling or thinking that way. She learns that a bit of word vomit while she gets her thoughts together isn’t bad so long as she doesn’t start talking in circles, and she both gets quicker at organizing her thoughts and better and maintaining a steady, if not straight, stream of consciousness/line of thought in a sense, as opposed to jumping around topics or cutting herself off. She was more open with Alisaie pre-ShB. At the end of 5.0, when she realizes why she’s been so off and what the light is doing to her, she works harder to be more open with everyone –and particularly Y’shtola where it concerns her health– and rely less on her journal in general))

tl;dr: she’s come to view it as sort of a good-but-not-great thing, though she wouldn’t go so far as to call it a ‘necessary evil’. She still isn’t entirely happy with it, but she appreciates the results and the motives/thought behind it, so she has sort of decided to just leave it be for now. She still hopes Thancred will fess up on his own one day. The longer that doesn’t happen, the more tempted she is to try and find a way to bring it up.

—

Post-”The Call” I loosely headcannon’d that Urianger came to Ala Mhigo to both check on Thancred and support the other Scions. While Thancred is being transported back to Mor Dhona, Urianger reluctantly approaches Gwen and gives her some papers he found in Thancred’s possession (probably his pocket). He claims he didn’t read much, just enough to recognize the handwriting and realize that they were writings rather than correspondence or some missive that Thancred had intended to deliver. He doesn’t really sugarcoat it, “They were in his possession, though I cannot claim to know why. You must needs ask him once he hath awakened.”

Feeling particularly out of sorts for a variety of reasons, Gwen admits that she’s suspected it for a while, “But I didn’t try to find out for sure.” There has always been a nasty little question poking around about how much Thancred truly knew her or just what she wrote, which was most of the reason she never tried to confront him or catch him in the act. She more or less knew, but sorta-kinda didn’t want to know, and she honestly was able to ignore that poking little question more often than not.

I actually had written out a bit of her talking it out with him, so I’ll put it here as I’m pretty sure I’m never actually gonna write that particular scenario out in full. Somewhere before this particular dialogue, Gwen mention that her writings in her journal are ‘rambling bits and pieces’:

“If thou wouldst allow me a presumption.”

Gwen glanced curiously at him and nodded.

“To mine eyes it doth appear as though he used those ‘rambling bits and pieces’ of thine thoughts, as thou so phrased it, to try and provide a solution for thine ills.”

“I–” Gwen paused, her mind all but stopping for a moment while she considered that. The idea had occurred to her a while back now, though she’d wondered if it had merely been an excuse. “That– Well…”

“I will not claim to know his mind, but I do know him, and through that mayhap thou mightest find insight. I have no answers, only speculations, but I would share them, if thou art willing to listen?”

Gwen nodded, the motion helping to get her brain working again.

The Elezen took a slow breath, the expression on his face speaking of intense focus dedicated to choosing his words. Eventually he spoke, “Tis my understanding that you oft sought him for comfort and to confide thy troubles, even outside of thine writing, yes?”

Gwen nodded slowly.

“Why?”

“Well, he…” She paused. Her mouth turned down in a slight frown, descriptions and explanations slipping through her fingers like fine sand. ‘Part of his charm, back before the Banquet when he cared more about that sort of thing, had been being approachable and easy to talk to’ seemed insubstantial, not to mention it was so far in the past now; ‘he always had sound advice, or he could at least put stuff in perspective or say it some way that made me consider it differently’ felt off because she didn’t know how big of a hand her journal had had in that, so…

“He offered assurance, counsel and a steady hand in equal measure when thou wert in need of them?” Urianger offered.

That was basically what she was thinking, yes. Gwen nodded slowly.

“While his words may not have been entirely his own, I should think there was more to his reassurances than merely parroting thine tumultuous writings back to thee, correct?”

Gwen’s lingering frown pulled slightly to one side. She hadn’t really thought about that, but… it was accurate. Her eyes wandered and she dipped her chin in another nod.

“He did not merely read and repeat thine own troubled words in an effort to be the answer to thine problems. Rather he gathered and deciphered thine scattered thoughts and made of them tools that thou couldst use to craft thine own solution.”

Well… Well, that was rather accurate, too, if a bit overly-poetic. Thancred had always given guidance, advice and his own opinion, but he’d never explicitly given her instructions or answers–at least not directly. She’d had to settle her doubts and fears herself, he’d just… offered a steadying hand and a little push.

Urianger let that hang for a moment before quietly offering, “I should think a man who knew thee naught would struggle with such a task, even with thine journal; a map is only so much help to a traveler in unknown surroundings, particularly when they know not how to read it.”

Gwen adjusted her gloves with little tugs and twisted her bracelets, burning a little energy in an attempt to keep her thoughts from running off without her while she considered that. It was an interesting point. Hm. No wonder Thancred could read my botany notes so quickly. He had practice. “That’s,” she admitted slowly, voice soft and withdrawn, “not inaccurate, I guess. But that doesn’t change the fact he hid it from me.”

“Nay, it doth not.” Urianger said with a long-suffering sigh that wasn’t aimed at her. “Nor doth it excuse his disregard for thine privacy. Know that I do not condone his methods, well-intentioned as they may have been.”

Well-intentioned. She hadn’t really let intentions weigh in on her consideration very much. Somewhere in her mind she’d told herself he meant well, but the idea hadn’t held a lot of weight until just then. Intentions matter, do they not? Sometimes? At least a little?

After the silence had stretched and settled comfortably, Urianger spoke again, “I cannot speak for him, nor any other, but if thou wouldst allow me one more presumption?”

His perspective had been a bit uplifting so far, and it had certainly gotten her thoughts moving again. Plus, his voice was a welcome alternative to the silence and the chattering worries and questions filling up her thoughts. “Please.”

Urianger huffed softly and nodded, folding his arms with a look of serious consideration. “Our dear friend is a fool, as we all know, but he is not foolish. I am sure he knew the fine line he walked every time he stole into thy mind and with every occasion that he put his discoveries to use. To blunder or slip would have aroused suspicion, just as would being too brazen. Thus doth he live in hypocrisy with his decision: believing his actions, if not righteous, sufficiently judicious to merit repetition, even as he maketh every effort to hide them from thy sight that he might not be made to throw himself upon thy mercy or beg clemency, nor face thy retribution should he be denied.

“Whatever his reasons, he knowingly risked thine trust for the sake of insight, even as the ramifications for his actions hung heavier with every repetition and each day he chose continued secrecy over transparency.”

“And soon it was too big to even hope to get out from underneath,” Gwen mumbled.

Urianger nodded. “He is not so naïve as to believe that, should his well-intentioned subterfuge be brought to light, thou wouldst merely take umbrage with the moment at hand and dig no deeper. Thou wouldst likely not assume the revelatory act to be the initial occurrence, nor a singular one, which would surely lead thee to ponder prior instances. To wit, his every act, every conversation and moment of insight, would be called into question and scrutinized under a lense of doubt, hindsight and damaged trust. Thus he found yet another justification for his secrecy.” He gestured vaguely between the both of them with a sardonic arch of one brow, “In that, at least, it appears he was right to worry.”

Gwen rocked back and then forward, mouth twisting in a grimace. At the same time as it sounded a little paranoid and ‘worst case scenario’, that line of thinking was perfectly reasonable. Even if she hadn’t been somewhat aware of his prying, Urianger presenting her with solid proof that Thancred had stolen her private thoughts even once would be enough to make her wonder, at least briefly, if it had happened before.

Her suspicion, and her reaction to finding out what he’d been doing, were reasonable things to worry about. Maybe Thancred didn’t quite follow the lines of thought Urianger presented, but she doubted the Elezen was too off the mark.

Gwen wanted to think Thancred didn’t need to worry so much. It would be rough, but surely they would be able to work it out–after trust was damaged, after uncomfortable questions, after time and a lot of work. And even then, once the dust had settled, they wouldn’t really be the same.

Or would they, maybe? ‘They’ hadn’t changed overmuch since she began to suspect he’d been reading her journal, after all.

But ‘not overmuch’ isn’t ‘at all’, and suspicions weren’t the same as proof or a confession.

Whatever happened, and however it turned out, ‘they’ would not be the same if he ever came clean or was caught in the act. What would change and how much, and what would recover, was near-impossible to guess.

Right to worry indeed…

Gwen huffed softly, realizing her expression had started to tighten into a cringe.

Seeing that she’d had enough time to let that sink in, Urianger continued, “And for his perilous duplicity Thancred was rewarded with the means to better understand thee, and thus did he learn how to grant thee and thy troubled mind a modicum of succor. He gave thee clarity when thine thoughts grew clouded, and crafted stability and from thine tremulous doubts.”

That was a more poetic and metaphoric way to describe it than Gwen could have ever come up with, but that didn’t make it any less accurate. She shifted in her seat, glancing down at her hands and her nails, chipped and picked down to nubs.

“Pray consider: of what value would that be to one who cared naught for thee?”

Urianger is best wingman ha.

Best wingman who, notably, does not tell Thancred that Gwen had not only already been suspicious (for quite a while) that he’d been reading her journal, but now knows it for a fact. His reasons basically boil down to:

1) Plain and simple, it’s just not his business. It isn’t Urianger’s place to bring up the matter for Gwen, regardless of the fact she’d had her own suspicions before he approached her on the Source. He has no right to try and force the issue in her place, directly or via hints/subtlety, especially when she both didn’t express any desire for him to do so and hadn’t made any attempts to bring up her concerns or confront Thancred herself. This whole thing is their problem that they have to solve themselves in their own way, and he can’t just insert himself into it–at least not more than he already has. Him revealing (but in actuality confirming) Thancred’s snooping to Gwen was an entirely different situation than telling Thancred that he done been found out. And, after the fact, he’s a little torn whether or not he even should have told Gwen what he’d discovered in the first place.

2) Gwen continued writing in her journal despite knowing her thoughts weren’t private, and seemingly didn’t make any efforts to make her journal or saved pages more difficult to access (in the long run), or at least she didn’t do anything obvious that might have alerted Thancred that he’d been found out. Why? How much did the whole thing even bother her, anyway? He couldn’t really tell–partially because even Gwen didn’t know how she felt about it, even after being suspicious for so long. She wasn’t very outwardly upset at his revelation, but the whole thing happened shortly after Thancred lost his soul, so she had much bigger concerns at the time. How much did that influence her feelings on the matter? Probably a lot. When the dust settles and they’re reunited again, what will happen? Urianger has no idea. It’s Gwen’s issue to confront and resolve, and attempting to speak for her just runs the risk of giving the wrong impression, creating false expectations, putting words in mouths and making the whole thing a mess.

3) It wouldn’t have done any good, either right then or over the long-term. Thancred was clearly already in some shit by the time Urianger arrived on the First, what with dealing with being stranded on his own on a strange world, raising little Minfilia and trying to get his own thoughts and emotions in order. He already had enough going on that he wasn’t handling well, and telling him, “Hey that thing you were doing to try and be helpful even though it would probably utterly ruin your relationship with Gwen if she found out about it? Gwen found out about it. Because of me. I’m the one who told her.” would do nothing but give him more problems. It would be another burden for him to carry and be angry, stressed and worried about. He already had situations that he couldn’t resolve or ‘deal with’ himself in the form of being stuck on the First, Minfilia and Mini-filia, and then the revelation of Urianger’s prophetic vision of the Scions and Gwen dying; telling him he’d been found out would just be another thing simply beyond his ability to resolve, which would mean another thing for him to agonize over and stew on until Gwen arrived… whenever that finally happened. Not to mention that, if Urianger chose not to come clean himself, Thancred would probably quickly figure out he had been the one to tell her, and that would only make a bigger, more complicated mess and more hurt feelings, which neither of them needed.

————-

Thanks to the ever wonderful @evangeline-cross and @rhymingteelookatme for beta-reading and helping with Urianger’s dialogue XDDD

TUMBLR WHY DO YOU LET ME PUT A READMORE IN THE ASK RESPONSE AND THEN DELETE IT EVERY TIME FFS

#Thancred Waters #Guinevere Ashe #Gwencred-ish #This took a while XD #Was definitely more of a nebulous 'yeah hmmmm' sort of secenario #rather than anything concrete #my writing #asks #so I had to actually stop and sort some stuff out #this is actually shorter thanit usedt ob e rofl #long answer is long #I'm so proud of the Urianger dialogue tho ngl #Thancred got CAUGHT #when you're expecting to just go about your day like normal #and then your fucking soul is stolen #and it throws of your plans lol #Thanks for the ask!!!#Answered

11 notes · View notes

radiopopstand · 5 years

Text

Radio Popstand Broadcast 27 is available now!

Go to your favourite podcast player and search for Radio Popstand.

First item on this broadcast is me looking back to my 32 years with diabetes.

Here’s a transcript of the article:

My life with diabetes

Let’s start by saying that I am not a health care professional. The following words are my own experiences of dealing with my diabetes over the past 32 years. They should not be taken as a comprehensive manual in dealing with the condition. If you have any concerns about your treatment of diabetes or that of a family member or friend you should always consult your GP or practice nurse. We are all different and the way you need to treat your diabetes may be different to that which I mention in this article.

A few days after my 28th birthday, way back in the year of 1987, I found myself sitting in the surgery of my doctor. I was attending an appointment I’d made, hoping to rid myself of what I considered, at the time, to be a minor complaint, but what in essence turned out to be a much more serious problem than I realised, a condition was to be diagnosed that I still suffer from to this day, and will do so for the rest of my days.

My immediate concern at this time was the appearance of some boils on the lower part of my back. After living with these for what must have seven to ten days I decided, especially seeing they were becoming rather uncomfortable and would not go away, to see my doctor. Before this time I’d very rarely had cause to see the doctor, but things were about to change.

“Hello Jeffrey, don’t see you here very often, how can I help you today?”, said my GP as he shook my hand and ushered me to a seat. I explained the problem and doctor examined these troublesome boils. “I see, well I can prescribe some antibiotics, which will clear up these little fellas for you, but what we really do need to find out is exactly what has caused these to appear”, the doctor explained.

I was given a specimen container and asked to go to the toilet to provide a urine sample. This I duly did, and on returning to the doctor he went over to a corner of his massive room with my urine sample. In a few moments he walked back over to me and uttered those words that I’ll never forget “This is most interesting Jeffrey, there would appear to be a rather high sugar content in the sample you’ve provided today”, which he spoke to me in the matter of fact style just like Mr Spock from the TV series Star Trek.

It took a while to sink in, but this was the start of my life with diabetes. In those early days it didn’t create too much of a problem. I was diagnosed as having type 2 diabetes, and my doctor referred me to a specialist at the local hospital. Apart from the antibiotics prescription to clear up the boils I wasn’t prescribed any other medication at this time.

Whilst waiting to see the specialist, which must be have been ten to fourteen days after my initial GP appointment, I took it upon myself to refrain from eating anything that contained sugar. This was not easy, but I had no sugar in my tea and coffee, ate no pudding after dinner, and certainly ate no confectionery, cake, fruit or anything else that I considered contained sugar or anything resembling sugar.

I was certainly very strict with myself over those few days, so much so that when I did see the specialist, and he carried out his own tests, it appeared my diabetes condition was hardly noticeable. Unfortunately, over the months that followed the condition got worse. Despite taking various medications to coax my pancreas into producing insulin, the magical hormone that I was sadly lacking, the insulin was not being produced and I was diagnosed as having type 1 diabetes, this was less than 18 months after the initial diagnosis.

A whole new set of rules and a steep learning curve to take in about taking injections of insulin, a more stringent regime of testing my blood glucose levels and how to treat the affects of hypogljycaemia, which is often referred to as a hypo or a sugar low. The biggest hurdle encountered on a daily basis by diabetics is achieving a balance between the insulin taken and the carbohydrate value of your food intake, but these are not the only two components to achieving a satisfactory balance of blood glucose levels, what you are doing in way of activity is another thing that can very much affect this delicate balance.

So what is this hormone called insulin, what does it do, and why is it so important. I’m not an expert on the workings of the human body, so my following explanation is very much simplified, but put quite simply insulin stores away the glucose content in your blood until it is needed. Glucose is an essential commodity, as it is the fuel or energy needed by the brain to function, without glucose the brain can not function, but with too much glucose many serious problems can soon occur if your condition is not treated, and indeed can occur over time even if your diabetes is treated, that is why it is so important to keep a close watch on those glucose levels and try to keep them as close as possible to normal to reduce the chance of problems.

Some of the problems that could occur due to excessive glucose in the blood stream include a blurring of vision due to a change in shape to the eye lens, in extreme cases sight loss can occur, skin infection - remember my original problem with boils, urine infection, lung and other infections, nerve damage to hands and feet, kidney damage, excessive urination which can result in excessive thirst and tiredness and weakness, serious weight loss if body can’t use glucose correctly as your stores of fat are used, dehydration is another serious problem that can cause foot infections and maybe gangrene resulting in amputations of toes, feet or lower legs. I myself suffer with problems to my lower legs often becoming swollen, discoloured and aching, so need to take extra care to avoid the possibility of ulcers developing. This is just a few of the potential problems that diabetes can cause.

Ideally a carbohydrate count of your food has to be made, food that is high in fibre is desirable, as this will be absorbed into the blood steam slowly and help to avoid those blood glucose highs. Each meal should contain approximately the same carbohydrate value each day, to match the amount of insulin you take. This way the chance of the blood glucose level becoming too high or too low is greatly reduced, but of course, as already indicated, the activity you will be engaged in during the day can have an impact on the amount of energy required, and hence can cause problems, as can being ill with something as simple as a cold or even being stressed, these can all affect your glucose levels, as can the weather. Yes, that’s right even the weather can affect those blood glucose levels.

The affects of a low sugar situation can occur at any time, sometimes you become aware that they are occurring, test your blood glucose level using the test equipment available to confirm your suspicions and take glucose orally in the form of dextrose tablets or some other form to remedy the low sugar episode. Unfortunately, it’s not always that easy, there are occasions when the low sugar situation can take you by surprise, so much so that you can find it difficult to concentrate and take the appropriate action required to get you out of this predicament. It is always most important to carry with you some form of fast release carbohydrate such as dextrose tablets and carry some form of identification explaining you are are a ‘type 1 insulin dependent diabetic’. I also have a wrist armband which has these exact words, something that let’s others immediately know in moments of crisis that you are a diabetic.

In the thirty two years I’ve suffered with diabetes I’ve had three instances where I’ve collapsed into a coma due to a low sugar hypoglycemia situation. On the first occasion my father was still alive and he called our own doctor, who immediately came to the house and dealt with the situation, on the other two occasions an ambulance was called. There have been several close calls over the years, on one occasion hitting my head on the side of the cooker and giving myself a black eye. More often than not a low can be quickly treated and I’m back to my normal self quite quickly, on other occasions the affect can take several hours to recover from with intense shivering and sweating being a side affect and also the dreaded muddled head.

Apart from the falling into a coma incidents, the next worse state I’ve been in several times is waking up in the morning where I’ve obviously been low on sugar during the night and I awake with a totally muddled head, after working out how to cure the sugar low, the muddled head then stays with me all day. A very unstable way to spend a day, especially if it’s a work day. I’ve had days where the blood glucose level has returned to normal, but the muddled head can stay until after I’ve had my evening meal, which can, putting it mildly, be most disconcerting and ruin one’s day.

Obviously, if you get several days of low or high sugars you need to make adjustments to your insulin dosage or food intake to try to combat the situation. I currently take four injections a day of insulin, one before breakfast, one before lunch and one before my evening meal, this is a quick acting insulin, after taking I immediately have my food. There is then a final injection of insulin before bed, which is a more slow acting insulin to see me through the night and acts as a base insulin throughout the day. I can often go for weeks or months were my sugar levels are well behaved and everything stays within required parameters, then without warning several occurrences of either high or low levels happen, this can be one of the greatest headaches trying to get things back on course. This is one of the things I find most difficult to make the majority of people around me understand, I’m sure they just think my whole diabetic control is poor and I don’t know what I’m doing.

This whole process of insulin injections, carrying out continuous blood glucose tests by pricking one’s fingers, counting the carbohydrate value of foods, sticking to a schedule of eating meals without missing any, making sure you’re carrying dextrose tablets with you at all times, inspecting your feet to make sure they are not damaged, dealing with the muddled head situations and dealing with the tiredness and general lethargic feeling when sugars go too high can all over time put quite a toll on your well being and frame of mind.

Added to that those mundane illnesses that we all suffer from time to time, now appear to be twice as worse, as you’re not only battling with that but you’re also dealing with your diabetes, that always wants to play up at the same time making you feel appalling and not wanting to do anything. You must keep testing the blood glucose levels and KEEP TAKING THE INSULIN, as although you might not be able to eat, or only eat very little, those blood glucose levels still tend to rise during an illness. It is important to keep hydrated, all that glucose can cause serious dehydration, which can be a very serious situation. Try to drink as much sugar-free fluid as possible. Diabetes is difficult enough to deal with on it’s own, but when you have another illness raise it’s ugly head it’s always best to consult your GP or practice nurse for advice.

Something all diabetics have to deal with at some point is the strange attitude some people seem to have of diabetics, in many cases considering the condition to be a preventable self inflicted disease caused by carelessness of those that suffer with the disease. The truth of the matter is type 1 diabetes is definitely not a lifestyle caused condition, whereas type 2 diabetes can be caused, but not in all cases, by lifestyle. During my 32 years as a diabetic I’ve encountered my fair share of ridiculous, comical, hurtful or just plain silly comments about this condition that I suffer from. Most people make comments with the best of intentions, but some can be really quite rude and disrespectful. I try by best to ignore the majority of the ridiculous comments but the odd remark/criticism can, on occasion, be unkind.

Comical remarks include:

“Do you have a special hole that’s been made to put the insulin into yourself”

Hurtful remarks include:

“This whole problem has got to be your own fault, you must have been a real piggy in your younger days”

“Do you not think it’s about time you got this balance with food and insulin correct, for goodness sake Jeffrey you’ve had this problem for over 30 years now”

Ridiculous remarks include:

“It’s only diabetes, it’s not going to kill you”

“Jeffrey, why drink that diet drink, you need to drink this full sugar Coca-Cola, it’ll do you the world of good”

I’m going to be very boring now and repeat what I said at the start, please excuse me, but it would me very remiss of not to say this. This article has attempted to highlight some of my experiences of dealing with diabetes over the past 32 years. My remarks shouldn’t be taken as the correct or only way to deal with the condition. If you have any concerns about your treatment of diabetes or that of a family member or friend you should always consult your GP or practice nurse.

One event that seems amusing now although wasn’t funny at the time was during a low sugar episode when my head bowled down and I went for a swim in a plate of baked beans, my then teenage niece who was there at the time often reminds me of this incident and we both have a chuckle. You’ll have wait till she writes her memoirs for the full story.

Jeff Wright, 4th August 2019

#diabetes #insulin #dextrose #hypoglycemia

7 notes · View notes

rwbyconversations · 5 years

Text

DmC Devil May Cry- Six Years Later

A few weeks ago, I wrote an essay about Dante from the Devil May Cry series and his character development across his six mainline appearances. Doing it got me thinking about the franchise and got me to get around to finishing the DMC games I own in my possession- Devil May Cry 4, which has a great combat system but is let down by having far too few environments and missions, and DmC Devil May Cry, the black sheep of the franchise and one of the most controversial reboots of a franchise. Finishing DmC gave me a perspective that only finishing something yourself can provide.

I’d owned a copy of the original launch version of DmC but found it dreary and sold it less than a quarter of the way into the game, before grabbing its Definitive Edition during a Christmas sale on really a glorified whim- sort of a “Let’s see how bad it can really get” vibe, but then I put it down and didn’t come back to it for three months because other games and other projects took prominence. But about a week ago I was bored and decided to knock the entire game out in one day due to a lack of anything better to do, and after a few days to mull on it, I decided to write an essay about DmC and how this oddball entry into an otherwise mostly beloved franchise has aged.

1) Pre-development

Devil May Cry 4 was a success for Capcom, selling about two million units in its first month of release when Capcom were hoping for 1.8 million by the end of the fiscal year. On a critical level too it walked away satisfied, with Metacritic rating both the PS3 and 360 releases of the game with 84/100, praising the fluid gameplay and intricate combat system, but knocking points off for a very repetitive campaign which saw Dante literally backtracking through Nero’s stages. But Capcom were hoping for more from DMC4. This was the debut of the franchise on not just the Seventh Generation of Consoles, but the franchise’s Microsoft debut, and the hopes were that DMC4 would be a smash success potentially on par with the numbers Western games like Call of Duty 4 or Halo 3 had made the year prior. 2.1 million was still good, but Capcom wanted more.

The mid-2000s marked a turn in Japanese game development, with the increased costs of HD modelling and Japan’s home market becoming more apathetic about buying games (some Japanese games reported only 10% of their total sales from Japan itself), while the West began booming. With the 7th Generation, gaming went mainstream for many people in the West- as an example of this, I’m sure we all know at least one person who went to college after 2007 and can share stories of nights spent playing Halo over XBox Live. The mass success of the God of War franchise in the West also told Capcom that this gold mine of a market was ready and willing to enjoy some classic hack and slash action gaming.

The decrease in local sales gave Capcom the idea that they needed to begin outsourcing their properties to the West so they could appeal to a larger market, which led to such projects as Lost Planet, Dead Rising and Bionic Commando being made by Western studios. This was largely the brainchild of Keiji Inafune, nowadays known for the utter disaster of the Mighty Number 9 Kickstarter game. Inafune had a mindset of “doing the same thing is going to get us the same results (if we’re lucky). Let’s try something from a different perspective.” Unfortunately for Inafune, his different perspective failed to set the world on fire, with only Dead Rising proving to be a success and making it into the 8th console generation when handled by Capcom’s new Vancouver team, and even that series has suffered some fatal blows due to the poor launch of Dead Rising 4.

Even though Inafune cut ties with Capcom in 2010 (a month after DmC was announced), his idea of Westernizing several dormant properties was still in effect and Devil May Cry became one of the franchises that was outsourced. British company Ninja Theory, known for their games Heavenly Sword and Enslaved Odyssey to the West, were the company Capcom gave a phone call to. While known nowadays more for Hellblade, back in 2010 Ninja Theory were known for two very simply action games that relied more on their stories and usage of motion capture and facial captures to fill in the gaps. What didn’t help was that in the interim period between 4 and the reboot, DMC1 director Hideki Kamiya had since formed Platinum Studios and proven themselves to the West with Bayonetta, a game hailed by many as a spiritual successor to the DMC franchise.

Capcom had faith in Ninja Theory to translate DMC’s vision to the west, and as such at TGS 2010, the first trailer for DmC Devil May Cry was released and... well the rest is history.

youtube

The fanbase’s hackles were immediately raised and knives were out within seconds of the launch trailer dropping. A series that had become known for its over the top cutscenes and wry sense of cheesy humor had been Westernized into another gritty, bleak product. Dante went from the goofball who quoted Shakespeare to a gravelly voiced methhead who smoked. And for a series that prized itself on action and combos, that no proper gameplay was shown at the reveal was a worrying sign. The reveal trailer tainted the whole game right out of the gate; alongside Ninja Theory’s less than stellar track record with action games the fanbase was ready to hate this game on principle if it followed what had been done to Capcom’s other franchises that went on a foreign exchange trip.

Being fair to Ninja Theory though, several extenuating factors must be addressed. Among them is series director Hideaki Itsuno’s admission that he didn’t want to do Devil May Cry 5 yet after having worked on three straight games for the series out of concern that he would suffer from burnout. He wanted to go off and finally make a passion project he had been dreaming of for years in Dragon’s Dogma, which launched in 2012. Additionally, Ninja Theory did try and make a more faithful rendition of Dante, one who even kept the white hair and vibrantly red jacket, but these initial designs were shot down by Capcom, who told them to “go crazy.” In fact one of the people who rejected the designs that were close to classic Dante was Itsuno himself, who saw little point in Ninja Theory just copying Dante’s look if the whole point of the project was a new approach on Devil May Cry.

But the fanbase at the time didn’t know that Capcom were actively encouraging Ninja Theory to experiment, and what didn’t help was the quotes coming from the game’s director, Tameen Antoniades, which would prove to be a series of disasters that plagued DmC’s PR campaign. Tameen, put bluntly, wasn’t ready for the backlash to the game and its visual style and shot back at the fans. When asked by Venturebeat how he felt about the fan reaction to the TGS trailer, Tameen “took a drag of his cigarette and without blinking or pausing to exhale the smoke from his mouth, said: ‘I don’t care.’” People began to mockingly compare Tameen to Dante as seen in the trailer, which caused some fans to question if Tameen had used his own likeness as the basis for Dante.

And unfortunately for Capcom’s PR team, he didn’t stop there, mocking Dante’s original design in a later interview when saying that what was and wasn’t cool had changed in the years since DMC1: “If Dante, dressed as he was, walked into any bar outside of Tokyo, he’d get laughed out.”

I’d like to remind you that Tameen as director of the project likely signed off om some of these alternate concepts for Dante and keep that in mind whenever Tameen or a Ninja Theory staff member talk about A) what is and isn’t cool B) Original Dante’s character design.

The fanbase didn’t exactly make a good case for themselves after the game’s announcement though, with Ninja Theory reporting that they received death threats from some more hardcore fans. It still doesn’t make Tameen admitting he didn’t care if his game sold “a thousand or two million copies” look stellar, nor his derisive attitude towards the original series and its depiction of women, mocking Lady and Trish as “prostitutes with guns.” Ironically, despite being insistent that he’d made the game he wanted to play, Ninja Theory did dial back on methhead Dante, redesigning his model to be more beefy and replacing his voice actor, alongside redoing some scenes to make Dante crack more jokes.

On a technical level, hype was low from the hardcore fans due to simplified combat and, more egregiously, the game being locked to 30FPS on launch unless bought on PC which offered an upcapped framerate. For those unaware, all prior Devil May Cry games had run at 60FPS, including DMC4 which had come out some years earlier on the same console. 60FPS was a requirement by many pro players due to how it made animations silky smooth, so DmC being capped to 30 was an immediate red flag. Suffice to say, the fandom was ready for DmC to be a disaster at launch and began prepping their funeral pyres.

2) Gameplay

Early reviews for DmC were quite positive, with the game earning a Metacritic rating about even with DMC4, but the fanbase were far less forgiving. The 30FPS framerate lock outside of the PC port (which was admittedly one of the more polished ports of 2013, as covered by the late and great John Bain) had tainted the well pre-release and then came back with a vengeance to haunt the console launch in 2013. Without a lock on system, movement felt sluggish compared to the other games, hurting the flow of combat.

Difficulty was a major criticism of the game from long-term fans, particularly pertaining to how the style rank system rewarded damage done over pulling off varied combos. Whereas in the older games the player was punished for repeating moves over and over, DmC’s style ranks were so easy to abuse that so long as the combo was never broken due to taking damage, achieving a SSS rank was child’s play. Aquila’s Tornado and Arbiter’s Trinity Smash were especially broken in this regard.

Being fair to the game, it did introduce several mechanics that were later incorporated into DMC 5 in 2019- enemies get a subtitle during their first appearance (taken from Bayonetta), weapons getting a slight glint when the player pauses to let them know they can launch a pause combo attack (also taken from Bayonetta) and a dynamic soundtrack that racketed up the higher your style rank got, alongside the killing blow at the end of a fight getting a cinematic camera angle. These are all features that were genuine improvements over Devil May Cry 4, and while Bayonetta likely paved the way for most of these improvements, DmC still served as a test-bed to experiment on their integration with Devil May Cry as a whole.

The level design was also a huge step up from the earlier games. Dante’s whip functions made platforming far more varied that it had been in prior games, and these new traversal mechanics allowed for the level designers to stretch their legs. DmC arguably has, even in light of 5, some of the best platforming in the entire franchise, and a gorgeous color palette in some areas when Dante is in Limbo. Gothic European cities were cited as a huge influence by the team, Barcelona in particular, and it shows whenever Dante is outside as he gets dragged into Limbo. The idea of the city itself being a weapon of Mundus that tries to kill Dante is inspired, with obvious homages to Inception, and allows for the designers to make environments that at the drop of a hat can try to kill Dante. The team did their best to bring their unique aesthetic mixture of grunge and color to life, and even goes through a full color script. The downside is that exploration is rarely allowed beyond side paths that lead to collectables, meaning the player is on rails for much of the game.

DmC’s largest gameplay addition is in Dante’s Devil Arms. As he progesses through the game, Dante absorbs angelic and demon weapons from the bosses, gaining Angel Weapons that serve as fast crowd control, and Demon Weapons that are single-target but heavily damaging. Both of these sets of weapons are accessed by holding a trigger button during combat, allowing Dante to fluidly switch between weapons as the situation calls for it. One of my personal favorite applications of this tactic was to use Rebellion’s opening two slices to lead into Arbiter’s Trinity Smash as it was easier for me to read the above-mentioned glint tell on Rebellion. Alongside Dante’s firearms, it gives the player eight different weapons to switch between in combat, allowing for some unique combo potential, albeit potential that isn’t as deep as the original games. Dante losing his styles from DMC3 and 4 alongside the unique moves from those styles like Royal Guarding and jump cancelling was a particularly heavy blow for the hardcore fans, to say nothing of the revulsion generated by the color-coded enemies who could only be hurt by specific weapons.

Another heavy blow for the fans was the handling of Dante’s Devil Trigger, which gives Dante his traditional color palette, slows time to a crawl and gave Dante an attack and speed boost, alongside automatically sending most enemies flying into the air upon activation. The air-boosted hurt the usage of Devil Trigger in the long run, as it reduced whatever encounter it was activated in a stomp for the player- even Dante’s basic combos could tear through enemy health with DT active. Devil Trigger in the original games was a mixture of emergency button and power boost, but here it just serves as an “I win” button on whatever enemy irks you today.

And yet for all that can be said of DmC at launch, it could have been worse. Despite being busy with Dragon’s Dogma, Itsuno still served as an executive producer of the reboot and often gave Ninja Theory advice on areas to improve the gameplay mechanically. One such story goes that Itsuno saw a design for an enemy with blades in its arms. Upon asking what purpose the blades served in combat and being told they had none, Itsuno ordered that the blades be removed. Capcom producer Motohide Eshiro later noted in a Famitsu interview that Ninja Theory had to be reigned in on several occasions in spite of the “go crazy” approach given to them in early design, in order to avoid the game receiving a rating that could potentially stonewall it being sold in physical stores in Japan.

Ultimately the gameplay failed to impress for DmC in 2013, which reflected poorly in its sales. Capcom initially hoped for DmC to break 2 million units like DMC4 had back in 2008, but then quietly lowered the projected sales to 1.2 million. Rumors circulate to this day that Capcom were so desperate to boost the game’s poor sales that when DmC was part of the PS+ membership offer in January 2014, Capcom counted PS+ downloads as part of the sales for the game. In a financial report for 2013, while not speaking of DmC by name, Capcom spoke of a "delayed response to the expanding digital contents market," "insufficient coordination between the marketing and the game development divisions in overseas markets," and a "decline in quality due to excessive outsourcing." Capcom would only report in June 2018, a full five and a half years post-launch, that DmC had met the original sale goals of 2.3 million units. But it wasn’t the gameplay that ultimately turned off the fans and prevented Capcom’s sales pitches from becoming reality. No, that matter fell to the story.

3) Story

DmC’s story isn’t so much a straw that breaks the camel’s back, as it is an anvil. Regardless of your opinions on the gameplay, the story is where DmC comes to a grinding, screeching halt and fails to capture any of the essence of what made Dante and characters from the original setting interesting or even cool. Before we dive into the narrative itself, we need to discuss what started the controversy back in 2010 at TGS, and that’s Dante.

Dante is simply not likable in the reboot. While the original Dante was a goofball and a bit of a jackass, he always backed up his actions with flashy deeds and was ultimately a good-hearted man. In this setting, Ninja Theory try so hard to make Dante cool and badass that it loops around and makes him look like a petulant child’s version of what’s cool- a hard-drinking loner who has threesomes with strippers in his trailer by the amusement park. Dante in DMC4 threw Shakespeare quotes out at Agnus, while Dante in DmC screams “Fuck you!” at demons and writes profanity on clipboards. Nothing about Dante carries that effortless swagger that the original had. His smug, IDGAF attitude tries to make him cool and more fitting for the gritty tone but it’s so different from the original Dante that the subsequent tonal clash makes Dante a much more poorly written character. Again, this is something that must be put at Capcom’s feet and not Ninja Theory, as they were the ones telling the developers to westernize Dante, but the end product stills fails to match up with what came before.

While Dante does have an arc over the game that sees him develop concern for the people close to him and humanity as a whole, the characterization and framing regularly undermines his arc. Dante is written as the archetype of “Jerk with a heart of gold,” but as a direct violation of a core rule of this character- that they must be fun to view and see their antics as an audience member- Dante fails to meet this tenant and it makes his obnoxious, smug and asshole moments taint the character and make it difficult to care for his struggles. Rather than see Dante’s dark backstory that puts his behavior into context and makes you understand why he’s so sullen and bitter, the audience just sees Dante being a smug jackass, and one who takes himself too seriously to be fun like mainline Dante. The one time I buy that Dante genuinely cares for other people is at the Order hideout raid when he stays in order to guide Kat through being arrested, and stays with her as the SWAT officers shoot her and beat her unconscious. His facial expression sells his anguish at seeing Kat be brutalized like this and it contains the best acting from Tim Phillips.

Ironically, despite how hated Methhead Dante was, I do have to wonder what the game would have been like had the developers stuck to their guns and committed to their original idea for the character- someone with psychosis who has no clue if he’s actually seeing and killing demons or if he’s just a mass murdering lunatic. It might have been even worse or it could have made the game work. It’s probably for the best we don’t know what Methhead Dante would have been like, but part of me can’t help but wonder.

It’s important to understand all these problems with Dante, since as the protagonist, the story partly rests on his shoulders. While older Dante had the charisma in most of his appearances to be able to sell the weight of a story moment when he stopped fooling around, reboot Dante’s heavy angst focus means that feat is harder for him to accomplish, and it doesn’t help that his supporting cast are less than ideal.

I mentioned earlier Tameen’s “prostitutes with guns” remark aimed at the DMC female cast, and I think it’s amazing how little self-awareness he must have had to say that when his own story’s approach to female characters is frankly insulting. DmC has one of the most sexist stories I’ve yet seen in any media, and it’s galling when compared to the mainline entries, DMC3 in particular. Kat, Eva and Lillith are all plot devices, Eva being long-dead and existing just to give Dante motivation to kill Mundus, Lillith being the stereotypical sexy villainess who gets reduced to her womb, while Kat is basically the subject of a snuff film with how she gets brutalized by the plot and the camera makes sure you see all of her injuries in extensive detail. And this all goes without saying how the second act revolves around the two female characters in the narrative being traded like Pokemon cards only for Vergil to perform the now-infamous sniper rifle abortion.

It doesn’t matter what joke you’re making in your head right now, it’s still not half as tasteless as this actual scene

Speaking of Vergil, his depiction in DmC is genuinely upsetting and while I’ve seen people argue for Dante’s arc in the reboot, Vergil is almost universally despised and seen as a black mark on the prime version of Vergil. Putting aside the sniper rifle abortion, Vergil is just not written well and he never gives the impression of being powerful. Vergil’s opening scene has him say point-blank to Dante “I’m powerless to stop you,” words that should never flow out of the mouth of anyone claiming to be Vergil. It doesn’t get much better as throughout the game, Vergil hands all the major physical parts of the plan against Mundus to Dante to preserve the secret of Vergil’s Nephilim heritage. The problem with this is that Vergil subsequently never gets to show his stuff in a fight until the very end of the game when he fights Dante and suddenly has a lot of his moveset from the old series transplanted. It makes moments like Vergil hiding behind a barrier at the hands of one demon that Dante has to kill undermine his character and make him look like a coward, to say nothing of his awkward heel-turn which just shows up for the sake of having a final boss. Compared to the depiction of Dante and Vergil’s rivalry in Devil May Cry 3, which was amazing on a thematic and character level, DmC falls flat on its own shoelaces. And the character Vergil gains through his DLC is just further unpleasantness as he rips off Bleach and the Hollow Ichigo fight wholesale. Vergil is just a mistake in this game, and alongside Dante is the cardinal sin in its writing.

Mundus represents a lot of the larger problems with DmC’s story, in particular its on-the-nose message and symbolism. The game is so focused on making sure you get the point that “Hey, we’ve seen this niche film called They Live and it’s the sickest shit also FUCK THE MAN, CAPITALISM SUCKS, WAKE UP SHEEPLE,” that Mundus doesn’t really get to be a proper villain. He’s just this stereotypical slimy corporation guy, with one slight hint to his character in that he’s obsessed with continuing his lineage. The problem is that his lack of writing makes him boring and one-note, a cliche rule-the-world dictator that’s been done to death. He’s not even a major threat in gameplay, his boss fight just being a giant blob monster. It’s visually drab and has the most boring boss fight in the game. Mundus may not have had much personality or screentime in the original DMC1, but he made up for it with a powerful presence that made him feel dangerous. This Mundus is just a bald guy in a suit. The only fear he puts in me is the fear that I’ll drop my controller when I fall asleep.

DmC’s story is a mess. While structurally well-put together, its dialogue is often weak and cringeworthy, most of the villains have no real staying power beyond Barbas, Vergil is a waste of the character name, Kat and Lillith are plot devices and Dante is just a jackass. It’s a cast of unlikable people being unlikable jerks to each other and when the story it’s making me sick with how repulsive it can be with its tone deaf themes and sexism, it’s putting me to sleep with how fucking dull it is.

4) Definitive Edition

The post launch years of DmC weren’t kind to Ninja Theory or Capcom. Capcom retracted their Western development philosophy after a string of flops resulted from it, while Ninja Theory became the whipping boy of the action community for several years post-launch, which led to the now infamous GDC presentation where Dante was photoshopped onto scenes from Brokeback Mountain by someone who had no hand in designing Dante’s old costumes:

Revenge, evidently, is a dish best served cold

What didn’t help them was that 2013 also saw the launch of Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, Platinum’s take on the Metal Gear franchise that quickly gained the adoration of the action fanbase while leaving DmC in the dust. According to Dante’s voice actor Reuben Landgon, Itsuno apparently was extremely close to retiring after DmC, and Capcom had to offer him the chance to finally make DMC5 before he decided to not quit (though this story has been disputed by Capcom USA producer Matt Walker).

Capcom, like many publishers, has taken Sony and Microsoft both refusing to have backwards compatibility in the PS4 and Xbox One as an excuse to re-release many of their old titles on the new console platforms, often slapping a new coat of paint onto the game and potentially adding achievement/trophy support and calling it a day. In the case of DmC though, the team went above and beyond in solving many of the mechanical problems that players had complained about in the following two years.

Released in March 2015, DmC Definitive Edition was handled more by Japanese side of the Capcom team, and they set to work on making DmC more mechanically in-line in with the mainline entries, as covered by this extensive changelog. 60FPS was an advertised feature on the box, Dante got multiple costumes that let players play with white hair, the style rank system was retooled to punish repetition more harshly and a slew of balance changes were made to the core game- some even based on PC mods players had made of DmC’s original PC port like a lock on function, though sadly the adventures of Donté, el exterminador de demonios didn’t serve such a function.

youtube

Rest in piece, you brave soul.

The Definitive Edition goes leaps and bounds in solving the pressing issues of DmC. With the combat balanced and framerate bumped up, the combat had a much better flow to it. In particular the addition of a new mode, Must Style, where Dante can only damage enemies when he has an S Rank or higher, received a warm reception from the fans to the point where it was hoped that DMC5 would adopt it. With the DE upgrades, DmC goes from a flawed game with potential to being one of the best attempts by the West to emulate Devil May Cry’s frantic, stylish mode of gameplay while adding variety to how the combat and level design was handled. But even two years on, the damage had been done; while Definitive Edition was well-received by hardcore fans, it still failed to set the world on fire sales wise, and in fact was outsold by DMC4′s own HD remake that launched that year, even though the Special Edition was a digital only purchase outside of Japan. In fact, DMC4SE’s sales were so strong Capcom noted them as being behind the company having a good financial quarter during 2015, which many saw as an ironic nail in the coffin for any hopes for the DmC universe getting continuation.

There was no saving the story unfortunately, barring removing Vergil’s laughably pathetic fedora and one especially cringeworthy line from Lillith (”The world is at last your bitch, as am I. Nothing left, but to grab it by the hair, bend it over and-”), which means that much of the issues that DmC’s story presented are still haunting the overall product. One new scene added in the game has Dante calling out Vergil for shooting Lillith and causing countless deaths from Mundus’s rampage, but the scene was itself criticized for missing the point in the fan anger to Vergil’s .50 caliber coat hanger. And the further away the player and time gets from DmC’s outdated-at-launch messages and symbolism, the more the script just fails to entertain or educate, leaving just apathy and the ability to mock it.

5) Conclusion- Left in Limbo

DmC Devil May Cry is... alright. It’s not the worst game I’ve ever played and there’s far too many good things here for me to even call it a boring game. The level design and color palette has real moments of beauty, the combat system is a decent showing from Ninja Theory with Capcom supervision and the Definitive Edition showed that the teams from both cultures acknowledged the feedback and made a more mechanically satisfying game to play. DmC is one of the best Western attempts at emulating the over-the-top action of Japanese games alongside Darksiders 2 and does deserve credit for being a satisfying experience to play.

Where it falls apart is whenever control is taken from the player. This story is just terrible and wrought with bad choices that haunt the entire experience and taint the game by association. DmC’s cutscenes are almost slimy in how detestable they are, and it is odd that they inspired such loathing from me on my first run while I was left feeling nothing towards the entire cast other than pity towards Vergil due to what had been done to him on a writing level. I must repeat that I have never played a game as derogatory in its depiction of women as DmC and I pray I never will.

DmC is a flawed experience, perhaps one that you should experience yourself so you can formulate your own opinion on the matter. I wouldn’t recommend it for full-price but if you see it on sale for ten bucks, you can do worse- if nothing else, get some friends over and laugh at the story to get past the cutscenes and onto the mostly-decent gameplay. But you can also do a lot better, being honest. Ultimately DmC is this weird relic of Capcom’s attempts to branch out into the West, and one that ultimately just.. happened with no real lasting impact. Itsuno went on to make DMC5, Ninja Theory and Tameen redeemed themselves in the eyes of many with Hellblade and then got bought by Microsoft, while Capcom finally started to turn around and starting with the 8th console generation, made a concentrated effort to return to the “Capgod” reputation that they had before the 7th gen. Everyone came out of this story with a happy ending and got what they wanted, but that leaves DmC as this odd relic of a weird time in gaming, albeit one that certainly made... memorable experiences.

Thank you for reading.

I guess a million years just comes in at... about five or six.

#devil may cry #dmc devil may cry #dante devil may cry #devil may cry 5 #vergil devil may cry #devil may cry analysis #kat devil may cry #ninja theory #capcom #hideaki itsuno #tameen antoniades

32 notes · View notes

ettadunham · 5 years

Text

A Buffy rewatch 2x15 Phases

aka male aggression and the Buffy feminism

Welcome to this dailyish text post series where I will rewatch an episode of Buffy and point out / hyperfocus on one detail in it in 10-3k words. Or maybe go through each and every random scene I choose. Rules are fake.

And today’s episode is one that I enjoy and love immensely, but it’s also the perfect opportunity to talk about the dreaded subject:

Why does Buffy’s feminism feel dated?

But before that, it’s time for everyone’s* (*my) favorite segment - Buffy/Willow out of context.

Buffy: Meow! Willow: Really? Thanks. I've never gotten a 'meow' before.

Even Larry’s being gross about wanting ‘some of that Buffy/Willow action’... And like... I know that you’re going through stuff my dude, but still., don’t ruin this for the rest of us.

Willow is also complaining about guys and dudes in general at least three different times in this episode. (Sometimes to Buffy, but sometimes to Cordelia??? I’m definitely sleeping on that ship.) And I’m just sitting here being like... aw, honey... you really don’t need them... trust me.

Anyhow, we could be sitting here dissecting all that, but I set out with a different goal today, and I’m trying to cut it short, so let’s talk.

Buffy feminism.

At this point anyone in and out of the fandom is familiar with the debate of how Buffy’s - and in turn, Whedon’s - feminism has aged, and that while it had a huge impact on its time and laid the groundwork for today’s popculture scene, we’ve evolved since then.

And I don’t think many would negate a lot of that. The Buffy feminism certainly lacks intersectionality and works with a lot of tropes and archetypes that has its fair share of negative elements and implications. And Whedon’s later work have memorably been taken to court by fandom for such cases.

So the question that I ended up on some time ago was a natural result of that trail of thought.

Was Buffy ever intended to be feminist?

Spoiler alert: the answer is both yes and no. It’s Schroedinger’s feminism.

But first, I want to make it clear that I don’t intend to argue that Buffy isn’t feminist, or didn’t influence our culture massively in that direction. In the 90s, a show with a female lead was still the outlier, and the fact that it gained such a universal following is somewhat mind-blowing. Especially if you consider the grudge our culture holds against teenage girls, even today.

On top of that, Buffy’s character concept goes against the idea of the Strong Female Character (often known as Female Side Character With Some Masculine Traits To Show That She’s Not Like Other Girls Who Can Kind Of Hold Her Own Next To Our Male Lead But He’s Still Better At Things Of Course), by being both immensely powerful and unabashedly teen girly. And then only becoming more complex and memorable as the seasons went on.

Not to mention the fact that the show also had an even ratio of female:male co-stars for most of its run. Meaning that there were plenty of other female characters to develop beside the titular lead, making it a largely female-driven series in general.

As a result of all that, it’s no wonder that Whedon gained a reputation as a staunch feminist - and again, he was a trailblazer when it came to female-led television shows... But I think conflating his ideals with the show’s themes is where we fell into a pitfall.

People complaining about diversity in media often cite ‘agendas’ or ‘pandering’. Which is an immensely simplified (and stupid) way to look at things that is meant to paint going against the norms in a negative way. See, if the creators decide to include characters of different backgrounds because it’s important to them, or because they want to talk about their own experiences, then they have an ‘agenda’. The agenda being using art to talk about things they find important, I guess...

And then there’s this idea that studios / companies / creators just want to please an under-served audience, and profit out of their enthusiasm when they make such media. In contrast to pleasing the audience of the status quo 90% of the time otherwise. I guess.

I’m bringing this all up because the argument that a lot of these people bring up is that representation and diversity is okay if there’s a “reason” for it. Which... yeah, we already covered why I think this line of thinking is so incredibly flawed, but on the other hand... I think Buffy actually satisfies that criteria.

Ideas such as gender roles are baked into show’s concept. Buffy is literally fighting the patriarchy and rape culture (among other things), so it only makes sense that she’s a girl. Meanwhile the character who will end up being gay is the one who struggles the most with their identity. These things are literally building into the bigger picture that the show’s attempting to make.

Now, I will say this though - differentiating and drawing the lines between these things (sincere desire for representation vs. financial strategy vs. exploring themes) is impossible. Everything can be a little bit of each or something else entirely. That’s also why debating intent to undermine representation is such a cheap transparent move.

Nevertheless, I have decided to approach Buffy’s feminism and many of its other themes from the angle of thematic intent. And this episode is a prime example of how the heightened reality of toxic masculinity and its deconstruction look like on the show.

Phases is very unsubtle when stating its thesis. All men are beasts (a reoccurring theme for sure). And for that we have three male characters to examine: Oz, Larry and Cain. (And to a lesser extent Xander and Giles)

Cain is pretty much the least complex of all. He’s a misogynistic douchebag who constantly berates Buffy for “being a girl”, while also hunting essentially human beings for money. He’s completely one-dimensional and irredeemable, and the only thing he’s good for is so Buffy could destroy his gun and tell him to get the hell out of town.

I suppose he’s also there to contrast Giles, but there’s not much there to talk about. Giles respects and supports Buffy, I guess.

Now, Larry and Oz - that’s a more interesting contrast.

Larry was previously introduced as Xander’s bully, but this episode goes above and beyond establishing him as an all around creep. He makes gross comments at all the girls and literally gropes Buffy, and it all culminates in the Scoobies deducting that he must be the werewolf for being so aggressive and douchey.

And then it turns out that... no, he’s just gay. Which, like... the Gay Bully is certainly a trope that’s probably died out at this point, but this does make sense in the context of this episode and the show’s tendency to deconstruct. The idea that performative aggression like Larry’s can actually be a sign of an unresolved conflict with ourselves. And once that’s resolved, we can find a way to live without that facade and be our more authentic self.

Which is an interesting way to contrast him with Oz, as he appears to be the sweetest, chillest guy in the whole Sunnydale area. He literally tucks the tag on Willow’s shirt back like??? Too good for this world.

But then it turns out that he’ll now also become a werewolf 3 days out of a month, a creature of pure instinct and aggression. And given how reserved Oz is in his day-to-day life, that’s an interesting dichotomy. Is that supposed to represent him getting his rage on and finally letting loose of his emotions, or does it suggest a more aggressive inner layer of his character in general?

(Future knowledge mostly points towards the former, but I feel like it’d be interesting to talk about Oz from the latter perspective.)

It’s also an interesting tidbit how the episode mentions that the werewolf could be female, but then continues to refer to them as a ‘he’ anyway. It’s as if the episode is self-aware of its own theme.

...But then we get a lycanthropy- period cycle parallel made in the end anyway, when Willow’s like ‘well, I’m not much fun to be around 3 days-a-month either’. So there’s that.

Then there’s Xander. I’ve recently heard about an alleged quote where Whedon apparently said that they considered writing either Willow or Xander as gay at some point. And that was certainly in my head during Larry’s coming out scene, which makes Xander’s intense no-homo reaction much more layered. He’s essentially Larry in that scenario, aggressively trying to ignore his own inner conflict.

...Which also made me think of another coming out scene on the show and Buffy’s initial, if brief reaction to it.

Looking at Xander’s character from this angle also puts his obsession with his masculinity into perspective. Although his character arc, especially given the show’s themes about gender roles, remains interesting either way.

Oh yeah, and he’s super jealous about Willow and Oz. We’ll definitely get back to that in S3.

Buffy’s comment about Oz being the loyal type meanwhile is S4 material.

Onwards!

#buffy rewatch 2k19 #btvs talk #btvs

4 notes · View notes

noirandchocolate · 5 years

Note

Just thought I'd ask- do you know any good place to get reference on how to write appellate briefs on the web? I want to include a good sample memo when applying for legal jobs, but don't really have any knowledge on how to go about it. It's totally cool if you prefer not to answer, but you seemed like the person to ask! Thanks for your time :v

Ah, I don’t have any specific references to point to for samples because I kind of “learned on the job” in my couple law school writing classes and then at work. If you’re looking for work in a specific state, it could help to google “sample appellate briefs [state].” I just did that for New Jersey and got a few samples that are, if not great, then at least a good jumping-off point as to format. If you’ve got access to Westlaw, they have a section of briefs for every state, too. They’re real briefs filed by real attorneys, so again it’s going to be kind of varied on quality, but could give you some ideas of what to include.

When it comes to writing a GOOD appellate brief, though, I can give a couple basic tips:

1) Preliminary statement should be short and sweet. Present the client’s position VERY concisely.

2) Procedural history should also be clear and concise. “On [date], plaintiff moved for summary judgment. Following oral argument on [date], the court denied the motion on [date].” You don’t need to go into the court’s specific findings here–that goes in your facts.

3) Facts section should tell the story of the case, in chronological order wherever possible. In other words, don’t go through the record like “Witness who Testified First said she saw plaintiff get up and walk away from the car accident. Expert Witness who Testified Second Due to Scheduling Conflicts But Who Otherwise Has Nothing to Do With This Case said sometimes brakes can fail in defendant’s model of car. Witness who Testified Third said he saw defendant’s car run the red light and hit plaintiff’s car.” This probably sounds like obvious advice but…I read briefs all the time that get this wrong.

4) If you find your facts section is getting really long, either pare it down or add section headings. A huge wall of information is easier to digest for your reader if you break it down into things like “Initial Contracts Between the Parties,” “Development of the Business Relationship,” “2009 Bankruptcy Proceedings,” and “Current Litigation.” For a sample brief or memo, this probably won’t be necessary because you might want to stick to something shorter and less complicated that still showcases your writing abilities, but still. Advice for the future!

5) Facts section is where you talk about the court’s findings in whatever decision(s) you’re/your opponent is appealing. Probably for a writing sample you’d only be working with one decision, like a grant of summary judgment or an evidence ruling. “In denying defendant’s motion to suppress, the court found that her confession was voluntary. It stated that [stuff].” This is very important to include in an appellate brief–this is what you’re appealing from, or what you’re saying should be affirmed!

6) When you’re writing your argument sections, include the standard of review for each issue up front. “On appeal, the reviewing court considers an administrative agency’s decisions using an abuse of discretion standard. Thus, such a decision should only be reversed if [stuff, using quotes from case law].”

7) This is the part where Issue-Rule-Analysis-Conclusion from writing classes comes in handy. “Defendant argues that _______. In X v. Y, the Supreme Court held that [relevant holding]. In that case, [a little about the facts of X v. Y and why the court held as it did]. By contrast, in Z v. W, [and so on, telling about relevant cases.] Here, as in X v. Y., defendant did [thing]. This case is unlike Z v. W, because [reasons]. As a result, the trial court erred by finding [stuff.]” Just for a simplified example!

8) CITES CITES CITES check your cites! You shouldn’t be saying anything about what the law is, without citing. Use exact quotes whenever possible, paraphrase when a direct quote is clunky or too long.

8) This is more of a practicing law thing than a writing sample thing but DON’T COMPLETELY LEAVE OUT OR HIDE UNFAVORABLE CASE LAW AND ABSOLUTELY DO NOT SAY A CASE SAYS SOMETHING IT DOES NOT SAY. The court WILL find out. Either your opponent will point it out (especially if you’re the appellant–the respondent will read your brief and then rat you out in their own brief!), someone like me who works for the courts will research and find out and tell the judges, or the judges will do their own research and find out. If the case you’re working on has elements from two or more precedents and you want the court to go one way instead of the other, focus on how X v. Y is closer factually/situationally to your case and how Z v. W is distinguishable. Don’t just leave out Z v. W (especially if it came after X v. Y and modifies that holding) and ignore the stuff that’s against you. It actually makes your argument seem stronger, and YOU MORE CREDIBLE, if you say something like, “Although [case] held that [something unfavorable to your client], this case was limited to its precise circumstances/my case is different in this important way.” Ultimately, you are advocating for your client, but you can do that by using your words instead of omitting things on purpose. We find out. We’ll laugh or get mad and you don’t want either of those things! For a writing sample, including something like this can also show that you a) know how to do this and advocate against odds that aren’t perfectly in your favor, b) are a good legal thinker who can come up with creative arguments, and c) want to be seen as credible and honest–which is truly what you want to be in front of the courts.

9) I went on a rant there didn’t I.

10) Organize the argument section in order of importance but if you’re doing a criminal one always put sentencing issues at the end. It’s just nicer that way. Or if you’re talking about something specific that has multiple parts, like The Negligence Elements (a favorite of law school writing professors), it won’t be order of importance it’ll just be the elements in order, but you know what I mean.

11) End every part of your argument section (if you have more than one issue that is) by bringing it back around to the appropriate standard of review and summarizing why you should win. “Thus, the court committed plain error by doing C, which had a clear capacity to bring about an unjust result.” “Based on the foregoing, there were no substantial disputes of material fact present in this matter, and the court properly granted summary judgment to defendant.”

12) Your conclusion section should be extremely short, usually only a couple of sentences like “In sum, [these errors happened and are reversible].”

13) PLEASE DON’T DO BOMBASTIC RHETORIC ANYWHERE IN YOUR BRIEF. You can advocate, and sometimes use strong language, but again you’re just going to make people laugh if you go on and on about the injustice of it all, or something. Only use clever turns of phrase very sparingly, if at all. I literally just read a brief today where the defendant wrote, “This remand was not meant to be a game of 52 card pickup, but the court turned it into 520 or even 5,200 card pickup.” I have no idea what that is supposed to mean and neither will any of the judges deciding this case. Don’t do it!

14) If you have like, more specific questions about what to do or not do you can ask me, because I fear I’ve just kind of gone off on tangents here. But also the most important thing I can say is just make your sample sound as professional as possible. This isn’t prose fiction, it’s a specific kind of technical writing. Done right (and with the right subject matter), it won’t be completely boring and dry, but it’s going to always be kind of dry. Oh also the other most important thing I can suggest is reading your stuff out loud to someone not involved with law. If they can understand what you’re trying to say about a law concept, you probably did a good job.

Okay I’m going to stop because this is way too long and I’m concerned I didn’t even answer the question that was asked in a helpful way but I hope. I maybe. Gave some decent advice on legal writing in general? Eheh.

#kidk says stuff #law #work #i might be a bit not good at writing advice because i can only generalize #also i just kind of learned by osmosis and DOING it #been doing it for ten years for money now and i'm STILL improving with every piece i produce #smallricochet #ask

6 notes · View notes

georgesmithddayear2infographics · 5 years

Text

World Chocolate Day Infographic Process

25.10.18

This will probably be quite a long post, but I’ll do my best.

So, we had been given the mini-project of essentially creating an infographic on a particular area of chocolate in celebration of world chocolate day—the history of chocolate, for example. The post below this one contains my research on the history of chocolate in fact, though it has much more information, like the uses and effects of chocolate. Have a read through that if you want an insight into how chocolate came about. Anyway, long story short, I chose to do trivia for my infographic, since there was a lot of trivia I’d gathered, and I thought it would be fun to make certain graphics, like an Aztec or the money.

Sketchbook Work

So below are two pages of my sketchbook which I designated to drawing out ideas which I thought would look good from the information which I collated. I’ll start with the Aztec in the top left—I thought it compulsory to make an Aztec warrior-looking guy, since chocolate was enjoyed by them back then. I looked at a couple different random references of Aztecs, and came up with the simple design that you see. I also drew a mug of hot chocolate next to him, since it was enjoyed as a “hot, frothy stimulative with restorative properties”. Next to that is another mug with a kind of spotlight shining on it—it’s supposed to look like some kind of heavenly ray, hence the clouds also. This was because it was the “food for the gods”.

Below the top row of drawings, are a couple of Olmecs, the earliest known major civilization in Mexico following a progressive development in Soconusco. They are said to have produced chocolate in present-day Mexico as early as 1900 B.C., so I thought it necessary to celebrate them and make graphics of them. They were fun to draw—they have very defined facial features. I put a simplified version of the Mexican flag behind them too, and some cocoa beans in front of them, to make it look like they just discovered them. Also 1900 B.C. for measure. Below them is one I thought would be fun to digitise in Illustrator—the cocoa beans to currency. Yeah, they were used as currency back then. It’s just two stacks of coins and some dollar bills flying around. Next I drew a simple couple getting married, since you would use hot chocolate in ceremonies and such. There’s a little heart and a mug of chocolate above them too. Then at the bottom of the first page lay five flags of Europe, which says when chocolate reached each country, until it reached Britain.

Onto the next page, I started by drawing a mug of chocolate (final mug of hot chocolate counter: 4) which looks pretty random since I forgot to annotate why it’s there, but it wasn’t really important anyway, since it was there to show how chocolate was used in Mexico, which was just as hot chocolate. Next to this is a Formula One car, which runs on chocolate, among other things, but I’m not very good at drawing cars, so it didn’t turn out very well. Then on the left again is one of my favorite drawings on these two pages—it’s a bottle of medicine with some cocoa beans and text that reads: TAKE TWO A DAY on the front. It was discovered that the Yucatan used medicine containing cocoa beans. Then finally on the right, there is a dismembered head—I mean happy face enjoying a bar of chocolate. Above are miniature dismembe—happy faces which are supposed to portray dopamine, which essentially makes you feel good. Oh, and to his left is a health cross underneath a no entry sign, which shows that chocolate isn’t good for your health. That’s everything for my sketchbook work, but I also wrote some notes on other aspects of my infographic, like what kind of palette I would use. I didn’t use one since I had way too many assets to stick to one palette of around 6 colours, so I thought I would just use colours corresponding to the respective asset. I will probably use my usual slightly desaturated colours overall. As for fonts and such, I will most likely use sans-serif fonts since it will fit better with a bouncy, colourful infographic.

Anyway, to start with the process, I created that mug of hot chocolate that I was oh so excited to make (actually not sarcasm). It was fun to make, as was mostly everything else on my final infographic. It’s comprised of a couple main shapes, like rounded rectangles and a circle that I cut into with a smaller circle for the handle. I added a shine across the visible hot chocolate at the top and gave it a nice glow. I gave the mug a slight white to blue gradient and a drop shadow underneath the rim of the mug at the top, to give some more depth. That was it for the mug. Next it was time to create what I thought would probably be the most fun to make—the Aztec dude. It was indeed fun to make, and basically, I started by making a shape using the line tool for the head. I made his head quite toned and refined, he’s an Aztec warrior dude after all, I think he’s worthy of one. I gave it a slight gradient (I really like using subtle gradients) from red-brown to a more slightly desaturated brown. The facial features were fun to make—I mainly used the pen tool as well as some basic shapes that I warped to my liking. The crown(?) turned out good too and was fun to make, it’s just some rounded rectangles and some circles that look like bolts or something. Next I made the feathers which stick out from the crown(?). I made them red and green to keep it simple.

I’m kind of proud of this particular asset, so here is a bigger image of it: https://imgur.com/a/l5XgL0v

Next up I thought I would make the stone Olmec statue, which again was fun to make. It’s comprised of a bunch of (warped) shapes like rounded rectangles, again, and then lots of pen tool-created things, like the mouth and the laugh lines around his mouth. The shadow under the nose I thought was a nice touch, and also the shade under the helmet thingy. Alongside this, I made a golden ring using the ellipse tool and placed it around the mug of hot chocolate. I did this because I’d tried doing that heavenly light thing that I mentioned in my sketchbook work, but I couldn’t really get it to look good, so I did this much more subtle nod to the fact that hot chocolate was the “food for the gods”.

This next screenshot is a big update—So after I’d made the Olmec dude, I duplicated it and placed it next to him, like with what I did in my sketchbook, except they were both different. Anyway, I stayed faithful with the Mexican flag behind them—albeit, a bit of a simplified version of it. Then I went on to make the cocoa beans that would be placed in front of them to make it look like they stumbled upon them—discovering them if you will. The beans were fairly simple to make, I just made some ellipses and warped them a bit, and gave them a brown gradient. Next, I wanted to make the money, which I thought would be pretty fun to make, and it was, and the result was very good in my opinion. I had initially planned on doing just two stacks of coins, but after I created one, which I did so by making some rounded rectangles and then adding some lines on the sides to look like ridges. Then I duplicated it and accidentally placed it over the top of the original, and so I thought that it might look good if I did multiple stacks which made them look 3D. For the notes, I just made a rectangle and put some ellipses in and some random letters and numbers. Then I went to envelop distort under object and then I clicked on wave to make it look like it was waving.

Next, I moved onto the flags of Europe, these flags were to show what year chocolate reached that particular country. 1528 for Spain, 1606 for France, 1615 for Italy, 1646 for Germany, and finally 1650 for Britain. I made the Spanish flag much more simplified than it actually is since it would take a long time to get it to match with the actual Spanish flag, so I decided to just make a kind of shield shape and put a white square in the top right of it since those were the main details. The rest of the flags were just comprised of rectangles, though the Union Jack was kind of tedious to make since I had to make different sizes of rectangles and put them in the correct places. Either way, this was probably the most tedious part about making the graphics, but at least I’m satisfied with how they turned out.

Now I had to make the two people getting married with the mug of chocolate and the heart above them, to show that it was used in ceremonies like weddings. The two people were fairly easy to make, using ellipses for heads and rounded rectangles for torsos. For the bride’s head, I put a put a transparent sheet over her head since that’s what they tend to wear. The man is in a simple suit and tie. I gave him some hair using the pen tool. After this, I decided to make the bottle of chocolate medicine, which I made using the rectangle tool for the bottle and then the pen tool for the top and the rounded rectangle tool once again for the cap. I duplicated the shape and put it inside the original and coloured it a dark brown and made a shine on the left side by cutting into the shape using the pen tool. I also added the label which I drew in my sketchbook that says “TAKE TWO A DAY” and some cocoa beans at the top.

Lastly, for the assets, it was time to make the happy face who’s eating a bar of chocolate. It was fairly easy to create since I’ve made a similar thing in another class recently, that and it’s just a simple face. I chose a nice yellow with an orange stroke and used the ellipse tool for the head as well as another shape to cut into an ellipse to make it into a semicircle (for the mouth and eyes). The hand was also easy to make, it’s just a rounded rectangle with some pen strokes to look like fingers. Again, the chocolate bar was simple—it is just a rectangle with some squares inside using the pen tool and the same gradient that I used for the cocoa beans and the medicine bottle. Finally, (for now) I made the health cross and the no entry sign to show that it’s not good for health. Both easy to make—just using basic tools and methods.

So, after finishing the assets (for now) I moved onto the layout, which I had a couple of ideas of what I would do. So what I did was make some squares and gave them some depth by making them look like they were sticking out. The whole background would be a faded chocolate bar, faded so it wouldn’t take away from the assets that I’d made. I think I pulled it fairly well in my opinion. For the title, I thought I would keep it simple by just calling it “World Chocolate Day” in some very appealing browns might I add. I chose an easy-to-read font that is quite blocky. Moving on, I made these card things which would have my assets on along with some trivia relating to the image. I think they look quite appealing—the brown with spots and the cream-coloured border, they look like some kind of chocolate snack. I decided to put the Aztec underneath the border, so I cut into him. Then I put the hot chocolate mug with the golden ring under the text, and lowered the opacity. For the text, I made it white and in a font that is clearly legible. Underneath this is the one containing the flags, which I resized as I thought they were the most flexible assets on here, and it wouldn’t matter if I’d made them even smaller than they are now. I made the dates underneath also clear to read, going from white to yellow on the end where Britain is, to show that’s where it ends, though this might be a bit misleading.

Next up I duplicated the border from the first card and put it beneath the Olmec and the Mexican flag and the cocoa beans. Instead of putting the box around all of the things (namely the cocoa beans) I only put it around the Olmec and the flag as there’d be too much empty space if I did put it around the beans. Next to this is the box containing the cocoa beans to currency, which I think looks quite good—I made the money and cocoa beans stick out of the box (which is the original box with inverted colours). II changed the arrow which I made earlier because it looked really obnoxious and ugly in contrast with the nice browns which I’d picked out. Also I made it go down and right, instead of it just going straight right. Finally for this update, I just moved some of the remaining assets around until I found a place which I thought they would fit.

So I did move the assets around some more, and added some boxes behind them when I was happy with their positions. The wedding ceremony asset I am particularly pleased with, since it looks really nice with the box that I chose to put around it, and I like how I separated the text from the top. I also did this with the box in the bottom right which I recently added. Anyways, that box contains the medicine aspect of the graphic—I thought it was too plain with just the medicine bottle on its own, which I realised when I had placed the text—so I thought I would make other things relating to medicine, and so I made a syringe, as well as some small pills. To the left of this box is the health and effects of chocolate trivia, with the happy face and dopamine emanating from it, as well as the health cross which I put across from the happy face. I thought the best thing to do here would be to put the text between the two assets. With that, my graphic was pretty much complete, with some minor tweaks.

Final World Chocolate Day Infographic

Imgur link (clearer)

10 notes · View notes

mildredisabella · 3 years

Photo

Assignment 1: Stripping Down!

The Process

In this first major assignment, we had to take a photo of something around us and present the process of abstraction by stripping it down (no Liam Payne pun intended) to its base structure or construction. The photo I took was of my soft toy penguin, Pengy. I named him when I was a teen. (Yes I know, how original.) The rationale behind choosing this photo and object was initially because I assumed the shapes of the characters were distinct and I wanted to construct the image using these simple shapes i.e. circles etc.

Fig.1: Original Pengy photo

In the initial stages of my process of abstraction, I thought I could get away with simple shapes but then I realised that was not possible as Pengy was pretty unique-shaped. Hence, for the first abstraction, I decided to try and trace out Pengy’s original shape using the pen tool on illustrator (Fig.1)

Fig.2: Drawing of Pengy but coloured in with the 1 extra colour, Orange, besides Black and White.

Fig.3: Using the Fill tool and Paintbrush tool to colour Pengy in.

During the first stage of the abstraction process, I went with tracing the full image of Pengy and attempting to turn him from a 3D to 2D form. I also figured out to get smoother curves I could make use of the curvature tool which was how I attempted to get better curves and it made it easier when it came to the feet portion. On top of that, I was allowed 1 other colour of choice so I decided to go with the orange shade, #EF7A1D, as it was the colour I got from the colour dropper tool for his feet and beak. Hence, after tracing Pengy out and colouring him in that was how I obtained the first drawing of Pengy (Fig.2). To fill in the colours, I made use of the fill tool for the nose and for the rest of the elements that the fill tool didn’t work, I made use of the Paintbrush tool to colour it in (Fig.3).

In the second process of abstraction, I decided to remove the colours on Pengy so that it ended up as Pengy’s full figure without him being coloured in. From the audience’s POV, they could still make out that it was Pengy and he was my soft toy and it was simply the outline of him.

In the third picture, I decided to strip back the image even more and remove some of Pengy’s features like his hands, legs and cheeks which leaves the outline of him and his eyes and beak which is very unrecognisable by then.

In the last photo, I took out even more details in the eyes which left the bare skeleton of the image to which I got comments from my friends saying that he looks like the Mr Bean icon. That was when I realised I might have abstracted Pengy a little too much and it was almost pushing it.

Challenges

One of the main challenges that I had and came to realise after abstracting Pengy was that since Pengy is already white and black, it was hard to practise the abstraction process even further because of the lack of room that I was allowed to play with colours. This could probably also contribute to why I initially only had four (4) stages of abstraction compared to (5).

Critique and Edits

During the critique session, I received helpful feedback from my tutor and peers. Although my process of abstraction was headed in the right direction (I promise I’m not here to make one direction puns but I guess this is where we’re going with it), there were still issues that I needed to work on.

Some of the key points that were highlighted to me in this critique were:

To firstly define the characteristics of the penguin and see what is the best way I can go about abstracting it to keep its essence.

To include one more stage in the abstraction process anywhere that I deem fit.

To label the stages of abstraction.

Pengy looked too simplified to know what animal it was when it came to the final stage of abstraction.

Revised Edition

Fig.4: Pengy Final Abstraction for Submission

After getting the comments back, I decided to discard the previous draft and instead of Adobe Illustrator (AI), I tried using Photoshop (PS) to experiment with layers better and this was the final result (Fig.4). I have also included the labels for the different stages of abstraction to make it clearer and included in 1 more stage in between the original Stage 1 and 3 of my previous work and switched out or discarded some images for Stage 4 and 5 which I will explain further in the post.

Fig.5: Using paintbrush tool in PS.

Fig.6: The layers I used in Photoshop (PS) for the coloured photo.

Throughout the process of abstraction, I pretty much kept the same line of thought. In Stage 1, I made use of the pencil tool to trace the outline of Pengy before adding the different layers and elements (which I will attach with my final photo submission on LumiNUS) to get the final outline of Pengy. After drawing the full outline of Pengy, I then selected the Paintbrush tool to fill the colours in to make it more lifelike (Fig.5). I also added extra layers of the different shades of the colour so that the feet would be able to stand out more from the image. This is very different from my first draft as well as this time I decided to make use of layers to help make my drawing stand out a bit more.

Fig.7: Layers for the B&W image of Pengy

Fig.8: An example of the different shades of white in a PS layer to give Pengy’s belly a more textured look, #E9E7E6

In the second stage of abstraction, I decided to make use of Pengy’s natural colours (black and white) to represent it better which is shown in the workspace above (Fig.7). As a penguin is naturally black and white, I had to get creative in terms of making it more lifelike by playing around with the different shades of white (Fig.8). Hence, as I already had the outline of Pengy traced out, I then used the Paintbrush tool again to colour in the black and white. As noticed, the orange colour is now gone and replaced with the black colour on its beak and feet. Everything else remained the same and this was mainly to capture Pengy in black and white and bring out its natural colours.

In Stage 3, it is the full outline of Pengy with its eyes coloured in. The reason why this is is that I went back to the drawing board to figure out what was the best way to capture the essence of Pengy without removing too many details till the point where he would become unrecognisable which is also in response to feedback that I got. Afterwards, I realised it was the colouring of the eyes which brought it to life and made it look more realistic. I also realised that it’s the different layers such as the fur which makes it look more like a soft toy. Therefore, to achieve that effect on Photoshop and making the lines a little thicker, I used the hotkeys such as command F so that the outline of Pengy will stand out. In this abstraction, I also removed the colour from the beak and feet but left the outlines of the Pengy there.

In Stage 4, although I mentioned that it is the colouring of the eyes which is one of the ways that keeps Pengy from looking as close to the original image as possible, I decided to remove them in this stage. This is to solely focus on the outline of Pengy without the usage of any colours from the paintbrush tool function. Hence, the outline of Pengy remained with all the additional details like the eyebrows, head, feet, cheeks, and flippers/hands were still recognisable as well as made obvious.

In the last stage of abstraction, I decided to get rid of the extra features of Pengy such as its head, eyebrows, cheeks and remove the line from the beak. In this photo, no colour was used as well.

After reviewing this image, it was when I realised I might have needed to stop before going further. If I removed the hands and feet, Pengy would have ended up being in a weird blob which makes him very unrecognisable just like in the last stage of my critique. Hence, I decided to stop my abstraction process here as I felt that this was the simplest form where Pengy could be represented properly without deviating too far from the original 3D or 2D image.

#nm3217 #abstraction

0 notes

hollywoodjuliorivas · 4 years

Text

RowsKnowledge @ WhartonSearchWorld

TOPICS

REGIONS

RESEARCH

PODCASTS

ABOUT

LEADERSHIP

How an ‘Employees First’ Pandemic Response Pays Off

Jun 01, 2020

Podcasts Video

Latin AmericaNorth America

Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Google+ Email Print Comment Quote

Subscribe on iTunes!

MIC LISTEN TO THE PODCAST:

PriceSmart CEO Sherry Bahrambeygui talks with Wharton's Mike Useem about how she has led her company during the pandemic.

Audio Player

00:00

From the outset of the coronavirus pandemic, Sherry Bahrambeygui was sure of one time-honored adage: Take care of your employees, and they will take care of your business. Bahrambeygui, who is CEO of San Diego-based PriceSmart, a $3.3 billion operator of warehouse clubs, acted swiftly in February when the early signs of COVID-19 were visible.

A publicly traded company, PriceSmart operates 45 clubs in 13 different markets across the Caribbean, Central America and South America. Following the coronavirus outbreak, Bahrambeygui led her top management team to put in place remote working arrangements for employees in vulnerable circumstances, extending that by mid-March to most of its 9,000 employees, barring essential staff.

Bahrambeygui shared what she has learned from navigating the crisis during an interview with Wharton management professor Michael Useem as part of a new virtual event series titled “Leadership in the Wake of COVID-19: What Enterprise Leaders Will Need to Survive and Prosper in the Years Ahead.” The series is hosted by Knowledge@Wharton in partnership with the 2020 Wharton Leadership Conference, the Wharton Center for Human Resources, and the McNulty Leadership Program.

An edited transcript of the conversation follows.

Michael Useem: Sherry, let’s go back a couple of months. I think near February you were seeing the signs that the coronavirus was coming to your region. You referred to it as a kind of an existential moment for you and your company. Could you walk us through what you did? I was particularly impressed with the fact you asked your top team to meet with you every day, except for Easter Sunday.

Sherry Bahrambeygui: In February we started hearing about the threat of the coronavirus and the pandemic. As a CEO, you’re always responsible for looking around the corner and anticipating those things that people may not be focused on when they’re meeting their day-to-day responsibilities. But in a leadership position you’re always trying to look out for what might be out there, what could be threatening, and how to best protect your people and your company.

I don’t even think it was declared as a pandemic at that point, but when this virus started getting a lot of traction in the media, I made an effort to do a lot of reading about it. [I began following] what was happening in Europe and China, seeing how the trend was moving, trying to decide whether or not this was something that was going to sooner or later become a challenge for us in the U.S. and in the regions where PriceSmart operates.

I decided that we as a company … had to start thinking about what we would do, assuming that we were faced with the same threats. The first thing I recognized was that given how highly contagious [the disease] was, the ability to protect our employees and offsite them, and allow for remote work was very important.

[Remote work] was not part of our culture. In mid- to late February, I assembled my leadership team and started an action task force to review [the question]: If tomorrow you were told you can’t come back into your office, what impact would that have on you, and what you would need to be able to continue working?

This [covered] everything from our CFO, the ability to transact, move money, pay bills, and do buying, et cetera. So, they went off and came back and realized that this was no small undertaking. At some risk of being viewed as being a little bit of an alarmist at the time, I made sure that every employee in the two states where we have our U.S. employees — a thousand of them are in San Diego and Miami — had the ability to work from home.

“In a leadership position you’re always trying to look out for what might be out there, what could be threatening, and how to best protect your people and your company.” –Sherry Bahrambeygui

The leadership of the company just kicked into action to make sure that we had the capabilities. One was the ability to work remotely. The other was that each leadership team member had to find and identify an alter ego so that if something were to happen to them, that person would step in for them.

At the beginning, people were skeptical about whether we would need to make much of a change at all, and that this was another influenza that was coming down the pike. We ordered all the equipment that was necessary, got everybody set up, and then by the beginning of the second week of March, I had everybody off-sited.

A lot of teaching and education happened before that, not only about the technology [for remote working], but about how to stay safe, and the importance of self-quarantining and minimizing exposure. Educating our employees about the health risks was really important, and convincing them that even though it hadn’t hit our shores in any meaningful way yet, it was something that was likely a challenge we were going to have to contend with.

‘Transformative Moment’

When we off-sited, everything changed about the way we worked with each other. We had a whole series of meetings that I had [instituted] when I had become the CEO [in January 2019]. I had started making changes along the edges, because you don’t want to come in and be too disruptive at once. We have a lot of great people in our company with decades of experience, and I was coming in as a new person.

[The virus outbreak] was an opportunity for me to basically step back from the way we had been doing everything and the way we had communicated with each other and say, “If I were to look at the most effective way for us to communicate effectively, and to solve a problem in the shortest period of time, how would I have to do it?”

There are 16 people that covered the entire universe of the company. I concluded that if I could speak to them every morning, we would be able to figure it out from there. So, we abandoned all of our business review meetings and our weekly staff meetings. It also made us realize how many hours of meetings we were actually conducting every week.

KNOWLEDGE@WHARTON HIGH SCHOOL

With the cross collaboration that organically evolved as a result of this regular communication with all parts of the company, we had a 360-degree view as a team of what each other was doing. That was one of the most transformative moments for the company since I’ve been there. It has forever changed the way we do business and lead and make decisions for the company.

It’s been uniformly recognized how much time has been wasted, communication has gotten lost in translation when there have been pockets or silos or multiple meetings. Dedicating an hour or two every morning with each other during this crisis allowed us to be very quick, very nimble. It galvanized the group; it created a really strong bond, and as a result everybody was in problem-solving mode.

It didn’t take long before we went from triage mode to asking, “What do we need to do for the future?” — looking beyond this crisis [to see] where are the opportunities that could take us to the next level as a company.

That became a positive motivator, and we had traction to push forward things that we had been talking about for months, if not years. We were able to deliver on, and put into action, some initiatives in a matter of weeks that we otherwise thought were going to take months.

Employees First

Useem: You were an early mover. You got on this, you had to invent your way forward. My guess is you were also looking over your shoulder a bit maybe at Costco, maybe at Walmart, and at others in the retail industry. Were there any practices that you had seen already used elsewhere that you decided either to avoid because they weren’t working, or to bring into your enterprise because they were?

Bahrambeygui: Frankly, I think we were a little ahead. I was paying attention to Costco. Costco and PriceSmart have a common DNA by heritage – the founders are common. I say we were ahead [of Costco] relatively speaking, because this virus spread to the U.S. before it was starting to have an impact in in the regions where we are, in Central America, the Caribbean, and South America.

I recall the notion of not doing demos with food, wiping down carts, and things like that. But it was more about our team collaborating and saying, “What are all the ways we can keep our members safe and our employees safe?” The guiding principle for us was: There is so much going on right now, and we’re in so many different markets, each with different governments that have different restrictions and different limitations. How can we simplify all of this?

Our first priority was our people, and our people meant our employees, their safety and wellbeing, and our members’ safety and wellbeing. [Then we focused on] making sure that we had the appropriate supply, the flow of goods to get to our members, and mitigating any supply chain disruption.

That mandate allowed us to implement online [sales, which] had been in the works for years. In a matter of weeks, we went live on that. Finally, [we were] making sure that capital and cash flow and cash management were being closely monitored.

“Dedicating an hour or two every morning with each other during this crisis … galvanized the group; it created a really strong bond, and as a result everybody was in problem-solving mode.” –Sherry Bahrambeygui

Agility and Focus

Useem: You were a litigator, an investment manager and a stock broker. How did those experiences or the various mentors you’ve had help you prepare to react early to COVID-19, to get on it, and address the problem before it began to blow up in your face?

Bahrambeygui: You say it very nicely, but it’s no secret that I was an unconventional pick. I did not come from retail. I had been in numerous leadership positions in different arenas, and I did have the legal background. But there are two things that positioned me to be able to take this on, and handle it with some degree of confidence and ability to bring my groups together to support the effort.

The first was, frankly, values. To your point about mentors, Sol Price (founder of PriceSmart and its predecessor company, Price Club) was a tremendous mentor for me when I was a litigator and he was a client. [He instilled] this concept of your employees coming first. When you take care of them, they will take care of your members or your customers. When you take care of those two, your shareholders will be taken care of.

Also, the training you get as a trial lawyer is to be very analytical and ask a lot of questions. That curiosity and asking and asking and asking until you really narrow it down to specific answers, and not letting things float ambiguously, is very effective in getting to the bottom of things quickly. It’s very effective in holding people accountable.

Not coming from a retail background, I found that skillset has been helpful to me to know how to ask the right questions, to get a comfort level, and to make sure that all bases are covered. Also, as a trial lawyer you learn to work in a crisis mode. When you’re in trial for months at a time and stakes are high, [you need to have] the ability to focus really well when you’re under pressure, and when you’ve got adversaries.

In this situation, the adversary was the virus. It was an existential threat to us.

Changing Work Environment

Knowledge@Wharton: We have a number of good questions from the audience. The first one is, has this experience made you rethink in-person work as a cultural norm?

Bahrambeygui: Absolutely. The company has enjoyed many years of success, and there was an established mentality that you have to show up at work. That’s where you are held accountable, and that’s how people know you’re working. There’s a generational issue there, to be perfectly frank.

I’m the first female leader of the company, and I could tell when I first came in there were a lot of female employees who were asking about why we didn’t have more flexibility. I was slowly trying to get us to evolve, both because of the fact that it’s important for women, and it’s important for men who want to be involved with their family life and have [work-life] balance.

But it is also because the next generation expects this. If you want to attract the right talent and keep them, you’ve got to shift [your] mode of accountability. The onus is on the supervisor to be able to know what they’re expecting of their employee so that they get the value that they want from that employee delivered – as opposed to holding someone accountable just for showing up. Those are two different mindsets.

This necessity has allowed all of us to work remotely and see how effective we’ve become, and some might argue, more effective. Now I’m not saying it’s ideal to stay like this. But the fact that we’ve proven we’re capable of doing it goes a really long way. It will be used in [re-opening] our business.

I’ve decided that through the end of summer [our] people will continue to work remotely. And then as we open things up, people who are most vulnerable, are older or have underlying health conditions or are pregnant will be able to stay home. They will be required to come in only if there’s a business necessity.

In time, we will come up with rotating schedules that will incorporate social distancing, allow for outdoor meetings and new protocols. So, we’re going to transform our work environment absolutely, and I think it will be for the better.

“When you take care of [your employees], they will take care of your members or your customers. When you take care of those two, your shareholders will be taken care of.” –Sherry Bahrambeygui

Knowledge@Wharton: How have you kept track of your staff members’ wellbeing during this time?

Bahrambeygui: In the morning meetings, I have our head of HR there. We made sure that people knew that if they were showing symptoms or if they were living with someone who was showing symptoms, that they should not come to work. This was even before we [began] remote work. [Our] front line employees had to be managed completely differently. [We provided] the PPE that they required, with quarantining, contact tracing and mapping….

It’s sort of a waterfall approach. I keep track of my executive team, [they] keep track of the people that report to them, and so on. We’ve tried to remove all obstacles for people to be disincentivized, being open about the fact that they may have the illness, or that they’re having trouble, or that they may be having illnesses that are unrelated.

I’ve been very transparent with my own team. Frankly, the other day I shared my own personal experience. I think for years, especially as a female, there’s been this sense of having to constantly show that you’re 100% in control of everything. You can be, but we’re all still humans, and things happen, and life happens. For example, my own father had a major health issue, and I debated whether or not this was something I should share with the team. I decided I wanted to because I wanted to make sure they knew that I’m aware that things happen at home, and as a team we need to be there to support each other.

Knowledge@Wharton: You demonstrated a lot of foresight in all of this. One question from the audience is, has there been a significant change in your company culture as you’ve moved from being reactive to predictive?

Bahrambeygui: I’m constantly sending out articles and information, and encouraging [our employees] to share those materials when they find it relevant to their area of work. I think this has helped us become more external facing as a company, just by promoting a culture of being a student, a continual student. One of the silver linings in all of this is now there’s a lot more discussion about new ideas and new ways of doing things, and it’s much more of a group and collaborative dynamic.

Knowledge@Wharton: What has this crisis taught you the most about leadership?

Bahrambeygui: I think communication, being honest with your people, and with all of your constituents – your employees, your members, your shareholders, and in the case of a public company, being transparent. Letting them know when you don’t have the answer. Create an inviting environment for your team to find answers, to brainstorm together.

If you are not completely authentic in what you’re facing, whether it’s excitement about opportunity or concern about an existential threat, you will not get the best thinking at the table. When employees feel that their views are being valued and you’re being honest with them, they jump on board to help solve problems.

0 notes