#mechanical storytelling
Text
Mechanical symbolism in Dune
Dune Part 2 (and Part 1) did something I don't notice much of and don't see nearly enough of, and that's characterizing factions and characters through their equipment. I'm not even talking about costumes, I'm talking about the ship baybeee.
House Atreides has ships, aircraft, and armor that are very angular and square-ish. Their spice harvesters look like NASA crawler carriers, very mundane, very mechanical. Their ships aren't the biggest or most powerful, but still dwarf all the locals when coming in for a landing. Their interior design is likewise fairly minimalist. Their aircraft are ornithopters, which stay aloft using good-ol-fashioned aerodynamics and hard-working nature-mimicking flapping rotors (albiet twice as many rotors as the dragonflys they're based on). If we think of a square as a perfectly "ordered" shape, and nature's methods of flight as the 'ideal', we can see House Atreides, with their endless trapezoids, as the closest this world has to the "good guys." An unassuming, honorable, humble dukedom, though still mired in politics and corruption, still a little (maybe a lot, maybe not enough) too big for their britches. All that communicated by their vehicles.
House Harkonnen is their contrast in every way. The book gave their baron a 'suspension rig' to float around because he was so fat, but the movie ingeniously gave that same tech to their troops as well. They float around effortlessly, climbing mountains with a thought, not even engaging with the terrain, perfectly mirroring their attitude and the superior power they represent. They wear black, the categorically worst color for the desert, and their soldier's faces are obscured, almost inhumanly. Their ships are round, bulbous, shaped like rolls of fat, and so darkly-colored and confusingly-shaped that it's hard to even make out their intricate and crowded details except that they're bristling with guns. Their aircraft use lifting gas balloons. Their spice harvesters are so huge and tall and fat with machinery that they need silly legs just to stay upright. Now of course from all this, we can tell that the Harkonnen are so proud that they consider themselves too good for the ground itself, so rich that they don't have to touch it, so powerful they don't think they need to, so disconnected that it's made them weak.
The Fremen are the simplest and most obvious of course; they have nothing. Their technology is simple. We don't see much of it. I wish their thumpers and compasses looked a little more obviously mechanical, but I can forgive that because they look very simple. The only aircraft we see them using are tiny 2-seater ornithopters with only 4 rotors; a copy of nature's dragonfly, no frills. The instruments onboard look like something out of WWII. Just perfect.
But my favorite of all is the scene where the emperor arrives. The movie shows him going through the flames of reentry, which isn't something movies often show; the director put it in deliberately, because the very fact that he's entering the atmosphere, that he's coming down to the planet at all, is a thing of much importance, spectacle, and monument. And then his ship itself is an enormous shiny chrome sphere. Because of course it is! What symbolism could possibly be better? When you look at him, you can't even see him without just seeing yourself smaller. But as the ship comes in for a landing (and it doesn't even land, it just perpetually hovers) you can see that the mirror isn't perfect. You can see the seams between the mirrors, see it's just square paneling. The emperor is a powerful and proud and magnificent invisible god, except he's NOT, you can see all that splendor and hubris and pride, and see that beneath it all he's just a mortal man, just by looking at his ship. I have never seen that done in quite this way before. Spectacular.
And then and THEN the next time we see the emperor's ship, it's after it's unpacked all its cargo, into this huge palace, complete with a complement of battleships and thousands of ground troops. My first thought was "hey how did all that fit onboard? That should be a literally impossible construction. Oh well, it's just a movie, who cares." But then the Fremen attack happens. A nuclear strike destroys the defenses, and then the sandworms come in, and something hits the palace, and the entire thing shakes and rattles! Because of COURSE it's not an actual building! Of COURSE all that could fit onboard, because it's just a shaky, fragile house-of cards! Sheet metal held together by rivets and a prayer, because he wanted to appear magnificent on his visit! The imperial rule makes a big talk, but it's all bark and no bite and it's fragile enough to be done in by a stiff breeze, and you can tell all that from the mechanical design alone!
GOSH these movies are good.
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
this is like. all fully speculation. but i was rewatching some of jaiden’s nuzlocke videos, and them combined with a recent clip of hers i saw talking about how she’s not even sure why quackity chose her for the qsmp made me connect why he might’ve picked her. because like. i think nearly everyone was a bit shocked, if not confused, to see her on the lineup. despite having been in the scene for a while—her first public animations were for ihascupquake, after all—jaiden isn’t your first thought when you think of minecraft youtubers. as far as i’m aware, she was on one smp before the qsmp—epicsmp, and we all know how that ended.
no, jaiden isn’t who you’d think of when you think minecraft youtuber. but she is who you’d think of when you think storyteller. which, yeah, is kind of obvious. there’s a whole subcategory of youtube for animated storytellers, and jaiden’s been one of the front runners for years now. but the thing about jaiden specifically is that she doesn’t just tell stories. she shapes them. you can really see that the most with her animated nuzlockes. she’s given scenarios and events that are largely random and arbitrary, fully just game coding and out of her control, and she turns them into her story. her platinum nuzlocke specifically highlights this with the giratina, two jaidens storyline she creates to explain her resetting the run and attempting the elite four again.
live mcrp HEAVILY relies on having to go with the flow of the game, and learning to work around in-game mechanics and limitations to create a storyline out of. things that are story-important, like pets or npcs, are fragile and can be taken away at any moment, be it by a mob, glitch, or player error. you have to be able to think on your feet to not only work around it, but create a narrative to explain that decision fitting into the canon and story instead of just taking it at face-value. and that’s exactly what jaiden’s been doing for years now with a lot of her gaming-based content. quackity would need people accustomed versatile storytelling as much as he’d need people accustomed to survival minecraft itself, and jaiden is nothing short of an expert at her craft
#icarus speaks#idk i just have a lot of love for her#and her storytelling capabilities#and it just. hit me. how well suited she is for mcrp#because she creates from the arbitrary#she takes game mechanics and turns them into concrete storylines#and yeah! that’s what mcrp relies on!#utilizing game mechanics and randomness to create a story#you have to really be creative and think outside the box to connect mechanics to in-character development#and that’s what jaiden’s been doing for years! she’s MADE for stuff like this#and i think that’s partially why she specifically was chosen
1K notes
·
View notes
Text
Tracklist:
Black Box
Odin
Cold Case
Loki
Person of Interest
Thor
Conspiracy to Commit Treason
Sigyn
White Noise
Losing Track
Expert Testimony
Red Signal
Ragnarok I: Runaway
Ragnarok II: The Calling
Ragnarok III: Strange Meeting
Ragnarok IV: Jormungandr
Ragnarok V: End of the Line
Terminus
Spotify | Bandcamp | YouTube
#hyltta-polls#polls#artist: the mechanisms#language: english#decade: 2010s#Rock Opera#Dark Cabaret#Spoken Word#Progressive Rock#Progressive Folk#Folk#Cabaret#Folk Rock#Sci-Fi#Steampunk#Storytelling
223 notes
·
View notes
Text
Realizing one of the biggest reasons I fell deeply for The Mechanisms and it's fandom is the consistent reiteration of the importance of stories. Something I find very important but troublesome to articulate is how necessary a story can be- whether or not the story is true, or even a good story. Stories are stories, they all hold a certain... weight, a meaning. Even the sad ones, the silly ones, the soft ones, the shit ones. The ones that stick with you though, they matter the most, and everyone has their own stories that they hold dear, about themselves, about loved ones, about strangers and fictional characters. They just! They all matter! Even if The Mechanisms themselves only tell tragedies, as by word "there's others, we just don't tell them because they're boring," then that simply means it's the tragedies that stick with them! But they're story tellers, story weavers, skalds and poets and bards!!! I just.... I try to explain how important stories are to me and to humanity as a whole, and I think The Mechanisms is just fueling my favorite hill to die on. Every story matters, and we all cling to our favorites. What are we without them?
#don't mind the ramblings of a lunatic#I'm half asleep on melatonin and possibly tipsy#so im Feeling Feelings rn#the mechanisms#the mechs#“i just think it's neat” i say like i haven't been in love with storytelling and the way tales build us as people +our society my whole lif
115 notes
·
View notes
Text
I straight up DO NOT believe that Terry Jr. is in hell. They're going to get there and he won't fucking be there. He won't be there because willy lost all his leverage, hes gonna bring back Terry Jr. and hold him as a bargaining chip because he KNOWS scary cares about him.
Scary cares about Terry jr so much that she asked willy to bring him back, and when she knew he wouldn't, that broke their partnership. Scary loves Terry jr more than she fears willy and willy KNOWS that.
Why wouldn't he hold Terry Jr hostage? He's done it before. If some guy who's not even scarys real dad means so much to her that she'd forget all the fucking favors hes done to help her ungrateful ass get stronger then he KNOWS she'll make the trade of the doodler for Terry jr.
It works mechanically too. He's definitely strong enough to know wish if he's a sorcerer or wizard, but if he's a warlock, he has to look to his old buddies. Luckily, Bill is a bard who would have access to the spells ressurection and raise dead. While barry is a druid who would likely (depending if hes level 17 or not) have access to the spell true ressurection. All he'd have to do is convince one of them to cast it. They're scared of him. They likely would if he threatened them.
DO YOU HEAR ME?! WILLY STAMPLER IS GOING TO FUCKIGN REVIVE TERRY JR TO USE AS LEVERAGE FOR GETTING THE DOODLER SEND POST!!!!!
#bro i am onto NOTHING#me when i grasp at straws#scary honey im so sorry i called you ungrateful i didnt mean it#NO BUT LISTEN IT WORKS#IVE CONNECTED THE DOTS#(i havent connected SHIT)#im gonna feel so fucking smart if im right#dndads#dungeons and daddies#willy stampler#willie stampler#terry marlowe#scary marlowe#terry jr#terry stampler#the doodler#dndads theory#over analysis of dnd mechanics and dad-based storytelling#shitpost#kinda#mostly a theory#mostly unironically crazy speculation#dnd#ron stampler#i dont know if willy is a wizard sorcerer or a warlock but anyway you spin it theres a fuckign way for him to revive my boy#can you tell im wrecked over terry jrs death? is it obvious?#hes gonna come back#(manifesting)#update: just remembered that barry has the cuffs on his ear but hed still probably be able to ressurect terry#he wont be able to heal willys missing hand but i think he could loophole it with terry
69 notes
·
View notes
Text
It's Cal! And also Cal! My piece for Today's Special, this year's Stabbyness and Friends zine
#stabbyness#stabbyness is a twitch channel that does ttrpgs btw#big focus on character and storytelling#original settings#gm-made mechanics#i'm pitching it can you tell#of course im biased im On it#cal#cal forgotten indigo#cal reflection#wandering mask art#(i'm pretty proud of this one)#art
81 notes
·
View notes
Text
Concept that won't leave me alone;
If Grimora had the OLD_DATA at the start of the game, I reckon she'd go for a dungeon crawler. Imagine, you wake up in darkness and in the distance sits a candleabra and some decrepit tombstones. An ominous voice speaks from behind them, narrating your journey and giving cryptic hints, slowly becoming less encouraging and more frigid.
The crypt is divided by checked tiles and the candle will only reveal ones in your nearest vicinity. For every step you take, ghosts and ghouls in the darkness will move- hostile or otherwise- and will engage if you move onto the same tile. For every life lost, a candle is extinguished, and your vision impaired as a consequence.
It's essentially a reimagining of her segment in Act 2 and the board she has in the finale, just given a more 3D spin compared to Leshy and P03's tabletop gameplay. Once you actually get to her, you see her chessboard and the pieces she's been controlling to battle you. Now that you've bested her ghouls, she wants to add you to her collection-
oh shit how cool would it be if you're roaming around and you find a ghoul with the name from your last run :0c maybe instead of having a death card, they offer you one of the cards from your old deck? Or maybe you'd have to fight them, and if successful they give a useful buff or item?
Her quill could be quite lethal, in a sense that if any of your cards perish in battle, she'll use it against you- she may even use your past deaths as randomised cards with varying power discrepancies. In place of Leshy borrowing the moon, she could summon the Bone Lord as the third phase gimmick. Any 'bleedable' cards on the table will be devoured instantly on his turn, satiating him for the following turn and giving the player a handful of bones... idk smthn like that
This shits so clear in my minds eye, but illustrating it has been a pain. Now that it's out in written form, maybe I can focus on the other concept gnawing on my corpse?
#inscryption#gameplay concept#Grimora may be jovial and friendly#but I think she'd be the best at combining the others strengths#ie. Leshy's immersive storytelling- P03's strategies and mechanics- Mag's flair for 3D visuals#g0d I want this to be a thing so baddd
175 notes
·
View notes
Text
I love being like "holy shit, I cannot recommend OwengeJuiceTV's newest New Life episode enough"
and then realizing I should also probably point out it ends in a suicide
#in minecraft! but still#its SUCH a good fucking episode though holy shit#absolute new bar for storytelling in mc#the way he wove together the actual mechanics of Create to make 'special effects' paired with the story is phenomenal#owengejuicetv#nlsmp#new life smp#salem tag
76 notes
·
View notes
Text
I hate that the atla remake toned down Sokkas sexism for the sake of not being offensive bc honestly I think it’s MORE offensive that it’s not included bc they are basically saying that it’s not important enough to teach those lessons and it’s negative to prevent toxic masculinity 🫶 As a girl I loved seeing the sexism in atla, I loved the lesson that it taught and I loved that all the girls were capable and strong but some of them were STILL FEMININE (cough cough Katara. The new show ruined that too)
While I’m talking about Katara, they ruined her too, not just Sokka. Where’s her rage? Her hurt? Her anger? Let her be angry. She’s 14 fighting in a war, she’s supposed to be mad. I loved her anger it was real and gave her flaws and depth. And also she’s supposed to be motherly. What’s bad about that? There’s nothing sexist about that? Some girls DO want to be that way? Also, it’s supposed to show how she was forced to take the role of her mother as a CHILD bc of the fire nation. It shows the negative effects of war and the loss of innocence, it was so important why is that gone???
#Also I get that they were trying to show how how sokka was impacted by the war too but It felt so out of place in s1#It was rushed#sokka is supposed to become more and more insecure throughout the series after continuous failure#So why was that insecurity just plopped in there in s1?#He’s supposed to be goofy#This isn’t necessarily canon but it’s pretty accepted in the fandom that it’s a coping mechanism or him trying to help katara#In the only ways he can#Sokka is SUPPOSED to be aloof and not as strong in the first season it’s part of his character arc.#Give sokka his insecurities in s2/s3 not s1#Give sokka his character arc back 😭😭😭 katara too#AND AANG BTW?#He’s supposed to be funny and adventurous and a KID#you want him to be serious? Great! That’s what s3 is for#Good job Netflix you ruined everything great about atla#It’s so good bc the storytelling is flawless and the characters grow and progress and have FLAWS and FEARS an EMOTIONS#They tried to add emotions that aren’t supposed to be there yet and it takes away from the growth and natural progression#I’m honestly scared to see how they handle Azula
20 notes
·
View notes
Text
MECHANISMS FANS!
listen to Jessica Law’s Lovers and Fighters Now! Now! (Ths is a threat)
!
#the mechs#the mechanisms#jessica law#PLEASE ITS SO GOOD#BASICALLY ANOTHER STORYTELLING ALBYM ITS SOOO GOOD!!!
29 notes
·
View notes
Text
Yuutsu aesthetic and information
She's a soft and gentle and shy person
Sometimes she gets nervous since she wants to make a good impression on people so she tends to stay quiet
Her past is unknown
Because of her social anxiety she turns to anime and music and fashion as a healthy coping mechanism and because it makes her happy she's a very calm and gentle person
She has a scar around her neck so she either wears Band-Aids or chokers
She prefers the more soft and gentle look
And her as a child she never trusted any adults she didn't even see a point in it
Most of the things she owes are either pink or black
But she also owns many other things that aren't pink
But she's a fan of Vivian Westwood and her favorite
The reason she likes those colors so much is because it's so simply it's so cute
She likes to dye her hair pink or simple highlights
Sometimes she questions if she's real
She's a very caring and kind person she enjoys those colder and calm weather she likes to walk in the woods with a taser
Because of her trauma she became an overachiever
But she doesn't have an ego
And because she likes wearing pink and dying her hair people seem to think of her as some dumb girl even though she's extremely intelligent and a psychopathic analyzer
Her eyes are usually a soft pink but when she uses her special ability they turn into a darker and brighter pink
And sometimes when she's hunting someone down you can always feel a pair of pink eyes staring through your soul
Her special ability is where she's able to turn things pink or make weapons that are usually the color of pink and the other one is called toxic blood lilies
*This is her wallpaper and phone*
*Favorite anime*
Nana
Madoka Magica
Happy sugar life
Beyblade burst
Bungo stray dogs
Vampire Knight
Demon Slayer
Brothers conflict
Sailor Moon
Tokyo Mew Mew
*Sexuality and pronouns and favorite character and coping mechanism*
* her outfits and Jewelry*
She looks really and soft things
She also is a fan of anything cute with black clothes she likes dresses
She prefers to wear Mary Jane's are flats
She's a fan of Jirai Kai fashion and she loves the gothic aesthetic with skulls or ribbons and she has lots of black dresses but in silk she doesn't have a certain Style but she likes anything that's cute dark and
She also likes wearing sweaters in the colder months but she mostly stays in skirts
She's also a fan of Japanese goth fashion she likes wearing tights and ruffled socks
* characters she's inspired after*
She's based off these characters because of certain characteristics that inspired me to make her she's also inspired after Satou
*Her favorite characters*
She's also based off some of these other characters but she relates and loves these characters and the anime and games
#yui komori aesthetic#youtube#spotify#storytelling#yandere oc#coping#the mechanisms#coping mechanism#madoka magica#where did my memories go#is this the start of a new friendship#kanato sakamaki x reader#vampire knight#pink aesthetic#creepypasta oc#diabolic lovers#Doki Doki literature Club#vocaloid#hatsune miku#sailor moon#osamu dazai#brothers conflict#soundcloud#sato matsuzaka#happy sugar life aesthetic#yandere android#fanfiction#tights aesthetic#yandere yui#yandere record of ragnarok
62 notes
·
View notes
Text
aa4 having an examine evidence feature means apollo knows how to turn over a piece of paper without having to faint in court
286 notes
·
View notes
Text
last life is honestly so perfect to me like. boogeyman mechanic. life sharing mechanic. randomized lives. and that's just the mechanics the teams and dynamics were so good as well. mwuah I love you last life <3
#i think the mechanics this season were so good for like. storytelling purposes#like it created so much good drama and dynamics#jupiter rambles
37 notes
·
View notes
Text
i do love assassin’s creed 3 but GOSH i wish it didn’t rob us of some story points...
like i know we see connor reading haytham’s journal at the beginning, but i wish we’d gotten MORE of a reaction out of him when he realized the head Templar was his father.
Likewise I know Haytham was able to put things together and figure out Connor was his son before they properly speak for the first time, but like...I wish we’d seen that realization. I wish we’d seen how Haytham initially reacted to that. How Haytham’s goonies reacted.
They give us this juicy juicy central conflict of Connor fighting against his own father and then they don’t...give us these moments. And it’s frustrating because i LOVE Connor. He’s one of my favorite assassins. But he’s got this Shakespearean level conflict going on and the game doesn’t dig into it the way it should.
#sophie.txt#assassin's creed#ac3#connor kenway#full disclosure i still haven't FINISHED the game so it could surprise me with stuff later#currently on the 'connor and haytham are forced to work together' missions#i played the game YEARS ago but on the ps3 and it was bugged so i could never progress the main questline when i needed to go to new york#but gosh i wish wish WISH we had more to work with in this relationship#we spend two fucking hours with haytham in the tutorial stage and for what?#for the game to NOT give us these juicy emotional reveals with him and connor??#it just feels like they put their energy in all the wrong places#yes i do hate those first two hours with haytham bcs of how the game doesn't START until CONNOR IS WITH ACHILLES#u can't craft u can't hunt u can't start unlocking things until u get to sequence 6 and the game is halfway over#if you're going to spend the first two hours of the game focusing on story over gameplay mechanics then frickin commit to the story!!!#i do love this game and i do love connor i just hate to see these storytelling opportunities go to waste
246 notes
·
View notes
Photo
#TAGS TLDR YOU CAN NEVER TRULY GO HOME BUT DO YOU WANT TO?#writing a little for d&d and having feelings about this#it was really interesting jasper and i were working on some game mechanics and we kept getting stuck at weird parts and it developed into#this conversation where we realized we experience the world#in such fundamentally different ways. like specifically talking about how paranoia#manifests and stuff but even later in a broader sense like our experiences of time and everything is so different#and they'd be like 'well what if this is something that happened to lock' and id be like 'how could that be something that anyone would#experience' and they were like 'oh because i do'#(example here was my character not realizing he had been magically transported and filling in the blank with vague memories of travel but i#was like. are you not acutely aware of every single moment you are awake and in motion even if it is excruciatingly boring. and jasper#was like. 'oh...no. i could be transported from one place to another and if time passed i wouldnt even think about having traveled or not'#which was WILD to me but then we were like 'okay i guess this cannot be something that happened to lock' because i couldnt even fathom that#but like anyway idk we got weirdly deep dive-y about d&d stuff and personal lives and i had big feelings on it bc genuinely i feel like#there are facets and caverns in myself i have only ever touched in storytelling but particularly in this campaign#and i've joked a lot about Lock and other chars in this game being self inserts#but i mean it in a good way#like the ways we tell stories or experience a world we created together is going to be through an extension of ourselves etc#but it's interesting to me to consider the limitations that brings yknow? we all live by such vastly different sets of rules and#understandings#and im writing out some stuff now and im like. yknow.#lock can never truly go home. i can never truly go home. none of us can ever truly go home#home as shifting impermanence home as transience etc#2017 levi is back apparently but hes always been right
101 notes
·
View notes
Text
oh lol i forgot to post this robit sketches! because i have one (1) bit and im sure as hell gonna commit to it apparently
#rolling with difficulty#art I made#'shut your up' is a verbatim quote from an ex classmate i just thought it was funny#i dont think it was intentional i think he was just so angry that Words Failed on him#anyway im absolutely not keeping that maxim design. god i fucking hate clothing design *so* much#austin: 'hes a gold plated mechanite dressed in blue and grey robes' me trying to figure out colour placement: 'what FUCK'#i had one (1) good idea and that was 'skeleton shaped robit' and every other part of that design went to hell apparently#bc all the other mechanites we've had were either like... flesh..? shaped?? like that sorta silhouette (basically most of the old crew)#or more mechanical/geometric (vr-la's designs and like.. k-lb? i guess? if that counts)#so. therefore. bone shaped mechanite. also if i was gonna try that concept on anyone it may as well be maxim if you think about it#idk i thought it would be interesting. and also undertale was my first fandom so uh#ANYWAY. MOVING ON FROM THAT THOUGHT.#this started as a 2am intrusive thought of like#'we (artists in the discord) keep joking abt how k-lb would be a nightmare to draw but like.. how hard is it really'#anyway as you can probably expect. famous last words#i mean genuinely mad respect to noir but i think i said to one of my friends when i showed them this sketch#'i mean this in the nicest way possible but you can just tell he was designed for an audio only storytelling format' LMAO#if anyone is unwise enough to attempt this (so basically @ my future self lmao)#do the lineart and colouring for the wires in front of the inner electricity skeleton (???) and the ones behind it on SEPARATE LAYERS#drew the wires all together then the electricity and had to painstakingly go over the electricity with an eraser it was a fucking nightmare
44 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
weebly-weebly
Angelic lies are still lies, my friends
f-uc-ku-p
UNSTOPPABLE
toobouquetland
Untitled
clarkkentsleftpec
My Superpower is Friendship
rdmv
Matthew Cheshire