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psychosonly · 5 months

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PHOTOPEA TUTORIAL / PHOTO FILTER FOR SKIN TONES:

a tutorial on HOW TO BRING OUT SKIN TONES if an image is 'too gray' (faded) or has too much of one (likely over saturated) color! this technique can easily be applied to icons that already have a border ! just put your focus on the base image / icon ! this works on relatively anything, including poc and non-poc. WHAT YOU WILL NEED: photopea...and your desired your base image(for example, i'll be showcasing inconsistent or otherwise dark/faded scene lighting, like twilight and saw). DISCLAIMER: not all lighting/images are the same, nor are psd colorings. while some colorings may be designed to bring out reds/yellows(which is the filters we'll be using in this specific example), others may mute them and you may have to improvise with whatever color the psd you're using is designed to focus on. this is just a general idea, you will have to explore as you see fit. it's all going to depend on your personal taste !

by the end of this, you should be able to manage results like this !

cool, huh?....anyway, on with the mechanics !

EXAMPLES:

[ BEFORE PSD ] [ SYNOPSIS ]

#01 / LEFT IMAGE ABOVE: too much green, becomes muted with psd and doesn't show variety. #02 / RIGHT IMAGE ABOVE: the colors are very faded in this scene, and the pink focused psd in question made the image seem gray. we will start with EXAMPLE #01. i will be using the same PSD on both, a custom psd i made and focuses on reds/pinks.

as you'll see above the PSD has now been applied...but now it's kinda boring :// (there's nothing wrong if you don't mind how it is above, everyone's got their aesthetic choice—HOWEVER, we're aiming to add skin tone...)

once you have your image open, you'll want to go to image>adjustments>photo filter; i went ahead highlighted it in yellow for easy finding !

since this psd DOESN'T mute reds/yellows, (and those are usually the base of most/general skin tone combinations) i applied both a yellow and red filter. now, these colors i'll be using in this example, because they're in my default colors on the photo filter option—you can totally choose lighter or darker variants of these colors, or like i said, a different color altogether based on how the PSD you're using works. the toggle setting doesn't have to be exact to this example either—this is just what worked best on this image combined with the chosen PSD ! // RIGHT IMAGE IS THE FINAL RESULT AFTER APPLYING THE RED FILTER AFTER THE YELLOW.

repetition

this scene in particular is very faded, and the red feels a little blotchy/over saturated here...so i'll show you an EXTRA STEP you can use ! in saying this, you don't have to do exactly this; you can even choose to go ahead with selective color to fix your image, without doing the filters, if you find that suitable. but i'll be showing you the magic of selective color to balance out the red toned overlay.

same concept as before, just a different selection: image>adjustments>selective color. think of selective colors as "balancing" the colors. it does have a toggle selection for each color, which is super helpful, including diminishing or adding white highlights. given the PSD colors, naturally, i'll be focusing on yellow and red.

it's now got a general skin tone and red is not as blotchy !

[ FINAL RESULTS / CONSISTENCY WITH PSD APPLIED ]

this is a great hack i use quite a bit, it's great for maintaining consistency in your icons when the lighting is working against you...hope this was comprehensible and helpful, happy editing !

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dropout-if · 7 months

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Dropout Customization

Due to some questions about MC customization, I have decided to compile all the physical and personality aspects that are selectable about the Dropout.

A reminder that this is all subject to change and that new things may be added (or deleted). Feedback and ideas to further develop MC are encouraged.

Main Ideas

Name Surname Nickname

Sex, Gender, Pronouns (it's possible to customise them), Breast/Pecs, Penis/Vagina (If MC is transgender, their transition takes place while they're away) Title (Ms. / Mr. / Mx.)

Virginity or lack thereof.

If MC is trans (when they realized about it [high school, middle school, college] and if they told their family // the ROs already know, as MC told Uma and J, and word spread).

Birthday which establishes the Dropout's age as either 21 or 22 depending on the season (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter)

Major (Engineering, Biology, Chemistry, Computer science, Law, Economics, Education (in relation to science/maths/etc), Mathematics, Physics, Psychology). The Dropout's Major affects flavor text. These options are the ones approved by the Dropout's parents, though it's possible for MC to express interest in other degrees/topics (music, art, English, anthropology, archeology, classical studies, history).

Reason behind dropping out (MC got kicked out (they were caught cheating) MC didn't get a high enough GPA and dropped out / MC never even wanted to go to college and ultimately decided they wanted out / MC didn't fit in (they were discriminated, lonely, etc) though they really liked college / MC originally liked their degree and college but gradually lost interest in the entire thing / MC never liked their degree and decided to drop out / Something specifically related to mental health (mainly anxiety) / Impostor's syndrome.) This affects flavor text.

2 Coping Mechanisms (Alcohol, Tobacco, Drugs, Sleeping around, Avoidance, Overspending, Humor, *Hobby (overworking self) [Anger, Fake/forced happiness, Sadness, Indifference].) Each coping mechanism opens a variable and a storyline. You can choose two, though choosing one related to emotional responses [between brackets] automatically blocks out the others.

2 Hobbies (Singing, playing an instrument, songwriting, creative writing, drawing, sketching, sculpting, acting, photography, soccer, football, swimming, basketball, gymnastics, boxing, judo, karate, taekwondo, kickboxing, going to the gym, cooking/baking, dancing [ballet, contemporary dance, modern], yoga.) This affects flavor text and scenes.

Job (Bartender [Wanda, Statler is also around often], Cashier [Statler], Columnist [J (+Kai if poly)], Caregiver [Kai], Waiter/Waitress [Uma (+Travis if poly)], Tutor [Travis]) Each job gives you more time with a certain RO, as well as unlocking a storyline.

Personality Stats

Playful/Serious Honest/Dishonest Friendly/Rude Introverted/Extroverted Laid-back/Uptight Cynical/Idealistic Flirty/Reserved Family oriented/Individualistic

Others: Insomnia, Migraines

Physical Appearance

*It's possible to choose MC's appearance as a high schooler as well. This affects flavor text.

Height (very tall, talk, average, short, very short)

Skin tone (ebony, dark brown, light brown, russet, golden, olive, honey, tawny, tanned, fair, rosy, ivory.) Choosing any skin tone gives you the possibility of choosing to be a poc (idea I stole from Mila, @beyondthegame)

*Build (scrawny, skinny, lithe, lean, muscular, chubby, curvy, hourglass).

*Hair color (max 3 tones, 1 base and other 2) (possible to return home with a mess of dye for Maude to fix. NATURAL (Ashen blonde, Sunflower blonde, Strawberry blonde, Caramel, Honey brown, Chocolate brown, Copper, Auburn, Ruby red, Midnight brown, Jet black, Ebony black) NON-NATURAL (Pink, Violet, Lilac, Blue jade, Vermilion red, Snowy white, Silver, Emerald green, Canary yellow, Bleached).

Hair texture (kinky, very coiled, coiled, curly, wavy, slightly wavy, straight)

*Hair length (ear-length, chin-length, shoulder-length, below shoulder-length, chest-length, waist-length)

*Hair style (SHORT/MEDIUM: natural, side-parted, mullet, layered, bob, ponytail, twin ponytails, buzz fade, slick back, messy, wolf cut, bun. LONG: natural, high/low ponytail, messy, shaggy, California waves, a half updo, side-swept, bun, braid, twin braids, twin ponytails).

*Eye color (albino red, dark blue, light blue, dark green, light green, hazel, amber, chestnut brown, chocolate brown, black, grey).

Others

*It's possible to choose MC's appearance as a high schooler as well. This affects flavor text.

*Glasses (yes, no, contacts)

*Facial hair (No/shaved. Stubble, full beard, goatee, ducktail,van dyke, garibaldi, mustache, soul patch, light beard).

Scars, can choose as many as possible (Back, chest, abdomen, upper and lower arm, thigh, knees, calf, mouth area, neck, cheek, hands, eye area, shoulder)

*Tattoos (One big in X body area, patch-like bodysuit, bodysuit, one/two sleeves, just legs, a few tattoos all over, a small in X place).

*Piercings (Ears [helix, lobe, industrial], navel, tongue, nose ring and septum, eyebrow, lips, smiley, nipples, genital)

Dimples

Braces

Freckles (face, body, both)

Beauty mark, multiple (under eye, over lip, neck, body)

*Outfit/Style (streetwear, alternative, cute, preppy, casual, formal, business casual, dark academia, messy, boho/eclectic, comfortable)

*Bedroom, at family home and at new apartment (messy, colorful, emo, basic, boho, modern, industrial, vintage, minimalist, cute)

*Diet (vegan, vegetarian, pescetarian, keto, meat-eater, lactose intolerant)

Family pet (small/large dog, cat, fish tank, hamster/rabbit/guinea pig, cockatiel/parrot/canaries)

Characters

Closeness to all family members (tight-knit, close, so-so, cold, barely any relationship)

Same with the friend group

Crush on Statler during high school (yes/no)

'Popularity' during high school and college (popular, social butterfly [got along with many people but wasn't part of the popular groups], normal, loner, outcast [somewhat antagonistic in a way/rebel].)

#dropout if #dropout #cog wip #cog #choice script #hosted games #interactive fiction wip #interactive fiction #mc #gameplay

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olderthannetfic · 1 month

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You know what obnoxious thing I keep seeing in fandom I wish would stop? This absolute need some people seem to have for their ship to be Representation in some way. Shipping is just imagining scenarios between two characters! You don’t need it to be a Special reason or whatever? I have a ship that is popular and people make weird vague comments about how the fandom is racist because both of them are white and there are other ship options that have poc so the white ship being big is a reflection on how racist the fandom is but the thing is…

Look I’m going to be real with y’all the fandom is for the game Detroit: Become Human and let’s just say the two major black characters are basically stereotypes written by a neocon lib boomer in a story that itself is imho…let’s call it tone deaf and corny af rather than overtly racist but yeah. Black folks on twitter regularly mock this game for good reason. It is very much a boomer white man’s idea of the civil rights movement but with robots. The robots sing actual slave hymns. The main character is essentially a light-skinned Martin Luther King Jr (dubbed Markus Luthur King by blktwt lol) and the religious allegories of him as a savior figure are very on the nose. It is bad lol. It’s not that I wouldn’t want to explore the black characters but the fandom is full of young white people singing the praises of this writing while patting themselves on the back about it which is genuinely uncomfortable to be around. Just my 2 cents but the virtue signaling and insane policing around those two characters makes it unbearable to interact with their content it is deeply sanitized and you WILL get death threats if you attempt any nuance or are critical of the (kinda racist imo) way they were written in canon.

The worst part of this is that Markus has a popular ship with a character a lot of people read or interpret as a more soft or femme gay man and you know what zoomers hate? Femme gay men. So obviously this is made to be ‘problematic’ in some way because these people can’t just admit to being femmphobic/homophobic themselves.

Sometimes it’s easier to stick with the boring white characters in the background because they aren’t being closely guarded by stupid reactionary people who are used to flashing their favorite fictional poc characters as tokens of their own goodness and virtue.

The pinnacle of this game is that moment when the black lady lectures her son about why they need to run the robot underground railroad to Canada.

I watched some playthroughs. Unsurprisingly, I liked the buddy cops with the good development, not the cringey activism plot with too many foils and not enough development of any single relationship and not the the Women Care About Babies plot.

But if I were going to do something fannish with Markus, I'd write him having a fucked up relationship with his mentor's son post game—the surrogate son who thought the guy was great and the estranged son who knew he wasn't but who has also done a bunch of shitty stuff himself.

It's especially hilarious when tryhards think the problem is not enough people shipping Markus with North as if the slashers are going to be into 1. het and 2. yet another unnecessary traumatic sex stuff backstory for a lady.

Even worse, half the whining isn't even about that Nines fanon nonsense being more popular than Markus: it's about how Markus/Connor would be better than Hank/Connor because old people are ew.

Sorry, children, a lot of people are here to thirst for Clancy Brown and because they'll turn up for any Caves of Steel ripoff. Other Connor ships were never in the running.

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after-glow · 2 months

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A gif colouring tutorial! (requested by the lovely, @ncutisgatwas). I keep my colourings super simple and easy to follow! So I'm happy to show what I do to achieve it!

I always start really simple with CURVES, I always select auto for this because I never like to artificially brighten the gif because sometimes it's too much?

So far, with just that our gif looks kinda plain but brighter,

Next, is LEVELS. I use the same for every single gif I make, the only thing I ever change (say the gif is in broad daylight etc) in the middle one, I either have it at 0.90 or 1.09. 0.90 for when the gif needs to be darker and 1.09 for when the gif needs to be brighter!

Same for our next step which is, BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST. Again, I rarely ever change these, I never turn it brighter than 20 (you'll see why later), but if it's a lighter scene I usually have brightness on 10 instead of 20 same for contrast.

Next, COLOUR BALANCE. Now, I rarely use this (in other words if you gif doesn't need it you can skip this step because I usually do with all my other sets!) but if your gif does call for this, these are the main settings I use for more blue tone gif sets. Below you can see the difference, it brings back more of his skin tone and vibrance to the gif without actually adding vibrance.

after the colour balance:

Now, EXPOSURE. For this one, I literally eyeball it. I drag it until I think it's a good brightness! if you have a gif like this where the subject goes from side on to front on always make sure you scroll and check when they're turned (it can wash them out once they face the light source!)

Now for SELECTIVE COLOUR, like the other step I do this for every gif same settings. I always use these RED settings because I find it protects the true skin tone without giving it a too over the top red/yellow colour. It's also perfect if you're giffing POC actors!

I add another BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST layer but this is mainly because I think the gif is a bit washed out without the darker bits standing out more! (THIS IS COMPLETELY OPTIONAL!)

And finally, once more COLOUR BALANCE. I simply felt it still looked a little too washed out for his skin tone and the colours in the room!

And that's our gif done!!

I use these same settings for every gif minus the colour balance. Always make sure to adjust the CURVES and EXPOSURE! If you have any more questions, my ask/dms are always open!

#text post #usersavana #userzo #userlolo #userhugh #usercallie #userlosthaven #tuserhan #tusertha #userelio #usersnat #userpfeiffer #mine #**

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ravencincaide · 1 month

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A second chance at life

Summary: You were done with life, done with being trapped and abused. But it was just your luck that you’d try to take your life on the borders with Port Mafia territory. And that there’d be an executive who had opinions. OR the time you found out that not all Mafia are heartless bastards.

Pairing: Suicidal reader x Chuuya Nakahara

Raven’s Special prompt: “Hi Raven, I'm the same anon that asked for the Chuuya x fem reader where she's abused and runs away, I forgot to add that reader is poc (brown skin).”

Warnings: Dark content with triggers, proceed at your own risk!

This fic contains: suicidal reader (who’s making an attempt- jumping), hint abusive-manipulative past/family, Cursing & mature language, Chuuya comfort/help, I think I didn’t miss anything.. i hope. Hope this brings you comfort and that you enjoy~

“ Oj don’ even think about it; I ain’t got any fucking wish to waste man-power on cleaning up civil splatter”

You froze in your spot; your hands automatically re-grasped the safety bar of the rooftop, keeping you upright and steady on the edge you were just about to leap off of. “ W-What?” you asked as you turned your head to the right, towards the stylish ginger haired man who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Instead of trying to talk you down from your suicide attempt however he just proceeded to light himself a cigarette. He took a deep drag of it before he pointed towards the ground below. “ The fucking ledge bottoms out onto Mafia territory. You jump- my men gotta clean that shit up” he answered in the most unbothered tone anyone could master as he took several steps towards you in warning. Something told you that even if you were to let go of the bar, he’d reach you quicker and pull you back to safety than you could accomplish your goal. Then he’d no doubt hound your ass for ignoring him.

You did not have the energy for all that drama. But you didn’t know what to say to him. You were so tired of life; of being a bother. A burden to everyone around you. Not good enough for anyone- in fact it was better if you weren’t around. But were you selfish enough to cause him more work? You glanced back at him; took notice of the dark rings below his eyes. The paleness of his skin made him look almost sickly. A powerful yet exhausted man. “ Sorry” you mumbled as you moved your body into a sitting position in defeated surrender. It seemed you were incapable of even dying right. Silence lingered for a while- you thought he had finished up his cigarette and left. Instead you heard him light another one somewhere above you.

“ So, why aren’t you trying again elsewhere? Packing your shit and getting away from whatever’s driven you up here?” You snapped your head up to face him but he wasn’t looking at you. His body leaned against the railing, his focus onto the city below. An unreadable expression on his face.

You scoffed at him. “ Please, where the hell would I go? I’m penniless and unlike those pretty white chicks, I won’t get a job overnight. Even as an escort” you didn’t bother saying that your family held onto your payslips with no chance for you to gather even a little bit of savings. You were literally trapped under their control- a puppet to be pushed and pulled at their every beck and call. “ Ehh so you think it’s easier for ‘em?” He sounded doubtful yet curious. “ I know it is,” you answered somberly, “ It took me a year to get the job I have now- had to beg an old classmate for her to recommend me. Still I’m the lowest paid among all my other colleagues with the same title and less experience. And get reminded daily that if I don’t like it, I'm replaceable.” You sighed and rested your head back on top of your knees. “ ‘round here it’s hopeless and I got no money to go elsewhere” In your eyes, you were trapped with no reasonable way out. It left you with suicide as your only option. Your only hope. And even it was stripped away from you, leaving a dull numbness in your body. A defeated surrender to your fate. Silence lingered for a while longer as he finished his cigarette and lit himself another. Clearly not denying your words as if understanding both the said and unsaid implications behind them “ You willing to work hard?” he asked suddenly. You snapped your head up and fixed him with a determined look. “ Harder than anyone you know.” you promised in a heartbeat. You did not care to know what his offer entailed. After all, what did you have to lose? Your enthusiasm amused him. It prompted the man to stretch a gloved hand down towards you. You stared at it for a long while before you finally rested your fingers in it. The leather was cool to the touch, his grip strong as he pulled you up to your feet in a single tug. He shifted his hold and then shook your hand, as though you two had just reached a deal. A mutual agreement.

“ Well kiddo I got an idea what the Port Mafia’s gonna do with you.” he smirked a boyish grin. An action that should have filled you with dread, but instead, you felt hope. A ray of light amidst the suffocating darkness “ Port Mafia?” you asked instead making him bark out a laugh. “ Damned right. From now on you’re Port Mafia property, and I, Chuuya Nakahara, am your boss”

Author note: Sweden is placed in the top four for racial equality IN THE WORLD Still those with non Swedish sounding names get significantly less callbacks for job applications than those with Swedish sounding names. Of those called to interview, how many get rejected because of accent/way of pronouncing words, skin colour or religious expression is something we’ll never know. And the thought of what and how it is in the rest of the world just shows what a cruel, unequal and sad world we live in. Truly it is a heartbreaking reality we exist in. This fic tried to portray that while adding a tiny bit of hope that only Chuuya could gift.. Hope it served its purpose.

Liked this work and want to see more? Check out Raven's masterlist for more stuff to read! ©ravencincaide 2024. Do not copy/repost/translate or spread my work(s) without my explicit permission. If you see any of my work(s) reposted/copied anywhere else without my consent, please inform me!

#raven's special #raven cincade's works #Raven's drabbles #Raven's short fics #chuuya x reader #chuuya x y/n #chuuya x you #chuuya x fem!reader #bsd POC #Chuuya comfort #Chuuya hurt comfort #racial equality #why is the world so cruel?

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wildjuniperjones · 2 years

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Juniper’s Massive World-Building Resource List

(Shamelessly cribbed from a dozen different sources)

1. The Checklists

These are the kinds of things that present you with a list of questions about your world, that you then answer as creatively as you want to. I find myself continually having to go back and add to them, because goodness sometimes I just want to write and not think about stuff that isn’t directly relevant to the plot...until it is. And then suddenly I have to think about the ramifications of that.

CRV’s Worldbuilding Checklists (originally from btot.de) - obviously more fantasy-focused Patricia Wrede’s Worldbuilding Lists - a good balance between fantasy and other genres

2. The Masterlist

This link has nearly everything you can think of. It’s not the be-all-end-all, because nothing is, but it’s damn good.

r/Worldbuilding’s Resources List

3. The Visuals

Yes, there’s the ever-present AI-generated images, things such as Artbreeder or Wombo Dream, but sometimes you need something more concrete. Like maps. Or people.

Also, pay artists to make beautiful things whenever you can. AI art is designed to remove the actual humanity from the creative process, and while it’s fine for face claims or inspiration, I would never ever use it as, say, my book cover.

Alsoalso, learn a little something about graphic design. Please. Color theory. Rule of thirds. I beg of you.

Things I have used for maps:

Inkarnate - Browser-based, but almost entirely fantasy-focused

Wonderdraft - Large-scale mapping for countries/continents/worlds

Dungeondraft - Smaller scale mapping that shines when doing smaller areas, especially interiors (both ‘drafts are from the same creator, and are desktop only) There is not, as of yet, a Towndraft, although the community is ravenous for it!

I highly recommend the art packs from Cartography Assets, although if you’re going to use them in a commercially released work, do be a good human and pay the artists for their work! If you want to do sci-fi or modern maps, this is where to get your assets!

Things I have used for people:

HeroForge - A 3D tabletop miniature creator with a vibrant modder community. The free version lets you create as many figures as you want, but their Pro deal lets you organize them into folders, which I absolutely love. It also lets you save specific colors/materials to use across multiple figures, which saves a lot of time when creating folks with a shared uniform. You can even import people/outfits/poses from other figures! I’m told that facial feature modification, clothing patterns, and kitbashing are coming this year! (I’m a little addicted, as you might’ve noticed.) Best on desktop, but you can get a quick “sketch” done on mobile.

Picrew - A truly massive collection of portrait creators. The Discord associated with it is really helpful, in that you can frequently get links to creators that meet your specific requirements, like ‘must have elf ears and POC skin tones’ or ‘must have heterochromia and vitiligo’. This site got me through the roughest parts of 2020. Great for mobile.

Meiker.io - Similar in scope to Picrew, Meiker has a few treasures, including a lot from the now mostly defunct DollDivine, which relied entirely on Flash. There are a few that I return to again and again, but not many. Best on desktop and very easy to create your own creators.

Neka.cc - A Chinese-based site with a lot of similarities to Picrew, although a lot less diversity, both in skin tones and bodies. Great for mobile.

Storior gets an honorable mention because it has a ton of potential, with a lot more options in some respects, but precious few in others. Best on desktop. Can you tell I really love these things?!

4. The Organizers

It helps to have somewhere to store all this information, right? Preferably in an easily accessed database? Perhaps with links or prompts?

These are the ones I’ve used:

World Anvil - Browser-based, incredibly detailed and complex, even for the free version. I found it to be too complicated to figure out, but maybe it’ll be your cuppa!

Campfire - Browser-based, mostly focused on writers, and has a suite of options that you can opt into or out of. This also wasn’t as useful to me, since there’s nowhere to put an outline!

Kanka.io - Browser-based, and just this perfect sweet spot between bare bones and overloaded. There are specific modules you can enable or disable, like in-universe calendars, dice rollers, character journals, etc. It’s my preferred option for organizing my world-building, outside of things like Google Docs.

I also understand a lot of writers like using Scrivener for their work, but as I have Linux, I don’t have any experience with it.

5. The Rest

So, a lot of world-building comes down to how well you know our world. I love world-building because it means I get to use all my education and interests together to create something that feels realistic to my readers and players. This is a time when ADHD is absolutely useful! Chase those squirrels! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve ended up reading an article on, say, rivers, only to end up with an idea for how leylines function in my world!

So here are my top 5 recommendations for figuring out how our world works:

Sociology! - If you want to know how different cultures interact, why certain customs come about, or just how a population reaches a decision, learn about sociology. It’s probably my favorite subject, and most useful to very culture-focused world-builders.

Geology! - If you want to know how your world fits together, what it’s made of, where things like mineral or gem deposits might be or how they might form... in addition to how rivers, lakes, and “strange” geographical features form, geology’s a great place to start.

History! - Okay, maybe this one is cheating, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read about something in history and thought “what if it went this way instead?” BAM, there’s a premise for you. (I have an entire novel idea built around that, told mostly through a writer interviewing a famous figure in this alt-history for their biography. After seeing the popularity of Dracula Daily, I almost want to release it like that...)

Ecology! - Oh man, if you want to figure out the botany and zoology of your world, ecology is a great place to start. It builds very nicely off of geology, and covers such a broad range of topics and how each of these pieces interact with one another - like how hydrology affects meteorology affects climate affects plant distribution affects animal distribution... which of course then affects culture!

I’m going to be sacrilegious in the eyes of some of my fellow world-builders here and NOT put linguistics - not because it’s not useful, just because it’s not a field I know much about. Instead, I’d suggest looking at world myths and religions. Yeah, it’s technically part of sociology, but if you’re developing a world from scratch, the creation stories that the sentient species tell themselves can inform a lot of their culture.

For instance, the world that Starcrossed, Amongst the Goblins & the Fishes, and The Silver Hand are all set in is an alternate Earth where magic never left the land. The creation myths in this world are much more centered around humanoids living in harmony with nature, rather than dominating it. In fact, some of the human societies have a specific taboo against desecrating the earth that is taken to such an extreme that other species, like elves and dwarves, occupy that niche instead, acting as stewards of the forest and mountain because they don’t have that same taboo. Part of these myths explain the existence of ley lines, and why they wither and die out (because of excessive logging, destructive farming/mining, or large-scale slaughter of creatures). Will this ever come up in Starcrossed? I highly doubt it. But it figures into the other two VERY prominently.

Phew! That was quite a tangent. Anyway - did I get any of your favorites? Do you have something you’d like to add? Should I make this all a separate page so it’s easy to access and update it regularly? Tell me things! Ask me things! I am an open book and love talking about world-building! Tell me where you’re stuck and maybe we can figure out a way forward together! (Also hmu on Discord, I am so mediocre at Tumblr.)

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fndmstrugglecomments · 3 months

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Option 1:

Ruby: "We've been in bad situations before, and we don't need an adult to come save us or tell us what to do. We just did it our way!"

Most if not all of RWBY's conflicts have been handled by adults: Raven beat Cinder and secured the lamp, Qrow stopped Tyrian from abducting Ruby, etc.

Option 2:

Yang: "You have cat ears. I think your cat ears are cute."

Imagine being in a...relationship?...with someone outside your race, and when they're about to tell you they love you they bring up how much they love your skin tone...I'd evaporate.

Option 3:

Blake's hallucination: "you could be human… or just a cat"

Blake has never struggled with being a human or a cat. Where did this line even come from?

Option 4:

Blake: "A simple life wouldn’t be my life! My family, my friends, my culture. I belong to them, just as much as they belong to me. To give that all away wouldn’t be simplicity, it would be betrayal."

Blake has never mentioned her culture until now, furthermore there's nothing culturally distinct about Blake. You can practically see the gears in the white writer's heads thinking "Blake is supposed to be a POC...what do POC care about?....um....culture! we'll add that"

Option 5:

Weiss: "Four versus one? Cowards."

Most of team RWBY's victories have come about because of teamwork, prior to this Weiss and Ruby essentially took out Harriet together. Addtionally, working together is supposedly a running theme of the show.

Option 6:

Taiyang: "If you honestly think that you're ready to go out there on your own, ha, well I guess you lost some brain cells along with that arm."

I'm not a parent but if my kid lost their arm I'd be a little nicer to them idk

Option 7:

Weiss: "Trust is a risk."

Water is wet

Option 8:

Ruby about Jaune's hoodie: "It's got a cute little bunny rabbit!"

It really didn't require All That

#rwde

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iodrawsandtalks · 3 months

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Criticism of Penacony and why i think HYV shouldve quit while they were ahead.

//vent towards the end, references to suicide while those references are quest spoilers Recently I've been doing world quests and grinding out the new region and been repeatedly finding myself walking straight into microagressions and slights to the point where it's been jarring enough for me to put my game down. As a black dude playing HYV games i know well enough not to act like the stupid billion dollar game company cares about appealing to minorities but its 2024 man.

First off, the obvious issue. Penacony has been repeatedly mentioned by the devs themselves to be based off of the Jazz Age from the U.S. a few decades ago.

youtube

The Jazz age was a period of time in American History between the 1920's and 1930s where the popularity of Jazz just boomed from being like an indie type of music to one of worldwide popularity. Obviously, Black people in that era are wholly responsible for Jazz itself.

So yeah, Penacony takes its origins from a key black history movement. Penacony, the region that released at the start of February. Black History Month. Star Rail is arguably one of the most popular games right now in terms of outreach because it's free, its new, and its colorful/futurisric etc.... And yet....

Just like with the rest of the HYV games that take real world inspirations, they fucked over black people and their stories.

In Honkai Impact 3rd, basically we had this one black girl who's like sandpaper brown and complains about how much her DARK SKIN ruins her look and how she bleaches her skin using various products to keep it lighter. She is ashamed of her DARK SKINNED mother who's a military woman. Her father is absent. Her mother is also a grown adult who is a B-rank soldier(main character white teenagers are S-rank for reference). Carole Peppers is her name if you want to go further down that rabbit hole.

In Genshin Impact, besides the fact that people with different skin tones are CLEARLY sectioned into certain regions(no seriously there's no real reason why i shouldnt see a black person in any of the existing regions.), and besides the unnecessary amount of whitewashing and besides the perpetuation of the idea of melanin NOT being natural, every single brown/black character in the game has awful playstyles and/or poor matching with weapons/artifacts, inaccessibilty, and they NEVER make it to the top of any meta tierlists. I'm not outright saying they're bad they're just harder and almost never get specialized weapons.

The only previously relevant example in Star Rail was Arlan, a lightning/destruction character. He chews through his own HP and unlike characters like blade/clara, does not have resistance or healing to handle that. Serval, the other lightning 4 star, out-dps's him veryyyyyyy easily. So yeah, the ashy black person character basically dies if you use him for too long and is never relevant TO ANY quests except where he needs to be the sidekick.

sometimes these games have dragons, animals that can understand and process english, or magic.... but then not black people...

Penacony has no black main characters. No black stories of relevance. Yesterday found an NPC whose name was detracted from chocolate and the player had the option to let commit suicide.

yeah ill get to that 💀. This large mass of at least 4 supernatural looking characters and yet no black person. NOT EVEN ANY OF THE CHARACTERS FROM penacony itself are black.

so yesterday I was grinding clockwork quests and had to help out some apathetic shopkeeper named Cocona. Her story was almost a bit sad but midway into going through her background i realized her name is one letter off of cocoa. now imagine being on a creative team coming up with a name for a melanated NPC and somebody decides on fucking CHOCOLATE with an extra letter. before anybody implies that one was something i shoehorned, think about how itd go if i had a bunch of POC characters and one white girl named crackerella.

Cocona and her once again sad backstory reach a hard tipping point as the player follows her to the edge of a building and can either grab her to stop her from jumping or simply let her end her life jumping off the building.

Yes we've seen how this game lets you make choices and watch the consequences of your actions, but there have been established rule-breaking predecents. Take Ruan Mei's quest where you have no choice but to eat the cake she offers you and once again lose the ability to make a choice on saying anything related to her. or any time the trailblazer gets pushed into a fight and cannot de-escalate. ....with this in mind consider why was saving the cocoa girl from killing herself NOT a forced option.

normally id be the kind of silly person looking for lore bits and stuff and making theories, (like how clockie is from the path of elation :v)but as a black dude this whole region is disgusting. THEY ARE GENTRIFIYING JAZZ AND COVERING UP ITS BLACK ORIGINS idk who said HYV cared about their audiences they fucking dont.

wouldve posted this on reddit but whoop dee do i am NOT getting doxxed today.

#honkai star rail #iotalks #penacony #discussion #hoyoverse #mihoyo #gaming while black #the jazz age #hsr discussion #hsr #sometime id like to play a fantasy game as a black person and not feel like a clown #tw sucidal ideation #jazz music #i hope they lose money im so serious like i hope kotaku or some gaming forum writes an article abt this shit #genshin mention #hi3 mention #anti blackness #id be mad but there's more important things to be mad about on the other end of the world so im just miffed abt this #Youtube

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proshippers-against-censorship · 2 months

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might be a bit of a controversial take? But imo I feel like antis who are either poc or black seemingly make the color of their skin the only redeeming quality of themselves, or just want EVERYTHING to revolve around that

Someone’s OC or anime character is not black? Let’s edit them into a black character! And mind you I have absolutely nothing against black edits. I even agree, black people are unfairly underrepresented in games/anime and this has only recently become a little bit better

but the edits I saw were mostly poorly done or gave the characters blurry oversized Afros that cover 90% of the face and colors that will clash with everything else going on, like backgrounds. Or they would “fix” someone’s art and then claim desaturated art pieces or pastel color palettes were “whitewashing”

Whitewashing is a serious problem that happens and shouldn’t happen so often in media but I’m begging people to understand that lighting, pastel and saturation as color options exist

Oh no I fully agree.

That and folks nitpick every piece of poc art but then get mad when artists start only drawing white characters because they're sick of the nitpicking. Personally, I just don't post original human characters anymore because you can do everything right and folks will still pitch a fit.

Also, fixing art is literally art theft and people who 'fix' art without permission from the artists are scum. I will die on this hill.

Draw your own art. And make it look good, God dammit. If I see another copy-pasted afro I may cry. So many creative hairstyles out there. And learn color theory, lads. Please. I beg.

(Not going to touch too much on the 'my skin tone is my only redeeming quality' note just because I just KNOW that's going to drag in some stinkies and I'm too eepy from my drive yesterday to deal with them. I do agree, though. Or the 'support me because I'm a [insert trait here] artist' thing. Like I'm sorry but if your art or product is shit I'm not spending money on it, idc how much of a minority you are. Trying to guilt-trip and frame anybody who doesn't support you as 'bad' because your art or product sucks is stinky.)

#proshippers against censorship #jackal barks #proship please interact #proship positivity #proship #proshipping #proshipper #proshippers please interact #proshipper safe #anti anti #ask #asks

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jonathan-samuel-smith · 7 months

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BoSS Dami is like the same character but rather than serious and grumpy they play up his arrogance into him being boastful and cocky and I love it. He's having so much fun in the film, he loves fighting. He's bloodthirsty in a way that makes the audience happy for him which is pretty funny. I love the way they animate his facial expressions it's so good, and I love his voice. It's a little bit serious and broody while still being arrogant and youthful it's great. Jon sounds a little too old to be ten but I like his voice other than that. I love how Jon thinks he's cool and how quickly they bond despite clashing early on. And they're so cute. So. Cute.

The colorism thing is a big problem and it's par the course for Damian, when given the full range of color options for a character of his heritage they will always choose the lightest unless they're actively fighting their subconscious racism and colorism.

I went off on a rant on DC colorists colorism under the cut this post really got away from me, but READ THIS IF YOU DRAW DAMIAN!!↓

I get that you draw what you see and if you see a lot of white and lightskinned people you end up getting good at only drawing white people, and light skin has been purposely highlighted in visual media for centuries in this country, but USE GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH GOD DAMNIT, FOLLOW POC ON SOCIAL MEDIA, HIRE POC. Go out of your damn way to learn this shit. If you can't do it good now, learn!

I went through this with homestuck, all the human characters have #00000 skin so you're free to have whatever race headcanons you want of them, but that's not actually representation. I was influenced by this style because coloring skin is hard so I just shaded it with my pencil and left it uncolored but then I realized by refusing to color the melanin in someone's skin, that's colorism. Fuck that. So I decided to learn, and mess up a lot of otherwise pretty works, because it would be worth it in the end. I'm still learning but I've learned so much already.

For example a lot of colorist societies draw pale skin far too desaturated. If you compare actual skin to the skin in anime, nearly all Asians that aren't photoshopped or wearing make up/bleaching look so much darker. Bleached paper being what we draw on and light skin being the presumed default in our culture has made white people (and others) way too comfortable doing the bare minimum in coloring skin. You don't still use the yellow crayon for blonde hair so why do you still use the very light peach/tan as the default skin tone? You're not even coloring light skin right let alone approaching properly drawing dark skin right.

I'm so fucking tired of every company doing this when I learned how to do better in middle school. Get out of your fucking comfort zone and draw diversely, or you're a coward and you're not doing anything to combat your culturally inherited racism.

Most DC artists are good at drawing 1 or 2 skin tones, maybe 3. There are so many more undertones and shades than that. I'm not counting rainbow colors. If you want Damian to be paler than his mother to reflect his mixed heritage that's totally fine! But it should be darker than Bruce's and Jon's. I've compared them and paid attention to the shadows being cast and he's really not darker than Jon and only rarely darker than Bruce because they drew Bruce especially pale.

I want you to understand that removing melanin from a character is erasure of their identity and actively harmful. There's a broad range of skin tones that the son of Talia and Bruce might have but choosing the lightest possible option is favoring white skin over dark skin, not realism. Just because you've seen more light skinned mixed kids doesn't mean there aren't darker skinned ones. The light skinned ones get more attention on social media and commercially because of social bias + algorithms + intentional racism. Most people who are colorist think that they're not racist because they're representing nonwhite people not bothering to notice that the people they represent have the most european features and light skin in their group. Yes those people are oppressed too but you're not fixing anything by only showing racially ambiguous people.

Mariner on star trek is a relevant example from animation. Both her parents have dark skin but she has much lighter skin because she's a main character. Stop it. Stop it. Don't think just because you see something highlighted a lot that it's the most common thing that's so dumb. How many mixed people do you think you see that you assume aren't mixed? There's confirmation bias at play.

I just wish I could beam this message into everyone's thick fucking skulls. Dark skin is beautiful. My number one coloring tip for any artist is this: don't be afraid to go too dark. You'll ruin the contrast and legibility and dynamic if you keep everything light and mid tones.

If you go too dark, you can filter it later.

I hate the argument "there are plenty of mixed people who dadadadada" stop. there are such a variety of people in numbers you literally cannot fathom with your human brain. You cannot picture all of the people that look exactly like whatever it is you're saying is more uncommon. Race is made the fuck up but its impact and cultural significance is real as hell. Genetics are so fucking diverse. I know a biologically related pair of siblings, one super tall dark skinned black dude and one super short freckled white girl, they have the same parents you cannot tell that they are related if you're thinking that mixed race children are like taking the skin tones and mixing them like paint.

Colorism is physically dangerous. People will assume that a mixed race child is being kidnapped by their parent because they so look different to them.

Damian could look the spitting image of Talia, I can tell you that with 100% certainty. He also could look the spitting image of Bruce, or Thomas Wayne, or Martha, or Ra's. All we know is that he's Arab, Chinese and white, he has black hair and green eyes, and he's short and good looking. Taking that and making the most european looking version of that guy as possible is fucking racist. I'm so serious.

If you want to do your part to combat racism and make a society where everyone can get attention and be seen as beautiful regardless of skin tone, then draw Damian with dark skin.

If you don't want to do that.... I don't understand you. Learn empathy, it will be useful to you.

#battle of the super sons #damian wayne #damian al ghul wayne #text post #jonathan samuel kent #jon kent #super sons #supersons #dc comics #damian al ghul #remember how i said i didn't come on here to rant about colorism “yet”? well the time has come #it will not be the last time im sure. i care about this a lot #batfam #batman

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kemendin · 1 year

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LOTRO venting re the reactions I’m seeing to the new update, with the disclaimer that I’m very very white and obviously can’t speak for any POC:

Man, I gotta say, I am severely disappointed with the reaction of so many people to the new Men options. And honestly, a little shocked. LOTRO has by far the nicest, most welcoming community of folks I’ve encountered in an MMO, and it feels disconcerting to see the ugly underside of that. Like, yes, the Tolkien fandom as a whole has always had that subset of racists, but LOTRO’s always felt much more niche and welcoming. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, but - I am, a little.

But seriously - the influx of inanities, the sheer immaturity I’m seeing on these comments. Adding more diversity to the character options is ‘ruining the game immersion’ and ‘an insult to Tolkien’s vision’ and all the other phrases these people like to throw around to cover up the simpler meaning of ‘POC shouldn’t exist here’. It’s the same thing that happened with Rings of Power.

And you know, I can even almost understand the point I’ve seen made several times, that they should have added more actual race options to go along with these new looks - Haradrim, Southron, Rhun, etc. And yes, that would be great! But a) do the people complaining even know how often players have chosen race not based on location, but on the visual options? Roleplayers do this ALL THE TIME. And b) until the devs DO give those options for more race origins, why not just... have the diversity in the character creation anyway? Why does it hurt so much if you can’t actually shuffle them off into another box that’s labelled ‘POC’ in your brain? I really don’t know whether to start Hulk-smashing people in my imagination or just sit here and laugh at their poor offended tears.

And then women with beard options - got to witness those reactions in SWTOR not long ago, and now in LOTRO. Someone quite correctly made the point that if you don’t care for such options, just don’t use them, to which the offended individual responded, in essence, ‘but they’re still being forced on me every time I see someone else playing one’.

Seriously. How is more options EVER a bad thing? How hard is it to just say ‘this is not for me’ and move on with your life? People -

Grow.

Up.

There are legitimate issues with the new update. I’ve seen a lot of general cosmetic bugs reported, and the whole face customisation being reset on acceptance is HIGHLY frustrating, when you have to go back and redo all the sliders when all you wanted to do was change your eyebrows. But MORE OPTIONS is not. An. Issue.

I can’t wait to see what happens if Elves get a revamp with darker skin tones....

(But also lol at all the people throwing hissy fits and saying they’re quitting over this. Trash takes itself out, I suppose!)

#kem rambles #lotro #lord of the rings online #i just can't even with people #i've been playing this game for over a decade #it's my home in a way no other game can be #and right now i want to take a giant can of raid and start spraying all the cockroaches complaining from the corners

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mrsbsmooth · 2 months

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i was trying to figure out why every other skin but the default white one looked off and not only was it the shading and the lack of lash, makeup, shading and eye definition but the light blue lining that is on the left side of every islander’s body is only applied to the mc default skin.

i understand a small slip up every now and then, especially in the release of a new season but it just seems like they based mc off the one default and left every other skin tone as an after thought when the focus and dedication should’ve been applied to each and every version of mc.

as a poc, it’s thrown me off of wanting to play or at least lowering my already low bar of basic minimal expectations of fusebox and their art team’s potential to hell.

Sigh. POC lost again this season.

One of the first things I noticed was the lack of a free natural black hairstyle. Paywalled. As per previous seasons. They responded to the backlash for S5 I think, and S6 & 7 from memory there was one free option each. But S8 they what? Just forgot?

Also I totally see what you mean about the outline. But also check under the eyes. The lower lashes disappear when you use a skin tone other than the default.

I'm trying not to complain so much this season but it does make it really difficult when there's a different amount of effort being put into making the sprites of colour.

You can't just create one sprite and then colour-shift it down to be brown skin. There are different undertones, different highlights. Light skin absorbs light differently to dark skin. Cool toned skin throws different warmth than neutral or warm tones.

It's frustrating. I thought they'd learned from previous seasons.

#POC #litg s8 #litg criticism

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shai-manahan · 1 year

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Hollowed Minds Progress Update 5/08/23

Hi! I know I failed at making a progress update last month, so first of all, apologies for that! Things have just been busy tbh and life has been too stressful that at some points I just couldn't write. It's why I've been a bit inactive here as well, and why I've been barely answering the asks I've been receiving.

I cannot report yet how many words I've written for the update so far because I haven't really taken a look at it myself, but I will do so at the end of the month if there's still no confirmed schedule by then. My eye health has just been very consistent at making my life harder as well until recently, and here's hoping I'll at least be able to function properly for a whole month��

Some things that will be in the next update:

For Chapter 2's Part 2:

Everything still goes as planned, except now both routes are expected to be fast-paced and action-oriented, though one is still more intense than the other.

This will be a massive one, not because of the word count but because of the variations that will play out. There won't be much issues in arranging the transitions to Chapter 3, so there's at least that, but your choices will matter a lot. So you might have to be careful with them.

One of the routes gets Alonzo actively involved, but please be assured that this doesn't mean you have to romance them. I actually encourage you all to check out both routes once they come because you'll gain more discoveries that way. 👀

Alonzo's route will be so memeworthy, I have to admit. Please try it.

There's an info dump in Chapter 2's Part 1 that I'm not really a fan of, so I'll be moving some of those to this part instead if needed.

For the overall IF:

Alex will now have a set skin tone if a lighter one is chosen for the Ripper. I will discuss this in detail soon, but I just wanted to emphasize that Alex and Ripper's mother are canonically PoC.

You will have options for your Ripper to wear contacts or glasses (or neither ofc).

You'll be able to bring a weapon with you in Chapter 2 depending on your choices so far.

You might remember a section of Chapter 1 where you can choose what your Ripper had been doing for the duration of the five months. I might reduce it to a few, just so I could have them properly recognized in the story.

There will be a couple of changes in the character descriptions in the game's stats page, with plans to make them shorter, too, for easier readability.

I will make sure you'll have saves at the end of this. So please don't be surprised if there'll be more page breaks in the future, as well as more choices (that are still as meaningful.)

In connection to above, I also plan to make the in-game descriptions snappier and easier to read while still maintaining the quality they should have. Your feedback will be very important for this, and this also applies to the beta testers (sorry I've been so silent. I swear I'll get back to you all soon lmao)

Not really too related here, but I also plan to be more consistent with my updates in the future. It's just that my irl schedule is still a huge mess, and it's very hard to be consistent when that happens.

Just a last piece of my mind. Some anons have been very aggressive with harassment the past few months, and I really have no interest for more drama right now. So if you have issues, if you think you can back your own words, send them through a DM or at least turn off anon so we could have a proper conversation.

It's honestly tiring. Being an Asian in this community can already be so tiring, so I am begging people to be mature and responsible with their words. After all, I've repeatedly said that you can always come to me with your concerns or whatever you have against me. As long as we can actually talk about it.

Anyway, that's all, and I hope the week will be good for everyone :) I have a few more things to post on Patreon tomorrow, so if you're a current patron, do look forward to that!

#hollowed minds series #interactive fiction #hollowed minds #wip #writing #hollowed minds book one #if wip #interactive novel #hollowed minds progress update #progress update #interactive game #if game #cyoa

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britcision · 1 year

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So I’m thinking about this again and I think a lot of the dislike for Vivienne comes from missing the metatextual layers of her character

Obviously she’s always a bitch and I love that for her, 10/10 step on me energy and if she was lighter she’d have been Lady Dimitrescu a few years early

But there are two different layers of subtext that I can see in her character that at the very least have made it really hard for people to explain why they don’t like her

Long and involved discussion below the cut, pack a lunch

Let’s start with the most common complaints:

1) she’s mean. Y’all love that in plenty of other characters though, so there’s something different about Vivienne that makes her being mean so much more offensive

(I wonder what it could be.)

She’s even mean in an overly polite, very delicate way with lots of honeyed compliments and stark disagreements

2) she’s a cop apologist who thinks the circle system works

Ignoring for the moment that people seem to have far less animosity for Cullen, who Literally Is A Cop and believes all the same things

(I wonder why.)

This is where the metatextual layers come in though, so bear with me:

Vivienne’s view point, that the circles are essentially good and while Kirkwall clearly wasn’t and needed to be destroyed, that was the exception instead of the rule, is the dominant viewpoint in the game

Even hanging out with the mage rebellion at Redcliffe, the greatest concentration of mages who should be pissed about the circle, every single minor mage NPC is against the rebellion

They’d rather be in the circles, but left because otherwise they’d be alone and murdered

There MUST be a number of mages who’ve experienced the worst of the circles; enough of them voted to rebel to carry these outliers like a tide

You never fucking talk to them

Not one

Fiona, the leader who started the vote to rebel, has nice things to say about templars if you speak to her, and still wants to reform the circles. She’s just realised it won’t work from within, and accidentally almost sold the mages into indentured servitude (if you picked the mage route)

This isn’t a subtle thread, it’s glaringly obvious if you pay even a little attention. Even mages who started as apostates tell you the templars are not all bad, and “it’s complicated”

Now, I haven’t played DA2 or seen a full play through, so this part is pure speculation, but.

The biggest complaint I see about DA2 is that you can’t help Anders blow up the chantry.

You have to be shocked by it, despite giving him the dynamite, and everything about how DAI refers to it tries to push that he was an extremist and hurt the mages more than helping them

(Also mysteriously every circle Cullen is at tends to fail soon after, despite him being extremely pro templars. Very interesting, completely unrelated)

And I think that’s why you’re surrounded on all sides by “not all templars” in DAI

I think someone at the top level was fundamentally confused by the reaction to DA2, because I think someone at that level thinks the moral quandary of the game is “who’s right, the mages or the templars”, and they think it’s a 50-50

That’s why you can pick either side with equal weighting

They think there is not a right or wrong answer to this question

We shall be calling this the Supervisor level, since I’ve no idea who or where they are, but they’re definitely near the top rung because holy fuck DAI is beating us to death with “well free mages are bad actually and some templars are lovely people”

I think that the Supervisor level think Vivienne is right

This is a game that has gone to great lengths to portray racial equality (and emphasise species inequality as a metaphor that it clearly understands is bad), that worked hard to make incredible, gorgeously under-toned and perfectly lit dark skin options

All of the default heads for all of the playable races come with two gorgeous POC options that are hot out of the box

Vivienne herself is a character they’ve given the world to; she’s beautiful, powerful, independent, strong willed, beginning in by far the best position of any of the companions

Her first scene is her stepping in to effortlessly undercut an encounter with a pissy noble that you as the PC were not given a win condition for

She is the most influential mage in the game, Fiona is undercut by Alexis before even appearing, the Tevinter magisters are all suspect because who knows who is Venatori, Dorian is a pariah and a rogue, Solas is an isolated apostate

Vivienne is in the running to be the next fucking Divine if she joins the party

The people who approved each level of plot for this game gave this beautiful Black woman the world at her feet, persuasive dialog options, and the most widely supported opinion in the world of the game

(She’s not wrong that right after Kirkwall’s explosion is a bad time for a rebellion and makes it look like mages support murder; she just fundamentally does not understand that there would NEVER be a right time or how badly the other mages were being mistreated

She’s isolated on a glowing cloud of privilege, yet never mentions her childhood or early days at the circles )

Dorian will happily tell you that the Tevinter circles pretty much are what Vivienne thinks the Orlais circles should be; well established schools of learning and study where mages are protected and given room to grow

(He also admits disappointment that their templars are toothless and don’t actually investigate who’s doing the human sacrifices unless they’re poor or not well connected)

So our first meta textual layer shows that to the Supervisors, Vivienne is right. It should not be almost impossible to get high approval with her, because players should not all be on the side of mages

They specifically use mages to push “free mages are dangerous” because it’s harder to argue against

They’re prepared for people to go that route anyway, that route exists, but they expected it to be a pretty much even split, and for grey areas like “the circles are bad, but mages still need to be watched because demons will possess them” to be a strong part of the mage route

Even if you ally with the mages freely, you can tell every single ally in every single conversation that you lied, they aren’t free, you’re going to keep them in line

And this brings us to meta textual layer 2:

Someone (or a group) in the writing staff understands the actual dilemma of the game perfectly:

The templars are wrong, the circles are an oppressive system that cannot be fixed from within, and you are only barely able to advocate for them to be treated as people, against constant and heavy resistance

This shines through in ways that could almost be seen as coincidence, which is why I think the power balance is set up this way

Sera says it best when asked where she stands on the mage and templar war:

In the middle, because you only hear about mages when one gets possessed and blows people up, and you only hear about templars when they decide to steal a bunch of maybe-mages

On the surface, this sounds like a pretty flat 50-50, both sides are bad so why take a side

But when you actually look at the words…

You hear about mages when their bodies are taken without control and they are forced to do terrible things

You hear about templars when they decide of their own free will that they want to kidnap random people and make sure no one ever looks for them

Only the templars have agency in these examples

There’s also the simple fact that the main baddies in the first part of the game are rebel mages and rogue templars

Rebel mages are fighting for their freedom, notably split off from the main body of the rebellion, who have run for their lives and are hiding

Rogue templars just decided to stay behind when their powerful and influential leaders decided to pull out and stop protecting people, and none of the “good” templars tried to stop them

You are deadass not permitted to bring this up when you first go to Val Royeaux and the templars fully withdraw to their keep

It wouldn’t fucking go anywhere because ✨plot reasons✨ but the fact that there isn’t even an option to say “by the way come pick up your trash” feels telling

Nothing is stopping all these good templars, that we are constantly being told exist and have mage partners and all that, from trying to do something about the rogues who are murdering just anyone they come across

There is no system to stop the bad templars, or abuses in the circles, because the system is not set up to protect mages

It is set up to contain them, and keep them from causing trouble. Whether you do that by keeping them happy and compliant or beaten and locked in solitary isolation does not matter to the system

But guess which one is easier, cheaper, and inevitable without any kinds of checks to make sure that the good templars are the ones in charge?

In this layer, Vivienne is laughably uninformed about… well, everything that goes on not under her nose

She’s so sure she’s the last First Enchanter left because she lives outside her circle, has the perspective of what common people believe, understands the political timing in the way the other mages

(Who are surely all just as comfortable and well off in their towers as Vivienne herself, who lives in a palace and visits the circle when she wants to)

can’t possibly grasp. Her whole first recruited dialogue is a list of increasingly passionate “why couldn’t they just sit tight and bear it until a better time came”

If you push all the way down she becomes more and more emotional each time, from her cool façade of “I know best, they’re being foolish” all the way to “they made it look like mages support murder”

It’s beautiful animation, incredibly complex and nuanced, and easy to miss if you write her off as a cop apologist and don’t drill down

I seriously doubt she even knows what restrictions were imposed by any of the circles, possibly including her own, cuz they sure as shit did not apply to her

Her party dialogue with Cole is actually another really good example of her just… not knowing what to do when the information she was given is wrong

She starts full of certainty, confident she knows more about demons than Cole or Solas (he asks why she’s scared of him but Solas isn’t, it’s adorable)

She accuses Cole of wanting to be more than friends with Solas, asking if he wants to possess Solas and keep him forever and stay out of the Fade with utter conviction

Cole understandably gets upset and tells her that he fully can’t go back to the Fade, and sometimes wishes he could

The motivation she’s ascribed to him deadass does not work, has been easily disproven in two sentences, and the conversation ends

Vivienne never replies, because this information doesn’t fit her worldview and she therefore doesn’t know what to do with it but write it off as a lie

Because on this level, which we will call the Writer level because it is most visible in the script, Vivienne is so much more than a cop apologist

Vivienne is the perfect demonstration of how an oppressive system cannot be changed from within, and what happens to those who try

Vivienne does not approve of abusive circles; she’ll tell you right off Kirkwall needed to be shut down

She just assumes that her circle experience is the more common one. That most of the circles are as lenient as hers, letting people live off campus if they have the right friends

Hearing her talk about the circles is actually a lot like hearing Dorian talk about the Tevinter circles (and yet he also doesn’t receive half as much hate.

How mysterious.)

Vivienne really thinks that the circles are all nice, comfortable institutions of learning and protection, and the mages who rebelled are brats who want to put their comfort over lives

She thinks circles like Kirkwall are outliers that need fixing, though preferably not by explosion

If Vivienne becomes Divine, Orlais circles go back to what they were, because she does not see the problems, does not listen to common people, and is comfortable under the status quo

It’s a fascinating combination of arrogance and misplaced modesty; Vivienne is special, incredible, the best for a reason. But she also thinks anyone else could have done as well, if they only applied themselves

That any other mage, in any other circle, could and would have her sphere of comfort and protection if they only tried

The system needs mages like Vivienne, powerful, cunning, persuasive mages, because they are its greatest weapon

She’s given a position of relative power and influence specifically to stop her from changing the system to what she believes it should be, by making her believe it has already been done

She defends the system from outside change because if it works for her, it must work for everyone, and they’re just being petulant, and she is isolated from anyone who could show her she’s wrong

She’s surrounded by the upper echelon of templars, who either have the appearance of being good, kind, noble protectors, or may actually be in her own position;

Being cosseted to keep them from making changes

It doesn’t actually matter if every single circle has fallen to the depths of depravity, abusing every mage inside it in obvious physical ways

What matters is that every single one of them can, and would the second one of the bad templars that everyone agrees are there, bad, and should be dealt with, got into power

There is nothing to stop any circle from becoming Kirkwall or worse, and that is why the system needs to be burned down from the ground up

They are jails, and the templars see themselves as jailers over people who never did anything wrong

If you wonder how that goes IRL, check out the Stanford Prison Experiment, then remind yourself that in the eyes of the templars being born a mage is a crime

And if you go wandering around and talk to everyone you can… there’s a Tranquil woman in Skyhold, your new creature researcher, Helisma Derington

(and HOLY SHIT the Tranquil will be a story for another fucking time, for now let’s leave it at “mages are uncomfortable around them and encouraged to see them as less than people for a reason”)

And Helisma will tell you she was made Tranquil not because of her magic, but because she was willful. That the time before she was made Tranquil was emotionally trying, but she doesn’t remember why

And ooooooh do I ever want her to have a talk with Vivienne, because holy fucking hell there but for the grace of God and all that, this lady cannot be a coincidence

And the Tranquil can’t lie

On this level, it’s actually much more important that Vivienne is a Black woman, and an intelligent, independent, powerful, canny Black woman at that

Because it shows that the system can and does work on anyone

There’s no identity that magically makes you aware of the inner workings of oppression, and you can’t opt out by being clever

Vivienne being so intelligent, so independent, so strong willed, is what makes her so very desirable to the system; she will be so much better at defending it once she is on the inside

Because oppressive systems that can be changed from within don’t last a decade. No matter how much you think so, you’re never the first to decide to change it

That’s why the system is built specifically to channel clever, capable, strong willed people into one of two paths: Vivienne’s, or Helisma’s

First the certainty that just kicking the system down and starting over would be so much worse. It’s dangerous, scary, and unfamiliar

Then the lure. Surely a Good Person at the top could fix all the problems. You can be the Good Person, make all of the changes, the system worked for you so it must have the potential to work for anyone if you can just fix those little problems

The isolation, being kept away or not seeing the people for whom it doesn’t work, never has, never will

Turning you against those who want to tear the system down, because clearly it’s personal. They don’t believe in you, they don’t think you can do it. You just have to show them, prove you’re right, if they’d just sit down and behave you could fix it all.

But do you need to? It’s already worked for you. It works under your nose, where you can see it

It’s nice, comfortable to be a mage in your circle, and you can’t be everywhere. The templars can keep their own people in line, they have the seekers for that

It’s too much money, too much work to look into every circle every day, week, year to make sure that no one is abusing the system, because the system itself is good

And frankly, that is a good chunk of why I enjoy Vivienne so much

She’s so utterly convinced she knows best, and the other mages just don’t understand, but she’s the one who really has no idea what’s going on

She’s so smart, classy and sassy, funny, and we will never hit a single point of agreement because she’s deadass just wrong

And there is just the smallest chance that if you keep her out of the system long enough, if you could introduce her to the right people and experiences in the Inquisition, she’d see how the system was using her

(And oh BOY would that ever be something)

And if she doesn’t? She has the same beliefs as more than half your companions. Wants the same things and speaks the same way as 90% of the minor NPCs in the game

(Seriously they are SO heavy handed with the “both sides” rhetoric that has to be intentional too)

Most of your allies disapprove of allying with the mages, though only your companions get the immediate little flash on screen

(You don’t get Viv’s Greatly Disapproves until the next time you talk to her, so you could probably technically avoid it and never speak to her again)

Cullen, Josephine, and Leliana are all quick to tell you you shouldn’t have done it, and should have talked to them before making a decision (I think there’ll be some disapproval if you freely ally with the templars too, but Cullen sure as hell approves of that one)

Tl;dr: the Supervisors think Vivienne is right about mages.

The Writers are using her to show how oppressive systems are designed to prevent people from changing them from the inside.

You don’t have to like her, but she doesn’t have to be right all the time about everything to be an interesting character

#dragon age inquisition #dai #dragon age #vivienne de fer #vivienne dragon age #the smartest person you know believes something really ignorant #misogynoir #meta #long post #with many opinions

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