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kybelles · 8 months

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it’s incredibly disappointing and shocking to see how misogynistic and vile the capri fandom is towards jokaste even in the year of 2023, to the point of calling her “used goods” and “an opportunistic slut” (YES YOU READ IT RIGHT!) it gets extra depressing when you remember jokaste did what she did to save damen’s life and it wasn’t even acknowledged by damen or that she was really rewarded other than laurent letting her go instead of her being charged with treason.

the most common argument i come across is “we don’t know if she did it to save damen’s life! it was purely laurent’s theory therefore it’s ambiguous.” now i know media literacy has been a lost art for the longest time so it doesn’t necessarily surprise me but if you read this exchange, based on her reaction, it’s quite clear that laurent was correct in his assumption:

and if even this isn’t a solid proof for you, here’s pacat’s own words:

another arguments i frequently see are:

a- “why didn’t she try to warn damen?” damen’s literal best friend from his childhood days tried to warn him against kastor and he paid him no mind. you really believe he would listen to jokaste, someone he’d known for a shorter period than nikandros?

b- “did she really need to sleep with kastor?” …yes? do i need to remind you that damen’s entire household was killed? which would include jokaste if she wasn’t kastor’s mistress? not to mention she had to be close to kastor to save damen.

through the series, pacat intentionally draws parallels between laurent and jokaste; both appearance and character wise. remember this scene where laurent stopped the vaskian raiders from instantly killing damen?

jokaste played the same gamble. she had no way of knowing whether damen would survive in vere or not but she had to try because she loved damen too much to see him slaughtered like a pig in front of her eyes. and yes i use the word love because just look at the way she talks about him… oh my god… like while it is implied jokaste first got close to damen for personal gain, she obviously developed feelings for him after some point and had the utter respect for him. (i always think it’s quite sad us fic writers need to write her cheating on damen with kastor in modern aus for plot sake because under normal circumstances, jokaste would never let damen go)

i guess the horrible misogyny aside, what also drives me insane is the double standard. laurent had damen collared like a slave, drugged him, forced him to fight with the threat of rape if he lost, whipped him, sexually assaulted him by proxy and the fandom can still sympathize with him and love him (don’t get me wrong i love him too) but when it comes to jokaste, someone who had no choice and did the only thing she could do to save damen, people hate her passionately and call her awful names. it’s infuriating. it’s disgusting.

tldr; jokaste genuinely loved damen and made the only choice she could under those unfortunate circumstances to save him from a horrible death and while no one is obligated to love her, this appalling misogyny train needs to stop.

#meta #💬#captive prince #jokaste of akielos #her only crime is being too beautiful and yall hate her bc of that smh #the scene where laurent says ‘omg girl i get you sooo well i’d risk it all for damen as well 😍’ and jokaste tries to blow him with her mind #how can you not love her???

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provincial-girl · 1 year

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Yeah, so A League of Their Own continues to live in my head rent free, and lately I’ve been really fascinated with what the show does with Sergeant Beverly. There’s one scene in particular in episode 7 which really strikes me as a moment that does some really great, subtle work towards helping us understand the ways in which she fits in the show’s larger goal of exploring queer and marginalized communities.

It’s right after Jo is escorted into the house by the police, the moment Beverly asks to speak to Carson privately. I feel like this is the scene where we get our first solid hint at the fact that Bev is queer, because she speaks as if she knows. Bev knows how this works. She understands that the names will be in the paper unless someone gets paid, and she clearly knows how to go about paying the right person. She understands the danger of keeping Jo in Rockford in a way that doesn’t even seem to occur to Carson until Bev explains it. Bev discourages trades all season in an attempt to keep the team together, but she pushes this trade through overnight, because she knows that getting Jo out of town ASAP is the best way to keep her safe. Bev is very matter of fact about the whole thing, like she knows these facts of queer life, and has known them for a long time.

This scene also takes place in the same archway where Bev all but comes out to Jess, an interesting parallel which suggests that Bev often exists in a sort of in-between space. On one side of the doorway, we have the kitchen, a more private personal space. It’s the only place inside the house where we see Greta try to kiss Carson, where Carson asks Greta on a date, and Greta asks Carson to move to New York with her. It’s also where Bev shares the most she ever has about her service in the Marines as she has a heart to heart with Carson about learning to stand up for herself and find her power (even if that advice is a bit misguided). The kitchen is very clearly a private space, though one vulnerable to intrusion, as we see right after Greta asks Carson to come to New York, and where we can still see people milling around behind Bev and Jess. On the other side of the archway is the much more public space of the staircase and main entrance, the place where Jo is very publicly escorted in by police, as if to indicate that this is what can happen when a person’s private queer life becomes part of a public space.

This is the in-between Bev works within for the entire time she is with the Peaches. On one hand, she’s an employee of the league, tasked with enforcing rules and maintaining their image for the public. On the other hand, she’s a queer woman doing her very best to protect these vulnerable women. Standing in that doorway as she has these conversations is symbolic of her straddling that line between her public and private self, brief moments where we can very clearly see one bleed into the other. One of the main difference in the shots is that she stands on the left as she talks to Carson, and the right as she talks to Jess. My theory is that this is symbolic of the fact that, in one case, she is taking something away from the team, even if it’s in Jo’s best interests, and in the other, she’s giving something back. It’s a literal give and take that Bev constantly has to balance as she tries to take care of her girls.

Bev may not be a main character, but this character arc acts as an important part of this broader portrait of the lives of queer and marginalized characters living out their own unique, often untold stories. Bev often hovers in the background, but the show treats her with thought and care,using small, subtle moments to create an interesting character, someone we grow to love and remember. By the end of the season, we learn that she’s an older, closeted, queer female Marine who doesn’t care about baseball, but is as devoted to protecting her baseball girls as she is to her fellow Marines, maybe even moreso. I can’t think of an occasion where I’ve ever seen a character quite like that, particularly one where we’re given the time to learn about her organically. I just really love that the show puts in the time and effort to allow a character like that to be seen and included as part of this larger portrait of the lives of marginalized people in 1940’s America. A League of Their Own is just so thoughtful and sneaky smart in how it does that, and I’m so grateful that it exists in this world.

#aloto #a league of their own #sergeant beverly #queer representation #meta #seriously though #the more I engage with this show the more I realize #how smart and thoughtful and well-researched it is #I forgot how much Ilove reading and writing meta #and I love this show so much for reminding me #(among other things)#this show has me in an absolute chokehold in the best possible way #my stuff

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robotsdeservebetter · 5 months

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Amber is not a bad person, you’re just mad that “Invincible” rightfully so told you that a girlfriend isn’t something the world owes you for being a good guy.

First of all, yes, Amber is flawed. Some of her actions were questionable, like threatening a bully to flirt with Mark or arguing with him in front of other people right before break up, which I see as her giving him a last chance to come clean, but, if I remember correctly, why in front of others? Also, she genuinely could have thought Mark ran away alone, leaving them, girlfriend and best friend, in danger, because him being Invincible is a theory from her POV, not a fact. Similar voice (even if it’s Steven Yuen), body and hair isn’t enough to say “Yep. Totally the same person”. And, actually, when the theory was confirmed true, it’s even worse than him just being a coward who suddenly leaves all the time. Why?

Because how in the world do you expect a relationship work, if you keep half of your life a secret? Boundaries are good, but Mark put a concrete wall with barbed wire and laser guns and hoped Amber would be understanding enough to pretend she’s blind until he decides it’s time. Amber did questionable things, she was impulsive at times, that’s true, but fuck ups isn’t a competition, it’s not healthy to treat them as such, which is why Amber’s anger was completely justified. Please take a look back at how he treated her.

He embarrassed Amber in front of her Mom by promising to come and not doing so. Mark showed up two hours later, when Amber’s Mom already wasn’t there to meet him. Imagine the awkwardness, the judgement, the “he will be there”. He mentioned things Amber was interested in, but due to him being able to do them thanks to superpowers, couldn’t elaborate, and blatantly changed the topic, which can sting, not enough to make an accusation, but obviously is a way to hide truth, alternatively, can be seen a lie to win Amber’s affections. He bought her a gift to make up for incoming fuck up, which can also sting (even if Amber is materialistic, her being an activist makes it safe to assume she was wondering whether that apology gift came from the stereotype or not). And of course, all the times he left with a made up excuse.

It’s important to note, that the show gave Mark a choice and that he made it. Eve told him that if he’s serious about Amber, he shouldn’t keep such secrets from her. Her own relationship fell apart due to lack of trust (and that Rex is overall a dick). The show made it clear that Mark doesn’t trust Amber, his girlfriend, enough to tell her. So what we have here is that Mark wants everything at once: a solid relationship, which requires both understanding and consent from Amber and trust from him, and safety of only chosen few to know his secret identity. He kept his identity secret, so next step should have been breaking up with Amber. Did he? No, he decided to string her along.

The show treats his decision to lie to Amber as a bad one because it is a bad decision. Mark’s feelings are valid, Amber’s are too and Amber felt left behind, kept as a token girlfriend. Mark only came clean when Amber broke up with him, as a last resort to keep their relationship. Trust isn’t a last resort, it’s the base of the base! Mark made his stance clear: “I don’t trust you, but I will use my sensitive information to convince you to stay and ignore my previous fuck ups”. Thinking about it, he practically used Invincible identity just like the expensive gift from fest: a grand gesture he made only when he risked losing Amber. This is not romantic, if you ask me and Amber.

What I’m trying to say is: Mark can risk his life every single day, and as unfair as it may feel, no other person is required to give him understanding, especially if they don’t know for sure what’s going on. Mark ended up with two opinions from Amber’s POV, both of which are horrible:

Not Invincible. He’s a coward, who leaves his girlfriend and best friend behind, not even trying to make them run away with him. He lies about being interested in same things as her. Brought a rock as a souvenir, which she regarded kindly. He upset Amber’s mom for no apparent reason. In response, all he could do is ask for forgiveness and not give any explanation. Conclusion: not a boyfriend material.

Is Invincible. He claimed to be serious about her, but kept half of his life, his genes a secret, which led to him stringing her along and only offering a “sorry” without explanations. Conclusion: he’s not serious about her, he might not understand it, but he’s not, serious relationship requires trust.

Then, why did she kiss him after a fight with Omni-man? Well, since she’s not an antagonist from any point of view, it’s safe to assume that Amber:

Still loved Mark. The amount of second chances she gave him, the amount of times she dosmissed his obvious lying speaks for her.

Wanted to comfort him and prevent awkwardness. They’re 17-18, how mature are any of them to accept Mark’s ex as a part of the gang without making it awkward?

Combining those two is what she came up with. Is it a good decision? I don’t think it is, they made up for now, but Mark trusts her now not because he decided he can, but because he was “forced” to tell (by plot or himself, so to speak, re-look at points made in paragraph 6. That didn’t come from his almost trust is what I mean).

In the end, fandom has nothing to complain about. Mark DID get his “my personality is to support you” girlfriend. Amber calmed down for now.

So yeah, Amber is not a bad character, she just doesn’t treat Mark like a god. You know who also doesn’t? Eve. A thing to note: Mark trusted her without question. A parallel? A will they won’t they? Who cares, we all know what will happen with their relationship anyway.

In the end I want to say, that I enjoyed Amber’s character. Despite being main superhero’s girlfriend, she didn’t feel generic, and that’s what makes Invincible so good for me: it’s aware of superhero tropes it can’t or chose not to avoid and executes them in a way that makes the characters ambiguous, in a way that makes me question the way I and fandoms categorise characters. Amber is flawed and that’s what makes her human. Writers took a risk to make things complicated, to make an imperfect woman of colour (please don’t say these don’t matter unless you understand racism and sexism can be subconscious), which you can say didn’t pay off, but I’m glad they took the risk, I enjoyed how it all turned out.

#amber bennett #mark grayson #invincible

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napoleon-usher · 1 year

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Here’s a coloring tutorial for how to make vibrant single color backgrounds for gifs. This way relies on the color you want the gif to be already existing in the original scene or the background color already being mostly just one solid color. It should also require minimal to no layer masking which normally results in a cleaner coloring. There will be a second tutorial which will explain how to do more complicated manipulations.

For my example, I chose a scene that had yellow and green most prominent in it. Scenes like this can be changed to many other colors so they tend to be very versatile.

I always start my colorings with Levels, Curves, Black Selective Color, and Exposure. This is not absolutely necessary but I prefer this set of adjustments to begin with because it increases contrast and brightness, and helps make colors more defined (which makes them easier to manipulate). If there are other ways you know how and want to achieve a similar effect, do whatever looks best to you. This is the scene with my base coloring on it:

As a rule of thumb, if there are people in the scene that I'm giffing, keeping their skintone looking as normal as possible is my first priority. This is especially important if there is a person of color in the scene so as not to white/light/orangewash them. This tutorial is a great resource for learning how to avoid that so I won't go into depth about it, but I will explain some of the steps I take because the method is a bit trickier for when you're also doing a vibrant coloring.

To begin with, Cal's skin has already been lightened a bit by my base coloring. To start with I use a layer of Red Selective Color to darken the skin tones and remove some of the yellow. The more yellow you remove at the beginning the easier it will be to manipulate the yellow and green background later without affecting their skin. Then a Hue/Saturation layer that desaturates and darkens the reds so that their skin doesn't look unnaturally red.

These are the adjustments I made for this scene. They may need to be further adjusted later, but this is a good start.

The next layers will focus on manipulating the background. The first step is to convert the mix of yellow, green, and minor cyans to a single, less muddy color. The easiest way to do this is changing them all to a more distinct green. In a Yellow Selective Color layer, increase cyans so that it becomes more green. In a Cyan Selective Layer, increase the cyans and yellow. Finally, in a Green Selective layer increase the cyans. You'll see that these adjustments have made the background a much more vibrant and solid green.

If the background color of your original scene is not green like this one, still try to get all of the different colors to become one base color to work off of.

At this point, you get to be creative with what color you want the background to end up being. I have previously made gifs of this scene in a yellow orange scheme. It could just as easily be changed to cyan or purple, etc. Sometimes, in order to end up with a certain color, you must first convert it to one or more other colors.

YELLOW

For a yellow background, use a couple of layers of Green Selective Color and take out all cyans and maximize all yellows. Two to three layers of the same adjustment should be enough. Next add layers of Yellow Selective color, also removing cyans and adding in yellow. This should only need one or two layers, depending on the shade of yellow you want. I personally like a warmer yellow, so I do one layer with Cyan at -100 and Yellow at +100 then a second layer with Cyan at -30 and Yellow +100. These settings will of course change depending on the scene, but the theory is the same.

These are the settings for the group of adjustment layers (in order) that I used to change the background to yellow.

You'll see that you can get vibrant and clean colorings with just a few selective color layers and sometimes even no layer masks. The last step is to check on skin tones again and make sure that the adjustments added did not change the color or tone too much. A good way to check the difference between the original and your coloring is to use the marquee tool and place a small marquee somewhere that will show you both when you use it as a layer mask. I usually group all my adjustments together then use a small circle marquee on part of a face and create a layer mask with it on the group. Then you can see how much everything has been altered.

I always find it very satisfying to see how marked of a difference my coloring has made, especially when I make such drastic changes. It also allows me to verify that I've kept skin tones looking natural and not whitewashed.

I'll demonstrate how to change this scene to a couple of other colors as well. Even if the adjustments might be different for your respective scene, the main idea of what I do should still be applicable.

CYAN

To change it to cyan, I started again with Green Selective Color layers, but with essentially the opposite settings as what I did for the yellow coloring. On your green layers, add Cyan +100 and remove Yellow -100. Two to three layers should be enough. I found there was a bit of yellow that my previous adjustments did not catch, so I put a Yellow Selective Color layer before the green ones and added Cyan +100 and removed Yellow -100.

Sometimes you have to change the order of your layers around to see what's going to look best. If the yellows don't get fixed before the greens, then the adjustments to the green layers will not affect the yellow. Placing the yellow layer before the green ones turns the yellow to green which then allows the following layers to also affect it.

At this point, the yellow and green layer adjustments have made the background fairly close to cyan. To clean it up and get the shade I want, I add a couple of Cyan Selective Color layers.

With Cyan, the more Yellow you remove and Magenta you add, the more of a true blue it will become. The less Yellow and more magenta you remove, the more of a true cyan/blue-green it will become.

To get the shade of cyan I prefer to color with usually, I use a Cyan Selective Color layer with Cyan at +100 and Yellow at -50; then another Cyan Selective Color Layer with Cyan at +100, Magenta at about -20, and Yellow at -50. These adjustments result in this:

At this point you probably get the point, but I'll also explain my process for purple.

PURPLE

Any adjustment that involves magenta tends to be just a bit trickier. The more you mess with magenta, the more it can mess up the quality and overall coloring. Green does not convert directly to purple easily, so I would suggest you start with the Cyan coloring and make your changes from there.

From the adjustments that make up the cyan coloring, go to the first Cyan Selective Color layer and put both Cyan and Yellow at -100, then Magenta at +100. Repeat with the second Cyan Selective Color layer. Then add a Blue Selective Color layer with the same adjustments.

Blue and Magenta have a lot of overlap so if you're trying to magnify the Magenta in your scene and working directly in a Magentas layer doesn’t seem to be doing as much as it should, try making changes to the Blues (and vice versa).

These adjustments give this shade of purple:

As always, make additional adjustments as needed to achieve the shade you desire.

Sometimes I use a Hue/Saturation layer to increase the saturation of certain colors, but most of the time the result I want is achievable by the Selective Color layers. There is also a greater margin of change you can do with Selective Color versus Hue/Saturation. Selective Color gives you the ability to fine tune colors with a lot more precision. Hue/Saturation has a threshold of about +30-40 on the saturation bar before it starts to degrade quality and distort pixels.

Here is the final gif with each color I explained vs. the original scene:

#*tutorial #quintennyson #omgari #uservalentina #userkraina #tuserabbie #tusergabriela #userrobin #usersunny #userfanni #useroli #userbells #supervalcsi #riah.gif #riah.txt

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centrally-unplanned · 5 months

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I played Needy Streamer Overload, which was a lot of fun, with an asterisk. NSO is a Lifesim Management game for a batshit up-and-coming streamer, where you as her 'boyfriend' allocate her time between streaming, resting, and content inspiration/development to hit 1 million followers. The writing is very on point for actual streams culture;the topics and comments and all that are very true-to-life, while its zany edgecore presentation is hilarious. And the UI is full kino:

Vibes - and also, spoilers, not just a cutesy aesthetic, as the player is not in fact a real person so the digital viewport is ludonarratively cohesive, +1 point.

However, it also pissed me off for specific me reasons!

So, these games tend to go into two buckets. One is the engine builder - managing the lifesim is both involved and The Point of the game. You work hard to optimize and achieve the goal. The second is narrative device - the lifesim elements are more about narrative choice than challenge, and either can't be failed or are trivially cleared. You approach playing those 2 game types differently.

NSO presents itself like the former - its mechanics are pretty involved. Managing Followers, Stress, Affection, & Mental Darkness, all on a clock, while unlocking ~10 different streaming content topic progression trees, its a lot to track. Not saying its crazy hard or anything, but its what you spend your time doing. You will be asking yourself questions like "yes I could have sex with her for the third time this week to lower stress and boost affection so I can burn that affect buildup on the Sexy Stream lvl 2 to sync my highest topic bonus with my streaming streak bonus before I need to end it for a rest cycle, but I can only play that card so many times, is day 13 too early?". That is fun, and where your focus lies. On my first playthrough I tried to hit the 1 million target, barely succeeded, but burned out Ame's stats so much I got a short, pretty-much-failed ending.

So on my second playthrough I tinkered around and stumbled on a soft infinity engine, where I could push Ame's stress to the limit in the opening days to get her follower count to the point where she would unlock "follower milestone celebration" streams that I could bank, that did not increase stress but would count towards a streaming-every-day streak bonus, and never take a rest day to get that bonus insanely high. I got several million followers with low stress, low darkness, I thought I did a good job.

And I got a short, pretty-much-failed ending.

Turns out this game has 30 endings, and the lions share of the long, involved ones are from you completely fucking up. You will get a way more interesting ending if you make Ame-chan overdose on LSD and she trips her way into breaking though the illusion of the internet. You want to raise her darkness high as hell for half of them. You can found a cult, you can induce all sorts of violence against her or others, whatever you want. But the game didn't tell me!!

It instead presented me with a solid optimization puzzle, which I spent like 10 hours doing. I shouldn't have bothered! It doesn't really tell this partially for surprise, but if we are being honest its because they expect you to google it, and they expect you to watch streamers unlock 25 of them after you do 5. Which is how modern games are made, but personally I don't love relying on that. I do think games are at their best when they self-teach a player the right way to engage with it.

But I respect that some people would see the discarded scraps of a tryhard faildaughter that is Ame-chan and immediately push her into doing conspiracy theory streams while smoking weed. I am just not someone you can plunk an engine in front of and expect me not to try to tinker with it. This is 50% on me.

#needy streamer overload

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herrscherofmagic · 5 months

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A look at the past & future of Honkai design: Simplicity vs. Complexity (Part 1)

Link to the YouTube channel of the person whose thumbnail I yoinked off of Google Images for this; it was the best image of the new Hyperion that I could easily find which is why I used it for this.

TL;DR:

Original Honkai Impact 3rd designs tended towards large, simply shapes that gave battlesuits (and other stuff) a strong "mecha" vibe. Many newer designs are trending towards more complex designs that do away with these simple and recognizable shapes, instead using more overlapping textures and ornamentation to create detail. Some designs balance the two, using large and relatively simple shapes that still carry enough detail to stand out as newer while still keeping the original vibes.

Because of this, I think there's gonna be a very clear visual split between Part 1 designs and the APHO+Part 2 designs because of this split between simplicity & complexity, and some Part 1 designs feel off because they stray too far from the original design motifs, making them feel out of place even if they're still good designs on their own.

I've been thinking a lot about the design philosophy of Honkai Impact 3rd for quite a while now. As someone interested in concept art and illustration and who's played video games for more than 3/4ths of their whole lifespan.

And obviously I'm not alone in this, given how often I've seen discussion of Honkai's character design. Whether it was the march of the pastel battlesuits or the techwear of the part 2 cast or the upcoming Garuda Fu Hua battlesuit, many people have had many opinions both positive and negative.

But I've wanted to do a sort of "deep-dive" for a while now, because I think HI3rd is a really interesting case where we can see the co-existence of (sometimes drastically) different designs made years apart from one another. It's normal for the style of a franchise to grow and change with time- my personal example is Halo, with obvious differences between Halo CE, Halo 3, and Halo 4 in mind. But typically that has been done over the release of different games over many years, not so much in consecutive releases within the same game. HI3rd's not alone in this regard, of course :)

I don't want to label anything as "bad" or "good". I can like or dislike something, and that's my personal opinion. Of course I COULD try to label designs as bad or good, but I'd want to back that up with serious analysis and get the opinions of other players, and that's way too much effort for a reddit post. Instead, I want to present some different designs in Honkai and share my thoughts, so others can feel free to agree, disagree, elaborate, etc. More of a matter of casual discussion rather than trying to present some solid theory, I guess you could say?

What I will say is I intend to label designs based on whether (or how) they fit into HI3rd's aesthetic(s), so that's the main point- not so much whether an individual design is good or not.

To start with, I'd like to talk about the simplicity vs. complexity of Honkai designs because I personally feel like this is the biggest problem I have with HI3rd, outside of story issues that is. Not because of designs being "good" or "bad", but because I feel like Mihoyo has been moving towards a new design philosophy that's different from what I loved most about HI3rd when I first started.

I opened with the comparison of Hyperion because I think it's a perfect example of this concept, and if we can understand what the difference is with Hyperion then I think it'd be more apparent with battlesuits as well. I also have another image that highlights some of the biggest differences between the two models:

I had mixed feelings about the reveal of the "new and upgraded" Hyperion during the moon arc. It's a neat design I'll admit, but I felt like it deviated a lot from the original Hyperion, not as a difference in fidelity and detail but rather as a difference in the fundamental design of the ship.

What I like so much about the original Hyperion is, as you might have guessed by now: its simplicity. Hyperion was comprised of much larger, blockier shapes with more clear silhouettes. It's actually the same reason I love the design of Halo's UNSC frigates, funnily enough. I'm a huge sci-fi fan and I absolutely adore spacecraft and vehicle design, so I really appreciated the design of Hyperion cause to me it felt very original.

The new Hyperion retains most of the same characteristics, and it's still recognizable as a version of Hyperion. But it bothers me just how much the design was changed. Many of the simple shapes of the design were broken up into smaller parts or almost totally changed, like the cannon going from a sleek polygonal barrel to a spikey... thing.

To me, it feels like Hyperion was redesigned with the idea of trying to make it more "futuristic" or "tech-y", or perhaps it was even designed with some retro anime motifs in mind like the Space Battleship Yamato. But it seems as though this was done by adding many objects that broke up the original silhouette, as well as inventing lots of new detail instead of adding details to complement what was already there. The shape of the winglets was greatly changed; the vent-like structures were totally changed; the barrel was completely changed; most noticeably, the bridge was drastically changed.

The new Hyperion model is technically "better" in terms of fidelity and the amount of detail it has, no doubt about it. But I think changing the fundamental shapes of Hyperion so much really hurts the charm of the original design, to the point that I was actually quite disappointed to see that Mihoyo used the new Hyperion design in the CG of the Captainverse Hyperion farm event. It seems as though Mihoyo wants to consider this as the new default impression of Hyperion, and not a special one-off thing from the moon arc.

I think this can be seen across other aspects of the game, too. In general Mihoyo has moved away from simple designs and towards complex designs, and I think there's been a lot of hits and a lot of misses with this.

For instance, I'd like to compare the three Herrscher Kiana battlesuits: HoV, HoFS, and HoFi.

There's a clear trend of an increase in complexity across the three battlesuits. HoV's design uses fewer and larger shapes, HoFS adds more and smaller shapes, and then HoFi is almost totally devoid of any large clear shapes.

To me, this is what distinguishes a battlesuit that "feels like Honkai" from one that doesn't.

Everyone starts the game in Chapter 1, and most long-time players have spent more time with older battlesuits than newer ones simply because they were playing the game before these newer battlesuits were even released. I think it's safe to say that even though HoFi is the grand "Kiana in her greatest form" battlesuit, most players will still have seen HoV's design more often because of the years that it's been around, and its prevalence in story content.

Most of those older designs were rooted more heavily in the mecha vibes early Honkai had. For instance, even though HoV is obviously not wearing a mecha battlesuit, the large blocky shapes are still reminiscent of armor, two examples being the large frames on her wings and the large white pad-things(?) on her sides. There's other obvious cases like White Comet being a skin-tight battlesuit which used glowy energy bits for its attacks, but I use the example of HoV because it shows that HI3rd was fully capable of creating battlesuits within the mecha theme without being limited to literal "mecha" designs. HoV's battlesuit is far from mecha in its nature, yet still fits perfectly with that aesthetic.

HoFi has pretty much none of that, though. It's a pretty design for sure, but it's also nearly completely divorced from that original aesthetic. There's few easily-recognizable shapes on her design, with the (very little) clothing she wears being almost entirely detail and ornamentation. It definitely fits the "Princess Kiana" or "Goddess Kiana" theme in isolation, but I don't think it delivers on that theme in the context of Honkai Impact 3rd.

Yet look at HoFS. HoFS definitely has more detail than HoV. Yet there are still lots of large blank areas that define clear forms; for instance, the armor on HoFS' waist. It's reminiscent of that of HoV while still adding more detail. This gives that same effect of a slight mecha vibe. It's still an appealing design and it still feels more modern than HoV, but it also manages to retain much of the same design language.

That being said, I have to admit I ADORE the Honkai wings that HoFi has, though I wish they were a little higher in the air. That's one thing that I think Mihoyo absolutely nailed with HoFi, and I wish more of that aesthetic was kept in the rest of her design.

What's also interesting is that (in my opinion) neither of the other two main Herrscher Trio designs suffer from this. For instance, consider Mei's battlesuits:

I've included Lighting Empress as a reminder that old =/= good. I'd like to make it clear that just because it's an "original" battlesuit doesn't mean it's a good one. I said before that I didn't want to label stuff as good or bad but this is a clear exception and I hope y'all can understand why, lol

We can certainly argue about whether HoO Mei's design really fits the image of Raiden Mei. It's a vast departure from her other battlesuits when it comes to her palette, for better or for worse. I didn't like it at first but it has grown on me, and I think part of that is because of that concept of simplicity vs. complexity.

HoO has way, way more detail than the other two Herrscher Mei battlesuits, no doubt about it. But it also retains many large and recognizable shapes. Nothing on this battlesuit is bulky like HoT or other older battlesuits, but it still gives off the feeling of being armor despite being so thin. Much of the detail is created not by overlapping layers of ornamentation and texture, but rather by using intricate shapes with clear silhouettes and light detail inside that outline.

And HoTr is obviously a mecha design, so I don't think we need to elaborate on that one :)

The point is that it's absolutely possible to make detailed and beautiful battlesuits without getting rid of the original shape language that HI3rd was built on. HoFS is a bit dated now but still much newer than HoV, yet it keeps the vibes. HoO is also far newer, yet it still fits the theme of battlesuit. HoFi, though... not so much.

Finally, I want to talk about the elephant in the room: the Part 2 character designs.

Once again, here's the link to the YouTube video by Matt Is Playing, where I pulled this image from!

Much like HoFi, there's very little trace of the OG Honkai mecha aesthetic in these battlesuits. It's not to say that they are inherently bad because of that* , but it doesn't quite feel like "Honkai Impact 3rd".

*except Dream Seeker, I'm sorry but what the heck is going on there???

But the thing is that this design philosophy isn't even new. In fact, it's years old by now... because we see this in APHO.

For a long time now, APHO has had battlesuits that tip-toe on the very edge of the original Honkai aesthetic. So the designs of Part 2 aren't actually some new and drastic shift in Mihoyo's design philosophy- rather, it's reinforcing a design philosophy that was introduced with APHO.

These new characters all feel out of place if we compare them to the original battlesuits. They don't use the same simple forms, instead using dense and overlapping details. But if we compare them to the APHO cast, they fit right in. We can argue about the merits of the new character designs in other terms, but I think these discussions have to keep in mind this context.

I'd say the APHO designs work well in the setting of APHO because they're following the same aesthetic. As we enter Part 2 and once we see more of the story and setting of Part 2, it's very possible that these new character designs will feel more natural and more like "Honkai Impact 3rd".

But it's a different Honkai Impact 3rd.

This is why I think the idea of "simplicity vs. complexity" is so important to understanding Honkai Impact 3rd's designs. I think Mihoyo might be trying to emphasize two different phases of Honkai through this design philosophy. These are going to be two very different halves to the same game, with the designs of Part 2 possibly becoming as distant from Part 1's designs as Part 1 is from HSR.

You have the OG mecha action vibes from the good ole St. Freya days, and we have the sleek tech-wear of the era of exploring Mars, world-hopping in the Sea of Quanta, and fighting literal aliens.

For better or for worse? Only time will tell.

As a bonus, I'd like to include some extra comparisons, though I won't be adding any more analysis. It's more about having extra examples to keep in mind. Also, I think these ideas can apply to enemies and weapons as well, but that's a larger discussion I'm not yet ready for so that will come in a follow-up later on!

#honkai impact 3rd #hi3rd #honkai 3rd #honkai #honkai discussion #as if that's even a tag people use lol #long post #Kiana Kaslana #Raiden Mei #Bronya Zaychik #i just realized after posting this that I used the wrong image for stygian nymph jgkldaflhflhadfhagh too late to change it now!

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indigovigilance · 5 months

Text

How to Write Good Omens Meta

Someone left something in my ask box that intrigued me:

My Ask is for insight into the theory of clues and how S2 clues move and build S3. Is there a meta on this? (If not, would you consider it at some point?)

Well, I did consider it, and here’s my first shot at answering this really good question. It's more about the art of writing than of clue analysis, but I may do a second piece in this series, if it feels necessary. Anyway, here we go:

read on Ao3

Learn Something New

People want to read meta to learn something that they didn’t know before. This probably means you will have to learn something that you didn’t know before. Some meta-analysts arrive pre-loaded with a rich background in costuming, tarot, biblical canon, and the wide array of cultural references that appear in the show. We also seem to have a fair number of psychologists (formally trained or otherwise) representing. I (and others: see Chekhov's Contract by @ineffablyruined) happen to have a background in law and so I was able to make a unique contribution via my piece Sovereignty, Citizenship, and the Bookshop. But for other topics, I have to self-educate.

In my personal opinion, the work on direct canon analysis (that is, watching the show and reporting what you see) has largely been done and I don’t think there will be many more breakthroughs until some people go away and come back with a freshly informed perspective. Personally, I’m waiting for someone to go learn everything there is to know about S.W. Erdnase and tell us what they found, because that is a very specific reference that I haven’t seen fleshed out yet (link it in the reblogs if it already exists!).

Don’t Be Afraid of Outside Sources

For example, quite a few times I’ve gone away to read outside source material before writing a new meta. Good examples are: Honolulu Roast, The Lament of the Metatron, and The Hornet in the Beehive. These are topics where I had no particular advantage over anyone else, I just had a question and decided to keep digging until I had something that looked like an answer.

On choosing a topic: in each of these cases I began with an in-show piece of information that seemed both unambiguous in its directness and yet unexplained. Why is there a mysteriously appearing sign in the coffeeshop that says Honolulu Roast? Who is the Metatron? Why is there so much attention drawn to bees when Crowley goes up to Heaven? If I start with a solid question and then follow an investigative pathway, usually beginning with the Bible given the nature of this show but not always, I’ll usually find something.

There are also some Clues that we’re basically told to investigate. The books on the shelves. The movie playing in the background in The Resurrectionist Pub. These are unambiguous breadcrumbs but they’re a lot of labor. I’m not going to read all those books and watch all those movies. So pick one (1) and go read it, or watch it, and then tell us what you found, so I can read your 1,500 word piece to learn what I need to know about it.

Sometimes you get enough information for a meta just by hanging around long enough and absorbing information. That’s how I put together my pieces on Terry Pratchett’s Death and Crowley’s Dream. The trick in this case is to be able to synthesize it, and for that, the very best way to learn how to do that is read other people’s meta.

Specializing

The asker asked the most important question of all: what’s the balance between trying to manage all the Clues or ignoring them entirely? Well, think of it this way (I’m borrowing an XKCD comic for brevity):

The takeaway here is, when you get a PhD, you become a hyperfocused expert in a very narrow topic and you’re relying on lots and lots and lots of other PhD students becoming highly specialized experts in other topics so that together you are expanding the diameter of human knowledge.

We (meta-analysts) are all getting PhDs in Good Omens, one way or another. Some people are doing their theses in color theory. I am doing mine on the concept of memory and identity permanence (though frequently dabbling in law). Yet others have flung themselves body and soul into the topic of Crowley’s gender and God bless them. Heck, there’s a team of people on Discord who are on any given day ripping the Bentley down to its studs and building it back up again. Feel free to explore while you seek out your passionate topic but don’t feel the need to tackle all of them. You’ll find the one that you fit best in.

You do not have to solve the S3 plot puzzle by yourself. You have to find two pieces, put them together, and then go find a buddy that also has two pieces and see if your pair of pairs makes a quartet. Literally. That’s what we’re doing here guys. It’s a team effort or nothing at all.

Organize your ideas into digestible segments

Great, so you learned something new, you have a tantalizing hypothesis, and you’re ready to write! But what does a good meta look like?

Your abstract (which I recommend you write last) will go at the top, followed by evidence in a logically progressive order that finally culminates in your conclusion. If you’ve ever written a five paragraph essay, you have these tools in your toolbox. And yes, sometimes you will even need to rebut counterarguments (“but Neil said” is the bane of my existence) just like your teacher taught you. But it shouldn’t be formatted like a five-paragraph essay. This is not an 8.5”x11” sheet of paper with 1” margins: this is Tumblr.

Walls of text are great and all but reading handicaps come in all flavors and I for one benefit greatly from having section headers that help me navigate a meta. I’m much less likely to read it if all I have to find my place by is paragraph breaks.

Section headers should tell me what the next paragraph or two are about, and if I read just the section headers, I should have a pretty good idea of what evidence you’re pulling from where and what conclusion you’re going to support with that evidence.

Here’s my opinion on gifs: if I need to see Michael Sheen’s micro-expressions to really understand your point, include it. If I just need a reminder of where we are in the story, or what a costume looks like, a still is fine and less distracting. For a lot of things, though, images are unnecessary. You’ll find the right balance but don’t overburden your written work with images. I think there are quite a few people who only read my work on Ao3 because they simply don’t like the Tumblr, image-centric format.

Have a main takeaway

What does all your evidence point to? It may feel like stating the obvious, but state it anyway. Put a little ribbon on top of this gift you have given to the fandom. Label it. Tell them exactly what your conclusion is from all this information you gathered.

…but don’t feel a need to draw a firm conclusion

In my meta Continuity Errors, I conclude that Crowley stops time in order to move something that was hidden in the bookshop out of the bookshop. I do not speculate on what exactly that something is that he moved. I don’t need to. By leading others down this path, I am tapping the collective resources of the hive mind to think about what exactly was hidden with the bookshop’s protection. They may have some information I don’t because they’ve been looking other places. Not having a hypothesis for this shouldn’t (and didn’t) stop me from publishing my work.

Go back to the top and write your intro/abstract

Have you written your main takeaway? Did you support it with evidence? Good. Now take that and write a 20-30 word elevator pitch that you’re going to put at the top of the meta so that people know what it’s about before they commit to 1,000-2,000 words of being led down the garden path. I have a bad habit of burying the lead, and I’m trying to break it. For a moment people were worrying about putting big revelations below the cut so that we’re not interfering with Neil, but I don’t think Neil has ever seen my work and I doubt he ever will, and at this time my opinion is that playing “hide the lead” is more of a hindrance to the fandom than helpful to protecting the integrity of the IP. So be bold. Tell people exactly where you’re going with this and a short roadmap of how you’re going to get there. You don’t necessarily have to “give away the goods” but the theme should be obvious. An okay-ish example of an abstract is the intro to my first meta. My abstract for Continuity Errors is decidedly more tongue-in-cheek. You'll find your own style.

Cite and Tag

If you read someone’s post and it gave you a great idea, cite them as inspo! It’s a feel-good moment for them and it ties the fandom together. If you’re relying on your own prior work or someone else’s work to support a point, link the piece and tag the author. You will probably want to start copying links to metas that you like into a doc or spreadsheet to make this easier. Check out mine to get an idea of how you could organize a spreadsheet, or check out this doc to see an alternative approach to meta database management.

Speaking of which: @cobragardens, @aprilodite, @drconstellation, @vidavalor, and @irispurpurea, your work appears in this... whatever exactly this is idk.

Recruit a Mentor/beta

Various Tumblrites have published comments or posts that they are willing to beta other people’s work. Reach out to those people before you need them and ask if, whenever you’ve written your next piece, if they wouldn’t mind taking a look at it? Have an upfront discussion about turnaround time. Most of us work, and have other obligations, so it’s unlikely we can look at a thing the minute you send it to us, even if we’re active on Tumblr at that moment. Some people have set days off that they know they’ll have time to curl up with a cup of tea and read the first draft of your meta; you may find that having a weekly schedule with someone pushes you to produce and improve at a pace you wouldn’t achieve under your own steam. Writing is a skill; you get better by practicing and getting constructive feedback.

Anyways, I hope someone finds this helpful: maybe meta-analysis seems like an intimidating thing to get into, but it shouldn’t be! This is a welcoming community with room for all shapes, sizes and flavors of contributions. If you have any follow-up questions about this piece, please feel free to drop them in my ask box!

#good omens #good omens 2 #good omens meta #ineffable fandom #writing #on writing #meta on meta

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terresdebrume · 2 months

Note

for the OTP ask meme: 14 and 51 for Webgott (or whichever ship where that's an interesting question/whichever you want lol)

[Ask me about my OTPs]

Thanks for the ask :D I love the questions you picked, they're difficult but in a great way :3

14: How do their personalities compliment each other? How do they clash?

So to me, the way David is portrayed in the series makes him seem like a guy that's even-tempered enough people may wonder if anything actually gets to him, who can definitely be oblivious to how things and people work (I mean, the guy is out of a war for 4 months, comes back, and it apparently doesn't occur to him that the guys he doesn't see right away might be injured or dead? Come on.) In my headcanon, part of this even-tempered-ness exists because he got lucky and is just like, emotionally solid, so to speak, but another part of it is also that I headcanon him as someone who doesn't always realize he has Feelings about Stuff, until they bubble up and he finds himself snapping about it.

(Full disclosure: my headcanon of Web is a little bit autistic-leaning, but I think his spot on the spectrum would be one where he'd go under the radar until and unless something made it impossible for him to arrange his life in a way that accomodates his needs)

Meanwhile, Joe definitely knows when he feels things, he's just generally not happy about feeling them and has a tendency to make it everyone else's problem. (Or Web's, once they get together.) I think, in a way, the reason he ribs Web constantly (seemingly especially after he comes back from the hospital?) is because he can't wrap his head around the concept of a guy who's been living the same shit Joe has and seems to be as affected by that as a a dog is affected by the theory of relativity. I think it just doesn't compute, and at least his earlier niggling is partially a scientific experiment to see if he can Make This Guy Emote.

Which of course, to Web (who is oblivious and doesn't realize his apparent mental stability in the face of Everything is odd) probably feels like gratuitous targeted harrassment until he figures out how to read Joe and realize that actually this is just an elaborate form of pigtails-pulling (or at least it becomes that after a while)

So, like. Overall I think Web and Lieb compliment each other in the same places they clash: Web doesn't know what he feels most of the time but has no issues talking about it when he does, which Joe finds both fascinating and frustrating because who the fuck rolls over on their back and bares their chest like that on a regular basis, am I right? He thinks it's breathtakingly brave stupid.

Meanwhile, Joe will bite your head off before he admits that he like strawberry cake over chocolate, actually, but because Web is already used to having to retroengineer his emotions from context clues (and he's trying to figure out why Joe hates him specifically) he ends up accidentally figuring out a whole lot about Joe that other people don't, which then gives him the necessary insight to respond to what Joe is externalizing rather than what he's saying which in turn makes him possibly the best person for Joe to hang out with.

51: What’s a non verbal way they say I love you?

Honestly? All the ways. As in, I think they probably go like, ten or twenty years without ever actually using the words, mostly because again, Joe is allergic, and by the time Web realizes it he's already been showing it for a while anyway.

I would say the most deliberate way Web says this to Joe is to get him food, especially greasy or sweet food on a semi-regular basis. Forget flowers: David knows that as far as Lieb is concerned, love is stored in the butter.

For Joe, I think when he actually tries to show affection he does it by seeking out activities that are relevant to David's interests (though not without complaining, of course). This ranges from spontaneously giving David his gracious permission to drag him to the sea so thay can go sailing, to saving for three months so they can drive up to that conference about sharks two states over.

#Band of Brothers #Webgott #Joe Liebgott #David Webster #Assbox Games #10n

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feathers-silly-rambles · 3 months

Text

Does Alastor actually care about the hotel or it's residents?

I think maybe.

So I JUST got done writing a collage essay of a theory on the Lilith/Alastor thing, so what am I going to do?? WRITE ANOTHER ONE!!

Spoilers

Okay, so I'm gonna start of with the fact that I wholeheartedly believe Alastor was only there because Lilith sent him. The hotel doesn't have any of what he seems to prefer as entertainment (murder, cannibalism, it his friends), so to go there and then do pretty much nothing to actually bring in any guests sorta brings that into questions. He was there because he had to be, not because he cared.

HOWEVER!!

Things can change.

In the pilot, Alastor tried to make a deal with Charlie. I believe he did this entirely for leverage to get his soul back, and when it didn't work, decided to either never bother again or try it again when he'd gained a bit of trust. The thing is, he hasn't done that again. By now, he should now he can EASILY trick Charlie into making a deal with him, but he hasn't. Why is that? Well, unless he's just simply not willing to risk it or forgot about that idea, there's the idea that he cares about her, even a little bit.

Episode 5 rambles, yey. I don't think he sent Mimzy away because if the damage to the hotel, I think it was because if her antics got Charlie killed, he'd face punishment for it, but it's definitely possible that he may have been a bit worried for his friends too.

Now onto my big point, Alastor spite-dadding. Most of us know that it was likely to be manipulative or to piss off Lucifer, but I do think there was some genuineness behind it. Alastor's expressions during his song change quite a bit. Every time he says anything along the lines of her being like a daughter to him, he glared at Lucifer. In one line, though, 'You're like the child that I wish that I had', he looked genuine until he said the word 'child', then finished the sentence looking genuine again, then continued to glare at Lucifer.

This leads me to believe that even thought he's likely VERY MUCH exaggerating their relationship to spite Lucifer, he does care for her, even if just a bit.

He interupted Lucifer's song and then proceeded to tell him to butt out (lol). He clearly didn't like him since the moment he walked in the door and was very much trying to piss him off, but in the end, I think he mostly just wants Charlie to be happy.

In the song at the end of the episode, Alastor is shown watching, and doesn't interrupt. He can see she's happy and her dad is actually trying, so he stays out of it, whereas the song at the beginning was entirely Lucifer trying to get rid of Al (until he interrupted).

I wouldn't say he looks necessarily happy, but he sees she's having a moment and puts his ego aside and doesn't butt in this time. He definitely cares enough to let her sing an entire song with her dad, who he hates. He put her feelings above his spite here, and I think that says a lot.

Another note; The pacing really hurts the judgment on this. It's not Viv's fault, as she was halfway through season 1, and was under the impression that there would only be 8 episodes, but it makes everything so much more difficult. There was a 5 MONTH time skip. 5 MONTHS. Literally ANYTHING could have happened. in his song, Al pointed out that he made her laugh with puns, seemed to have a history with being rather useful, and has likely had casual interactions with her, but because of how little time there was, we weren't able to see that. We couldn't see anything aside from plot point after plot point because Viv needed to get the story out, and there was no time for her to show some of the more casual interactions with the characters. Maybe Alastor DOES spend time with Charlie and care for her. Maybe he HASN'T. We'll never know because there wasn't enough time to show it, and that makes it so much harder to judge.

I will say, however, that Charlie is naive, but not to the level of seeing some guy who she spoke to maybe 10 times claim to be her father figure and agree with it. She 100% thought (whether he's lying or not), that Alastor cared for her like a dad would, and it made sense to her. That says something at the very least, I think.

What we really need is Alastor regretting his wording when Charlie calls him dad.

TLDR; Alastor cares, but dad might be a stretch. The pacing definitely made it hard to just.

#hazbin hotel #alastor #hazbin hotel alastor #hazbin hotel charlie #hazbin hotel lilith #lilith #charlie #please correct me if i got anything wrong #and I'm happy to discuss/debate #the best way to see if my theory is solid is if people try to poke holes in it #if you read all of this i love you #feathers rambling

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louisisalarrie · 1 month

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whats your theory about a failed coming out?

like was larry going to come out during 1D, or has louis/harry attempted to come out since

heeeeelllloooooo lovely. happy to see you here again!!

I’m gonna go into this in a little more context this time round because I’ve gotten this question a couple of times now, and am more than happy to share my thoughts. just a disclaimer that the theory I’m going to share, is what I personally believe happened, but is not rock solid proof, but does make a lot of sense. You’re all free to make up your own mind about this, open to discussion, but no one be hateful pls.

starrysaturdays and the anon who asked me earlier today about this, welcome to the show.

This post by caralara really opened my eyes and thoughts to what could’ve gone down. I seriously think it’s a possibility, and the timeline matches up, and at the time… we all really believed that we were coming super close to a coming out. Harry was becoming more flamboyant, ran with the rainbow flag, “not that important”, “don’t knock it til ya try it”, RBB and SBB and the countdown of bears “coming out of hibernation”, Belfast, the big gay war, everything. 2015 was a wild year, as we all know, and Larry were able to communicate to each other more publicly again, and yeah. We were optimistic.

That post I linked is in no way blaming zayn, like, the man needed to do what he needed to do. But it’s a major play into the brand of One Direction and having a coming out after zayn leaving is one scandal after another. It blew up too big, and PR wouldn’t have been able to handle it. They believed they’d lose a lot of the fanbase, and everything would’ve looked super chaotic and messy if it did happen. It was truly a spanner in the works of the master plan. If the boys had signed on again, there were probably some promises of coming out, too.

But I do think that Harry was meant to come out as bisexual (regardless of what his sexuality genuinely is, but it’s the safest bet for management not outing his stunts while the band is still together, and he genuinely could be bi), and the best way to make sure Harry can come out but not give Larry fans more ammo was setting louis up with a kid. Party Boy Louis™️ as we called him. They couldn’t possibly be together, even though Harry wasn’t straight. Ya know?

So anyway, I think the post I linked explains it all and I think, if this is what went down, it definitely caused a big rift between Harry and louis and zayn and that’s why louis wouldn’t forgive him for so long and said they weren’t ready to talk about what happened etc. Idk, to me, the tension there seemed more than just about how much louis loved 1d.

Anyway, moving on to your question about attempted coming outs, I think Harry is somewhat out. He’s been very ambiguous about his sexuality, and it’s a smart move. The whole Xarry thing was a good example of this (apart from the fact harries like to pretend 1d never existed so they won’t even look into it). It keeps his fanbase onboard with believing that he’ll fall in love with them because he’s never said he’s not into their gender. It’s a standard PR move, but easier to move into a full coming out and a label if he so chooses to. Before they do that though, they are genuinely going to have to start seeding a stunt with someone who does not identify as female, otherwise people are just gonna keep saying he’s queerbaiting. A lot of people already do believe that, and he’s lost fans from it. But, they’ll probably believe that being publicly with a man would be the stunt. So I guess either way he’s gonna lose, but it’s a bit safer it is the way now. I do see a proper coming out for him sometime in the future, whether or not he’ll label it, something more concrete will happen. But I think he’ll be out solo, before he’s out with louis. He’s halfway there.

Louis hasn’t really attempted a coming out at all. I think he’s happy just doing what he’s doing, but is open to coming out when the time is right, and I think he’ll only do it with Harry. I don’t think he’d come out solo. He doesn’t have the brand for it, and with a smaller fanbase (and the chaos we’ve seen of Louies vouching for his straightness and bbg being real) he’s gonna lose some fans and it’s gonna impact him a lot more than Harry, and bbg does affect this too.

If louis does come out, I don’t think it means necessarily that there will be an “end” to bbg, per se. Already we’ve seen less and less of that kid, apart from like 10 mins of louis’ doc and our annual Christmas family photo and a couple of tweets, it’s not shoved down our throats like it once was. You know why? Because bbg doesn’t serve its purpose anymore.

Louis doesn’t get that much press. He’s doing well, but if Harry had a kid, the press would neeeever shut up about it, even 8 years down the line. But bbg and F and B aren’t in the public eye anymore, and barely any of the GP would even know Louis had a kid by now. I was talking to a friend not in the industry about Louis the other day, and they were like “oh! I don’t know him. What’s the name of the one with the kid?” And I was like “… Zayn?” And they were like “Yeah!” Soooooo yeah. Bbg doesn’t get press, it doesn’t boost louis’ publicity, it just… doesn’t have a purpose anymore. And thank god it’s not shoved down our throats all the time still, but it’s also a bit of a backup plan. It’s sitting there, so if they need publicity of Louis being with his kid at his concert or something like that, it’ll make some headlines. It’ll also keep him straight when need be, and probably when Harry comes out we’ll see some kid content.

I’ve kind of weirdly come to terms recently with the fact that we might never see an end to bbg. It might just continue to slowly disappear. Even when Louis/Larry come out, he can just say he didn’t figure out his sexuality til later. That’s a totally valid thing and will be widely accepted as a reason for having a kid, and not because your management and PR team are filthy and set you up with one.

Anyway, I think S*mon felt really bad about bbg being extended after the shit show that was 2015, and that’s why he gave louis all those opportunities to get extra money and publicity on X Factor etc., and to maybe bribe him a bit to not out the stunts or take things into his own hands (like when he went holding hands with his female friend that he absolutely was not meant to do to get rid of relationship rumours with B and closer ties to bbg). That’s the only reason I can think of them acting like buddies now.

So yeah. Harry will come out first, then louis and Harry hanging out seeding etc. will happen, and then they’ll very veeeery slowly come out together. Unless the other shoe drops and they out S*mon and his cowards first, and lose all their money in a court case. We’ll wait and see.

Anyway sorry if this is a bit of an all over the shop ramble, I’m slightly hungover. But we need to just keep our eyes peeled. Things will happen slowly, but surely.

#anon #answered #bbg #stunts #starrysaturdays

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blood-orange-juice · 4 months

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I browsed a little too many fics and now I wish to know your opinion on these two surprisingly common takes on the boy:

* Childe's ambition is to rule over the world (kinda of a James Bond Villain take on someone wanting to be The Best There Is if you ask me)

and

* Childe's ambition is to take down the heavens because the system is unfair

Sending this as an ask so you can choose to answer or not ^^

I'd say the first is a solid miss. He has never even once shown any desire for status or power over people or creating and sustaining any kind of system. If you asked him he'd probably say the idea is boring.

The second is somewhat close to how I myself headcanon him!

From what we can see, something happened that completely ruined any possibility for him to percieve himself as a hero. Couldn't have been trauma and hardships, he doesn't seem to be put off by that. Could have been him being turned into something not properly human but he doesn't seem to behave like that either (not "the world is all right while I am not" type).

This only leaves the option that something is horribly wrong with the world.

Personally, I think taking down the heavens would be too simple and it probably doesn't work like that. The heavens are complicit and so he might as well take them down (gives him something to do at least) but it probably won't fix anything.

He also seemed to be floundering after coming back from the Abyss until he became a Harbinger and seemed all-too-happy to accept the Tsaritsa's goal as his own. This implies she suggested a solution he didn't know before.

So one of my theories is that everything he does is an act of despair and stubborness.

Preserving the dreams of children because they are the only shred of normalcy this world has. Attacking the heavens as a way of saying "screw you" even if it solves nothing. Seeking battle as a form of improvement and entertainment. Following Her Majesty's plan because she seems to know what she's doing and stands a chance. Hoping for some way to fix it all because Skirk promised he would get to play a part. Trying to become stronger in the meanwhile to play his part perfectly.

#childe #tartaglia #thank you for this question! it was fun thinking about it <3 #rinn talks to people

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brewsbrownies · 4 months

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Theory: what REALLY makes a spider-man?

I don't know about you but ever since I watched across the spider-verse I've been curious about what makes spider man, spider man, if supposedly 'anyone can wear the mask.' It's obviously not appearance:

It's not whether or not you were bitten by a spider:

and we've already seen that it's not one's species or gender.

It's not 'destiny' either *cough*Spider-Man 2099*cough*

And I really don't think it's capability either

So what is it? I'm not sure since nothing is confirmed. I've tried to think about it but there is always something that contradicts whatever I come up with. I can't think of anything that makes perfect sense or has tons of proof but I do have a theory that I think makes the MOST sense and i hope it's good enough.

It's already been shown that every spider-person has a 'with great power comes great responsibility' moment at some point in some kind of way, whether they were directly or indirectly told or shown it.

Well, I think that kind of makes almost every spider-person have a mindset of 'I have to fix my mistake' even if there is quite literally no way they can fix it, not any kind of way to redeem themselves.

Even if they aren't told that it's their fault most spider-people already convince themselves it is. So basically I think it's their mindset. Every spider-person has an 'it's my fault, so I have to fix it' sort of mindset, even if it is their fault, there's never a way to fix their 'uncle Ben' moment.

They try to fix it but it never fulfills anything.

Some of the only solid proof of this is from a DELETED scene so I'm not sure how accurate it is.

in a deleted scene Miguel asks miles what makes a spider-man, miles answers and Miguel says his answer is wrong. That means that there is a right answer (in Miguel's mind) so any spider-person who the 'right' answer applies to immediately has the chance for miguel to ask them to join the spider society. This is what happened with gwen.

Miguel still doesn't want gwen to join even after he sees how capable she is, he doesn't want her to join still when her dad had a bad reaction to her identity reveal, he only decides to let her join right after she says something along the lines of "I don't how I can fix this." He replies with "join the club." And lets her join the spider society.

This leads me to believe that it has something to do with the mindset of the spider-person. If anyone knows anymore proof or has anything they want to add or prove wrong than feel free to say it.

Edit (I keep realising stuff AFTER I post theories): miles was never told in any kind of way "with great power comes great responsibility" he also never could come to that conclusion since when his 'uncle Ben' moment happened uncle Aaron told him "I let you down man" he also told him to "just keep going" and "you're the best of all of us" so miles never blamed himself instead he tried to improve, just keep going. this is one of the reasons he's considered an anomaly.

Some may make the argument that gwen never had a WGPCGR moment either or that she never blamed herself for peter's death, but when Peter died (her peter*) he told her that he wanted to be like her so gwen might've realised that peter did that because of HER and she technically killed him even if it was an accident it was still her. So peter sorta indirectly said that it was HER fault possibly still making her guilty.

#Across The Spider Verse #ITSV #ATSV #spider-verse theories #Across the spider verse theories #miguel o'hara #gwen stacy #spider verse #spider man theories #spider man #marvel

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twistedtummies2 · 2 months

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Gathering of the Greatest Gumshoes - Number 26

Welcome to A Gathering of the Greatest Gumshoes! During this month-long event, I’ll be counting my Top 31 Favorite Fictional Detectives, from movies, television, literature, video games, and more!

SLEUTH-OF-THE-DAY’S QUOTE: “Truth brings closure.”

Number 26 is…Gil Grissom, from CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Perhaps it’s just me, but it feels like a lot of modern mystery shows today tend to veer more towards “crime drama” than your more classic “detective story.” These are shows that feature a more or less ensemble cast, rather than focusing primarily on a single chief investigator. Oh, there may be one or two characters more important than the rest, but at the end of the day, it’s less about one man or woman putting the pieces together, and more a group of people who all have different jobs, working together to stitch the greater puzzle into one solid whole. They try to focus more on “real” detective work (and I use the quotation marks because, even then, there’s usually some romanticization involved), rather than the old-fashioned ideal of the singular sleuth.

I’m not saying this as a complaint, by the way; there are many great shows that have come out of this, and lasted for long periods of time, because something about this formula is as appealing as any other. One of the most popular and long-running examples – as well as one of the first I remember seeing a lot growing up (perhaps more than was healthy, given the nightmares I remember occasionally having) – is “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.” The series, as its title implies, focuses on the adventures (if that’s an appropriate choice of word for them) of the CSI operatives of the Las Vegas Police Department. The show had a revolving door of cast members over the course of fifteen seasons (and, fittingly, fifteen years). While many characters came and went, for the first eight-and-a-half seasons of the program, if there was a main character to be found, it was this one: team leader Gil Grissom, played by William Petersen.

My biggest problem with CSI, to be honest, has always been its characters: with only a few exceptions, a lot of the members in the cast I just don’t feel were very interesting. I remember their faces, but I can’t tell you much when it comes to a lot of their personalities, and some characters I probably wouldn’t even remember by name if you asked me. I say all this because this was NOT the case for Gil Grissom: he is genuinely a really interesting, fun, unique character, and probably one of the best leads any crime series of this nature has ever had.

Grissom is a certified genius, who is known for being highly intellectual, and slightly eccentric. He’s fascinated by insects, being a passionate entomologist, but also has many other interests: history, literature, theatre, and art, among others. He speaks in a frequently poetic fashion, making references to various bits of trivia and offering moments of philosophical wisdom here and there. Ironically, he’s not that well-versed in a lot of pop culture references, despite all this. (I can relate.) Throughout the show, Petersen creates a wonderful character that is both detached and sensitive at the same time. On the one hand, Grissom isn’t made of stone; he can be irritated or unsettled by things around him, and he does sympathize with people and feel sorrow about situations beyond his control. He’s even got a spiritual side to his personality. However, he’s also a very logical and practical person: he’s a scientist, before all else, and believes in hard facts and evidence above all. He also doesn’t have many social graces, and will do bizarre and seemingly deranged things for the sake of proving a theory or testing a hypothesis. In short, he’s a bit like a modern day Sherlock Holmes…except maybe a bit less rude.

Part of the way through Grissom’s tenure, it was revealed that he was starting to go deaf, which signaled a change in his character. While he eventually got surgery to save his hearing, this paved the way for the character’s departure about halfway through Season 9. Later lead investigators would enter the series: first came Laurence Fishburne as Ray Langston, who had probably one of the most wild departures from the series to his credit. Following him was Ted Danson as D.B. Russell, who to HIS credit got an episode with an “Alice in Wonderland” theme. (For me, that’s always a plus.) Neither were bad characters – all three leads were the most memorable ones in the show, for me – but I never felt as attached to them as I did Grissom, possibly at least partially because they just weren’t around for as long as he was. For me, whenever I think of this show, I always think of Petersen as Gil Grissom before anybody else.

Tomorrow, the countdown continues with Number 25!

CLUE: “How did people survive before there were pattern-recognizing sparse representation algorithms?”

#list #countdown #best #favorites #top 31 fictional detectives #gathering of the greatest gumshoes #number 26 #mystery #crime drama #csi #tv #television #gil grissom #william petersen

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studentinpursuitofclouds · 6 months

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Hello there, does the Almighty Mouse have any romantic headcanons for Zayne, Victor and Jadu? With a Farmer that is generally a quiet, really sweet, "walk the walk" kind of person, but is planning how to expose the Mayor and his Solid Gold Lewis Statue >:3

Oh, pfffff! Phah, almighty 😅

Yeah, I have some short headcanons :D thanks for the ask ❤️

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Victor:

Victor didn't expect his favorite partner to be a walking phrase "still waters run deep". For what he didn't expect was that the quiet and kind Farmer kept a whole board with pinned sheets of paper that said "finding the golden statue". Oh, they want to find some hidden treasure in their adventures? Oh, that's interesting, Victor can help- Uhh, what? What Lewis statue? Maybe this isn't such a good idea... But the fire in Farmer's eyes suggests that they are willing to pursue the search for the truth to the end. *Sigh*

Jadu:

Poor Jadu is just trying to get used to the new place and its inhabitants, and he has already been plunged headfirst into "the most important mystery of the entire Pelican Town". What is the strangest thing - the initiator of all this is his beautiful and precious partner, who by their nature is quite calm and kind person. Who's Lewis? The golden statue? Jadu is so confused. In a way, young mage sees this whole "truth-seeking" thing as just another weird hobby of Farmer.

Zayne:

"My love, maybe we shouldn't meddle in people's private life?" Yoba witness, Zayne harbors the fondest and warmest feelings for his beautiful Farmer, yet he does not agree to participate in their mission to "expose Mr. Purple pants." At the very least, it's rather rude. If they're wondering about this "mystical golden statue" (which young Amethyne doubts exists), it's best to ask his sister, Lenny, about it. Although, Zayne realized that now instead of a quick resolution to this story, poor Lewis now has as many as two people breathing down his neck: the chaotic Farmer, and his older sister with her teasing.

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Some mumbling under the cut:

PS: I would like to add that I personally do not subscribe to the theory that Lewis is corrupt and he made the statue with money collected from residents as a tax. My personal theory is the recent gift from the Governor to Lewis for his 30 years being mayor and for making Pelican Town an important plase because of the lifted economy. Lewis knows full well that it is mostly Farmer's merit, but he was afraid to cross the Governor's authority and just... accepted this statue and put in his house. A strange, awkward and slightly tasteless gift that he doesn't want to show anyone (golden statue of himself, really?). While he was thinking about whether to melt it down into gold bars and use the money from the gold sales for the next festival, Farmer found the statue and put it in the main square because lol, hehehe, golden Lewis.

Is that a more plausible theory? Hell knows, but I like it better, that's what the headcanon is for. And yes, SVE at Grandpa's Farm has their own theory and even an event on this statue, but I'll stick with my version.

#sve #stardew valley expanded #sdv mods #ridgeside village #rsv #sve jadu #rsv zayne #sve victor #thanks for the ask!#heh #not almighty but just a random person who writes headcanons of dubious quality :)#goodnight everyone #i feel so sleepy 😴

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