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demonfox38 · 3 years

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Completed - Baba is You

I can't believe this is the first game I've perfected on Steam.

Like, I don't like achievement systems in video games, okay? I prefer to set my own goals. Sure, there are some achievements that are interesting, like learning to use a certain mechanic in a cool or efficient manner, visiting hidden rooms, or even running around with nothing but my character's default busted sword just to prove a point. Mostly, I just want to finish them. I don't go jumping through flaming hoops because I want people to think I'm cool. I'm from Iowa. I'm critically uncool by design.

If a game is good, I will put in the extra work. Like, getting 100% souls in "Castlevania: Aria of Souls" and 200.6% map completion in "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" is now just routine for me. With "Baba is You"? Well, circumstances are just a teeny bit different.

"Baba is You" is a puzzle game from independent developer Arvi Teikari. Your primary goal in the game is to create statements out of nouns, verbs, and conditions and use those generated rules to complete levels. It's basically catnip to programmers. These puzzles are packaged in cute, scribbly animations and gentle music. Ultimately, its soft presentation is the figurative sheep's clothing under which the wolf of this game lives, dragging its players through increasingly more complex situations, sitting there, laughing, its whole world wiggling in its adolescent mockery of you and your sluggish brain.

You're not always even Baba. I know. The absolute betrayal.

I originally saw this game being streamed back in 2019. A frustrating feeling overtook me as I watched the player work through the puzzles. I could feel myself solving them before she could, and it was making me itch. I didn't want to have any more spoiled without giving it a shot myself, so I purchased the game, put in a few hours, and then dropped it for two years. Hell, the major reason I came back to it was that I was babysitting my mom's very needy poodle, and I was more or less trapped on the couch with her during her entire stay. Had to do something. So, I decided this was it.

"Baba is You" really is the ultimate "Yeah, I'll get back to this" game. You know what I mean? There's always a handful of games that you make a little headway into, and then you think, "Yeah, I'll get back to this" and then drop it. I try not to be this way. Video games are expensive, and I want to get as much value as I can out of them. But man, does this game get overwhelming.

I mean, the TAS for a 100% run is currently around an hour and forty-five minutes. That's for 226 puzzles. That is a lot.

Granted, you don't have to finish every puzzle if you don't want to. The game can let you slide free with your first ending after completing only three subworlds on the main map. You know how many people get to that first ending? Like, we're talking maybe getting through 3 hours of gameplay or so. As of this posting, it's around 7.8% of all players on Steam. In comparison, here are first time ending numbers from other games I own on Steam:

"Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon" – 38% (Cleave the Moon)

"Trine" – 29.6% (Completed!)

"Dust: An Elysian Tale" – 23.9% (…And the Dust Settles)

"Fez" – 14.7% (Kill Screen)

"Psychonauts" – 13.2% (I Thought That Was Unbeatable!)

"Typing of the Dead" – 12.9% (Experimental Fiction)

"Final Fantasy VII" – 9.4% (End of Game)

That's right. From a percentage point of view, more players will put 80 hours into a 20+ year old RPG than 3 hours in this game. So, what's up with that?

At first, I wasn't struggling terribly with the game. I was making a pretty steady clip through it, stopping occasionally to check out the game's wiki. (BTW—view that on a laptop browser, not a mobile one. The background makes it hard to read some of the verbs and conditions.) My first tap-out in 2019 happened around the "Forest of Fall" block, when the game started introducing teleporting puzzles. My second brain-snap happened about 18 hours in the game when I accidentally created the phrase "Level is Key" in the puzzle "Fragile Existence," and then I realized that I could both create this level as Baba and had to create another level as a flag to win the overworld map.

And then there was a submap.

And another.

Holy crap, my brain was not ready for the mess that was Depths and Meta.

At one point, I stopped myself and reviewed why I was overcome with despair at my own stupidity. A part of it is yes, the game looks very cute, and the language used in the puzzles is very simple. So, when you don't get it, it's like saying you don't get "Sesame Street." And hey, maybe you wouldn't if it was in Mandarin and you only speak English. But, I did want to beat myself up for my sluggish responses and my growing feeling of helplessness. Why couldn't I beat the simple sheep game for babies? Was I really that stupid?

I think it helped to know what troubles I had my playthrough harder. This included:

Using text to push objects past barriers. (Yes, text exists in the world, and unless it's floating, you can use that text to move objects around. It's like hitting a car with a stop sign.)

Assuming attributes on an object that weren't actually assigned (i.e., assuming a door was locked or a wall would prevent me from moving through it, even if that wasn't the case.)

Manipulating text to double-layer nouns or break up commands by wedging an inactive/non-solid object in them. (See: Prison.)

Realizing that "you" doesn't always have to go to a certain destination. Sometimes, "you" just need to have something move over there or push something into where you want to go.

Remembering to use the "Wait" button to let moving objects finish their paths.

"Defeat" is a condition that applies only to "you", not objects in your possession. (They may instead be destroyed by "Sink").

Some rules need to be created and destroyed in the same turn.

Things that move on their own can be used to carry commands through obstacles.

Sometimes, you've just got to count your steps when you're taking an action and see if you can reduce them.

And granted, despite my stupidity, there were some puzzles that really clicked! I particularly enjoyed using the "Word" condition, as it allowed for me to treat both words and objects as a noun to make assignments. There were also times where I had to spell out the commands I wanted from letters left on the map. Fun! Natural! And hell, who doesn't enjoy a good block pushing puzzle, now and again? Super easy. Makes sense. Key is push, door is open. Of course!

Ass is Hot! Of course! (Wait, that wasn’t the solution...)

I tended to lock up more when the "Defeat" piece was on screen. I mean, you can always undo your mistakes, and there's no life limit or anything like that. But, hearing your player character go splat when you mess up is flinch-worthy. Additionally, I hated having to build complex paths for objects to follow. Like, screw the entirety of Adventurers. Also, learning what the "Lonely" condition meant felt very unnatural. It was hard to even tell why I was splatting until I read up on what it meant.

Interestingly, changing the language of the game only affects the menu's language, not the game itself. (I was wondering if adding a layer of comprehension to objects would stop me from auto-assigning properties to them or not. Makes sense that it's all in English, considering the "form objects from letters" puzzles.)

I felt bad when I finally gave up on putting effort into solving the puzzles on my own. I did. But, I was also 18 hours deep into my file in a single week, and I wanted to get back to my other hobbies. I felt that if I gave up on "Baba is You" again, I wouldn't finish it ever. And then, those 18 hours truly would be wasted. Also, I felt sick that only 7.8% of people had gotten to the first ending screen. The game isn't bad! It's hard, but not bad! I wanted to at least give it enough dignity to finish it off, even if I was more or less reading what I needed to build with one eyeball and building it with the other.

And hell. Given all of the version differences of this game and the amount of time that has passed since its release, it is a teeny bit YouTube proof. Not completely invulnerable, but I did catch a difference or two here and there. And it's not like the wiki's the clearest with what you need to do, even when they're telling you exactly what to do. You've got to mind your space with your words. At the very least, don't push anything aside or wreck it until you absolutely must.

I can't emphasize how much I felt bad about giving up. I mean, it's one thing to look at guides for other game types. You can get knowledge on how to beat a boss or level, but you've physically got to develop the skills needed to vault through that goal. With puzzle games, knowledge is 99% of what you need to accomplish your task. The rest is just putting in the solution as elegantly as possible.

92.2% of players didn't bother to do even that.

I won't pretend to say I know enough about puzzles to make an excellent puzzle game. However, I do think brevity would have helped this game. Like, think of puzzle games people like. "Tetris," right? Even a long game of "Tetris 64" lasts me a couple of hours at most. "Portal"? That's a handful of hours supported by plot and fun dialogue. So is the sequel. "Panel de Pon" / "Tetris Attack" / "Puyo Puyo"? Those are like "Street Fighter" arcade campaigns. Like, 15-20 minutes. To have a puzzle game go on for hours and hours without any character motivation or plot in sight? Yeah. That's going to burn a lot of people out.

Like, this game could have just the over world, a single hidden world, and then the Center portion, and that would have been more than enough. And then you know what could have been done with the rest of the puzzles? Put them in a new game! "Baba is More!" Bam! A second game, now with extra "Inception"-styled mind screws! Twice the money earned! (Yeah, okay. This plan might stink of capitalism.)

Making 226 puzzles is impressive. However, brevity is the soul of wit. Sometimes, design can be contradictory like that.

But, its achievements? Perfectly laid out. Truly finishing the game is likely to net you everything. I only had to put in a couple of hours after the true ending, and really, only fifteen minutes of that was solving the puzzles. The rest was just finding what I had missed. (I've heard rumors that "Baba is Baba" is bugged, but I think you just need to look up how to get the Level is Win solution in Meta figured out. The rest is elbow grease.)

I don't know if I can recommend this game. Again, having a case of the bad feels over that statement, especially since it seems like the developer has his heart in the right place. I'm hesitant to recommend this because when I was playing it, I had a migraine that lasted three days straight. Granted, there were possibly some external factors to why I had that. A fat polar vortex. Stress from work. Some hormonal influences. Not enough caffeine or water. Just generally living in the United States in the early 2020s. Plenty of things to crush my skull. I don't think it's in good taste to recommend something that will cause others physical pain. I mean, I'm used to games cracking my hands, but that's not exactly healthy behavior. I certainly wouldn't want to give someone an epileptic attack. Why would I want to drive a nail through their skulls, either?

I do think the game is solidly designed. It's a smart little cookie. But, it is unintentionally discouraging to get through, especially if you feel like you can't ask for help. Like getting a clue or an explanation is cheating.

Look. Try. Try hard. Be as honest and earnest as you can be. Just don't expect to do everything in your life alone, okay? I mean, there are times you've got to get an external perspective. I frequently had to crash after school with mathematics teachers and badger professors to explain topics outside of class. You think I was going to come up with how there are different kinds of infinities on my own? Hell no. I'm not creative in terms of mathematical proofs. But, I sure as hell can explain how different infinities work now! Even post-schooling, I still research topics, particularly when building or fixing things. I wouldn't have learned half of the things I've learned about maintaining game cartridges or building dollhouses without suggestions from professionals and enthusiasts. It's just part of life. You ask for help so you don't burn resources—especially something as valuable as time!

#post game evaluation #baba is you #demon is purge

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mistytpednaem · 3 years

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So, what’s up with Another Me?

Honestly, I tried to draft this post, but the mental block made me decide to just go for it stream-of-consciousness style. Which I hope doesn’t bode poorly or anything. But here goes!

The Past and the Present

As you may know, I’ve been at this for a while now! Since 2014, in fact. In that time, I’ve gotten through the prologue and... most of chapter one (fun fact: I do have the entirety of this story mapped out! We are transitioning into what should be the final scene of this chapter. Originally, I wanted to make this post - or something along these lines - once I finished the chapter, but I figured since the year was about to end I’d be better off doing it now).

Now, let’s not mince words: that is a long time. I have six chapters total (not counting the prologue) mapped out for this comic, and there is more I’d like to do beyond it (what I like to call Arc 2, or, as you may or may not know: The Part Where My Pet Character Marco Evangelisti Actually Shows Up). If I keep going at the current pace, I will probably not be done within my lifetime. So, if I’m aware of this, what gives?

... I mean, damn. There’s a lot I could point to; I was finishing my degree until 2016, and I suppose that takes something out of you. I have unreasonably high expectations for myself, as the people closest to me know. “2020 was a bad year for everyone,” I tell myself, before I also go on to say, “but even though updates slowed down even more this year, it’s not like they’ve been particularly speedy for the past couple of years, and I haven’t had that bad of a year anyway, so that’s a shoddy excuse.” And then some semblance of reasonable thought comes over me and reminds me my grandfather had a stroke in March of last year and passed away in early June of this year, and I’m like “I mean, okay, I guess I’ve been through SOME things.”

But lighthearted reflections aside, there are more actionable problems I have identified - such as, in an overarching sense, my attitude. My friends made me realise this some time late last year, and while I’ve been trying to work on it, I have to admit I’ve made very little progress: at some point, I developed a seriously unhealthy relationship with my art. Here is how my workflow has tended to go:

Start scripting update. I have a small readership, but that’s okay; I am grateful for every suggestion, I can work with this, and I AM building towards something that excites me.

Script done, regardless of insecurities. It’s time to start working on the actual panels. This sketch didn’t come out exactly the way I intended, but hopefully it still works (alternatively: this sketch looks promising! I am excited about this sketch. Sometimes, I do feel happy with my sketches).

Oh dear. I was hoping the lineart would help a little (alternatively: oh dear. the lineart completely ruined this perfectly fine sketch). Maybe it’ll still look alright with colour?

Oh no. I hate it, actually. I suppose I’m too sloppy; I should be more careful next time.

(Repeat for however many panels i have planned for an update, typically with mounting guilt the longer I take on each one, because I keep taking longer and longer and, to my eyes, there is no improvement.)

Well, as my friends keep reminding me, done is better than perfect. Let’s post it!

The update is posted to a small readership and a quiet response, which, again, is okay, but leaves me wanting for feedback that I cannot get because I am reluctant to spread the word for several reasons, one of them being that I’ve convinced myself my work isn’t good enough.

Rinse and repeat, with the process continuing to be slow - if not turning exponentially slower - because apparently when things make you feel bad your brain starts wanting to protect you from them.

Apologies if this is a little harsh, but it is genuinely the most sincere breakdown of The Whole Deal that I can produce.

The good news is there are things I can do about this! Not easy things, granted, as they tie deeply into a lot of the recurring neuroses in my life, but in theory, the more I embrace imperfection, and the less I worry, the faster I should be able to work, and I should start getting some serotonin out of the whole thing again. In theory. This is not the only issue, however, and I have good and bad news about the other issue I’ve identified:

I don’t think the forum adventure format is working in its current shape.

It’s not about the suggestions - I love working with suggestions! Reader interaction is fun, it’s already shaped a good number of things and I hope it continues to do so. It’s more of a matter of visibility. Tragically, forums are not the most In Vogue things these days, and that reflects itself in, well, poor visibility. I’ve tried to remedy this by allowing suggestions through MSPFA, Tumblr and Twitter as well, but honestly, it hasn’t helped much. I think I’ve only gotten one or two suggestions through MSPFA? And don’t get me wrong, I’m sure this is in great part because of my passive role in getting the word out! But it’s all contributing towards this strange, shrinking spiral of a feedback loop.

The good news is that, since I have identified this problem, there should be an actionable solution. The bad news is I’m not quite sure what form that solution should take just yet.

The Future

Whew, that was a lot. So, what’s in store for 2021 and beyond?

Well, er, like I’ve implied, I’m a little unsure. But that’s my default state of existence, so let’s go over what I think.

When I finish chapter one, I would like to find a proper hosting place for AM. As I said, I don’t think the forum thing is quite working out, and MSPFA is a wonderful website, but I feel AM has little to do with most of the content on it beyond the second-person narration and the script-style dialogues. Whether that means a change in format is needed along with the change in hosting, I’m not sure; I would like to keep the whole “one panel per page with text underneath it” deal, which... should be doable on most places, but in this current year, I’m frankly not sure how it would come across, haha.

(I’m also not sure what this hosting place should be, mind you; potentially a wordpress blog with a layout tailored for comics, but drawing isn’t actually my day job, so I’m not sure how viable paying for a domain name might be. Or hosting, for that matter, should I need it - but imgur has been friendly enough of an image host so far.)

What I do know is that I want to keep the suggestions, even though I’m not entirely sure how well that will work without a forum structure. Comments on a post, perhaps? Maybe. But we can’t forget that this doesn’t solve one of the other big issues, which is my reluctance to advertise. And there’s still, you know, my unhealthy, unreasonably high standards affecting my entire workflow.

... But that all kind of comes back to one thing, doesn’t it? The fear of taking the plunge? That’s what I need to overcome. Plans are a good first step, but they mean nothing if I don’t act on them. Which is part of the reason I’m talking about all this - so people can hold me to my plans.

(Plus, like, offer feedback and opinions. That’s very valuable too.)

This whole Future section is a whole lot more uncertain than, I think, even I hoped for when I started writing this post. But I hope what I’m trying to say comes across in some kind of way - not just in the sense of this being elucidating (which, don’t get me wrong, hopefully it is!), but also as far as conveying my feelings to my friends and readers is concerned.

I’m going to keep trying, and I know I’m a little lacking in the Doing department, but now you all know what’s been on my mind. Thank you all for the support, stay safe in These Trying Times, and hopefully we can all keep growing together.

#another me

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almguav · 4 years

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termiinallycapriiciiou2 replied to your post “What software and tech do you use to make your art? And can you show...”

Idk about the asker but I very much would like to see your comic making process

Welll without further a-do, lemme start! >:3c

Most, if not all, of my comics idea come to me on a whim, I don’t ever write it out or try to think too hard about it beforehand. Like the thought of “of hey what if this and this happened, that would be funny” and then I start loosely sketching the panels that are in my head at that moment. I usually start with the middle leading up to the main event and once I have that figured out, I add in the beginning, end, and any other panels that would help with flow.

I feel like a lot of ppl have great ideas for comics but get preoccupied with how a comic should start or end, so starting with that’s on your mind first (what excites you) and then filling out the rest once you have the initial idea out of your system is a good way to go about comic making. So like with my Raph and Mikey comic, I started out with the sketches in the red box and I added the build up and punchline/ending after.

General rules i try to follow whenever I make comics is 1) Keeping the characters in their same side of the panel for consistency 2) Change up the compositions so I’m not using one too many times in a row and finally 3) Avoid adding too little information to panel to the point where you could throw it out and the comic would stay the same, BUT also avoid putting too much information where the reader is going to stay on that panel for too long and break their flow.

((This post starts to get long when I show more examples so I’m putting the rest under a cut!))

That’s why i don’t really like my Dr. A Noel comic now. I used the same two compositions throughout the comic and there’s too much build up for a single punchline, I could of knocked out one or two panels and the joke would of stayed the same :/

These two examples above show pretty detailed sketches, that’s just the way I like to sketch personally, but making very simplified sketches is something I try to utilize or else I’ll find my lineart looking worse than my sketch pffft. So with my Mikey Swapped Au comic, I made the sketches really really quick cause I knew i wanted to lineart itself to be sketchy as well, so there wouldn’t be a point in sketching how i normally do. :0

Now for coloring; I like to finish my drawings in one sitting cause if I don’t, 80% of the time I won’t finish it the next day. So i always like to use a gradient map or simple color blocking when it comes to comics.

For gradient maps I color the comic in black and white and choose the best ones that fit the comic. For the Mikey swapped au comic choosing something with a lot of contrast and rich colors helps push the serious tone. I colored it with messy brush strokes to amplify how Mikey is feeling and I had the comic get darker from the beginning to the end, wrow how Edgy. (the split down the middle shows how it looks with and without the gradient map)

But for my Raph and Mikey ghostsweats one I focus more on simple color combos and just blocking/silhouetting the characters in one shade since it’s more dialogue heavy and light hearted. Only putting in major contrast when Raph gets offended to show there’s a big change in his mood. Same thing with the Dr. A Noel comic and my Draxum and Mikey comic, the colors are kept light and simple cause it has a light hearted tone!

Coloring comics, especially longer ones, is really intimidating but you don’t have to do full completely colored comics to get your tone across. Sometimes simplifying the colors down helps elevate the tone more. Of course not I’m saying to not fully color your comics, but if you’re like me and find coloring really time consuming, but you still want color on your comics, slapping down simple colors can also do to the trick! This is a scrapped comic of Leo having a nightmare I made awhile ago, and the reason I scrapped it was cause it took me too long to color lmao.

Soooo yeah! I think that’s about everything! Of course whatever I said isn’t end all of comic making, but I hope it’s insightful and maybe even a lil helpful for someone!! ^^ Thanks for reading all the way through too! ✌

#termiinallycapriiciiou2 #long post #almtxt

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blackcomicsanubis · 3 years

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San Diego to you: Can you make your very own comics.

Do you have what it takes to make your comics? You most likely can do it if you only understood just how. Based upon some of the jobs that obtain published, I'm pretty confident that anybody can make their publication. It's the procedure that avoids many people.

You don't need to benefit from Wonder or DC to make your very own comic book. The days are over when the ranking amateur could not create as well as publish their job. There are a few points that you need. Initially, you require a tale to tell. Next, you require to recognize how to function a pencil. And finally, you need access to an As-needed Publisher. Demand Publishing is the great equalizer in the Net Period.

With these essential components, anybody can make a comic book with their very own two hands and also bring it to the market for the masses. We will broaden on these points.

Story:

Characters, as well as the story, go hand in hand. You require characters to drive your story and a story to give your personalities something to do. This "something to do" must be the motivation for your characters. Your suggestion needs to progress into a path that takes your personality from one story point to the following. I like to utilize a simple outline to organize my story ideas. After that, I expand on as well as detail the tale series. During this procedure, I am thinking of a discussion. Your tale (at this point) begins looking much like a manuscript. Once you have your "manuscript," you're ready to convert it into comics artwork.

Drawing:

I jokingly stated earlier that anyone that can function a pencil could make black comics characters. The truth is that the capacity to draw is a property, yet not a need. There are numerous comic books available where the artwork is less than outstanding, yet the tales keep people checking out. There are additionally significant musicians that can not create a compelling tale.

Expert comic books are made with the cooperation of many people. There is usually a person who creates, one more than pencils, one more than inks, an additional that letters and so on ... However, since you're doing this all yourself, you do not have that high-end. You're a one-person/woman program, and its success relaxes all on your shoulders.

Numerous comics authors include in their scripts what is to enter each panel of a comics web page. That's a proper method if you have a page matter limit. I'm not particularly eager to do that. With On-Demand publishing, there is no limit, but I'll reach that in a bit. My approach is to quickly sketch the web pages complying with the script and let them develop naturally. I enable adjustments if I think of a far better concept while I'm drawing.

After the mapping out procedure is completed, consisting of dialogue, reviewed it through to see just how it looks and make sure the tale can be complied with as you meant. If it is to your preference, you can begin the procedure of settling your pencils. Once that is done, you can ink your job.

Inking ought to be performed with black inking pens that are available in several line weights. Technique inking on duplicates of your last penciled drawings. Once you have finished inking your work and have a completed Comic Book, you need to establish an account with an On-Demand Author.

Posting:

On-Demand Publishing is reasonably brand-new as well as has ended up being the great equalizer. I advise an On-Demand Author like Createspace to establish your free account and make your book offered up for sale. As Needed Publishing is a procedure wherein you submit your book digitally to the As-needed Author. Your book goes on sale at Amazon.com and some other places. When someone buys it, the as-needed publisher prints it and ships it to them. You, consequently, get paid a nobility on each copy marketed. With these standard components and a little understanding of the process, anybody can make your very own comic book.

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makeste · 5 years

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BnHA Chapter 160: Grand Theft Auto

Previously on BnHA: Deku knocked Overhaul THE FUCK OUT. Tamaki saved Aizawa and captured Chronostasis. Eri wasn’t able to deactivate her quirk, and for a few moments things didn’t look good for Deku. But the cavalry brought Aizawa to the surface just in time, and he erased Eri’s quirk and she passed out. The heroes called like a dozen fucking ambulances to evacuate all of the wounded. Nighteye was strangely peaceful for someone who just lost an arm and got impaled through the fucking stomach, and he was grateful to Deku for bringing about a future different from the one he had seen. I feel like Deku sensed something was going to happen, because he suddenly started encouraging Nighteye to hang on, and that he had to talk to All Might and make up with him. But Nighteye closed his eye really dramatically, and I’M FEARING THE WORST HERE YOU GUYS. We then cut to the ambulance containing the wounded villains (and their confiscated goods, including the quirk-be-gone bullets and the quirks-come-back serum), and watched as it was intercepted by a trucking carrying none other than SHIGARAKI FUCKING TOMURA. This is easily the most badass villain thing he’s ever done tbh.

Today on BnHA: We learn that Jin and Toga called the rest of the squad to let them know where the villain ambulance was headed. What ensues is probably the most badass action sequence this series has ever had. Dabi takes out the ambulance’s police escort with his quirk, but it turns out the car is protected by a pro hero named Snatch. He can manipulate sand and he is fucking awesome. So Tomura fucking leaps at him from the back of a moving truck, and the two of them start to duke it out, but Snatch keeps him at a distance, knowing better than to let Tomura touch him with his bare hands. Enter Compress, who rolls an innocent little marble under the car they’re battling on, and then snaps his fingers and turns the marble back into A GIANT FUCKING BOULDER. The car flips over and crashes into the ambulance; Spinner whips the truck around while shrieking nonsense; Dabi and Compress take care of Snatch; and Tomura goes to confront Overhaul in the crashed ambulance. He takes the bullets and the serum. And then he disintegrates Overhaul’s fucking hands and chops them off at the wrists. And he and the rest of the League just casually walk away. Holy. Fucking. Shit.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’ve read up through chapter 187 now, so any ETAs will reflect that.)

so basically they figured out that the police would have to transport the villains to the nearest villain hospital, so they went on Google Maps and found the fastest route, and from there it was simply a matter of intercepting them

so Toga’s on the phone with Compress. and she says Jin is the one who told her to contact the others. I like that she gives him credit where due

(ETA: I can’t believe this joke went right over my head earlier, but at the time I had somehow forgotten Compress’s arm status. now that I remember, I can’t fucking get over this bit:

this son of a bitch kidnapped Bakugou. how dare he be so absurdly charming now. praising Toga for her quick thinking and making jokes about his own missing limb. I can’t believe the entire League of Villains are now collectively my favorite character.)

Jin is cradling his head in his hands and trembling :(

oh my god I love how she just gently takes his hand and leads him along. lord help me, why do I ship this so fucking hard, goddamn

also she’s so fucking smart. she watched and waited for a while before she contacted the others. to make sure that’s where the “finished product” was headed, since she knows that’s what Tomura was after, and they weren’t able to get ahold of Eri

and now we’re cutting back to the highway

this poor driver is having himself a hell of a morning

boy, you about to earn that paycheck today

(ETA: yeah I’m pretty sure this guy is dead now. this joke didn’t age so well ffffff rest in peace??)

and he instantly recognizes Tomura and knows him by name. but I suppose he’s just about the most recognizable villain in the business when he’s all done up in full hand gear

(ETA: it’s cute that he feels the need to clarify, as though there was more than one Shigaraki Tomura running around and we needed to know which particular league this one hails from.)

I have to imagine it’s not actually that easy to maintain one’s balance on top of a moving truck. you sure are full of surprises aren’t you Tomura

oh shit Spinner’s here too!

(ETA: is Dabi just being cute here or do you suppose he really does get carsick. are you gonna puke on everyone, Dabi. do you need some dramamine)

haven’t seen you in ages, Spinner. we still don’t know what your quirk is if I recall

(ETA: oh my god, and we still don’t. Horikoshi you are playing a dangerous game, dragging it out for this long. if it doesn’t turn out to be some incredibly badass, plot-twisty thing when it’s finally revealed, you and I are gonna have words. I swear to god if we finally get that dialogue box and all it is is something like “quirk: lizard. does whatever a lizard can!”... I didn’t wait around this whole time for you to be all “LOL HE CAN SMELL STUFF WITH HIS TONGUE”, okay.)

this guy really learned how to drive from video games and Tomura still trusted him to drive this fucking truck while he stands ON TOP OF IT. wow

Spinner is disgruntledly muttering about not being sure whether this is really following Stain’s will

and Tomura can somehow hear him from on top of the truck, and he says this is “a necessary sacrifice”

he’s gotten so good at management. he really has matured a lot

I really want to see this in the anime. mainly because I feel like Tomura’s jacket is going to be whipping around in the wind and it’s going to look cool as fuck

like, if this scene plays out anywhere near like I’m expecting it’s about to, this is basically going to be our confirmation that Tomura has finally graduated from the ranks of “baby villain” to “main villain at large”

(ETA: yeah I think it’s safe to say our boy has got his bachelor of villainy)

ohhhhhhh shit

THIS IS GOING TO LOOK SO FUCKING AMAZING IN THE ANIME YOU GUYS

(ETA: it stands a good chance of surpassing the one in Black Panther to become my new favorite car chase tbh)

jesus christ

that cop car that was in between the villain truck and the ambulance was completely engulfed

oh! or maybe not, because it looks like the car is FIGHTING BACK

I LIKE THIS GUY. WHAT A BADASS. WHY HAVE WE NEVER SEEN HIM BEFORE, THAT’S A DAMN GOOD QUIRK

(ETA: maybe a little too good. that’s probably why this is his one and only appearance)

Tomura’s just annoyed, though, and he’s telling Spinner to slow down

so now Snatch is pumping the truck full of sand, but at the same time Tomura is leaping right at him

Snatch are you about to be disintegrated my dude

oh!!

HE’S NOT GOING DOWN WITHOUT A FIGHT

lol what

lmao just because someone is capable of holding you back for more than two seconds doesn’t mean they’re your “natural opposite” Tomura. I’m not quite sure you understand how that works. is he restoring a pile of dust back into its original form like what we all hope will happen in Avengers: Endgame? no? then he’s not your opposite, he’s just a guy with an awesome quirk that you’re having a bit of trouble with

he is fucking amazing, though

he’s absolutely right. Tomura he got your number dude

Dabi and Compress are still in the truck watching this play out

and Compress realizes that Tomura is trying to distract the guy

oh snap

you know, I’m starting to realize Compress’s quirk is quite a bit more badass than I previously thought

ohhhhhhhh shit

(((╹д╹;)))

aaaaaaand the ambulance is crashing

do you see how they did that? making it clear beyond a doubt what happened without actually showing it in horrific excruciating detail? I could have used more of this during the Overhaul arc

(ETA: also this answers a question I had as to whether Tomura had ever actually killed one of the good guys (as opposed to a fellow villain) onscreen. I couldn’t recall for sure. but that’s a definite yep.)

also this is a super epic car crash. this is crazy cinematic, it’s straight out of a movie

LMAO

I LOVE IT

and oh my god it looks like Snatch actually saved the driver just in time. so no one was disintegrated after all!

(ETA: I actually think that’s the driver of the police car that he saved. not the ambulance driver. he ded. correct me if I’m wrong!)

but now Dabi is there >_>

preemptive RIP, Snatch. you were the GOAT for one whole half of a chapter

I’ll take that as a “no I haven’t”

oh snap is he still alive though?

but we can all agree the other guy definitely died. that driver cop guy. rest in peace, friend

(ETA: yeah both drivers are super dead from what I can see)

so now back to the ambulance, where Tomura has retrieved and is talking to Overhaul who is strapped to a bed

TAKE HIS QUIRK!!!

Tomura says he hates Overhaul because he’s arrogant

something is clearly about to go down, so before that happens I’ll just say, I thought Overhaul could disassemble anything he touches. so how come he can’t just do that to the handcuffs. plothoooooooles

anyway

well LOOK WHO GOT HIMSELF A SHINY NEW ROBOT ARM MOTHERFUCKER

THIS MAN DESERVES HIS REVENGE. AND... YOU DESERVE TO DIE

(ETA: any idea what he just compressed, btw? I can’t for the life of me figure it out. this chapter is so cool but there are a handful of little details that I can’t quite get straight)

(ETA 2: many thanks to @baezetsu who pointed out that COMPRESS MOTHERFUCKING STOLE ONE OF OVERHAUL’S ARMS. straight up. you’re absolutely right. Tomura only disintegrates the right hand, and the left arm is already gone in the panel below. so either this is some good old-fashioned “eye for an eye” revenge (but with arms), or Compress is looking to replace that robot arm with something even better. god this chapter gets better and better with every subsequent readthrough holy shiiiiiiiiiit.)

so now Tomura is opening the box of bullets, and thoughtfully saying that he’s not sure which of the two boxes they recovered actually holds the finished product

“ahh well, guess it doesn’t really matter”

oHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SHITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

oH MY GOD!!!!

MOTHERFUCKER!!!! MY JAW DROPPED TO LIKE HERE. HOLY SHIT, THAT WAS THE MOST HARDCORE SHIT I’VE EVER SEEN??!?

HERE I WAS SURE HE WAS GONNA DELETE HIS QUIRK, AND INSTEAD HE JUST DISINTEGRATES AND THEN CHOPS OFF HIS MOTHERFUCKING HANDS

SHIGARAKI TOMURA HAS GAINED +10,000 VILLAIN POINTS!! SHIGARAKI TOMURA IS MAKING A SUDDEN POWER RISE THROUGH MAKESTE’S FAVORITE CHARACTERS LIST

SHIGARAKI TOMURA IS ONE CRAZY BITCH AND I KIND OF FUCKING LOVE IT

THIS IS SO FUCKED UP AND I’M LIVING FOR IT?????

“GOOD LUCK WITH THAT”!!!!!

yo, when Deku and the others hear about this attack later what will their reactions even be. cuz if it was me I’d be like, “oh no... that’s terrible... you know. in principle”

hahaha!!!!

(ETA: gotta love Overhaul screaming in the background. this chapter is so fucked up lmao)

THIS HAD BETTER BE A FUCKING PROMISE TO US LOYAL READERS YOU SON OF A BITCH. NO MORE SIDE VILLAINS. I’VE GOT FIFTY-ODD CHAPTERS LEFT BEFORE I’M ALL CAUGHT UP, AND THOSE FIFTY CHAPTERS HAD BETTER NOT FEATURE ANY OTHER BAD GUYS BUT YOU SONS OF BITCHES

(ETA: he just ignores everything I ever say to him)

oh man. well, that was a grand five chapter binge and I feel satisfied and very exhausted. I’m gonna turn in, and then tomorrow I can hopefully finally read a chapter with my explosive and hot and cold sons at long last

BONUS:

likes: barbeque. is this Horikoshi’s idea of a joke. holy shit

and I guess that confirms whether or not he died, huh. these motherfuckers didn’t leave any survivors apart from the captured villains. that’s so messed up. why do I love them so much. Tomura you are a terrible man. please keep getting more terrible

#bnha #boku no hero academia #shigaraki tomura #dabi (bnha)#mr. compress #spinner (bnha)#overhaul (bnha)#bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #makeste reads bnha #seems like a lot of guys from this golden age era rocked mustaches #or at least snatch and endeavor did #do you guys think all might ever had a mustache too #I'm just trying to picture it and I keep cracking up

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tessatechaitea · 5 years

Text

New Titans #112

Don't you worry your pretty little head about Red Star's right leg.

I keep trying to organize my life so that I can read more actual books (as opposed to comic books which I'm not judging. I'm just differentiating) without having to sacrifice any of the other things I enjoy doing. What that generally means is that I wind up reading about ten pages every morning before going to bed (I work nights!). Which realistically means I need to do improve my time management if I'm going to be serious about reading. I have managed to read the first "book" of Alan Moore's Jerusalem but it's taken me a fucking long time to do it. I thought it would take me a long time because I was expecting a difficult read but I'm finding it enjoyable. Plus by the time I've finished, I'm fairly certain I'll be able to navigate Northampton with ease. I'm also wondering if all the descriptions of the characters' movements through the city are an encoded treasure map! Or, being that Alan Moore wrote it, it's more likely a spell to summon some sex demons. While organizing (and by organizing, I mean the main definition of organizing: moving shit around in a way that makes you feel like you're accomplishing something but really you're just engaging in an activity to forget about your mortality for awhile. Plus you can generally get some really fucking good dusting done), I managed to place all of the books from various book shelves that I have yet to finish reading (or that I simply want to reread) on the top shelf of the row of bookcases in my office. Jerusalem is first on that list followed by some books by high school friends (Rogue's Curse by Jason Beymer and Soy Rakelson's children's books that I'm willing to bet everything I own as well as my life and my mother's life on that they're black and white morality tales with a super conservative and possibly Ayn Randian view of the world). After that is There Is No Year which Doom Bunny gave me because it's supposedly a terrible book that I'm not sure he even finished and which I wanted to make fun of (but, hey, maybe I'll love it!) and the rest: Inside the Yellow Submarine, Trixie Belden Mystery-Quiz Book #1, Don Quixote, Gravity's Rainbow, Lost in the Funhouse (reread!), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, And the Ass Saw the Angel (by Nick Cave!), King's The Wind Through the Keyhole (A Dark Tower book!), Crime and Punishment, Hey Nostradamus!, The Best of H.P. Lovecraft, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren, The Boomer Bible (re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-read), Six Volumes of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (finished with one and a half volumes after owning this set for twenty five years!), The Holy Bible (currently reading for my Patreon), The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry (Second Edition) (because I need poetic context for the 20th century!), Only Revolutions, The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick, and The Familiar (currently just book one but there's going to be like nine hundred of them, so maybe I won't even bother!). Oh, and I just added We Learn Nothing (reread) and I Wrote This Book Because I Love You, both by Tim Kreider. I'll probably start with those because funny essays are easier to get through than anything by Dostoevsky, Danielewski, Pynchon, Cervantes, Barth, Joyce, or Sakelson! I mean Rakelson! Oh man. Rakelson would have a stroke if he knew I listed his name with all those postmodern authors! Not that they're all postmodern. You can figure out which ones are and aren't on your own. I'm busy reading New Titans #112 which must be good since Starfire is naked on the cover. Okay, almost naked. She is wearing a dickie and a belt. I know a lot of you just skipped that big paragraph while thinking, "Oh, la dee da! What a fancy book reader you are! Fucking virtue signaler! Or whatever the term for listing or showing off your reading list full of classic literary texts is! Seems like virtue signaler works well enough! Better even than what idiotic fuck nuggets use it for on Twitter anyway!" But maybe you missed the part about how those are books I haven't been able to get through yet! I've owned some of these books for over a decade! And I didn't even put The Collected Works of Gertrude Stein on this shelf because do I need to be reminded that I used that book more as an address book than something to read? Although I carried it with me everywhere I went for a year or two (which is why it's full of phone numbers and addresses!). And I really did want to read it. I didn't carry it around so people could think, "Look at him with that book! Who the fuck is Gertrude Stein? What a ponce!" Although to be fair, I did leave off a few books on my "to-read" shelf! But it wasn't because they weren't smart enough sounding! It's because they were comic books and also pornography and also also fucking hilarious.

One of my friends in the state department who learns a brand new language every four years or so bonded with me over Oglaf last time he visited. He was all, "I'm glad I know somebody I can share my love of Oglaf with and not be looked at like a completely demented perv!" Although I do look at him like he's a completely demented perv, I didn't need to admit it to his face!

I embrace my delusion that readers merely skipped "one" paragraph of my comic book "reviews"! This issue is called "A New Home" and my brain continued to add to that title with "o-erotic Journey." Mostly because of this panel:

Fairly certain "bamming" a baby is illegal, even in space.

The Titans (and I use that term loosely since the characters encompassed by that shorthand are Changeling, Red Star, Pantha, Baby, and Starfire) have been stranded on The Terraist's space station. That name probably could use a hyphen so you don't first read it as terRAIST twelve times thinking "What the fuck does that mean?" before your brain finally sees the God-awful pun and you give up, finally letting go of that last gossamer thread that's been connecting you to the reality you just discovered doesn't fucking matter. How can there be any meaning to existence when an editor greenlights the name "Terraist"? I'm sure Wolfman's pitch contained at least two dozen "Get it?!"s. Anyway, maybe most readers never even noticed, shrugging their shoulders at every single moment in which a comic book doesn't make sense because at least Starfire is practically naked throughout the last few issues! I have a theory that most people don't really absorb much of what they're reading in comic books. They tend to just love a character for some magic reason and stick with loving that character no matter what terrible writer winds up writing them. And at that point, they just ignore plot holes and inconsistencies and terrible dialogue and whatever the fuck Ann Nocenti does with her typewriter. They simply go star-eyed and gape lovingly at the drawn images of Dick Grayson's throbbing buttocks. That was a hypothetical sentence and not a memoir. Here's a panel with evidence that might lead to proof of my theory if I could actually interview anybody who read this comic book in 1994 and ask them, "Did you even notice this panel?" To which they would all probably respond, "No, I was distracted by the opposite page where you can see tons of Starfire's side-boob and I think one of her outer labia." Um, anyway, the panel I mentioned:

Damn, Marv. Beyond the Forest was nearly fifty years old at the time this comic came out.

To be fair to Wolfman and Changeling, I did an Internet search on "Whatta dump" (and, yes, I spelled it differently than Marv did) and the first hit was video of the scene where Bette Davis says the line. What's odd is that she delivers it flatter and straighter than anything I would have expected out of Bette Davis's eyes...I mean mouth. Gar's rendition of it is terrible! The way Bette says it, I would never think to spell it any way but "What a dump." But that's not the point! The point is how is "What a dump!" a immortal words?! Granted, you're probably now thinking to yourself, "Well, how did X and Y and Z become oft-quoted movie lines?!" (where X and Y and Z are actual phrases from movies and not just letters. But I'm not psychic so how should I know what terrible oft-quoted movie lines you were thinking of? Mine would have been "Seven schools in seven states and the only different is my locker combination" or "William H. Bonny. You are not a god?" "Why don't you pull the trigger and find out?" or "Ziggy Piggy! Ziggy Piggy! Ziggy Piggy! Ziggy Piggy!") I suppose one can't help what phrases the zeitgeist picks up on. According to the YouTube video of Bette Davis, "What a dump" is Bette's famous bitchy line from that movie I'd never heard of. I guess I just haven't traveled in the right circles! Although I have heard the phrase "What a dump!" Has everybody in the world been quoting Bette Davis all this time and I just didn't know it?! Was this movie the first time that phrase was ever uttered?! To think I could have known all of this if I hadn't been distracted by Starfire's side-boob and — I'm fairly certain — one of her outer labia. To shut Gar up, Starfire admits that she doesn't remember any of them and then she punches Pantha in her vagina.

Starfire punching Pantha in the vagina is funnier than anything that Pantha has said in the last forty issues.

After punching Pantha in the vagina, Starfire knees Red Star in the balls for no reason. Unless the reason is that she's been wanting to do that for a long time and her pretend amnesia allows her this moment! I suppose I'd fake amnesia too to get away from being a Titan. I've been joking about seeing Starfire's outer labia but is this it? Is that one of those things?

Is my boner proof that it's her labia or is my boner proof that I'm a comic book reading virgin nerd?

I can't wait for everybody to message me telling me how that can't be her outer labia because that's not where it would be and anyway this photographic proof I'm sending you is what one looks like! Then I can actually them and say, "Well, you can't know that for sure! She's an alien and maybe her outer labia is fully engorged due to Pantha back-fucking her!" Also I'd really enjoy some of that photographic evidence!

This is not what I would do with those photographs.

Garfield turns into another monster because he can't do birds and rhinos anymore. He lies on top of Starfire and then reveals something that destroys every moment in DC canon where Garfield turned into a rhino to knock some hugely muscled bad guy on their ass. He tells Red Star, "Hey, I may be big and ugly but my mass doesn't change! I'm not as strong as she is!" Well fuck me! The whole concept of Beast Boy has been based on a huge lie! Or at least scientific principles that make the character utterly worthless. Why the fuck would he ever change into a huge beast if his mass doesn't change? Wouldn't he always change into something small and fast to be most effective?! This revelation is one of those moments where DC tries to make their universe more logical but only winds up fucking up the entire multiverse. Red Star and Changeling knock Starfire unconscious and then tie her up which probably isn't totally rapey at all, even if the artist draws it that way.

Yep. Everything is just fine here! Move along.

Meanwhile on Earth, Arsenal, Aqualad, and Flash consider a proposal from the United States government to get the Titans to work for them. They consider it over a couple waters at a local strip club named Ding Dong Daddy's." I mean, the comic book calls it a "retro club" but everybody either gets a private lap dance or laid. It's hard to tell what Marv Wolfman was going for with this scene. Proof that the young cool Titan men fuck? Proof that women are only to provide relief for men's sexual desires? Proof that Aqualad should maybe think twice before saying "Hey guys! We came together!" when women are throwing their vaginas at them?

How long does Aqualad think a lap dance takes?

Back in space while the reader was away, Red Star and Changeling have managed to put a gag on Starfire and tie her legs together. That makes things less rapey, right? If not, I'm sure Marv will improve the situation in a sensitive and professional manner!

Oh come on!

Starfire remembers everything while Changeling whines about how he didn't get to kiss Starfire while she was tied up and scared and beaten and suffering from amnesia. Poor kid! Maybe next time! After regaining her memory, Starfire says, "X'hal! That was dick I saw in South America!" and I snicker like a twelve year old. The first decision Starfire makes after regaining her memory is that she and Dick should get their marriage annulled, if it even took which I'm pretty sure it didn't. If you were a fan of reading the letters pages, whoever the letter answer person was constantly kept pointing out that they couldn't be married because the priest blew up before he could say they were man and wife. But now Wolfman provides more evidence like how no paper work was filed and nobody signed anything (although don't you sign the papers before the ceremony?) Anyway, they're not married and probably never will be if the last twenty five years of reading comic books has taught me anything!

Snicker!

Baby has an idea to use The Terraist's satellite as their new headquarters and the government is all, "Okay! But you have to work with us on a minimum number of yearly missions!" And Roy Harper is all, "That number is zero!" And the government is all, "Yes sir! What a deal! We will pay you a salary, give you the satellite, and get nothing in return! Let's shake on it!"

Who the fuck is wearing The Flash's costume?! First appearance of New 52 Wally West?

The epilogue reveals Raven needs to rape the Titans so that they'll all give birth to Trigon's children. So it should be a fun few final issues before either this comic book was cancelled or I finally recovered my sanity and simply stopped buying it. New Titans #112 Rating: B. It was all kinds of stupid but I enjoyed making fun of it!

#Teen Titans #New Titans #DC Comics #DC #Comic Book Review

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sinister-moonlight · 6 years

Text

Attack on Titan 2 The game

I feel so hallow right now... (Mind spoilers for this game and the anime)

When I watched the anime I managed to not get too depressed when the people I liked died cause lets face it, the majority of the good people die. I had grown a hard shell and kept myself happy that my favorites were still alive...

But man... the game? The second game to be precise... Damn it hurts...

First of all A.O.T 2 takes place in an alternative universe where you create a character that fight along side the AoT crew. It follows the anime and original game, but with small changes to make your character a part of it.

Second is that you can built up relationships (friendship) with almost all of the characters from the anime (hell you can befriend Nick the wall maniac). By building up these relationships bars through gifts, talking or fighting with them you will unlock skills and dialogue, but most importantly (for me) you will get cut scenes where you get to know the character even further. Through it all you really feel like YOU are becoming their friend with the way you can chose what to say to whom. (Wanna be a dick to Jean? Sure. Wanna become best friend with Sasha? Go for it!)

Now to the sad part...

I play this game blind - as in I don’t know that you can get from the characters nor what the highest lvl of friendship is. I have watched up to season 2 and some of the manga so I do know who dies and not.

That did not make it easier. If anything it made it worse.

(Please beware of spoilers if you have never watched the anime or played the game!!!)

Right before the mission to finally go outside the wall I knew that this would be the last time I could talk to Squad Levi so I made sure to at least get Petra up seeing how she and Oruo was the only ones with cut scenes so far. I got her up to the big cute cut scene (wont spoil that cause its was so cute). Then I felt like I wanted to continue.

So I played that mission and let me tell you how much it hurt to see them die again. I have re-watched the anime maybe 3 times. I have watched several abridged that show that scene. I read the manga part where I saw that panel. NOTHING could prepare me for the pain and agony I would feel over getting back from that mission when it starts to sink in that you could never talk to them again... People you and your character had become such good friends with... It hurts to the point I had to stop playing from the horrible emptiness I felt. Sure I could go back to an old save and finish them, but I don’t like playing like that. I want the consequences.

This game made me feel like I (and my character) truly missed them. Like we had made promises to our friends to talk more and have fun only to realize you could NEVER talk to them again cause they died. IT HURT. So much. I feel like I should have spent more time with them. It hurt. It felt so realistic and I have lost someone really important to me before so let me tell you how uncomfortably close this loss felt compared to that.

Now - to my present time and depression over this game.

I just fought Annie and I had been ordered to go to Miche and Nanaba to inform them what happened. I was prepared knowing that this is it for Miche, but I couldn’t find him on the map so I couldn’t build his friendship before this. I told myself that I would get time between accepting the mission and the big battle to talk to him. I was so sure...

But no... Slowly I realized - as the cut-scene got more and more intense and the battle begun - that this was it. I could not talk to Miche before the beast titan... My heart broke! Honestly I never really felt much for Miche in the anime cause we didn’t see much of him, but through this game I had grown attached to the sniffing man and his squad. I had joined their squad multiple times and fought with them. I had been their friend... Just like Squad Levi. It hurt. But what I hated was that I hadn’t managed to built up Miche as far as Petra cause I didn’t have time to prepare for this mission.

So now I look at his pic and I - as well as my character - feel like I failed him. Like I could have gotten to know him more, but it was too late. (and I was close to going back to a older save, but then I had to fight Annie again and boy no thank you.)

(Note that I learnt that the major cut scenes are around level 6 in the friend bar. Miche was only 4...)

So yes... This game managed (I know it will still manage) to rip my heart heart out not only once, but twice (more counting).

But I cannot recommend this game enough! If you love the anime and manga you have to play the second game. (the first game felt pretty lackluster and empty. My honest opinion.) A.o.T 2 is a fantastic game and you really get to know the cast so much better. (Still fangirling over Levi smiling at me and thanking me) Buy it and play it! You will not regret it!

#Sinister Rambling #my heart is broken #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #snk #aot #a.o.t. 2 #Attack on titan game 2 #petra ral #oruo #gunther schultz #eld gin #miche zacharius #mike zacharias

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the-scifi-blob · 3 years

Text

tumblr is the gutter

it made me really sad to cut this scene out from magic in the gutter! so i am very stubbornly putting this long & rambling thing here for posterity

* ‘Apocalypse’ starts to lose its meaning when you work in shonen for too long. It’s a market dominated by action and gore, a genre where your protagonists have to battle ever-more-powerful villains, gain ever-more-impressive powers, triumph over ever-more-violent challenges.

Akaashi loves fantasy; don’t get him wrong. He’s just not quite so enamored, these days, with long-form epic arcs about brawn and might and glory. Udai-san would probably laugh at him for overthinking his work, tease him for his longtime obsessions with Earthsea or with Miyazaki’s Laputa, that crumbling castle in the sky.

You need to know how to respond to demand, Udai would tell him. Don’t look too much into it, okay? We all need to keep up with the pace of readership.

Akaashi pushes open the glass doors of his publishing company’s headquarters and steps inside.

The interior of the building is all shining linoleum and stainless steel. It looks nothing like the animated apocalypses of his Miyazaki-filled childhood: no crumbling castles, no people turning into pigs Spirited Away-style and scattering upended food stalls in their wake. The shape of this Laputa is a sleek, spotless building. It’s a ravenous thing, swallowing all of Akaashi’s stories and paying him back in ever-smaller dividends.

Akaashi nods at the person sitting at the reception desk. They don’t even look back at him.

Akaashi steps inside the elevator and follows its course to the twentieth floor.

His editor is waiting for him silently, alongside two others on the publishing team. They make an imposing line-up, seated on the same side of a conference table, their backs to a panel of floor-to-ceiling windows. (Akaashi is reminded of Yubaba; the face of Miyazaki’s witch superimposes itself rather alarmingly onto the face of his editor, until he blinks it away). He takes the seat across from them, trying hard not to let his sleep deprivation show.

“How’s the story coming along?” his editor asks him, a coolness in his tone that Akaashi’s long grown used to.

“Nearly finished.” Akaashi settles cautiously into the cold wood of the chair. He thumbs at the calluses on his hands, and tries to tamp down his uneasiness. “It’s the chapter where Hinata meets the ace from Shiratorizawa. I - I really think this arc is something special.”

“Of course,” his editor says, in a flat, drab tone. He steeples his fingers, then takes a long breath.

“Look, Akaashi-san, about the series … we called you in to discuss a few things.” He clears his throat, then glances to a sour-faced man on his right. “A few things about the … well, the size of the audience for stories like yours …”

The sour-faced editor follows the statement by slapping a packet of papers on the desk. Akaashi slides them wordlessly toward himself, then scans the first page with a sinking stomach. It’s a compilation of charts and numbers documenting the sales of the company’s weekly publication, and the results of the company’s online readership polls.

Haikyuu, he sees with a strange pang in his chest, is close to the bottom of most polls.

“Stories like mine,” Akaashi says softly, thumbing at the edges of the packet. He thinks back to the fierce expression on Hinata’s face in the panel he’d been drawing. “What, exactly…”

“Stories without action,” the editor - the one whose face looks like the taste of umeboshi - blurts out. “Slow stories, stories without eye-catching elements, higher stakes, or … or other means of drawing attention. Our audience are primarily adults, Akaashi-san, they’re not quite interested in something so … quaint.”

Akaashi thinks back to his early days as an assistant in Udai-san’s studio, the long nights designing characters and mapping out dialogue for the first story he’d fallen in love with. Something simple, he’d said to Udai-san over coffee and grotesque Zom’bish sketches in the mornings. Something kind.

He looks up now at the row of editors seated across from him. Behind them, out the floor-to-ceiling windows, he can see the riot of lights and billboards and steel buildings that is Shibuya. If Akaashi were illustrating this moment, he might choose a two-page spread, one without panel borders or gutters. Just a vivid single panel of the city, large enough to devour a person, with its too-fast cacophony of movement and the three editors towering like canine teeth before it.

“You’re a smart fellow,” his editor, the one in the middle, tells him. This snaps his attention back to the meeting. “Surely you understand what we’re trying to say?”

Akaashi swallows against the acid fighting to burn its way up his throat. “How many?” he begins, then clears his throat when his voice comes out hoarse. “How many chapters do I have left?”

His editor shifts a little in his seat. “Akaashi-san … we’ve decided to discontinue the series. Right away. There is no next chapter for Haikyuu.”

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lil-komic · 6 years

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Journal Posting #10

My Evolving Process

As I continue to draw and create comics, with each new comic, I understand a little more about my own artistic vision. While completing class assignments, I began to plan each one out, as I learned that diving right into drawing the comic without a firm grasp of what you intend to put in each and every panel only leads to mistakes and re-draws. At first, I started with a basic sketch or two and a basic idea of the dialogue/plot line. Still, my drawings turned out sloppy and lacked a proper structure. My ideas were all over the place and were often lost as I didn’t write them down when I thought of them.

As the class progressed, and the Adaptation Project deadline grew near, I made a conscious effort to fully map out page by page, panel by panel, exactly what I wanted to do. I wrote down everything I needed to include and made an outline of what needed to fit on each page. After deciding what each page would entail, I then drew thumbnail sketches of the pages with notes to myself for the final draft. This helped tremendously in increasing the quality of my work from a structure standpoint, but still, my Adaptation Project was simply boring. I spent lots of time outlining what needed to be included and what I had to draw, but I didn’t spend any time planning out the drawings themselves. I didn’t draw my Adaptation project in my preferred style, and I didn’t put much time into deciding on how my visuals would actually look. What’s the point of adapting text into a comic if it’s just boring drawings with the information of the text mixed in?

Working on my Final Project now, I am taking a similar approach in brainstorming, but i’m making sure to pay attention to the drawings themselves, since they are especially important in an action comic. If I want my project to be a success, I need to make sure to focus on every aspect of the comic. I realize I may have cut corners on the visuals before, but I plan on doing this comic right. I have already sketched out a mini-prototype comic (that I showed you on our one-on-one) and have already found a panel style that is clean to the eye, that I think will go nice with my black and white style. I intend to finish re-working the plot to my intended audience, as well as writing dialogue and sketching thumbnails within the next couple days, so that I have time to draw and perfect the final copy.

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leafy-m · 5 years

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I've been on an Uncharted kick lately and it dawned on me that there might be ancillary media like books and comics - and there are! My library had the DC comic collection, which means it's time for my...

Uncharted comicbook review:

This book compiles issues 1-6 and covers an original tale about Nate, Sully, and Chloe (and briefly features Flynn), on an adventure to find the Amber Room treasure that also includes the Hollow Earth theory. And also has lots of bullets and bad guys/monsters.

I hated this book, it was so disappointing. I literally want a refund and I didn't even pay for it. (outside of general tax dollars, I guess. Libraries!)

This book feels similar to a Hollywood misunderstanding of an IP when making an adaption. The comic ticks the series checkboxes of what to include, but it lacks the soul and charm that binds them together. It also gets really repetitive with the 'Oh No, What's That?' cliffhanger panel for the page turn. They do it constantly and it feels really cheap.

The dialogue is just clichés everywhere, even when it doesn't make sense. The main character/trio interactions aren't bad, but they're not good, either. Chloe and Nate have some ok scenes. The 'Ludlow' siblings (new baddies) are awful from start to finish, and their motives are all over the map. It should be very clear what they want and why, but they keep changing their minds, denying their role in it, then blaming the other. It's messy, and not in the interesting way. Also, it's never explained what the Amber Room treasure actually is, and there's no explanation for the monster/zombies. They are just there. The lava finale is cool, but the set-up for that disaster doesn't make sense. The final issue also tries to jam in a theme on regret and (not) living a normal life, but they're just throwing words around. There's no set-up, no build up, no payoff. And it isn't tied into any of the other characters, their relationships, or their actions, which is a total missed opportunity. It could've worked if they had charted things out and set it up in the earlier issues. Wink.

There's also this weirdly sexist bs about not wanting Chloe to drive, and trying to exclude her from teaming up because she's a girl. At one point she lies to Nate about her backstory with a weird 1950's-esque white suburban housewife cliche... Which is like? The WEIRDEST thing for Chloe to say???

The art was mostly fine, lots of action and the characters were mostly on model, but there were little errors that bugged me. Like Nate's ring necklace being the size of a Cheerio, or giving him sky-blue eyes. (It's dark hazel-blue.) At one point Sully wears a plain long-sleeved T-shirt which physically offended me to see. Additional points docked for having Elena on the cover illustration when she was not in the story. And also for making Nate look like a young John Travolta. Just, no.

Overall I don't recommend, unless you absolutely love Chloe. She had some nice scenes, and her introduction page looked cool. There's also this panel near the middle of the book which was adorable.

Boop.

#Jade reviews #Uncharted #Uncharted comic #Part of the reason I wanted this comic was to see how they drew Nate's face #But it's weird because even though they have the elements of his face - it doesn't have his essence #It looks like him but it -doesn't- look like him #I guess I'll just have to keep practicing on my own #The other weird thing about how disappointing the writing is in this comic is that I feel absolutely confident that I can do a better job #The story I've been working on - though not Uncharted related - is nailing the character interactions and I just am so happy about that #So... thanks for the confidence boost terrible Uncharted comic!#My posts

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biglittletale · 7 years

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Cinematic Openings

There is one thing I look for in visual storytelling in any medium, for any audience, and that is cinematic sequences that bring you into the story. Though how you approach that will differ according to the age of your readership. You can tell when a natural director is behind the camera so to speak.

The importance of a cinematic visual opening that brings the reader into the story cannot be undervalued. The opening that either grabs you by the throat or the heart brings you in for the duration. The prompt for this post came from a paper covering visual and written openings in storytelling I wrote while completing another degree, this one a BA Hons degree in sequential illustration, more than several years ago. In that paper I covered the visual opening for Maurice Sendak’s picture book, Outside Over There, and the written opening from Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. For this post, I’m covering three graphic novels by two author illustrators I admire very much, Jillian Tamaki and Ryan Andrews.

Graphic novels for me are films in still images, with even more opportunities for storytelling through panel and image scaling, story beats hit on through pause and movement from panel to panel and page to page, use of inserts, types of sequences and choice of moment and shot. Although I’ve been working intermittently for several years on Wolf Girl, and I’m not saying I won’t finish it someday, I’m answering a personal challenge in the kind of truth telling that can only be told in story. I’ve started this process by writing down the beginning of a new graphic novel with a working title of, Eel Stories. Graphic novels sit right smack in the middle for me of two great storytelling mediums, the illustrated book and film, both live video and animation.

Skim, written by Mariko Tamaki, pictures by Jillian Tamaki The first visual opening comes from the first graphic novel written and illustrated by two Canadian cousins called, Skim. It actually opens with the end papers which can be utilized to bring us into the story either graphically, or introducing setting or exposition. We, the viewers, are lead across a camera negative style image in blue-green following two girls through the woods and leading us out of the spread on the far right (not shown).

After a few pages of front matter and insert imagery, we’re still being lead to the very first page. Already we know that Skim keeps a diary and has a constant inner monologue that we’ll follow throughout the book. The flying leaves give us a sense of time of year, validated on the first spread.

And here we are again, still following the same girls introduced to us earlier in the end papers. Though now they are not silhouettes emerging out of shades of blue, but actual characters. We learn about Kim in her own words. We learn even more about her by how she looks, dresses and by her determined stride ever deeper into her story.

The panels take us through a series of point of view shots, wide shots and close ups and one very nice high angle shot looking down at both girls smoking cigarettes in the woods. There is an unexpected visual and implied aural transition between the close up of Skim’s cast and the bang of the spaghetti jar on the counter to the breaking spaghetti noodles over boiling water, referencing directly to the separation of her parents and her father’s heart attacks.

This spread opens first with a large bleed panel showcasing a framed photo of her parents smiling happily out of the frame surrounded by relics of Skim’s progression from small child to teenager. Below this are three panels giving us a view of the loneliness expressed by her mother’s downcast face at dinner and back at the sink washing dishes. In counterpoint to what seems like her mother’s aloofness, or maybe Skim’s desire, is the large upside down cup with the words, World’s Greatest Mom.

The right hand side of the spread opens up into a full page bleed showing a distraught young girl just dumped by her boyfriend being consoled by her best friend. The size of this image makes it hard for us to look away and experience her distress close up. Images of broken hearts drawn on the back of her hand in black marker pen continues the references to broken things and the heart. Skim’s outside viewpoint of this girl and her losses is reflected back to Skim’s own love lost experiences again and again throughout the story. In a couple more pages we will learn through Skim’s diary that the boy has killed himself. Are you drawn in yet?

This One Summer, words by Mariko Tamaki, pictures by Jillian Tamaki

While Skim’s visual opening bring us into the story by first learning something about her and her life before introducing the theme of loss and love, This One Summer opens with sound expressed through intentional placement on the page. The quality of the sound and rhythm is hinted at by the weight of the text and the vertical spacing between each word, crunch, crunch, crunch.

Jillian is not afraid of white space as you can see in this spread. The small panels feel like the quiet crunch of father’s footsteps carrying his sleeping child home in the dark. With one large image, their world is opened up to us. We don’t know yet how this relates to the story we are about to enter into, but we do know about the love and care of a parent carrying a sleeping child home to her bed in a house down a quiet wooded track.

The next spread takes us to a later time, hurtling through space on a road filled with cars rushing to unknown destinations. We know in one line, not completed on this spread, that where they are going is a place they have been going, ‘like… forever’. Jillian is a master of interpreting filmic moments such as the suggestion of time passing with frames showing the flickering light caused by passing cars and landscape. The transition from the opening spread to this one is quiet, clearly expressing the shift from the past to current time and the intimacy of a family traveling together to a known place full of memories.

Jumping from the closeness of the inside of the car to the whooshing landscape outside, we learn about Mom’s quiet alertness to her daughter and Dad’s jovial comments to break the tension between mother and daughter.

Now we’re brought full circle, in this present time, to that quiet wooded track leading to the house the family stays in every summer. Hinting that this summer won’t be like the other summers that have come before.

Our Blood-stained Roof, words and pictures by Ryan Andrews.

This story is part of an anthology of stories called, Nothing is Forgotten, written and drawn by Ryan Andrews. Jillian Tamaki’s visual opening approach focuses the viewer into cinematic subtle moments that introduce us to the characters and the world they inhabit and the situation emerging through more like a reveal. Ryan brings us in on the first page with a series of panels opening up like a camera tilting downward from the sky to the roof of the house. We know the situation right away. A flock of geese fell out of the sky, smacking heavily down on their roof.

In the first spread, the image setting the stage bleeds across both pages, we quickly realise the narrator’s voice belongs to a young boy. He is the first to see the ‘awful’ sight of the dead geese on the roof. We see his continued narration through his annotation introducing his family. The dialogue tells us his father has no room for wimpy boys and sees the horrible job of cleaning up the remains of the fallen geese as matter of fact. The two insert panels brings the viewer close into the boy’s face to read the horror of that day.

Struggling with how the dead geese were treated in death, collected in a large trash bag and put into garbage bin to be disposed of by the trash collectors, he persuades his brothers to help him bury them properly. All this against his father’s express orders. Sneaking out of the house after their parents have fallen asleep begins what is both quest and ghost story. The other stories in the anthology are just as good.

As illustrators for books, we are used to choosing what we hope are the right moments and viewpoints to best tell the story. In this regard, what we do is no different than the film maker. Our choices for scale; wide shot, full figure shot, medium shot, close-up, extreme close-up and or inserts, are the same. Other considerations are viewpoint, birds eye or worms eye, composition lines and direction, horizontal, vertical or diagonal movement. Questions we ask ourselves as we go include, when do we slow down, take in the subtle build up of tension or changes in temperature of the story. When does the pace move along at fast clip? When do we set up barriers to move the eye back into the spread and when do we lead it out to the next page?

My suggestions for those who want to develop their visual storytelling skills, consider what films and animations you watch. Watch them with an analytical eye. There is much to be learned from them. Take a scene and break it down into little thumbnails to explore how the story unfolds. You can take this into learning from books by other author illustrators. Analyse picture books, graphic novels or older fiction by drawing them out as small thumbnails. Map out the flow of how you move in and out of each spread or page, and the scale and viewpoints shown in each image and how they relate to each other in telling the story. Take a storyboard class. I recommend www.storyboardart.org. There is much you can access for free on the website to help develop your visual storytelling skills. Words and pictures is a specific kind of craft as is crafting visual stories for film and animation. And lastly, try out different scenarios for the same scene. Try taking one scene and change the mood or emotion of that scene by changing your visual approach.

#Anne-Marie Perks #cinematic openings #comics #visual storytelling #Jillian Tamaki #Ryan Andrews #storyboard art

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periodicreviews · 7 years

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RWBY Volume 4 Episode 7

After being disappointed with the quality of the fight in episode 6, episode 7 explains why. They put the A-Team on Qrow vs Tyrian in episode 7 and the B-Team on Tyrian vs RNJR in episode 6. I get it, it’s simple allocation of resources, but it’s still disappointing that the shift in quality was that noticeable. Weiss’s scenes continue to be solid and logical. But the Oscar scene exhibits another example of an emotional rollercoaster that been popping up too often during this season.

Oscar’s emotions

After watching this scene with Oscar for the first time, I thought it was pretty average. But after watching it again, I realized how weird Oscar’s drastic emotional changes were. He goes from denial “I’ve decided you’re not real”, to panic “I’m talking to a voice in my head”, back to denial “I’m done listening to you”, to confusion “Why did I know that?”, to more denial “oh yeah, I must’ve seen it in a picture”, to despair “I never agreed to anything”, and finally anger “Get out of my head!”

It’s hard to really describe this progression in words so I would recommend replaying it and just watching how his emotional state changes. The whole idea they seemed to want to get across was that Oscar is very unstable emotionally due to the presence of Ozpin. But I feel that it would’ve been more effective had the scene been reduced to just two emotional states.

I hate to pull in Evangelion, but I feel if any show knows emotional instability, it’s Evangelion.

After a series of defeats, Asuka’s pride as “the best” has been badly damaged. She's based her entire identity around being the best Evangelion pilot and it is slowly slipping away from her. She was previously able to keep her feelings buried but battle after battle has worn her out and she is ready to snap as soon as Rei tries to give her advice that comes off as an insult.

The scene starts with 40 seconds of silence, simulating the real awkwardness that one would experience trapped in an elevator with someone they hate. Then, Rei says “If you don’t open your heart, your Eva won’t move”, implying that Asuka’s inability to control her Eva is her own fault. Asuka explodes in anger and doesn’t stop yelling until the elevator doors close, separating them once again.

The viewer doesn’t need to see Asuka wavering between listening to Rei, to denial, to panic, etc. Just Asuka yelling at Rei for a minute is enough to show just how on edge she is.

I get that these two situations are very different because we’ve seen very little of Oscar, whereas at this point in Evangelion, the viewer is familiar with Asuka.

The basic message of the elevator scene is that Asuka is on the edge and really unstable. The scene begins in one emotional state, has some sort of progression, and ends in a distinct place. Oscar’s scene seems like it is supposed to convey the same thing, but it feels like it just goes in a complete circle to get that across and ends with Oscar in seemingly the same state he started in. Again, maybe that was their whole point to show he’s so confused and can’t escape this cycle of emotions, but it’s hard to tell.

Ozpin’s Proof

The only new thing in this scene besides showing us that Oscar is unstable, is showing Ozpin attempting to prove he is real. Ozpin asks Oscar if he can describe the headmaster’s office in Haven. Oscar hesitates but begins to describe a room and ends the description with a confused “Why did I say that? Why did I know that?”

My question is, why does this part of the scene exist? In the context of the conversation, it appears to be an attempt by Ozpin to convince Oscar of his legitimacy. At the same time, it also operates to convince the audience of Ozpin’s legitimacy.

But wouldn’t it be even better if Oscar was describing an object or location that the audience was already familiar with? Or does that not add anything to the scene at all?

The audience is reasonably sure that Ozpin is who he says he is since we don’t really have any reason to doubt besides the fact that he “died”. The voice actor is the same and he seems to talk in a way that is consistent with the character. Several allusions were made in past Ozpin dialogue that there was more to him than meets the eye. The whole gears/clock design of his office and “I’ve made more mistakes than any other human” line while talking with Ruby are the only two examples I can quickly think of. These two examples seem to line up with this possession ability shown here.

But if we’re being a little more skeptical that maybe this voice is Oscar just hearing things or it’s a plot by the enemy to manipulate Oscar, what else is there to convince us that this is really Ozpin?

I think that if they had Ozpin describe an object the audience was familiar with, such as the statue at the front of Beacon Academy, it would’ve helped reinforce that this voice really is Ozpin. At the very least, it would’ve allowed the audience to visualize the statue in their head and strengthen the idea that Oscar is seeing the same statue in his head. Using the statue still wouldn’t “prove” this isn’t an enemy plot, but neither does the headmaster’s office.

I suspect at some point in the future, we will get to see this room on screen by Oscar or some other character and maybe they’ll make some reference that “Oh yeah this really was the room”.

Weiss

The issues with this season in general continue to confuse me since at the same time scenes with Weiss are generally very strong besides the weirdness in episodes 1 and 2.

Her actions in the previous episode at the Schnee Dinner Party have led to a reaction that makes sense given what we know about her father. The improved facial animation is used quite well here and doesn’t come off as over the top. Her emotional state throughout the scene also feels very natural going from shock, anger, sadness, and finally resolve. The scene begins in one emotional state, has some sort of progression, and ends in a distinct place.

This scene benefitted from just being between her and her father. The presence of Ironwood or, god forbid, Jaune as a comic relief character, would’ve lessened the emotional impact. Weiss struggles with her family is something that she should resolve on her own, in my opinion.

Even just the simplest thing of her father starting out the scene right next to Weiss and then progressively distancing himself from her so he can exit the room makes me appreciate this scene even more. His movement has a practical purpose in the scene, but one could argue this growing physical distance is a metaphor for the growing emotional rift between Weiss and her father. I could be reading too much into this but given the high level of quality these scenes have maintained, I think it’s more likely.

Qrow+RNJR vs Tyrian

This was a very solid fight in terms of animation and choreography, maybe the best this season. I thought it was better than the Qrow vs Winter fight, but I realize I lot of people like that fight even though it didn’t do much for me personally.

My only problem with this scene is how much it conflicts with the episode 6 fight between RNJR and Tyrian.

In episode 6, right up until Qrow shows up, it appears RNJR has been so badly beaten that all they can do is stand there as Ruby is about to be stabbed or taken. I realize this was done for dramatic effect which I addressed in my episode 6 review.

But now just a couple minutes later, Nora and Ren jump straight into this battle. You could argue that that couple minutes allowed them to recover a bit or they had some senzu beans saved just for this occasion. You could also argue that they had energy to jump in because they weren’t significantly hurt in episode 6. But if they still had energy, why jump in for Qrow and not Ruby?

Later on, this exchange happens.

Tyrian: "Do you WANT to be taken?"

Ruby: "No! But I can't stand by and watch someone get hurt!"

Except that was literally what happened in episode 6. Right before Ruby is about to be stabbed, we see Nora and Ren on the ground looking on helplessly and we see Jaune standing and looking on until he closes his eyes. I guess technically it’s different because Jaune had his eyes closed so he couldn’t “watch someone get hurt” and Ren/Nora were watching but not “standing.” It just feels like a bad joke when I describe it like that.

In real life, this disconnect between how damaged the fighters are and Ruby’s line that almost seems like a reference to the episode 6 fight is most likely just the result of a communication breakdown. The B-Team went off and animated episode 6 while the A-Team went off and animated episode 7. But now when put side by side, the issues become apparent.

At RTX 2016, I listened to one of the panels on animation discuss how important storyboards were to the process in RWBY. In theory, a fight fully mapped out with storyboards would’ve been shared with both teams and they could tackle each half independently to come up with two pieces that fit together when complete. Maybe it wasn’t fully mapped out, maybe time/budget constraints got in the way, or maybe there was a change halfway through and it unintentionally made the B-Team look worse. Maybe the director isn’t doing a good enough job of overseeing the big picture and making sure everyone is working towards a single goal.

All I have is speculation and hope that the situation improves.

After episode 7 or maybe just due to the winter holiday, I feel like I lost interest in the show. But now that the soundtrack is out, I kind of just wanted to finish the show so I could buy the soundtrack. I’m interested in moving on to episode 8 with its title “A Much Needed Talk”. Did the crew have a half-time locker room pep talk over the holiday and address some of the lingering issues? I’m hoping so.

#rwby #rwby4

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warninggraphiccontent · 4 years

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28 February 2020

Drinks, data, discussion

We're giving Data Bites a break in March, but if you have 4 March pencilled into your diary, there's still an opportunity to discuss all things data, as we'll be going for drinks instead. If you'd like further details, drop me a line on gavin[dot]freeguard[at]instituteforgovernment[dot]org[dot]uk.

We're also on the lookout for:

Any reflections on the first octet (thanks, Giuseppe) for a short report we're publishing in April

Suggestions for future speakers, and any subject areas you'd like to see covered

Sponsors.

Please do get in touch!

Other things in brief:

A big thank you to Vuelio and an excellent panel for a fun discussion yesterday evening on the small matter of what 2020 holds in store. (No, we didn't stand up for the key change.) More on the hashtag.

A good discussion at the IfG yesterday morning on all things outsourcing transparency. Tl;dr: we need better data and more transparency. Some thoughts and links from me here.

I was quoted in a Times article on how civil servants are using Slack, revealed after a questionable deployment of an FoI exemption (more here, here and here on FoI).

And finally... another plea for help: we're looking for all sorts of frameworks about how to think about data, information, etc. Any suggestions very welcome - via Twitter or the email address above.

Have a great weekend

Gavin

Today's links:

Graphic content

You'll either love it or hate it

Marmot Review 10 Years On (UCL Institute of Health Equity)

Gains in UK life expectancy stall after decade of austerity, report says* (FT)

Austerity blamed for life expectancy stalling for first time in century (The Guardian)

UK politics, people and public services

Deprivation profiles for Welsh Local Authorities (Jamie Whyte)

School funding (Graham for IfG)

Housing (Ian Mulheirn on a BBC briefing)

Where are all the UK's new homes being built? (Centre for Cities for BBC News)

One in 10 new homes in England built on land with high flood risk (The Guardian)

Special advisers (IfG)

Migration Statistics Quarterly Report: February 2020 (ONS)

Study the biggest driver of migration to the UK, but overall levels remain stable (ONS)

Outer London most exposed to new immigration rules* (FT)

Electoral systems across the UK (IfG)

Labour partisans (strong identifiers) are now really distinctive compared with other groups (Paula Surridge)

More (Matt Singh)

GE2019: How did demographics affect the result? (House of Commons Library)

Capital Investment: why governments fail to meet their spending plans (IfG)

The trillion-pound question (Resolution Foundation)

Coronavirus

China fall in coronavirus cases undermined by questionable data* (FT)

13,000 Missing Flights: The Global Consequences of the Coronavirus* (New York Times)

Mapping the Coronavirus Outbreak Across the World* (Bloomberg)

US politics

What Defines The Sanders Coalition? (FiveThirtyEight)

Responses to our polling on the Democratic primary (G. Elliott Morris, via Ketaki)

What the Democratic Candidates Discussed During the Debates: Annotated Transcripts* (Bloomberg - and a bit behind the data, via Petr)

Sport

Alex Ovechkin is the eighth member of the NHL's 700-goal club* (Washington Post)

Liverpool have been in a winning position for... (Opta)

Uefa’s ban on Man City does not change football’s inequality* (FT)

Will Liverpool’s machine football conquer America?* (FT)

Globalisation has left lower-league football clubs behind* (The Economist)

How We Analyzed Allstate’s Car Insurance Algorithm (The Markup)

Everything else

Are there too many central bankers?* (The Economist)

The World’s Biggest Economies Get a Jolt of Government Spending* (Bloomberg)

Some lesser known visualisation techniques to show rankings when your data is just too big for a regular bar chart (Maarten Lambrechts)

Graph workflow

What is Complexity Science? (#ComplexityExplained, via David)

Meta data

Data

The Value of Data (Bennett Institute/ODI)

It’s Now or Never for National Data Strategies (Diane Coyle for Project Syndicate, via Graham)

How do we create trustworthy and sustainable data institutions? (ODI)

Data Dialogues' participatory futures projects announced (Nesta)

Three types of agreement that shape your use of data (Leigh Dodds)

Government rejects call for DCMS to audit departments’ data-sharing rules (Civil Service World)

How can data transform our health and care system? (Nesta)

AI, algorithms

The algorithm is watching you (London Review of Books)

Data Analytics and Algorithms in Policing in England and Wales: Towards A New Policy Framework (RUSI)

Rules urgently needed to oversee police use of data and AI – report (The Guardian)

Met Police chief defends facial recognition from 'ill-informed' critics (BBC News)

RUSI Annual Security Lecture

AI = “Automated Inspiration” (Cassie Kozyrkov, Towards Data Science)

Clearview AI hack is sweet irony for privacy advocates (New Statesman)

Suppose you have to choose... (Geoffrey Hinton)

Facial recognition is spreading faster than you realise (The Conversation)

Google AI will no longer use gender labels like 'woman' or 'man' on images of people to avoid bias (Business Insider)

Innovating responsibly with data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) (LOTI)

Digital government

Getting out early feels good: meet the Defra team building a new digital service for GB exporters (Defra)

A thread about UK digital government (warning: contains half finished thoughts) (Richard Pope)

UK digital government in the 2010s - what was it all about politically? (Bennett Institute)

Why Government Leaders Need to Become Digital Leaders (Governing)

Information

Inside the infodemic: Coronavirus in the age of wellness* (New Statesman)

How the Coronavirus Revealed Authoritarianism’s Fatal Flaw (The Atlantic)

Together at last – UK’s planning and housing statistics now in one place (ONS)

About the size of a London flat (ONS)

What Africa Check, Chequeado and Full Fact have learned about tackling bad information (Poynter)

Everything else

The Markup

Slouching towards dystopia: the rise of surveillance capitalism and the death of privacy (New Statesman)

Economists should learn lessons from meteorologists* (FT)

Robert Chote interview: OBR chief reflects on ten years as the nation’s top fiscal watchdog, and how he is still a reporter at heart (Civil Service World)

'I give fusion power a higher chance of succeeding than quantum computing' says the R in the RSA crypto-algorithm (The Register)

Oracle Reveals Funding of Dark Money Group Fighting Big Tech* (Bloomberg)

Katherine Johnson Dies at 101; Mathematician Broke Barriers at NASA* (New York Times)

Katherine Johnson: NASA mathematician and much-needed role model (The Conversation)

Democracy tech will be the next hot investment space (Wired)

The perils of opening the mind (Boston Globe)

Transparency

How can outsourced public services be made more transparent? (Institute for Government)

Grammar school scoring is wrong, says father – and hopes finally to prove it (The Guardian, via Nick)

Financial secrecy is the enemy in the fight against corruption (Thom Townsend)

Who uses WhatDoTheyKnow? (mySociety)

Opportunities

JOBS: NatCen

JOBS: What Works for Children's Social Care

JOB: Head of Information Rights (National Archives)

JOB: Delivery Manager (Convivio)

JOB: Artificial intelligence and algorithms reporter (Washington Post)

JOB: Partnerships and Community Manager – Understanding Patient Data (Wellcome)

JOB: Digital innovation (city) lead (Futuregov)

MoJ on the hunt for Head of Prisons Digital Services to help end reliance on ‘monolithic supplier owned systems’ (diginomica)

FELLOWSHIP: Google News Initiative (with FT, Guardian, Reach, Independent, TBIJ, Telegraph, First Draft News)

Building trust in how you handle data: a hierarchy (ODI)

EVENT: Data Trusts 2020: from theory to practice (ODI)

EVENT: Press Play: the power of data to transform physical activity (Ipsos MORI)

EVENT: FutureFest (Nesta)

And finally...

I graphed out my unaccepted Twitter DM requests (Katy Montgomerie)

The One With All The Polling (YouGov)

Duck (Terrible Maps, via Tim)

Sliding flaws: EU publishes misleading Brexit chart (Politico)

An actual chart from the 1998 Comprehensive Spending Review (via Sukh)

Civil servants discuss the politics of Love Island on Slack* (The Times)

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bharatiyamedia-blog · 5 years

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The World Trend Trade Designs a Sustainable Future

http://tinyurl.com/y6zzr6th Preventing local weather change is a rising precedence for trend firms, with British luxurious home Burberry the newest to announce a method to slash emissions throughout its provide chain. However whereas the style trade needs to assist the planet—the attire enterprise creates around 10% of global greenhouse gasoline emissions—firms are additionally responding to shopper demand for merchandise with extra sustainable origins. In keeping with the Sustainable Attire Coalition’s 2019 Pulse of the Fashion Industry Report, 75% of customers view sustainability as very or extraordinarily necessary. Half of consumers mentioned they’d swap manufacturers if a competitor is extra environmentally and socially directed. But, “firms aren’t implementing sustainable options quick sufficient to counterbalance the unfavorable environmental and social impacts,” the report mentioned. Establishing its sustainable bona fides, Burberry is aiming to cut back climate-changing greenhouse gasoline emissions at its shops, places of work, inner manufacturing, and distribution websites 95% by 2022, and by 2030 minimize these pollution 30% all through its prolonged provide chain. The latter purpose is particularly vital, taking into consideration the worldwide attain of an attire, accent, and footwear label’s provide chain, and the way troublesome it may be to control carbon emissions of each producer, in addition to all through transportation, distribution, and retail channels. Equally noteworthy is how Burberry has joined a broader effort amongst companies, and a rising cadre of trend names throughout the trade, as members of the Science-Based mostly Targets initiative, began in 2015. Science-based targets The initiative is a collaboration among the many Carbon Disclosure Venture, United Nations World Compact, World Assets Institute, World Wild Life Fund for Nature, and We Imply Enterprise. The coalition has 575 firms who’ve dedicated to create climate-change-reduction applications, of which 231 have reached the purpose the place they will set measurable targets based mostly on scientific ideas. Different trend firms who have either committed to create or have already set targets below the initiative embrace: Chanel, Gucci-parent Kering S.A., PVH Corp., Nike Inc., Puma SE, VF Corp., Hennes & Mauritz, Eileen Fisher Inc., Guess? Inc., Levi Strauss & Co., Hole Inc., Zara’s mother or father firm Inditex S.A., Uniqlo’s mother or father Quick Retailing Co., and One Jeanswear Group, makers of denim manufacturers similar to 9 West, Gloria Vanderbilt, and Bandolino. Amongst retailers, whose gross sales embrace trend, and are a part of the initiative, are Walmart Inc., Goal Corp., Tesco PLC, Marks & Spencer Group, and Carrefour S.A. For these firms, emission reductions are deliberate “throughout all their merchandise, their entire worth chain,” mentioned Cynthia Cummis, director of Non-public Sector Local weather Mitigation on the WRI, a world environmental analysis group. In consequence, members are “aggressively addressing local weather change according to the ambition of the Paris Settlement” setting world targets to cut back greenhouse gasoline emissions. The WRI defines a “science-based goal” as a purpose adopted by an organization to cut back greenhouse gasoline emissions “according to the extent of decarbonization required to maintain world temperature enhance under 2°C (35.6°F), in comparison with pre-industrial temperatures,” as described within the 2014 Fifth Evaluation Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Local weather Change. Going ahead, Cummis mentioned the initiative needs to achieve broader data of the style trade, “to know the place probably the most emissions are alongside the worth chain, the place the largest discount alternatives are, and map out for attire firms how these actions can add as much as meet a science-based goal,” Cummis defined. Small and large steps for the planet Collaborating firms within the initiative additionally pledge to be clear about their nitty-gritty targets by protecting the general public apprised about progress. Measures to cut back emissions can embrace utilizing recyclable supplies, but in addition one thing as fundamental as reusing cardboard packing containers or creating working efficiencies. Lowering or changing petroleum-based supplies is one other step. For instance, citrus-based textiles are made by Italian fiber firm Orange Group, whose prospects embrace trend home Salvatore Ferragamo. Burberry’s sustainability efforts, giant and small, in complete go properly past its choice final 12 months to stop the practice of burning unused stock, seen as polluting and wasteful. For the reason that trend home estimates 76% of its direct carbon emissions come from its retail operations, the corporate has appointed Accountability Leaders in a number of shops to get workers to extend power effectivity. The model’s shops even have switched to LED lighting. “We then used the fee financial savings from power reductions to finance further renewable power procurement,” the corporate mentioned in an announcement. “We’re on observe to realize our RE100 commitments as we now receive 58% of our complete power (together with 68% of our electrical energy) from renewable sources, a rise of 13% from final 12 months.” All through its provide chain, the model can also be shifting towards renewable power sources, similar to wind and solar energy. What’s sustainability? As customers concentrate on pursuing eco-friendlier lives, extra trend and different shopper merchandise are being bought as”sustainable,” though there is not an ordinary definition for what meaning when it comes to the atmosphere. Initiatives just like the Science-Based mostly Targets initiative assist manufacturers again their sustainable claims with a set of requirements to which they will level to as proof of their dedication. In the meantime, French President Emmanuel Macron just lately tapped Kering SA Chief Government Officer Francois-Henri Pinault to guide a global fashion industry sustainability effort, however there’s been no dialogue but about advertising guideposts. “Since nobody to date can actually outline sustainability precisely, it’s laborious to think about how it may be policed” to stop false claims in advertising, mentioned Jeffrey Silberman, professor and chairperson of the Textile Improvement and Advertising and marketing division on the Trend Institute of Know-how, New York. (When reached by Fortune, he was in North Carolina visiting a cotton farm.) Some nations do have businesses in place to carry firms accountable for his or her advertising language. Norway, for instance, is currently investigating H&M’s trend advertising round its summer season “Aware” assortment. Within the U.S., the Federal Commerce Fee supplies steering on advertising language, compliance with which is voluntary however is nonetheless weighed as regulatory authority. However the FTC to date hasn’t handed judgment on what constitutes “sustainable” in product promoting. With the 2012 release of revised “Green Guides” for environmental marketing language, the FTC mentioned it “lacks a ample foundation to supply significant steering” on defining sustainable, in addition to pure and natural, since every has numerous meanings. Regardless, with the ability to credibly say an organization is sustainable requires loads of work and longterm dedication. “I believe it is going to be a mix of a number of actions that firms are going to wish to place in place to assert that they are sustainable,” Cummis mentioned. “However I assume will probably be a group of investing in power effectivity of their provide chain,” Cummis mentioned. “For attire firms, the vast majority of emissions are primarily upstream of their provide chain, with the extraction of uncooked supplies or the [manufacture of] cloth on the textile mills.” To chop down on emissions, an organization may swap to textile mills utilizing renewable power, or have circular-business fashions that cut back waste, she mentioned. There are additionally unbiased organizations doing sustainability oversight, in keeping with Katrin Ley, managing director of Trend for Good, a world sustainability initiative supported by firms like Adidas, Galeries Lafayette Group, Kering, PVH Corp., Stella McCartney, and Goal. “Working with these organizations or utilizing supplies that meet explicit requirements all assist the broader trade and customers perceive the place a model is on the spectrum,” she mentioned. These organizations embrace the Highway Map to Zero Programme, Sustainable Attire Coalition, Higher Cotton Initiative, Honest Put on Basis, Cradle to Cradle Institute, and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Manufacturers on the Forefront Some manufacturers have been clear about their sustainability initiatives for the reason that starting. One firm doing this successfully is Reformation, a celebrity-favorite line identified for blousy attire and tops with low necklines. (Its web site reads: “Being bare is the #1 most sustainable possibility. We’re #2.) As a result of there is no such thing as a standardized framework for evaluating the sustainability of fibers, the corporate has released its own set of fiber standards. Grade A fibers are “Pure fibers which might be quickly renewable, plant-based and have a possible for circularity,” similar to recycled cotton, Tencel Lyocell, and natural linen; grade B fibers are “nearly all pure or recycled fibers” like natural cotton, ENKA Viscose, and Tencel Modal. “We tried to make these requirements as holistic as doable, bearing in mind water enter, power enter, land use, eco-toxicity, greenhouse gasoline emissions, human toxicity, availability, and worth,” mentioned Kathleen Talbot, Reformation’s VP of Operations and Sustainability, in an announcement to Fortune. “On the finish of 2018, about 67% of our cloth purchases have been our A & B rated fibers, and we’re persevering with to develop new fabrications and design into these highest impression fibers like Tencel, linen, and recycled cotton or wool.” A New Era of Buyers Over the previous few years, Silberman has seen college students at FIT demanding the sustainability angle be lined in almost each class. Reflecting this curiosity, a 2015 Nielsen report discovered 73% of millennials are prepared to pay extra for a product whether it is marketed as sustainable. “Although millennials are coming of age in one of the troublesome financial climates prior to now 100 years, they proceed to be most prepared to pay additional for sustainable offerings–almost three-out-of-four respondents,” the Nielsen report says. Extra must-read tales from Fortune: —Amazon warehouse staff in Minnesota plan Prime Day strike —Ladies’s World Cup participant endorsements in the wings –Shiseido Launches Internet of Things Skincare System —Pink peacock lattes at a SoHo pop-up to promote colors and TVs —Take heed to our new audio briefing, Fortune500 Daily Get Fortune’s RaceAhead newsletterfor sharp insights on company tradition and variety Source link

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