#Working Effectively With Legacy Code

[simnopke]

The Sims 2 Legacy Collection: shadow fix

The rerelease of The Sims 2 introduced a fix for the black rectangles under Sims. You may have experienced this bug in the Ultimate Collection version.

As the creator of the Sims Shadow Fix, I was curious to know how it was done. But first, I'd like to explain what the problem with Sim shadows is.

What's the cause of the shadow bug?

When the game works as intended, a Sim shadow texture is a light bluish blob on a white background. It also has transparency, but it's unused. It looks like this:

However, many modern graphics cards render the texture as plain black with transparency:

That's why black rectangles appear under the Sims.

What does my mod do?

My mod is only a workaround for the bug. It uses the transparency to recreate the shadows.

The first versions released in 2015 and 2016 were achromatic, while the original shadows were bluish. Back then I didn't even know why and how my mod worked.

On 2 January 2025 I released new versions based on my research into shaders. I also recreated the original bluish shadows.

How does the Legacy Collection fix the shadow bug?

Thanks to @ivycopur I was able to examine the code. It uses a workaround, just like my mod.

In fact, it looks almost exactly like the really not misty 0.4 version of my mod, which, ironically, is now legacy. The shader code in the Legacy Collection contains the same nonsense. And a bit more.

Code comparison

The left side is the original code extracted from the Materials.package file in The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection. The right side is my code or the Legacy Collection code:

The differences between my code and the LC code:

the debug part: I removed it from my code as players will never see it. The LC has this feature untouched.

alphaBlend srcFactor: despite the difference, it actually changes nothing. Explained later.

The identical changes:

alphaBlend dstFactor,

the same colorScalar has been added,

textureBlend.

Nonsense #1: textureBlend

The textureBlend defines how the colors of the incoming texture are transformed. The first argument is responsible for the color channels, the second – for the transparency.

Originally it's just:

textureBlend select(texture) select(texture)

And it means that the texture is taken as it is.

My and LC code transforms it though. The colorScalar is defined as a partially opaque (40%) black color. The transparency argument takes the transparency of the original texture and darkens it with the 40% factor:

multiply(colorScalar texture)

And this makes sense. The color channels argument takes the transparency part of the texture and makes it pure black, because the color scalar is black:

multiply(colorScalar texture:alphaReplicate)

It's pointless. I could go:

select(colorScalar)

instead. It would be effectively the same.

The texture after the transformations looks like this:

Nonsense #2: alphaBlend

The alphaBlend defines how to mix the source colors (in this case the transformed texture from the textureBlend step) with the destination colors (in this case, the ground under Sim's feet).

The srcFactor argument defines the source color transformations, the dstFaction – defines the destination color transformations. And then they're put together.

Originally it's:

alphaBlend srcFactor(destColor) add dstFactor(zero)

The srcFactor says that the shadow colors are darkened with the ground colors. The dstFactor doesn't really matter because it's multiplied by zero (black). Also, transparency isn't used.

If I understand correctly, you could achieve the same effect with:

alphaBlend srcFactor(zero) add dstFactor(srcColor)

And the final effect is:

My and LC code had to do it differently. The dstFactor says to darken the floor color with inverted transparency:

dstFactor(invSrcAlpha)

It sounds complicated, but the inversion actually means that black becomes white and vice versa. So the transparency texture, which is a dark gray blob on a black background, becomes a light gray blob on a white background.

The srcFactor is actually useless because the shadow texture (from the textureBlend step) is black. So it doesn't matter if you use:

srcFactor(one)

like I did, or:

srcFactor(destColor)

as in the LC code, it will always be black because you can't make black any darker. To make the intention clear, I'd personally go with:

srcFactor(zero)

instead. The final effect would always be:

It's different from the original intended effect. You can even see the difference in the official screenshots:

Source 1 | Source 2

Conclusion

It doesn't look like a coincidence. The cause of the shadow bug hasn't been fixed, and I doubt that an experienced shader creator would come up with such a workaround. There are better ways.

Before you point out that it's against my terms of use to take my code and sell it, especially without credit, hear out. It doesn't matter – EA's policy allows it. And I'm not even angry. It's just funny that they trusted such a messy code. I wouldn't be surprised to see other creators' fixes in the Legacy Collection.

The good thing is that EA has addressed the shadow issue at all. 🙃

[blackstarlineage]

Harriet Tubman (c. 1822–1913) was an abolitionist, freedom fighter, and humanitarian best known for her role as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, where she led hundreds of enslaved people to freedom. She was also a spy, scout, nurse, and soldier for the Union Army during the Civil War, making her one of the most fearless and effective leaders in the fight against slavery.

Born into slavery in Dorchester County, Maryland, Tubman endured brutal treatment at the hands of enslavers. Despite suffering a severe head injury as a child—causing lifelong headaches and visions—she developed a deep spiritual connection that guided her throughout her life. In 1849, she escaped slavery, traveling alone over 100 miles to the North, where she found freedom. However, she refused to stay free while others remained in bondage.

Determined to liberate her people, Tubman returned to the South at least 13 times, leading approximately 70 enslaved people to freedom through the Underground Railroad, a secret network of safe houses and abolitionists. Her success earned her the nickname “Moses”, as she never lost a single passenger on her dangerous journeys. She used disguises, secret codes, and her knowledge of the land to outmaneuver slave catchers, who placed large bounties on her capture.

During the Civil War, Tubman worked as a spy and scout for the Union Army, using her knowledge of the South to gather intelligence and organize guerrilla missions. In 1863, she led a daring raid on the Combahee River, which resulted in the liberation of over 750 enslaved people—one of the largest emancipation missions of the war. Her contributions to the Union war effort made her one of the few women to lead a military operation during that time.

After the war, Tubman dedicated her life to advocating for the rights of Black people and women. She worked to support formerly enslaved people, campaigned for women's suffrage, and established a home for elderly African Americans in Auburn, New York. Despite her immense contributions, she struggled financially and was not properly compensated for her wartime service.

Harriet Tubman’s legacy is one of fearless resistance, self-sacrifice, and an unshakable commitment to Black liberation. Her work not only freed individuals from physical slavery but also laid the foundation for future generations in the fight for civil rights, self-determination, and justice. She remains one of the most revered figures in African American and global history, embodying the spirit of liberation and resilience.

[rebornofstars]

MY FAVOURITE PARTS OF THE UPDATE

BECAUSE THIS HAS BEEN MY FAVOURITE UPDATE EVER

all comic panels from crescent flame by @linkeduniverse. readmore bc its LONG

can we start with the gorgeous lighting please . like this has to be one of the absolute prettiest palettes i dont know how the colour wheel works but PLEASE im dying over this peach coloured light. and the camera angles??? absolute fire

and we already knew he had it but as far as i can remember this is the first time we've actually seen legend using his lantern????

somoene will have to help me (SOS 😭🙏) because ive lost the spreadsheet matching each item in the december art with its name & game of origin so FORGIVE ME IF IM WRONG BUT ISNT THIS THE SAME LAMP FROM LINK'S HOUSE AT THE BEGINNING OF ALTTP??? legend you sentimental freak (deeply affectionate). hes everything.

and!!!! rulie with the candle. i dont know why im going crazy about a candle but i AM. the fact that rulie uses a light method less modern than legend's old lamp is speaking to me and the inevitable conversation about legend's legacy and the gulf between their eras. this is canon and we've been talking about it for years but seeing them together in direct comparison like this is really hammering it into my skull. and of course jojo's attention to detail is once again UNPARALLELED

also the architecture in this dungeon is just gorgeous. jojo can u design my house pls??? 🥺🥺 i'm in love with all these zoomed out shots as well like holy shit. so effective in creating an atmosphere

PLEASE the fact that hyrule holds his candle right over it to look but then backs off a bit when legend comes over so he can light it with the lamp?????? WORDLESSLY??? i dont know if its just because he knew the lamp would do a better job but the TEAMWORK??? THE COOPERATION??? I LOVE THEM???? i used to think that downfall duo was mostly a fanon invention cause legend and hyrule didnt spend much one-on-one time in the comic but FUCK THAT I BELIEVE!!!! I SEE THE LGIHT!!!!! legend's little grin is telling me everything i need to know

his face im wheezing 😂😂😂😂 rule please how did u survive this long 😭😭😭

and then it doesnt even attack them it just runs away!!!!! accurate!!!! dfd (downfall duo? is this an acceptable acronym?) are TOO OP

im actually fucking dying over this panel u dont understand. strong contender for one of the panels of all time. four has STRUCK UP A POSE. nobody walks down stairs with their hands behind their head that boy is RECLINING DRAMATICALLY.

and WIND DOING HIS LITTLE LEAP. ITS TOTALLY UNECCESSARY. IM SO GLAD IT EXISTS. and time descending in the middle of the stairs staring straight ahead 😭😭😭 equally theatric in his own stupid way im wheezing this is too much. the drama kids. old man & the Youngsters

THE ARGUING ABOUT WHO GETS A TURN AT WHAT. SOOOO SIBLINGS CODED. IM DEAD ON THE FLOOR

wiat wait wait fuck. wait fuck HOW OLD IS FOUR. theyre thinking so furiously theyre gonna hurt their brains. recontextualising every single conversation theyve ever had with the smithy!! im actually sooo sooo happy abt this panel because cheekily mysterious four (especially about completely unecessary things like his AGE) is my kryptonite & i feel like this couldve come straight out of a crackfic. the chaos is unmatched. jojo is on our WAVELENGTH ‼️‼️‼️

they are soooo sooo comfortable with each other. hyrule sasses everyone its true BUT LEGEND IS TAKING HIS SASS AND RESPONDING TO IT. theyre having a debate. legend is expressing all his grumpy opinions and hyrule is like lmao ok i see ur point. ahgsjdbgsj

the way the games are baked into every panel and plot point of this comic.. im actually deceased. also legend's stance is cracking me up

ADORE the way this is framed. love love love

the MISCHIEF AND GLEE ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️ WHAT IS A LINK IF NOT A DESTROYER OF POTS‼️‼️‼️ this whole page im obsessed with i read it like 3 times cause i couldnt believe my eyes. they ARE besties they ARE. theyre both being so playful & theyre both in their element & pairing them up was a gorgeous fantastic idea and i am SO here for it

in conclusion every update is getting better and better i am LIVING for this dungeon arc and i adore this comic to pieces. thank u for coming to my ted talk

[mythauragame]

Development Update - December 2024

Happy New Year, everyone! We're so excited to be able to start off 2025 with our biggest news yet: we have a planned closed beta launch window of Q1 2026 for Mythaura!

Read on for a recap of 2024, more information about our closed beta period, Ryu expressions, January astrology, and Ko-fi Winter Quarter reward concepts!

2024 Year in Review

Creative

This year, the creative team worked on adding new features, introducing imaginative designs, and refining lore/worldbuilding to enrich the overall experience.

New Beasts and Expressions: All 9 beast expression bases completed for both young and adult with finalized specials for Dragons, Unicorns, Griffins, Hippogriffs, and Ryu.

Mutations, Supers and Specials: Introduced the Celestial mutation as well as new Specials Banding & Merle, and the Super Prismatic.

New Artist: Welcomed Sourdeer to the creative team.

Collaboration and Sponsorship: Sponsored several new companions from our Ko-Fi sponsors—Amaru, Inkminks, Somnowl, Torchlight Python, Belligerent Capygora, and the Fruit-Footeded Gecko.

New Colors: Revealed two eye-catching colors, Canyon (a contest winner) and Porphyry (a surprise bonus), giving players even more variety for their Beasts.

Classes and Gear: Unveiled distinct classes, each with its own themed equipment and companions, to provide deeper roleplay and strategic depth.

Items and Worldbuilding: Created a range of new items—from soulshift coins to potions, rations, and over a dozen fishable species—enriching Mythaura’s economy and interactions.

Star Signs & Astrology: Continued to elaborate on the zodiac-like system, connecting each Beast’s fate to celestial alignments.

Questing & Story Outline: Laid the groundwork for the intro quest pipeline and overarching narrative, ensuring that players’ journey unfolds with purposeful progression.

Code

This year, the development team worked diligently on refining and expanding the codebase to support new features, enhance performance, and improve gameplay experiences. A total 429,000 lines of code changed across both the backend and frontend, reflecting:

New Features: Implementation of systems like skill trees, inventory management, community forums, elite enemies, npc & quest systems, and advanced customization options for Beasts.

Optimizations and Refactoring: Significant cleanup and streamlining of backend systems, such as game state management, passive effects, damage algorithms, and map data structures, ensuring better performance and maintainability.

Map Builder: a tool that allows us to build bespoke maps

Regular updates to ensure compatibility with modern tools and frameworks.

It’s worth noting that line changes alone don’t capture the complexity of programming work. For example:

A single line of efficient code can replace multiple lines of legacy logic.

Optimizing backend systems often involves removing redundant or outdated code without adding new functionality.

Things like added dependencies can add many lines of code without adding much bespoke functionality.

Mythaura Closed Beta

We are so beyond excited to share this information with you here first: Mythaura closed beta is targeted for Q1 2026!

On behalf of the whole team, thank you all so, so much for all of the support for Mythaura over the years. Whether you’ve been around since the Patreon days or joined us after Koa and Sark took over…it’s your support that has gotten this project to where it is. We are so grateful for the faith and trust placed in us, and the opportunity to create something we hope people will truly love and enjoy. This has truly been a collaborative effort with you and we are constantly humbled by all of the thoughtful insights, engaging discussions, and great ideas to come out of this amazing community of supporters.

So: thank you again, it’s been an emotional and amazing journey for the dev team and we’re delighted to join you on your journeys through Mythaura.

Miyazaki Full-Time

Hey everyone, Koa here!

We’re thrilled to share some news about Mythaura’s development! Starting in 2025, Miya will be officially dedicating herself full-time to Mythaura. Her focus will be on bringing even more depth and wonder to the world of Mythaura through content creation, worldbuilding, and building up the brand. It’s a huge step forward, and we’re so excited for the impact her passion and creativity will have on the project!

In addition, I’ve secured 4-day weeks and will be working full-time each Friday to dive deeper into development. This extra push is going to allow us to keep moving steadily forward on both the art and code fronts, and with Miya’s expanded role, the next year of development is looking really promising.

Thank you all for being here and supporting Mythaura every step of the way. We can’t wait to share more as things progress!

Closed Beta FAQ

In the interest of keeping all of the information about our Closed Beta in one place and update as needed, we have added as much information as possible to the FAQ page.

If you have any questions that you can think of, please feel free to reach out to us through our contact form or on Discord!

Winter Quarter (2025) Concepts

It’s the first day of Winter Quarter 2025, which means we’ve got new Quarterly Rewards for Sponsors to vote on on our Ko-fi page!

Which concepts would you like to see made into official site items? Sponsors of Bronze level or higher have a vote in deciding. Please check out the Companion post and the Glamour post on Ko-fi to cast your vote for the winning concepts!

Votes must be posted by January 29, 2025 at 11:59pm PDT in order to be considered.

All Fall 2024 Rewards are now listed in our Ko-fi Shop for individual purchase for all Sponsor levels at $5 USD flat rate per unit. As a reminder, please remember that no more than 3 units of any given item can be purchased. If you purchase more than 3 units of any given item, your entire purchase will be refunded and you will need to place your order again, this time with no more than 3 units of any given item.

Fall 2024 Glamour: Diaphonized Ryu

Fall 2024 Companion: Inhabited Skull

Fall 2024 Solid Gold Glamour: Hippogriff (Young)

NOTE: As covered in the FAQ, the Ko-fi shop will be closing at the end of the year. These will be the last Winter Quarter rewards for Mythaura!

New Super: Zebra

We've added our first new Super to the site since last year's Prismatic: Zebra, which has a chance to occur when parents have the Wildebeest and Banding Specials!

Zebra is now live in our Beast Creator--we're excited to see what you all create with it!

New Expressions: Ryu

The Water-element Ryu has had expressions completed for both the adult and young models. Expressions have been a huge, time-intensive project for the art team to undertake, but the result is always worth it!

Mythauran Astrology: January

The month of January is referred to as Hearth's Embrace, representing the fireplaces kept lit for the entirety of the coldest month of the year. This month is also associated with the constellation of the Glassblower and the carnelian stone.

Mythaura v0.35

Refactored "Beast Parties" into "User Parties," allowing non-beast entities like NPCs to be added to your party. NPCs added to your party will follow you in the overworld, cannot be made your leader, and will make their own decisions in combat.

Checkpoint floor functionality ironed out, allowing pre-built maps to appear at specific floor intervals.

The ability to set spawn and end coordinates in the map builder was added to allow staff to build checkpoint floors.

Various cleanups and refactors to improve performance and reduce the number of queries needed to run certain operations.

Added location events, which power interactable objects in the overworld, such as a lootable chest or a pickable bush.

Thank You!

Thanks for sticking through to the end of the post, we always look forward to sharing our month's work with all of you--thank you for taking the time to read. We'll see you around the Discord.

[fatehbaz]

Indigenous genocide and removal from land and enslavement are prerequisites for power becoming operationalized in premodernity, a way in which subjects get (what Wynter names) “selected” or “dysselected” from geography and coded into colonial possession through dispossession. The color line of the colonized was not merely a consequence of these structures of colonial power or a marginal effect of those structures; it was/is a means to operationalize extraction (therefore race should be considered as foundational rather than as periphery to the production of those structures and of global space). Richard Eden, in the popular 1555 publication Decades of the New World, compares the people of the “New World” to a blank piece of “white paper” on which you can “paynte and wryte” whatever you wish. “The Preface to the Reader” describes the people of these lands as inanimate objects, blank slates [...]. [Basically, "Man" is white, while non-white people are reduced to an aspect of the landscape, a resource.] Wynter suggests that we [...] consider 1452 as the beginning of the New World, as African slaves are put to work on the first plantations on the Portuguese island of Madeira, initiating the “sugar-slave” complex - a massive replantation of ecologies and forced relocation of people [...]. Wynter argues that the invention of the figure of Man in 1492 as the Portuguese [and Spanish] travel to the Americas instigates at the same time “a refiguring of humanness” in the idea of race. This refiguring of slaves trafficked to gold mines is borne into the language of the inhuman [...].

---

The natal moment of the 1800 Industrial Revolution, [...] [apparently] locates Anthropocene origination in [...] the "new" metabolisms of technology and matter enabled by the combination of fossil fuels, new engines, and the world as market. [...] The racialization of epistemologies of life and nonlife is important to note here [...]. While [this industrialization] [...] undoubtedly transformed the atmosphere with [...] coal [in the nineteenth century], the creation of another kind of weather had already established its salient forms in the mine and on the plantation. Paying attention to the prehistory of capital and its bodily labor, both within coal cultures and on plantations that literally put “sugar in the bowl” (as Nina Simone sings) [...]. The new modes of material accumulation and production in the Industrial Revolution are relational to and dependent on their preproductive forms in slavery [...].

---

Catherine Hall’s project Legacies of British Slave-Ownership makes visible the complicity in terms of structures of slavery and industrialization that organized in advance the categories of dispossession that are already in play and historically constitute the terms of racialized encounter of the Anthropocene. In 1833, Parliament finally abolished slavery in the British Caribbean, and the taxpayer payout of £20 million in “compensation” [paid by the government to slave owners for their lost "property"] built the material, geophysical (railways, mines, factories), and imperial infrastructures of Britain and its colonial enterprises and empire. As the project empirically demonstrates, these legacies of colonial slavery continue to shape contemporary Britain. A significant proportion of funds were invested in the railway system connecting London and Birmingham (home of cotton production and [...] manufacturing for plantations), Cambridge and Oxford, and Wales and the Midlands (for coal). Insurance companies flourished and investments were made in the Great Western Cotton Company, for example, and in cotton brokers, as well as in big colonial land companies in Canada (Canada Land Company) and Australia (Van Diemen’s Land Company) and a number of colonial brokers. Investments were made in the development of metal and mineralogical technologies [...].

The slave-sugar-coal nexus both substantially enriched Britain and made it possible for it to transition into a colonial industrialized power [...]. The slave trade [...] fashioned the economic conditions (and institutions, such as the insurance and finance industries) for industrialization. Slavery and industrialization were tied by the various afterlives of slavery in the form of indentured and carceral labor that continued to enrich new emergent industrial powers from both the Caribbean plantations and the antebellum South. Enslaved “free” African Americans predominately mined coal in the corporate use of black power or the new “industrial slavery,” [...].

---

The labor of the coffee - the carceral penance of the rock pile, “breaking rocks out here and keeping on the chain gang” (Nina Simone, Work Song, 1966), laying iron on the railroads - is the carceral future mobilized at plantation’s end (or the “nonevent” of emancipation). [...] [T]he racial circumscription of slavery predates and prepares the material ground for Europe and the Americas in terms of both nation and empire building - and continues to sustain it.

---

All text above by: Kathryn Yusoff. "White Utopia/Black Inferno: Life on a Geologic Spike". e-flux Journal Issue #97. February 2019. At: e-flux dot com slash journal/97/252226/white-utopia-black-inferno-life-on-a-geologic-spike/ [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Text within brackets added by me for clarity and context. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism.]

[fuumiku]

Mickbell & co Mob Psycho AU

Day 40 of being ipadless I KNOW these pictures all look like ass and I am sorry. I could not miss 2/22 aka Mickbell's birthday though!! I'd like to draw more for this eventually digitally, poppin' colors and all à la classic mp100

Ok so my friend kept confusing my Mickbell plush for Reigen which (being funny aside) did get me thinking on how they're kinda pretty similar. And thus the idea bloomed...... He's also pretty Dimple but that's neither here nor there. Conman jack of all trades Spirits & Such Consultation Office Mickbell!!! Kuro is pretty Serizawa coded so that was my first thought but then it dawned on me that Mob-Kuro would be so funny. In classic 22 yo Mickbell & 18 yo Kuro who thinks he's his keeper fashion Kuro grows some sense of duty to keep Mick from getting killed, "I do this bc I have to protect mister Tomas <:[ look at him…… he would be defenseless if I wasn't here… poor guy…"- Also though Mob-Reigen and Mickbell-Kuro's first meeting are surprisingly alike in that Kuro/Mob saw in their meeting depth and some emotional connection meanwhile Reigen/Kuro only decided to allow them hanging around when they showed they'd be useful.

I wanted Rin to be an associate of sorts because I love my trio. I do quite enjoy business competitors mickrin so that's what I ended up leaning into. Rin's less flashy business right next door of traditional medicine and spiritual healing, she has very weak psychic powers too but her skills with spirits mostly lay in herbal effects like sage and warding rooms etc etc. All the remedies she knows is her family legacy. Does she have a parmacist license or training? No. Does her stuff still work? Yes. She ends up having a Banshomaru sort of role & dynamic Conman Mickbell vs spiritual pharmacist Rin <3 They end up teaming up all the time since Rin gets less customers but she's more competent with most spirit issues. Competent healer with no sense of marketing x charismatic silver tongue with questionable skill. This is a Mickbell slander AU (I love him). They're lowkey each other's favorite coworker in canon but they're also the hater duo and I can turn anything into worsties

Bonus, Mithrun-Dimple and Kabru-Mezato, sort of. At first I thought Ritsu for Kabru but thinking about roles a journalist type thing came naturally

[hephaestuscrew]

“This has both our names on it”: Viewing Fleet and Clara’s relationship in Victoriocity through a queerplatonic lens

TL;DR: By Season 3 of Victoriocity, Fleet and Clara have developed a committed emotional partnership that certainly moves beyond the purely professional. Whilst very much operating as a duo, they can be interpreted as often rejecting or subverting romance-coded elements in their relationship, instead embracing a unique dynamic that can be read as resonating with the concept of a queerplatonic relationship (QPR).

Buckle up because this is over 2,500 words long! If you'd rather read it as a document, you can access it here: Fleet & Clara QPR Google Doc

Disclaimer: I'm not making any claims about creator intent, nor about how anyone else ought to interpret Fleet and Clara's dynamic. It's also worth acknowledging that queerplatonic relationships are inherently defined by the people in them and any attempt to apply such terminology to a story set in 1887 is obviously anachronistic (although whether that should matter when said story also contains a cyborg Queen Victoria is up for debate). 

With that said, if we define a QPR as a committed personal partnership which is not entirely captured by the typical expectations of either friendship or romance but may contain some elements typically associated with either (other definitions of QPRs are available), I enjoy viewing Fleet and Clara's relationship through a QPR lens, and I want to talk about some of the reasons why I think this reading works.

***Spoilers for all three seasons of Victoriocity and the novel High Vaultage***

Detective duos

Even before we actually get into Fleet and Clara's particular bond, detective / crime-solving duos as a general concept have QPR energy to me (which probably predisposed me to this interpretation). It's the Holmes-and-Watson legacy. It's the use of the word 'partner' in a non-romantic context (‘associate’ or ‘companion’ can also serve a similar purpose). It's the intense trust and reliance on each other. It's the sense of being a recognisable pair, always appearing together, known as a duo, with skills and attributes that complement each other. 

Romantic assumptions

Moving on to Fleet and Clara specifically, one aspect of their relationship that can be read through a QPR lens is how they are often in situations where other people believe or imply that there is a romantic relationship between them. Sometimes this is a deliberate strategy of theirs, and sometimes it’s imposed upon them by others. But I’d argue that there’s never a point where they both simultaneously seem entirely comfortable with that romantic narrative for their relationship. Usually one of them will actively deny the assumption or react negatively to the implication:

When Mrs Hampshire interprets Clara and Fleet as a couple experiencing “young love”, Clara might be happy to adopt this as an effective cover story, but Fleet seems unsettled and keen for them not to be perceived this way: “No. No. You’ve misunderstood, we are not, that is to say I am…” (S1E2)

When Warden Hughes assumes Fleet is the new Warden and Clara is the new Warden’s wife, Clara says “I am certainly not”, with emphasis on the ‘certainly’. (S2E2)

Fleet definitely doesn’t sound enthused when he realises Clara has gone for a married couple as their cover story at the Grand Salcombe: “I am sure I’ll regret asking, but by any chance am I [Mr. Theasby?]” (S2E2)

When Titus Byrne tells the pair “I take it you're happy sharing [a room]”, Clara responds with a horrified “What?” (S3E4) (Obviously sleeping in the same room isn’t inherently romantic, but it is often perceived that way.)

Of course, fake dating and external assumptions of romance are very common tropes in romantic will-they-won't-they dynamics, and these moments could definitely be interpreted that way for Fleet and Clara. But I prefer to read these instances as reflecting a different kind of closeness between these two characters. They have a sense of emotional partnership that allows a marriage cover story to seem plausible to others and that other people sometimes automatically assume to be romantic (obviously with some period-typical heteronormativity at play). But to me, it doesn't seem like either of them are fully comfortable with their relationship being perceived in a directly romantic way. Perhaps they are a couple in a different sense…

Proposal via door plate 

The way that Fleet asks Clara to be his business partner has always seemed to me like a platonic version of when people find personal ways to surprise their romantic partner with a proposal:

CLARA: You bought me a door plate for your office? [...] This has both our names on it. FLEET: What do you think? CLARA: I like it. (S2E7)

Fleet could have just asked Clara outright, without going to the trouble of buying a sign that would have been useless if she’d said no. If it was purely a professional business proposition with no emotional meaning behind it, I think he would have just asked verbally. But instead, he gifts her a sign with their two names paired together: Fleet-Entwhistle Investigations. There's something so intimate about that to me: about Fleet asking Clara whether she would like to be a duo with him in a more formally-defined but still non-romantic way; about him choosing to present this offer in the form of a gift; about the way he presents her with their two names joined together etched into metal and asks what she thinks; about the significance that this gesture attaches to their partnership; about him having enough trust that she'll say yes that the effort and vulnerability of presenting her with that sign seem worth it for him. And the gesture means an awful lot to Clara:

She thought about the door plaque he’d had engraved with both their names on it as his way of inviting her to be his business partner – typical Fleet, refusing to tell her so much as his favourite breakfast food and then to go and do something like that. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her. (High Vaultage, p187). 

Anniversaries

In the special episode ‘Murder in the Pharaoh's Tomb', Clara says “And you know what else is a big occasion Fleet? It's our one-month anniversary.” She wants to celebrate the anniversary of Fleet-Entwhistle Investigations. Their partnership holds a significance for her that means key dates associated with it are worth remembering and remarking upon. 

When Clara first mentions their anniversary, Fleet nearly chokes on his drink, which seems like an instinctive reaction to the usually romantic connotations of an anniversary (see my point above about Fleet not being comfortable with their dynamic being perceived as romantic). But when Clara clarifies what she means, Fleet seems much more cheerful about the notion of their anniversary: “Ah, so it has.”

“Miss Clara Entwhistle, my partner”

I get extremely strong QPR vibes from this moment, when Fleet introduces Clara to the sailors at Grave End:

FLEET: This is Miss Clara Entwhistle, my partner - in business, my business partner. CLARA: I'm also his friend, but he doesn't like to say it. (S3 E3)

Fleet and Clara are partners, but not in the way the average person might assume from that word, which Fleet realises mid-sentence here. This is another instance of Fleet reacting negatively to the idea that their relationship might be interpreted romantically (see above). And yet, 'partner' (rather than, say, ‘colleague’) is the word that comes naturally to him in this moment to describe who Clara is to him. He then frantically emphasises the professional element of their relationship so as to avoid the romantic implication, but Clara is keen to proudly assert that there is a personal, emotional aspect to their dynamic too. They are first-and-foremost partners, and they are friends, and they do not want to be seen in a romantic light - this post basically writes itself... 

“Her ridiculous detective.”

When Clara fears for her life at the display of the Lanterns, the narration tells us:

“she thought of her brother, her sister, her parents... Her ridiculous detective.” (High Vaultage, p172) 

The fact that Clara thinks of Fleet in this moment of fear clearly indicates his importance to her, but I think the phrasing of this quote is particularly interesting. The narration lists Clara's immediate family: two of whom are dead (her sister and father), one of whom is publically mourning Clara's life choices (her mother), and only one of whom we have any real evidence of her having a positive relationship with (her brother). And then, separated from these complicated familial relationships by an ellipsis, the narration tells Clara also thinks of Fleet, “her ridiculous detective”. 

Parents and siblings are familial relationships that tend to come with established expectations, in which the use of a possessive pronoun (i.e. her brother) to indicate the relationship is a norm. ‘Detective’ does not fall into this category; unlike ‘brother’, ‘sister’, ‘parent’, ‘friend’, ‘partner’ etc., ‘detective’ is not a word that inherently implies a relationship or that we'd usually expect to see preceded by a possessive pronoun. The idea of ‘her detective’ therefore stands out, giving the sense that there is a unique relationship being indicated here. The way in which Fleet is ‘hers’ is something that Clara has chosen for herself, something that they have shaped together. Who they are to each other can't necessarily be fully expressed using standard phrases that traditionally describe relationships between people. But Fleet is Clara's detective, of which she only has one, and who she'll think of in the midst of “the screaming of the heavens at the end of the world”.

Fleet is also the only one in this list of Clara's loved ones who gets an adjective - her love for him has detail. And while “ridiculous” might often be perceived as negative (it's certainly not a classic romantic endearment), it seems to me like there's such fondness in it in this context: the recognition of and affection for eccentricities, the idea that his importance to her is not (purely) based on his professional strengths but on Fleet as a whole - perhaps at times ridiculous - person.

“Settled”

When Clara and Fleet talk about Clara's mother’s expectations for her, they have this exchange:

"She's still living in hope that one day I'll settle down."  "You're not settled?" asked Fleet. "I am." (High Vaultage, p259) 

By ‘settle down’, Clara's mother of course means ‘marry’, ideally into “at least a minor baronetcy”. But Clara already considers herself "settled", just not in a way her mother would understand or appreciate. She's not looking to "settle down" into a lifestyle other than her current one. She is settled in a situation where Fleet is certainly her closest personal connection in London (and perhaps anywhere), and where the two of them work closely together, operate as a duo, and then go back to their separate homes. And this partnership with Fleet is a comfortable set-up that feels right for Clara exactly as it is, rather than being a precursor to, or a distraction from, the marriage ambitions that her mother wants for her.

I think this exchange also contains an implicit sense of the commitment between the two of them. Fleet wants to check that Clara is ‘settled’ in her current situation, of which working closely - and platonically - with Fleet is obviously a major element; Clara confirms she is. There's a subtle indication of their shared intention to be in this for the long haul.

As a sidenote, Fleet and Clara’s implicit assumption that their partnership is a long-term one can manifest itself in joking contexts as well as serious ones. Look at this exchange from S3E5: 

FLEET: We're not bandits, we're just going to flag it down. CLARA: We'd be terrific bandits! FLEET: Let's just see how our current line of work goes.

I think it’s notable that, in this joking speculation, both Fleet and Clara use ‘we’ and ‘our’. The joke could have been phrased just as effectively if they were imagining only Clara becoming a bandit. But the suggestion is that, if either of them was a bandit, they’d be bandits together. Even if they changed their lives entirely, they'd still approach life together.

Inseparable 

Fleet and Clara have become a nearly inseparable duo in a way which is noticed by others. For example, after Clara and Fleet fall out in High Vaultage, Fleet meets with Keller, who says: 

"You're here with me instead of barrelling across town with her, so I'm just assuming there is some thickheaded puffinry for which you need to apologise to Miss Entwhistle" (p335)

Keller, hardly the most emotionally perceptive man in Even Greater London, automatically infers from the fact that Fleet is on his own that he has had a falling out with Clara, rather than that they just happen to be in different places. When all is well, Keller expects to see the two of them together, whether or not they are in a position to be actively working a case.

Going back earlier in their partnership, Keller makes a similar assumption about Fleet and Clara being inseparable in S2E6. When Clara shouts her name amidst Keller's anti-Vidoc booby traps, Keller asks "Entwhistle? Which means… Fleet?" Again, there's this idea that if one of them is there, the other is likely to be there too - they come as a pair. (It's worth noting that this scene takes place less than two weeks after they first met.)

“Like a friend might?”

At the end of S3E7, Fleet suggests that he and Clara go to the theatre together. It would have been easy for this invitation to have been explicitly framed as a romantic proposition, or even for the nature of the offer to have been left more ambiguous. But Clara says "Archibald Fleet, are you inviting me to a social activity? Like a friend might?" The use of the word 'friend' directly labels this as a platonic interaction. And it's with that platonic lens on it that Clara is extremely excited to spend non-work-related social time with Fleet.

“Maybe it'll just be my good luck charm.”

CLARA: My grandmother's ring, I don't suppose you managed to hold on to it? [...] FLEET: Oh, it's been crushed.. I'm sorry Clara [...] CLARA: No, you keep it. FLEET: What? No... CLARA: Keep it. Maybe it'll remind you not to run towards trains. FLEET: Maybe. Maybe it'll just be my good luck charm.

In S3E7, Clara gives Fleet a ring, which - as a gift from one person to another - is traditionally a symbol of a particular, legally recognised, kind of personal commitment. But when Clara tells Fleet to keep the damaged ring, down in the Underground tunnels after the destruction of the beast and Fleet's latest brush with death, it is quite a different situation to a wedding or a proposal. A married man would traditionally wear his wedding ring on his finger for all to see, but Fleet won't ever wear this ring like that. The ring itself has been bent into a different shape between the wheels of their misadventures, subverting the usual associations of a ring given from one person to another. (In a heteronormative world, those associations are particularly strong when the two people in question are a woman and a man.) 

That ring is not an engagement ring, but it is Clara’s grandmother's ring, an inheritance from the blood family she never really felt she belonged in, now given to the man who might be a very different kind of family for her in London. That ring - with which Clara saved Fleet's life - is a symbol of their bond. And it therefore serves as a reminder for Fleet “not to run towards trains" and as a “good luck charm”. I like to think he'll carry that ring with him, perhaps in his jacket pocket - a little piece of his partner, kept close to his ticking heart…

Thank you for reading all of this!

If you’ve read all of this, I'm assuming you also enjoy the concept of Fleet and Clara as a QPR (unless you're really a glutton for punishment) and that makes me very happy! This was long because there's so much to say about them… And I wrote all of the above without even getting into: the potential to headcanon Fleet and/or Clara as aspec (which I don't think is necessary for QPR headcanons, but which is also fun); Clara's baggage around and discomfort with marriage in general; the speed with which Fleet and Clara become a ride-or-die duo; and the many other demonstrations of care, understanding, trust, respect, and affection between them that didn't feel as directly QPR-coded to me but are nonetheless wonderful. Please do feel free to share your own thoughts!

[technicolorfamiliar]

D O U B L E F E A T U R E !

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari Dir. Robert Weine 1920 // Orlacs Hände (The Hands of Orlac) Dir. Robert Wiene 1924

I recently watched both, Caligari specifically because I was invited on a friend's podcast to talk about the film (I was totally normal about it and definitely didn't make color coded note cards about the making of the movie… I did, I did make color coded note cards). So I figured I would lump these two in one post to switch things up.

--- Even though we talked about the movie for an hour and change, the conversation we recorded for the pod easily could have gone longer. There's so much to unpack about The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Between its historical, cinematic, artistic, and cultural significance and legacy, but also the various players on and off camera, not to mention the film's genesis from concept to page to screen -- there's no shortage of rabbit holes to go down.

Something I wish I had brought up during the recording was the score: The score matters! These updated silent film scores really do affect the viewer experience, and they're so often hit or miss. Of course, the original score for Caligari has been lost to time, but I read that the premier of in New York had classical music (Prokofiev, Stravinsky, etc) played along to the screening; part of me thinks this would be fun to try to recreate. I have no memory of the music when I first saw the film in 2009, but when I rewatched Caligari about a year ago, early in my Conrad Veidt journey, I chose a version on Internet Archive (which is, as of late October, sadly still out of commission *cries in nerd*) and the updated score was almost entirely minimal strings, which created a suitably eerie effect. I couldn't find that exact version elsewhere, so I this time opted for the 2014 restoration that's on Kanopy. The 2014 score is… fine. It’s very busy, trying too hard to sound like a traditional movie soundtrack. There's another version with a really painfully bad guitar-heavy score that I couldn't sit through even 5 minutes of, and still another that's entirely synths. Apparently the new 4K UHD/Blu-Ray that was just released has two new options for the score -- hopefully at least one of them doesn't totally suck!

I noticed deep into my third time viewing the film that I hadn't reached for my phone once. These days, I'll occasionally pick it up and mindlessly scroll through social media while watching a movie. But I think Caligari and a few other silent films require closer attention since they're a purely visual medium. I found myself greedily devouring every frame of Caligari. No shot or scene feels wasted. Honestly, I feel like every movie should be 90 minutes long or less. Anything longer should be turned into a miniseries. But in all seriousness, Caligari is another film I want to physically walk into. It would be pretty easy to recreate these sets, life size in grayscale black and white. The more I think about this, the more I need it. So, so bad.

I also came away this time with a lot of questions, mostly about the main part of the narrative, the story Franzis is telling. But the framing device makes the questions pointless. If the main story is just Franzis's delusion, then the absurdity of the script is totally fine I guess? Except the script that Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer wrote didn't have Franzis as a patient at the asylum, they hated the framing story twist that was forced on their movie, so all those weird parts of the script and character choices that I'm overthinking and reading too much into are rendered meaningless. It's all in Franzis's head! The story and the characters in it don't matter! Or else are just part of his subconscious! Face palm. Eye roll.

Does the movie even work without the framing device? It would be interesting to show an edited version of the movie without the first and last scenes to someone who's never seen it. And if the twist ending was supposed to dumb down the anti-authoritarian message of the script, I don't know that it's successful. In the end, I still have empathy for Franzis. And we still have an ambiguous ending: Caligari/The Asylum Director looks at Mad Franzis and says, "I know just how to cure him," and there's a creepy iris wipe in on Werner Krauss's face that maybe leads us to think Franzis isn't as delusional as we think he is. So like… even if the whole Dr. Caligari with his sleepy twink in a box story is fake, whatever is happening at the asylum is probably just as messed up if not worse.

Speaking of the twink in a box, I love that Conrad Veidt's German Expressionism is totally different from Werner Krauss's German Expressionism. They both trained and performed with Max Reinhardt, so their foundations as theater actors in the 1910s and 1920s were likely similar. But, regardless or in spite of that shared experience, they are diametrically different human beings and that comes across in their performances in this movie. These two actors are like the textbook definition of "showing" your art vs. "being" your art. Krauss as Caligari is like "ooOOOoo look how ooky spooky and evil I am!", whereas Connie's performance as Cesare, even though it's hyper-stylized, is infused with something deeper, something primal that feels believable in the context of the film.

If Cesare has been asleep his whole life, waking only to be fed Chunky Campbell's Soup and commit murder at Caligari's bidding, then no wonder he reacts the way he does when sleeping Jane finally brings him out of his trance. When she freaks out, he freaks out too because he's had no opportunity to learn how to behave like a human or how to filter his primal emotions in a socially acceptable way. He hasn't lived his life except to be a madman's puppet. He reacts to Jane's panic on instinct and impulse, his desire and fear feel feral, like he's more creature or an animal than a human man. He may not actually want to hurt Jane, but he reacts violently because fight or flight is a basic human stress response! He runs away and eventually collapses because his body can't handle the sudden onslaught of stress and emotion he's never before experienced! And this internal, instinctual tendency to violence is subtly alluded to in the final scene when Asylum Cesare both caresses and slowly picks apart the flowers he's holding. Ahhhhh, I have so many FEELINGS.

And that said… Connie's performance here is wild, but it's real in a way that Werner Krauss's work could never be because Connie was a spiritual humanist who cared deeply for others and Krauss was an anti-semitic piece of shit who therefore could NEVER dig deep enough into his soul or into the collective unconscious the way Connie did to breathe life into his characters. So everything Krauss is doing here and in The Student of Prague is all surface, it's "showing" the audience his training and his actor toolbox rather than bringing a level of honesty and in-the-moment groundedness to these roles.

This is not to say Connie's intense commitment to his work couldn't be, uh, excessive. I really hope Lil Dagover was being serious when she said he would lurk around the studio in character when off camera. Can you imagine? You go up to the craft services table for a snack. Suddenly you feel like you're being watched. You look up and he's looming over you in the shadows, his unblinking glazed eyes boring into your soul. God, I hope this happened and I hope whoever it happened to peed themselves a little.

I also wish we had a behind the scenes photo of Connie in costume with the Cesare dummy. I can't believe someone actually had to make that prop. It'll haunt me forever. (The 1920 Cesare Dummy isn't real, the 1920 Cesare Dummy can't hurt me.)

Bottom line: It's an important film, I appreciate it for both its timelessness and timefullness. But it's not a movie I need to revisit often, regardless of how enchanting Connie's nostril acting may be.

---

The first time I watched The Hands of Orlac, I was floored by the visuals, the staging, and the heavy eroticism. Up until that point, I hadn't seen very many silent films, certainly few as visually striking. I think my initial impressions of this film were somewhat muted on a second watch, but that may just because I knew what to expect.

This time, I wasn't as swept up in the magic of silent era German Expressionist cinema, although stylistically I'm still absolutely 100% obsessed. Art direction wise, this is my favorite between the surviving Wiene-Veidt films (I haven't seen Furcht and I don’t plan to). Orlac is like the darker, sexier, more grown up sister to Caligari's mall goth teen. It's Vampira vs Lydia Deetz.

Orlac is just as much if not more of a cinematic feat than Caligari. The production design and art direction alone feels more mature and in itself tells more of a story.

Very early in the film, we're thrown into a very impressive, very realistic train crash. Opening the movie this way was a really interesting choice -- we don't get to meet the characters before the accident that starts Paul and Yvonne Orlac on their doomed and bizarre trajectory. There is a brief establishing scene of Yvonne reading a really horny letter from her husband, and one of pianist Paul at his final concert before returning home. Then there's a very long sequence of the aftermath of the train crash that almost kills Paul, and this scene brings a level of realism you don't really get in other films of this genre/done in this style. The set construction looks expensive; the mangled train cars piled up in heaps may have been fabricated in the studio, but because of the lighting in the night scene, the billowing smoke from passing locomotives and fires from the crash, it looks pretty damn real for 1924. It's extremely effective and harrowing, especially as Yvonne races to the site of the crash and climbs through the wreckage to try to find her husband. The chaos of the scene, made all the more disorienting by the movement of search lights and the haze of smoke and steam, feels true to life. People are running around, pulling bodies from the ruined train cars, carrying them away on stretchers. Survivors look around dazed, clutching their belongings in shock. It's such a well directed moment in the film, but maybe not the first thing people remember about it. And I think it's inclusion is important because it offsets how weird the movie's about to get.

And boy, does it get weird. However, the doctor does say Paul suffered a skull fracture, so it's not a huge stretch to think he also has some kind of brain injury. So I wonder if that has something to do with how the filmmakers chose to show Paul's intense fear and paranoia, as well as the movie's shift in tone and style after his accident. The nightmarishness of the film, from the exaggerated performances to the set design, feels like an extension of whatever might be going on in Paul's head as a result of his injury.

Regardless, I love the choices the art director made. The set, especially the Art Deco mausoleum the Orlacs have for a home, is so perfect. The huge, cavernous rooms are completely unnecessary, but they make the characters look and feel so helpless, like dolls in a doll house. The lines of the walls and the furnishings draw the eye through the frame with just as much intention as the painted sets of Caligari. Even places outside their house become symbolic and iconographic. The news stand is just a window cut out of a massive wall of loose sheets of newspaper that takes up the entire frame. The interior of Orlac Sr.'s house is like a old, drafty castle, looking more like the home of an evil, miserly king. The tavern where Paul is confronted by Nera feels dank and subterranean, just a lamp or two removed from literal catacombs. The outer world is fully a reflection of poor Paul Orlac's inner torment and despair and I AM LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF IT.

The new music composed by Paul Mercer is perfect, too. It's all skronky violins and cellos, ominous percussion and piano. It's just atmospheric enough, creating moments of soundscapes, echoing footsteps, aural suggestions of the oppressive cave-like rooms where the story unfolds. There aren't really any memorable themes like in the updated score for The Student of Prague, but that works for this movie. I would buy this soundtrack and actually listen to it on its own, it's that good.

Everyone in the ensemble is basically on the same page in terms of acting style, no one feels out of place or miscast. Connie of course steals the show, but Alexandra Sorina as Yvonne gives him a run for his money. She's a good match for him, delivering an appropriately desperate and hysterical (and deeply, deeply horny) performance as the touch-starved wife. Their scenes together are maybe some of the best on screen romantic moments of Connie's silent film work because these two are wildly hungry for each other. This movie is so funny, it tells you immediately how horny it is; in the first 30 seconds of the movie, Yvonne gets a letter from Paul that says, "I will feel your body beneath my hands," like they're telling you straight up this is going to Horn Town. And the way she grabs at him, presses her open mouth to him, hovers over him in his hospital bed, she is DTF anywhere any time. And no shame, no shade, good for her. This is a sex positive film, and we love to see it. But she's not just the sexy wife, she's also totally ride or die for Paul. She truly trusts him and believes his absolutely buck wild story about being blackmailed by a dead psycho killer. What a gal.

Then there's Paul, aka Eraserhead Baby… because when he wakes up from surgery covered in bandages, he looks like the Eraserhead Baby. Connie is doing some of his finest nostril acting in this role, I have to say. As always, I am fascinated by his physicality and the choices he's making with movement and gesture. When his bandages are finally removed, he reacts as though drugged, his movements slow as though underwater or in a dream. And when he confronts his surgeon after discovering the original owner of his newly transplanted hands, he holds them out and away from his body as if they were coated in something dirty or disgusting. As Paul's life and sanity unravel, his hands and fingers are in almost constant motion, curling, twitching, clutching; his body language becomes more creature-like, moving in a way that calls up Cesare the sleepwalker -- interestingly, the two characters both seemingly at the mercy of forces outside their control.

We don’t get to know what Paul was like before the accident, how much this traumatic event changed him. There's something this movie is trying to say about trauma and how it affects people. The doctor tells Paul, "Nature and a strong will can overcome anything." But if Paul sustained any kind of serious brain damage, who’s to say his personality wasn't affected, or that he wasn't fragile and suggestible to begin with? Either way, in the wake of the accident, Paul's vulnerability and circumstance makes him a perfect target for Nera's grift.

Even without being targeted by a sick weirdo con artist, it's no wonder Paul's really going through it. He tortures and punishes himself relentlessly for something that wasn't his fault! (Been there.) He puts on a recording of one of his old concerts and crumples in grief for having lost not only his livelihood but also his outlet for creative expression -- not being able to do what you used to creatively because of trauma is REAL. He's trapped in his misery. Even his handwriting is different, now a violent scrawl he imagines is due to the murderous acts his hands supposedly committed. He secretly retrieves the planted murder weapon in order to further convince himself he's somehow become evil, wielding it as through he committed the crimes of the dead man whose hands now belong to him. And the scenes where Yvonne comes to him, wanting to both devour and comfort him, he cannot bring himself to touch her. Clearly they love each other very much and their relationship was very physical, so the agony and yearning in his face when she embraces him is UGH IT'S SO GOOD. It's heartbreaking. There's a lot to unravel here about trauma, body dysmorphia, and intimacy that I'm interested to dig into during subsequent viewings.

Final thoughts: There's an annoying part of my brain that wants the movie to make sense, for the timeline to be clearer, for loose ends to be tied up. But I know that none of that really matters because this movie is better received as a dream or a nightmare. And by that logic, it doesn't have to make sense. The Expressionist beats are being hit particularly hard, but the surreal quality allows the filmmakers and cast to get away with it. For fans of Conrad Veidt, this is a must-watch, even before Caligari -- he gets more screen time in this film, gets to play with his silent film artist's palette, and gets to do pathos like he's the king of tragic, pathetic characters. He's gangly, glassy-eyed, and trembling like a small wet dog the whole time and it's superb. Despite not really getting a chance to know the Orlacs before they're thrown into their own personal hell of body horror and credit debt, they're both pretty sympathetic. From psychological commentary to the erotic visuals and tension, it's all very ahead of its time.

[muninnhuginn]

TBHX Episode 4 Thoughts

So, finally approaching the end of the first arc, curious to see how it resolves itself. For previous liveblogs, check here, but otherwise, if you'd like my thoughts on episode four, see below the cut!

Starting with a recap and the perspective from the branding side: essentially, so long as they stay silent, Nice/Moon shippers will overwhelm the narrative and let them retain control. Yay mob mentality? (Not that I'm expecting it to work out as branding would like)

"In one hour, I will kill Moon." I don't know if it's because I have marketing ideas already in my head for this show, but *classic* sales tactic. Adding time pressure to force action without having chance to properly think.

pictured: the power of cnet. But huh, actually I hadn't considered that the will of fans would extend that far. That them just wanting him to act in a particular way would make him do so. It makes sense, given what else we know, but it's not even an existing misconception, so much as them willing this result from thin air.

"I've already sent someone to deal with [Moon]" I'd ask deal in what capacity because I'd usually take that as code for killing her, but given that's what God Eye already 'wants', I'm presuming it's some other tactic to try and wrestle back control. Unless they could kill her *and* turn the story their way. Idk idk.

Huh, that's actually more callous than I'd been taking it. Comes back to the way that the fans clearly don't see 'Nice' as a person. They want him to 'win' within the parameters of the game. Moon was already subsumed to be part of Nice's legacy rather than her own so Nice taking 'priority' makes sense to fans within the Trust framework, because on the most basic level, Moon was always just a 'prize' for Nice anyway.

"chains you must endure" relating to the consequences of fame being contrasted by the swing...

Hm, okay, so they're claiming this new hero is in to save Moon. Clean-up specialist??? That's... not reassuring

"He can also destroy his opponent's memories" <- well that's a brand new pack of worms.

And destroying the memories of those who know Lin Ling is Nice, at that. Essentially locking him into the role. His past has already been taken when it was framed as a suicide, but this would also rob his future. Lin Ling is already pretty isolated at this point, after all.

Using truth to destroy perceptions, similar to the previous episode with Firm Man. Of course, even though this is the truth in this case, it's less about what's true vs. false and more about what information is able to spread. What narratives pick up steam and are latched onto by believers.

2d art!

Am liking the transition through art styles and periods of his life here as he's stripped back to his past.

Back to the promo vid from the start of ep 1 and it's immediately derided as 'crappy', rip.

Ah, his hair is fading back. I'd sorta thought when they were just showing his lower body they were going to pan back to his head as Lin Ling so I was... a quarter right?

Two thoughts here. 1) Seems he's able to cast away some of the effects of the beliefs by disowning the role of Nice (promo vid presumably reminded him). 2) Looking very nervously of that 14m (including ending) left of the episode. Wait, I lied, three thoughts. 3) Big fan of his character design here retaining the one strand of white hair.

"What I wanted to become from the beginning wasn't Nice, but a real hero" Aha, yes, it was the promo vid! ...and also Moon.

Things are Going Well.

"I didn't think his powers would diminish that quickly." Technically, that's not what--

Yay imagery

aww more than one person realised he 'died'. Take that, the one hit on the news article of Lin Ling's 'death'. There were actually maybe two hits.

Smh, tried to get a good screenshot of the cool x-ray shot at the moment he punches him, but couldn't pause at the right time

Not the fans accusing Lin Ling of being parasocial about Moon. I mean, to be fair, he kinda was, especially at first, but have they looked in the mirror lately? Oh? "So the one who cried for her at the wedding" ...the power of shipping has returned to the game?

Got the X guy on the building behind God Eye and all the other buildings are calling Lin Ling FAKE. Also, is that a KFC? Sorry sorry I should be focusing on the motive rant. He does kinda have a point honestly (even if one wrapped up in envy). Plus, "all you in the audience" is fun on a meta level. We don't have the same conflation of fiction and reality as the audience in-universe here, but something something treating real life as a spectator sport can definitely be relevant.

Welcome back, arc words.

More calling back to episode one and inadvertently answering my question from back then about whether he had anyone in his life as Lin Ling to protect back then. (The answer is 'no' apparently)

Headbutt attack breaking through. Lin Ling is staying in 3d for this.

"Vulnerability detected" appearing all over God Eye's screens because Lin Ling's strength *isn't* in perfection. He's doing this entirely imperfectly.

And there's the 2d, as he gains a Trust value as Lin Ling.

Ooh I need to go find some gifsets when I'm fully caught up of the sequence with the explosion onwards. Sakuga.....

And we're back to recruitment going on in the background even mid-fight. Even without being tied down to the Nice role, Lin Ling is still being subject to the pressures.

"What is the truth?" Well, it's what you make it, clearly. Next question.

"Going to pin everything on Enlighter" etc etc. You know when there's a big disaster and it hits the news and everyone else uses it as an excuse to clear out any bad-looking news that on any other day would make the headlines?

"You're an anti-fake and yet you used a fake?" Ends justify the means + it's what information *spreads* not whether it's true or false that matters.

i-it's not KFC, it's XFC

Belated title card:

Something about Moon seeming to make her escape only to still be 'trapped' just the same as Lin Ling 'escaping' the role of Nice only to still be in the same Trust system. <- crossing this out because. well. Like, I knew something was coming and there weren't enough minutes left for there to be ending credits but.

Ugh, sick of them pulling this kind of thing. ('Them' can be general but can also specifically be LH0) At least this time had the foreshadowing in the end of ep 1, but overall, really not a huge fan of such blatant fridging.

Another timeline to keep an eye on. (The other being the x years after commission)

Misc:

Overall, episode four did a good job calling back to the threads laid out previously especially in episode one

Guessing this heroes tournament is going to be overarching plot

I think Lin Ling's arc itself was... relatively well-rounded? Moon had some decent moments too, but given how unceremoniously she was taken out at the end there, I'm retrospectively thinking she didn't have enough actuall--

This show has a tendency to toss out a lot of genuinely fascinating questions about the systems inherent in its world building but then not really answer them? (The PR aspects/Trust value system/most of God Eye's ranting tbh) It could be that it's going to go into these aspects more in future arcs, but I think Lin Ling would have been the obvious entry point to thoroughly explore most of them given his own background in marketing. I guess we'll see

Visuals still really strong. Seemed like less of the symbolism stuff this time, but more than made up for it with the action sequences

Oh yeah, am also presuming the whole Fear deal will continue throughout the arcs. If the aim is to tear down the Trust system it's almost hard to argue against that given that from what we've seen thus far, it punishes the heroes beholden to it. The methods of inflicting Fear itself are obviously exploiting people's vulnerabilities and airing a whole load of dirty laundry in some kind of hyper cancellation, but Trust vs Fear isn't a black and white scenario, at least.

[creatingblackcharacters]

Hello! large opinion ask because I cannot condense thought, also thanks for all your hard work ! cast composition: non-coded MC (not coded because they have a shaky and obscured sense of personal history and self-perception and we are from their POV so) and Ru (not coded because it has no backstory and literally always wears a mask as a symbol of self-determination), Black coded Blaire, Black-Latine coded V , south-east Asian coded K, and white coded Ra, E and probably white J story context: End of the world by moon hitting the earth, MC is in a 3 day timeloop, every character arguably exists as a thematic construct reflecting off of the MC's implied backstory and traits, story takes place in 3 metaphorical locations: City, the Nest (a sort of small anarchist commune in the middle of the desert, where everyone but MC and Ra reside), and the Body (it's a big machine)

(she/her (not stated but since she's one of only two binary cast members I headcanon it as her explicitly preshotting against degendering and masculinising as a Black futch)) I'm going to go a bit into detail because after reading every lesson I'm a bit conflicted on whether she falls under stereotypes I decided to make her Black due to her foundational role in the Nest with her being at the forefront of the community-minded political action that it represents (and being one of two characters that explicitly use political language to tackle the events of the story), multiple interactions with her outlining her reverence and the pressure she's feeling in regards to the legacy of unspecified past movements she's seeking to perpetuate in her action Her lizard design along with her acting and bantering style depict a facade of cool effortless confidence with a tinge of playful roughness and effective cold-blooded leadership and dedication (building on her species choice I gave her these loc-like little whatever-they-are coming out of her beanie (gonna have her have her 'hair' out for her AU sequel design unfortunately the beanie trick has backfired into making her hair quite anatomically confusing so I don't know what hairstyle would work for that) and those colorful scale patterns inspired by pictures I'd seen of Black models with colorful facepainted patterns because I just think it looks absolutely gorgeous (at least part of these (ribcage area) are vaguely stated to have been tattooed by other Nest member J)) although one's species is implied by Ru's route to represent outward projected appearance more than character Because her character conflict revolves around hope, doubt and responsibility, being the social backbone of the Nest she feels that she has to perform that confidence to help the Star shine in other characters' sky, moreso than ever when living in so short a pre-apocalypse It's implied her backstory mirrors the MC's current life: living in City, self isolating, finding identity in moving onwards despite suffering, until she found community, in a local punk scene that no longer exists she met someone who pushed her to grow and connect Which is why in her first scene, when she overhears MC and Ra discussing timeloop and end of the world in a café (because apparently her recruitment method is just hanging out at places) she recognizes herself in the MC and feels a responsibility to help it, leading by the end of that day to her proper introduction scene, in which she gets visually associated with the road as her purpose and the gravity of the moon as her death, before driving the duo in her truck (only vehicle of the Nest, also doubles as her place) from the edge of City to the Nest overnight, not without getting her head devoured in a dream sequence by a multi-faceted allegory in the form of a Beast contextually representing her perceived duty to the present and future Anyway on the second day of the story she shows the duo around, caves against V on her position of maybe not going to the Body the day after to utilise a weapon of mass destruction against the Moon, expresses disapproving understanding of E's rage against the world, and delightfully engages in communal celebration despite the encroaching end All leading to the final scene of her route in which she finally gets to slip the mask for a short 12 lines in which, mirroring the MC's expressed feeling of uselesness, she emotively reveals how scared she is that all her actions might amount to nothing and how guilty she feels everytime she lets herself just be alive in such a moment, before being interrupted by an ambiguous time jump bringing her back to comforting the MC, who silently feels remorse for leading her to have been so vulnerable

Bonus character ! (they/them) for this one the coding was kind of incidental ? Their sloth-cat-thing appearance is meant to give off a sort of decontracted laziness with a bit of a smirk, combined with their acting being one of the least mobile, this ends up being explained by their low energy levels and them just accepting that in contrast to the MC's handling of disability where she pushes herself constantly and then feels cheated by her body I'm not 100% sure what their hairstyle is, especially with it being kind of also fur, their AU sequel design doodled much later in the bottom right just has actual distinct hair though they're a nerd, they're gay for J and their route pertains to the nature of the body and the self, as I've said not really any reason for them being Black and also their being from Mexico is only hinted at by them speaking spanish with their partner they're hanging out though, I love them dearly

I mean, I don't have much to say other than "cool" lol. I've never heard the word "futch" before, so I can't say I have an opinion on it and how you're doing it, but I do like Blaire's design! Sounds like you've got a world going 👍🏾

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lois Beckett at The Guardian:

California became the fifth state in the US to ban universities from admitting students based on their family connections, and the second state, after Maryland, to extend the ban to private, non-profit universities. “Hard work, good grades and a well-rounded background should earn you a spot in the incoming class – not the size of the check your family can write or who you’re related to,” Phil Ting, the Democratic state assembly member, who authored the legislation, said in a statement. Private non-profit colleges popular with wealthy Americans, including Stanford and the University of Southern California, will be affected by the new legislation, which goes into effect in September 2025. Illinois, Colorado and Virginia have previously passed legislation banning public university admission based on “legacy status”, or connections to donors, according to the National Conference of State Legislators.

The wave of new state laws comes in response to the decision last year by the supreme court’s conservative majority to bar both private and public universities from considering race as a factor in college admissions. The litigation over racially-based “affirmative action” put a spotlight on all the ways that white students benefit from non-racially-coded admissions practices, particularly “legacy” admissions, which media outlets dubbed “affirmative action for rich kids”. The California law will ban admissions offices from “favoring applicants whose family members are graduates of or are significant donors to the school”, which Ting’s office called an “unfair practice often results in a wealthier, less racially diverse student body”.

With the signing of AB1780 into law, California becomes the 5th state to bar legacy admissions in public colleges and the 2nd to do so for all colleges.

[ironwoman359]

Hard Answers - Ch. 3

A Legacy Kept

Ch.1: A Truth Revealed || Ch.2: A Chance Taken

A companion piece to A Thief's Gamble

Summary: An excerpt from the private journal of Ariene Anneius, Dragonborn and Guildmaster of the Thieves Guild, on the discovery of Mercer Frey’s betrayal and translation of Gallus Desidenius’s journal, preserved for historical purposes. 

Author's Notes: See ch.1's notes

Check the Reblogs for an AO3 Link!

— — —

19th of Frostfall 

After leaving my instructions with Lydia, I continued to travel towards Winterhold. I can’t believe my plan when I first came to Skyrim was to settle further north; the weather here is unbearable. The distance from the border and lack of Imperial control is not a sufficient trade off for dealing with all this snow and ice. However, despite my distaste for the weather, I’ll likely be heading back onto the road soon. 

The Nightgate Inn is nice enough, don’t get me wrong, but something about the way the bartender is looking at me is making me uneasy. While I’m far enough from Riften, I am growing closer to the sanctum where this all started, and it’s possible that–

…… 

The bartender just approached me. Said that some man in dark leather armor was asking about “a petite imperial woman with dark hair and blue eyes, who would likely be an archer.” The man didn't give his name, but it has to be Mercer. Could he have gone back to the Sanctum and realized my body was gone? The bartender says that this was yesterday and that the man left already, but I’m not taking any chances...I won’t stay the night here. I suppose I could make for Windhelm and sleep at Candlehearth Hall, but if Mercer was here looking for me, he could be in the city. I remember seeing a cave mouth along the mountain ridge we followed when we headed up north of Windhelm, and I'll feel better taking my chances with the wilderness and making camp there tonight. 

.

20th of Frostfall

I made it back to Winterhold today, despite all odds. Camping out in a frozen cave does not provide much opportunity for meaningful rest, and judging by the looks that Enthir and Karliah gave me when I walked into the inn, the effects of it show in my appearance. Still, it was hard not to feel the nervous excitement in the air when I produced the rubbing of the translation guide. We’re so close now, yet at the same time we’re so far. 

Enthir says he’s not sure how long the translation will take, since he’s essentially trying to reconstruct a language from scratch. If we’d actually been able to get Calcelmo’s book, maybe it’d be easier, but it’s impossible to say. I’ve asked Enthir to arrange for us to stay at the College while he works on the manuscript. We’ll have to enroll as students, but it should be safer there than at the inn if Mercer comes looking for us. 

.

22nd of Frostfall

Enthir’s made some progress with the translation. It turns out that the tablet had two copies of a letter on it, one copy written in the Falmer language and one in Dwemeris. Thankfully, Enthir has some familiarity with the language of the dwarves, or all this would have been for nothing. Using the rubbing, he was able to immediately identify several key words from Gallus’s journal, namely “gold,” “business,” “source,” “power,” and “vault.” It seems the original letter was some sort of business agreement, from the days before the Dwemer betrayed and enslaved the Falmer. 

Enthir says that since Gallus’s understanding of the language would have come from the same place, that any words from the journal that aren’t recognizable on the tablet may very well be approximations or fabrications. After all, the point wasn’t to write in a historically accurate way, the point was to write in a code that nobody else could have cracked. 

For instance, the letter on the tablet mentions the price for a flock of chickens, and the Falmer word for the birds is used a few times in Gallus’s journal. When Enthir pointed this out, Karliah became very pensive, before finally suggesting that Gallus used the word as a stand-in for “Nightingale.”  

From what I’ve been able to gather, the Nightingales were a secret organization that Gallus, Karliah, and Mercer were a part of back before Mercer’s betrayal. I don’t know what their purpose was; Karliah is very secretive about it, and the subject seems to cause her a great deal of pain. I can’t begrudge her that, though it’s frustrating to be the only one out of the loop. Enthir apparently knows about the Nightingales already; it seems that Gallus trusted him with the secret years ago. 

It’s impossible to say how long it will take Enthir to translate the full journal, though Karliah has requested he start with the last entry and work his way backwards. The information we need to prove Mercer’s betrayal is more likely to be there, and the sooner we learn it the better. 

.

25th of Frostfall 

Enthir’s managed to translate the last two entries of the journal. While there’s not enough there for us to confront Mercer in front of the Guild just yet, there’s one piece of information that made Karliah as pale as a ghost when she heard it. 

Gallus says in the journal that he suspects that Mercer has desecrated the “evening tomb,” which Karliah says is almost certainly meant to refer to the Twilight Sepulcher, a temple to Nocturnal that the Nightingales are meant to protect. While whatever Mercer did to it is clearly serious, it’s not something that the Guild can technically hold him accountable for, so we need more information before heading back to Riften. 

…I hope that the next passages that Enthir is working on have what it is we need. While I’d be lying if I said I haven’t picked up any useful tricks while pretending to be a scholar of illusion, I’ve had more than enough of Winterhold. I don’t enjoy being stuck in one place with nothing to do like this, and I feel…profoundly useless sitting here while Enthir does all the work. 

I can tell Karliah shares my restlessness, but she and Enthir are bonded by their grief for Gallus, which is palpable any time the two speak of him. Being a witness to their pain feels invasive, in a way. As though I am interrupting something sacred shared only by the two of them. They have done nothing to express that I am unwelcome, and yet I can’t help but feel as though I should not be here. 

…

This whole business with the Guild…I want to see Mercer brought to justice, if for no other reason than he tried to kill me. But once that’s through…I wonder if my time in Riften is reaching its end. I thought it might be different there, that it could be someplace worth staying, but it’s turned out to be another verse of the same old story. 

…still, I’m sorry to see this one come to an end. 

.

29th of Frostfall

Enthir’s made more progress, and it’s clear now why Gallus wrote this in code. He suspected Mercer of stealing funds from the Guild, maybe even of robbing the vault itself. Apparently, the vault was supposed to be unbreachable, with a puzzle lock so strong that no one could pick it, no matter how skilled, but Karliah says that whatever he did at the Twilight Sepulcher would have given him the power to break in. 

Enthir seemed skeptical, but I’ve heard that the puzzle locks on Ancient Nord tombs are unpickable, and I saw Mercer open such a door at Snow Veil Sanctum with ease. If Karliah says he could do it, I believe her, and I’m prepared to make that claim to the rest of the Guild.  

According to the journal, Gallus had been watching Mercer for weeks, trying to gather enough evidence to confront him in front of the Guild, but as the last entry showed us, Mercer lured him to his death before that could happen. 

There’s still so much we don’t know, but with this much of the journal translated, we at least have enough to make our case to the Guild. Karliah and I plan to set out for Windhelm tomorrow, while Enthir will remain here with the rest of the journal. There is still so much to translate, and I truly do hope that ensuring that Gallus’s final words are revealed to those who cared for him brings Enthir and Karliah peace. 

Karliah and I will be traveling together for a time, but I plan to detour into Whiterun to update Lydia, and Karliah likes to avoid major populated areas when she can. So, the plan is to meet back up at the Heartwood Mill in three days, and we’ll proceed to Riften from there. 

I just hope we make it before Mercer catches our trail.

[the-demigod-project]

Demigods & Their Legacy.

Demigod Reproduction: The Complex Dance of Apex DNA

While Demigods are extraordinary beings that surpass the physical and mental limitations of ordinary humans, their ability to reproduce is fraught with biological challenges. The very same qualities that make them powerful also create insurmountable barriers to natural reproduction, making the continuation of their lineage an improbable, almost impossible feat.

Why Demigods Cannot Reproduce with Humans:

The DNA of Demigods has been fundamentally altered, either through alien DNA infusion or advanced genetic engineering. This advanced DNA is incompatible with the relatively simple genetic structure of ordinary humans. Key factors contributing to this incompatibility include:

• Genetic Complexity: The DNA of Demigods is exponentially more complex than human DNA. Ordinary human genomes cannot "read" or process the foreign code of Demigod DNA, resulting in developmental failure during fertilization. The human egg or sperm is simply incapable of merging with the superior genetic material, as it lacks the mechanisms needed to accommodate such advanced biology.

• Immune Rejection: The human body instinctively treats the alien-Demigod DNA as a threat, triggering a rejection response. This rejection occurs at the molecular level, preventing successful conception or causing early developmental failure.

• Physiological Imbalances: Even if fertilization occurs, the immense biological differences would make the pregnancy unsustainable. The hybrid zygote would require far more energy and resources to develop than the human body can provide, leading to fatal complications for both the mother and the offspring.For these reasons, reproduction between Demigods and humans is not feasible, effectively isolating Demigods as a separate, genetically unique species.

Demigod-to-Demigod Reproduction: The Battle of Apex DNA

While reproduction between Demigods is theoretically possible, it is an equally challenging and rare phenomenon due to the advanced and highly competitive nature of their DNA.

• DNA Fighting for Dominance: When a male and female Demigod attempt to conceive, their DNA does not merge harmoniously. Instead, it competes. This "genetic war" occurs because both parental DNA strands are apex-level and refuse to yield dominance. Rather than working together to create a balanced genome for the offspring, the two DNA strands aggressively break down each other in an attempt to overwrite the other.

• Miscarriage and Cellular Breakdown: In most cases, the competitive nature of the DNA results in catastrophic failure. The zygote collapses during the early stages of cell division, leading to a miscarriage. The female's body often detects the instability of the embryo and terminates the pregnancy as a protective mechanism.

• High Energy Costs: Even if an embryo survives the initial stages of genetic competition, the strain on the mother’s body is immense. The developing fetus, containing apex DNA, would demand far more energy and nutrients than the mother could reasonably provide, leading to life-threatening complications. This immense toll discourages many Demigods from even attempting to reproduce.

• Low Success Rates: Across recorded cases, the success rate of Demigod-to-Demigod reproduction is estimated to be less than 1%. For every successful birth, countless others end in failure, making the process both emotionally and physically taxing for the parents.

The Rare Offspring of Demigods:

On the rare occasions when a Demigod couple does successfully reproduce, the resulting child is a being of extraordinary potential. These "second-generation Demigods" often display enhanced versions of their parents’ abilities, as their DNA has been selectively "refined" through the grueling reproductive process.

• Unpredictable Powers: Second-generation Demigods may inherit traits from both parents, but the powers they manifest are often unpredictable. The chaotic merging of apex DNA can create entirely new abilities or amplify existing ones to unimaginable levels.

• Biological Fragility: Despite their immense potential, second-generation Demigods are often biologically fragile during infancy. Their bodies require constant monitoring and care to ensure they survive the developmental process.

• Symbol of Hope or Danger: Due to their rarity, second-generation Demigods are often viewed as symbols of hope or the next step in the evolution of their kind. However, their unpredictability also makes them a potential threat, as they may possess powers beyond even the understanding of their parents or creators.

Unfortunately no known Second-Gen Demigod has made it past the infancy stage after birth. As such many have given up on Second-Gen Demigods.

Ethical and Practical Concerns:

The difficulties of Demigod reproduction are not only biological but also sociopolitical. Governments and corporations view Demigods as weapons, and the thought of them creating new, potentially uncontrollable beings raises serious ethical questions.

• Government Control: The two Empires of the world impose strict regulations on Demigods, preventing them from forming relationships or reproducing without oversight. These policies are designed to maintain control over the Demigod population (Of which only 43 exist world wide(U.S. is not included)) and prevent the emergence of rogue offspring.

• Moral Dilemmas: For Demigods themselves, the decision to reproduce is fraught with moral and emotional dilemmas. Knowing the likelihood of failure and the potential suffering involved, many choose to forgo reproduction altogether.

• Alternative Methods: Scientists have attempted to circumvent the challenges of natural reproduction by using artificial methods, such as cloning or gene-splicing, to create new Demigods. While these methods have seen some success, they raise even more ethical concerns about the commodification of life and the boundaries of science.

Conclusion:

The reproduction of Demigods represents the ultimate paradox: they are beings of immense power and potential, yet their biology often prevents them from passing on their legacy. This limitation isolates them further from humanity, reinforcing their status as weapons and tools rather than living beings with a future of their own. The rare success of Demigod reproduction remains a testament to the resilience of life, but it also serves as a stark reminder of the cost of power and the fragility of existence, even for those who seem invincible.

[serpensortiamaxima]

What a delightful drama I've woken up to this morning, eh? I still have thoughts I've not seen being brought up so buckle up.

People aren't upset about the summer update. That whole thing is a symptom, not the cause. What people are upset about is the state of the game itself and how much it is lacking and has been lacking since the beginning.

In the past decade or so, we have gotten more and more accustomed to being sold unfinished games, but with the promise that "don't worry we'll patch it in later updates", and then this never happened. In fact, if Hogwarts Legacy had been an excellent game with its holes patched up and they decided to grant us this free update? The reception would have been, much, much better.

And, excuse the harshness but I do wonder how capitalism-rotten your brain has to be to miss that it's about the principle rather than the update itself. We should not allow corporations to get away with always giving less and less to their clients. Ever. And I can already hear the counter argument of "you can't always get what you want!" and again, that's not my point.

The point is that corporations aim for cost effectiveness. Especially for a free update, they're not going to look at what the community wants really, they will pick the one thing that requires the least time and the least resources because they will have to pay for the time and production cost of a new feature. They know that free updates don't bring in new players. A free update is a way to do community management and get some hype, it might bring in some sales, but never enough to make profit.

Customers aren't upset about the update itself, they're experiencing now the frustration about the game they've always put on the side so far, due to this habit I've mentioned above, of expecting fixes and patches and regular updates from a game, especially one so recently released.

It only takes a quick glance at what's happening with EA in general to see a similar pattern of new content being botched or overpriced, only to receive intense backlash. And that backlash is necessary. Staying complacent and simply accepting your fate as a gamer customer is exactly what corporations are hoping for, because then they don't have to do more. They receive this feedback that it's fine, that they can just do the bare minimum and expect their customer base to eat up the new content in gratefulness. Really? Do we really want to trigger this loop of always getting less and less for something that not only has been bought but that the customers don't even own?

This isn't a Hogwarts Legacy issue, it's an industry wide trend, and we should recognize it as such.

Now, to my last point: mods. I got into modding Skyrim in 2013. Both as an avid user of mods and sometimes to make my own light tweaks for storytelling. For the most part, I'm mostly a mod user and every single time a game I played could be modded, I did so. My current Skyrim save is running on over 200 of them. I only ever play vanilla when I have no other choice. I've quickly touched on the topic yesterday by pointing out how modding requires a healthy and thriving community to work.

There are two main factors to achieve those requirements:

The company behind the game needs to support making mods for their games.

A big and interested customer base

And I guess the hidden third requirement is the coding language and how accessible it is. But I digress. My understanding of the modding community for HL is that it is very small, and therefore limited and that Portkey/Avalanche hasn't provided any resources for modders.

And so, I don't think we'll see a thriving community for HL any time soon, at least not of the comparable kind. And for me, personally, it means that the kind of gamechanging mods I would want to see simply aren't going to happen.

The kind of mods I tend to use are very immersion-focused to allow for a real roleplaying experience, that would include the ability to create new animations, to assign additional dialogues to NPCs, additional routing for NPCs within the map, to allow the player to completely ignore the main quest if they wanted to etc. And I'm afraid that HL is built in such a way that it doesn't have this flexibility even for an experienced mod creator but especially not if the modding community for the game is too small. A lot of these things would require a lot of time, a lot of code, and ton of testing and beta play.

And that doesn't mean that there can't be good mods made, but if the player base wanted to have more mods of a very high quality, we would still need to put pressure on Avalanche to tell them that if they're not ready to provide us with new content, the least they could do is make modding more accessible on their game.

[transmutationisms]

In regards to full bodily autonomy, how do you relate that in regards to anti vaxxers? Or other such cases where the line between harming oneself and harming others seems to become blurred

first of all i've already said i think the bodily autonomy defence of anti vaxx actions is a bit of a smokescreen. there are a lot of different things going on here: first and foremost ableism (both the flagrant disregard for the lives of disabled people---which is really just a reproduction of capitalist valorisation of human lives exclusively on the basis of the profit they can generate via working---and the fear of vaccine injury that leads people to actually place themselves at more risk from the diseases themselves because they think they're avoiding adverse effects, whether real or of the wakefield autism conspiracy variety). this is also an issue that we should expect to see given the relationship between public health authorities and the state, as well as the ongoing legacy of deeply unethical and harmful behaviour from physicians, medical guilds, and so forth. reluctance to trust medical authorities is not irrational or even unwise, even though in the case of vaccines it can lead to pretty tragic and harmful outcomes. i also think that sometimes low vaccination rates are automatically assumed to be the result of vaccine hesitancy, but this isn't always true. for example, in a country without paid time off or universal health care, accessing a vaccine (and recovering from any mild symptoms it may cause) is not always simple; all the messaging in the world doesn't fix this type of materialist access issue.

but to answer your question within the framework proffered: it is generally understood that bodily autonomy does not entitle you to harm other people. if someone wanted to remain unvaccinated and literally never interact with another human being, i truly would not care. the issue is that in the case of vaccination, simply being around others when you are unvaccinated is the action that carries a risk of harm to them. the same way that living in society with others places limits on my ability to swing a loaded handgun in any direction i please, or to shout "fire" in public places, it also means i can no longer walk around unvaccinated with impunity. we accept in other cases that if we want to be around other people, we must sometimes live by certain codes of conduct. i think the framing of vaccine refusal as an autonomy issue is hiding the fact that people who genuinely refuse to get vaccinated either don't care about spreading infections or don't think that refusing vaccines will actually affect the spread of such infections. which, again, circles back to issues of ableism (disregard for vulnerable people they're around) or misunderstanding (sometimes wilful) of epidemiological claims made by experts and institutions.