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algernoninwonderland · 4 years

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Miraculous’s Paris feels quite impersonal and its geography is incomprehensible most of the time, which makes it difficult to care about it whenever it’s in danger

TL;DR: Paris in Miraculous has a weird geography, and unfortunately, the show doesn’t hide it all that well, which makes it hard to believe in the city as a coherent and cohesive space. Bad lighting and poor texturing makes scenes set outdoors during the day look real bad, and while some of the famous buildings in Miraculous are pretty close to the real thing, they don’t mean much to the viewers emotionally speaking, they don’t elicit a reaction other than “huh, that’s neat”. If your heroes’ mission is to protect a city that’s just “neat”, well it’s pretty hard to care about said mission.

When you aren’t French and you want to make a show or a film with a scene set in Paris and you want to sell it to an international audience, you put the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and cafés everywhere. And that’s fine! It’s just a backdrop, you’re not supposed to care about it all that much, because you’re going to spend 2 hours there at most and what’s more, more often than not, Paris is just a decor, not the whole conceit of the film/show.

Miraculous’s version of Paris follows that same logic, weirdly enough, even though it’s made by French people, and initially intended for a French audience. The Eiffel Tower is in a whole lot of shots, we spend a lot of time at the Louvre and near some other touristic landmarks such as the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame, the Grand Palais, the Place des Vosges and the Place du Châtelet alongside the occasional metro station, they’re all decently made, at least they’re recognisable. Good job, you guys! (I’m sincere about that bit of praise, too)

It uses referential elements, i.e. things from the real-life Paris… And mashes them together in a bizarre way. Monuments are way too close to one another, or they are places they shouldn’t be. That, in and as of itself, would be fine. Paris is big. You can’t model every single Parisian street in existence, you have to make choices to stay within your budget. And with Miraculous, it kind of works…? If you don’t think about it too much, that is.

This, for instance (that’s from Animan) doesn’t make any damn sense. The Eiffel Tower should be on the other side of the Seine, not here, and the Place des Vosges isn’t that close to the water. Still, it sort of works, if you haven’t lived in Paris yourself. Which will be the case for most people watching Miraculous. It’s a show about a girl who uses a magical yoyo, so I can excuse that sort of weird stylistic choice due to budget constraints.

So, basically, Miraculous has pretty good individual sets, especially indoors sets,Marinette’s house, Agreste mansion, the school, these cool touristic locations, the Grévin museum, even, but they either feel too close to one another or like they belong to different, disjointed spaces. It’s hard to tell where each location is meant to be in relation with one another, even when our characters travel from one place to another.

And how do they travel? Well, they jump from rooftop to rooftop and the landscape stretches endlessly. Rooftops that all look the same. It’s the exact same "set” every time. That isn’t a bad stylistic choice per say, if the point you want to make is that Paris is really really big and there are lots and lots of houses that all kind of look the same, it’d work really well. It’d make the city feel a little oppressive. But you want Paris to be a space the audience cares about, right? So maybe don’t do that?

The way travelling works in Miraculous is, you jump onto a rooftop, you run you run you run and then you land and you’ve reached your destination. Each trip works the same. Doesn’t help make the various sets feel connected, no, sir. Plus, the Eiffel Tower teleports all over the place.

Can you tell me where Alya’s flat is supposed to be? No, really, can you? It’s a nice art déco building, someone probably went through lots of references to model it and it shows! Nice job, really, I mean it. But where is it?

Well, it’s in an Autodesk Maya file in a database somewhere, but other than that… You’ll tell me if you ever figure that out, I sure wasn’t able to!

So it’s hard to believe in Paris as a kind of non-fragmented space, even more so when wide shots look like this

and that tells you everything that can go wrong with Miraculous’s outdoors scenes. (also that shot composition isn’t bad at all but it’s weird for a scene like that)

Copy and paste your assets, benches, trees and houses, and don’t modify them one bit. The thing it, that’s fine in shots in which the camera moves a lot, it works well with certain angles, which is the reason why there are lots of chase scenes that go too fast for you to notice that there aren’t all that many “regular house” models, some with an alternate “café” ground floor which features awnings with three different colours. That’s a trick cartoons like Scooby-Doo already used in the 60s to simulate speed. That’s good when things move!

Only, sometimes you see two awnings with the exact same colour in the same, very still shot that lets you see the street in which the house models alternate in a pattern that is easy to detect. You become truly aware that this is a set created by people that feels very artificial.

Textures in Miraculous are great when it comes to the character models. For the rest not so much. The really ugly pavement texture you see here…

… looks fine when shot from above but looks like dogshit when the camera is closer to the ground, if I may be so blunt. Everything looks worse in the daytime, because daylight is rendered rather poorly most of the time, and the textures either haven’t loaded properly or aren’t high-res enough. That pavement feels real flat, like a texture, not like pavement. Which isn’t very good. Trees often feel like plastic, dirt doesn’t look like dirt at all, more like sand. Miraculous isn’t going for a photorealistic vibe, nor should it be, but these textures just don’t work very well to represent what they are meant to represent. They seem a little off, just enough for you to notice.

Often, everything looks squeaky clean too. Norman Reynolds of Star Wars fame understood that squeaky clean props and sets and costumes aren’t very convincing and tend to feel cheap, so you need to apply a bit of weathering. And Paris isn’t exactly clean. In Miraculous, most buildings are spotless. They don’t feel like they’ve existed for long despite their 19th century architecture. Are you supposed to feel like this is a story set in a giant dollhouse starring action figures? I’m not sure that was the intended effect, there’s an episode with alive toys and the toy world looks even plasticky-er

(Nighttime scenes, on the other hand, can be really gorgeous. Sapotis’s outdoors scenes are truly magical, it’s a really nice-looking handful of scenes because you get to have a better control on the way your scene is lit. Likewise, most scenes set indoors tend to look quite good because there’s greater control over the lighting sources).

Some spaces feel familiar and friendly, homely, even, namely Marinette’s house, the houseboat to a lesser extent, these are all places you’d hate to see get destroyed, and you get a sense of where they are. Sort of. Ish. But outside of that… There aren’t any memorable streets, most monuments are just that, monumental, important imposing buildings don’t feel personal. There are no charming details about them for the camera to zoom on either.

Miraculous’s outdoors Paris is a series of more-or-less well-made sets that are loosely connected to one another in a way the audience can’t properly process. You aren’t made to feel attached to most of these sets. Technical issues and a limited budget alongside creative choices to feature iconic touristic landmark rather than having streets that feel more intimate, unique and lived-in means that you can’t really care all that much about Miraculous’s Paris as a place.

And it’s a shame. If these two heroes are fighting to protect a city the audience isn’t made to care about, the stakes are much lower all of a sudden.

The scene in the New-York special with that helicopter shot of all the destruction caused by Mayura’s amok didn’t feel nearly as impactful as it should have. You really ought to wonder why.

#miraculous #ml #ml salt #ml critical #ml canon salt #long post #paris

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muthaz-rapapa · 4 years

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Happiness Charge was unpopular in Japan because at the time, Frozen was the it franchise for young girls there so it suffered poor toy sales, continuing on with Go Princess' toys. It didn't help even more that New Stage 3 was released in theaters the same day as Frozen.

Ah, that’s right. Frozen. I usually don’t correlate Precure with other franchises but can’t say it wasn’t inevitable that its toy sales would suffer when the Frozen craze hit. Especially so in Japan because Disney has a huge market there.

But please don’t imply that Frozen is the only or major reason why HaCha as a whole didn’t do well because it isn’t. Those two things are not exclusive of one another.

HaCha is not as favored simply because it wasn’t a strong Precure season. Its story wasn’t all that engaging despite the fact it was supposed to be the 10th anniversary season. Reception of the main cast is still rather mixed and how satisfactory their character arcs were handled remains in debate (Yuko didn’t even get one). The pacing was slow at the beginning, it had no concrete theme to work with, the concept of international Cures never reached its full potential. In short, HaCha didn’t live up to the hype assigned to it and had a lot of flaws that pulled it down.

And I’m just talking about what I know of the Precure fandom’s feedback, ok? Nothing else from what’s outside it. I still recall how everyone rejoiced when Go!Pri’s first episode came out, some even commenting that Go!Pri should’ve been the anniversary season instead. While Go!Pri certainly wasn’t perfect, you could already tell back then that it was going fare a lot better than HaCha did. Why? Because the writing for Go!Pri was better. That’s why a lot of fans loved it.

Now, I’m well aware that everybody knows Precure is just one giant commercial for the toys Bandai churns out every year. I’m no marketing expert nor do I have that much interest in the money-making kiddie aspects of the franchise…but it just makes sense to me that you’re more likely to buy stuff of something you really like, y’know? In other words, if a company wants their products to sell, their ad (the TV series) has to be good enough to convince their customers to buy them.

So if you were to ask me why I’m not interested in HaCha merchandise, my response would be because I didn’t like HaCha enough. If you were to ask me why didn’t I like HaCha, I wouldn’t say “it’s because I like Frozen better” because Frozen has nothing to do with what I liked or didn’t like about HaCha. I’d say because HaCha failed to generate any love from me as a viewer.

Of course, I’m not a kid. I’m an older anime fan with my own purchasing power and sometimes unnecessarily complicated thought processes. There’s a big difference there. But I think the same basic logic would apply to children anyway. If they’re not interested, they won’t want it. Even if Frozen wasn’t a factor in this case, sales would still suffer if HaCha couldn’t win over its audience. Probably not as severely without Frozen in the picture…but yea. The TV series is largely responsible for the success of its toys, too.

Finally, figure collecting. (if this is not relevant to your ask, feel free to ignore the rest under the cut. I’m gonna talk about it though cuz it’s the whole reason I have merchandise posts to begin with)

It’s like toy collecting except hellishly more expensive and soul-consuming (so don’t do it).

Unlike toys, however, which will always be made to accompany the broadcasting season, figures are a niche in the otaku community and their releases are largely dependent on how many fans are invested in a series.

Take a very recent example: Kimetsu no Yaiba. There is a truckton of new goods being announced every single month/week ever since the anime adaptation became a massive hit. More love from fans = more demand. So of course, the figure companies would want to jump in on that. It’d be dumb not to.

But then let’s put this in the mahou shoujo genre perspective. Unlike classic juggernauts like Sailor Moon and CCS or a series that was popular enough to bump it up into the mainstream crowd like Nanoha and Madoka Magica, chances for a magical girl series to get the PVC treatment are very slim because they don’t draw as much demand as say the shounen titles do. Yea, I guess we can call Precure “mainstream” at least in the mahou shoujo category because it seems like a lot of people who watch anime in general are aware of its existence (Yukari Tamura’s mom watched it so no more needs to be said there). Even so, that’s still not enough. With Precure being a children’s show and its main target are kids who would probably want the toys more than they want figures, Precure isn’t a sure fire brand that a lot of figure companies are willing to stake it out for. It’s not that there’s a lack of older fans in the Precure fandom (as pixiv can prove to you, oh lord). It’s because there’s less certainty that the majority of these older fans will absolutely buy Precure figures if they were to be released. Especially now with the increased pricing everywhere.

That’s probably why Bandai often skips over old seasons to focus on the newer, popular ones for the S.H. Figuarts. They will only make figures for a particular season that has a good profitable percentage. More recent and favorable ones like KiraPre and Hugtto would sell so those Cures will be prioritized. Older and less popular ones like HaCha and MahoPre are stuck on the waiting list because there’s no way to know how many of their figures can even sell.

And then the figures that didn’t do well at all regardless of which season (Sekai Seifuku Sakusen), those are dropped completely, never to be heard of again.

That’s just the sad reality of it. :(

Again, do keep in mind that I’m just humble collector and these are mostly speculations at best. I’m not an expert on this topic so my words should be taken with several grains of salts.

But overall, I don’t think my reasoning is far off. I mean, it’s just plain common sense. You make things that you can definitely sell. That’s all there is to it.

Why do you think Disney hasn’t stopped throwing Frozen in our faces?

EDIT: I forgot to add that since it seems Bandai still holds the license for producing Sailor Moon figures, then it’s highly likely they’re holding the license for Precure as well. This means that even if other figure companies with better reputations (ex. Good Smile Company, Alter) wanted to make Sailor Moon or Precure figures, they can’t because only Bandai has the rights to distribute products of those brands. That’s why there’s a lack of variety for these two series. Add that to the extremely slow pace Bandai takes in getting their so-so quality figures released, you can clearly see why Precure has such a hard time being relevant in the figure community even though it’s a well-known franchise that has been airing practically non-stop for almost 20 years.

#*sprays disclaimer EVERYWHERE*#replies #merchandise

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courage-a-word-of-justice · 5 years

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Waver 1 - 13 (FINAL) | Prisma Illya 1 - 10 (FINAL) | Prisma Illya 2wei! 1 - 3

Another (and to be honest, the last) batch of impressions from the Fate/ project.

Waver 1

Well, this’ll be interesting. I’ve been hyping this show up for a while for myself, so let’s see how it goes.

Geez, this intro is like a dang movie! I’d love to see a proper Troyca movie! (<-Says the fan of Troyca.)

Wait, if it’s Kayneth Archibald, then is Archibald relatd to Archisorte? Or am I just making thing up here…? Also note Reines refers to Kayneth as “Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald”, possibly meaning Archibald is the middle name, since El-Melloi is a shared surname (or is that a title…?). That probably means Archibald =/= Archisorte and both are similar-sounding middle names. The fact Reines is Kayneth’s niece also explains things quite a bit.

Why is Waver upside down…? Won’t the blood rush to his head soon? (Sure, it allows me to ogle his hair more, but…logic rules more than my stupid whims, y’know?)

Interesting. You can see that although Waver grew out his hair, there’s two layers to it – the longer one in the front and the shorter one in the back. (I’m just curious because I like the hime cut – which is pretty similar - and long hair on dudes in general, in part because both are fairly rare.)

Okay, that explained my gripe with upside-down Waver. Thanks, Reines. (<-genuine)

Aw, Waver buddy, even at this stage, you’re plenty cute. Don’t ever change! (<- As you can see, I am an easily pleased person in most cases.)

Melvin who now???

Troyca’s comic animation rules! It’s too bad Idolish7 Second Beat is using chibis instead of this…

Professor Kayneth. I forgot he had a formal title. I wonder, does Waver - I mean, El-Melloi II – have that title as well?

I guess I should’ve known Saber had the capability to look scary, but…I never knew Saber could look so scary…

*cut to eyecatch* - *points at eyecatch* Okay, someone tried to save budget here, didn’t they???

Aw, friendship between fiction boys is cute…until it involves the puking up on blood on one end.

Waver is the OG underdog here…don’tcha think?

“…with several demands.” – Uh-oh…this is gonna be bad, isn’t it?

You need a Tuner for Magic Crests? (…Like a tuning fork, but a person?) *brow raised in suspicion*

…is it appropriate for me to say “Oh, good lord!” now? (Okay, I did that rather deliberately, but normally in these notes I’d self-censor it to be “oh, goodness” or something like that.)

Seriously, the black-haired dude in the Ionian Hetairoi is my favourite, even if only because he looks like Waver (and he’s really easy to spot, to boot).

Why is this in first person??? I’ve dropped entire shows based on their usage of 1st person cam! Room Mate and Makura no Danshi basically scarred me for life on that front…and both of those are TV shorts!

Hey, wait a second. This “use a quote on the titlecard” thing is clearly an Ei Aoki sort of thing to do. I mean, it’s in ID: Invaded as well…

Waver 2

*new blonde girl appears* - So this is the rumoured Animusphere girl (Mary), huh?

Bounded field, huh? I’m glad I chose to watch F/Z before this, then. Now I actually understand the (rough) mechanics of how that works.

There’s assassins and then there’s Assassins…*thinks about the Holy Grail War*

As it turns out, astromancy is basically astrology.

The one thing that bugs me about “Modern Magecraft” (there’s a similar concept of New Magic in Mairimashita! Iruma-kun) is…how is the magic “modern”…? Especially in a work like this, where the magic is based in arcane rituals and bloodlines…you really need to establish how the “modern” bit works.

Gray is facing away from the Animusphere girl (Mary), I noticed.

“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” – Sherlock Holmes – Basically, the fact I’ve memorised this quote is one of the lingering impacts of my time in the Detective Conan fandom, as it can be used on things like quizzes, not just mysteries.

Can we please use proper English, Waver??? (Says me to a character whose name I still find nonsensical enough to not be proper English.) As I said previously, “whydunit” is modus operandi or motive…the new bit is “howdunit”, which would be the method.

I do believe the geocentric model was overthrown by people like Kepler.

Gray kind of looks like Saber with that hairstyle, come to think of it.

With the way Gray hides herself under that hood, it’s no mystery as to why guys love her…at least, I know ThatRandomEditor does. Of course, I’m heavily neutral on the whole affair because I don’t swing that way, but…you know…

LEMPC seems to stand for “Lord El-Melloi Production Committee”, if I’m guessing right.

I seem to remember there was a quote somewhere that said the only constant in this world was change…hmm.

Waver 3

They seem to keep calling Japan “the Far East” (or at least, Japan is part of the Far East). That’s a pretty antiquated term for a supposedly “modern” magic anime. I get vaguely peeved by the term “the Far East” because it causes people to take an oriental viewpoint on things and thus it’s kind of like people from the Anglosphere looking down on Asians. (I also get vaguely peeved by the term “Westerners” for much the same reason and “Caucasians” because it implies all people of the Anglosphere come from the Caucasus, which is false…then again, these niggles are specific to international studies, so I have a vested interest in explaining them.)

…Wow, that star-eyepatch girl is…really something, to be thirsty specifically for Waver’s Iron Claw. (Then again, with my weird tastes in things, who am I to critique her?)

Flitz von Erich. I was surprised to learn this guy actually exists…on Wikipedia, at the very least.

“Any lady should know about wrestling.” – I disagree, Luvia.

Blue furry electrical creature…I dunno how the zoology in this show works, but the fantasy series I’m reading as of the time I was typing this comment has a blue creature called a Raiju (literally “thunder beast” in Japanese, so it would suit the “Thunder” in the episode title). If it’s anything like that, I’d laugh myself silly.

This girl on the poster seems to be called Flan Noir (or something similar).

“…yellow, round, fluffy-smelling…” – What? Svin, you have no right to call a girl those words!

When is this series set if people don’t have phones as a standard? *Googles* Okay, if F/SN is set in 2004, then F/Z is 1994. That would make sense, actually. The internet as we know it was first used in 1995 and didn’t become widespread for home use until a few years later, as I remember having computers in 2004 (albeit the blocky ones with the dial-up).

I was looking at images for the source material and I think I know why I like Waver (aside from the fact he has long hair). Normally I like the boys whose appearances are hard to get right, such as En…Waver in the novels and manga for this series sometimes looks grumpy, sometimes he looks constipated and worst of all, sometimes he looks like Snape with a hook nose.

Okay, so I googled Caules to figure out who his sister was…and I got Apocrypha spoilers. See, his sister is Fiore, who is apparently in that series.

The videos got encoded funny again…

There seems to be a mystery around why Svin and Gray can’t be together…well, one deeper than just “Svin is gaga for Gray [for reasons we don’t know at this point in time]”.

Ha, the El-Melloi Class is basically just the Misfit Class from Mairimashita! Iruma-kun.

“Only the flesh was bitten off.”

This Jupiter gibberish, I assume, is drawing upon the mythology of Jupiter – that is, Zeus – as the god of thunder and king of the gods (thus presiding over living beings).

The English is good on the bill, bar a space between “Mystics of magecraft”.

Norwich is apparently a “faculty” which the Modern Magecraft Theories guys – i.e. Waver – rule over.

Can you imagine Waver swearing? Since I had the volume off, I basically made him say “…if Sir Gueldoa had resorted to brute force, we would’ve been f***ed” in my head…and that was hilarious.

Aw, thanks 7Mononoke. “A cowardly thief sneaks away in the night. If you stride away, bursting with song, you are a conquering king.” That’s a quote from Rider himself.

So the Association has set positions for Masters in the War? Geesh…that must be hard on Waver to find out they’re closed, considering how much Waver pines for Rider.

Waver 4

I finally got the chance to listen to the ED last ep and now it’s the OP I can hear properly. This OP isn’t particularly impressive, considering it’s an instrumental (instrumentals always seem to have less impact for me unless I’m looking for something to chill to), but it does capture the London-esque spirit of the setting very well.

What’s up with this metal (?) maid off to the side, anyway?

“Good thinking to leave the door open…” – For some reason, even though it’s a completely different and much more benign context, this made me think of KyoAni and my heart sunk.

Atrum Galliasta…I hate that man. He may look hot, but he was nothing but a b*stard to Medea.

Bolo ties…nrgh…Basically, ever since Arima wore a bolo tie, I’ve become fairly bugged by them. That’s why Bram’s bugs me.

Aw, Waver, buddy, plase don’t sacrifice yourself again. I read on the wiki you become a Servant’s vessel (specifically for Zhu Ge Liang), so keep your hopes up.

I’m seriously feeling ID: Invaded vibes from this episode, what with the lightning.

I suspect a locked room murder is going to happen soon, knowing the genre. Either that or some other crime.

Considering Fate/ was an eroge-based thing initially, these sex jokes…there’s probably plenty of them out there.

Well, it seems this series only makes sense in that non-Detective Conan way, i.e. you want to know how it all comes together and can’t necessarily figure it out for yourself until you know how the magic works. I’m randomly going to guess this is more Jupiter-based stuff and call it a day on that front.

Seriously, I never got what was up with nightgowns (or just pyjamas in general) having hats. You don’t need protection for your head at night…that’s what pillows are for, yeah? (The only reason I see a hat-like thing working with nightwear is a onesie and that’s meant to be part of the inherent appeal of the thing.)

Waver 5

I feel like Adashino is meant to be an Irene Adler-type figure…

“Peaceful Fairys” (sic)

Where did Kairi’s scar come from…?

The Black Dog was in Mahoutsukai no Yome as well, but this one looks a lot less inviting, huh?

It seems, like the name Rail Zeppelin implies (as “Demon Eyes Collection Train”), most of the people involved in this case have Magic Eyes (or whatever they’re actually called). I wouldn’t be surprised if Kairi had them as well, considering he’s wearing dark glasses in the middle of a thunderstorm.

“King Arthur is a dude, right?” - *laughs madly* They finally managed to parody their own bulls***! (Well, I’m not counting Carnival Phantasm or whatever else because this is the first time they threw a meta joke in there in the whole of this project, as far as I can remember.)

Trimmau seems to be the maid’s name…huh. They never mentioned that earlier, I don’t think.

So what’s the difference between Fairy Eyes and Mystic Eyes?

Wait, does that even work…? The entire house is the murder weapon? That’s basically breaking the “secret passageway” thing on a larger scale.

So what’s Trevor’s motive…?

The dogs running towards the Workshop reminded me of the Hunger Games for some reason…must be the climax.

That fairy isn’t emoting much…

Oh cra-Wills is going to sacrifice himself, like Adashino was going to do! That’s the second time I’ve seen that in 2 days (the first was in the Hypnosis Mic manga about the Dirty Dawg).

Uh…Waver’s not particularly fit or fast, is he…?

Can you be paid for your case if your client is essentially dead…?

Adra? I read around and Adra seems to be a way to spell the location (or whatever it is) in the first case…which got adapted into a stage play, but not an anime. That’s probably what he’s (Waver) referring to.

Notably, the title is translated to “lance” but yari means spear…

Waver 6

I seriously wanna slap that pink-haired girl…Update: Her name is Yvette.

This is basically Gray fanservice…

If Gray = Saber and Saber =King Arthur…hmm…does it count as a girl’s party?

Homeland? Since Britain is Saber’s (aka Gray’s) home country, I think they meant “hometown”…I’d hav to listen to the Japanese to make sure, though.

I still think Waver is a stupid, or at the very least false, name for a boy, especially if he did come from Britain. That’s basically my one limitation on him as a husbando.

The red bit of the eyecatch was shapd like an eye…it did catch eyes in a sense, after all.

So Trimmau is sustained by magic.

Locked-room…or rather, bounded field…mystery time!

Luvia did mention wrestling in another episode…

I had to google that, but the Separation Castle is from the Adra case mentioned in episode 5. No wonder I don’t remember it…

“Are you suggesting there were faults…” (from Luvia) - Ooh, I was thinking the perpetrator was caught inside their own bounded field or maybe it was an outsider, but that works too, Reines.

Add calld Luvia out for her extravagance, LOL.

Catch-as-catch-can appears to be “no-holds-barred fighting”, particularly wrestling.

That case was both informative and possibly solveable by the audience. Both good qualities for a mystery.

If you summon the spirit again, is it the same Rider with the same memories? Or can you summon a different version of the same Rider with amnesia, much like Rin did with Archer? Update: Oh yeah, I did read this on the wiki at one point but then forgot about it. The next episode (7) confirms that Rider wouldn’t remember Waver if he were summoned again.

Waver 7

…C’mon, admit it, show. The glasses are not only there for plot reasons but to up Waver’s status as megane boy for the rest of this case. Not that I mind – I actually really like megane boys, but I’m nowhere near the love of Meganebu – but in the case of plausibility, I wanna poke holes into it.

Auction for which Mystic Eyes now…?

There’s a guy…with an elephant head…I know I shouldn’t be bugged by it, but I need the MST3K mantra right now.

This is gonna be a Murder on the Orient Express thing, isn’t it? All cases set on trains seem to take cues or make homage to it. (I may not be that proficient on Christie in comparison to Holmes, since Holmes was Conan’s inspiration, but Murder on the Orient Express I have read and I did secure an anthology of 4 Christie novels at one point specifically so that I could improve in this area.)

The main series never explained the bad blood between the Church and the Tower, did they…?

*sweatdrop* Let me guess…when Yvette mentions “multiplay”, she means a threesome, right?

How do anime people see out of those blindfold thing, anyway??? (Or is it that Leandra has Mystic Eyes that were sold off or otherwise tampered with?)

I believe the word is “palate”, Kairi (or subbers).

Anime characters being bagworms with their blankets is always appealing, no matter the gender. It’s funny and/or relatable, after all.

Does Gray get motion sickness…? Update: Seems I spoke about a minute too soon. She does.

Waver 8

How does Waver know that Adashino got the documents about the train? Is it because she was in all those places at all those times and he connected the dots?

This lady has heterochromia. Specifically, one is brown and the other is blue or green.

Hmm? I thought the character design was familiar for this. As it turns out, Jun Nakai (who did the character design for this) also did Gate’s, which explains it.

Dionysus is the Greek god of wine, IIRC. Hephaestion is, as (s)he explained, the confidante of Alexander the Great (had to google this one).

It’s hard to see before the brightly-lit scene where Olga reappears, but as shown, Waver seems to have cut off part of his forelocks on the left side.

What’s an Odo???...ooh, fanservice…*ogles*

The summoning of Hephaestion and Trisha’s murder may or may not be related…we just don’t know how, yet.

I think a Detective Conan Murder on the Orient Express-style mystery would be a good video ga-*googles* There’s at least one of them out there already (albeit only in Japan)...namely, this one. Spoke too soon.

Oh yeah…this is Olga’s new room, isn’t it? I almost forgot about that.

Update: I think this look at the Adra Separation Castle case is interesting. It’s similar to posts I would write, but done by a professional – namely Richard Eisenbeis of Kotaku and Anime News Network.

Waver 9

So if there’s a Servant…you have to find the Master.

Olga reminds me of Reines…kind of.

LOL, whoever thought of a zombie cooking show…?

This series really goes all-in on the zombies and the fake-outs thereof, huh? Dangit, Melvin, don’t scare us.

Melvin has a really odd relationship with Waver, huh? If you’re really insisting you’re “the only person to ever be able to hurt Waver”, I don’t quite see how you guys can be friends in the normal sense of the word.

Why would someone have a violin at a time like this…?

Interestingly, they don’t bother to do any fanservice of Caules. That scene with Gray and Yvette was fanservice for those who like them, but the only guy who’s getting to do any fanservice in this series is Waver himself…(what with him being naked and knocked out right now.)

“Sibyl” seems to be a synonym for “virgin”…(*whispers “Awkward…”*)

Update: After reading some of Marth’s posts on this series, I’m inclined to call this “Murders on a Train (with an Exploding Helicopter for Good Measure)”.

Waver 10

For some reason, there’s episode 0 – 9, then 11 – 13 on the service I’m using. Where’s 10?

I think Waver’s relationship with Rider is interesting because of the way I think of relationships myself. Waver has made it clear that he wants to see Rider again so he can basically prostrate at his feet all over again (and maybe win a wish and/or see Oceanus while they’re at it), but – hey, hear this! - I used to believe, when I was still an impressionable kid, all relationships, whether they be between friends, family or even lovers, lasted roughly in the same state basically forever (as in, friends stay friends forever, they’ll never be so far apart that they can’t kep their relationship alive etc. etc.)…Obviously, I was wrong and arguably, this change in thinking, plus the related changes in technology, are where my ability to fleetingly but passionate love both 2D boys and the series they come from comes from.

Wait, so the Child of Einasshe (sp?) is the forest, yeah? I don’t think I got that 100% straight.

I never thought the shield form of a Mystic Code could be used for snowboarding down a mountain/hill…whatever Gray just went down. I didn’t even know Add had a shield form, for that matter.

“[U]sual individual” – LOL. What a way to refer to Waver.

“Wait a minute!” – I’m just imagining Phoenix Wright all of a sudden. A Waver legal mystery series would be boring as all get out – I’m far less interested in the courtroom versions of mysteries and more interested in how the pieces fit together. (Update: Then again, I am a person who likes the action genre and courtroom mysteries don’t have much of that, which might also explain my choice.)

“…lacking the element of motive to begin with.” – Well, Waver’s not wrong…

I’m observing this apple and noticing someone skimped on the detail around the stem. Does anyone still remember Art Academy for the DS? After looking at some promo material for it, I basically learnt how to draw a proper apple (and nothing else, really). If an apple is just drawn as a circle, it doesn’t quite look like an apple up close. (Two of the main things I screw up on when drawing are perception and the colour of highlights, both of which are covered in something like an apple stem and the related indent.)

Oh goodness…I was hoping Karabo would keep his vision (or actual eyeballs)…but that’s gruesome.

I’m guessing, based on the wheelchair, that Waver’s still paralysed or otherwise not able to move around like normal. Update: Spoke too soon.

Someone encoded the video funny again…

Waver 11

What was that crossword thing…? A warding spell of some sort?

Is that an owl in the back?!

Stealth fighter…Rider wanted on, didn’t he?

Every time he appears on screen now, I basically curse Melvin. He’s entertaining to watch, sure, but he’s annoyingly prodigal (= wasteful). He’s basically Dice from HypMic at this stage (aka he’s the sort of person who’d bet away his own clothes, given the chance and incentive).

Look at the way Waver’s hair drags behind him as he walks…it’s gorgeous…

“Residual Image” (as translated in the title) is literally “the left-over image” (zanzou). Not surprising, but I find the exact combo of characters used interesting since it could be short for “nokoru eizou” (where the nokoru’s character is read as zan in the combo, as you can guess).

Waver 12

Wow…this series really pulled something out of its butt this time, huh? “The guy without a heart”…no viewer would’ve known that actually referred to a character called Dr Heartless unless they knew of his existence somehow (the closest they would’ve been was having an inkling that this pointed to a name of the culprit).

There is an owl in the back of the auction room!

Ay? So what the heck is Pandemonium in this case?

“dotard” – Turns out this means “an old person, especially one who has become physically weak or whose mental faculties have declined.” You can’t say I don’t enrich my vocbulary through watching anime, huh?

I’m still wondering…why adapt case 7 of this series (Rail Zeppelin)? Why not case 1 (Adra)? Update: I don’t know where I pulled the number 7 from, since this is volume 4 – 5 of the series. Apparently some of the cases were anime-original though.

Waver 13 (FINAL)

Oh, Flat, you stupid…

Waver’s exasperated faces are great. No wonder Reines likes to toy with him…

I can assume Rail Zeppelin is a Ghost Liner, yes?

Can I guess that Adashino ~likes~ Waver…? Update: Turns out that’s not quite the case.

Ooh, Waver without his shirt is se-okay, I’m getting distracted. Seriously though, Waver never showed his Crest in F/Z. I never even knew what it looked like until now! The fact it’s such a simple design in comparison to his Command Seals is…kinda underwhelming, really.

I think there’s a bit of a pattern between Jakurai (from HypMic) and Waver…namely, they suck when it comes to drinking. (Also, of course, the long hair. Don’t forget it, never forget it.)

Shut up, Add!

For some reason, I felt like a lot of that last part, while getting closure for Waver, it almost had connotations of “I’ll meet you on the other side, Rider”…so it felt kind of sad, to be honest. That talk between Reines and Olga I don’t think I’d understand without Apocrypha and Grand Order, but I guess that’s to be expected in such a huge franchise. Anyways, moving right along!

Illya 1

I’ve been a bit worried about what I’ll have to subject myself to for the sake of Magical Girls…

Was that…Taiga?

Who’s Liz…?

Okusama, huh? (Okusama = someone’s wife, although it seems to be used in the plural here since I don’t think Kiritsugu and/or Iri are dead in this timeline.)

The subs I’ve got say Shiro is adopted here too (when it’s not in the Japanese), although I wonder exactly how much of UBW is going to be true in this anime…

Hmm…a bit of digging reveals Luvia’s not a Master. So throwing out Lancer is really just a joke on how Lancer gets roasted early on in Grail Wars, right?

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh…squick, much…(Thank goodness the source I was using edited out the loli fanservice, so I can tolerate this series a lot more…but still, suggesting you have a romance with your step-brother, even if it’s known you’re not related from the beginning, is…you already know my feelings on that, based on my reaction. Shiro is, what, 15? About twice Illya’s age!) Update: Okay, so he has no confirmed age in Prisma Illya, but he’s 17 in F/SN so I’d assum the same or similar, seeing as he attends the same school. It’s fine if it’s platonic, but this is clearly an Onii-chan, daisuki! thing the likes of which Oreimo throws down! Thank you for calling it out though, Ruby.

Oh my gosh, this looks like the Rhongomynaid (Detective Waver) and Excalibur (or whatever Saber’s Noble Phantasm is called) summoning beam! LOL!

Ruby, you lech! Don’t go praising the angles! *shakes fist* (Seriously, what if magical girl mascots were paedophiles…? *blank face* Welp, considering what’s out there on the internet, I wouldn’t be surprised if a hentai or something had such a concept.)

Hmm? Turns out the word for Servant means something like “celestial hero”. Makes sense.

Nice callback to Saber and Shiro!

Illya 2

I thought Illya would say that her parents are dead…turns out the show’s not that grimdark (to the point where it wouldn’t set the show after Kiritsugu and Iri’s deaths), huh?

Do the sticks have a gender? The subs said “she” for Ruby…

LOL, it’s Rider. I thought Lancer was gonna get his butt kicked all over again (thinking more along the lines of CCS).

It’s Gay Bul-I mean, Gae Bolg! (I’ve been reading TV Tropes again…can you tell?)

This episode was pretty pedestrian. I like it more than the first one.

What’s up with the CGI…?

Oh! Bunbun, who does Yuki Yuna! Update: They only did the illustrations for some of the series. They also did SAO illustrations, although that’s of less significance to me.

Illya 3

The sticks do have genders!!! That’s like claiming Jesus for kakera with Mudae! (Yes, that’s possible. I got him in one server.)

The power of fujoshi…is amazing! How did it get to a girl who’s so young?!

These angles are a bit disturbing…

“Casao”, LOL.

Magical girl nakama, huh?

Illya 4

MST3K mantra!

Whose quote is that again…? “Don’t think, imagine”? Update: It turns out to not be anyone’s quote at all, if Google results are to be believed.

Uh-oh! Saber Alter!

Illya 5

Padding the episode already…?

The mist is a quality of a Berserker, right?

Geez the angles piss me off…

These sticks have brains???

Can you call it teamwork if they’re always complaining about each other?

Illya 6

More padding…

Illya’s UBW!

Geesh, that last-minute shot of Rin and Luvia popping out of the ground scared me for a bit…

Illya 7

*sigh* It’s the sick episode…

I recognise the vacuum cleaner. I have the same one at home.

*sigh* Random fanservice of elementary school girls. This is what gives anime a bad name.

*Sapphire pulls out a USB port* - Ohhkay, is that stick fanservice, in a sense…? Because that’s awkward too.

Maids went out of fashion years ago…

“Lyrical Radical Genocide” - I think this Lyrical Radical things is parodying Nanoha.

Based on the cloak, it’s an Assassin.

“Listen, if you aren’t careful, you’ll die!” – Yep, because people die when they are killed. I almost missed that meme for a bit.

Illya 8

Illya’s still reeling from Miyu’s talk, huh?

I noticed it said tomoda(chi) in the background at one point.

Does Miyu exist in any of the alternate universes?

Ah, there’s yuujou (friendship) in the background as calligraphy.

I think the video got encoded funny again…

Geez, complaining about boobs? The series got worse…oh, I forgot Shiro was around in this series.

…who’s left? There’s been Saber, Archer, Lancer, Assassin, Rider, Caster and…who? Berserker, that’s who.

Illya 9

Ohhhhhhhh brother, not more bath scenes…

Iri looks almost exactly like she does in the Eiznbern Consultation Rooms! (I found those around and watched them today.)

Thank goodness the fanservice is censored…

I never realised Berseker had heterochromia until now…

One thing that I assume makes Saber’s outfit look nice to thos that like girls is the window in the top…but it goes to waste on Miyu, LOL.

I find it interesting Illya has all these concerns – the ones (or similar ones) Iri harbourd in F/Z.

Hey, the bridge! This is the bridge where Rider dies inn F/Z, yeah?

The ED looks different this time…

Illya 10 (FINAL)

E-Eep…loli fanservice…

Now Miyu is basically what Waver is to Rider, no doubt about it.

Bulls***! Speak of the devil! I was wondering what Waver looked like in the Illya style, because I read on the wiki he makes a cameo in season 2, and…here he is. Didn’t expect him in season 1, though.

Another new ED animation. I find it interesting they’ve never once had to recast any VAs throughout the entire existence of Fate/ anime…not that I know of, anyway.

Hiroyama Hiroshi is the original Illya creator.

Okay, that’s the end of one season. I feel kind of fatigued since I finished the Eiznbern Consultation Rooms today as well, so I’m going to take a break from watching more Illya until it’s necessary to watch again in a few posts’ time.

Now that they’ve collected the cards, I’m wondering what the series intends to do next…

Illya s2 Pt 1 Ep 1

They clearly skimped on the budget when Shiro was leaving the house…

I keep forgetting Illya is meant to be German…

That bad English…is actually there in the ep. title…

Oh great…schoolgirls talking about erotic swimsuits…

This s*** is what you call “Class-S”! I have no interest in it, because I don’t swing that way! (Sorry, yuri fans…)

The problem with series that aren’t 100% made with you in mind is that your favourite characters might look ugly…that’s especially the case with En, Jakurai and Waver.

Ryudou Temple, eh? Let’s hope Assassin still looks good.

I don’t think I’ve seen that before…namely, being able to hear what’s going on outside the transformation while it’s happening.

Now this 2 Illyas thing…this is new, alright.

Illya s2 Pt 1 Ep 2

LOL, what a horoscope.

Truck-kun! I don’t think Illya would make a good isekai protag, come to think of it.

Who is this nurse? I feel like she’s from some other part of the Nasuverse… Update: My guess was right. That’s Caren Hortensia, protagonist of Fate/hollow ataraxia and Kirei’s…uh, daughter. I know he had a wife. We never met said wife, but seeing the daughter really drove that fact home.

Uhhhhhhhh…okay, now the lesbian loli scene just made things go off a cliff for me. I’m not against lesbians or yuri – to each their own – but that scene was clearly meant to be pleasing to a certain audience.

How does anyone kill anything gently…?

Ohhhhhhkay, strike 2 for loli fanservice.

I seem to remember…that’s right, Alice from the [something] no Kuni no Alice series was evaluated on her coffee-making skills (by Julius, I think it was). That’s why I’m thinking of Alice when I see Luvia praising Miyu on something similar.

Wa-hey! It’s Rin’s Azoth dagger!

Well, the mechanics of the transformation are also something you have to think about. I’ll give the show kudos for that.

Illya s2 Pt 1 Ep 3

Can we not with the whole “Onii-chan, daisuki!” thing?! That’s it! That’s the last straw! I’m finishing this episode and aborting early so that I can preserve my dignity…and get some proper sleep for once.

The fact Miyu thinks Shiro resembles her brother must not be a coincidence…(I’ve become far too Fate/ savvy, haven’t I?) Update: It seems I was right. Apparently, Miyu was taken in by Kiritsugu in a certain universe, but apparently this is a bunch of spoilers.

Genki na aisatsu was in the back.

This is just getting worse and worse…

So now Kuro’s name is Kuroe (Chloe), huh? Anyways, good riddance, loli fanservice! So long! I won’t miss you one bit!

#lord el-melloi ii-sei no jikenbo #Lord El-Melloi II's Case Files #fate/kaleid liner prisma illya #Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya 2wei!

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iaskleaders · 4 years

Text

Gloria Ai’s Dialogue With He Xiaopeng on Competitor Elon Musk

While the real economy is struggling in the bleak environment of 2020, intelligent electric vehicle manufacturers stepped on the accelerator.

The two tremendous pains in the car making industry are described as “too hard to earn" and "too challenging to build a car". In earlier days, Jia Yueting staged "a deadbeat escape", followed by the swindle cases of Dong Mingzhu and Xiong Xuqiang. A number of events have witnessed the billionaire’s broken dream of vehicle making. Even the domestic electric-vehicle (EV) maker Nio Inc. set the lowest record at $1.19 per share last year, hovering on the edge of delisting.

But since the beginning of this year, the Nio stock has risen by nearly 600% in the past ten months, with market value reaching around $35 billion, which enjoys the highest increase rate among Internet companies. On August 27, 2020, when Xiaopeng Motors was listed at the New York Stock Exchange, the CEO He Xiaopeng and his friends gathered to pay close attention to its performance in the U.S. stock market, and the celebration lasted until 4 a.m. the next day. On August 31, the property of Elon Musk reached the value of over $111.3 billion, overtaking the Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to become the third richest man in the word.

In 2020, the epidemic has catalyzed the interconnection of all things. With the rapid influx of capital and the active transformation of supply chain, the independent research and development of intelligent vehicles has accelerated its transformation. On October 24, the “Day of the Programmer”, “The Xiaopeng Motors Intelligence Day Conference on October 24”was held. The chairman and CEO addressed: " We saw the development pace of batteries goes faster year by year than when I started to work in this industry back in 2017. I saw the computing power now exceeding what I saw in Moore's law.”

He also quoted Alan Kay: "People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.”

He is today's iAsk leader —— He Xiaopeng.

Check out this episode on Youtube:

He Xiaopeng VS Elon Musk

He Xiaopeng and Lei Jun are both from Hubei Province. He graduated from the Computer Department of South China University of Technology in 1999 and started UC with his colleagues after years working for a foreign company. Ding Lei, who was an Internet business man back then, offered him 800,000 yuan as a loan and an office space for free.

With his team in 2004, He Xiaopeng founded UC and launched a national app called the UC mobile browser. In 2014, things happened like a dream, when UC was acquired by Alibaba. The 37-year-old He Xiaopeng came to the spotlight with skyrocketing fortunes which made him one of the new billionaires in China. The life goal such as buying a house, a car, a yacht and alcohol as well as accumulating wealth was realized in a lightning speed. But he was not happy.

Although the merger and acquisition of UC by Alibaba was China's biggest acquisition news of the year, the mobile browser was not of Ali's main businesses. In an annual executive meeting of Alibaba running from the noon to the evening, He Xiaopeng heard the world “UC” only once in the overwhelming discussion about payment and e-commerce. In addition, the Ali mobile business group and the Ali Games in the charge of He Xiaopeng were not market leaders of the time.

Despite the spacious office provided by Alibaba and no longer having to borrowing the space from Ding Lei, He Xiaopeng often locked himself in with a dignified look. Empty, anxious and hesitant, he was always on the phone, talking to all kinds of people, even restless during breaks.

On June 13, 2014, Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO announced that the company started to open to all patents in a broadening source model, which means more companies can manufacture vehicles. He Xiaopeng proposed to Ali with his ambition to build cars, but it didn’t turn out as expected. He Xiaopeng couldn’t restrain his ideas, thus he worked with Li Xueling, dozens of other Internet people, and initiated a number of venture capital agents to founded Xiaopeng Motors.

Unlike PayPal, which was acquired eBay, the founder Musk was expelled from the company because of his failure in the internal struggle, He Xiaopeng voluntarily gave up the glory and the high salary in the past and resigned from Alibaba.

More than 20 years ago before graduation, while some of He Xiaopeng’s classmates were playing computer games in the dormitory, he had a conversation with Huang Ronghai on the dormitory balcony: " I want financial freedom when I am 40 years old, then retire".

At that time, Huang Ronghai thought that financial freedom was out of reach. On the day when He Xiaopeng turned 40 years old, he had achieved financial freedom for three years, but retirement had become a distant prospect. Again He Xiaopeng talked to Huang Ronghai: "I think three traits are the most important for a person: the self, his family and career. Now that I have a family and a career, I want to be myself.”

In 2017, he revealed to Lei Jun that he might quit the current job and started to make vehicles. His old friend Liu Qin was also present. Lei Jun warned him: "the possibility of failure is very high. You are no longer a nobody, and this project must require massive investment by yourself.”

“How much are you willing to invest?”, asked Lei Jun.

He Xiaopeng immediately replied: “$100 million.”

On August 29, 2017, the seventh day when He Xiaopeng left Ali, he started a full-time position at Xiaopeng Motors. On the same day, he posted a Wechat moment: “It’s a cycle of entrepreneurship, bitter, sweet and salty. I now return with hope still like a teenager.”

Gloria Ai: Why did you bother yourself with this unrelated and inconsistent entrepreneurial venture at the age of 36? This second venture will be difficult.

He Xiaopeng: Hardware is a new domain for me.

Gloria Ai: So there is no making without breaking. You have to jump and fall into this abyss before climbing up, right?

He Xiaopeng: It’s learning from scratch.

The year He Xiaopeng founded Xiaopeng Motors, he was richer than Elon Musk when he started Tesla. For the past six years in the motor industry, He Xiaopeng has kept the record of being the most frequent self-funded entrepreneur among the top three new vehicle manufacturers in China. Before going public, He Xiaopeng has invested more than $317 million (about 2.2 billion yuan) in Xiaopeng Motors.

At the CES 2018, the 41-year-old He Xiaopeng showed the courage of a newborn calf not scared of tigers. He remarked: " Elon Musk is better than me now, but I may be better than him in the future.”

Gloria Ai: But to be honest, what do you think is the gap between you and Elon Musk?

He Xiaopeng: I think the gap doesn’t exist. He is a winner in his field. I have my logic of thinking. We are both working on some travel revolutionary changes to make our lives safer, greener and better.

Elon Musk often posted on his Twitter that we are not good enough because he does not know us. In other words, China's own manufacturing enterprises should prove ourselves with true quality and capacities, not with words. As a saying goes: “Easy to say, hard to do.”

Gloria Ai: I agree that respect is earned. That is, I get in your car, I don't want to compliment you, but I really think this car is made with heart and devotion. But has the name Xiaopeng been disputed?

He Xiaopeng: As you know, there are many Chinese brands with foreign names. In fact, there are a large number of non-Chinese names in China. But Ford, Tesla and the like are named after scientists and Bosch is also a person's name. So why not using a Chinese name for a brand to meet the world? I think if you use your name for a brand, the brand itself is a trust and a responsibility.

The potential and confidence of He Xiaopeng

Can you make a car to stand up and walk to its parking lot like a transformer does?”

Can you put a lift camera on the top of the car and make it appear automatically when you stop the car?”

Can you make automatic parking smoother?”

...

Since 2014, He Xiaopeng has hardly stopped his imagination. He wants to build a robot car like Transformers. He intends to produce the smartest car that meets the needs of the Chinese market, despite of many challenges.

Gloria Ai: It’s quite magical that you did a good job in mobile Internet, but you suddenly departed from Alibaba to the track of car building. Your entrepreneurial endeavour of shifting your focus from software to hardware has been six years, right? What is the biggest challenge from 2014 to 2020?

He Xiaopeng: There have been too many challenges. I regard them as challenges in different stages. I used to know a lot about an industry, but now I basically become someone being respected but not trusted, because I really don' t understand the industry in a professional way.

In the past, we didn’t involve manufacturing, branding, expensive sales at such high prices and post-sales services in the Internet domain. We only knew about operations and users, so there are a lot of challenges in learning. Without the support by so many employees, my classmates, and customers, we can’t achieve today’s result and the process is not easy at all.

From the "front wave" of the Internet to the "back wave" of intelligent vehicles, it is not the extension of an industry, but a butterfly change. As a cross-border entrepreneur, in his view, the positioning of Internet car building should be transformed from the engineer dimension to the user's point of view, so that a team of traditional manufacturing and R & D can be Internetized, and even develop its software and hardware independently. The journey will be long and great endeavors should be made.

In 2017, the production base of Xiaopeng Motors which is worth tens of billions yuan was launched in Zhaoqing City, with a total of 10 billion yuan invested in the first and second phase. The self-built factory of Xiaopeng Motors is the only new vehicle brand with self-production and OEM qualifications in China. It has independently designed and developed the full stack autopilot technology and intelligent voice recognition system, including dynamical system and electrical/ electronic architecture. Meanwhile, it is fully autonomous at the core hardware level. Xiaopeng Motors is also the only company in the new vehicle force to develop battery management system (BMS) and battery pack at the same time.

The prospectus shows that Xiaopeng Motors has invested as much as 3.75 billion yuan in R & D in the past two years, with 43% of its employees of more than 1600 people working in R & D. He Xiaopeng understated the surprising ratio before: "Nearly 70% of the staff worked in R & D, and the number decreased to only 43% this year. In a rough calculation, it was more than 2,600 people.

Behind the influential new force of vehicle manufacturing, there have been rounds of large expenditure.

Gloria Ai: Where is the source of your courage to invest huge resources and funds to do independent research and development?

He Xiaopeng: There are many OEMs in China. I think we mainly count on the resource dependent type. Meanwhile, we initiate more partners to create a resource pool. It actually costs at least 500 million to 1 billion yuan to build a type of car but this fund basically goes to mould building and testing. So I believe we have to invest in sections that can accumulate liking growing a snowball, including the valuable R & D, branding, sales channels, good reputation from customers, which is a long-term treasure.

What is the intellectualization of Xiaopeng Motors?

Gloria Ai: I think that China's new vehicle making force has been questioned for a long time, because we constantly invest like burning money and lose money. What is the essential reason behind Xiaopeng Motors's popularity in 2020 particularly when the Sino-US relation is delicate? Have you ever thought about it?

He Xiaopeng: Three months ago, most people were actually not optimistic about this track. Tesla has made many people believe that vehicle manufacturing presents the future.

Gloria Ai: So you need to thank Elon Musk, for his high stock price performance.

He Xiaopeng: Yes. I think since the beginning of the year, this future has been predicted by top investors a few months ago. They conducted work, research, and took part three months later. Because of their engagement, more people were attracted to the market.

“If you really want to find a hard thing to do, you can try building a car.”Despite of this heart-felt remark, He Xiaopeng was full of excitement.

The young members in the team were from Gac Group, SAIC, BMW, Lamborghini and other well-known enterprises. They spent every day studying intelligent vehicles in a flat with two bedrooms and one living room. On Wednesdays and Saturdays after work, they met with He Xiaopeng, who was like a godfather to pump up this young group. When the team found hard to poach a talent, they would bring the people to Xiaopeng and had a chat together. He Xiaopeng began to describe the bright future of intelligent vehicle manufacturing. In the end, "about 30% - 40% of members were persuaded by me.”

Whenever frustrated, He Xiaopeng would offer "blind" advices: "It’s quite normal. I have experienced bitter and harder when I was young." In each meeting, He Xiaopeng would give "blind" ideas: “How about a lift camera and something like Transformers?”

The idea of lifting the camera was realized, and has become an essential selling point for the first model G3 a few years later. On the idea inspired by Transformers, He Xiaopeng later consulted two famous professors from overseas universities, and they replied, theoretically it worked, but it might not have commercial and practical values. He Xiaopeng was not convinced: “Let’s retain the idea now, which doesn’t mean it won’t work in the future.”

He Xiaopeng firmly believes that intelligent vehicles are the future. While Xpeng P7 came out, someone compared it with Tesla Model 3, but Xiaopeng's goal was never to rival with Model 3, but to become the No.1 B-class sedan.

Gloria Ai: I have a challenging question. What’s the selling point of Xiaopeng Motors? It’s about intelligence. But would a smart phone manufacturer boast everyday that it sells intelligent systems? Shouldn't intelligent vehicles be smart? This is the question I raised for you.

He Xiaopeng: It’s a very good question. I believe that many people would agree that intelligent vehicles are the future. Xiaopeng Motors has taken the deepest research in intellectualization and is one the earliest pioneers of all China's OEM manufacturers. It also invested the most. Now people begin to recognize Xiaopeng Motors as the most intelligent vehicle, but our business is in a small scale. We have to make it bigger and deeper, which is the first thing we should do.

The second thing to focus on is to rethink how software produces the value of data and the value of the overall data engine from the data resource, when we have achieved a good performance in intellectualization and software.

The third aspect is whether the hardware should be changed in the influence of changes of software, with a new usage scenario, which you can identify in our third and fourth model, as well as the following models.

Changes in hardware can also lead to huge revolutions in hardware, some of which will improve your experience and reduce your procurement costs. Pioneers must be able to think about your strengths and weak points.

The first page of the prospectus of Xiaopeng Motors writes the mission of the company: "The data-driven changes in intelligent electric vehicles lead the way of future travels.”

The fantastic future of intelligence and changes are all inseparable from the support of capital. What did investors read from the listing of Xiaopeng Motors?

Gloria Ai: the Morningside Venture Capital you represent has been a major investor and shareholder from the Series-A funding to the Series-C funding. I would like to know whether you are optimistic about the competitiveness of He Xiaopeng as the founder, or the competitiveness of the Xpeng products?

Liu Qin: Our investment philosophy is to invest in people. We must have invested in this company because of He Xiaopeng. From the perspective of an entrepreneur, I have also expressed the wish to invest in entrepreneurial people. How can I put it?

Firstly, We would like to choose those really good and entrepreneurial candidates, who has a clear and simple entrepreneurial motivation. It may sometimes appear silly, naive and extremely easy to fail. It seems a silly decision, right? However, we admire this kind of silly and naive entrepreneurial motivation.

Secondly, I am willing to invest in those who really have vision for the future, and can turn this vision into a faith of a company and a person. I think Xiaopeng is such an entrepreneur. Thirdly, I think he has the charm of a leader, who can inspire others and organize a group of talented people to embark on a course together.

Finally, he is full of awe of the risk of starting a business, and is brave enough to face the reality and anxieties, and to solve the problem. In fact, it takes great courage to face the reality and these considerable difficulties. We see in Xiaopeng these four traits of the spirit of an excellent entrepreneur.

Three years has passed. He Xiaopeng, who once challenged Elon Musk, now seems more pragmatic and simpler. Xiaopeng Motors has been publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, but what lingers in He Xiaopeng’s mind is always the product.

Gloria Ai Cheng: Do you think the US listing is the best way to facilitate Xpeng to achieve a better vision?

He Xiaopeng: I think it’s a choice. If we don't make a good layout today, it will be difficult for us to offer more new products in 2023, 2024 and 2025. Today we are in an industry of rapid changes and innovation, and we can’t use the old logic for products. Instead, we need to step forward to pave the road for the better performance in the next track.

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#xpeng motors #iAsk Leaders #elon musk #xiaopeng he

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the-desolated-quill · 7 years

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Kill The Moon - Doctor Who blog (Is This The Worst Doctor Who Episode Ever?)

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet... then I envy you, you lucky bastard)

I... really... didn’t want to watch this one again. The first time I saw this back in 2014, it elicited a reaction out of me so violent that it would have made a Hell’s Angel blush. I HATED this episode with every fibre of my being and I’ve been dreading coming back to review this. I had to bribe myself with chocolate in order to get through it again and, even now as I’m typing this, I’m seething with rage. The very thought that my TV licence fee contributed to this pile of absolute garbage fucking disgusts me.

So... Kill The Moon.

Let’s start with the first immediate problem that jumps out. Courtney. What the fuck is she doing here? You could literally cut her out of the story entirely and it wouldn’t have made the slightest bit of difference. Actually no, I tell a lie. It would have made one difference. The episode would have been slightly less grating to watch. She’s so fucking annoying that I was hoping a gruesome death was on the cards for her. She’s constantly moaning about being bored or that she’s not special, which considering what an arrogant little bitch she’s been presented as over the course of this series, it probably wouldn’t hurt to have the Doctor take her down a peg or two. You certainly don’t want to encourage someone like that into believing they’re a special little snowflake because it’ll just reinforce their selfish behaviour, and I’m alarmed that that’s what her teacher Clara is trying to do. What the fuck?

So the TARDIS crew land on the Moon and meet three astronauts. One of them is played by Hermione Norris, who gives such a dull and lifeless performance that I’m almost impressed by it. The way she says her lines, she sounds as though she’s only just woken up. Mind you, if I was lumbered with a character this one dimensional, I wouldn’t put much energy into my performance neither. Also there are two other astronauts played by two other actors who do absolutely nothing. They’re all bland, boring characters and I’m sure they have names, but I can’t be arsed to remember them because that’s how fucking boring they are. I don’t give a single shit about any of them, partly because the writer Peter Harness has given me no reason to care about them, but mostly because I was too busy trying to make sense of Kill The Moon’s moronic morass of pseudoscience and dumbass non-logic.

So the Mexicans have made a lunar mining base on the Moon only to discover there are in fact no minerals on the Moon. At all. None whatsoever. Then once you’ve finished laughing at that stupidity, we’re then expected to believe that after years of technological innovation, everyone just stopped going into space. And apparently there’s no way to get to the mining base other than using an old space shuttle from a museum. So the Mexican company didn’t have any of its own ships it could send up in case something went wrong? None of the intermediate stages of spaceflight between a shuttle and a mining colony were available neither?

But wait! It gets worse!

The Moon is getting bigger. That’s bad. Tidal waves and floods and all that jazz. So what’s the solution? Nuke the fucker! Yeah! That will make everything better! Except doing so could potentially send chunks of radioactive Moon rock at the Earth and cause an apocalypse (assuming the rocks don’t just form back into a sphere shaped mass again because that’s how gravity fucking works). Also the Moon acts as a counterweight to the Earth. So if the Moon disappeared, the Earth’s orbit around the Sun would become more erratic and the planet would wobble uncontrollably on its axis, causing the seasons to fluctuate wildly. So blowing up the Moon could actually make things worse. Whoops!

And why is the Moon getting bigger? (Are you ready for this? You’re going to love this one?) The Moon is an egg!

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Well no, wait, actually that makes perfect sense. Because we all know when a chicken lays an egg, the egg gets bigger and heavier as it incubates. OH WAIT! NO IT DOESN’T! THE EGG GETS LIGHTER! SO HOW THE FUCK DOES THE MOON GAIN AN EXTRA 1.3 BILLION TONNES IN WEIGHT? WHERE DID ALL THAT EXTRA MASS COME FROM? THIS IS UTTER BOLLOCKS!

And it just gets even stupider when you take this baby creature into account. How does killing the creature solve the problem of the tidal waves? The reason the tidal waves are occurring is because of the increased mass of the Moon. If you kill the creature, that mass doesn’t magically go away. You’ve still got a dead creature orbiting the planet. The mass is still there. Even if you were to accept the possibility that the nukes would blow the creature to smithereens, it’s more likely that the bits of luna rock and alien guts would form back into a sphere under its own gravity, thus causing more problems for the Earth.

Now yes I know this is Doctor Who. It’s never exactly been scientifically accurate and if I were to go through all the bad science in Doctor Who stories, we’d be here all day. However in order to maintain our suspension of disbelief, the science doesn’t necessarily need to be accurate, but it does need to make sense under the show’s own internal logic. This... doesn’t! The science in Kill The Moon is so stupid and so nonsensical that it actually takes you completely out of the story. It’s hard to be scared of the alien spiders once you find out they’re prokaryotic (just... huh?!) and it’s hard to take the Doctor seriously when he’s spouting unscientific bullshit that is objectively wrong. And all the stuff I’ve been saying, this isn’t some obscure stuff that only a Stephen Hawking or an Albert Einstein would know. You can literally GOOGLE this crap! There’s simply no excuse for such shoddy science. So either Peter Harness is lazy as fuck and couldn’t be bothered to do basic research before putting pen to paper or he’s a complete and utter idiot. And that would be one thing if all that results in just a stupid story, but it��s another thing entirely when the writer brings that same laziness/stupidity to the table when tackling sensitive, real world issues.

As I watched Kill The Moon, with Clara and um... the spacewoman debating whether to kill the creature or not, the penny dropped with a horrible clang. Yes, Doctor Who is going to talk to us about abortion. Now of course this isn't the first time the show has tackled difficult subject matters and there’s no reason why a show whose audience is predominantly children shouldn’t be allowed to discuss and explore sensitive subjects. It all depends on how it’s done. Abortion is a tricky one because there are essentially two parts to the pro-choice/pro-life debate. The first is that of the woman’s autonomy, to which the answer should obviously be yes. A woman should absolutely have the right to decide what she does with her own body. The second part is where things get murky. The rights of the foetus. Namely, is abortion murder? That all depends when life officially begins, except nobody can agree when that is. Is it at the point of conception? During the first trimester? The second? When the embryo takes on a human shape? When the woman actually gives birth to the child? And that in turn raises a whole new set of questions. Let’s say that life officially begins during the second trimester. Does that mean the embryo still has rights during the first trimester just because it’s going to be alive? What about sperm and egg cells? Does that make condoms immoral just because those sperm could fertilise an egg and could create life? So what does this mean then? Are the pro-life group campaigning for the right to life or the right to potentially have life? Is ‘potentially’ too broad a definition and is it in fact restricting a woman’s autonomy? Which brings us to the ultimate question. Whose life is more important? The mother’s or the foetus’? What if giving birth to the baby harms or kills the mother? What if other factors prevent the mother from giving a baby the quality of care it deserves? Whose life takes precedent?

Now I’m not going to tell you my views on abortion because, frankly, they’re irrelevant to this. I’m merely demonstrating how complicated this debate truly is. These are questions with no clear right or wrong answer and there’s probably never going to be a clear, definitive answer. A lot of it really comes down to your own personal morality. So if you’re going to write a story about abortion... well... don’t. That would be my advice because you’re bound to piss somebody off no matter what you do. But if you still persist, you need to do your fucking homework before you start and make sure you handle the subject with tact and discretion.

With this in mind, how does Kill The Moon go about doing this?

The Doctor discovers the existence of the creature under the Moon’s surface and remarks upon how beautiful it is, to which Hermione Norris’ character responds by asking how do they kill it while a sinister music cue plays over the scene.

Wow. Subtle.

This is the reason behind my intense dislike towards this episode. Not only does it make the same mistake most New Who stories make by stripping the moral complexity out of morally complex situations and spoon-feeding the answer to the audience, it also becomes offensively dangerous when you factor the abortion metaphor into the equation. The episode takes a hardline pro-life stance, portraying the pro-choice side as irrational baby killers, even going so far as to have the Earth (or half of the Earth at any rate. The other half not visible to the Moon doesn’t get a say apparently) vote whether to kill the creature or not, and then have Clara go against their unanimous decision to kill it and stop the nukes for no reason other than babies are good. (I feel I should point out there was nothing to suggest the creature wouldn’t have swooped down and devoured humanity the moment it had hatched. The fact that it didn’t only shows how grotesquely lucky Clara was with her rash decision). There’s no effort to actually have an intelligent discussion about this. The decision is made right from the start with the irrational baby killers merely being an obstacle in the righteous pro-lifer’s path. Not only is it biased to an insulting degree, it’s also intellectually dishonest. If the only way you can support your argument is by demonising the other side, all it proves is that your argument doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

Oh, let’s talk about Clara because she really fucking pissed me off. I was amazed by the number of people who were angry over the Doctor’s decision to leave and not intervene in the decision because that was the only thing about the episode I actually liked. You may call bullshit considering the number of times the Doctor has interfered in human affairs, but as far as I’m concerned, he made the right choice here. He recognised how complex and difficult the decision was and he also recognised that it wasn’t his place to make that decision for them. Like he said, it’s not his home. It’s not his moon. It’s not his choice. Which is what makes Clara’s temper tantrum at the end all the more egregious. For starters it’s a bit rich her chastising the Doctor for leaving them when she was prepared to do the same thing less than 10 minutes before. Also what is she actually complaining about? That the Doctor paid her and the rest of the human race enough respect to make the choice for themselves? Doesn’t really make sense when you put it like that, does it? Clara basically comes across like a spoilt child, moaning and shrieking at the Doctor because he was no longer at her beck and call and she actually had to think and act for herself for a change. And rather than have the Doctor just tell her to grow the fuck up (or better yet, give her a sharp dropkick out of the TARDIS and find a companion who’s actually likeable and well developed), the episode clearly expects you to be on Clara’s side and tut-tut at the Doctor disapprovingly even though he hasn’t actually done anything wrong. Clara is basically upset because she had to think for herself, and that worries me.

Kill The Moon is not just bad. It isn’t even terrible. In fact I’d go as far to say that it’s one of the most despicable things I’ve ever come across. It’s not just because of the shit story or the bullshit scientific inaccuracies. It’s because of how cack handed and irresponsible Peter Harness is when it comes to the central theme. The very thought that this episode could give kids a skewed, biased and utterly warped view of abortion thanks to a writer who is either too stupid or too lazy to do proper research into the subject makes me sick to my fucking stomach. Also Steven Moffat can go fuck himself too. Oh yeah, I’m not letting him off the hook. He’s the showrunner. He’s the one who looked over this script and went ‘yep. I see nothing problematic about this whatsoever.’

This is the episode that made me stop watching Doctor Who. I felt so sickened and so insulted by what I had just watched that I actually flung up my hands and went ‘fuck it! I don’t want to watch this show anymore!’ It hurt to do it. I love Doctor Who, but I couldn’t continue to watch fucking morons like Moffat and Harness grind it into the dirt. So I left, vowing never to return until Moff-Face was shown the fucking door. And this Christmas, I’m finally going to get my wish.

Which leaves me in an interesting position going forward with my reviews. Beyond this episode, I legitimately have no idea what’s going to happen. I know a few tidbits of information from what I’ve seen on Tumblr. For instance, I know that Missy is the Master (that didn’t come as much of a surprise. I mean really, who the fuck else could she have been?), I know that the Doctor returns to Gallifrey at some point and I think Clara ends up dying at the end of Series 9 (couldn’t have happened to a more deserving companion as far as I’m concerned). Beyond that, I genuinely have no idea what’s in store for me from here. But at least I’ll be safe in the knowledge that no episode can possibly be as bad as Kill The fucking Moon.

#kill the moon #peter harness #doctor who #twelfth doctor #peter capaldi #clara oswald #jenna coleman #steven moffat #bbc #review #spoilers

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hithelleth · 7 years

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Salvation S1

Why do I keep getting into shows that are likely to be cancelled!? Oh, right, because I’m a masochist. So, I’ve finished Salvation and it was so good! I’ve been internally squeeing for days, so I’ll try to get things out of my system now so I can then maybe focus on other fannish (and non-fannish) things.

(This turned out long, so I put it under the cut and tried to make it more easily readable with some bolding. My apologies to those on mobile.)

I’ve always had a thing for doomsday premises, so this was right up my alley with an impending extinction level event that must remain secret from the general populace to avoid panic while the big shots try to prevent it.

Except that unlike a number of cheesy movies where the world comes together to save humanity and/or help each other after the disaster, Salvation creators tackled it from the other end: the whole season is set before the disaster strikes and nobody is willing to cooperate.

I found the approach refreshing and really liked it. Probably because I’m what I call a pessimistic idealist. I mean, don’t get me wrong, obviously, if such a scenario happens in real life, I do hope (or want to) that humanity would come together to save itself/the Earth. But the pessimist in me thinks there is just as much chance for us to kill each other before the Earth/space/whatever gets to us.

Although, of course, with the current political atmosphere where the orange menace and the little dumpling (you know who I mean, they don’t deserve to be named) are throwing threats with nuclear war weapons around, the cold-war-era-like hostilities in the show gave me chills.

So, there’s political power play galore while the tech wiz and co. are trying to find the way to save the world while being obstructed on every step by politicians. I liked the suspense it all brought out, and how it made the show fast paced (but didn’t take anything from complexity). I also liked all the shadiness and there was a lot of it around, as basically everyone does at least something not quite right (even if with the best of intentions).

I liked that the focus of the show is sort-of evenly spread between science and politics as well as different age groups, as in the characters in their early to mid-twenties and those around/in their forties, which I’m more into the older I get (seriously, it’s one of the biggest reality checks as to age when I realise that the character/actor(ess) is only a few years older than me, or worse, younger!)

And while I’m at that… I have a new OT3!!!! Come on, you knew this was coming, I’m that weird person who can find more or less likely OT3s anywhere and I proudly own it.

But damn it, I wasn’t looking for it! Then again I never do, you know how it goes: I don’t choose my ships, they chose me. Those three fuckers! Why am I doing this to myself? Why? *high pitched pterodactyl screeching*

I’m talking about Harris/Grace/Darius (in all variations), just to be clear. Seriously, I have no idea how it happened, but around episode 5 or 6, I was like, “well maybe instead of squabbling and ‘slight’ signs of jealousy, you could, you know, work together?” and then one thought led to another and I was like, “yeah, I could ship it, provided Harris wasn’t evil…” (I mean, he was a very, very bad boy once or twice, but turned out not to be evil) and the rest is history. *insert more swearing* Yeah, episode 8 didn’t help at all. And then of course they did work together so well towards the end of the season. *sighs*

Anyway, look, I’m not asking for much, just a S2 where they can occasionally (well, the more often the better, but I’ll take what I get) share screen time and be the badass power world/country-saving trio they are. My imagination can do the rest. ;)

But of course, IAD was promoted to a regular on Hawaii 5-O, so I’m not sure what that would mean – although Salvation is a summer show, so I guess coordination could be possible – and the ratings seem to be shit and I don’t want to get my hopes up despite the articles floating around saying not all is lost for S2. *fingers crossed*

Which brings me to a bit of ranting about a plot hole or two and a few general observations and possible S2 speculations.

a) You want me to believe that the US Secretary of Defence can just simply drive around on his own, NBD, and nobody bats an eye? FFS, even in my itty bitty country where the cabinet members really aren’t in much danger of imminent assassination, they have drivers and security details, especially the Defence Minister. It did come very handy for the plot that Harris could just drive around like it’s nobody business, though.

b) How did they get the selected 160 on site so fast? Magic? Because they couldn’t have picked them solely from Tanz personnel, since that would be mostly scientists, and they did pick historians, artists, etc… And those would be from all around the country, I’d say. (It’s shitty enough that they would be all only Americans, like the rest of the world has no smart people to offer. Also, for genetic diversity it would be better if people were from other countries, too.)

Unless they brought them into Tanz as they picked them, before the nuclear alarm. But didn’t they finish the selection process just a day or a couple before (my memory is a bit foggy, I’ll have to rewatch)?

And nobody seemed surprised at the sight of the space-ship, so I guess they were told the actual truth or at least the Mars colonisation version beforehand? I think the second is more likely.

But, never mind, that is not even my biggest problem with the 160 and I can easily let it pass, because time on TV can work in mysterious ways (plus, maybe they cut the scenes that were supposed to clear it up.)

c) No, my biggest problem is that if 160 people are the minimum viable population, I assume those people must be able to procreate (and have healthy and diverse enough genes.)

And so there were mostly young people in their twenties (mostly women) and thirties in the Salvation bunker. So far so good.

Of course if we only look to the continuation of human species, choosing young people makes sense.

(I’m not going into the fact that if all those youth are the best and the brightest, there would be other issues with picking people who must have been child prodigies and could therefore lack the social skills that are just as important for humanity as science – but I guess the humanities studies part of the group can compensate for what others lack in that field.)

It also makes perfect sense that some people would be chosen for qualities other than reproductive abilities, which is where Harris and Grace come in.

I mean, men don’t have that sort of a problem, but with Zoe about to start college, Grace must be at least in her early 40s (although Jennifer is younger) since she doesn’t strike me as a teen mom, and a woman of her age has a hard time having a healthy child even in the most optimal, peaceful conditions and with the best medical treatment available, so I think it’s safe to say Grace having any more kids, especially in a couple of years, is out of the question. But that’s okay.

My problem is with Darius being disqualified on grounds of carrying the Huntington’s gene. Sure, it served as a fantastic testimony of his character that he would work on the Mars project and then this saving the mankind thing knowing that he can’t go/save himself. That’s great, what a good person!

But since other people were picked for their leadership/wisdom/merit, then why not Darius?

Did the writers forget that contraception is a thing? You know, to prevent ‘accidentally’ spreading his bad genes around? And pre-natal screening also exists (okay, IDK if they can find out about the Huntington’s gene that way, but still) – and there are doctors (I assume a few actual MDs have been picked) around to do it and in case of a positive result an abortion is an option? (But god forbid we’d even think of the A-word on a national network in the US, of course.) Or you know, just have the guy have a vasectomy, the easiest sure-fire solution. (Yeah, now I’m being mean.)

My point in short: there is no logical reason (I know, looking for logic on TV; I never learn) for Darius not to be among the 160 apart from the writers’ need for characterisation through drama.

Anyway, I think that if we get S2, it might turn out the nukes were false alarm or something, because Santiago Cabrera is first-billed and I expect they wouldn’t kill him off, so this disqualification issue will be moot.

So, if we get S2:

d) The usurping VP (why TF does he have to be named Monroe Bennett? *wry smile* *cue reminiscing of a certain other show*) escaped and will be wreaking havoc, I assume.

e) I’d really like if Amanda somehow survived (I mean, it’s TV, anything is survivable on TV, a little chest/shoulder wound should be nothing), because I liked her.

f) I had to google the actor who played Grace’s dad (he was awesome!) because he looked familiar and look, he also played the substitute pressie who needed to be bullied into doing the right thing in TLS.

g) With the EM drive being magnetic (duh), I think Liam’s idea has something to do with trying to use the EM drive to pull the asteroid in off the impact course. I vote for partial success, because otherwise the show’s premise would go out of the window and they might as well just end it.

And I think that’s all I’ve got (for now).

I think I’ll go find some pretties to queue up for next week. Although, I’ve already been in the tags a little and as far as I could see, nobody ships my OT3 (I’m not surprised at all), so I might need to do some giffing myself. And maybe write fic. But after I finish my current fic exchange assignment, which I should be doing instead of writing this, but oh well. Maybe now I’ll be able to concentrate better.

Tagging @street-of-mercy, because you got me into this mess! ;) (You don’t have to respond or anything, but in case you’re interested in my thoughts and questionable shipping choices, here you go. :D)

#CBS Salvation #salvation cbs #salvation meta #my meta: salvation

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oncethrown · 7 years

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2x17 "Do you trust me?"

This was another good example of an episode that had a central theme, and teased it through nearly all the plot lines to expand characters in a satisfying way. The theme still didn't manage to affect Clary, who is now basically flapping in the wind with a motivation that doesn't make sense. "Do you trust Jocelyn?" To me, one of the most interesting things about this episode is the evidence that Jocelyn dragged so many warlocks into protecting the mirror. It was either @f-f-f-fight or @amorverus who commented that the narrative allows so much trust in Jocelyn because she's a white woman, and while that's probably the real reason this plot line exists, there is internal logic to this plot that is dark and fascinating. Jocelyn is a master manipulator. We've seen her in action several times. She has a way of getting what she wants from people, by giving them what they want, and not giving a damn if that exchange of goods and services harms them or other people. Every time we saw Jocelyn on screen, she was exerting some kind of power to achieve her ends. She has her daughter's mind wiped to keep them away from the Clave, and somehow manipulates Magnus into helping her. She lies to Clary for 18 years. She gets a lot of support (including, you have to assume, monetary support, cause...artist) from Luke and seems to offer nothing in return. She traps Clary in a boathouse so she can kill Jace unimpeded. She killed Alec to find Clary. Remember that? Clary was pissed, put herself in danger, and then Jocelyn used Alec to find her, and for a moment, Alec was dead. Jocelyn killed Alec. So it's really easy to imagine Jocelyn going to all of these warlocks, promising them the power to restrict the power of the Clave, and oh by the way... you might die. Jocelyn, in this light, is the perfect embodiment of the Clave. Making promises, but never risking what she asks others to risk. Always out to get what she wants, but never offering mutual trust, mutual transparency. Assuring everyone that they have the downworld's best interest at heart, they want to work together...and then protecting themselves from the specter of an uprising by lying about having the sword. If intentional, The leitmotif of Jocelyn's manipulation in this episode Is genius. If not it's All the Problems With Clary turned up to Eleven. "Do the Lightwood trust the Clave and Eachother" Max's orders are an interesting hiccup in this trust/Clave/sword imbroglio, especially for Izzy. She has to ask herself if she trusts herself to have trained Max well enough, a harder question now that she's in recovery. She has to confront Alec, not as her older brother, but as the head of the Institute, sending another young soldier into the field. And of course, does she trust the Clave? Does she trust their choice to let 12 year olds out into a world that is much much more dangerous than ever before. I wish there had been more talk between the Lightwoods about trusting the Clave after the revelation about the sword, but I acknowledge that this Max plot line is building toward something in the next episode and that the sword thing is covered in other plots. It also sets up the questions that other characters ask about being able to trust Alec as the head of the Institute. "Was Magnus Wrong to Trust Alec as Much as he Did?" Obviously the focus of this piece of the plot is on Alec and Magnus's personal relationship being tested by their professional obligations and cultural loyalties. Magnus has opened up to Alec in ways he hasn't opened up to anyone. We just came off an episode where Magnus told Alec something he may never have told anyone, after keeping it bottled up for four straight episodes. Then Magnus comes from a meeting and unabashedly announces his total faith in Alec's good intentions, and trustworthiness. The revelation that Alec lied about the Clave is a huge and multi layered betrayal. 1. He lied to Magnus. Alec is always shown being totally honest with Magnus. He didn't know why he stayed to have a drink with Magnus, and he doesn't pretend otherwise. He tells Magnus as soon as he gets engaged. He admits to having some degree of suicidal ideation. He walks into sex with no major reservations pretty early. There is a lot of trust there. Alec's lie complete blindsides Magnus. 2. The lie shows that Alec is more of a Shadowhunter than Magnus has been thinking of him as. Alec lies to Magnus to protect the Clave. Alec makes a show of transparency with the downworld, gives that to Magnus as the official line, and then politically undermines Magnus, as The High Warlock, like a Trump tweet during a White House briefing. Alec then toes the party line about protecting downworlders from themselves in general, and insults Magnus by infantilizing him. Alec just didn't want Magnus to worry his pretty head about the sword. 3. The lie shows disregard for the magnitude of damage that Valentine has caused in only the last few weeks and for Magnus's life.If Alec had bought yogurt on the day of the downworld massacre that took place in Alec's Institute, with that missing sword, that yogurt would still be good. Also, for a significant amount of time, Alec thought he was going to find Magnus's dead body lying in a hallway after that massacre. It's like if there was a school shooting, and afterward the school put the gun in a janitor's closet, fully loaded, and forgot about it. Much like Izzy did, Magnus walks in to see Alec and finds himself confronting the Head of the New York Institute. Alec loves and admires Magnus. The Head of the Institute made assumptions about how a warlock would react to Clave news. Alec is always open and honest with Magnus. The head of the Institute is hiding life or death information. And there is a race factor here too. Everything Alec says and does after Magnus confronts him reeks of ingrained downworlder predjudice. Which is not to say that Alec is a bigot, or that he doesn't love Magnus, but Alec benefits from a society where he is powerful because his species has subjugated Magnus's species and hunted them for sport within Magnus's living memory. It's a massive betrayal, and Magnus lashes out at Alec with a viciousness that shocks Alec. It's the end of the honeymoon, and it's a great set up for deep meaningful plots moving forward. "Who can Jonathan trust?" It's also interesting to see the Jonathan/Valentine dynamic in an episode haunted by Jocelyn's emotional manipulation skills. Jonathan has this very interesting motivation: he wants to be loved. He's a villain who wants to be loved. He's a villain with a baseline of "pretty gosh darn evil" who just wants to be loved... and so far in the plot, shouldn't be loved. I am so in. Love that shit. And he's with an abusive monster who is preying on him to revert back to his big genocide plan... but he's also in contact with Jace, who can keep pointing out how abusive and manipulative Valentine is. And he knows Clary is his sister, and she keeps talking about how he can be redeemed, and she needs to find him, and she has no one, and giving him this lifeline. I almost want to read the kiss as an outburst of misplaced non sexual want. Like, he just has no idea how to express affection, but also he wants to claim her in a completely not-okay way. But the cynical part of me thinks that free form probably just threw it in for no reason. "Clary was also in this episode" Clary is the only character saddled with dragging the book plot along with her, and it's an albatross around her neck. Knowing that, it was a huge mistake to also give her the exposition that was so clunky it was reading examples of how not to do it. Then give her magic plot advancing powers in the form of visions for no reason. Everyone of her scenes reads like it was written by someone who got this job because their uncle works there, but they showed up hungover, wrote it 10 minutes before the scripts were due, and is probably going to quit soon anyway. Seriously, whoever wrote the Clary parts of this episode should be fired. Rather than beat a dead horse with my usual complaints about Clary and her storyline, I'm just going to point out that all those complaints still apply, but now with extra annoyance because: 1. The motivation they gave her makes no sense. Luke was supposed to be her father, but they never talk since she you know, tasered him. Dot is supposed to be a big sister to her, Clary keeps leaving her to die. But also, the writers don't use her actual close relationships to build this want in anyway. Like, she fucked up a sibling relationship with Simon cause of the awkward nerd boning, and the distance in that relationship never comes up as a motivating factor as she searches for family. The three people she hangs out with most (theoretically) are siblings. The idea that maybe she's a little isolated from that dynamic doesn't come up. 2x17 was a well developed, nuanced episode that explored a lot of deep and complicated facets of the characters and elements of the world, and Clary was a redhead in it.

#Shadowhunters 2x17 #Shadowhunters meta #episode reaction

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seven-oomen · 4 years

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So today’s moments of random thoughts (and attempts at including links) are brought to you by the fact that today they replaced the back office computer at work that controls the store’s music, so it was uncomfortably silent for several hours, meaning that my brain suddenly had to provide the soundtrack again, and that’s always a total craps shoot. Will it be 48 hours straight of “Toss A Coin To Your Witcher”? Will it be some surreal all day medley of AC/DC, Rihanna, and the South Park version of “Pokerface”? Will it be a non-stop Disney sing-a-long? Who knows? Everyday is an adventure with an ADD brain jukebox.

One of today’s tracks of choice was “Little Red Riding Hood” by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, a favorite since long before I was old enough to understand the implications or subtext. And since you enjoyed the last terrible porn scenario so much, why not throw out another classic? Because there is NO WAY they haven’t done this one. Like. Just no way. Oh no, will the brave and daring young hunter woodsman manage to subdue the wily Alpha wolf, or will poor innocent Omega Riding Hood be devoured by the lustful lupine? (I think the only correct answer here is yes to both.) And because part of me wondered if such a thing even existed (I just had to know if I could bring in the plaid), I searched Google and found this (for a more casual approach) or this (for if they’re feeling fancy) for Noah, preferably paired with some tall black combat boots, perhaps (also, just saying, both would be a great option for a chase night). For “Grandma”, I was thinking something along these lines (theoretically demure, yet also highlighting the collar bones, especially if unbuttoned slightly and allowed to slide off one shoulder. Perhaps in the blue to bring out his eyes. XD ) because it comes across innocent in all the ways Peter would very much not be at that point. All Chris would really need is his tightest jeans, deepest v’d henley, and maybe a nice denim or suede trucker jacket. (Have I spent WAY too much time thinking about this? Probably, but in my defense it kept me from snapping at all the idiots out without masks who refused to properly distance. So.) And because why the hell, not, I haven’t confused my Google search enough yet, here’s a couple of options for Chris that are a little more classy, as far as such a thing can apply to an outfit like this. I mean if the other two are getting nice, quality outfits in that scenario, dammit he deserves the same.

Oh, and to briefly segue it back towards the more serious (and god, I really hope this comes out the way I mean it to, I am legit terrible at trying to word stuff like this), I would just like to say that frankly this version of how the physical/biological/however you want to phrase it aspects of the male/female vs alpha/omega spectrums play out makes so much more sense than a majority of the a/b/o I’ve seen. I may not read it often, but I’ve been in fandom too long (and in a few too many small ones) not to have read a fair amount. There have been a number of times where I just end up going “…his body has/did what now?…" Whereas with yours it’s just like "oh, cool, that makes total sense”. It’s natural, logical, and easy to understand, unlike my first few experiences back in the day when I kept having to Google the whole Omegaverse concept (a TERRIBLE idea, btw) to try and figure out how things worked. So, yeah, I, at least, am a fan of this variation/interpretation/whatever.

Anyway…having hopefully managed to avoid cramming my whole entire foot into my mouth, would you care for some more assorted headcanons? Maybe one day Stiles and Noah are in the attic working on sorting and organizing some things (Stiles is about 14 or 15 at this point), and after going through a couple boxes of Claudia’s sketchbooks, he finds one that contains a few mangled pairs of fishnets, a mesh shirt or two, maybe a pair of extremely short black cutoffs, some studded bracelets and collars, and he’s just like “man, Mom was a little more hardcore than I would have guessed." After a couple moments of pointed silence, Noah finally offers ”…that’s not your Mom’s stuff, Stiles" while very determinedly not looking his son’s direction. Cue a hysterical sequence of microexpressions of shock and horror contorting Stiles’ face, culminating in a brief full body flail and ending with him shaking his head with all the intense desperation of someone trying to clear an Etch-A-Sketch, before he just quietly goes back to sorting through the other boxes and they just never speak of it again. Alternately, I would accept this same scenario for Chris and Allison (thinking the box had belonged to Kate), because I feel she would have the next best reaction faces to Stiles (less grimacing, but more internal screaming), with basically the same end result. Or perhaps both had an incident like this, and they use it as some sort of bonding moment. They’re an odd family after all.

Don’t think I didn’t notice that the preview changed again. Just going straight for the feels this time, huh? God, poor Peter. I feel so bad that he’s missing out on all the cuddles (familial and romantic), but I’m sure they’ll all be more than willing to make it up to him later. Really hope he was doing that super speed thing on the way back to the hospital, or the Sheriff’s station might get some strange reports of a naked man running through neighborhoods.

On the subject of the kids and education, I would vote BioChem for Allison. It would be useful in learning about all the stuff hunters use, and figuring out ways to combat them, as well as potentially offering some overlap with Lydia’s degree.

I’d vote Criminal Law for Jackson. It would be both a nod to his adoptive dad in the show having been the D.A. and offer a connection to the traditions of the family he’s just now learning about. And I suspect that it’s entirely possible that if Stiles went after a Criminal Justice degree (or similar, I’m not entirely sure what it would be called), they’d likely have some overlapping classes, which would just piss Stiles all the hell off. So win-win, really.

I think Malia could do really well with either type of Engineering. I want to lean more towards Mechanical, particularly for the auto repair aspect, but part of me really wants Electrical for the Ant-Man connection (speaking of high Intelligence, low Wisdom…) I think she would hate it while she was getting the degree (WHY DID NO ONE WARN ME THERE’D BE SO MUCH MATH???!!!), she’d be so proud once she’d graduated. I feel like I could see Derek partnering with her on the shop (he’s working on a Master’s in Business. Anything Law just felt too close to what he’d lost, but he also couldn’t bear to stray too far. So, business. Eventually I think he’d join in with the artsy side of the family and go after a degree in Design, so he could help build up the shop that way, as well.)

Totally agree on the other two. I can also totally see Kira and Malia coaching some sort of intramural sport for kids one day. Soccer (football), Little League, Lacrosse, doesn’t matter which. They absolutely love it, and the kids love them (they totally get the smaller Pack kids involved, too). Eventually they talk Isaac into creating a team for some of his kids that are looking to socialize more (they make sure that the experience is 100% positive for any of them that play. They refuse to tolerate any bullying or poor sportsmanship of any kind.)

Hmm…not sure about the others, either, but I like the idea of Boyd ending up as a professor of Mythology and Folklore. He was the one that actually thought about whether he wanted the bite, and whether it would be worth it in the long run. He seemed the most interested in the reality of being a werewolf. I can see him learning as much as he can about the supernatural from Peter and Noah (and some of the other side of things from Chris), and utilizing that in getting his degree (and eventual Doctorate). And let’s face it, after dealing with the Pack’s shenanigans over the years, college kids aren’t intimidating in the slightest.

And before I forget, may I just say that “People buy it because it’s Tumblr, why wouldn’t two gay dads run a wolf rescue?” had me laughing so hard I started snorting. Moving on; I know you recently shared a post that featured shots from the episode where Stiles gets his dad drunk to distract him from reopening the Hale case (I have Opinions about that black shirt, and how disappointed I was that it Never Showed Up Again, so I notice when it pops up in Tumblrs I check, okay? Don’t judge me.), and some of the other blogs I try to keep up with have shared some pics of J.R. in glasses, and now I can’t help but wonder if that becomes like a Thing for Peter at some point. Like, once they start to get a little older (once Chris has grown out his beard again, and maybe Noah has retired [my uncle was a cop and retired in like his mid-forties, I think] and started letting his hair get just a bit shaggy again) and his husbands start occasionally wearing glasses for reading, or fine detail work, etc. (I would not judge him if it did, because, uh…, hard same. I blame too many years of anime.) Like, they slip them on and his brain just immediately starts going to more terrible porn scenarios. Stern librarian, called to the principal/headmaster’s office, courtroom shenanigans. Actually, if Peter is supposed to have been a lawyer they probably do that one anyway. The Prosecution and the Defense take turns attempting to sway the Judge/Jury Foreman in their favor. Who is who just depends on their mood at the time, and who feels willing to put on a suit (god help Peter if he gets both his mates in well cut suits and at their persuasive best. He can barely keep it together long enough to stay halfway in character. They are fully aware of their power, and file the information away for use in anniversary/graduation/other celebratory settings.) Wow…that kinda got away from me. Again.

Anyway, I tried to do the reader poll thing, hope my responses went through/made sense. Hope the assorted links I’ve attempted work, I’ve never tried adding them to something before. I probably still have the tabs open if I need to try again, unless my computer randomly decides to close them, which I have had it occasionally do. Glad that you are feeling somewhat better, and that it doesn’t appear to be anything serious (and possibly even somewhat positive, in the long run, at least? If it’s a sign of things trying to heal?) Sorry in advance if some of this makes assisting customers difficult tomorrow. XD I feel like it should just be implicit, like my brain just compels it’s own warning in general.

I think I’ve read through this at least ten times because it’s just so good. I don’t really have the energy to reply to everything, but I do want to leave you with some headcanons of my own.

Mainly Hogwarts houses:

Ravenclaw: Lydia, Melissa, Natalie, Julio, Stiles

Gryffindor: Noah, Derek, Kira, Allison, Boyd

Hufflepuff: Scott, Chris, Jordan, Ben, Isaac

Slytherin: Malia, Jackson, Peter, Danny, Erica

Ben’s super cute playfulness as a wolf pup

Peter definitely wears a pair of wolf ears during sex, although he’s a little sad that he can’t mark up Chris and Noah as he used to. He liked to bite hard and draw blood, but with him as an Alpha, that’s just not an option anymore. Although there are plenty of other ways he can mark them up and he enjoys finding new ways. Even if they’re not as visual and permanent.

Peter also makes time for each of his kids and enjoys being a father. He revels in the role and loves reading bedtime stories to his younger kids, PTA meetings (he rises to the top of the rank really quickly, starts a turf war with a Karen but gets backed up by Mack’s mom. So it’s all cool.) And With his older kids he finds new ways to guide them through life as young adults. He’s there for every homework assignment, every break-up, every report card, and all the little moments he’s had to miss out on.

Also when Noah is pregnant, he’s closely monitored by Melissa and his licensed midwife. (He’s given birth to Malia and Stiles at home, he’s planning to do it again. Chris too, only has had homebirths, although Ben had to be rushed to the hospital because the doofus swallowed amniotic fluid during birth and turned blue after ten minutes. (Which is based on a true story, my brother had that complication after homebirth. Homebirths are very common in my country which is why I put them in my fics.)) And Peter and Chris go into protective overdrive. He keeps working for as long as he can but at four months pregnant with twins, he has to take a step back and only work desk duty until he’s 7.5 months along. He takes some time off after that and gets time to recuperate and rest.

Chris for his last pregnancy also chooses to have a homebirth, Julio comes to work for him to do his arms deals and meetups while Chris takes a step back and works from his office until the day he goes into labor. And even then he’s still trying to get this deal done while breathing through contractions.

Also, imagine Peter getting to experience both of his mates being pregnant again. I like to imagine the smile on his face when he hears the heartbeats for the first time, how he just knows when his mates are pregnant, he recognizes the scent change now. He knows Chris is pregnant before Chris does. With Noah it’s a bit more of a tie since Noah can pick up the twins’ energy signatures and heartbeat at 4-5 weeks. Which is when the scent change happens.

I imagine the three of them curled up together after the youngest has been born, all tuckered out and completely passed out. The new baby curled up in the cosleeper next to the bed. Malia sneaks in without waking her dad and starts snapping pictures for the family album. And at one point during the night, Ben and the youngest twins end up sleeping in their parents’ bed as well. It becomes a routine until Ben is ten and generally likes to sleep alone. (Unless he’s upset, then he comes running.)

Also, the mere image of Chris wearing glasses and Noah wearing his police sunglasses (or regular glasses), like yes, sign me up. Also, Peter shows solidarity and starts wearing glasses later in life too. Which doesn’t only do wonders for their sex life (though that was never bad, to begin with) but also every single parent at Ben’s high school and the twins’ elementary school suddenly have the hots for the three extremely hot dilfs.

It also helps with getting justice for Ben when his son is being bullied at school and Chris has to convince Peter not to kill anyone, Noah shows off the sheriff’s badge and starts suggesting a few things, and Chris likes to remind people that his son (Jackson) is now the youngest DA in the country and works from Beacon Hills and his other son (Stiles) is now an FBI agent who certainly wouldn’t mind digging into the past of whoever is bullying his little brother. (Not that he ever has to get that far, usually he smiles warmly and charms the principal or the teacher with his trademark smile and within a day Ben’s bullies are disciplined by the school.)

I have no idea where I’m going anymore as I’m pretty tired at this point. But these were stuck in my head and I had to share.

(Once again, I adore every single headcanon you’ve send me. <3)

#ben says stuff #once upon a time comments #submission

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