#crafting complaints

[halfspunthreads-crafts]

I was gifted some yarn by a well-meaning friend recently. It's very pretty to look at, and has a nice almost metallic finish. But holy crap do I hate working with it.

Unlike a lot of folks I do not hate acrylic fibers. I actually prefer acrylic for some projects because it doesn't stretch and can hold up to some abuse. I don't know what they did to the acrylic to make it simultaneously sticky and sweaty, but this draft stopper better be fucking BEAUTIFUL.

[sevenines]

i saw this tweet and found it interesting for two reasons. one is that some people base how good cartoon network would be to toh by how it treated su, and despite the fact that su’s treatment by the network was considered poor at the time, now its thought to be exceptionally good in comparison to modern shows.

two is how exactly su got impacted by a limited budget. a common criticism is how characters like connie, peridot, and lapis are left out of missions. but balancing a lot of characters is not only hard but also costly (extra animation, extra voices—it’s been revealed that the show is limited to a set number of characters per episode otherwise they’re over budget). animation mistakes are not uncommon since retakes cost extra. the entire reason the original show got cut short was due to loss of funding!

[joshuaalbert]

every time I see someone pitch a picard spinoff about [insert character here] I just get so tired like. I know I’m years late to pick this battle but I genuinely just don’t think single character focused shows are the right choice for star trek given that at its core it’s about a group of people working together for a better future. obviously the main character would still have a crew, and obviously the captains have always been closer to main characters than the rest of the crew to a degree, but naming the show after one person means that everything that happens on that show ultimately happens in service of the titular character, and that very individualistic mindset feels wrong for trek imo.

[a-really-bad-decision]

The fallout show isn’t NOT anticapitalist, but it’s anticapitalist in that way that a lot of recent media goes for, where it makes vague gestures towards ideas like ‘There Is Wealth Inequality, Perhaps’, or ‘maybe a few dozen people having more money than god Isn’t A Good Thing, Actually’. But ultimately it kinda just tiptoes around commenting on anything systemic by offloading the blame onto its shadowy cabal of the ultra-rich, and turning the wastelander underclass into a constant running joke that the audience is expected to laugh along at. Which like. Fine. That’s honestly more than I was expecting I guess. But bad-appling fallout feels like missing the point extra hard, given how much it absolves the US of its role in everything, up to and including literal nuclear armageddon

[betasuppe]

My current idea for a project is making beanie heads of Tron, Rinzler & my evil Tronzler... so I started with the guy himself! & he is the most squishable thing ever!!!!

I don't care if he's a mess, but I lofe him♡♡♡

[solastalgiart]

makes my blood boil honestly if i pause to think about how skz is collabing with that zionist mediocre pos before ever i got my skz x dpr ian WHICH I HAVE BEEN SCREAMING ABOUT FOR YEARS

[saetoru]

every time people ask what everyone’s writing icks are this is me:

[gwenthebard]

I hate modern craft culture with a burning passion, it's so cheap and so temporary. There's no desire to make holiday crafts or home crafts that will last for years and be passed down to people who love them, they're all designed to be cheap to make, easy to do, and completely disposable

Literally every time I've seen people do fun home crafts it's been the tackiest looking paint jobs over cheap halloween supplies, and usually not at all treated to make them long lasting

It's all "get three fake pumpkins from the dollar tree, hot glue them on top of each other, and paint them white for some reason with no primer or cleaning or sealing", it's all "put cheap cardboard and wood decorations together and paint them to form a tacky decoration that will last one season before falling apart. There's so many projects that are just "print out stickers and put them on wood boards, and do nothing to stain the wood or seal the stickers on"

I'm aware not every craft needs to last, and a lot of these are meant to be temporary, but it's so disheartening. Things go from "there are crafts and decorations that last decades and might even be passed down to people to love them," to "it's not meant to last forever, and if you want one of your own you can make one that'll last a couple years at best pretty cheap"

[starthistletea]

Fae farm is quickly becoming a game I will actively unreccomend. It has so many goddamn problems and the fact you can't even name your character is only one of them. It doesn't respect my time as a player and the resource grind is awful. The fact they call themselves a "love letter to the cozy genre" is awful bold for a game that you don't even have to care for your animals or even give the villagers birthday gifts! The farming is bad!! The endless crafting menus are bad! The fact money is obnoxious to get is bad!! Artisan products aren't worth more than the composte parts!! The fact it charges over $50 is atrocious with how unfinished it is. For a cozy game to lock all the color pallets and demand I use their bad flower breeding system to get specific combos to unlock them is tedious and not relaxing. I could keep going for like 3 pages. Ahhhhh

[ferronickel]

Resisting the urge to post hot takes about webcomics craft

[sparky-is-spiders]

If I may be weird and petty for a moment, I don't get AUs where Martin is the Archivist when Melanie and Sasha are right there?? I mean I get why: roleswaps are popular AUs and martin is a popular character. And maybe its just my specific headcanons re: archivist requirements but I feel like the other two would be so much better?

Yes, Martin reads statements and yes, he gets marked, but I really don't think those are the Only Requirements to do the big ritual? Cause at that point Elias could've chosen any web-marked dude off the street, especially if they have the mark of another entity as well already.

Melanie and Sasha shared several important traits with Jon, most notably a burning curiosity, a willingness to put themselves in trouble for information, and (in Melanie's case (and Sasha's too, arguably) an ability to antagonize extremely dangerous fear avatars. Sasha's whole statement is her putting herself in a dangerous situation without telling anyone or acquiring any help (remind you of any main characters?) and running face first into supernatural dangers (sometimes to protect her friends, sometimes out of curiosity). Useful for collecting marks, but also useful for collecting information and developing her own powers as the Archivist. Considering her seemingly unrepentant willingness to look through her friends' and coworkers' personal files via accessing their accounts, I'd argue that her curiosity and boundary crossing could easily get stronger when investigating supernatural entities. Obviously, this never happened because of how early on she died, but I think you could make a strong case for Sasha's strong curiosity making some avatars incredibly mad. Not to mention how incredibly Beholding it is of her. None of this is criticism btw, I think Sasha should have access to whatever personal info she wants and I love it when characters are so obviously Eye-aligned. I know "Sasha wasn't promoted because she'd solve all the problems and find a way to kill Jonah" is also a popular headcanon but please think for a MOMENT about her appearances in podcast. There weren't many, but there's a very obvious through-line in almost all of them. She's curious, she takes risks in the face of the supernatural, she wants to Know. It's literally what caused the circumstances of her statement. Those traits are arguably the ones that got her KILLED. I'm sorry this went off on a tangent. I just love Sasha very much and I'm constantly filled with Thoughts of Sasha.

Melanie also has curiosity about the supernatural AND a much more obviously antagonistic personality!! Her first appearance is being a total asshole to Jon, mocking him, the place he works at, the equipment they use, and what they do. But she also dedicated basically her entire career into uncovering the supernatural? She ran a Youtube channel about it, and when she discovered that everyone was sticking to the same "safe" sites, she started looking off the beaten path for the real stuff. And she found it! She went looking for ghosts of war and violence and even without access to statements, probably working alone and sifting through bunk on the internet, she found them! She got stabbed by a ghost and instead of trying to avoid ghosts in the future, she decided to look for more violent ghosts. The slaughter tendencies might be a drawback for her becoming the Archivist, yes, but by that point Jon had already survived multiple marks and was developing his powers. If he failed by that point, Elias might've wanted an Archivist who'd be better able to defend themselves. By S4 Melanie was probably far enough gone to the Slaughter (and hated the Eye enough) that she was probably off the table as a candidate. By that point, however, Jon was expected to fully Become and only needed a few more marks.

I understand that Sasha was approved for a transfer to the Archives because Elias let Jon choose who take with him and Jon chose Sasha. And Melanie was almost certainly chosen to keep Jon in close proximity of a Slaughter-aligned person who'd be likely to mark him but unlikely to kill him. But I think that they served a secondary purpose of being backup Archivists in case something happened to Jon.

Obviously this is more headcanon than theory (not to mention it relies on other headcanons to fully stand) but I'm very fond of it. I guess I think that, even if Elias wasn't really looking for another Archivist when Jon seems like the perfect candidate in every way (and I'm not saying this JUST because I love him), I think that if something did happen to Jon, they'd be Elias' next candidates.

[halfspunthreads-crafts]

Usually this turns out looking super stretched when I work with circular needles instead of DPN. Good job, me!

[thistoowillpasss]

Been thinking about the Dragonbarrow Rune Bear. And collectively, the presence of Limgrave enemies in endgame areas.

The DB bear, I think, is supposed to be a callback to one of the earliest tutorials the game grants--stealth. The game wants you to recall your earliest lessons in a place far and away from Limgrave, as a way to recognize your growth. Which is amusing, since there seems to be two schools of thought towards this bear, either leaning to intended stealth or "I'm going to blackflame/rot/poison the absolute shit out of this bear. how dare you have one billion HP."

Reusing assets and enemies is cost effective. Every studio does it in one way or another. But Elden Ring tends to get more flack for this, it's the typical argument in "ER is bad because ____" posts. A map with space for 500 unique monsters, housing around 220, repeating them towards the end. Tedium sets in. I have personal disdain for Castle Sol because of this tedium.

But when I observe Castle Sol in hindsight, I wonder if the intent was to grant the player a moment of growth. Like here's this castle, with exiles and banished knights and ballista traps and dogs and lions and birds, with Commander Neil's doppelganger--all things that by normal progression should be dealt with, and the player groans thinking "they ran out of money for this one." But maybe the point was to let the player have that moment

"I am at the edge of all things, hardened by trial, and what was once a cause of fear is no longer my adversary."

It's a shame that I didn't feel that going through it. Didn't let that sink in as I pushed through, I just felt irritated to be shot by ballistas again. I'm not excusing how often ER has the feeling of "oh it's that guy again" but idk, sometimes I wonder if they wanted me to get more out of those moments than I did.

[countingnothings]

me: governance and operations are separate for some important reasons, like x and y. this is not just the case at our institution, but at any institution that has a board of governors.

students who are trying to get me to intervene in operations: it's very strange that you would say governance and operations are separate! we don't like this, and therefore you must be wrong about it.

both of these students are in the process of phds, which i think is proof that you don't need to have reading comprehension to get an advanced degree in the humanities.

[ectogeranium]

I finally got Frankie !!!

[hakunonon]

@bitterrosebrokenspear​ honestly i have mixed feelings on the whole matter.

to an extent, i think that female protagonists like gudako and hakunon actually benefit from existing in a role that was clearly written with a male character in mind. it gives them charming characterisation that almost certainly wouldn’t exist if they were written “as a girl” from the start (guda’s love of mecha, their slight but distinct weirdness in general and their irresistibility to women)

it’s just now and then you get moments like these where you’re unavoidably reminded that this experience just wasn’t quite meant for you.