this is a completely normal and nonchalant post about the camera angles used for alhaitham in the archon quest and his story quest
when we’re introduced to alhaitham the camera angles avoid allowing us a view of his eyes, which creates a mystery around alhaitham, his motives, and in turn causing us to question the validity of his words - is he a trustworthy ally or not?
Since this is a tactic used to reinforce the idea that alhaitham’s sincerity should potentially be questioned, i think it’s Interesting that this can be seen in the closing of the archon quest - after kaveh is introduced
the camera angle yet again reverts to concealing alhaitham’s eyes, which then acts as obscuring the truth of the matter - as well as alhaitham’s vagueness, which is an evasion tactic he uses often, and is even addressed in his character story 2. “It’s reason enough” is indicative that his stated motive - although actually, it is a presumed motive supplied by dehya - is enough of a motive to satiate everyone’s curiosity
the idea here is that there is an alternate reason he undertook the archon saving plan, rather than just to secure the job of the akademiya’s scribe. this points to another reason which couples into his “way of life” - so it’s telling that this is the same quest in which kaveh is introduced and is seen only in his interaction with alhaitham, in which alhaitham reveals that kaveh is his roommate
kaveh becomes inextricably linked with alhaitham’s “way of life”, and thus alhaitham’s contentment. This subtext created by the camera angle becomes surface text when interacting with alhaitham after the cutscene
Alhaitham attributes his enjoyment of the gathering to the genuine happiness that “the people” present in the grand bazaar feel - in this alhaitham indirectly links himself to “the people” feeling genuine happiness, as he, too, is present with the intention of celebrating
This discussion of happiness and overall contentment - first mentioned in alhaitham’s motive for maintaining his satisfactory “way of life” - is then immediately is followed by a mention of kaveh
Alhaitham mentions that he has taken “both” keys upon leaving the house, which references their living situation as roommates, but also refers back to alhaitham’s first mention of kaveh due to kaveh being missing from the archon quest, and therefore alhaitham had the house to himself
Kaveh returning to sumeru, back to alhaitham’s house, and therefore his key being present to take, is a premise explicitly linked with alhaitham’s happiness, and his general way of life - kaveh being present in alhaitham’s life IS the status quo which alhaitham wants to maintain, is the alternate reason behind “it’s reason enough”
Returning to camera angles, this is a little self-indulgent, but in alhaitham’s story quest, the deliberate choice to include kaveh in the frame when alhaitham mentions the importance of one keeping their priorities in check is interesting, not only in visual confirmation that, yes, kaveh IS one of alhaitham’s priorities, but also that it directly parallels the aforementioned scene in the archon quest with the frame “it’s reason enough”
In contrast to the “it’s reason enough” frame, alhaitham is outright expressing his multitude of priorities, which extends to beyond that of his job - with kaveh being explicitly in frame
This story quest scene ‘pride and prejudice’ literally mirrors the archon quest ‘a toast to victory’ in this regard, as in the latter, the camera angle focusses on the opposite side of alhaitham’s face, ensuring his eyes are covered as he makes allusions to more than one prospective motive, but in the former scene, the other side of alhaitham’s face is shown where his eyes are revealed and his words are less cryptic - solely because kaveh is in frame and can directly be linked to one of alhaitham’s motives, or priorities
Overall, kaveh is extremely important to alhaitham and the game tries every angle (literally) to convey this point. Alhaitham wants kaveh in his life, so much so that kaveh’s presence has become engrained with his “way of life” he seeks to maintain
(Update: For more analyses like this, the essay this is taken from is now uploaded! It can be accessed here and here as as a pdf <3)
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I did a little bit of background practice yesterday. I usually forget that I could be drawing scenery and stuff so I’m kinda rough at it. It took like three tries to get the results of that first picture (second picture was one of those tries, and I’m not even showing the other one it was really bad 💀💀💀)
Also just throwing in some other doodles cause yeah :3. Simon. Some of these are from the same page and some of these are ones I think I forgot to post a bit ago so if there’s repeats then eh whatever lol. Explanations under a cut :)
This is pretty much just a study of a photo of a graveyard I ran into on Pinterest. Liminal spaces are very nice for finding background references because you can be sure no one is gonna be in them and they have the weird vibe that The Guy™️ should be in. But holy HELL trees are HARD. Like obviously I know what a tree looks like but the second I have to draw branches trees suddenly do not make sense anymore 💀
Another liminal space, this one was a path with the sky completely blacked out. I tried putting Simon into it but he kinda ended up a little muddled and too small augh. I’m also not very great at combining people and backgrounds so uh yeah. This one was also a much faster doodle just trying to warm up for the first one. But eh it’s cool idk. I need to put him in more liminal spaces or like try to draw the Simon’s Quest areas in 3D eventually.
Small practice comic! There’s no words, Simon just kinda walks a bit and passes out. I was gonna have more things happen but I didn’t have the room for it and decided to just leave it as a little practical piece. He’s probably gonna get up in a little bit and freak out about how much time he wasted.
Just a Simon head :3. His hair is fun to draw! I usually end up simplifying things as like a little uh polygonal… I think that’s the word… When drawing skulls, I usually go for octagons instead of circles because that’s much easier, but that ends up bleeding into how I draw hair making it kinda spikey and pointy in some spots on the top. I feel like I draw pretty inconsistently, but he’s very pretty and fun to draw regardless of how he ends up :3
This is some weird ass fan art of two things that aren’t related at all lmao. Sometimes you gotta crossover things that don’t make sense for the fun of it. This is Simon drawn based on a scene from the Fear Garden music video! Fear Garden is a banger, shout out to Chaa fr, it’s a vocaloid song about a girl who has a weird obsession with hands (Kira joke lol) and kills people to plant their hands in her secret garden where she treats them like flowers. Yeah, again it makes no sense, but the pose with the two mirrored characters was really cool and idk the vibes were there—
Simon sitting in between two graves, both say “BELMONT” in big letters, but one is for Christopher and Cyncia and the other is for Soleil and whoever his significant other was, we don’t have a name so it’s cut off. This has me thinking about the time in between all these characters hmm. Doing the math, Soliel would’ve been in his 90s when Simon was born, so there’s actually a good chance he wasn’t Simon’s grandfather, rather his great grandfather :O. Which means that there’s two generations we know nothing about between these two. And also that Simon would’ve never met either Soleil or Christopher or Cyncia :(. Then that has me thinking about fan comic stuff and how I’m gonna depict Simon hmmmmmmm. I imagine Simon spent a lot of time in the family graveyard tbh.
Simon is totally me when I dramatically collapse on a large marble monument of some sort in the graveyard— There’s also a couple attempts at drawing his paldrons at different angles but aaaa I can’t visualize these things properly. They’re just like kinda flared half ovals, why are they so hard to draw at any angle but like head on and top view 💀💀💀??? I’m trying to get out of the habit of drawing them bent in angles that don’t make sense but argggggg it’s hard lol.
Yeah, recent doodles tho yippie d(^^ )!
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The biggest recommendation I can give on writing dialogue that sounds in character for the character to say is, not to read the quests they are in, but to listen to the English dub whenever you get the chance. This may seem difficult especially if you are used to playing it in another language, but listening is key to getting the vibe of a character down. What you pay attention to is, not what they say, but the cadence in which they say it. Pay attention to the emotion in their voice, the speed at which they say things, the volume, etc. Once you get this down, it becomes easier to get an idea of what “sounds” right and what doesn’t. Cadence is an especially powerful thing. By training your ears to a character’s cadence, you can get a better idea of which words they would prefer to use, the lengths of their sentences, and things of the sort.
For example, reader asks Zhongli to dinner and he accepts. How would he respond? “Hmm, I’m not busy this evening, so I accept. Thank you for the invitation.” But that doesn’t sound right, does it? Is Zhongli the type of person that uses many contractions? I don’t think so, so let’s fix it. “Hmm, I am not busy this evening, so I accept. Thank you for the invitation.” But would he say “I accept?” Perhaps, but it still doesn’t sound right. How has he accepted proposals in the past? A bit of research shows he has said “sure.” How can I mix that in? “Hmm, I’m not busy this evening, so sure. Thank you for the invitation.” But hmm… the second sentence doesn’t sound right. What else could he say instead? “Hmm, I’m not busy this evening, so sure. It would be my pleasure.” That sounds a lot better.
Some people may ask why you can’t do these things while listening to another language. Personally, I don’t believe you can. If you are not fluent in those other languages, your ears are not properly trained enough to understand the nuance of the ways they speak. The correct emotion and tone will come through, yes, but you still won’t be able to intuitively know what sounds right and what does not. You only will get this sense by listening to it in the language you choose to write in.
The only downside to this is that your writing will become based upon the English translation of the game. As many people know, the portrayal of characters in English often does not completely match the portrayals in Chinese. This is especially so for characters like Zhongli, Xiao, and Kaeya. A lot is lost in the translation and dubbing process. Characters do not vibe the same. Thus, your portrayals will be more true to English, but not how it technically is “supposed” to be. Personally, I don’t necessarily believe this is a bad thing. However, it is something that can bother people. The only way I can imagine getting around it is by playing the game with the Chinese dub and by following accounts that speak Chinese and can give insight on the literal translations and what they mean and imply.
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