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manonamora-if · 1 year

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The Roads I Maybe Should Have Taken

The TRNT Post Mortem

Oye oye! As was promised, so it is! The Post Mortem for The Roads Not Taken (which hopefully won't be as long as the actual game...)

Follow me into my journey of once again speed-running my way through a competition, and coming out scratched and bruised and still not learning my lessons!

First, some links:

if you haven't played the game yet, I recommend you do before reading this!

you can find its IFDB page here (if you want to leave a review?)

and the STF version source code here for the code curious!

shortened version of the PostMortem on IntFic

Then, a little Table of Content:

The Idea

The Story

The Implementation

The Reception

The Do-Over?

And finally, we start! (under the break because it will be long - LoL at me writing 1/5th of TRNT as a Post Mortem)

I should preface this Post Mortem with I entered the SpringThing on a whim. I had just come out of a conga line of competitions and game jams since last Summer (log of release/update), and had plans on finishing working on other projects instead of this one (which I probably should have... sorry The Rye in the Dark City for abandoning you...). But I obviously didn't do that because here was another new fresh game! And then another two of those just after... whooops...

The idea for TRNT just popped into my brain one day and would not leave me until I implemented it, no matter what (yes, I am still weak willed, I have not learned my lesson from The Thick Table Tavern, the one about not rushing a project and publishing it at a later date when it is truly ready). I did have that thought in the back of my mind that if I do do this, it would be very likely I would end up with a repeat of TTTT, as in: half-full drink with too much ice, and expired garnish falling from the very pretty fancy glass.

Also I did not start working on the entry until the SeedComp was in its voting round (so around the 4-5th of March?). I really wasn't kidding about the speed-running thing....

Another thing: I had never created a parser game before this point AND suck real time at playing them! This was also indicated in my Author's comment.

Nothing obviously stopped me anyway, because here we are...

1- The Idea

A few weeks before the opening of the SpringThing intent, the French IF community was streaming some older parser entries, including Aisle* and Pick-Up the Phone Booth and Die, two games where the player can only do one action before the game ends. I'd never really experienced this kind of game before (the closest being having a sudden death/continue the story choice). It packed a punch, it was funny, and also so very weird. It left me dissatisfied and super intrigued. I wanted to try and do that too someday. *Funnily, someone on the French IF discord thought DOL-OS had been inspired by Sam Barlow's work (it wasn't, but TRNT def was).

Not, I am not going to be hella pretentious and full of myself by putting TRNT on the same level as those games (because I don't think I did a good enough job to merit a comparison), but the one-action-only gameplay and multiple endings drew me in (I love abrupt endings, cf P-Rix). I've mainly written longer form of IF rather than short bites, and I thought it would be fun to try to constrict myself as much as possible, by having just one thing, one action, one outcome.

And also: parsers. I had only dabbled with the Choice-Based/Hyperlink format, so I thought it was time to try the last unexplored part of my IF journey: parsers. Since the SpringThing Festival is a nice place to experiment, I thought why not try to make one then! I could not have survived the anxiety of the IFComp reviews for that one...

Still, it was not going to be without a challenge. I had very little experience with parsers, and I honestly didn't think I could learn how to use a parser program in such short amount of time*, when I had a lot of other stuff at the same time. So I thought, why not make it in Twine**, at least I know this program inside-and-out(almost). There would not be a steep learning curve there... What could go wrong? *lol at me, having made an Adventuron game in a non supported language in about 2 weeks after that, without ever having tried the program beforehand. I could totes have managed!! **Also, when I got set with Twine, I realised how fun it would be to maybe put people's expectations upside down by doing something you're not supposed to with Twine... or parsers!

Well, it was going right at first...

2- The Story

I really wanted to recreate the same gameplay of Aisle with its only-one-action-and-it's-over, so I started listing possible actions and put them into a context where this choice of action would mean everything for the PC - because it is the only action you have. Which might not have been a good take? Aisle works because the setting is incredible mundane, and there are no stakes.

The context pretty quickly drew itself as the player will chose a profession/career path, and if they do/choose something wrong, then...😬too bad for them, they made their choice, deal with the consequences. While, in reality, we are not stuck in a life because of one choice, but with a myriad of them (and still we can change this trajectory), it's still a big pressure you get as a youth, having to choose where to go and what to do when you are done with highschool, and what path to take. It's a lot of responsibility that sometimes feels like it will affect/haunt the rest of your life. Do I still have some of that school/parental pressure from when I had to make that choice ingrained somewhere inside? probably...

But the more foolish idea was to let my brain continue to think more about that context and create a world and story further than the choice. Instead of going forward with the consequences and the hints of what could have happened or just let the choice being the centre piece, the brain just went backwards and created a society (some sort of futuristic one) and vaguely described beings (that are not humans), and the ritualistic culture of this society, etc... While it was fun to think about all of those, and maybe provided a fun setting and enticing story for the player to go through the game, there might have been a bit too much of it. I think, in hindsight, this may have devalued the choice itself (which became even more watered down when I continued on writing the first screens).

And so, the job choice soon became the player is going through some sort of ritual (v trope-y) to determine their place in society. If it has a vibe of The Giver, it shouldn't be too surprising, the book is on my shelf.

So we still have the one-choice-to-rule-them-all, but now there is a also backstory and setting... and I have to include it somewhoeeven if it means cramming it somewhere, anywhere.

Oh wait, I thought, I'll just make it like a prologue to build anticipation for the choice!

And so the brain went on zooming again to create the waiting room, and the agonising walk in the corridor, and the finding your way to the altar, before you cant finally make your choice..... only to end up with two(-ish) paragraphs for each endings. wow - what a good balanced game this is becoming...

Speaking of endings, I had originally listed over 50 actions, each planned to have a different ending.... only to end up with about 11, 7 of those were actually related to the final countdown choice. It made me sadder than when I cut onions :(

It wasn't just the player that needed to make...

At this point, we were two weeks away from the deadline. I had the backbone of the code (-ish), a good third of the writing wasn't complete (and this was mainly those 11 endings), and no one had tested the game yet. There was no way I could have included all 50 original options if I wanted to make the deadline. might have been good in hindsight to remove those choices, especially with the current command system.

So choices had to be made and a buttload of planned things had to be cut. I narrowly managed to finish the needed endings in time (which required re-writing some of those into a fake choice), at least.

At the end, I strayed quite a bit from the Aisle concept of a mini intro - one action - an ending puzzle-y feel (and making the player piece the story together from the endings), to arrive at... well... this anxiously geolian walk to one's doom (or dream). Making the story quite... well... linear.

And from going somewhat wrong, it went a little wrong-er...

3- The Implementation

Wanting to avoid the headache of learning a new program, I had settled on Twine pretty much from the start (SugarCube, because that's how I've been rolling for the past almost 2 years!).

The big problématiques of this project were:

Twine is not a parser program (duh)

SugarCube has its limitations still (and macros that don't always work the way you want to)

I had never written a parser game before and suck at playing them (thank you, French IF streams that helps me enjoy them without experiencing the frustration of not finding the right combo!)

I still suck at JavaScript/jQuery to do weird things with the page (and probably fix all those issues)

and well did I already say Twine is not a parser program?

So I tried to get to the basic of parsers (an input box and text revealing itself onto the page when a command is entered) and prayed for the best. Easy, right?

WRONG!

SugarCube has an input box, but can only autofocus* inside one specific place (so you can't lock it somewhere else but the passage itself, which means you need to add it to every screen...) and when the passage is first loaded (doesn't work if the input box is added later on). *I have also hurt some kitten by overusing autofocus, which was only compensated by offering the the SugarCube God some bug reports about it so those issues could be fixed for the next update (TBA). But you really are not supposed to use autofocus as much as I did... 😬

SugarCube has an input box, but you can only move to another passage after you press Enter. So you can't have some fancy input checks, and you stay on the same page... without some custom listener macro* that is (Bless you Maliface and your Listen Macro) - or I guess some JavaScript code, but who has time for that... I had included a button as an alternative to confirm the commands (which was how I had coded it for DOL-OS), but it would have made the parser experience much worse if using Enter would not have loaded a response (this was a criticism from DOL-OS, which now that I know how to fix, I really should do so...). *at least until the next Sugarcube update which will include a listener.

SugarCube has an input box, but doesn't have a bank of commands, or set object indicator (like with the parsers). While you can technically separate the inputed words with some JavaScript**, whether you do so or not will end with the same amount of spaghetti code at the end, with the different conditional statements for each actions on each screen to show the correct text bits (mine amounted to almost 600 lines of code for 7 screens... without included the printed text! -> see the source code). Now that I've messed around with Adventuron, I can see how easy it is to make a parser game (set up commands and rooms and interactive object), when you have a bank of built-in commands and not have to worry about how to add the new text on the screen. Twine really added a new layer of complexity to this.... Was there a better way of doing this? probably, but don't look at me to find it. *this was how the name chosenname command came to be, and how it only printed the chosen name on the following screens. That and the autofocus being messy...

SugarCube can add text bits to a page, but unlike parser programs, it won't automatically scroll down to the bottom of the page, or at least to the added element. Adding a scroll down to the bottom or scroll up to the page was not too hard (I had some leftover js code), but it was not the solution: the UI is mobile/tablet accessible (smaller screens), which means scrolling to the bottom would make those players having to manually scroll back up (and I am usually quite verbose in my writing). So very much EH.... NOT GREAT! After quite a lot of testing, broken pieces of code, way too much swearing, and re-doing the base of the UI, I did manage to find a solution.... a month into the review/voting period.

But even with those limitations, I pushed through. I knew it was possible to make it work, so I either tried to find work arounds (and gave up the scrolling, at least until the deadline), and pushed through, banging my head against my desk because of what was achievable...

LIKE BUILDING A WHOLE COMMANDS SYSTEM...

Wanting to make things easy for myself (and the players), I thought maybe removing all verbs would make it easier to go through the game, even when having to interact with objects or people around. Enter the bolded word* from the text as the input, press enter, and read the new text! *It was important for me to have some sort of "easy" mode where the interactive things were obvious to the player, coming from a scene where parsers are not the norm/favoured.

Simple right?

This idea... stopped working as soon as I introduced physical actions (sit, stand, jump, etc...), directional actions (the story might be linear but it still has multiple rooms), but most importantly as soon as I wrote flavour texts for one same object. Even if I could get away with removing X/LOOK/EXAMINE*, adding verbs at the end was a necessity (I didn't want to see all the already written variation go to waste...). *I did include look in the code, but mistakenly didn't think about its synonym <- shows the no-knowledge of parser, and not having a bank of commands built-in.

So verbs were added, and then some of its synonyms (but evidently not the most important ones 😬), and then some prepositions just in case, and noun synonyms with adjectives because of how it is described in the text, and then.... so on and so forth. And because of how SugarCube is set, I ended up with lines like this at the end:

<<if ["initiate", "look initiate", "look at initiate", "remember initiate", "initiates", "look initiates", "look at initiates", "remember initiates", "recall initiate", "recall initiates"].contains(_cmd)>>

(and this is not even a correct or complete command list, since it is missing EXAMINE and X)

Et rebelotte for all the interactive words on the page, as well as the added variations requiring another set other verbs. There's not really a verb/noun aliases list to help...

BUT WAIT

Because I always like to make it difficult for myself and not think of the amount of work my ideas/plan will require, I had to make some bits of text appear only once (even if some commands could be used more than once on that page) OR removing the player's ability to make a different action when they do a specific one AND have some bits of text only appear after a command has been used on that page. Pushing the player through extra invisible gates on top of the different rooms. I could have made it easier on myself to break scenes further than I had already done, but nooooooo

And I did this not just once. BUT THREE TIME! When the player is called to get in line, in the corridor, and just before the big doors.

I could have fed myself for a whole week with the spaghetti that came out of my code.

But Manon, I can hear the little devil on my shoulder say, Why all the whining and excuses? You could have stopped if it turned out to be a bad idea, especially if you couldn't implement it properly. Why not have made the story in something else than a parser?

Well...

because Time (wa)s running out and I wasn't going to let all this hard work go to waste by changing everything up at the last minute (it could have worked/been easier, that's true)

because it was still a fun puzzle to solve, even if frustrating most of the time,

because you learn more when you fail than when you win

I'm not a quitter :P (hiding my too many WIPs waiting for me....)

Even if I doubted myself with finishing the game on time, I still pushed myself to cross the finish line, since I knew I would not have finished the project otherwise. Thought it could have been fun to get the 12 angry men passing judgement on my Twine monstrosity making a mockery of parsers had I submitted it to the very serious ParserComp instead. /jk lovingly

So after some "extensive" testing (rushed in the last week, because I am a nightmare to people, sorry @groggydog and @lapinlunairegames for making you go through this, but also thank you for your help!!), I made it to the end!

Well... barely. Ended up with a few bug fixes update along the way.

4- The Reception

(it was like that in my heart)

Like TTTT, this was not explosion of praise and accolades. And I fully expected it. You can't make experiments omelettes without cracking a few programs/rules eggs. At least my omelette didn't have too many eggshells :P

Looking at the numbers, at the time of writing this posts, TRNT is currently sitting at 5 stars (4 ratings) on itch, and 3-1/2 stars on IFDB (2 ratings)*, with 4 reviews on the Forum (bellow the median/average this festival). None of the ratings game with reviews/comments. *When some of the reviews will be moved to the IFDB, I do expect this average to get lower. The itch one is nice (really happy 4 peeps loved it!), but most people only rate when they didn't like it or when they loved it.

As for the feedbacks gotten, they came from a few sources: the people who playtested TRNT, dms on Tumblr and the Forum, the Twine server, and the awaited reviews on the Forum.

Overall, the people who liked the game really enjoyed themselves, from the writing and the worldbuilding being intriguing, or how pretty the UI was. Even with the issues raised during the festival, quite a lot of people (who sent me comments) thought the experiment was either a success, something really cool, or impressive considering the limitations (of the festival and/or of the program). Even in the more critical comments, this experiment was seen as an interesting one to be commended (with a bit of a why did you bother... sprinkled in there). Someone told me TRNT reminded them of the Divergent series (and fair comparison, considering the whole ritual to put you in one job for the rest of your life).

The most surprising thing was that people who never played parser before (or didn't really liked them) found the game entertaining and fun to go through, managing to get to the end without too many issues; while the reviewers with more experience in the genre had a bit more restraints due to the command system I put in place.

Whether my giddiness about verbose writing was to the liking of the player or not, I was honestly happy comments about my grammar didn't make much of an appearance this time around (yay, progress!), and that I would get kudos for the vague story behind the experiment itself, and the structure of the story itself.

But this doesn't mean that it was all sunshine and rainbow here. TRNT had some obvious issues, which should have been squashed during the testing phase had this one been longer (yet again, me speed-running through comps when I should take my time... when will I learn...). There were two main ones: the commands and the UI.

The biggest issue came from the commands, being either unclear or confusing, especially when it came to the cardinal direction, the choice of synonym for the actions, or special actions like the name input. Even if you could go along the story with just a noun or press C until you reached the end, missing important verb commands did not help the game feel complete (EXAMINE/GET/the shortcuts). This is where having some Parser knowledge/experience would have come handy, he.... As for the cardinal directions, it was probably most confusing because I used them as synonyms for forward/back/left/right instead of N/S/W/E (that and it wasn't clear where you were able to go in the text either). Quite a few players were also getting stuck in the corridor (after you come to a stop, you hear some thing up front and your choices are to move to the side/jump or stand still). Special actions like the name input or the final choice were felt a bit off/broke immersion. Party due to the way SugarCube is, partly due to how I organised the game. Having a simple input where the player is asked for their name before the game start and have a say name command, might have worked better there. That and a better hinting system. Fix for those TBD.

Closely followed was the UI being annoying (which ;-; bc I pride myself on creating good UI, but it was fair critique), from the scrolling being an absolute ass, to the confusing bolding of the start of passages being the same as the interactive words (if you didn't change the colour in the settings), to the back/replay last choice command on the END screen not going to the right spot, or the responses of computing an inputted command not appearing/being confusing (in relation to the scrolling), some quirks with the UI being wonky for some screen sizes, etc... Thankfully, all those have been fixed.... but too late for the reviews already published. A quick revamp of the UI base + solving the scrolling issue + slight reformatting of the printed new text bits solved if not all of those issues. Still... too little too late... That's what you get for making a UI in a large screen and only checking different width but not different heights....

A SIDENOTE ON WHY PARSER AND NOT HYPERTEXT

Or me going a bit on a rant. Scroll down to pt 5- The Do-Over to resume coherent levelled conversation.

Still, making a parser a Twine was a CHOICETM, which didn't work for everybody. I don't know if it was because the game was put forth as a Twine game before being a parser, or because the story was maybe a bit too linear/not very interactive compared to other parsers, or because I set out to make a parser before thinking of a story and it showed for some, (or probably because the parser system was not very well implemented) but I did have a few commenters wondering if my choice of making it a parser was the correct one, as in why would you use parser when hyperlinks would have probably worked better?

Maybe a cop-out answer would be Why not. Why not try to break the rules and the codes of what is a Twine game or what is a parser? Why not push Twine to where it is probably not supposed to go (sorry, TME)? Why not blur the lines of the divides between the subgenres of IF? I wrote some part while having a bit of a fever, and my notes had Why not make parsers less puzzle-y/more linear choice-based like? and oh boi is it good to re-read yourself... Cause yiekes what a load of BS.

The other part of the answer is Because experimenting and doing weird thing is fun! Doing weird thing, writing bad code that should probably not work but it does, putting the program on a lifeline, making up stories that are nonsensical, etc... and breaking people's mind in the process with what could be done. Also it was just fun to find out whether it was just possible to do it at all. The rush of happiness when you the puzzle is solved is so incredibly gratifying. It was really fun to try something different (for me but also for what Twine can generally do), to solve a puzzle of mashing two things that don't/shouldn't go together, to find what makes them tick and make it all work, and to challenge myself to do something new (did I mention before it was my fist time making a parser?). AND, having fun creating! And the SpringThing has always been a beacon to promote experimentation with the genre and more out there stuff. So it's was kind of like the stars aligned or something :P

Also Because it was possible!That one is pretty self-explanatory...

Maybe a bit more presumptuous of me: Because experimenting keeps Interactive Fiction fresh and exciting! I'm not trying to set a trend or anything here (honestly, it's not too strange, TRNT's weirdness kind of follows my previous work with TTTT and its mixology element, or DOL-OS with it computer interphase), but isn't fun to see what else can be done in IF, or what new area can be explored now that funky stuff has been tried, or what else should probably not be done (hopefully this doesn't apply to TRNT lol, I think it should be fun to have more parser in Twine). Even if my entry was not really a novel idea even in the gameplay (exhibit A, exhibit B, exhibit C), I still think there should be more weird stuff out there, so I contribute to that where/when I can! It'd be sad if IF became same-y and stale... It'd be fun if someone did something like this because they played TRNT and thought it was neat :P

And Because it didn't fit with my original vision of the game. Even if the game changed quite a lot along the way, the parser element was something I would not compromise with, no matter how good or bad the final product was. Sorry TME for the kittens lost in the autofocus of the textboxes...

I did wonder for a while how many people opened the settings at all 🤔

5- The Do-Over?

Ha.

Haha.

Hahaha.

No.

Honestly... If I was going back to the start, I don't think I would change anything. Even if the length of the testing was more than minimal (still haven't learned my lesson), even if I rushed into the competition (again, not learned my lesson), even if I made errors along the way (well, maybe fixing the UI earlier instead) or let the story stray that much away from the original idea (honestly it was probably for the best that it ended not being too close to Aisle at the end, I might have gotten eviscerated in the reviews). It did what it was supposed to do, and checked all the boxes from what I wanted to try. At the end, to me, it was a complete (and stressful success).

Will there be some changes in the future?

Just a bit, at some point, TBD and TBA. Just to fix the commands a bit, maybe rearrange some passages, add a bit more variation/hidden codex entries, maybe even a new ending or two! But it wouldn't go further than that. TRNT was an experiment through and throuh.

==================== THE END ====================

Anyway, my weird hybrid beast of a parser in Twine and I are done rambling about my awesome show of tricks that may or may not have landed badly and with a broken skateboard. We will go collect our ribbons, now!

Make IF weird, Do word crimes, Have fun

I do wonder if me submitting the game in the Main Garden rather than at the Back Garden played into the expectations of the reviewers, since the BG is meant for more experimental IF. But in the same vein, there was the Kuolema running on a Google Form and people flocked to it so 🤷 It's probably the quality that made things the way it is whooooops :P

#postmortem #trnt #the roads not taken #I have once written too much #and wrote a lot of this under the influence of insomnia #I did win a special accolade: McGruber Honorarium #interactive fiction

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rie-kay · 3 months

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A Voice through Type

The typeface is the voice of a text—so they say. But what kind of voice? On closer inspection we are mostly talking about well-behaved ones. For corporate logos they need to have enough general appeal to appease the largest possible audience. For most articles they are more comparable to ambience in order to serve the message. Wouldn’t it be fun to take this statement more literal and apply it to (fictional) people? Giving the textual representation of speech a visual indicator regarding the character of the speaker and the quirks of their voice. Sounds fun—at least as an experiment.

(Reading time ~9 mins)

A limit to our fun

A few limitation beforehand. What I propose here is not a method. It is more like a thought-process that I hope can help to decide on a typeface representation of a character. Voices are wonderfully complex. We change our voice depending on speaking context or emotion. Picking various fonts or designing a super-family that would feel cohesive while also being meaningfully different for each situation would be super cool, but also very overwhelming. We are talking more of a proof of concept here. So I focus more on a general representation. Broad strokes often are a good thing when we are talking about details of details (the thing letters are in the context of a page or screen). I’m also gonna brush over the intricacies of characterization of people. To keep it simple let’s say we work mainly with a adjective-based framework that can be extended by whatever association comes to our mind in regard to the character.

It’s not a rigid system but a fun experiment after all. Talking about fun: The limit to our fun isn’t the sky, but legibility and readability—to a degree. Namely how well the letters are decipherable and how easy it is to read the text based on the merits of the chosen font. If we pick something very out there and expressive we might jeopardize the legibility. Same goes for readability. If the font causes discontent in the reader, they might hate it when the character speaks. On the other end: Maybe that is exactly what you want. Another way to circumvent these issues would be to limit the expressive font to the speakers name. The actual dialog could then be set in a more general font. The name would then function as a kind of logo that by proxy colors the words of the speaker. But it would also introduce a form of abstraction, as the typographic voice wouldn’t be as immediately connected to the words. Also, you are missing out on a lot of cool glyphs with this method. As a time-saving alternative it is still interesting.

The establishment

Now to the actual task at hand: Drawing a connection between typeface and characterization. In essence this process comes down to dealing with readers expectations. That doesn’t mean you need to meet all these expectations. I’m operating under the assumption that typographic connections are somewhat arbitrary. Arbitrary in this case doesn’t mean random. Readers’ associations can be wildly different, based on their personal experiences and preferences. A blackletter font can look edgy-cool to one person, to someone else it might look traditionalistic. One person might find Helvetica timeless, someone else might find it overstayed its welcome. A Font that looks exciting to one viewer, someone else might find pretentious. As designers we can’t look into other peoples’ heads. But we can make an educated guess.

Because even though everyone is an island, no one actually is an island. Our associations with typefaces are based in a common learned visual language that is shaped by the context in which we see fonts used. For example for the longest time Apple used lightweight sans serif typefaces to promote their technical gadgets. This resulted in the association of light sans with luxury. On the opposite site the usage of Comic Sans by many small businesses resulted in an association by the wider public with affordability. Futura still can be associated to futurism and space-travel because of “2001: A space Odyssey.” 1 Blackletter fonts are perceived either iffy due to the appropriation for nazi propaganda or traditionalistic due to the usage in traditional restaurant signage (at least in Germany). Typographic associations are of course subject to change. This can come in the form of trends or simply new use-cases.2 To use Blackletter as an example again: The young folks (that definitely doesn’t make me sound old) first association with this letter type is more likely to be with urban street wear.

For our purpose established associations can serve as shorthand. Similar to the way stereotypes are used for writing characters. When we use typography tropes in such way, the shorthand should not be the end-goal. Just as a stereotype in character writing is not the end-goal for characterization but a “conversation opener.” The more interesting character—typography connections come from subverting expectations or building onto them.

Spiky means angry

Another well to draw from are haptic and kinetic associations. A letter with spiky features will probably evoke the haptic feedback of touching a spiky object. In contrast, a font with very round features will cause associations with smooth and round surfaces just by proximity. A light typeface can be perceived as flimsy or as filigreed. Bold letters can be associated with heaviness. A font with a wide letterform can be perceived as steady and immovable. Oblique weights often imply a form of movement. For our little experiment we could use these associations to refer to unique features in a character’s appearance or personal traits.

A final aspect to consider when associating typefaces with characters is the “well-it-just-looks-cool” aspect. As with most things in design picking something you like because you think it looks cool, is a valid reason. One could argue that what looks cool to a designer is not just personal preference but (also) the result of research and exposure to different designs. To pick something that looks cool in this case is also a good way to create new typographic associations. So that is an added bonus.

While all these aspects are important when considering font associations, more often than not typographic nuances go right over most readers heads. 3 This means on the one hand to be blunt with your choices. Tiny letter details that you consider important to convey a characters personality are likely to get overlooked. If not due to the text size than because typographic nuance is often not perceivable to laypeople. The latter aspect could also be considered freeing, as you can try a lot of type shenanigans that go under the radar.

Words into actions

Enough overthinking. Time to put these concepts into action. For that we need a volunteer. May I propose we go with everyone’s favorite android songstress Hatsune Miku.

Hatsune Miku is a fictional character that was created for the software synthesizer ›Vocaloid‹ in 2007. The software is able to not only interpret notes with different pitch and velocity but also with vocals—hence the name. The sound is based on the voice actress Saki Fujita’s voice. The resulting sound is a very distinct robotic, and high-pitched voice, fitting for idol pop music. The software found a wide-spread following—which can in large parts be attributed to the iconic character design by Kei Garō. The concept for the character was that of a singer-diva android in a future where all songs are lost and need to be reinterpreted. As the character started to gain a life of its own through a large fan community and motion-captured life concerts with her as a hologram, the character is a bit more of a Japanese idol than a diva.

Hatsune was imagined as an android—a machine build in the image of humans. Considering this, references to the digital would be out of place, as she is meant to exist in the physical world of the future. Existing typefaces associated with technological progress have a tendency to look dated. Dated, in the sense that you can tell what idea of future shaped its design (think for example of ›Eurostyle‹). Going the “2001” route—using Futura as a shorthand for futurism—wouldn’t fit due to its mechanical construction principle. A more contemporary mix-style of geometric and grotesque sans could fit the “machine-imitating-a-human“ theme. Than again, to me this seems a bit too sterile, considering Miku’s implied extroverted-ness. Therefore I think focusing on this aspect is more promising.

The typographic style that caries the most diva-ness for me is the modernist serif form principle (Didot). It is often used in the context of high fashion, where it communicates carries an air of aloof-ness, quality and beauty. Typefaces in the modernist style emphasize verticality, and feature constructed shapes, as well as extreme stroke contrasts.

I want to draw a connection between the constructed letter shapes and the artificial construction of an android like Miku and her singing voice. I think the modernist form principle transports this better than geometric type, as it is less streamlined in its construction and allows for more decorative elements. Also the high contrasts read to me as eccentric and therefore fitting well with the diva aspect. Because androids are modeled after humans but are still distinct from them, I think it could be cool to add a detail that implies human behavior was imitated but in a wrong way. I thought mirroring the shadow axis of the “o” in a transitional serif type could be a nice nod in that direction. That will put the font more in the category of transitional Serif instead of modern, but that’s fine. I like the transitional Serifs more anyway. Also I want to add prominent ball terminals—just to be extra.

In case I would look for a font—not make one from scratch—I would need to make more compromises. But working with existing fonts also creates other association possibilities. Like, seeing some feature in a font and come up with an association afterwards.

Anyway, this process like I said is very biased and subjective. But, I still think it is a fun way to approach typeface selection. I’m also sure there is a certain applicability outside of characterization of fictional people. Why not use this thinking process to pick fonts for a logo?

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Notes:

Funnily enough “2001” doesn’t get nearly as much flag for its rather literary connection to its title font than “Avatar.”

Speaking of trends: Type Campus’ Whitepaper “The 2022 Type Trends Lookbook” and “The 2023 Type Trends Lookbook“ do a very good job outlining recent font trends and putting them in the contemporary and historic societal context.

Jeanne-Louis Moys was able to show in her survey that far more important were how the text was spaced, what weight was applied, or if the text was set in cursive font. Jeanne-Louis Moys. (2011). Typographic Voice: Researching Readers’ interpretations. (p. 14–15). In: Technical paper 6, Simplification Centre. simplificationcentre.org.uk/ressources/technical-papers (accessed April 2022).

#type design #typeface #grafikdesign #graphic design #schriftgestaltung #custom type #hatsune miku #vocaloid hatsung #graphic design essay #essay #custom letters #typedesign

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grahamkennedy · 4 months

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An incredibly autistic stream of consciousness post about Graham Kennedy and also Dylan Moran for some reason (I am, believe it or not, sober)

I take this long dead comedian extremely incredibly seriously as well. The way his comedic style and approach changed alongside Australian cultural attitudes, becoming more lax and crass and free flowing, before eventually his own personal hardships changed his comedy to the point where it became at odds with his audience, more vindictive and callous and mean, less jovial and more sardonic is so intriguing. That's not to say there's never any merit to comedy like this.

This is Dylan Moran's wheelhouse and apart from Kennedy, Moran is probably my biggest comedic inspiration. And Coast to Coast was popular and well liked, but it was so often commented how unhappy Kennedy seemed and how the bitterness in his comedy was palpable. Moran's misanthropy always comes with a kind of mystical air to it. It's a very whimsical hatred, it's odd and farcical, it's a pantomime.

Moran's comedy is the reason I hate the dichotomy some people have created between offensive and wholesome humour. That's not to say "let's all make racist, sexist, transphobic, etc etc jokes because that's fine". It's that comedy doesn't exist solely to you feel good. Which is a stupid pretentious thing to say but like, comedy is supposed to make you laugh, but it's not necessarily there to lighten your emotional load. Comedy about the worst and most horrible evils can land extremely well. Moran has made some pretty controversial jokes about CSA in Ireland, for example, that I find extremely funny and also poignant, because it's what he knows. It's the environment he grew up and understood.

Kennedy in the 70s is, imho, his peak for this reason. It's not to say some of the stuff Kennedy did hasn't aged extremely poorly, Australian comedy, especially television comedy, is notoriously like, several decades behind the rest of the world at times. But his best stuff reflected the push and pull of (white) Australian society between its innate conservatism as an English colonial outpost and constitutional monarchy and the image its been trying to cultivate as an easy, laidback, fun loving country. His comedy being low brow, sexual, innuendo based, etc, was trying to push boundaries that existed in Australian society at large that needed to be pushed. Controversial comedy isn't bad, it's about WHY it's controversial.

By the late 80s, Kennedy's comedic style didn't reflect an actual societal need. And it's not even that he was being offensive in the way we'd think now when we think of edgelord comedians, it's that his comedy punched down to innocent people in general. Victims of disasters, the mentally ill, people just going about their lives. And it reflected his own personal turmoil, because by this point he was world weary and bitter and angry because of his own mistreatment.

I don't actually know where I was going with this, I just really love viewing comedy through the lens of sociology and psychology and all that shit. I'm autistic and gay, so I gotta get pretentious with it.

#flood warning #graham tag #dylan moran

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64space · 2 years

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been having some thoughts about the execution of revolutionary girl utena compared to the execution of wonder egg priority. lining those two shows up together is like comparing apples and oranges but they do share some similarities, but what i’m going to be rambling about under the cut are the differences between them based in my personal preferences. to preface this, i think utena is, objectively, a good and well written piece of media. i can count the amount of scenes i actually enjoyed from it on one hand, however. and wonder egg was fumbled terribly, but its concepts had astounding potential if it just had more episodes to execute them and conclude them in a satisfactory way.

the reason why i procrastinated on watching utena for years wasn’t because of the list of trigger warnings (i have very specific triggers that, surprisingly, weren’t ticked off by any in the warnings), but rather because of the art style and aesthetic choices. for a ‘90s anime, it felt a lot more like ‘80s cartoons on my mom’s VHS, and that vibe alone was an equal blend of secondhand nostalgia and downright unsettling. but what bothered me more than the art style was the aesthetic choices right down to the school uniforms and the design of the school itself. to set the backdrop for the relationship between a girl prince and a witch, there are obviously some fantasy elements to the world, but i just... did not enjoy it. everyone meshes in with the world perfectly except for utena herself, who feels like a girl from the real world who was isekai’d into a fantasy world at a very young age and now has a maladaptive optimistic hero personality to cope with her trauma. the characters feel like characters more than people, and while their traumas are plausible and real, everything is portrayed so allegorically that it imbalances my attachment to them as people because their personalities are so exaggerated and fairytale-like. no one talks like that. no one acts like that. no one dresses like that. with all the development that went into the school as a metaphor for abusive systems in itself, and the fantasy-like atmosphere in a high school setting, it felt... empty, like a treasure box decorated with a clear and concise design that i can admire the artistic merits of, but the actual contents of the box are full of fake flowers being eaten by plastic worms. for me, representative/allegorical concepts are only digestible when they’re balanced with the characters’ peoplehood and development as people instead of solely as characters and narrative devices. revolutionary girl utena did not balance that.

one similarity between revolutionary girl utena and wonder egg priority is that both stories mainly follow a 14 year old girl who is socially ostracized because of one specific trait (utena herself being gender-nonconforming, and ai’s reason being said as her different colored eyes, but everyone who watched wonder egg priority knows that her relationship with koito was coded as a trial romance between two girls.) wonder egg showcases the characters as 14 perfectly, while, again, revolutionary girl utena barely does that. bring in the thermian argument here and say “well, fourteen year olds say pretentious stuff and believe it to be true,” and apply that to utena. but then look at the conversations in wonder egg priority. even with their downright absurd circumstances (particularly neiru and kotobuki’s), their pretentiousness has basis in reality, and is contextualized in explicit ostracism from that reality while still having the desire to partake in, or acknowledge and reject it.

wonder egg priority acknowledges 14 year old girls as teenagers, a developmental age between children and adults. the way this is expressed allegorically is through frill, who is LITERALLY the manifestation of what two adult men think a 14 year old girl should be, based on data and expectations. the four protagonists, however, deal with themselves how mentally ill 14 year old girls would do so, realistically to their circumstances. by helping others, it distracts them from their own problems or it leads them down the line of resolve. both shows acknowledge that in order for trauma to really get better, it’ll look a lot worse when the issues are actually confronted instead of repressed before it ever gets better. though, while trauma traps people in different ages than they really are, utena’s narrative doesn’t allow them to experience these traumas as 14 year olds outside of the context that their trauma is pedophilia and that they go to school. in terms of character development and execution, they are portrayed with similar degrees of agency as any adult fantasy character. this is where the allegorical execution loses its significance, while also being a genius narrative device. we are meant to see the characters as adults before it settles in with the uncomfortable realization that they are young teenagers. (still doesn’t help that the way characters are drawn in RGU doesn’t have them look their age, but oh well.) wonder egg delves into realistic traumas with exaggerated representations, which is more accurate to how a 14 year old girl would experience their own trauma and the trauma of those around them. the wonder egg girls put themselves through too many responsibilities for their age, and while they may see themselves as more capable than they are, the audience sees them as their messy selves, away from any polished, fairytale narrative until around the episode where ai confronts her parallel self. my main problem with that was the way the latter half of the show was rushed, so anything weird and unexplained and overly allegorical could be easily resolved with an extended run time of the show and a balance of character/world development and characters being people.

from a narrative perspective, revolutionary girl utena did what it intended to do. it was wrapped up perfectly for the kind of story it followed, and the pacing was long enough to cover what was important in all subplots while also miserably dragging on to the point where that drag was immersive to the misery of the characters it followed. wonder egg priority was rushed, fumbled, and a season longer than 12 episodes was unsupported by the budget. my opinion on these two shows mostly boils down to personal preference. while i did enjoy wonder egg priority far more than i enjoyed revolutionary girl utena, the latter had far more time and thought put into its execution that its artistic merit cannot be ignored, and i acknowledge it as one of the best written stories i’ve ever seen. the development of characters as people felt really lacking, though.

#ghostpost #revolutionary girl utena #wonder egg priority

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disg0rgement · 10 months

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Ive always followed some pretentious rules when it comes to making art just because I’m such a proud person but I’ve realized how much that really limits me, I need to return to the lawlessness of pre-education creation… so here’s a drawing on top of a picture, a borderline tracing, which I would never post out of pride normally. I still have to grapple with the outdated idea that the ability to draw an accurate physical representation of something is the height of craft and ability. I take pride in the fact I draw my own figures, even if it takes forever. This is silly. There is no reason to be proud of doing something for external merit at the expense of the actually interesting aspects of my brain, the parts that work without guidance… I thought if I were to do something like this, something that has a base and isn’t purely from my minds eye, I was a fraud. How pretentious!!! Everything had a base, nothing in your minds eye is anything but a collage of what you’ve seen before. Ugh I forgot what my point was

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butch-bakugo · 2 years

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I mean... This whole "issue" of people using names of cultures they dont belong to dose have some merit. Like i get that you dont want someone appropriating cultures or fetishizing others or using things they dont understand and i fully agree

However!!

It comes from 4 weird places. First off, you cant just assume someone isnt a part of the culture their using the name from. Like people can look nothing like some of their races and you habe no idea what culture someone could of been adopted into and raised in. You have no right to tell someone who isnt ethnically/racially chinese who was raised in chinese culture after being adopted by chinese parents that they cant connect with the culture they were raised in. Ur a fucking idiot.

2nd off, dont just assume anyone who uses a name from a different culture is doing so unknowingly, fetishly, appropriatively or without full comprehension. Like idk man, some people are actually informed and know the origins of the name they want to go by. Some people can genuinely like a name and culture and it dosent make them a "fetishist" if they are respectful. Names are not an appropriative property. You cant pretend your something just by having a name outside of your culture/race. There are many bellas in the world and no one automatically assumes they're italian. There are many levis(oh look! The name most people know me as and is listed as my main name!) And no one assumes they're Hebrew/jewish. To automatically assume anyone who uses a name is an idiot and dosent know its origins or meaning is very pretentious. You dont know that person. You dont know their life or their amount of research, if done at all.

3rdly. This is the internet. Who gives an actual shit??? What fucking sociopath in 2022 gose by their actual irl name on the internet? Thats how you die. Thats how you get swatted and doxed. Its so dangerous to go by your legal name on the internet. Not to mention that names on the internet mean fuck-all. Anyone could be behind the screen of any gender, sex, ethnicity, culture, history, etc and you have no idea if they are what they say they are. An internet persona is a mirage and you have no proof or idea if any info ive said about myself is correct, hell, you have no clue if any info anyone on the internet said about themselves is correct.

Given, for clarities sake, I'm not lieing about the shit ive been through or what i am. Thats a pretty elaborate, complex and detailed lie to keep up and id perfer to not give myself the stress associated with that.\gen

But seriously. I could actually be asian. Or not. I could be an a.i for all you know. Cut the crap, you dont genuienly care who uses what name from what culture. The only people who care are American white liberals with brainrot.

4th and most importantly, and imma put on big text for this cause its real fuckin important

The idea that people can/should only use names from the cultures they originated from is based in ethnic cleansing and segregation.

It was made to make the "enemy"(see:poc) visable. To notice them on job applications or in doctors offices. The idea is if they feel they must name their child by their culture that they can be more easily spotted then oppressed. So many poc parents, especially those who are black or immegrants, admit to choosing to give their babies whiter names so they are less likely to be picked on and more easily blend into english and/or American society. By taking away the notion that "x culture sounding name means your automatically x", we take away the power of assocation that racists rely on. We remove the assumptions and force people to be more racially open and aware.

Im not saying names should be completely stripped of their culture significance,obvs but saying "black people can only have black names and white people can only have white names and asian people can only have asian names" sounds racist as fuck to me. Sounds segregative, isolating and like some half hearted attempt at "ethnic name-al purity" which is gross. Its like assigning genders to clothes or pronouns to objects, it makes no sense to force it to only be one thing when it is innate.

Thats my more in-depth take and i utterly refuse to acknowledge this stupid conversation again. Seriously. Saying "only x people can have x cultural names or else your a fetishizing appropriative racist" is fucking stupid and weird and have some racistly sterotypical undertones all delivered by a as usual, white knight, someone who has no say in the game.

Your free to disagree but i speak as a native american and inuit person that i Litterally dont give a shit if someone uses cherokee or inuk names as long as their informed and respectful to its origins. And neither should you for any race as names are no exception,

#levi speaks #names #ethnic names

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loopy777 · 2 years

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🤲✨🎈

Yay, now let's consult the codex to figure out what I'm being asked!

(I may have reblogged this meme solely to get a chance to use the phrase "consult the codex." I think that sounds neat.)

🤲what do YOU get out of writing?

I'd say I get three things:

All the ideas in my head get pulled out into the real world, refined, and turned into a story I want to read.

I get to engage with characters and a setting I really enjoy and crave more of.

I get validation through an art form I respect, enjoy consuming, and can actually perform myself. (This is despite and/or because of the fact that I seem to favor the baser forms of this particular art.)

✨What’s a fic you’ve posted you wish you could breathe life into again and have people talking about it? (or simply a fic you wish got more credit)

In terms of credit, I've long felt that "Death of a Thousand Cuts" (AO3, FF.net) fell flatter than it merited, compared to my other stuff. My later Maiko works get more play, so perhaps it's just that I hadn't really been 'found' by that fandom yet, or maybe it hit at the wrong time in the migration of the fandom from FF.net to AO3, but I've long looked at that one and wondered, "Why aren't you as successful as your younger siblings?"

As for what I'd like to see more talk about, I often kind of crave some discussion -- good or bad -- about "The Avatar & The Fire Princess." (AO3, FF.net) Don't get me wrong- it's been very well received and I've gotten indications that the Azulaang fandom really likes it, but every time I do a re-read, I wish I could talk about it with people because there's just so much characterization and layers to the character interactions. I want to be a fan of my own work and gush about it (or argue about it) with other fans. XD But in case that sounds massively egotistical, rest assured that I also have enough awkwardness and imposter syndrome that when people actually do gush about my stories to me, I struggle with doing anything other than blushing and saying thanks.

🎈describe your style as a writer; is it fixed? does it change?

A solidly functional storytelling formula realized by wild and inconsistent swerves between base writing and pretentious attempts at something more poetic. My writing voice is often influenced by what I'm reading at the time, which I've weaponized by purposefully reading the authors I want to mimic for any given work/chapter.

#loopy memes

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diamond-rings-and-gutter-bones · 7 months

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actually the thing i am most pretentious about as a fan is jujutsu kaisen and i say this unironically. and if you started watching or reading jjk and immediately saw itadori yuuji get sentenced to death for what was effectively doing his best in an accident to save somebodys life, and you still thought this was going to be a society where people by and large survive based on justice, or merit, or anything other than systemic corruption and the sheer luck of the draw, that speaks to your own lack of media literacy.

#many such cases! one thing abt jjk is it DELIVERS on its worldbuilding. it says 'this world sucks people die society is corrupt'#and then when it sucks and people die and society is corrupt yall are up in arms like that isnt the entire point of it lmao

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greengrungeemo · 8 months

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TRIGGER WARNING: SENSITIVE TOPIC, PR*GERU BEING GARBO

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One rabbit hole I accidentally dug into after watching a YT vid of Fatt Walsh failing at playing GTA V, ranting about how video games are unenjoyable, how they rot the youth's brains, and then mindlessly blaming women A.I drivers for his own sh*t driving (it was beyond insufferable), was this. Pr****U polls.

I don't want to politically debate by any means, but what the actual f*ck.

1) Are you that pretentious and selfish to not provide a sliver of respect to others around you? If someone asks you, not demands or orders, asks politely to respect their pronouns, is your first reaction really to say no because you value your stance over them as an individual? They could already be slightly uncomfortable in getting out of their comfort zone to ask you, so can you imagine saying no when they do? I can't. Put yourself in someone else's shoes, please.

2) Men, and anyone for that matter, should be able to wear whatever they goddamn want. I started wearing crop tops because I grew more confident and happy with my body. Condemning anyone for wearing something that brings them joy, especially if it's perfectly appropriate, makes you a shit. Like an actual shit on the floor. Just because of that poll, I'm gonna buy myself a plaid skirt to wear. :3

3) The "I research my own data" is no surprise. Of course that's their answer. Ever hear about bias research? Affirming your own beliefs through biased search terms will inevitably get you search terms that are a great match to your own beliefs. I.e: "Vaccines and autism" vs. "Why vaccines cause autism". I BET you they search the 2nd example more often than not. Similarly, simply stating a proposition is true, and believing its true, and providing your own justification to it being true, does not mean it is entirely true. The conclusion? Trust scientists, the scientific method, and empirical evidence.

4) This one bothers me. A lot. They're implying not everyone deserves a LIVEABLE wage??? They really drive by homeless people and think to themselves, "A shame they put themselves in that situation" and go about their day without any empathy whatsoever? You don't know what got them there. You shouldn't ever assume anyone's unfortunate circumstance. A living wage guarantees that everyone can potentially live and function and take care of themselves and their needs. Your work and wages should be associated with your efforts, merit, and luck? Sure, but everyone should have a livable wage as a minimum. Otherwise, you accept human suffering in your own society for the benefit of the wealthier class when you should instead try to minimize suffering as best you can. We should all do our part to help one another.

5) This one still makes me contemplate it to this day. Kindness should have been the beyond obvious answer? Kindness will always be pure. A kind act will always remain as a kind act. If everyone was kind, then the world would be kind - to nature like plants and animals, and to each other. It's a very easy answer for me. Truth, however, can be skewed. It can be personally malleable from a multitude of factors. We will also never know the full, correct truth about anything and everything space and time has to offer us. The answers to this poll, I feel, seems to be what do you prioritize? Kindness or your OWN form of truth? Truth to people can be shaped based on their beliefs, morals/ethics, knowledge and understanding, culture, prejudices, and so many other things. How do you guarantee your form of truth is the correct one? What's the statistical probability that it's 100% right? I can easily admit that my own opinions, beliefs, and my own "truth" can be fallible. I used to believe that the planet Neptune was a deep shade of blue, as many others did and still do, and now recently, it has been discovered that Neptune is a pale blue similar to Uranus. Am I firm on my "truth" that Neptune will be, and will always be a deep blue? No. I trust the scientific process and change my opinion on what it currently is. A pale blue. Therefore, kindness as a value, I believe, is far better and important than truth, simply because it benefits all, it's pure and non-malleable in form, and in a world brimming with negativity, death, hatred, and evil, a little kindness can go a long way. A shame that 97,650 people think otherwise on what should be prioritized.

What bizzaro world views. Also, I promise never to interact with that anymore because I don't want to give them any more attention, just completely f*cked up how they treat/view others. Despicable.

#personal thoughts #vent

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m39 · 10 months

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Doom WADs’ Roulette (2007): Ultimate Torment And Torture

My brother in Christ!

Another partial conversion that uses a shit ton of enemies from the Monster Resource WAD that first appeared in 2007 due to KDiZD! All three of these partial conversions that won Cacoward in 2007 and all use this roster at least partially!

...

I don’t really have anything else to say; I just wanted to point that out.

G9: Ultimate Torment and Torture

Main author(s): Daniel Gimmer (Tormentor667)

Release date: September 11th, 2007

Version played: 1.07

Required port compatibility: GZDoom

Levels: 10

If you suddenly feel like you are playing KDiZD’s distant cousin, then you aren’t wrong, for this WAD is another project made by Tormentor667; although, this time it’s more like a one-man project rather than a community one.

Now you might be wondering What in the actual fuck is “Ultimate Torment and Torture”? To put it simply, it’s a remaster of the series of WADs under the same title (without the ultimate of course), now sprayed all over with Tormentor’s ZDoom’s features obsession, including background noises, a shit ton of new enemies, and other ZDoom stuff that may or may not be completely worthless on the long term.

Now since I didn’t play this series in any capacity, I’m gonna judge this WAD by its own merits. And if you didn’t already notice, do not expect this review to be completely positive; I’m not really a fan of Tormentor’s overly-designed WAD slop.

And although there isn’t really any plot in the text file in the WAD itself, there are text screens that describe what’s happening at the moment you are playing this map. But it all boils down to this – there is a hellish pentagram or something that summons demons and you go after it to end it all... again.

The plot, despite being rather simple (it’s a Doom WAD after all), takes itself too seriously in my opinion. It feels like it wants to sniff its own farts thinking it’s deeper than it thinks. The pretentiousness is especially high as you reach the final episode, with an unskippable monologue from the main character (who, by the way, sounds like Diet Caleb from Blood) rambling some kind of generic shonen anime hero speech filled with never give up this and da people I love that shit. This thing is funnier than most of the Mockaward winners that I played for crying out loud; for the wrong reasons, yes, but still.

But at least you can skip most of the textscreen stuff with the use key... after a small delay.

Now with the basics known, let’s take a look at another Tormentor’s projects.

You might probably know by this point, but if there is one thing that Tormentor is really good at is the visual aspect of his WADs (solo or community-made). And UTNT doesn’t disappoint in this. The oppressive foundry facilities in the second episode; snowy areas surrounding the base in the third one; the bastion with the demonic portal that acts like a bridge between episodes three and four; the mountain that you climb in the final episode; these are some of the highlights in this WAD.

It might be a little bit overboard with the details that aren’t just tiny objects lying around that are not some random debris from the wall, but it’s still amazing for the WAD from 2007.

Oh, and by the way, you can turn off some of the weather effects in most of the maps. Just remember to bind the key to it.

The music is a mixed bag for me. While half of the music tracks fit surprisingly well, the other half has a chance to make you laugh with the WAD sniffing its farts of pretentiousness again. It’s like the same problem as the plot; it gets a pass in the first half, but it gets ridiculous in the second one.

The final boss track is the worst case of unintentional laughter. No matter what you think about Revolutions, when it comes to the final battle between Neo and Agent Smith, the music fits really well. It doesn’t fit at all when you are flying around like a madman trying to destroy a satanic pentagram that protects itself with a demonic energy cylinder while dodging/trying to kill Cycloid Emperors that protect these things! IT JUST DOESN’T!

...

sigh

It does get better gameplay-wise at least.

I don’t really think this WAD is complicated. After the first playthrough, it didn’t really feel that tiring (at least for me). It does have backtracking sometimes, but honestly, I have experienced worse cases than UTNT.

What’s really cool about this WAD is that you can start from any of four episodes. If you are a Pistol-starter, you will enjoy this option (at least partially since you can start like this only at the beginning of an episode instead of in its middle).

You can also play as three different classes. I don’t know what are the differences aside from the starting weapon and the maximal amount of health since I played as only one class to not waste my time, but still, I’ll describe what I know:

The Marine starts with the Shotgun and 100 HP;

The Scout has 75HP and the Pistol (that shoots slightly faster from what I’ve seen);

And the Commando starts with 150HP and the Minigun; NOT the Chaingun mind you, but a Minigun. I’ll get to that weapon later.

There are two variants of the final level. The regular one takes place at the bottom of the mountain, where you climb it up while fighting the entire demonic army. There is also a graveyard with tombstones of people behind this WAD (like many other WADs before this one). This one is more of an epic type.

The secret variant (AKA the Director’s Cut) is hidden in the second part of the final episode. In this case, there are three areas full of monsters, where in the first two you have to kill a specific amount of Mancubi and Arachnotrons respectively (kind of like in Dead Simple) and in the third area you must press two switches to unlock the elevator to the final boss.

I’m not really sure which one is better. The hidden variant feels easier and has a lesser amount of annoying monster variants for the cost of a smaller amount of terrain to maneuver, while the regular variant feels like one last stand of the demonic army that fits perfectly well in a Doom WAD while having more bullshit moments.

UTNT is somewhere in between when it comes to how hard it is. It’s rather challenging, but I don’t think you will end up completely destroyed if you were playing WADs for a while before playing this one.

Every episode ends with the boss fight, where you fight up to four tough enemies depending on the skill level. It’s kind of a neat idea with the health pool showing up at the top of the screen, although I would like it more if the second boss fight had a larger area because I don’t think it was tested enough to be fun (or at least not as fun as the other two).

The final boss is... kind of stupid, I guess? You have to kill one of its guardians to make it vulnerable and fire at it (preferably with BFG). If you don’t realize it in a minute, you will end up with no ammo to blow it up. And again, the music doesn’t help.

Oh yeah, there is also stealth filth once in a while. -_-

I know it’s at worst one enemy per map, but still. What is it with these people keep adding this garbage to their WADs?

There are dozens of new enemies in this WAD. I’m fine with some new enemies to spice things up, but UTNT goes way too far with them. Some of these appear only once in the entire WAD! It’s like Tormentor didn’t know what to do with some of them and just slapped them in random places on the random map.

I don’t have time to ramble about every single one of them. Besides, I already talked about many of these in my previous reviews (like ZDCMP1, KDiZD, and Cheogsh among some of these). So instead, I’ll do quick rounds for every class of these bastards.

Without any further to do – the monsters of Ultimate Torment and Torture ladies, gentlemen, and others:

In the Zombie section we have Rapid-firing Trooper (Wolfenstein SS as an actual Doom enemy), Mutant Marine (tougher Shotgunner variant), Chaingun Major (Hoovy from KDiZD as a tougher variant of the original Hoovy), Bazooka Boy (from Obituary, shoots rockets), Plasma Zombie (‘nuff said), Railgunner (‘nuff said too), and Suicide Bomber (basically Headless Kamikaze as a Doom enemy; my personal favorites).

In the Imp section we have Catharsi (Cyberdemon if Imp; volley of projectiles, leaves a bomb when the die (if he didn’t gib)), Dark Imp (homing projectiles), Skulltag Imp (faster projectiles), Void Imp (Undead Warrior reskin), Soul Harvester (much more annoying homing projectiles; some of them are semi-invisible), Shadow (weaker Arachnotron, for some reason uses stock Imp noises despite having original ones in the past), Devil (tougher variant that can shoot constantly; uses Doom 64 Imp noises), Imp Warlord (has a couple of different attacks), Nightmare (can be hit when attacks and is constantly invisible before doing that), and Stone Imp (Imp if melee).

In the Hell Noble section we have Satyr (melee), Hell Warrior (has a shield), Hell Guard (no idea if he counts here but, whatever; shoots a volley of three projectiles), Hell’s Fury (tougher Baron), Lord of Heresy (tougher Baron but with wings), Belphegor (tougher Baron but with the volley of three projectiles), Afrit (flying, tougher Baron), and Bruiser (basically if the Bruise Brothers were actual bosses).

There are two new Cacodemon variants – Enhanced Cacodemon which shoots three fireballs and has slightly less health, and Cacolantern which shoots faster projectiles.

Same with Pain Elemental – we have Plasma Elemental (‘nuff said) and Tortured Soul (toxic clouds among other projectile).

There are also other enemies, which are Arachnophyte (Spider Bitch but flies), Blood Demon (tougher Pinky), Death Incarnate (hitscanning Revenant that has a small chance to not resurrect), Rail Arachnotron (‘nuff said), and Terror (Lost Soul that has a gigantic blast radius after it dies).

There are also the Source’s Guardians that I mentioned earlier. Look like Cycloid Emperors, kind of annoying to fight, and when they die, they leave their heart or something that functions as stronger medikit

We can’t forget about the bosses too. Aside from Bruiser Demons and the evil pentagram that function as bosses of episodes 2 and 4 respectively, we have Hectebi in the first episode (which are tougher Mancubi) and Giant Spiders in the third episode (Maulotaur reskins that burst out smaller, annoying to kill, regular spiders).

You collapse on the floor.

...

Phew...

Now with the demonic army described (apologies for the information errors if you notice one), let’s talk about new weapons.

Surprisingly, compared to the hegemony that are new monsters, you only get three new weapons. The first one to talk about is the Minigun that I mentioned earlier. It’s basically a much faster Chaingun but with a long break before firing again, meaning that it’s better for close encounters rather than sniping.

You have a flamethrower called... Flamer (how original). It’s your typical WAD flame thrower; don’t get burned by it yourself.

The final weapon is actually hidden in the secret in the first episode. It’s called Pyrocannon Prototype, and it feels like a napalm launcher that shoots mini-nukes. Perfect for bosses, so don’t use it (nor flamethrower) in any other circumstances.

I encountered some bugs while playing UTNT. The most prominent one was when Hell Warriors were completely invulnerable to anything until they raised the shield (something that didn’t happen in the previous WAD when these hulking cats appeared). Another bug that I encountered was in the second episode, where after exiting the secret area, the music from there was still playing; I had to enter and exit it again to properly change back to the original track.

The worst time was with some stability problems. There was one tiny moment in the first part of the fourth episode when there were some framerate drops due to the large amount of enemies and allies fighting each other, but there was a much worse one in episode two, during my secret-hunting run, when after the area with the blue key, the framerate started dropping like crazy, down to around 1.5 FPS.

Gee, maybe it wouldn’t happen if not for the gargantuan amount of shells, bullets, blood chunks, and gore chunks that appear everytime you kill at least one enemy (at least that’s how I think). I wonder if Tormentor ever thought of that situation.

The Ultimate Torment and Torture... makes me sad. I genuinely feel this WAD had the potential to be one of the best WADs ever created but the Tormentor’s obsession with (G)ZDoom features, many enemies that were slapped on this WAD without any reason for nothing but a small cameo, and the pretentiousness that pores out to the surface of the WAD’s plot makes it impossible to reach that status. It’s yet another WAD of its time that by modern standards feels outdated.

There is also another map known as the lost episode. I don’t know how to reach it without warping to it (if it’s even possible to get there normally), so I’ll leave it for the bonus round.

As for me, my break from Doom WADs might end up longer than a week, since I’m planning to buy a new PC that has SSD Hard Drive. So I’m going to move all important files to it once it arrives.

But until then, I’ll see you next time.

Have an early, happy 30th Doom anniversary.

#doom #doom wad #review #doom mod #doom 2 #doom 2007 #2007 #Torment And Torture #Doom Torment And Torture #Ultimate Torment And Torture #Doom Ultimate Torment And Torture #doom wads’ roulette #cacowards #top ten wads of the year

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300iqprower · 3 years

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In light of recent events (Guess Abby was right lol) might as well shsre a hot take i was already mulling over: The Last of Us 2 shouldn’t have chickened out with Abby. They should’ve made her the actual protagonist and stuck with that to the end rather than randomly have you play what might as well be her backstory for half the game. It’s so obvious that the real reason you play as Ellie is brand recognition and it’s why so much of Abby’s implementation seems off; they couldn’t find a way to make marketable returning protagonist ellie and playable new focus Abby coexist naturally so the two ideas are forcefully shoved together. Yes, it’s technically not as simple as “here’s their backstory okay now back to the main game” but the disjointed storytelling with sudden cuts at some of of the worst possible times has “script rewrites to keep the main focus on Ellie up to a certain point” written all over it and now im getting off track so anyways:

To demonstrate a possibility of what I mean, all without losing the cycle of violence motif (that was incredibly pretentious in the actual game because they wouldn’t commit to it in a meaningful way) and keeping the swapping between the two characters.

AHEM

You play as Abby from the start, implied as a new story in the same world rather than a direct sequel, and you ‘get your revenge.’ It becomes a twist in itself that Joel is who you’re after, and the player is forced to watch as, after playing as Abby to get through the game’s opening, they realize they were helping her kill their beloved previous protagonist. This sends Ellie off on her revenge quest as per, but rather than suddenly cut to one for half the game, we see throughout how Ellie rationalizes her actions and drags others into it, deciding to find ways to take them out one by one with a certain level of deliberate cruelty that’s chalked up to self preservation. With every kill we get to see Abby learn about it deals with another loss it and how it makes her own struggles harder in such a community driven world like a literal zombie apocalypse.

But as the game goes on, whenever it cuts back to Ellie, we see less and less of the preparation or the interactions with HER allies, as it gets more straight to the killing every time, until the last switch is just to the middle of her going through a dozen people without context.

And by the end of it, it becomes obvious Ellie is the villain here, and while Abby wants to kill Ellie so badly, she has this snap revelation that this is what Ellie feels. Abby took someone who meant everything to Ellie, and as a result she lost everyone SHE cared about… for a SECOND time. And she decides it’s not worth it. Either defeating Ellie only to leave, sparing both Ellie and those she knows she could go after to further hurt Ellie, or ending her own life just to keep Ellie from being the one to do, either way cutting off the cycle and lesving herself with nothing if it means a single other person even has a chance of not ending up the same way.

Alternatively, since this is written by an egomaniac who gets off on other people’s misery both real and fictional (how’s that crunch culture workin out Neil?), have Abby kill the too far gone Ellie, only to take her own life to ensure no one else will have a reason to continue the cycle Joel started.

…but what do I know, right? Not like I’ve ever won any awards at glorified advertising conventions with candidates chosen based on the compromised integrity of two faced critics who in equal parts seek to validate genuine merit yet also curry favor with a deeply corporate controlled industry.

#writing analysis #tlou2 #the last of us #fuck Neil Druckmann #naughty dog #is a garbage workplace run by selfish egomaniacal hacks high off their own pretentiousness #writing shit #ellie the last of us #abby tlou #abby anderson #ellie williams #ghost of Tsushima is also overrated as hell but thats for another day in the ‘shit I finally got around to properly trying’ list #video game writing #video games #ps4

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ouyangzizhensdad · 4 years

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so i do think it’s quite weird you would defend fans of the novel from labels like fetishizing fujo whilst saying you only engage w/ fandom wank on tumblr?? just bcuz you don’t engage w/sex scenes in that way doesn’t mean other fans don’t? like it’s nice to be all serious and deep about meta but there are in fact so many fans ruled by their Id... holy fuck, if I had a nickel for every demeaning depiction of omega wei ying(according to fans book!canon, lol) on twt and ao3 i would be sooo rich, and it’s disingenuous of you to treat them as those superior beings when they 👏🏻 just 👏🏻 wanna 👏🏻 write 👏🏻 men 👏🏻 fuck 👏🏻 I get the message this is not you, but you are hardly representative of the fandom (: this is not an ask about cql in any way and is entirely about how it is in fact possible to use a gay ship for gratification and can we stop pretending otherwise

Hi anon,

The point of decrying people lumping everyone together for the crime of *checks notes* liking a specific book/liking works from a specific genre is because it is misguided and reductive as well as because it aims to create easy divisions between good/bad based solely on what content people engage with instead of, idk, their beliefs or how they conduct themselves (it’s also stupid because most of the people who leverage these criticisms engage in m/m fandom or with m/m content, just not those that could be classified as danmei-bl). It also aims to acknowledge, in the same breath, that these “criticisms” demonise the works themselves by insinuating that by virtue of being danmei-bl the only merits they could possibly have are as material to be used by caricatural homophobic monsters (aka the fabled “gross fetishising fujo”), instead of recognising that works within a same genre differ in quality and in tastefulness.

You seem to not be someone who is a frequent reader of this blog, because if that were the case you would be aware that I’ve never said all people who engage with danmei-bl or m/m content act in ways that I personally like or approve of, or that they are never homophobic--in fact, I’ve literally said the opposite at times. Saying “don’t make people who consume danmei-bl content into caricatures to be demonised to feel better about your own own engagement with m/m content” does not mean condoning the actions of every person who consumes danmei-bl and engage in fandom spaces. I never saw myself as Urban II giving out fandom plenary indulgences, lmao.

I find it also interesting that you suggest that I consider that book fans are “superior beings“ when at most I suggest that CQL-onlies and CQL-mains have exhausting and ridiculous things to say about the novel itself and fans of the novel generally. If a superior/inferior dichotomy is how you interact with the world, there’s not much I can do about that, but I cannot accept having my opinions being shoved into such reductive boxes.

I’m also surprised that you seem to assign the sin of wanting to “see men fuck” on "fetishising fujos” (which, in this fandom, is a shorthand for book fans) when many CQL-onlies/CQL-mains produce extremely explicit content based on CQL-verse--especially considering your ask begins with your objection at my defending the practice of calling book fans “fetishisng fujos”. Why do you feel that this sin is one that is representative of the book novel fandom, specifically? I’m also confused by the fact that there being an aspect of gratification in shipping/fandom being an inherent red flag: are we really going to be modern-days Platos arguing that the best relationship is an erotically charged one between men that nonetheless never involves actual sexual contact, ie the o.g. platonic ideal?

I cannot speak of what is representative of the novel fandom, because fandom in 2021 is such a decentralised experience that it makes it difficult to get a sense of what kind of fandom engagement would count as “representative”. Perhaps you are right and people who share omega!WWX fanart really are the majority, the spokespersons for the fandom. What I can say however with certainty is that a lot of people in this fandom match my vibe (not the bitter and pretentious vibes, the ‘desire to engage with the work on a deeper level’ vibe).

#anon ask #fandom discussions #cql vs mdzs

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cat-brodsky · 4 years

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the hamartia of dark academia

@sarcasmandstudying thanks.

“Does a thing as “the fatal flaw,” that shady crack running down a dream or something something exist outside of the secret history? I’m not going to quote the book, because you have already seen this quote a billion times; anyway, spoiler: it’s a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.”

The word “Hamartia” means just that, the fatal flaw. Well... not exactly that.

“Hamartia is a morally neutral non-normative term, derived from the verb hamartano, meaning 'to miss the mark', 'to fall short of an objective'. And by extension: to reach one destination rather than the intended one; to make a mistake, not in the sense of a moral failure, but in the nonjudgmental sense of taking one thing for another, taking something for its opposite.” Thanks, Wikipedia.

(In a tragedy, the best qualities of the protagonist may lead to their downfall. Hamlet’s thoughtful reflection leads to him waiting to kill Claudius for so long that the king eventually plots his death. In The Secret History, Henry’s loyalty leads him to blindly follow Julian and eventually kill himself. That sort of thing.)

To me, dark academia - from what I see on tumblr - is ultimately about hope, about escapism; about dreams for a better life. Academia is the one field where one might just advance purely based on merit - on how smart and hardworking they are.

And, you know? That’s one hell of a good thing. If an aesthetic can inspire people to work towards something better, to improve themselves, then all the more power to it.

Not all countries have college costing as much as it does in the US. Most don’t, actually. Going abroad to study can be a solution, scholarships can be a solution; self-study or a vocational school can be a solution - and many people don’t know that. DA could end up becoming a community with the resources that I can only wish I had in high school.

But one issue is focusing on the superficial, outdated attributes of “academia”. Academia is not private schools and oxbridge and rowing teams and rich kids. Academia is not “pretty”. And I’m afraid that all these aesthetic pictures are setting people up for failure, for expecting the unrealistic from their college experience.

College is not the only path ahead. College can be a wonderful time, or a miserable time. Or both. College will likely not be the picturesque experience that the recruitment pamphlets depict, though. College doesn’t have to look pretty to be a great place, or a terrible place. College might not make you a better person. College does not make you better than others.

I reiterate: college does not make you better than others.

I see a few posts from folks here worrying about being “dark academia enough”. What does that even mean? “Sorry, you don’t own enough fountain pens to have an IQ of 140.″ The atmosphere in the community ultimately does contribute to gatekeeping - you have to post the same twenty things as the others to be noticed - and that just ain’t right, I tell you what.

And sometimes, the escapism becomes overwhelming. Daydreaming about daydreaming. Yearning for a penpal without knowing what you’d write to each other about. Yearning for a passion without having a baseline interest. Yearning. And that worries me. Are all aesthetics about dreaming for something you cannot have? Would gaining what you yearn for even satisfy you?

I would not have such an issue with the aesthetic if it wasn’t called academia, if it wasn’t so pretentious as to claim it was about the pursuit of knowledge, rather than old gothic buildings and British country clothing. And I would be quite happy to separate one from the other - the pursuit of knowledge from all the external attributes that colleges use to sell their image.

Of course, going the other way and “romanticizing” poverty is... well, I’ve already written a vehement post about that some time ago. Perhaps for some people, having such an image of their situation can help them keep going strong. But... I’ve been in a place where I had no money for food. Romanticizing is ultimately about making something pretty, and to me, this feels like a cruel mockery. I can find humor in my past, I can find strength, but I cannot find anything beautiful. I understand wanting to be supportive, and I approve of the notion, but - this isn’t the way to go.

And no, I don’t know the right way and I cannot pretend to know one. What I’m hoping for is to open dialogue. I don’t know many people in the community, but the ones I do know are ultimately well-meaning folks whom I quite enjoy talking to.

There’s nothing wrong with finding the past superficially beautiful. Everyone needs something picturesque in their life. But, do not confuse the moon with her reflection in the pond.

#dark academia #dark academia aesthetic #discourse #dork academia #cat rants

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alienheartattack · 3 years

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Hello. Who’s ur comfort character? (Snk) what r ur notps for snk? And, last one, how do you write Levi and Mikasa so perfectly? Like their personalities and what they say- how do you even get good at that? I love all ur works

Hello! Thank you for reading and for taking the time to send a message!

I don't really have any comfort characters from SNK. I guess Levi? He's the only one who doesn't make me depressed about the series when I look at him lmao. Right now my comfort characters are my OCs, considering how much I enjoy brainstorming for them. (Both male leads I've written so far are masculine men with strong personalities who are also soft and kind. Now that I think about it, I tend to write Levi in a similar way in a modern AU where he's allowed to indulge his softness.)

In terms of notps, I think I've made my feelings on EM pretty clear. I'm not a fan of Levihan (love it platonically though, and I even follow some Levihan blogs) or Rivahisu either. However, I just filter everything I don't like so I barely even remember it exists.

I've been accused of writing Levi and Mikasa OOC before, so it's wonderful to hear that someone thinks I do it perfectly! I pay a lot of attention to how people talk IRL and sometimes I'll even say my dialogue out loud to make sure it flows. It's always been a big pet peeve of mine that authors who write "snappy" dialogue rarely write how people actually talk, instead they go all big and pretentious with it. I think Levi and Mikasa are relatively uncomplicated people (despite all the trauma), so their dialogue should be more straightforward. A lot of what I do is think, “How would a person who watched their parents die in front of them/was raised in a dangerous slum/is the only person they know who’s as strong as they are/etc. act in this situation?”

ETA: I rambled a lot about writing here, so I'm just gonna toss it below a read more.

In terms of Levi and Mikasa's personalities, I tend to focus on things we know canonically about the characters and then fill in the blanks from there. They're both relatively reserved people but they have a wicked sense of humor, and usually it relates to things that are scatological or taboo. I tend to focus on them being people who are stoic on the outside but very emotional on the inside, because that way I give myself an opportunity to explore their inner life, which usually involves some kind of domesticity (based upon Mikasa's desire for a family and Levi's potential career as a tea merchant).

I also like to drop in random canon or fanon facts, like Levi only sleeping a few hours a night or high school AU Mikasa being a goth, and then use those as jumping off points for further characterization. For example, writing a scene with cranky Levi doesn't hit as hard as writing a scene with cranky Levi when you know he's tired from a bad night of sleep and he's running on caffeine and fumes. It's easier to characterize him and add details to your writing by drawing on your own experiences of being tired: he probably feels like shit, he's exhausted, his eyes are puffy, he's yawning, he's not paying as close attention as he normally would be.

Another thing I do that helps keep me in tune with the characters is to decide what kind of Rivamika I want to write before I start writing. I decide how they feel about each other during the story and whether I want that to change. If I write a story where they're already friends, their personalities are going to show a lot differently in a story where they openly dislike each other, although I usually write them bickering in some way to reflect their interpersonal conflicts in canon.

The way I'm able to achieve all this complexity in my writing is that I tend to write pretty mechanically: I decide what goal I want to achieve with a story, then work backwards and figure out how to get there. For example, with the assassin AU, I knew it was going to center around a scene that was violent but also very caring and maybe even loving, so I made very sure to write Levi and Mikasa as people who argue a lot and say some really terrible things to each other, but who show deep respect through their actions. If they truly hated each other, Mikasa would never agree to sleep with him in any situation, so I had to make sure to add details that infer that maybe they don't actually hate each other that much. I really fixate on making my characters' motivations believable, so I was literally sitting there thinking, "If I were in Mikasa's shoes, in what scenario would I be okay having sex with a weird coworker?" Or I'll try to imagine a similar situation in my life where I thought I disliked someone but actually realized I would be upset if I didn't see them around. Especially with fanfiction, it's all about showing how the characters feel about each other, and what events and actions can make those feelings change.

I've already written enough here, but I wanted to emphasize one of the things I stand by as a writer that I think makes for better characterization: nothing is ever black or white. People are frequently conflicted or torn by competing desires, even when it comes to relatively easy decisions. (Especially when it comes to things like food and sex.) Even if someone falls strongly on one side of an issue, they can usually see the merits of both sides. No one is ever 100% good or evil, and oftentimes bad people genuinely believe they're doing the right thing. I try to make it so that every character in a story genuinely believes that they are doing their best, so when they come into conflict it's because they have deeper issues than just a simple misunderstanding or miscommunication. For example, in Inexorable, I wanted everyone to be sympathetic to a degree, even Eren, because I think it's too simple and unrealistic for him to be a straight up villain. Plus it makes the reader really feel for Mikasa, because both she and the reader can see that even though Eren was a dick, he's also trying to make things right. It makes her final decision that much more anxiety-inducing and ultimately satisfying because she has a good reason for being with Levi and a less good but still valid reason for being with Eren, and (hopefully) you don't know which one she'll pick. These problems often take a lot of thinking and brainstorming to resolve, but I find that they make for much more satisfying characterization and plot.

I could blab on about writing forever (obviously) so I'm always down to answer asks!

#alienheartattack writes

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