#layers and deeper understanding and recontextualization

[mikimeiko]

The Lazarus Project | Season 2 (2023), Joe Barton

[wen-kexing-apologist]

LITBC Part Three: Now Introducing, Kylie

Okay, it looks like I get to talk about what I am now claiming is my incredible, dead-center accurate read on Young and how his relationships continue to falter. In Part One, I talked about how I believed one of the biggest reasons that Young and Jaehee slowly drifted apart in their friendship was because at some point Jaehee got serious and Young still could not allow himself to experience deep emotion, brushing everything off as a joke. Pretending it didn’t matter. Pretending it didn’t hurt. 

And it’s curious to me because I feel like we got to see Young leaning in to the deeper emotions, the heavier pain during Part Two, but it wasn’t enough to alter him wholly, though considering how he describes his relationship with Gyu-ho as boring it seems like there are parts of him that are starting to change. Just…not enough because when it comes down to the actual tough, serious shit, he still can’t bring himself to feel it, to voice it. He can’t do anything but smile through it, and as someone who has dealt with people like that it is frustrating as fuck to try over and over again to be there for someone, to offer support, a listening ear, understanding and sincerity and just be met with a joke. 

Maybe it’s just cause I’ve spent more time in his head now, or maybe it’s because he’s starting to loosen his grip just a little, but the death by a thousand paper cuts was really bleeding through the chapter for me in relation to Young and how he navigates his HIV diagnosis. To be clear, I do not mind that he calls it Kylie, that he has put his own name to it, that he considers is a part of him, that it’s almost like family to him. But that does not negate the fact that he does not ever say it. He never says “HIV” not once in the entirety of Part Three does he write the words HIV.

He describes it all, how he got it, what his symptoms are (his description of the fever and the red patches matches common symptoms of acute HIV to a T), he jokes about it with his friends, and otherwise he keeps it hidden, until Gyu-ho becomes important enough in his life that he has no choice but to tell him. And in all these instances Young is taking it harshly. His healthcare providers don’t deliver the news with care, going the homophobic route of asking Young what sex position he prefers while delivering his diagnosis. 

You know what I find extremely interesting about this book so far is how terribly the healthcare industry has been presented. That is not to say there aren’t problems, there are plenty of problems with healthcare both systemic issues and individual provider issues, I am not necessarily trying to say he is wrong in his portrayal. I just noticed that in Part One we got Jaehee’s terrible shame-y doctor and Young’s terrible homophobic nurses, in Part Two we got the psychiatric facility that essentially tortured Young for six weeks before telling him his mother was actually the problem and offering him no additional support for what they had just put him through, in Part Three his providers are homophobic and not only that but Gyu-ho’s brother who is in medical school is described as the most dickish, vile, piece of shit to date. 

Young’s HIV diagnosis definitely recontextualizes some stuff from Parts One and Two, (forgive me for not going in to further detail, I was brain foggy when I ready Part Two last week and can’t recall a lot from it off the top of my head) but moreover it adds an additional layer to Young’s utter refusal to let himself feel. Every aspect of Young’s HIV diagnosis is harsh, the healthcare providers who break the news are harsh, T-ara’s jokes about the HIV+ guy they see walking past after Young is essentially forced to out his status (want to just call out the parallel here between Young having to out himself in college and then having to out himself with friends) are harsh, the barriers that he faces and his fears of discrimination in the workforce are harsh. The only person who is ever soft about it is Gyu-ho. 

And I do think that scares him, and where Young calls himself dickmatized for his boyfriend in Part Two, in Part Three he just keeps calling Gyu-ho cute, he and Gyu-ho live together for awhile, they split up but come back to one another, Young seems more settled. And honestly, I think that has a lot to do with the fact that they aren’t having sex. 

I feel the need to clarify, since book club has a lot of people who I don’t think are as familiar with my essay content, that I am not anti-sex. I don’t think that Gyu-ho and Young’s relationship is as successful as it is for as long as it is because sex is morally wrong and they shouldn’t be doing it or anything like that. I think that the absence of sex in Gyu-ho and Young’s relationship forces Young to actually consider what a relationship looks like to him and what he wants out of it. The Young we met in Part One was a fuck-the-pain-away kind of person, he and Jaehee got along so well partially because they were both sluts and therefore knew they could talk about their sexual encounters without being shamed or judged. 

In Part Two, Young really seems to use his boyfriend as a distraction from his mother and his mother’s treatments. He allows himself to ignore huge disparities in his relationship for some dick, he changes parts of himself for some dick, he attempts suicide after losing that dick. As the wise @bengiyo always says, dick is not magical, it cannot fix you. And Young really has to reckon with that in Part Three when he gets in to a relationship with a man who actually feels things, unlike himself, unlike Jaehee, unlike his ex because Young can’t use sex as a crutch. 

Full disclosure, I hadn’t heard about condom-associated erectile problems (CAEP) until reading this book. Had no clue that was a thing before. Bearing in mind that these studies are over a decade old, studies have shown that erection loss can occur in roughly 14-28% of people during condom application. At the time of Part Three, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) which helps minimize the chances of acquiring HIV should you be exposed to the virus was not on the market in South Korea. Truvada and Descovy are the two branded PrEP medications, Truvada has been on drug markets since 2004 (when it was taken in combination with other medications) but was not approved for use without other med combinations in the United States until 2012, the first CDC guidelines for Truvada usage came out in 2014, and Truvada did not hit South Korean drug markets until 2018 with Descovy following close behind in 2019. PrEP is an incredibly important drug in HIV prevention because it reduces the risk of acquiring HIV via by up to 99% (and reduces the chance of getting HIV from injection drug use by 75%!) 

If PrEP had been around at the time, it would have been expensive and likely unaffordable for at a time when Gyu-ho’s income was helping to support not only himself by Young as well (Truvada in South Korea cost over $10 a pill and must be taken daily, so Gyu-ho would have had to shell out $300 a month for the medication alone). Compare that to the first antiretroviral treatment (ART) in South Korea, zidovudine which is supplied for free by the South Korean government, or their highly-active antiretroviral treatment (HAART) which was covered by insurance. Studies have shown that triple combination therapy, that is three different medications, were able to reduce HIV to undetectable levels within one month for 70% of patients and to 90% of patients within one year. Considering Young’s mention of liver protection medication, he is likely on a triple combination therapy. 

Is this a tangent? Yes. But did this all make me realize something? Also yes. Young never gets a blood test. With a consistent HAART regimen this is an extremely high likelihood that Young would have had an undetectable viral load. For those of you who don’t know how human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) works, the virus destroys white blood cells in your body which are used to fight infections, with a compromised immune system the chances of acquiring additional infectious diseases are high as are the chances of having extremely bad cases of those infectious diseases increasing your chance of death from things like pneumonia, or in a lot of HIV to AIDS progression cases kaposi’s sarcoma which is a type of cancer. 

The success of antiretroviral treatments is measured by how low of a viral load a person has (think of it like measuring how much HIV you have in you). Viral load is measured through blood work. When the viral load is low enough it becomes undetectable and when a person is undetectable they are untransmittable (U = U) meaning they cannot give HIV to their sexual partner. The U = U campaign didn’t really take off until 2016, so it is still entirely possible that had Young been undetectable at the time that he still would not know that he could not transmit the virus to Gyu-ho. But he never got a blood test. 

All of which is an extremely long winded way of saying that Gyu-ho had infrequent success at remaining erect while wearing a condom resulting in infrequent penetrative sexual encounters with Young because the best way to prevent transmission of HIV is through condom usage. But The King of Kings of Avoidant Personalities sent Gyu-ho to his first blood test and withdrew his job application and essentially forced Gyu-ho to break up with him rather than get the second blood test. So it is likely, and honestly very highly likely that any concerns Young had about the lack of sex he and Gyu-ho were having could have been solved by Young getting his bloodwork done and keeping an eye on his viral load. 

This of course also assumes that Young is keeping up with pretty meticulously with his treatment regimen, which he most likely is not. Inconsistent medication adherence not only makes it more likely that Young’s viral load would never reach undetectable levels, but also increases his risk of his HIV infection mutating and becoming resistant to antiretroviral treatments. Which is…bad.  

So let’s say that his viral load never reached undetectable levels, or they didn’t know U = U, and the condom problem still existed. Maybe it is just a western lens coming in to this, but I think with all the queer media I’ve consumed, with all the queer people I am around on a daily basis the dilemma that Young seems to be carrying around knowing that Gyu-ho wants to have sex and that his CAEP and Young’s status makes that very difficult I see and understand where the barrier comes in. But because Young never talks about anything, especially what is troubling him, there is no room to really talk about solutions to that problem. I think about relationship structures like polyamory or open relationships. I think about a number of non-penetrative ways they could have had sex or how they could have used sex toys. But again, I don’t have the cultural context to understand what gay culture is/was like in Korea, and I know these are not solutions that always work for everyone anyways.

But just like we will never know if Young was undetectable before Gyu-ho left for Shanghai, we will never know if alternative solutions to sex would have been feasible for this couple because Young whether through circumstance or his own volition is constantly trapped between a rock and a hard place. He won’t engage in open communication with Gyu-ho, he won’t be vulnerable with Gyu-ho, so he doesn’t know how the lack of sex is impacting Gyu-ho in their relationship. He doesn’t want to experience discrimination based on his HIV status and possibly lose out on a job so instead he blows up all chances of getting that job by withdrawing his application so that he doesn’t have to get tested. Not getting tested means he doesn’t have an accurate gauge of his health, which means he doesn’t have an accurate gauge of how safe it would be to have unprotected sex with Gyu-ho, which perpetuates the cycle. 

Young is running from his feelings, running from his pain, his loneliness, his fear. In Part One, Young and Jaehee started to drift apart after Young was not able to treat Jaehee’s abortion with sincerity; in Part Three, Young and Gyu-ho drift apart because Young is so scared of his HIV that he can’t even look it in the eye. He can’t even call it by its name. 

[absolutely-not-my-main-blog]

Was thinking about Dennis coming home after North Dakota, and thinking about what if Mandy knows, what if Mandy is the only one who knows? I mean really knows like not just deeply suspects from all the skirting around, but what if Mandy is the only one Dennis was able to open up with/admit his real feelings about Mac to or even less specifically about anything to, because she’s not entrenched in everything the gang is, she’s from such a different world that on some level she’s got this sense of unrealness about her to Dennis, one that lets him feel like in contrast he can be more real himself to make up for that, because who else is gonna know?

Then was thinking about how each time when Dennis is away from the gang, as this unrealness seems to persist, he tends to let his guard down, be more vulnerable, more unsure, he slips into different roles, as if trying to figure himself out for the first time, figure out who he is outside the gang and everything its history entails, but what if when in ND, after everything with Mac, he did figure himself out, and maybe being with Mandy helps him see that and it’s hard for her not to see it too, see how he doesn’t belong there/can’t belong there, so she lets him go, but he was already too deep in the role, like a method actor gone too far, and now that he’s back, now that he’s not in that particular role but can’t exactly just happily return to his old role in the gang either, he’s trying to reconcile every role he’s ever had/created for himself within him throughout the years and cycle through them, trying desperately to see if any still fit, peeling away all the layers and masks he’s tried to get other people to see him as, (cold/emotionless, killer, womanizer, god, etc.)—all roles he’s also tried to see himself as so as to reason away and not face his traumas head on—until finally laid bare underneath is the real Dennis, the one he’s been keeping hidden for so long except in little glimpses when his grip on control slipped, the one that is sensitive and terrified and feels too much and too little, and doesn’t always understand why, the one who loves his friends, loves Mac, and just wants that in return, the one who’s been playing so many different roles for so long he’s almost forgotten what it’s like not to play one.

Like, the Dennis we start to see as the seasons go on is not Dennis the person, it’s Dennis the character, the one he’s created for himself and others have inadvertently created for him, the “I just wanted to live up to everyone’s expectations of me” result of his mother instilling this burning necessity to be this perfect golden boy in him, his father never letting him be emotionally open/trying to toughen him up by making sure he always expects the worst and just has to suck it up, Mrs. Klinksy forcing him to recontextualize his assault as more of a conquest of something he wanted on his part rather than what it was, etc, etc, so he becomes a golden god, he becomes a hardened shell that doesn’t let his feelings get to him, he becomes the guy who controls the women and never lets them control him because they’ve convinced him this is who he is, who he’s always been, right? *wavering* Right? And he tries so hard to convince everyone else, digging himself deeper and deeper into this persona no matter how ill fitting, (going further into the wall), letting this flanderization of anger and rage and emptiness and a scary, almost dangerous edge overtake him until even the one person who’s supposed to see the real him (because I know you, man) starts to fall for the mask, too. And he realizes he doesn’t want to play this role anymore, he never did, but the mask is stuck... the mask is stuck and no one even knows he’s wearing it.

[lucky-sevens]

mechanisms basics & lore

welcome to my updated mechanisms intro post! this post will cover both the topics discussed in my mechanisms basics post, which is geared towards people who don’t know what the mechanisms are, and my deep lore post, which aimed to be a comprehensive compilation of all the important character and world lore. this post should serve the above group, but it’s geared towards people who have listened but feel there’s a lot of lore that seems to be common knowledge they’re missing. we’ll start out with a basic introduction, and then go into crew lore and a semi-comprehensive guide on where to go for further information.

basics

the mechanisms were a steampunk concept band, known for their queer representation and their tragic stories. they are no longer together, their last performance being january 2020, but several of their members are still creating related spinoff content.

they follow the trope many steampunk bands do, which is albums that tell a story; think similar to listening to a musical soundtrack, but geared to a visual-less experience. what distinguishes them is 1) narration tracks between each song, making the plot very easy to follow, and 2) being meant to be watched live, meaning there’s layers of meta that are more easily understood by watching recorded gigs rather than studio recordings of albums. specifically, there’s a focus on the narrators, known as the mechanisms or the crew of the aurora, who are immortal space pirates telling the stories and occasionally inserting themselves into them. though they are tragic figures themselves, their banter serves the purpose of bringing a lightheartedness and dark humor to the stories. if there’s an aspect of the lore you’re confused on, it’s probably related to the narrators!

to watch the mechanisms live, you can find recordings on youtube, dropbox, google drive, soundcloud, or vimeo, which are all compiled in this post (including transcripts!). if visuals aren’t your thing, i’ve linked the studio recordings later on in this post when they come up, and here are the mechanisms’ official spotify, bandcamp, and youtube, as well as an unofficial comprehensive lyric videos channel. 

the albums

regarding the albums specifically, there are 4 main ones (once upon a time (in space), ulysses dies at dawn, high noon over camelot, and the bifrost incident), 2 that are compilations of miscellaneous songs (tales to be told 1 & 2), 1 single (frankenstein), and 1 album that’s a high-quality recording of their last live show, including an alternative performance of the bifrost incident, 2 songs only performed at live shows, and 'the deathsong’, which details how they all eventually die (death to the mechanisms).

as you might have been able to tell from the titles, they’re all based off of various myths, folklore, literature, and/or fairy tales, using different genres on top of a sci-fi setting to add a fresh twist to them! for example, high noon over camelot is a western based on arthurian mythos, set on a space station. (the albums are known for all ending in tragedy, so be careful if that isn’t your cup of tea!) if your goal is to get into the mechanisms, i’d suggest sitting down and listening to them all in full; links will be provided below, or alternatively you can watch once upon a time (in space) live here, ulysses dies at dawn live here, or the bifrost incident live here. (there is no full live recording with visuals of high noon over camelot, sadly, but there are partial and audio only recordings.)

once upon a time (in space) - spotify/bandcamp/youtube

ulysses dies at dawn - spotify/bandcamp/youtube

high noon over camelot - spotify/bandcamp/youtube

the bifrost incident - spotify/bandcamp/youtube

tales to be told, volume 1 -  spotify/bandcamp/youtube

tales to be told, volume 2 - spotify/bandcamp/youtube

frankenstein - spotify/bandcamp/youtube

death to the mechanisms - edited video with the stream corruption fixed + subtitles / stream / spotify / bandcamp / youtube / transcript pt. 1 / transcript pt. 2

reading the fiction is integral to understanding both the albums and the mechanisms themselves. the fiction is a collection of short stories set in the mechanisms universe posted on their website here and compiled by me here, with an extra high noon over camelot story here. (there are also audio versions for ‘mirror mirror’ and ‘a rebel yell’ included on both the website and the compilation).

the crew of the aurora

as for the crew, at their peak there were nine members played by people, as well as the ex-member dr carmilla, who has extensive solo lore and is still active (which we’ll touch on in a few paragraphs). there is also their ship, the aurora, who is sentient and has her own lore. in fact, every member of the crew has their own backstory, set in a different genre or historical period; for example, nastya rasputina's is historical, jonny d’ville’s is a western and marius von raum’s is a mecha anime. however, they’re all still different flavors of steampunk! below, i’ll list each member, their performer, and the main sources of lore about them. for the majority of them, they have their own song in tales to be told, but there are a few outliers. everyone also has their own bio up on the website, which can all be found here. 

the aurora (n/a, ship)- on aurora (meta)

jonny d’ville (jonny sims)- one eyed jacks (song), jonny before he was mechanized (meta)

nastya rasputina (anonymous)- cyberian demons (song)

ivy alexandria (morgan wilkinson)- archive footage (fiction), crew bio

ashes o’reilly (frank voss)- lucky sevens (song)

drumbot brian (ben below)- lost in the cosmos (song), crew bio

the toy soldier (jessica law)- the story of the toy soldier (fiction)

gunpowder tim (tim ledsam)- gunpowder tim vs the moon kaiser (song/minialbum)

marius von raum (kofi young)- the death of byron von raum summary (blog post)

raphaella la cognizi (r l hughes)- crew bio

if you’ve noticed the crew bio doesn’t say much about raphaella, that’s because we know little to nothing about her backstory. the only thing we have to go on is a quote from the tv tropes page, which looking at the edit history, was likely written by one of the mechanisms. the quote is ‘Science officer who may or may not have cheated her way onto the ship after becoming a little too interested.‘ and the page is here.

the majority of fandom content is about the crew, working off of what we get from the tales to be told songs, the live gigs, and the fiction.

dr carmilla

speaking of characters with obscure lore, let’s talk about dr carmilla! rather than linger, i’ll just link my carmilla basics post, which is a comprehensive summary of who she is in and out of universe. to summarize, she’s a character based on the novella ‘carmilla’ by sheridan le fanu, commonly regarded as the first vampire novel, but her lore has diverged heavily from that original starting point since then. she is the oldest out of all of the crew, and made the majority of the other crew members immortal. she, as well as aurora, is from a planet called terra, which was destroyed partially as a result of her actions. her character is defined by her immortality and how she deals with it, her experiences on terra, her relationship with the mechanisms, and her dysfunctional relationship with her ex-girlfriend loreli, the last of which is the most covered by her songs. out of universe, she is played by maki yamazaki. all her lore lines up with what happened out of universe, and ties to the fact the mechanisms were originally dr carmilla and the mechanisms. she has two solo albums and two singles, which i’ll link below.

ageha (prototype edition) (album)- bandcamp | youtube

exhumed and {un}plugged (album)- bandcamp | youtube

the city {nex:type mix} (single, in-character cover)- bandcamp | youtube

eleven (single)- bandcamp | youtube

the majority of her lore is still to be officially revealed, and will be in the trilogy of albums maki yamazaki is working on.

further reading

if you’d like to delve further into the lore, there are a few sources i use! there are official, in-character, blogs, as well as things that are harder to dredge up; i won’t link them here, but some sources include @/thedreadvampy (the band’s artist, as well as morgan wilkinson’s sister and kofi young’s partner; don’t bother her for lore or anything, but she’s previously made posts sharing previously unknown information), old websites and deleted content found on the wayback machine, the tv tropes pages, and most notably the lore doc.

the ‘maki forbidden lore doc’ is an archive of all the lore maki yamazaki has shared on the mechscord, the official mechanisms discord which she’s on, and her own personal server, where she’s running an arg (alternate reality game) as a way of relaying more lore about the dr carmilla universe. for an idea of the scale, the doc is currently 91 pages and 28346 words, and recontextualizes much of what is known about dr carmilla and maki’s canon of the mechanisms universe. it is confidential to anyone not in her discord or the mechscord, as she’s said that this lore isn’t thought out nearly as much as the albums and is subject to change, so she’d rather it not be out in the open. however, information on how to join the mechscord can be found here. there is also a non-canonical fan project based on the arg in progress, but information on it is also confidential for now.

with regards to the above phrase ‘maki’s canon’ it’s worth noting that all of the individual band members have their own idea of what counts as canon and what doesn’t, and as you foray deeper into lore that division becomes more and more apparent.

with that, here are the mechanisms’ blogs. they are all both run in-character by the main nine band members and inactive unless i note otherwise.

twitter

tumblr

facebook

website/wordpress (run ic by tereshkova’s ghost, the blogbot, for the most part)

carmilla twitter (active, run ic by dr carmilla)

conclusion

now that we’re coming to the end of this, i’d like to thank whoever got this far, and to say a few words. my interest in the mechanisms has been slowly fading, and i’ve been writing less and less meta and lapsing in keeping up with new lore myself. honestly, i’m pretty worn out by how much i’ve done on this blog and in this fandom, and the commitments i’ve assigned myself. i do have plans for future meta, but it’s unlikely they’ll come to fruition. so, i thought i’d do a new version of my two oldest posts on this blog, and hopefully enable other people to look into the lore and theorize themselves with the new information.

to find more information, remember there’s a mechanisms wiki, and that my askbox is always open.

thanks for reading!

[ouranimeyeah]

MY NEW BOHEMIAN LIFESTYLE.

Hey everyone, for the longest time I was a consumer of art, separating it from my own personal identity. Within the last few weeks I feel like I have been reborn. After hours careful deliberation and insight. Patiently observing my environment, looking at situations and the complex elements present within them. And realizing that the only way to uncover any true sense of grounding, I had to turn to art. Art is the only basis by which I can understand the world personally. It doesn't attempt to apply absolutes.

It's all about capturing a person or situation within a specific and particular context. It's the process of abstraction and the recording of said abstraction with the goal of uncovering a breath of perspective in depth. How does this relate to my identity as a bohemian?

For one, bohemian's live through art. They see everything including themselves as art. And therefore to acquire a deeper more fuller understanding of the world they desire to pursue expression. Everything in this world, every perspective in this world is a form of expression. Therefore, being who I am I must seek to pursue, value, recontextualize, analyze, criticize and deconstruct every aspect of the world. Nothing to me is inherently good or bad. Just merely an expression. A moment in a persons being that could never fully be recreated in the future. Because every aspect of life is constantly changing forward. Every past moment and word said is nothing more then a collection of stimuli that has long since dessapated into obscurity. The present is the only reality. Therefore I seek to engage in every aspect that occupies the present. I myself am art. Therefore my experience must reflect the desire to extend my range. My mind is a canvas, yearning for growth, yearning for layers to be built upon it's foundation. Like the bricks that lay at the base of buildings or the roots of mountains, the layers of rock that are added upon them, and the pillars and marble floors, roofs, handrails, stairs and other assortments ordaining the shelters we humans occupy. I am art. My experiences are art. And therefore, the more versatile I am the more I can get out of my experience of myself. Range, freedom, exploration and a gleeful glow of youth occupy my every thought.

My bohemian soul continues shining forward. Ever into darkness, enjoying the pitch black with my white paint. I must create, I must embody, I must be... Art.

[sendmyresignation]

In Defense of Teenagers:

Ok so. There seems to be a general consensus that Teenagers doesn’t fit on the black parade or that it ruins the trajectory of the album or that the song order of bp needs to be changed to fit the b-sides and drop Teenagers, or it should have just been a single- basically any option other than its inclusion between Sleep and Disenchanted would have been better. now, i’m not here to tell anyone that they’re wrong- i just want to offer an alternative perspective because i truly believe Teenagers is right where it belongs and that its inclusion on that album is, in my opinion, completely necessary to the album’s narrative arc. I want to focus on the way Teenagers builds into the foundation of the Concept Record, the way it bridges the gap between Sleep and Disenchanted so as not to delegitimize Disenchanted’s impact, and the fact that no other available material fits into the struggle the Patient endures at the end of the narrative (sorry this got LONG here’s a read more)

So, before we get into the meat of Teenager’s narrative significance, i wanted to briefly mention the way it makes Black Parade a more cohesive whole in relation to the material it is mimicking. Like Black Parade as an album is structured very differently from Pink Floyd’s The Wall- but it takes a lot of the same beats and recontextualizes them for a new purpose. Both records use war and relationship troubles and school and drugs to create an atmosphere that leads to disillusionment. In The Wall, this is quite literally the protagonist, Pink, building up “bricks in the wall” that isolates him from the rest of society and lead to a downward spiral into cynicism and hate. But Black Parade uses the same tools that The Wall does to say something different- things, specifically the actions you've made or the trauma you've endured, haunts you and makes your life seem insignificant in the face of what happens to you and those regrets are what causes the Patient to fall into a cycle of damnation and cynicism. This is representative of the Patient's descent through the afterlife- each new "layer" of the Patient's exploration is equivalent to a brick in The Wall's metaphor. Additionally, in this new context, this song in particular takes The Wall’s discussions of adolescence and the vice-grip control older generations attempt to force on teens and the disillusionment with the future and retells it from a new perspective- both literally in the fact the song is now more reflective of the 2000s post-9/11 and post-columbine culture, but its also literally from the perspective of the Patient as an adult. Teenagers, as a result, becomes a necessary piece of that puzzle- it is the refraction of Another Brick in the Wall repurposed to mean something new entirely- it’s no longer about kids being forced into complacency by a cruel education system from their own perspective (the children’s choir allows them to speak for themselves) but about the ways in which adults see those kids and why they decide to enact actions similar to those within The Wall. I mean even the imagery used in the song’s music video is purposely almost plagiarizing The Wall- it feeds into a separate analysis of the video and song outside the narrative as well- which i don’t have time right now to get into, its just very interesting that the band is bodily removed from their instruments at the end of the video and the teenagers in the audience have rendered them incapacitated (“they’re looking for a rockstar to kill” anyone?) it's the metaphorical tearing down of the wall from a completely different perspective. Anyway, the work Teenagers does for the narrative is it fits the album into the Concept Record Cinematic Universe- it is a piece that evokes the material it is influenced by to build off of the old to create the new- without it, the connections to The Wall would still be there, sure, but it wouldn’t be as complete- you cannot recontextualize the album without the foundation of Teenagers.

Teenagers is also, at its core, a subtle subversion of genre- using the blueprint of a specific kind of song to center the song within the timeline/narrative. In this case, the same way I Don’t Love You mimics and exaggerates the emotive and plaintive 80s rock ballad, Teenagers twists the classic rock of a bygone era to specifically call back on the stadium rock anthem.  Black Parade, on the whole, does this quite frequently- most of its songs take pre-existing genre cues and subverts them in ways that play off of the expected tapestry of a concept record to create individual sounding songs that seamlessly transition into one another yet remain entirely separate. It maintains their presence as scenes in a larger tapestry- specifically the fabric of the Black Parade being a morality play. This serves two purposes, it allows for this exaggeration of genre to become a motif within the work (see mama, cancer, house of wolves, i don’t love you, wttbp -> they all play with a different, varied song type/structure that is distinct from each other) and it plays off of existing genre-stereotypes in ways that contribute to the songs overall function. I Don’t Love You, for example, undermines the fundamental purposes of sappy power ballads- to express one of the two dualities of love songs: the cheesy unconditional “i will love you forever” types or the plaintive, melancholic end-of-relationship song by instead focusing on the complexity of a not-quite-finished relationship. The ballad then shifts from an expression of love to one of human loss- and the loss is less about the individual speaking, but moreso about what the other character has become - it’s a mourning not for the relationship, but for the person themselves, who they used to be in a way. It shifts from the one-dimensional view of what a ballad can achieve and instead infuses the anger, the resignation, the drama, the transformation- it humanizes a very stock genre full of platitudes and uses our expectations to create something more interesting. Similarly, Teenagers takes a tired genre and utilizes the working mechanisms of its typical song structure to subvert and repurpose those into commentary- its literally a stadium rock song that devolves into a chant. Looking at the loud drumbeat that resonates in your chest, the all together now as a command that lures the listener into singing along, the addition of more chorus vocals at the end like a crowd is shouting along, the screaming and the solo on after another like the song is falling apart a little bit, all of these elements build into a song literally meant to be infectious and replicated by the audience. Herein lies one of the songs many interpretations- humans can be easily influenced by the media they consume, the perspectives they are fed. What happens when the view that we have of adolescence is cloaked in mistrust and violence? This aspect of the song is less about the band reconciling teenagers being moved to committing acts of violence and more in analyzing how an audience can be persuaded into believing the erroneous view of teens as fundamentally destructive- are you not repeating the chorus? do teenagers not “scare the shit out of you”? Obviously the band doesn’t want you to believe this but it does what you to think about why this perspective is so common. It's a cultural subliminal message that is present in songs and tv and books that we simply do not question- it is a chant we cannot help but join in on. Teenagers is a replication of that process, but is clearly just subversive enough (both as a piece of genre and just as a song in general terms) that the listener knows its commentary and not itself propagating that viewpoint. Every song on Black Parade does this kind of “genre-bending” to make a point in some way or another, so it's a significant reason Teenagers fits into the albums cohesion.

But,Teenagers isn’t just important to the album in its sound- it lyrically parallels Disenchanted in a way that effectively moves on from Sleep without losing the album’s emotional momentum. Sleep, conceptually and lyrically, is a very heavy track- its influence from the Dune soundtrack’s Final Dream turn a cinematic, swelling piece of instrumentation into an oppressive blanket of noise that bears down on the listener and the lyrics are referential to the patient believing themselves to be irredeemable and monstrous. It's also inspired directly from Gerard’s vivid and violent night terrors during his stay at the paramour- including a recording of Gerard’s recollection of those dreams, that mentions being choked, seeing loved ones die, burning alive, etc. To transition directly from such a dark, personal subject into a reflective acoustic number about the narrator’s adolescence would be tonally inappropriate and almost laughable- it would stop the progression in its tracks, while also doing a disservice to Disenchanted. Having a break is necessary! And it's even more appropriate for that break to be a song about teenagers considering Disenchanted is so nostalgic. Additionally, Teenagers brings up a really interesting narrative thread about the Patient becoming disenchanted with the youth that then directly transitions into a song about him losing faith in his values and sense of self- they are directly correlated conceptually. Looking deeper, Disenchanted is a punk song. sort of. more specifically, it is the foundation of a punk song that becomes a ballad through narrative framing- it takes punk cliches (running from the cops, the crowds, the imagery of guillotining traitorous rich celebrities) and turns them wistful and sad because the Patient is looking back at something they no longer understand or identify with, it allows the narrative to illustrate how the Patient feels like their life was worthless and didn’t amount to much and they’re just another stupid punk kid who grew up and didn’t achieve anything. and you can’t get to this point from Sleep because it would weaken Disenchanted’s impact, make it seem insignificant and petulant in the face of Sleep’s heavy and grand sorrow. Lyrically, you need Teenagers to bridge the gap between the war metaphors and the visualizations of hell and the all-encompassing nature of cancer in order to redirect the focus to the Patient and limit the scope of the narrative at the end of the album. Teenagers, within the story, then functions as the Patient reflecting on the nature of youth and, in the wake of Mama’s “we all go to hell” rhetoric, comes to the conclusion that teenagers are wholly violent, easily manipulated, and unsympathetic. It's another step in the Patient removing his own agency and viewing his life as predestined at the same time it allows the “plot” to focus back on the more nostalgic and mundane aspects of the patient’s life. Doing so makes Famous Last Words so much more significant because it forces the Patient to reconcile with his past before he can move forward (whether that's living or dying its still applicable). so, Teenagers is very important to the overall “plot” of Black Parade- it is fundamentally necessary for the pieces to fit together.

Another larger aspect of Teenagers' importance is that it introduces the fate versus free will internal debate central to the ending fourth of the record. The song lays the foundation for this thematic idea by being about the fated violence of the youth and how they cannot help but to respond to their world with anger and cruelty. This realization about adolescence by the Patient leads to him perceiving his own youth as destructive and worthless and in following the themes of guilt/regret and damnation it's this violence that began his path to hell or his current state of suffering.  In that vein, Teenagers leads into the idea that your life is predetermined or that there is a destiny that we all have (in the Patient’s case its the absence of a future, or “a lifelong wait for a hospital stay”) and no matter what, you cannot fight that. While Mama gives a blanket statement about how "we all go to hell", Disenchanted centers the Patient's specific destiny by saying his whole life has led up to his illness and, looking further, there is the implication that life before that was retrospectively pointless. So, as previously mentioned, Disenchanted begins, structurally and lyrically, as a punk song- this sort of expression of youthful existence that, in any other song or under another faster instrumentation, would fit on some basement demo from 1986. But it doesn't stay that way, instead it actively subverts the genre it's cliches are lifted from- thinking specifically about “we ran from the cops” and the “roar of the crowd” that is juxtaposed with the change in structure  or theme. Namely, punk songs (speaking generally here) aren’t wistful because there isn't really a sense of legacy in punk music. There's history yes, but most songs are about the immediacy of emotion, not existential questioning. The retrospective nature and the shift into a ballad structure are elements reflective of a change in the main character brought on by the disillusionment present in teenagers from a punk kid to a dying young man looking back on the banality of youth and the hypocrisy, the trauma and the lack of agency. It's so much easier to think that nothing matters and the perspective makes it so much easier to give up.

This build from Teenagers into Disenchanted regarding the Patient's fate allows Famous Last Words to become an even stronger end because it's in direct opposition to that perspective. Famous Last Words is a song that screams fuck fate and fuck the past- the only thing that matters is moving forward. The image of the Patient keeping on whether he’s walking into the afterlife or continuing to stay alive as long as possible becomes something difficult, something he had to fight to achieve - he had to struggle to find a new understanding. That he can't be "afraid to keep living" or "going home" and that these are concrete actions, a use of free will. And that free will is very specifically defiant. Regardless of how you view the Patient's end, he makes the conscious decision to accept the present and move forward. We are not fated to die alone, nor is life worthless. Black Parade proves that the opposite is true, that we must grow to accept the value of life, and it's so much stronger having the Patient actively reject nihilism and apathy. Ultimately, Teenagers introduces the main thread of the final songs and without it, those songs would be narrative incomplete.

So, Teenagers has a valued place on the album sonically and within the narrative whole, that much is clear. But another reason that the album order of Sleep, Teenagers and Disenchanted is important is that none of the other material written for the album comes close to filling its place. In this case, I am going to be specifically talking about the b-sides since the demos are incomplete and we have no idea what the final version would have sounded like (but I would contend they don’t fit either). Beginning with the easiest song to discard from the narrative- My Way Home Is Through You has its moments in the lyrics but it's completely out of place musically- plus the tone is a little too hopeful for this point in the album which does not gel with Disenchanted’s hopelessness. It's also incongruent with the album since Disenchanted is effective as the only “punk” song on a record that plays with and explores genre and having this come before it would ruin the previously mentioned motif of each of the songs being individual and unique in form. Also, it really adds nothing to the fate vs free will theme- meaning its placement would weaken the disenchanted/flw combo ending. Moving forward, Kill All Your Friends seems to fit, considering its cynicism and nostalgia, but the bridge (“you’ll never get me alive, you’ll never take me alive, do what it takes to survive and I'm still here") doesn’t fit the Patient’s slow decent into apathy at all and contradicts Disenchanted’s loss of faith in the idea of living- it's too hopeful and centers survival and resilience in a way that makes it an ineffective substitute for Teenagers as a bridge song. And finally, Heaven Help Us is too religiously centered- it would refocus the fate vs free will discussion in the context of god/angels when that isn’t a theme in the album up to this point (hell is the grounded point of the album- the protagonist has already accepted their fate by Mama- having a reconciliation with a lack of faith or the absence of God seems completely out of left field when its just not an established part of the narrative) Black Parade is actually one of the mcr albums with the least references to god/angels in the heavenly religious sense- more centered around the human struggle against determinism: the usage of damnation is Catholic inspired but divorced from the division of hell vs heaven and is instead about guilt and worthiness and agency. The presence of angels or god or any divinity would simply weaken the narrative by expanding the album's focus outside its own limitations. Also, the Patient isn't ever a martyred figure, if anything he is purposely pathetic. Including any comparison of the Patient to Christ ("give you all the nails you need") or a saint unravels the key feature of the Patient's character: that he is insignificant. His insignificance and his struggles with his past actions make him a character who must find the strength to live through the guilt and pain to prove that everyone is worthy of life. The overarching purpose of Black Parade is emphasizing that no matter what we've done and how dirty we feel, we can move forward and either accept our afterlife or we can find value in being alive. Because of this contradiction, Heaven Help Us destroys the central theme of the entire album if it is included. With all of this in mind, it seems to me that the b-sides are their own nebulous thing- they don’t tonally fit on Black Parade (though I do think they fit together and are interconnected thematically) but any of them would break the flow since they seem angrier and gritter in a way that is noticeably absent and would be at odds with from a lot of Parade’s resignation. They also just do not complete the narrative, they are simple not as good as Teenagers at bringing all the pieces together.

If I still haven’t convinced you, a bonus reason Teenagers is a valuable memeber of the Black Parade tracklist, Ray was the only one who believed in the song- he called it genius (x) so listen to mr chemical romance himself telling you the song is Good and Important :)

anyway now you should, at the very least respect teenagers based on a couple thematic ideas expressed here, if not also understand why it’s imperative to black parade as an album, as well as the narrative itself. <3

[smellycinnamonthundahfudge]

Why I Love MJ

if u cant tell by now... i really love michelle jones. i really love her so much. her character is so personal to me so i’m not even gonna pretend this has the pretense of being unbiased because i’m not. i’m so so not. this is just a long ass love letter to her character

MJ was made to be this relatable figure in peter parker’s life, despite the history and importance of the character’s legacy in the comics and it just means so much to me. it really does.

first of all, i want to talk about how smart she is. i love how she’s smart but she’s not an unrealistic genius. she knows weird interesting facts about everything because she’s naturally inquisitive about things and i love that. i actually learned new and interesting things about europe that i never would have found out on my own, because of mj. i love her sm.

and i love that there’s basis for it in her character too. like she knows for a fact that she’s not like everyone else and she owns it and she knows that there’s more than meets the eye on everything and so she’s just devoted to looking deeper into things than most people and i just- i just love that sm, ok???

she doesn’t care about superficial surface level bs and cares more about what’s deep and hidden, the stuff that no one dares to look at or find out. maybe because... that’s her. she’s the one that most people don’t bother getting to know because she’s weird. so if she’s weird then it makes sense she’s interested in finding out weird things about everything else too (cough peter cough)

and so i love how it just makes so much sense why mj would like peter parker.

i don’t read the comics so i wouldn’t dare to say what i know about their relationship is right, but from what i do know, it was just a natural progression from friends to couple. they stuck by each other thru thick and thin and that’s how they got together. they spent time together and eventually, boom. it makes sense. however... peter and mj from the comics were two almost completely different people in different social circles and kinda unrealistic, i’m sorry. i get that’s the appeal, opposites attract and all.

but the inquisitive loner mj is the exactly right person to give a crap about the suspicious comings and goings of one kind dorky peter parker and i guess i just love it when movies be realistic and relatable like that

and now let’s talk about mj and her walls. it’s probably the most relatable aspect of her, for me, so far. it’s hard not getting to tell someone you care about how much you care about them. that you feel a need to bury your affection for them under layers of weird so it isn’t even obvious that you care about them.

i still love how ffh recontextualized mj’s actions in hoco because... i can literally say that’s me. not daring to make an action towards someone you care about unless it can be construed as something else?? plus she’s awkward n doesn’t know how to talk to people and tbh saammee?? sighhh mj, man.

also can i just talk about how zendaya knows that the big thing about mj and peter’s relationship is that peter like mj for who she is and that mj shouldn’t have to change things about herself. and how much everybody is responding to that exact same thing about their relationship. i just love how zendaya knows what’s important about her character and the relationships that she has. she knows what we, the fans, care about because she cares about mj same way we do.

and lastly, which is kind of a small thing but i haven’t seen anyone talk about it so i really wanna mention it cus i love it sm. mj is just so subtle. she doesn’t have this big brazen intense distinctive HEY IM WEIRD IM THE WEIRD GIRL personality, no she doesn’t. the stuff she does is just very natural to me. she’s awkward, knows weird stuff, and talks about it. and she’s still a normal girl who has crushes and walls and vulnerabilities. she’s just a very normal realistically weird flawed human character and i love her for it.

and more on her subtlety... I LOVE HOW SHE’S NOT CONFRONTATIONAL, SHE’S INTELLIGENT AND ~subtly~ CAPABLE OF MANIPULATING A SITUATION TO HER BENEFIT

the plane scene with flash means so much to me because she doesn’t tell flash to fuck off or tell him to stop making fun of peter or stand up for peter. no, she just subtly gets rid of flash without making too big a scene. she doesn’t make a big deal that she’s standing up for peter, she gets rid of flash then subtly lets peter know she’s got his back. I.CON.IC

and then, her takedown of brad... HER TAKE DOWN OF BRAD. she lets brad say his piece and even “agrees” with him so that he wouldn’t talk back only for her to switch the lights on him. so that he’s the one under investigation now, not peter. i just- i love how mj can do so much with so little. she is so sly and smooth and suave and she knows what people pay attention to and what they don’t so she’s capable of manipulating them to achieve a goal without anyone being the wiser.

i just love mj sm, she’s realistically relatably understandably smart and weird, she’s funny in a dorky kind of way (“IF YOU SAVED US ALL, THEN WHY ARE WE ABOUT TO DIE?!?!” <- dis line was hilarious, i hate ppl for not talking more about it), and her actions are so subtle and so easy to miss that i appreciate them so much more that way.

gods, i love this girl

look at dis cutie who saw a buncha crabs by a wooden post, thought it was cool, decides to take pictures of it, and is rlly happy to be sharing this moment with the dork she likes. how can i not love this girl?

[charismastaticarchive]

manuela hc:

the grande dame : an exploration of lgbt/camp tropes and anime jokes leading to a complex and likable portrayal of a modern day stock tropes.’

the grande dame is a stock trope of Older Women who represent the stuffy, uppity matronly upper class to comedic effect. 

from the tvtropes page  : ‘they are usually a spinster or widow’ (such as manuela is Forever Unlucky In Love) and if they are married they will be a patron of the arts that drags her husband to operas, even more cultured than the ‘prima donna’ (which manuela was implied to be in the past, but has grown past to become a highly educated professor healer and warrior in addition to her talents in theatre). when the grande dame does have a sympathetic streak, they tend to be an oddball themself (like manuela). she can be a ‘moral guardian’ (and manuela’s skills are in faith magic and she does believe in the goddess), but failing their duty towards ‘respectability’ they turn to drink. (which sounds exactly like manuela).

we could just say that manuela was thus a complicated prima donna that gave up the theatre and turned to drink after aging out of her youthful beauty, into a grande dame figure. certainly, if you look at examples of the grande dame in classical literature, it seems to be a very open-and-shut stock caricature played completely for comedic effect, as does manuela’s whininess and flirtatious milf/cougarness and ‘well i never!’ esque tone. (and she certainly does seem to turn to drink for that very reason.)

but why would u ever compare an OPERA SINGER to classic literature when u could instead compare her to the stage and screen? she’s an actress with a theatrical personality. and that’s where the lgbt readding comes in, as well as why so many lgbt people are attached to manuela, and characters like manuela, in my opinion.

the grande dame has a storied history with the lgbt community. first and foremost, in western society, there was a long history where only men could be actors (this was true in many other places of course, but we’re focusing on the west as manuela’s characterization is mostly focused on western tropes). 

matronly older women characters played for comedic effect (such as the nurse in romeo&juliet, among other such classic roles), were thus played by men in drag. but the tradition of drag for matronly older women in theatre continued long after, to the point where the ‘pantomine dame’ is a storied character/trope in british pantomine---noted for its camp and ‘over the top’ performances, and the tradition continued across the sea in vaudeville drag performances---where lgbt people could graduate from grande dame roles to primma donnas in starring roles as women themselves, regardless of their assigned gender.

after the decline of the vaudeville era BECAUSE of its connection to the lgbt community (and sex work) during the prohibition/”progressive” era, the grande dame (and the inherent camp/gay sensibility of an older woman) did not just STOP EXISTING in the consciousness of western people, and especially not western lgbt people.

no, instead, the grande dame evolved into a still classically camp (over the top, out of place) but a character ever-more entangled in other classic tropes for tough/fierce/unhinged/dramatic women, that we still can see traces of today in every genre that lgbt people are attracted to.

from horror (whatever happened to baby jane and the 'hagsploitation’ that followed it) to musicals (mama rose in ‘rose’s turn’ is literally my tag for manuela but also cats the musical’s ‘memories’ could basically be the benevolent/sad grande dame mood), to fairy tales and children’s stories (Mother Gothel from tangled tho u could make a case for every disney woman villain and also scar as being one tbh, but also mia’s mother in a princess diaries is definitely one, and so is professor macgonagall), to spy dramas (judi dench), to biopics (from joan crawford to every queen pretty much ever) alllll the way back around to drag again (if you’ve ever watched drag race? half the winning snatch games are dames lol). to basically everything ryan murphy has ever done in his whole damn life, especially with Mother Jessica Lange.

the grande dame’s mean strictness and spite has come to represent a trapping for her secret vulnerability/softness (which is the source of her beauty), something lgbt people in particular can relate to as they have to hide their self/love from a world. the camp grande dame is almost always obsessed with beauty and age (so much of our community can’t picture getting old---or doesn’t want to, with many people being deathly afraid of hair loss due to hormones, etc. and then when it comes to attractiveness, attractiveness is often our measure of worth especially in the trans and gay sector, where ‘passing’ or ‘masculinity’ is viewed as a shorthand for ‘respectability’---and so many of us judge each other so harshly based on looks.) but more than anything, the grande dame is always LONELY, or alone, whether it be from being the best/most powerful/rich (and it’s lonely at the top), or in imposed exile due to her age/lack of beauty, the terrible things she’s done, the grande dame is almost always a metaphor for lgbt loneliness.

manuela’s characterization very much abides by these classic camp/gay sensibilities (as well as the classic ones). the modern day gay reading of the grande dame is a much more textured and layered one---but often, grande dames such as they done by judi dench in the 007 movies, or even ryan murphy using jessica lange in the politician---are still objectified by the male gaze with either sexual jokes, or as being made ‘more’ OR ‘less’ than human.... because the grande dame is such a stock trope (even when more complicated by Us Gays), the grande dame is either hypercompetent (in the case of litcherally all of judi dench’s characters or julie andrews’ characters, a Badass Older Woman who is not allowed to be anything more Than Tough And Perfect even when she is in a frenzied huff) or, on the other side of the coin, a complete and total joke or a sob story or picture of an abuser (or all three at once), such as in the case of All Jessica Lange’s Ryan Murphy Characters. Please God Let This Woman Be Free Of Ryan Murphy’s Clutches.

manuela, to me, represents an interesting figure in the Grand Canon of Grande Dames. 

because while she is in every way an anime character---she represents a trope in anime we don’t see often. there are not a lot of older women characters in anime, and when they are---they are usually mid-20s maximum, or they are Sexually Dominant Women, extremely strong and competent women that Can And Will Beat Your Ass ( such as in the case of tsunade from naruto OR lotus from 999, etc). manuela is, thankfully, neither of these.

while fe3h presents manuela as a joke---like classic grande dames were presented as jokes,  the way that manuela is presented, is as an ANIME character with ANIME jokes to people who are ALL familiar at this point with anime jokes, and we are able to relate to her more on a human level than we would relate to the fussy, bitter, overly loquacious grande dames of literature.

the average anime gamer can’t relate to a jane austen biddy talking to you about how the man you are dating is not of marriagable status, and does not think that is funny. but the average anime gamer WILL see you give manuela a porn magazine she thinks is ‘very valuable’ and chuckle a bit to themselves.

but more than that---the game really wants you to LIKE manuela. it makes her relatable to the average gamer who hasn’t cleaned their room in weeks---that sometimes will eat food off the floor, that likes to sing a little too loudly and who feels lonely sometimes (or always).

and even more than any of that, instead of presenting manuela as an UGLY or evil old woman, or an abuser, or an extremely rich woman, and in presenting manuela instead as so very likable and funny, it presents manuela as someone who looks and acts desirable as a friend (and a lover). manuela is a grande dame who is not only sympathetic---she’s human AND FLAWED, just like you, even when her behavior is all jokes and huffiness.

you WANT to be manuela’s friend. you WANT to look deeper into manuela as a person and not a trope---even though she is OBJECTIVELY made up of anime jokes and stock character tropes!

and so this game ends up painting a picture of a lonely woman, a woman who considers herself weak, a woman who is messy, and funny, and loud, who fights (and sometimes is bested by those who are stronger than her)--who pushes other women out of the way to get ahead, but still loves children, who still wants (and deserves) to be loved. even tho most of this information, as manuela relays it to you, is viewed as comedic.

and as manuela is not painted as the grande dame who is a villain---as she is painted so beautifully and theatrically in opera tropes---you can really and truly see her as the star of her own show, a lovely woman trying to live her life the best she can in an adult world that is hard and cruel. just like you are, regardless of ur gender, age, or sexuality.

and from that point of understanding manuela as the grande dame, u can extrapolate manuela in ur own tropes that view her as more human and Deep---and in my opinion, most powerfully, that she is a bisexual woman and hopeless romantic that is most interested in ‘princely’/strong women types. but that’s a hc post for another day.

manuela is THE SUPREME ANIME GRANDE DAME and that anime recontextualization makes her a much better representation of older women than western canon grande dames, the end, send tweet.

[staciteague-blog]

Reading Response: Approaches to Post Modern Art-Making by Terry Barrett

Today artists are using art as language, to express ideas, thoughts and emotions both personal and social. They are using art to highlight injustice in our communities, and needs of the environment and of the people. I believe that this new idea of art being a language and having a message would describe most post modernism art work.

The article, Making Art : Form and Meaning, helps to define the different approaches artists are using to create. Post modern artists have taken on the task of showing viewers wrongs in our societies so that it is hard to deny or go on with out seeing. They have become “honored champions of authentic and free personal expressions” (Barrett, 3). Influences coming from all sources including past, present, future, environment, advertising, politics are up for grabs when creating these new works of art. A collage of ideas and experiences that lead the artist through their thoughts and expressions. Using conceptual ideas that reach beyond museums and straight forward thinking. I would say that art has become more intellectual where audiences now have to infer and read between the lines in order to understand post modern artworks. These works of art have deeper meanings using irony and collapsing boundaries between right and wrong.

What is postmodern art? It is anything and everything. It is layered, complex, and recontextualized ideas that visually evoke thinking, questioning and emotions. As Terry Barrett suggests, the ideas and concepts of post modern art “apply to all visual culture, not just art.”

[kendrixtermina]

Onion Gem: The Layers of Pearl

The metaphor is explained right away on the first layer:

Compartamentalization. Putting different parts of your mind/ life away so you don’t have to deal with them all at the same time and the contradictions they may cause.

Hence, why there’s different version of her, but they’re not merely facetzs of her, they are hierarchical in their organization, with the one in the Palanquin being both the oldest and deepest one - kind of like real pearls form from layered deposits.

It’s a Mask behind a Mask behind a Mask, except the masks are also different parts of her, put forth in the fashion that they are as a means for coping with the world.

On the outside we have current Pearl as we see her now after a good deal of development, the one who gets along with Amethyst and is genuinely attached to steven these days.

On the first layer, we meet ‘neat’ Pearl, by her own statement a kind of coping mechanism, focussing on ordering everything and perfectionism to distract herself from inner feelings and keep functioning as best as she can - This was the most notable element of her personality early on in the show.

Of course even then, there was the occasional glimpse at what lies beneath, ‘Sad Pearl’ being just very lost & upset about the whole Rose thing, but there’s an important recontextualization here, an implication of “just like I lost everything else”

- Before Rose died, this is probably where Pearl’s self-understanding as Rose’s ‘favorite’ resided - which is reinforced by the outfit from that era.

It’s worth noting that this layer is above ‘Trauma Pearl’ -

In the context of earlier eps (”Do it for her”) there’s an implication that she was initially quite overwhelmed by the war (especially since she wasn’t really a rebel, just doing what Rose wanted and going along with her, though she may have learned to appreciate Freedom along the way - Post Steven she certainly doesn’t fit back into that narrow, misarable role (see the chapters with Peridot and Hollblue Agate))

Just from how she reacts when Bismuth turns out to be alive you can see that she was pretty attached to the other CGs,  She’s a community-,minded person by nature -

The organization here suggests that to cope with the horrors of a war she never really signed up for, she just clung to/ stuck with Rose in a manner that was perhaps a coping mechanism as well - something that only makes sense if defecting wasn’t really her idea in the first place. She feels responsible for being involved in this clusterfuck, but against her better angels, used to tell herself that it was ok because she was with Rose

The rest is fairly straightforward: She feel that “she did it”, the guilt that underlies her reaction to the war in the first place - and look at her in that moment, a crying, frightened mess afraid of the future and consequences -

Which quickly leads to the question of “why” - because it’s one thing if Pearl just carried out the assasination because she had the opportunity to get close to PD (a scenarion in which Pearl would be ‘heroically fighting the power’)

But it’s another if, well...

She was probably in a position like being PD’s personal nanny and around her at all times so there’d be opportunity for getting attached, especially if Pearl had never known anything better in her life, and Pink having a very shallow approach/understanding of relationships.

We’d seen glimpses at the deeper layers before, but with the twist at the bottom revealed, every one recontextualizes the last one.

I imagine that if you went inside the mindscapes of the other gems, they’d have a somewhat different architecture dependent on their personalities.

[xhostcom]

Designing the Emotional Interfaces of the Future

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” (Maya Angelou) Today when we think about what product we want to use, we have a lot of options to choose from. But there’s one thing that plays a crucial role in this decisions making process: emotions. Humans are emotion-driven species. We evaluate products not only based on utility but also on the feelings they evoke. We prefer to choose products that create a sense of excitement over dull products that only solve our problems. A lot of articles have been written about how to design emotional interfaces. Most of them describe how to create such interfaces using fine microcopy, illustrations, animations, and visual effects; this article is different; here we’ll see how designers can follow different approaches to create genuinely innovative interfaces. The tips listed below will help you design interfaces of future.

Emotional Interfaces of the Future

People create bonds with the products they use. The emotion users feel (both positive and negative) stay with them even after they ended using a product. Peak–end rule states that people judge an experience largely based on how they felt at its peak, the effect occurs regardless of whether the experience is pleasant or unpleasant. It’s evident that positive emotional stimuli can build better engagement with your users—people will forgive a product’s shortcomings if you reward them with positive emotions. In order to influence emotions, designers should have a solid understanding of general factors that impact on users such as: Human cognition – the way people consume information, learn or make decisions; Human psychology – the factors that affect emotions, including colors, sounds, music, etc; Cultural references; Contextual factors – how the user feels at the time of using a particular product. For example, when a user wants to purchase a ticket in a ticket machine, they want to spend the least possible amount of time on this activity. The UI of this machine needs to reflect users’ desire for speed. By focusing on those areas, it’s possible to create an experience that can change the way people perceive the world. Let’s see how it works how we can design beyond a screen.

Designing a Voice Interface That Feels Real

I probably don’t need to prove the fact that voice is the future. Garter research predicts that by the end of 2018, 30% of our interactions with technology will be through “conversations.” Even today many of us use Amazon Echo and Apple Siri for everyday activities—such as setting an alarm clock or make an appointment. But a majority of voice interaction systems have a natural limitation (Narrow AI). When we interact with products like Google Now or Apple Siri, we have a strong sense of communicating with a machine, not a real human being. It happens mainly because the system responds predictably, and the responses are too scripted. We can’t have a meaningful dialogue with such system. But there are some completely different systems available on the market today. One of them is Xiaoice—an AI-driven system developed by Microsoft. The system is based on an emotional computing framework. When users interact with Xiaoice they have a strong sense of chatting with real human being. Some Xiaoice users even say that they consider the system as a friend. The limitation of Xiaoice is that it’s text-based chat but it’s clear that it’s possible to achieve the much stronger effect by making voice-based interaction; voice can convey a powerful spectrum of emotions. Remember the film Her when the main character played by Joaquin Phoenix fell in love with Samantha (a sophisticated OS). The most interesting thing about this film is that Theodore (the main character) didn’t have a visual image of the Samantha, he only had her voice. It’s possible to bake a broad spectrum of emotions in voice and tone. And suddenly our daily routine tasks become less dull and more entertaining when we use voice and visual input together.

Voice interfaces for Brain.ai

Evolution of AR Experience—From Mobile Screen to Glass

Augmented Reality (AR) is defined as a digital overlay on top of the real world. The beauty of AR is that it provides an extra layer of information over the existing objects in our environment. It transforms the objects around us into interactive digital experiences—the environment becomes more intelligent. The fact that users have an illusion of ‘tangible object’ on the tips of their fingers creates a deeper connection between a user and a product/content. Early work in AR that we saw in the 90’s were focused mainly on the technology. Even when designers used content in their products, the goal was to demonstrate what AR technology is capable of. But the situation changed. AR is no longer a technology for the sake of technology. The success of Pokemon Go has proven the fact that AR can create a whole new level of engagement and people happy to adopt it. That leads designers to focus on content and the human experience. AR can be used not just for entertainment, it can be a powerful tool for problem-solving. Here are just a few things it can help you:

Improve Online Shopping Experience

According to Retail Perceptions, a report that analyses the influence of AR on the retail sector, even today 61% of shoppers prefer to shop at stores that offer AR. The survey says that the most popular items to shop for with augmented reality are: Furniture, Clothing, Groceries, Shoes. People love AR because it allows them to see product properties in details and make the shopping experience fun.

Users can decide whether they like an item or not before buying. This is especially important for clothing or furniture. As a result, AR can reduce product return rates, saving money on returns.

Creates a New Level of Experience

AR helps us see an enhanced view of the world. For example, it might be a new level of in-flight experience.

AR in flight experience for Airbus A380 Or it can be rich contextual hints for your current location. The technology known as SLAM (Simultaneous localization and mapping) can be used for that. SLAM allows real-time mapping of environment. This technology is used in Google’s self-driving car but it can also be applied to AR experience to place multimedia content in the environment.

Provide additional information in context Last but not least, you can completely reimagine existing concepts and use a new dimension (AR) to provide additional information.

The concept of interactive walls – a digital overlay on top of the real world Today it becomes much easier to build AR experience. AR like ARKit and ARCore have enabled sophisticated computer algorithms to be available for anyone to use. When it comes to technology, the vast majority of AR experiences are phone-based AR. The primary reason why phone-based AR becomes so powerful is obvious; 95% of global populations are smartphone owners. At the same time, AR experience on mobile devices has two natural limitations: Field of view (Augmented Reality is still restricted to a physical space of your mobile screen) Input (we still have to use touch and gestures on the screen to interact with the app) It’s possible to create a much more engaging experience using Glass technology. Just imagine that you won’t need to take your phone from your pocket to have AR experience. When you hear the word “AR Glass” most probably you think of Google Glass. It’s been nearly five years since the release of the Google Glass—a promising concept of standalone AR headset. Unfortunately, the first version of the product didn’t reach retail stores. The fact that Google Glass failed on the market led to the countless discussions on whether or not it’s a stillborn concept. Many people believe that Glass is a dumb idea. As for me, I strongly believe that everything visionary looks stupid at first. The way technology changes don’t look like a linear process; it looks more like waves. Each new wave can change completely the way we think about technology. The key to innovation is building something that nobody did before. We need to experiment to get a winning formula—the one that will help us create a product people love. I remember when people said touchscreen phones were stupid because of Palm and Microsoft’s lousy implementation. Then along came Apple and now most of us use touchscreens. Once the product is done right, the technology will make people change their point of view. One of the promising concepts of AR glasses is Rokid Glass. Rokid is envisioning its smart glasses as a kind of next-generation Google Glass. It’s a standalone headset (meaning it won’t require you to plug to a smartphone or a desktop), it will run on batteries and incorporate an internal processor for handling computing on its own. Rokid is just a part of a broader movement towards consumer AR glasses that bring concepts that we saw in science fiction movies to life.

However, at the time when AR Glass technology will be accepted, we might face a few problems of augmented hyper-reality. Augmented reality may recontextualize the functions of consumerism and change the way in which we operate within it. The fear is that it might change it in the worst way—making the environment overwhelming for users. As a result, the technology that was intended to bring only positive emotions might switch to the entirely negative spectrum.

Moving From Augmented Reality Towards Virtual Reality to Create an Immersive Experience

AR has a natural limitation—as users, we have a clear line between us and content; this line separates one world (AR) with another (real world). This line causes a sense that the AR world is not real. You probably know what will be the answer for this AR design limitation—VR. Thanks to VR, we can have a truly immersive experience. This experience will remove the barrier between worlds—the real world and VR world can blur together. With the recent technologies like Oculus Quest offering all-in-one device—location tracking, controllers, and processing in a standalone unit. No separate PC required. This makes VR device a separate unit, not just an extra feature for your mobile phone or desktop computer. VR can work great both for entertainment: just imagine how you can experience movies in VR in 360 or how you as a user can use natural gestural interactions in games. And in office space: just imagine how video calls in your favorite messenger will evolve to VR calls where you’ll be able to actually interact with another person. This will help to establish a much deeper emotional connection with people. VR will invite designers to think about important questions such as: Rethink the process for creating digital products. It’s clear that the modern state of VR is way too skeuomorphic. We still in the process of defining the way we want our users to interact in a virtual space. But it’s an excellent task for designers. Ethics of removing the line between content and UI (“Where does the line between content and UI should start and end?”) Rise of VR addiction. Today we have a problem of Smartphone zombie, people who stick to their smartphones and don’t see the world around them. With VR we might face even more addictive behavior. People will hunt for the new level of experience, the powerful emotion VR technology will deliver. As a result, they might go too deep in VR experience and skip the reality.

Conclusion

When we think about the modern state of product design, it becomes evident that we are only at the tip of the iceberg. We’re witnessing a fundamental shift in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)—rethinking the whole concept of digital experience. In the next decade, designers will break the glass (the era of mobile devices as we know them today will over) and move to the interfaces of the future.   Featured image via DepositPhotos. Add Realistic Chalk and Sketch Lettering Effects with Sketch’it – only $5!

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Read the full article

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Designing the Emotional Interfaces of the Future

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” (Maya Angelou)

Today when we think about what product we want to use, we have a lot of options to choose from. But there’s one thing that plays a crucial role in this decisions making process: emotions. Humans are emotion-driven species. We evaluate products not only based on utility but also on the feelings they evoke. We prefer to choose products that create a sense of excitement over dull products that only solve our problems.

A lot of articles have been written about how to design emotional interfaces. Most of them describe how to create such interfaces using fine microcopy, illustrations, animations, and visual effects; this article is different; here we’ll see how designers can follow different approaches to create genuinely innovative interfaces. The tips listed below will help you design interfaces of future.

Emotional Interfaces of the Future

People create bonds with the products they use. The emotion users feel (both positive and negative) stay with them even after they ended using a product. Peak–end rule states that people judge an experience largely based on how they felt at its peak, the effect occurs regardless of whether the experience is pleasant or unpleasant.

It’s evident that positive emotional stimuli can build better engagement with your users—people will forgive a product’s shortcomings if you reward them with positive emotions.

In order to influence emotions, designers should have a solid understanding of general factors that impact on users such as:

Human cognition – the way people consume information, learn or make decisions;

Human psychology – the factors that affect emotions, including colors, sounds, music, etc;

Cultural references;

Contextual factors – how the user feels at the time of using a particular product. For example, when a user wants to purchase a ticket in a ticket machine, they want to spend the least possible amount of time on this activity. The UI of this machine needs to reflect users’ desire for speed.

By focusing on those areas, it’s possible to create an experience that can change the way people perceive the world. Let’s see how it works how we can design beyond a screen.

Designing a Voice Interface That Feels Real

I probably don’t need to prove the fact that voice is the future. Garter research predicts that by the end of 2018, 30% of our interactions with technology will be through “conversations.” Even today many of us use Amazon Echo and Apple Siri for everyday activities—such as setting an alarm clock or make an appointment. But a majority of voice interaction systems have a natural limitation (Narrow AI). When we interact with products like Google Now or Apple Siri, we have a strong sense of communicating with a machine, not a real human being. It happens mainly because the system responds predictably, and the responses are too scripted. We can’t have a meaningful dialogue with such system.

But there are some completely different systems available on the market today. One of them is Xiaoice—an AI-driven system developed by Microsoft. The system is based on an emotional computing framework. When users interact with Xiaoice they have a strong sense of chatting with real human being. Some Xiaoice users even say that they consider the system as a friend.

The limitation of Xiaoice is that it’s text-based chat but it’s clear that it’s possible to achieve the much stronger effect by making voice-based interaction; voice can convey a powerful spectrum of emotions. Remember the film Her when the main character played by Joaquin Phoenix fell in love with Samantha (a sophisticated OS). The most interesting thing about this film is that Theodore (the main character) didn’t have a visual image of the Samantha, he only had her voice.

It’s possible to bake a broad spectrum of emotions in voice and tone. And suddenly our daily routine tasks become less dull and more entertaining when we use voice and visual input together.

Voice interfaces for Brain.ai

Evolution of AR Experience—From Mobile Screen to Glass

Augmented Reality (AR) is defined as a digital overlay on top of the real world. The beauty of AR is that it provides an extra layer of information over the existing objects in our environment. It transforms the objects around us into interactive digital experiences—the environment becomes more intelligent. The fact that users have an illusion of ‘tangible object’ on the tips of their fingers creates a deeper connection between a user and a product/content.

Early work in AR that we saw in the 90’s were focused mainly on the technology. Even when designers used content in their products, the goal was to demonstrate what AR technology is capable of. But the situation changed. AR is no longer a technology for the sake of technology. The success of Pokemon Go has proven the fact that AR can create a whole new level of engagement and people happy to adopt it. That leads designers to focus on content and the human experience.

AR can be used not just for entertainment, it can be a powerful tool for problem-solving. Here are just a few things it can help you:

Improve Online Shopping Experience

According to Retail Perceptions, a report that analyses the influence of AR on the retail sector, even today 61% of shoppers prefer to shop at stores that offer AR. The survey says that the most popular items to shop for with augmented reality are: Furniture, Clothing, Groceries, Shoes. People love AR because it allows them to see product properties in details and make the shopping experience fun.

Users can decide whether they like an item or not before buying. This is especially important for clothing or furniture. As a result, AR can reduce product return rates, saving money on returns.

Creates a New Level of Experience

AR helps us see an enhanced view of the world. For example, it might be a new level of in-flight experience.

AR in flight experience for Airbus A380

Or it can be rich contextual hints for your current location. The technology known as SLAM (Simultaneous localization and mapping) can be used for that. SLAM allows real-time mapping of environment. This technology is used in Google’s self-driving car but it can also be applied to AR experience to place multimedia content in the environment.

Provide additional information in context

Last but not least, you can completely reimagine existing concepts and use a new dimension (AR) to provide additional information.

The concept of interactive walls – a digital overlay on top of the real world

Today it becomes much easier to build AR experience. AR like ARKit and ARCore have enabled sophisticated computer algorithms to be available for anyone to use.

When it comes to technology, the vast majority of AR experiences are phone-based AR. The primary reason why phone-based AR becomes so powerful is obvious; 95% of global populations are smartphone owners. At the same time, AR experience on mobile devices has two natural limitations:

Field of view (Augmented Reality is still restricted to a physical space of your mobile screen)

Input (we still have to use touch and gestures on the screen to interact with the app)

It’s possible to create a much more engaging experience using Glass technology. Just imagine that you won’t need to take your phone from your pocket to have AR experience.

When you hear the word “AR Glass” most probably you think of Google Glass. It’s been nearly five years since the release of the Google Glass—a promising concept of standalone AR headset. Unfortunately, the first version of the product didn’t reach retail stores. The fact that Google Glass failed on the market led to the countless discussions on whether or not it’s a stillborn concept.

Many people believe that Glass is a dumb idea. As for me, I strongly believe that everything visionary looks stupid at first.

The way technology changes don’t look like a linear process; it looks more like waves. Each new wave can change completely the way we think about technology.

The key to innovation is building something that nobody did before. We need to experiment to get a winning formula—the one that will help us create a product people love. I remember when people said touchscreen phones were stupid because of Palm and Microsoft’s lousy implementation. Then along came Apple and now most of us use touchscreens. Once the product is done right, the technology will make people change their point of view.

One of the promising concepts of AR glasses is Rokid Glass. Rokid is envisioning its smart glasses as a kind of next-generation Google Glass. It’s a standalone headset (meaning it won’t require you to plug to a smartphone or a desktop), it will run on batteries and incorporate an internal processor for handling computing on its own. Rokid is just a part of a broader movement towards consumer AR glasses that bring concepts that we saw in science fiction movies to life.

However, at the time when AR Glass technology will be accepted, we might face a few problems of augmented hyper-reality. Augmented reality may recontextualize the functions of consumerism and change the way in which we operate within it. The fear is that it might change it in the worst way—making the environment overwhelming for users. As a result, the technology that was intended to bring only positive emotions might switch to the entirely negative spectrum.

Moving From Augmented Reality Towards Virtual Reality to Create an Immersive Experience

AR has a natural limitation—as users, we have a clear line between us and content; this line separates one world (AR) with another (real world). This line causes a sense that the AR world is not real.

You probably know what will be the answer for this AR design limitation—VR. Thanks to VR, we can have a truly immersive experience. This experience will remove the barrier between worlds—the real world and VR world can blur together.

With the recent technologies like Oculus Quest offering all-in-one device—location tracking, controllers, and processing in a standalone unit. No separate PC required. This makes VR device a separate unit, not just an extra feature for your mobile phone or desktop computer.

VR can work great both for entertainment: just imagine how you can experience movies in VR in 360 or how you as a user can use natural gestural interactions in games. And in office space: just imagine how video calls in your favorite messenger will evolve to VR calls where you’ll be able to actually interact with another person. This will help to establish a much deeper emotional connection with people.

VR will invite designers to think about important questions such as:

Rethink the process for creating digital products. It’s clear that the modern state of VR is way too skeuomorphic. We still in the process of defining the way we want our users to interact in a virtual space. But it’s an excellent task for designers.

Ethics of removing the line between content and UI (“Where does the line between content and UI should start and end?”)

Rise of VR addiction. Today we have a problem of Smartphone zombie, people who stick to their smartphones and don’t see the world around them. With VR we might face even more addictive behavior. People will hunt for the new level of experience, the powerful emotion VR technology will deliver. As a result, they might go too deep in VR experience and skip the reality.

Conclusion

When we think about the modern state of product design, it becomes evident that we are only at the tip of the iceberg. We’re witnessing a fundamental shift in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)—rethinking the whole concept of digital experience.

In the next decade, designers will break the glass (the era of mobile devices as we know them today will over) and move to the interfaces of the future.

  Featured image via DepositPhotos.

Add Realistic Chalk and Sketch Lettering Effects with Sketch’it – only $5!

Source from Webdesigner Depot https://ift.tt/2RWdwo1 from Blogger https://ift.tt/2rBVAng

[iyarpage]

Designing the Emotional Interfaces of the Future

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” (Maya Angelou)

Today when we think about what product we want to use, we have a lot of options to choose from. But there’s one thing that plays a crucial role in this decisions making process: emotions. Humans are emotion-driven species. We evaluate products not only based on utility but also on the feelings they evoke. We prefer to choose products that create a sense of excitement over dull products that only solve our problems.

A lot of articles have been written about how to design emotional interfaces. Most of them describe how to create such interfaces using fine microcopy, illustrations, animations, and visual effects; this article is different; here we’ll see how designers can follow different approaches to create genuinely innovative interfaces. The tips listed below will help you design interfaces of future.

Emotional Interfaces of the Future

People create bonds with the products they use. The emotion users feel (both positive and negative) stay with them even after they ended using a product. Peak–end rule states that people judge an experience largely based on how they felt at its peak, the effect occurs regardless of whether the experience is pleasant or unpleasant.

It’s evident that positive emotional stimuli can build better engagement with your users—people will forgive a product’s shortcomings if you reward them with positive emotions.

In order to influence emotions, designers should have a solid understanding of general factors that impact on users such as:

Human cognition – the way people consume information, learn or make decisions;

Human psychology – the factors that affect emotions, including colors, sounds, music, etc;

Cultural references;

Contextual factors – how the user feels at the time of using a particular product. For example, when a user wants to purchase a ticket in a ticket machine, they want to spend the least possible amount of time on this activity. The UI of this machine needs to reflect users’ desire for speed.

By focusing on those areas, it’s possible to create an experience that can change the way people perceive the world. Let’s see how it works how we can design beyond a screen.

Designing a Voice Interface That Feels Real

I probably don’t need to prove the fact that voice is the future. Garter research predicts that by the end of 2018, 30% of our interactions with technology will be through “conversations.” Even today many of us use Amazon Echo and Apple Siri for everyday activities—such as setting an alarm clock or make an appointment. But a majority of voice interaction systems have a natural limitation (Narrow AI). When we interact with products like Google Now or Apple Siri, we have a strong sense of communicating with a machine, not a real human being. It happens mainly because the system responds predictably, and the responses are too scripted. We can’t have a meaningful dialogue with such system.

But there are some completely different systems available on the market today. One of them is Xiaoice—an AI-driven system developed by Microsoft. The system is based on an emotional computing framework. When users interact with Xiaoice they have a strong sense of chatting with real human being. Some Xiaoice users even say that they consider the system as a friend.

The limitation of Xiaoice is that it’s text-based chat but it’s clear that it’s possible to achieve the much stronger effect by making voice-based interaction; voice can convey a powerful spectrum of emotions. Remember the film Her when the main character played by Joaquin Phoenix fell in love with Samantha (a sophisticated OS). The most interesting thing about this film is that Theodore (the main character) didn’t have a visual image of the Samantha, he only had her voice.

It’s possible to bake a broad spectrum of emotions in voice and tone. And suddenly our daily routine tasks become less dull and more entertaining when we use voice and visual input together.

Voice interfaces for Brain.ai

Evolution of AR Experience—From Mobile Screen to Glass

Augmented Reality (AR) is defined as a digital overlay on top of the real world. The beauty of AR is that it provides an extra layer of information over the existing objects in our environment. It transforms the objects around us into interactive digital experiences—the environment becomes more intelligent. The fact that users have an illusion of ‘tangible object’ on the tips of their fingers creates a deeper connection between a user and a product/content.

Early work in AR that we saw in the 90’s were focused mainly on the technology. Even when designers used content in their products, the goal was to demonstrate what AR technology is capable of. But the situation changed. AR is no longer a technology for the sake of technology. The success of Pokemon Go has proven the fact that AR can create a whole new level of engagement and people happy to adopt it. That leads designers to focus on content and the human experience.

AR can be used not just for entertainment, it can be a powerful tool for problem-solving. Here are just a few things it can help you:

Improve Online Shopping Experience

According to Retail Perceptions, a report that analyses the influence of AR on the retail sector, even today 61% of shoppers prefer to shop at stores that offer AR. The survey says that the most popular items to shop for with augmented reality are: Furniture, Clothing, Groceries, Shoes. People love AR because it allows them to see product properties in details and make the shopping experience fun.

Users can decide whether they like an item or not before buying. This is especially important for clothing or furniture. As a result, AR can reduce product return rates, saving money on returns.

Creates a New Level of Experience

AR helps us see an enhanced view of the world. For example, it might be a new level of in-flight experience.

AR in flight experience for Airbus A380

Or it can be rich contextual hints for your current location. The technology known as SLAM (Simultaneous localization and mapping) can be used for that. SLAM allows real-time mapping of environment. This technology is used in Google’s self-driving car but it can also be applied to AR experience to place multimedia content in the environment.

Provide additional information in context

Last but not least, you can completely reimagine existing concepts and use a new dimension (AR) to provide additional information.

The concept of interactive walls – a digital overlay on top of the real world

Today it becomes much easier to build AR experience. AR like ARKit and ARCore have enabled sophisticated computer algorithms to be available for anyone to use.

When it comes to technology, the vast majority of AR experiences are phone-based AR. The primary reason why phone-based AR becomes so powerful is obvious; 95% of global populations are smartphone owners. At the same time, AR experience on mobile devices has two natural limitations:

Field of view (Augmented Reality is still restricted to a physical space of your mobile screen)

Input (we still have to use touch and gestures on the screen to interact with the app)

It’s possible to create a much more engaging experience using Glass technology. Just imagine that you won’t need to take your phone from your pocket to have AR experience.

When you hear the word “AR Glass” most probably you think of Google Glass. It’s been nearly five years since the release of the Google Glass—a promising concept of standalone AR headset. Unfortunately, the first version of the product didn’t reach retail stores. The fact that Google Glass failed on the market led to the countless discussions on whether or not it’s a stillborn concept.

Many people believe that Glass is a dumb idea. As for me, I strongly believe that everything visionary looks stupid at first.

The way technology changes don’t look like a linear process; it looks more like waves. Each new wave can change completely the way we think about technology.

The key to innovation is building something that nobody did before. We need to experiment to get a winning formula—the one that will help us create a product people love. I remember when people said touchscreen phones were stupid because of Palm and Microsoft’s lousy implementation. Then along came Apple and now most of us use touchscreens. Once the product is done right, the technology will make people change their point of view.

One of the promising concepts of AR glasses is Rokid Glass. Rokid is envisioning its smart glasses as a kind of next-generation Google Glass. It’s a standalone headset (meaning it won’t require you to plug to a smartphone or a desktop), it will run on batteries and incorporate an internal processor for handling computing on its own. Rokid is just a part of a broader movement towards consumer AR glasses that bring concepts that we saw in science fiction movies to life.

However, at the time when AR Glass technology will be accepted, we might face a few problems of augmented hyper-reality. Augmented reality may recontextualize the functions of consumerism and change the way in which we operate within it. The fear is that it might change it in the worst way—making the environment overwhelming for users. As a result, the technology that was intended to bring only positive emotions might switch to the entirely negative spectrum.

Moving From Augmented Reality Towards Virtual Reality to Create an Immersive Experience

AR has a natural limitation—as users, we have a clear line between us and content; this line separates one world (AR) with another (real world). This line causes a sense that the AR world is not real.

You probably know what will be the answer for this AR design limitation—VR. Thanks to VR, we can have a truly immersive experience. This experience will remove the barrier between worlds—the real world and VR world can blur together.

With the recent technologies like Oculus Quest offering all-in-one device—location tracking, controllers, and processing in a standalone unit. No separate PC required. This makes VR device a separate unit, not just an extra feature for your mobile phone or desktop computer.

VR can work great both for entertainment: just imagine how you can experience movies in VR in 360 or how you as a user can use natural gestural interactions in games. And in office space: just imagine how video calls in your favorite messenger will evolve to VR calls where you’ll be able to actually interact with another person. This will help to establish a much deeper emotional connection with people.

VR will invite designers to think about important questions such as:

Rethink the process for creating digital products. It’s clear that the modern state of VR is way too skeuomorphic. We still in the process of defining the way we want our users to interact in a virtual space. But it’s an excellent task for designers.

Ethics of removing the line between content and UI (“Where does the line between content and UI should start and end?”)

Rise of VR addiction. Today we have a problem of Smartphone zombie, people who stick to their smartphones and don’t see the world around them. With VR we might face even more addictive behavior. People will hunt for the new level of experience, the powerful emotion VR technology will deliver. As a result, they might go too deep in VR experience and skip the reality.

Conclusion

When we think about the modern state of product design, it becomes evident that we are only at the tip of the iceberg. We’re witnessing a fundamental shift in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)—rethinking the whole concept of digital experience.

In the next decade, designers will break the glass (the era of mobile devices as we know them today will over) and move to the interfaces of the future.

  Featured image via DepositPhotos.

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