@ankahikoibaat
I don’t even go here in terms of that fandom in your last reblog but oooof do I relate to it. IMO there’s definitely a larger discussion to be had about the tendency across multiple fandoms for a lot of the most diehard shippers to only be invested or appreciative of one half of their chosen OTP, and with this constantly making a visible appearance via the Hand of the Author always taking shots at the other half of the pairing - most often in the form of their intelligence.
(IMO even more-so than we tend to see this phenomenon filtered through the form of calling into question a partner’s ethics or moral code, etc. No, its always about how smart or competent they are, as if everything else is irrelevant and that’s the easiest or most essential vehicle for putting one half of a ship down and making sure they’re viewed by readers as the weak link in the pair).
Its frustrating and annoying on a lot of levels, but above all else every time I see it happen it just smacks of self-sabotage too?? Because I’m always like....isn’t the other person in this pairing, the character you the author actually like, supposed to be truly, madly, deeply in love with this character? Why do you think they even WANT to be with this person if the way you write their POV constantly has them bemoaning this person’s existence or acting like they’re a constant drain on them or a burden to be around?
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Okay but so much of the character of Sam Vimes is influenced by him being a former alcoholic tho. I don’t think it’s possible to discuss his unbreakable moral code without also discussing his addiction.
There is significant parallels between how he does not touch alcohol EVER starting from Men at Arms and every other ways that he holds himself accountable in the books.
One minute late to storytime with his child would be one minute too much, because once you excuse one minute late then you can excuse five, ten, and then fifteen minutes late. -> one drink is too many drinks because one drink « tends to arrive in five glasses ».
« If you do a bad thing for a good reason you’ll do it for a bad one », « If one part of the machine breaks down it all breaks down » and « who watches the watchman? Me. » are all different ways of saying that Vimes cannot allow himself to make even one exception in how he behaves. Will not, yes, and that’s very admirable, but this will not is the result of a CAN NOT because what would happen if he did is not, in fact, unthinkable. On the contrary, he knows very well what would happen if he did break one of his many rules, and this is exactly why he doesn’t break them.
« One drink is one too many » is basically the center of his character’s moral code. And it hits so hard because he’s not being rigid for the fun of it, he’s like that because he knows. It’s a sliding slope and he’s been on it and at the bottom of it and he KNOWS how quickly it slides.
And it’s so interesting to see how he applies that core concept to all other aspects of his life, cultimating into the guarding dark.
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I can't stop staring at Feyd-Rautha's walk here and what it implies about his fight with Paul now that I'm able to stop just comparing it to Timothy's killer body work matching it (or vice versa).
Villeneuve takes the book canon, that the Harkonnens took the Atredies's morbid heirlooms of an oil painting of grandfather's death and the bull's head with his blood still dried on his horns to hang above the arena as trophies to the next level: making Feyd-Rautha the victorious young matador with the guards dressed as bull-minotaurs, circling to play banderillos and sink banderillas into the backs of the Atredies bull if it gets too close before the final faena has Feyd-Rautha pulling his opponent past him in the close, intimate passes that show off his athleticism and skill before his false blade is exchanged for the one that will be used for the killing blow and oh my god there are whole schools of thought on coming forward to meet your opponent vs waiting for them and killing with a single blow to the heart and honoring the fight and if anyone who knows how to make gifsets wants make one about this to I'd LOVE to rant more about the breakdown of these two fights and how Feyd is 1001% Matador Machismo but my point to all of this is:
Look at that Sand.
Look at his feet dig deep and kick it up as he strides out into the heart of that arena. Is it a rhythmic walk? Oh yes. Confident. Powerful. In the book this will be his 100th arena kill as he comes of age. This is his natural habitat. Where he learned his skills, for us to parallel with what we saw for Paul in Part 1.
This matters, because it's one of the main premises for why the Fremen are so Good At Fighting. When everyone is trained to fight with shields (stun then slow) and bulky armor, and on flat, solid ground with lots of cover, it's easy to be fast and silent and terrifyingly effective against them. Gurney Halleck is shown to be one of the best fighters in the franchise and the film makes a point of showing how his (recognizable) footsteps are not suited to move quickly, lightly, and with stability on sand like they are on solid ground.
Only... Bullfighting rings aren't sandy. They're fairly hardpacked. Earth for the bull and Matador to maneuver in quickly. There is a layer of albero traditionally layered on top, a chunky yellow clay dirt that serves aesthetics but also absorbs blood quickly. The idea the sand may not be white because... With Giedi Prime who knows?! Is Fantastic.
Paul Muad'Dib became the only Atredies to be recognized as Fremen, to see his father's dream of Desert Power recognized, to fight as Fedaykin, to be recognized as the Mahdi, the One Who Points The Way, and it is made clear to us from the opening words of a Child's History of Muad'Dib that Arrakis was his Home, and yet every major one-on-one duel he had from Jamis to Feyd-Rautha was on solid ground, giving him an advantage that made him respected as a fighter among the Fedaykin right away as part of his training.
Feyd-Rautha was the one Harkonnen who may have learned combat primarily or even exclusively with sand beneath his feet, and he died on Arrakis on the polished stone floors of a palatial residence, still trying to play by Matador rules.
thank u for coming to my Ted Talk
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Mirre’s “How i render gemstones” tutorial!
(note: image above is not what is shown in the walkthrough. It is an example piece)
Ingredients:
Art program that has layers and selection tools
Patience (hubris or stubbornness is fine too)
(recommended) photo references of gemstones and/or prisms
(Optional but very helpful) Knowledge on how to use Reference layers and anti-overflow in Clip studio Paint
For this tutorial i am going to use clip studio’s “anti-overflow” feature. This post is not going to explain how to use that specific setting but you should be able to find guides on how to use it on clip studio’s official website or on youtube.
Please Note: The result of this technique will not 100% represent real life gemstones. These are more simplified but should still make an impression of the brilliance and appeal of gems, crystals and diamonds.
If you don’t work in CSP: the best workaround is to use the polygonal lasso selection tool for the same purpose.
This ended up being a long post so I am putting it under the readmore:
First off; Basic idea on how the light refracts inside a solid transparent object:
Wether it is acrylic, glass, water or crystal, the way light pass through more or less should behave the same as long as it is solid and not hollow inside. Pay attention to how the darkest parts of the stone goes along the inner edges, leaving a ”mid tone” sort of in the center. However, this might vary depending on the light setting. But it is a generally good rule-of-thumb to follow if you’re drawing something not based on a photo. Another thing to pay attention to here is how the placement of the highlight will lit up the inside of the gem in a parallel line. It also shows through on the cast shadow.
Light refraction on a cube:
I have already made two posts on this, so definitely go through them:
CUBE BREAKDOWN POST HERE
But a rough summary from those two links would be: Every side/facet of a gem or a cube etc refracts the light individually and not as one entity (that would make it look hollow and not solid). Think of it like how each piece in a broken mirror individually reflect your face back to you. Like a weird patchwork!
Putting this into practice:
For this tutorial I’m going to be nice to myself and not try to draw perfectly accurate gemstones. Instead I’m gonna draw them with a more ”natural” looking set of facets. Which actually isnt as common in real world as video games makes us think. Some crystals have geometric shapes naturally, but a lot of other stones are not as fancy. Anyway, im taking artistic liberty on these example stones because the technique I’m going to use will work for these just fine.
So, in clip studio paint, I first draw the stones on a vector layer. I give them facets for the front side. Then I duplicate the layer, remove the front facets and replace them with the facets on the back of the stone. The third image here shows both layers visible on top of each other. I now put these into a layer folder and mark the folder as ”reference”.
Now, on a layer below the lineart folder, fill with your base tone. Then make a layer on top (if you can clip it to the base tone, do that), this layer is where you decide where the highlight will be placed. In some cases the highlight is only lighting up one single facet - it really depends on the design of the stone. You can also blend and soften the highlight here if it looks good for you, just make sure not every facet is highlighted. The highlight layer should be on top of all the other layers clipped to the base tone layer.
Now it is time for the juicy juicy stuff! Turn on both lineart layers so they’re both visible. I hid the hilight layer here because it was in the way, but might not be needed in your case. Make a layer clipped to the base tone and paint in the darkest tone. This is where anti-overflow helps me out, because when i run my brush over all these crossed lines it will make the stroke pop in and out for each facet. If you dont use CSP, this is where you can use the lasso tool and select every second facet. It will take a bit more time but it should work similarly.
After the darkest tones I then make a layer for the inside light that the highlight has lit up. Here i keep it inside the darkest tone but this might vary depending on the light setting. If it looks good to me, then that’s what i stick to.
The way I approach rendering the facets here is like the grid in the example images above, every shade and tone appear more or less in each facet but the amount is relative to their position. So a gradient wouldnt have a smooth transition; it would be slightly scewed in each square on this example grid. Essentially like how some bathroom window glass panes look like.
Now it’s time to hide the lineart layer folder and check if the gemstones look decent to you. If not, then you can look up some reference photos and analyze where the values group together the most; be careful not to focus too much on the photos 500 million sparkles. Squint your eyes or blur the reference and try to see how the overall values behae.
I, personally, am satisfied with these rocks so I slap on a gradient map (you can manually color in them too if that’s your thing) and call it a day. The lit up inside of a gemstone tend to have a brighter and more saturated color than the mid tone.
Other Examples with this technique:
If you look up ”gemstone types” you can often find images displaying various facet types from more than just front view. These can serve as useful base templates for practicing this rendering technique. The backside of a gemstone is called the “pavillion” and is really useful to have at hand when it comes to painting the inner refractions. You can probably also use 3D models and convert the wireframe into lineart. But that is slightly out of my pool of knowledge.
Applying this knowledge without using a base lineart layer is of course possible. In this painting I followed a simplified summary of how the facets sparkle: Keep the highlight shape to match the front facet design, and all the inner refractions should be more scattered and split up but face a direction towards the center of the gem. Now don’t you think this sort of makes the gems look like eyes? That’s right! You can, and absolutely should, apply this on eyes to create the most sparkly anime eyes ever.
Now, refracted light that lands on the surface surrounding gemstones varies depending on the material - and if the gem is inside a metal frame it usually doesnt create this much refraction around it. But I want to have fun so i decided to break this rule in the name of pretty sparkles. :)
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Despite Snows focus being on Katniss, I would argue Peeta played a far more of a rebellious role in his part of the “star crossed lover” during their first games than her. From the moment Cinna gets them to hold hands during the opening ceremony their pairing is shrouded in a “touch of rebellion” - we know alliances among district partners is normal/expected but it is also clear that the terms of agreement are temporary and built upon the goal of their individual survival. Peeta is the one that breaches that agreement, by pushing their relationship beyond district partners to that of “star crossed lovers” with the admittance of his crush on Katniss. It is the intent behind why he chooses what to share that is shrouded in rebellion. Early on Peeta is aware of Katniss’ potential as a tribute and beyond that he recognizes that “spark” that can make her “desirable” to others. Yes, he genuinely loves her. But he shares so not to be honest, or to make himself a sympathetic character for the capitol, but to hopefully benefit her in the arena. He pushes this further by his continuous reiterating of his feelings to the audience, during his time with the careers, alone, and then eventually with Katniss. Time and time again he displays that her survival is his ultimate goal in the games, willing to prioritize her victory over his own life. And while yes, Peeta does this because he does truly love and care about Katniss, he is intentional with his actions. He broadcasts his feelings because it benefits her. And every aspect of that goes against what the games are meant to do to people; divide them.
Comparatively, in regards to the “star crossed lovers” Katniss is much more obedient to the rules of the games. She doesn’t initially portray herself to return Peetas feelings. She plays as a solo player, and Katniss quite literally states she appears “heartless” because of this when they watch back over their time in the arena. When it’s only one promised victor and she believes Peeta to be allied with the careers, she drops a nest of tracker jackets over where Peeta is sleeping and showing she views him as any other competitor. Katniss only reciprocates the role of “star crossed lovers” when the capitol has allowed that type of alliance to work within the games. And if anything her later trick with the berries, is a scene of the capitols own making. It is a final act of desperation. Katniss’ knows Peeta is on the brink of death and it’s even a possibility for the Mutts that had just killed Cato to reappear. When she’s handing the berries to Peeta and as she spills them into her mouth, Katniss is not thinking of the significance of her choice or the potential consequences it may illicit. It’s an emotional decision, not a calculated one. In comparison, laying Rue to rest in a bed of flowers was a far more calculated act of rebellion from Katniss.
But despite all this, President Snow almost solely blames Katniss for the oncoming rebellion. And while Katniss does do many things that help initiate that spark, such as volunteering for Prim, singing to Rue, risking her life for Peeta at the feast- it isn’t that he blames, but rather her lying about loving Peeta back. Because Snow is stuck in the past with his belief that Lucy Gray tricked him into loving her. And Katniss, with her singing and her Mockinjays, is such an obvious parallel of Lucy Grays ghost- he misses the fact that Peeta has been a far more calculated player that has actively rebelled from everything the games are meant to turn you into from the moment he was reaped.
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