#plus babbit thoughts

[sunset-sunbun]

im changing my sona again right after I got artfight attacks for it I am so sorry-

[myokk]

Being this close to her mother, Eloise was struck by their physical similarities. As a young girl, it had been impossible to see, but now that she was a young woman they were striking. She felt as if she were looking in a mirror, but a twisted mirror: everything that was warm about her appearance was turned cold in her mother: hazel eyes to a frigid silver, unruly brown hair to straight black; her mother’s skin was somehow even more pale than Eloise’s, as if she were cut from marble. Everything soft about Eloise was made sharp in her mother, and Eloise wondered what had made her this way. She was terrified that in twenty years’ time, the two of them would be indistinguishable.

Had Elladora Black always been like this? Eloise couldn’t imagine any time when her mother might have smiled, or even huffed in quiet laughter. No moments where she had been caught staring at her husband with love and warmth in her eyes. Eloise had only ever known her as an ambitious, cold woman who was always striving towards some goal, even if it was known only to her.

Someone couldn’t spend their whole life like that, could they? Even growing up at the manor, Eloise had always had Leo to confide in and love unconditionally. Had her mother ever had something - or someone - like that?

“Soon, we will be the family we were always meant to be,” Eloise’s mother said, causing Eloise to startle out of her thoughts and stare her mother in the eyes. They were filled with longing. They were mesmerizing. Eloise shivered under the intensity, but couldn’t tear her eyes away. “Soon, we will be back on our way to being the most prominent pureblood family in Britain, with the help of you and your brother. You can’t fail us. You can’t.”

From chapter 23 of my fic, Before It Felt Like A Sin

this post is dedicated to @elliecutte the only other person who is as crazy about Elladora Black as I am😌🙏

[lisxdumbr]

HI user lisxdumbr I'm one day late for this lovemail but I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!💝 It's surprisingly cold this time in my country it's like I'm in a hotel. Is it due to climate change? :'0

*Ahem* Mika scout and bday!! I rlly thought the holographic part of his outfit were really holographic until i found out it's just like shiny fabric and not really holo 💔 He is still slaying as ever 🥰 It's so nice to ensemble live during birthdays because everyone's polite and greeting the character who has a bday 😔💖 I'm so nervous who'd be the next victims for New Year event and the event scout ;;;

What do u think is the gift you'd consider that you're lucky to have this Christmas? Once again, even if you don't celebrate the holiday itself, I send you my best wishes for more joyous blessing to come to you~ 🎁

— 🌻.

HELLO HELLO USER. uhm. User sunflower anon who gives me my weekly serotonin boost !!!! Tysm for your wishes ! Don't worry, you're not late at all, sending those words for you too ♡

Ohh my god, I hope you're handling the cold ok, please make sure to use the proper clothing to warm yourself properly ! I'd hate it if you got sick or anything.

OHHH MIMIKA MY LOVELY I am pulling tonight because I want midnight to hit here for me to pull, best happy birthday gift from me to him <3 THE THE NEW YEAR JBQHWHEHYSWHYQHWUSH you opened a cage you didn't want to. IT HAS TO BE HAJI. HAJIME babbits event plus in the year of the bunny. I am having this though that Tatsumi scout is soon. Be prepared.

Gifts? Hmmm well I don't receive gifts, I don't celebrate, though my mother bought a plushie for me yesterday but... Well, this is going to sound cliché perhaps, but my friends were the best gift I could ask for. I made this little Christmas tree online where my friends left me little love notes, the only thing that made me emotional last night, I almost cried with some of the messages, I still need to thank some of them privately.

I saw your other message! It will get a reply, and this time actually soon, I promise ♡ everything I can say right now is that I appreciate you lots ! I hope life treats you kindly from now on, cheering for you

[rugeon]

The level design of V&A Design/Play/Disrupt

Recently went to the V&A expo on videogames and thought it might be fun to try and think about it’s ��level design’. I realise its silly to call it that and is more informed by planning an exhibition/ event planning and architecture, but w/e.

[pictured:  how do you Do it?, 2014 - Nina Freeman, Emmett Butler, Decky Coss, and Joni Kittaka]

This is mostly gonna be some simple thoughts on the experience of traversing the space of this exhibition, and how that space is used effectively to create different effects/ experiences, as well as notes on the smarter considerations on how the experience is paced/sequenced.

This warped/truncated/inaccurate/drawn from flawed memory map roughly shows the layout of the V&A expo:

The whole exhibition can be roughly broken up into four fairly distinct parts:

Exhibits of the design of different video games from differently sized studios ~2009 onwards. [blue]

Articles, talking points, video discussions and exhibits of games as part of our broader social context, concerned with violence, gender, sex, sexuality, race, language, protest etc. [orange]

A large video theatre showing some of the communities that form around games. [red]

An arcade showcasing several more experimental games and projects, that is open to free play. [yellow]

DESIGN

When you walk in you are greeted by a huge projector flashing between collages of the various exhibitions and the alternating titles DESIGN, PLAY, DISRUPT.

[pictured slides from Jenny Jiao Hsia’s talk on prototyping to make her game: ‘Consume Me’, 2016]

Seeing this is unavoidable when entering, and it serves as something of a banner to signal the transition into the formal exhibition space. YOU HAVE ENTERED THE WORLD OF THE VIDEO GAMES.

Mapping this first area of the 1. Design section of the exhibit we get something like this:

Note that these numbers are in an arbitrary order of roughly when I encountered them, and are not indicative of density, just general location of possibly several bits of each exhibit. Also this list is not exhaustive, nor is the map strictly accurate, I do not have an eidetic memory, but I do have a notebook and a smartphone.

Design/Play/DIsrupt screen

Large Print Text Binders

‘Journey’ gameplay montage projection

Notebooks, sketches, a headphone + video prototype demo, inspo photos/footage, graph and board of intended player journeys/narrative threads

‘Last of Us’ Dual screen demo showing gameplay and some of the work relevant to make that part of the game happen

Sketches, notebooks, board plotting out story events/setpieces in seasons, film made for atmosphere reference, blue sky concept art, colour scripts

Mocap footage +suit

Matt Lees @jam _sponge describing the anxious, excitable play of ‘Bloodborne’ between 3 screens.

Notebooks, sketches+concept art, level design docs, and SketchUp pics of early levels, headphones to listen to a recording of the soundtrack

Bunch of top designs for ‘Splatoon’

Early Prototype, creature sketches, fashion asset design

Playable prototypes from the making of Consume Me

Notebooks, corkboards, workplace ephemera, unity project demo, headphone + video 40 minute talk on prototypes

Music from ‘Kentucky Route Zero’ / KR0, visual representation of branching dialogue in twine, Margritte’s ‘Spring in the Forest’

Inspirations, typeface considerations, group wiki, twine showcase

Realtime Art Manifesto, Even more notebooks, with sketches and details of designing Tale of Tale’s ‘The Graveyard’

Playable demo of The Graveyard

Bench

Multi-screen montage of generated worlds in ‘No Man’s Sky’

Blueprint tool for spaceships, terrain debug tool, sci-fi inspirations

Visual inspirations

So what are some of the ways we can think about how this expo was laid out? 

For a start it’s fairly linear, there are no branching paths at Design/Play/Disrupt, it’d be a layout ill-suited to somewhere like this where there’s a strong desire for the audience to see all the content and assets (the exhibits) and not miss any pieces that time was spent curating. Thankfully unlike some videogames, this linearity is not gated. There are no attendants fiendishly running up behind you and closing doors as you move from one game to another, people might have missed something, or want to visit an earlier piece while friends are preoccupied with something for a little longer.

Exhibits are visited for the most part in a defined order, with some freedom in the Kentucky Route Zero/Graveyard room as well as the Splatoon/Consume Me room. You are encouraged to experience what is on display for each work and are being guided in a deliberate order, as opposed to set loose in an open hall with no boundaries where some attendees might skip or miss a part of the exhibition.

One thing tying sections you can explore or skip is their loose thematic / tonal linking:

To put it another way, there is a good reason that Bloodborne is next to The Last of Us. Both are triple-A big budget, rated 16+, 18+ action games for blood guts and all the cheery stuff. Consume Me and Splatoon work well next to eachother as the cute aesthetic and playable prototypes hanging from the ceiling work well across from Nintendo’s colourful and playful Splatoon. It would be a bit less natural to have the grotesque and rapacious sounds of Bloodborne echoing within the exact same room as Splatoon. I’m not saying any of these works don’t have some commonality beyond the arbitrary border I’ve drawn, but they fit better together. 

- Plus this open space invites an atmosphere of play after having just been cramped into two games rooms that feature horror elements

[Pictured: Splatoon’s section, as well as Consume Me minigame prototypes open to play, suspended from the ceiling]

This also showcases another thing about this event applicable to level design: the same space can be made appealing to different types of audiences. This is an exhibit about video games. I’ll admit this is just my gut but I’d be willing to bet that this exhibit is more likely to be attended by parents and their children than it would most other exhibits. I don’t know exactly what the V&A’s idea of the ideal attendant is, and that’s probably owed to the fact that this event catered to lots of different levels of assumed knowledge and engagement with videogames. 

Parent’s who might be a little out of touch with mainstream games, are quite likely to have been put off by bringing their kid to something that was entirely wall to wall Bloodborne, Dark Souls and other things as frightening (as much as I personally would have enjoyed that). Standing watching a parent pull their rapt child away from dulcet descriptions of how deadly mistakes are, in the big monster game, the success of the exhibition is apparent; the next room is a bit more targeted towards that kid’s age range (even though they did seem pretty into Bloodborne). 

[The concept art from Bloodborne is such a treat]

It’s no surprise as well that the first game is not The Last of Us, but Journey. More people are playing games now than ever but there remains a fair few people who still don’t really know what’s going on in games. As an exhibition that in part is attempting to show the breadth and depth of games being designed, it makes sense that the first introduction to what games are being made is a game without much in the way of traditional combative interaction. 

To wafflingly reiterate: the sequence of how things were placed matters: The accessibility options: 2. [Large Print Binders] are available at the start. Benches and places to sit are placed later throughout the exhibit (including rather wittily across from The Graveyard; a game where the entire goal is to make an old woman sit on a bench).

Reinforcing this point of how the same space can be made to cater to different people this event was extremely Multimedia. Explanations of parts each games design process written up, sketchbooks, and lots of different drawings, scrawled graphs, charts and plans. Concept art, drawings. Video of prototypes and animation, Sounds of ‘Long Journey Home’ echoing up the hall, and the omnipresent dread of Matt Lees echoing down, as well as headphones to listen to specific parts of the exhibition that might be less suited to how crowded the soundscape is or be for a more narrow audience (I wonder how many of the attendants listened to all ~40 Minutes of Jenny Jiao Hsia’s talk on prototyping. I did. It was good). Just in this section of the exhibit, there were so many different means of engagement, and they all felt very well matched to the story of each games development that they wanted to tell, while still offering different types of engagement. People can be looking at a video display showing how the layers of environmental concept art become important and manifest in The Last of Us, while someone else is poring over sketches of Ellie’s design. 

[Corkboard plotting out events + setpieces across the timeline of The Last of Us]

As an exhibition space, it is made with the fact that multiple people are occupying it at the same time in mind. If something is not available you can engage with something else. And if one type of engagement is not to your tastes there’s a good chance something else will be- not bothered about the wiki used to help the team of KR0 to communicate? Maybe you’ll be more interested in some of Ben Babbit’s sonic improvisations, or the visual inspirations involved in the creation of the game.

There’s more I could talk about wrt this first sections layout of how it winds you around instead of giving you a straightline to the exit, the choice of games playable being fundamentlly simple, an anecdotally sweet image of a child holding the obscenely big original xbox ‘duke controller’  on a pedestal and their dad cradling their hands. But I’ll just leave off this post here for now and maybe continue looking at V&A things and posting about it later.

To be continued..?

[womenofcolor15]

Woman Who Was Shot Dead After Breaking Into The U.S. Capitol Identified + Her Final Tweet Revealed - ‘Nothing Will Stop Us!’

The woman, seemingly part of a group of domestic terrorists, who was shot and killed after breaking into the U.S. Capitol has been identified. The husband of the 14-year USAF veteran turned MAGA insurgent is speaking out. Find out what he said, plus peep her last tweet inside…

  BREAKING: Family confirms woman shot & killed at Capitol is Ashli Babbit. She owned a business in San Diego w/ her husband who did not come to DC. “I really dont know why she decided to do this,” her mother-in-law tells me. Police have not confirmed circumstances of shooting pic.twitter.com/OOYpNWpMLg

— Lindsay Watts (@LindsayAWatts) January 7, 2021

Four people died in yesterday's Capitol unrest, one of which was shot and killed in circumstances not yet 100% confirmed. The woman was fatally shot inside of the U.S. Capitol amid a riot.

The woman – who was shot in the chest - has been identified as Ashli Babbit, a 14-year veteran, who reportedly served four tours with the US Air Force and was a high-level security official during her service. Based on her work experience, she should have known better than to break into a federal building.

The 35-year-old is from San Diego and runs a store with her husband, Aaron. He did not accompany her to protest in Washington D.C. He told KUSI she was a "a strong supporter of President Trump” and “a great patriot to all who knew her.” Babbit's mother-in-law told the TV station, “I really don't know why she decided to do this."

"One capitol police officer discharged his service weapon, striking an adult female. She was transported to a local hospital, where after all life-saving efforts failed, she was pronounced deceased," Chief Contee said Wednesday at a press conference. "The MPD's internal-affairs division is currently investigating this matter as we investigate all officer-involved deaths in the District of Columbia, including ones from other agencies. This is a tragic incident, and I send my condolences to the victim's family and friends."

An investigation into her death is currently being held.

Video of her being shot inside the Capitol surfaced online during the time the #MAGA Mob was wreaking havoc on a federal building. The footage shows her attempting to climb through a broken window where armed officers were waiting on the other side.

Washington DC police chief Robert Contee confirmed that she was shot by a US Capitol police officer and an investigation is under way.

Below are videos of the shooting. WARNING! VIDEOS ARE GRAPHIC:

Trump Supporter Gets Shot And Murdered The US State Capitol! #BREAKING #dcshooting #killing #CapitolBuilding #capitolbreach pic.twitter.com/ueyVW4hpI2

— Jayden X (@thejaydenxander) January 7, 2021

  عاجل | قناة NBC: وفاة المرأة التي أصيبت بطلق ناري أثناء اقتحام أنصار #ترامب مقر #الكونغرس متأثرة بجروحها pic.twitter.com/9dlgPIQJci

—  (@arabic_post) January 6, 2021

  A Twitter account believed to be Ashli’s was found. In one of her last tweets, she said she and the #MAGA mob would NOT be stopped.

  "Nothing will stop us," she tweeted in response to a tweet about flights to D.C. being canceled. "They can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours...dark to light!," she wrote.

The Twitter account has tons of retweets of conspiracy theories and numerous threats of violence. Ashli was a proud Trump supporter:

@RealDark_Kent I want to protect, defend, build, enrich, inspire and unite with all Americans! We the ppl want results, progress, truth, encourage orderly immigration and reform—BUILD THE WALL-fix the system-defend America- MSM report facts not agenda pic.twitter.com/oYVQ8nGFF7

— CommonAshSense (@Ashli_Babbitt) December 15, 2018

Other Trump supporters have ironically been coming to her defense on social media.

WE WANT JUSTICE FOR THE MURDER OF Ashli Babbitt, A Air Force veteran pic.twitter.com/R4X6U4kG0x

— lance bivens (@lance_bivens) January 7, 2021

All the "lefties" defending this are no better than trump supporters/proud boys. She was unarmed & had armed police right behind her. The police could have detained/arrested her without firing a single shot. This was murder.

— Mr. Chode (@MollyLouster) January 7, 2021

He needs to be arrested.

There was no reason to shoot her, since she had police right behind her.

— Meta-Self "Publius" (Sire/We) (@Fractal_Stuff) January 7, 2021

This is absolutely murder! She didnt pose threat to anyone

— Maddy [INT] (@AllHannibal) January 7, 2021

Ashli was literally breaking through a window of a door that was barricaded to keep the mob from coming inside and potentially injuring a Congressman or Congresswoman. She could have had a gun or weapon on her. If this isn't a text book example of justified deadly force we're not sure what is.

Thoughts?

Three other people died in “medical emergencies" during the failed coup attempt. 52 people were reportedly arrested and at least 14 police officers were injured.

  1.6.21 Chief Contee and @MayorBowser provide situational updates https://t.co/Pk5yfs302D

— DC Police Department (@DCPoliceDept) January 7, 2021

  Metropolitan Police Department Chief Robert J. Contee III confirmed the death and injury toll during a press conference last night alongside Washington, D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser.

"As of 9:30 [p.m.] today, we have made an excess of 52 arrests: four arrests for carrying pistols without licenses, one arrest for possession of prohibited weapon, 47 arrests related to curfew violations and unlawful entry," he said. "Twenty-six of these 52 arrests were made on U.S. Capitol ground. This number in addition to the 10 arrests that occurred yesterday are the arrests that the Metropolitan Police Department has reported thus far," he continued, noting that "these numbers are preliminary and will be updated accordingly."

After confirming the death of Ashli Babbit, more details about the other people who died was released:

"Additionally, there were three other deaths reported today from the area around the Capitol grounds," he continued. "One of adult female and two adult males appear to have suffered from separate medical emergencies which resulted in their deaths. Any loss of life in the District is tragic, and our thoughts are with anyone impacted by their loss."

A mess.

Photo: Twitter

[Read More ...] source http://theybf.com/2021/01/07/woman-who-was-shot-for-breaking-into-the-us-capitol-identified-her-final-tweet-revealed-%E2%80%98

[myokk]

autumn🫶

[myokk]

✨ELOISE APOLLONIA BABBIT✨

My sweet and entirely too introspective girl🥹

She was born the second child of Oberon Babbit and Elladora Black in 1874. Her older brother, Leonard, has been prepared from birth to inherit everything and carry on the family name. (I love Leo so so so much too♥️). The Babbits are one of the oldest, most powerful wizarding families and quite reclusive, being able to trace their lineage back to pre-Roman times. If the Babbits had been around in the 1930s when the Sacred 28 list was created, they DEFINITELY would have been on it.

Her relationship with her mother is quite complicated. I made a huge post (for myself and @elliecutte 😭♥️) about Elladora, which I think shows her loneliness and loss of control. She put too many expectations on her daughter - the women of the Black family are known for being exceptionally powerful (& unstable😶) and was unable to handle the shame of having given birth to a squib.

As Eloise got older and older, without any sign of magic whatsoever, she was slowly isolated until the day came and went when she SHOULD have received her letter to Hogwarts. When it never arrived, she was burned off of the family tree and made like she never existed à la her great-nephew Sirius. HOWEVER…for reasons I haven’t explained yet in my fic (so I don’t want to spoil too much🤐) her parents decided to take advantage of her situation and enrolled her in a muggle boarding school and pulled strings to betroth her to a prominent muggle landowner to take advantage of connections and make it so that her life wasn’t a complete waste.

Eloise HATED living with the muggles. When she arrived at the school, she was clearly from an important family, and yet none of the girls had ever heard of her. She didn’t know who the Queen was, she didn’t know the basics of etiquette that had been drilled into them from birth, etc. the only enjoyment she got from that time was learning to play the piano and learning about muggle literature♥️ she especially loves Satie’s gnosiennes and Chopin, and reads anything she can get her hands on.

Her parents were actually FURIOUS when she was accepted to Hogwarts at the age of 16. They were counting on exploiting her future connection with her muggle betrothed’s family/wealth, and they lost their chance. Now, they’re trying to take advantage of her in other ways, working to prepare her for the life she had always been denied before.

My girl is STRESSED THE FUCK OUT !!!!!!!!! She hates herself so much for how badly she wants her parents approval; they threw her aside without a second thought, so why in the world is she bending over backwards and going along with all of their demands, hoping for a tiny scrap of affection?????????😔😔😔

She has a LOT of growth, character development, maybe not always for the best. She is imperfect and fallible and just a teenage girl with too many emotions roiling around inside of her to know what to do with.

My fic includes a lot of horror, blood rituals, sacrifice, magical theory, mythological references, lots of romance & slowburn, making all the wrong decisions, arranged marriage to the wrong person, complicated family dynamics and conflicting emotions that are all existing simultaneously & a very sweet girl who is going THROUGH IT😔🙏 my masterlist links to all of my Eloise posts, my fic, PLUS she is the unnamed MC in my two oneshots, clumsy and note-taking🫶

Thank you so much @bookie-bookdust for starting this & for tagging me🫶🫶🫶

The MCs of this fandom are just all so very amazing and creative, and I genuinely love seeing every post I come across during my morning coffee scroll♥️ lately I’ve been more of a silent lurker (all of my likes come from my main blog @oerflink), but hopefully I can be more active again 🤞 If you see this and haven’t done an introduction post yet for your own, PLEASE DO !!!!!!