There's something deeply amusing about the classic trend of videogame franchises starting out with lighthearted overtones before eventually adopting an aggressively grittier, edgier artistic direction (like prince of persia, jak and daxter, or the slightly different flavor of this encapsulated by god of war), and how Guilty Gear games since xrd seem to have gone through the exact same evolution except in complete reverse
exactly the kinda thing i was thinking of. i bet with a smart publicity campaign we could get one of these in everybody's bedroom, and maybe make a whole load of cash too
The best way I can describe E.Y.E Divine Cybermancy is take every major sci-fi property of the last 40 years or so, put them into a blender with a philosphy 101 textbook, and then pour that into the source engine with the shittest code imaginable
My understanding of Signalis' plot is that it's the exact same plot as EYE divine cybermancy, something that is incredibly funny to me for reasons I can't explain
I donโt understand why people donโt wear motorcycle helmets. Genuinely.
Bicycle helmets? I understand why you wouldnโt wear one. Itโs incredibly important to wear one, of course, butโฆ
โฆI wonโt blame anybody for not wearing one, though. I mean, look at it. It looks dorky as hell. I would also like to minimize my time wearing one.
But motorcycle helmets? MOTORCYCLE HELMETS?
Literally the coolest fucking accessory a human being can wear???
They make you look wicked. Kick-ass. Like a laser-shooting robot from the year 3000. It replaces your ugly mug with the sexiest face known to man: the tinted plastic visor.
I would wear one OFF the motorcycle. I would pay ACTUAL MONEY to have my head permanently transmogrified into a motorcycle helmet.
how on GODโS GREEN EARTH can you participate in an activity where it is both socially acceptable and highly recommended to wear some SICK FUCKING SHIT and make the conscious decision to say โnah Iโll passโ??????
So usually when an imaginary friend is a real thing in a story, itโs either a demon or a ghost or some supernatural boogeyman that probably wants to eat the kid theyโve befriended (Mama, a couple of the Paranormal Activity movies), or โimaginary friendsโ are just treated as a real thing in the setting, and if a child just thinks hard enough they can manifest a friend into existence (Fosterโs Home for Imaginary Friends, Happy).
And somewhere in the middle is an area where the imaginary friend in question is real and they are supernatural, but they arenโt malevolent, and they arenโt entirely honest about what they are. Like maybe theyโre a fairy or a god or some kind of boggle from mythology, but they just got caught by a six year old and they donโt have time to get into it, so they just go โโฆYes. Iโm your imaginary friend. We havenโt met. How do you do.โ And then they stick around because they do love this kid, and if youโre a boggle from mythology in the modern day good food is really hard to come by.
And at some level. Thatโs what I think Hobbes is.
copyright reasons aside, the moral imperative not to allow fandoms to work on your projects in an official capacity is that fandoms โ inherently manifestations of community passion โ run on hobby labour. hobby labour is fine when someone's doing it on their own time for fun, but the thing about hobby labour is that it's most common in those with lots of time and no pressing need for income (in effect, children and teenagers)
now, that specific group of people is very likely to bite at an opportunity to work on something they love. whether or not they value their time, there isn't really an imperative for them to see the creators of their favourite work as a "boss" so much as an admired friend they're doing something nice for
they don't really have the career experience to recognise a raw deal, since they view the prospect of working as its own reward. if someone they admire is disappointed in them, that's bad, and so they'll work harder than an adult in a similar position might
unrelated, crazy to think about how homestuck's 14 years old now
i thought my laptop was on its last leg because it was running at six billion degrees and using 100% disk space at all times and then i turned off shadows and some other windows effects and it was immediately cured. i just did the same to my roommate's computer and its performance issues were also immediately cured. okay. i guess.
so i guess if you have creaky freezy windows 10/11 try searching "advanced system settings", go to performance settings, and uncheck "show shadows under windows" and anything else you don't want. hope that helps someone else.
hey this is apparently helping a lot of people! adding that on top of this you can also go to settings > personalization > colors and turn off transparency to also boost performance. this wasn't the Big Fix for me but might as well do that too if you're trying to optimize.
Fate/Strange Fake: Whispers of Dawn - The Abridged Rundown
I'll be real, it's an hour long special, there's a lot to get through in regards to it. I'm going to keep things short, and try and condense my thoughts as much as possible which means I'll be skimming over character (and story) related stuff quite a bit. So here's the gist of it: the US is making a fake Holy Grail War without the Mage Association in hopes of it becoming a real one, and we're thrown into the chaos that is fake and real servants colliding in a story that began as a joke on a website in 2009. Yeah, it was originally a joke, turned light novel, turned manga, and now turned anime, so I really recommend reading up on Strange Fake a little bit and as much tertiary Fate information as you can if you want to grasp it, because that's not the goal of this post.
What is the goal though is explaining my thoughts on this hour long special episode, and what it spells for the series going forward (and maybe just a little story and character stuff, who knows).
I'll get it out of the way right off the bat. The production quality? All over the place. In quite a few moments I was left wondering if characters like Faldeus were off model or if it was a creative decision, and there's plenty of examples of downright questionable animation and decisions. I'm rather disappointed in A-1's output considering the addition of a delay. Was the delay to accommodate a single episode special turning into a full series? Or was it just trying to buy time for the more rough pieces displayed in this episode? It's hard to say, but my prior statements still stand. With the help of a few examples, that is.
Anyways, how about some cool stuff? If there's one thing that Strange Fake has going for it, it's style. Weird, right? Production isn't quite there, but the style really is. One of the more bold and interesting examples of Strange Fake's style is through its camera rotations. Sometimes it leads to super odd and rough cuts like the above, other times it creates really striking and inventive scenes like the following. It adds a very nice feel to the content that it appears in, and draws out that sense of drama and suspense quite well. Also, I love that since it's in America they just couldn't help but feature guns and military.
Of course, rotation isn't the only thing that comprises the visual style of Strange Fake. If you were to draft the number 2 spot for most used approach, it would certainly have to be the aggressive camera angles. Not as flashy as the camera rotation or movement itself, but it still plays into that almost melodramatic feel that this story displays for viewers, steeping itself in grandeur and showmanship.
Now, I will say that it misses the beat on its showmanship nearly as much as it nails it, as layouts aren't the only important thing in selling viewers a story. Right alongside it is character acting, and quite often it's relegated to just sort of vibrating pngs on screen that will interact with one another. For comedic effect I think it has a time and place, but I don't think it needs to be used as much as it is early on in this episode. Thankfully though, the good pieces of character acting are really good. Just take a look at Fake Caster here (even though it's just a hand). It captures their personality, their feel, the emotions of their voice (which you can't hear) incredibly well. Though I'll also say that the camera work adds a large amount of feel as well. Just an all around impressively well
Hmm, so where to next? I think, a fun thing to chat about would be the nature of servants, which ironically, plays a really big role in the pairings and purposes of characters throughout this story. I won't go on spoiling things (though I really don't have any information that is spoilers, unless this is your first fate series). Anyways, lets get it started with the coolest and newest servant: Enkidu.
Enkidu is Gilgamesh's counterpart, and the anime makes sure you understand that. Gil is summoned in the middle of a desert, into the hand of a young girl who completely surrenders herself to Gil. Enkidu on the other hand appears in a forest, summoned by a wolf Chimera. The symbolism of the tree of life that appears as lightning is no joke in poor taste, no sir. Enkidu is the blood-brother of Gilgamesh, a warrior who fought side-by-side the king of legend. The parallels are endless between this infamous pair. The disparity between control and freedom, ruling and harmonizing, so on and so forth ad infinitum. This pair was made for one another, and the anime does a great job of conveying that.
Next on the list of incredibly curious has to be our new Berserker and their master, Flat Escardos. I love this idea so, so much. Two peas in a pod these characters are. Unrestricted, unforgiving, and unlimited. The pair are two sides of the same coin with Jack The Ripper comprising the dark of the pair, while Flat the light. It's a really great dynamic, and the character play off each other incredibly well for comic relief and surprisingly dark comments. It's also with Berserker that we get treated to the first of our trio of title cards (though neither of the other two give names). That is, image stills that represent who our servants are, what their story is. Really, really great stuff.
Next up we've got our Assassin, who tells a very simple story alongside the poorly done slam poetry provided by their master. Not a lot to comment on, but I enjoy how not-so-subtle they are with Assassin's background as a religious woman before her fall from grace. Very befitting story, for sure.
Now, the last and certainly not least is our 'wild card' servant and master combination. This one's really something else (I'll share more afterward), but their concept is 'Pestilence'. You might call them a horseman of the apocalypse, the Pale Rider, the Black Plague, whatever name you might fancy. But what they are remains fact: disease. It's really interesting when paired alongside the youthful and innocent Tsubaki, especially as her father takes on the rot/curse of Pale Rider rather than his daughter. Neither like Berserker nor Assassin, Pale Rider is more symbiotic with Tsubaki. A curse, certainly, but one that also cares for and understands Tsubaki, contradicting their very existence as Pale Rider. It's a really curious character that puts even Enkidu and Gilgamesh on alert, so I'm incredibly interested to see what they get up to in this story.
And that's where our information in regards to servants and masters ends. Of course, I've still got a bit more to go so bear with me for just this little bit more.
Strange Fake's style really is something else, as I've said before, but I think one of the more important pieces to it is how fluid it remains. There's all sorts of crazy interesting ideas, from the title cards I've just shown, to the insane impact frames, the dazzling approach to lighting, or even the art style itself. Hell, they use CGI with Pale Rider and it works perfectly to convey that disturbing feel they exude.
Now, this one's separate just because I wanted to chat about it a little. Francesca here's a little drama queen. You already know from her appearance and disposition that she likes to show off, but it extends far past that. Much further past into truly commendable territory all for the sake of showing off. She knows of her short stature, but wishes to impose upon Reeve in this scene, so what does she do? Make a show of trouncing all over his desk. Kicking his lamp over only after performing a perfectly executed stunt to show that she didn't need to kick the lamp over, positioning herself above him so that the shadow she casts is far greater than that of Reeve's, and (effectively) stomping on his police hat to squash his sense of justice underfoot. It's an incredible setup all for Francesca to toy with Reeve in this scene, and I absolutely love it.
Okay okay, last piece. The super cool Gil and Enkidu impact frames. Love that their color schemes are opposite as well. Very very well done, though I wish their fight itself had a bit more impact to it.
And there it is, the end of this Strange Fake special episode. Would I say I'm completely satisfied? Not really, no. There's a lot of production weirdness and concern that I have with a large amount of material through the episode. The story itself is outstanding though, and is presented impressively well. It's just that the animation and some of the creative decisions in regards to that animation is subpar and in poor taste. Strange Fake: Whispers of Dawn is held back from greatness by a single chain, strained at each link, almost begging to be let loose. We didn't get the perfect beginning that A-1 might have hoped for, but I think it's one that plenty of viewers will be enthralled by nonetheless.
I just watched the new Fate Strange Fake special and holy shit, the second Enkidu and Gilgamesh know that they've both been summoned they rush towards each other and engage in the most sexually charged battle in Fate ever.
Seriously Fate uses some dumb metaphors for sex (the CGI dragon biting an arm off, the fish in UBW, etc), but I think two guys reciting poetry to each other while aiming their blasting sword tip and extending tree trunk and saying "Enuma Elish!" at the same time while smiling is the best.
They keep flirting with each other so much, and everyone is terrified at the amount of damage their battle that's totally not a metaphor for gay sex has caused.
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