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Mercurius

Member Since 14 Dec 2008
Offline Last Active May 14 2020 05:53 AM

#130967 [Anime Review] Re:Creators (Spoiler-free...mostly)

Posted by Mercurius on 06 October 2017 - 07:43 AM

Do you believe fantasy does not infringe on your reality? Do you believe in the need for humanity as you know it from fiction?

 

For you, who may believe such things, how do you react when a work lacks the intention of appealing to you in this way? Would it be in outrage, in disgust, in resentment, scorn and derogation for failing to be well-written?

 

If you were, what would you think if those very characters who face turmoil so that they may cater to what you need out of them, appeared before you with defiance and indignation?

 

Do you believe you would reflect on your own perceptions and hold remorse for your demands of them?

 

Or would you think that it is their wrongdoing to hold you accountable for how you judged people who you would have never expected to be real?

 

I consider this to be a very important factor to consider if you will be watching Re:Creators, where fictional characters do in fact manifest in reality.

 

If you will not even be willing to ask yourself about how a show which offers a situation where reality and fiction intertwine becomes relevant to your perception of stories and their characters, then there is nothing of meaningful value for you to find here. However for me, who wishes from fictional characters the same I would of real individuals, and desires for the same on real individuals as I would for fictional characters, there was no setting more fitting for me to witness in action, no scenario with more potential for a compelling portrayal to witness.

 

That is because I knew all too well of what the popular understanding of what it meant to be written properly was. I knew that stories are supposed to be made in accordance to criteria decided upon by humans as being objective quality. I knew all the hatred in justice human beings could have for others once they had an excuse to license themselves to all manner of vilification and all manner of arrogation with no risk of disgrace they could consider valid of their own character for their scorn to all works which were not consistent to what fiction should be in their minds, how valid they thought that to be for how consistent it was with what others had to say of fiction as well.

 

The very same kinds of people who would serve the people that qualify for that were now depicted alongside the very fictional characters they would be so likely to undermine from their hearts for not belonging to the reality they did.

 

I wanted to see what Re:Creators could have to tell me once this was established. However, I was also very alert throughout nearly the entire run, anticipating something that may have crushed my hopes for what there was to see.

 

As a show with a premise of fictional characters becoming real, the outcome of it to turn into yet another formulaic construction made to appeal to criteria had me fraught with fear. Even if it is fiction about fiction, it was still fiction itself and thus vulnerable to coming back around to appealing to the demands of the systematic thinkers. No matter how many times it seemed contrary to following such conventional matters, I remained afraid until the very end. I am writing this now of course because it did not turn out to disappoint and followed through.

 

Everything felt so much more authentic, free of considering what it should be doing as a story. The creations, naturally as a result of being from varied creators, all thought differently and also lived life outside of the plot, even making a point of how true this was with what they were indulging in that was present in reality which wasn't in their fictional worlds. 

 

They weren't made to come to a conclusion with a unified message or a moral to the story, they were just people that learned new things and thought with their hearts according to what they ended up in. Characters only changed their beliefs for circumstances they recognized as warranting a different outlook from their personal observations rather than through their victimization or a calling out of how they weren't in the right. Where there was conflict I had seen it to be opportunities to further express an individual rather than a mere means for suspense.

 

This was not a story made for you to exercise your appreciation for humanity's weaknesses or their complexities. Every last one of the characters are rather simple and fairly straightforward. The plot was written organically without much thought for twists, branching, or even having to make sense, and it sets landfills of exposition your way. There is barely any sense of power balance. For some, that would bring into question how it could be interesting at all.

 

However no matter how mediocre it could be considered on such values there is no doubt that it provoked me into reflecting on the world with a new perspective.

 

Why could it do this? Because Re:Creators set a precedence for trust.

 

From the very first episode, with no character background even provided, I saw a vindictive girl dressed in exaggerated military-inspired vesture, sporting giant anime hair with locks snow white and a gaze of piercing red with a dozen swords flying and spinning to her will.

 

She did not appear in a high school uniform, a commoner's dress, an armor of humble design, she wasn't someone made to be a character that the viewers would believe to not be beyond themselves. From her exterior features alone I recognized her as the enemy of the system that decided the purpose and procedure of how people like her should exist.

 

Consequently, because of the very nature of this show involving both creators and creations, her very first appearance was also recognized by me as someone who was born from a sincere heart. She wasn't designed to be marketed, she was designed from the soul of the artist. This meant that the one who designed her actually, really cared about her. She was more promising than any other creation in the show as someone worth trusting in because of how clearly genuine she was made to seem, a true expression untainted with the chains of so-called good sense.

 

The question my mind constantly had to ask the show for answers was, what did it intend to show me by including this kind of character, who was practically a magnet for the hatred of the literary? What was her fate to be and why? What does she represent and how will they incorporate that into the story? What even led them to take such a risk as to include her at all?

 

The answer to that was that her existence provided the foundation for connecting the story to the world.

 

Of any character that could have been used instead, that she was chosen gave the show the freedom to go beyond the system by design.

 

Even fanart of her made by amateur artists on our side of the world was featured in the actual anime.

 

This all came down to who Re:Creators was for, and the answer was right there in the title. If you are an artist or an author or perhaps even a musician or even if you ever sincerely wanted to be one, then this anime could either be your sanctuary for peace of mind, or it could do nothing for you at all other than send you into a furious rejection of everything that it stands for.




#130197 3 things Gaiden/SoV does that I wish was reflected in all FE games

Posted by Mercurius on 23 May 2017 - 06:03 PM

Shields

I cannot describe to you just how much easier Fates on Lunatic would have been if I had these in that game. Obviously you would need to have some kind of default weapon for this to work (either that or make the boosts so good you don't need to attack? but that sounds OP in its own way) but even with other games if you had an option in inventory management to take a more defensive stance during the enemy phase it would mean so much for how you set up your turns.

 

It's a shame GBA hacks have a problem with pulling this off since you can't balance out def/res boosts by adding a speed penalty though, due to how the games weren't designed to consider any items causing stat nerfs. (names would get annoying too to keep it within the weapon system, like "Slvr Shld w/ B" to mean "Silver shield with bow" for archers...not even sure if that fits within the display limit, either.)

 

Summons that actually matter

Remember FE8 with its hilariously situational phantoms? This game wasn't having any of that. Invoke had to be one of the most useful things in the game (and basically the only thing Celica's team had over Alm's team prior to Act 4 tbh) for keeping your not exactly tanky units alive and useful. A lot of the time in FE games the actual competence of the enemy units drops significantly once you reach mid-lategame and beyond, but if the developers did feel like having the enemies keep up with you or even be stronger, having cannon fodder to protect your troops would give me a hell of a lot more confidence to play it on classic mode. (Lunatic Classic on Fates was just...ugh. Not something I'd want to do again.)

 

Extra range bows

Now as stupid as I think it is that bows have point blank attack range in this game (I don't even want enemies that close to my archers even in FE15 anyway) it's well known that archers in FE games tend to be underwhelming units, and a big part of that has to do with mages just being way too much better than them most of the time. Magic gets away with 1-2 range on nearly all the tomes, resistance stats aren't very likely to be high on enemy teams, you can straight up carry your superlongrange options like Bolting whereas archers need to have a vehicle or a fixed machine on the map to do the same thing, and having worse durability against enemies isn't even that much of a con in comparison to being straight up unable to counterattack.

 

I'm pretty sure most archers throughout the series could at least get away with making almost every bow 2-3 range or something, making the longbows 2-4 or 2-5 range while they're at it. Even as someone who does use bows in most FE games that's usually a matter of handaxe/javelin not having enough might to finish something off or to hit something three spaces away. We could also re-introduce crossbows for other units (weapons with fixed attack power) that are primarily melee-focused so that the bow-exclusive units get away with being the only ones to have bows that are viable for the whole game. They just deserve to have some kind of non-situational edge over mages, you know?

 

I think if I am going to have archers which have the ability to counterattack at 1 range I'd rather they just have a dagger they default to once they're that close to the enemy. That way they don't get all the stat bonuses of their weapon (and don't look kind of dumb bothering to shoot from so close) but still have something they can do about it when they've become forced to fight that close.

 

----

 

That's all I have to say and while there are a number of other fun things this game does that others don't I personally feel like that only functions the way it should in FE15 because its system is designed to support it. Do you think anything else this weirdo of the franchise has warrants being in other FE titles?




#128582 Modern sensibilities on what constitutes good aesthetics

Posted by Mercurius on 03 January 2017 - 08:50 PM

Starting off with a recent example I read...
 

I personally find that sword's design to be quite tacky. If i were you (or your friend for that matter) i'd prefer a more realistic/historic sword like this onethis onethis one or this one, all of which are closer to the real thing.

 
Now before I say anything else I will say that in this particular case I do not necessarily disagree with the person who made the comment, and it is not inappropriate to point out that the friend mentioned would prefer a different, more accurate sword because they were established as being a history nerd by the one who asked for an evaluation.
 
However, the nature of my reasoning and their reasoning for lack of favor is completely different. I personally would suggest staying away from that sword because of the company is notorious for poor craftsmanship, often looking to be subpar in every aspect even in images that were designed to market their stuff as appealing (which would mean, chances are, it would look even worse in real life.)
 
Their reason? It's tacky.
 
I fucking hate that word.
 

Adjective
tacky ‎(comparative tackiersuperlative tackiest)

Now as far as dictionary definitions go they tend to more or less separate these meanings from each other but in actual English use, it will most likely be a combination of several of these meanings at the same time. Personally I have never actually encountered the use of definition 4 and 5. It's either a combination of 1, 2, and 3, or just 2 and 3. In other words, this is the message most people using that word will pass:

Anything that aims to be ornate is shit taste, socially unbecoming, and may cast doubt on the build quality of the object in question.

 
Now, if you happen to have any objections to my brusque representation of common human language, pointing out that you are under the impression that it's actually a much nicer thing that has all sorts of unspoken and specific connotations that cannot be brought across through an interpretation that aims to be rather literal in comparison, I have to point out that language is learned through observation and that any popular enough interpretation of it is going to function the way the majority wants it to, regardless of how ridiculous that is to the actual purpose of the word. I'm sure plenty of you know what happened to "literally" and considering apparently tacky is supposed to have evolved from "shabby" which is virtually never used in reference to opulence that's probably exactly what happened to this word too.
 
Let's look to another example, in reference to Greek statues originally having been painted in vivid, primary colors:
 
67Eg4AF.jpg
 
Again, before I say anything else, I will point out that I actually think of the statues from ancient times to look better without the paint. This is because I think of those statues as having a very solemn or intimidating feel to them when they are without color, in a similar kind of way I feel about cleaned up skeletons, I find that it is rather appropriate that they have lost their color to time to end up giving this deadness or emptiness to it, because they belong to times long past.
 
The reason everybody in the image above agrees on why they like it better without the paint? Because with color, it's tacky. Even the person who is in protest of the poor opinion being shown is not doing it because they disagree, but only because they find it inappropriate to apply modern sensibilities to the ancients. They still follow this idea of "tacky" in the same way the rest do.
 
What do I think when I see them in color? Well, I'd describe them as being rather bright, vivid, and colorful, perhaps reminiscent of a rather festive mood. That's not me being nice. That's just me wanting to recognize the aesthetic for being different rather than distasteful.
 
What the hell happened going into the modern age to warrant this idea of extravagance being equivalent to tastelessness?
 
There's a difference between preference and opposition and this clearly falls into the latter. One of them just happens to like something else better. The other one practically looks to it as an injustice. People probably take this idea of aesthetics more seriously than they do the significance of their religion. Whether something is tacky or not has less to do with opinion and more to do with professing the reality of things.
 
Think back to the times of kings, aristocrats, and successful merchants among those same people. Do you expect them to wear simple tunics of brown, grey, denim and so on? Of course not! They are all about showing off with powerful colors, luxurious metals and gemstones, and intricate details in their stuff. Why did they do that? Is it because they just wanted to prove they were rich? No, they did it because they wanted to look awesome! Imagine some peasant looking at a king and, upon witnessing his vesture, decides to sneer at the lack of aesthetic sense the high class never seem to have with all those frills, gold and jewelry. That sounds completely ludicrous, but it's acceptable and normal today to behave as that very peasant does.
 
Even presidents, CEOs, and mob bosses(In popular perception at least) tend to favor fairly simple and unassuming attire before the public. Only gay guys, singers(+their bands) and military officers(by uniform) get away with looking fabulous. I'm baffled as to how things like wedding rings survive as shiny and brilliant instead of being oxidized all over with "a nice patina" in modern western culture...




#128562 I found My Castle to be really disappointing...

Posted by Mercurius on 19 December 2016 - 05:21 PM

Before you go on to tell me things like "lol wtf talking about Fates stuff like it was ever gonna be good" or "that's not even the point of the game whatever" I'm saying this because it could have been something awesome that is relevant to the game. 
 
My Castle is intended to be an infinite chapter system where the community dukes it out with each other in the form of making a setup for a player to duke it out with their characters. The problem is that...well, its customization sucks. Every player is essentially expected to get all the same stuff(except for the resources, which they don't even get to choose), only Revelation players have access to more options, and extremely few of those options actually contribute to making a battlefield. It could have been so much better if it was a level creator.
 
Fire Emblem is not the kind of game where you go No Items, Fox Only, FINAL DESTINATION. If the players had the option to make a level in the way any other Fire Emblem level works, that is, walls, terrain differences and high numbers of generics in comparison to your relatively small team, then the possibilities would increase like crazy for a post-game, as long as the system didn't make it possible to make an impossible level (for example, making it so that there is an unbreakable wall without any openings defending the boss.) You could just make it so that there's two sections of the place, a "battlefield" section and a "farming" section, so that the existing stuff doesn't get in the way, and in order to keep everybody from making balls to the wall difficult chapters you could integrate the resource system into being a necessity for creating elements of your battlefield section and make the fight itself scale to the overall level of the challenging party.
 
It could actually be My Castle, instead of some place where the only real choices you can have are BGM choice, map skins, and positioning differences...I mean sure, you make a different battlefield as-is by virtue of having different units, but chances are those guys are all OP as hell to the max and basically the entire thing becomes an inconvenient slugfest.



#128096 Post Your Video Game Collection!

Posted by Mercurius on 09 September 2016 - 06:23 AM

Memory card space woes and being unable to take games in physical form for granted has made me sentimental for what I can get. This isn't every game I have but they are the ones I considered worth taking a picture of for how much they stuck to my memory, in that if you were to ask me what games I have I'd immediately be able to recall these ones. I have no idea how to circumvent this issue with the plastic reflection but oh well they're still identifiable... (Skyrim was also supposed to be here, but this was a pain to arrange already and more importantly Skyrim's case is hardly anything I'd consider impressive.)

 

1473399468024.jpg

 

Not that I've actually played Trails of the Cold Steel II yet but it does have a blue-haired ice-themed tall pretty and older military girl as a playable character so obviously I have every reason to consider it special.




#128057 Looking for Feedback

Posted by Mercurius on 05 September 2016 - 09:10 PM

 the older sprites don't look old enough for the older characters to seem consistent.

 

Meanwhile, in the Atelier franchise:

Spoiler

 

She's lived in a swamp all her life. I figured skin would be pale greenish if you spent enough time in a place like that.

I would think the only reason for that is either not bathing enough (so whatever's green and dyeing your face isn't being washed off thoroughly) or disease, which wouldn't be surprising in a swamp but, yeah. We aren't chameleons.

 

Anyway, I went and messed with Channah for 30 minutes or so cause zac mentioned some vague stuff about hair and because I'll have better things to say if I actually try to do something about it in FES' most active thread of the year.

 

Incidentally since I don't think anybody else commented on it from skimming the rest of what was said the formatting you did is fine. Refer to this if you're clueless about anything involving it:

Spoiler

 

Onto the changes, I'll try to remember what I actually did to it as I type.

Tez3zy4.png

  1. Introduced more broken up lines (basically more shorter lines instead of one continuous one) because with hair being the way it is, full of thin strands and all that bulked up together, it's not really a "solid" enough thing (unless it's wet) to necessarily warrant strong lines going all the way through. 
  2. Changed up the "texture", which might be in conflict with your artistic vision of the character, but the original version basically forces me to perceive the yellow part as some kind of makeshift hood thrown over her head. Some pixel artists out there don't really like this idea and instead like to make the hair as cleanly as possible, like it came out of an anime screenshot, and sometimes that works out for them. However, in this case of two-toned hair I feel that it was necessary to introduce more wild shapes into it (for lack of a better descriptive term) so that each color could flow better into each other.
  3. Added gradient to the inside lines also for the purpose of getting it to look somewhat more natural and hair-like within the kind of size and color limitations we have to deal with. In other words, I tried to have the lines become darker as they progressed further down in the hair and conversely lighter the further up they were. This isn't really important for sufficiently dark hair, but for lighter hair it makes a big difference.
  4. Removed the use of the outline inside the hair to define individual shapes because while this does well in showing separation between individual areas of the hair it stands out too much unless again, the hair is dark enough to get away with it. A lot of smoothness in art comes from the use of different values for lines depending on where it's supposed to be around to show a particular shape. Unfortunately we have color limits and have to deal with compromises from time to time but in this case the darkest brown used for hair shading did its job. Some outline remains as a kind of final shade, but since it isn't being used to make a shape stand out and because its used with a very dark surrounding color, it serves to grant the hair further detail without the need to add another color into the whole.
  5. Used the lightest brown in the left of her hair to provide the final shade of the right of her hair both as a color conserving means and because well it's two-toned hair anyway. That it isn't entirely neatly differentiated adds to the idea that both colors are meant to be there, especially if this happens to be her totally natural hair as opposed to a strange dye job or a wig that refuses to part ways with her.
  6. Darkened the yellow of the hair on the bottom right.  I tried to keep the change within the boundaries of your intentions because I expect people to design something with choices they meant to aim for, but the thing about hair that's meant to be dual colored is that to make it not appear jarring you have to make both colors reach a degree of similarity by decreasing the contrast between them, whether that means making it darker or less saturated or closer to each other on the color spectrum or whatever.

To really give a better idea of how important color value adjustments can be, this is what I did to refine Whitewolf8's mad hatter sprite:

 

98XyaGG.png

 

It becomes more and more evident the further you zoom in, but the contrast in the original's hair is so powerful that the pink of the hair starts searing through the green. The band on the hat and the collar also has too great of a contrast which makes it appear more like paper or metal than it does cloth (the intended material) and the adjustments to where the skin shades go on the face (which from what I remember was purely a matter of change in location rather than value alteration) serve to define the shape much more smoothly along with the hair than it would have before.

 

Now there's a reason why instead of giving any overall area to improve I pointed out specific differences, and only on one portrait instead of looking for trends among the gallery. Because art cannot be consistently done unless you choose to have a consistent image. Different ways of doing things have to be employed for different situations, and I think providing a difference in what you originally made rather than looking at someone else's character entirely will highlight that. Even the "After" versions between the top and bottom ones have things done differently with their hair, because I don't feel like the way it worked for one of them did for the other (which had a drastic change in color value) and thus had to adjust how I would make it work.




#128003 Criticism of content creators: A matter of looking for a common enemy?

Posted by Mercurius on 31 August 2016 - 04:44 AM

Humans as a whole are likely to look to themselves as good, to see themselves as above the petty, astonished at the kinds of words and expressions that would escape another only to deny that very evidence in their ultimate evaluation of humanity and its evolution over the savages of times past who might as well not count as actual people for their misdeeds. The very word "humane" exists in description of a forgiving and compassionate attitude, our standards for what would constitute decency so great only for our collective greatness taken for granted.*

 

Except then you can bring anything regarded as bad writing and relatively well-known and the common man will work to pave all roads going straight down to hell in a fortnight several times over.

 

Justin Bieber, Michael Bay, Stephanie Meyer, Kawahara Reki, it's not as though I personally like any of these people either. (Well, honestly, I know close to nothing about Justin Bieber besides him being generally shit on.) However, I've said before that it's like people are looking for an excuse to hate for it's own sake when they go on to focus so much on these particular individuals, and now I'm thinking, is that the real reason why in such circumstances, it becomes so easy for people to get on a high horse when feeling like being an unabashed slanderer?

 

People know who those are, people can find what they've made as well as several news articles on them and a significant community to fall back on, and are without need to generalize those persons as a group. They can turn hatred to unified discussion and cultivate its reasoning, and at the end of the day, walk away and tell themselves they're some of the nicest people they've ever met. It is good and socially acceptable to look to another's work and take it as evidence for speaking against the creator's character, a cultured, virtuous, and mature activity for one to have themselves partake. However if they were to say the same towards an unknown or the everyday person of the streets publicly, they would have no chance to retain their integrity, either in the eyes of others or for those who are of any self-awareness, the eyes of the self.

 

That it would be easier to excuse is clearly evident, but then comes the question, why is it so interesting for people to band together in hatred? I speak as a hater, I know what hate is like, on the receiving end and on the assault. I know that it is less a decision and more of an impulse in contrast to what many would suggest to give themselves the opportunity to look down on the likes of me. I know that it isn't really an enjoyable thing to be feeling, and without evident results to come alongside it, it makes me look to myself even worse. The hate people will have for these kinds of people are unlikely to have serious effect on them unless they are the kind of people who would commit suicide after receiving one too many death threats or something of the like.

 

There is only one reason that really comes to mind for the reason why so many would revel in camaraderie born of malice, and that is what I was once told by another who spoke well of the community they were among, only for how it was too busy directing most of its hatred towards the game company to hate on each other. That also got me thinking about the communities out there that talk a lot of shit towards another community...they may take jabs and jokes at each other's expense as many would disregarding the insults as mere friendly banter, but if they want to get serious on feeding the ego, it's best to go all out on someone that won't bother talking back.

 

*Some time ago I was in discussion with someone who was, as relevant to the topic at hand, going out of their way to debase a protagonist and its author of something they never bothered to even read. This same person will look to someone(the protagonist they're talking shit about) that will willingly endanger themselves into going further into an extremely life-endangering situation for people that very clearly tried to screw them over, and disregard this act of heroics as being anything just any good friend out there ought to do, even though they themselves go about sneering about in contempt for those they find beneath them. That we mutually find each other a laughable existence is no coincidence.




#127592 Any idea for a hack?

Posted by Mercurius on 24 July 2016 - 11:10 AM

My logic for unbreakable legendary weapons is that they're legendary. Any normal weapon would have rusted out YEEEEEEEEEARS ago, whether it was used or not.

Actually, there are fairly old antiques of weapons and armors from fairly far back that are in excellent condition because of their storage, maintenance(sometimes) and lack of use. The ones that look utterly destroyed from rust tend to be because they were found in particularly terrible conditions, like iron in the river.

 

But yeah I consider breakable legendaries pretty stupid too. Especially since their uses usually aren't actually that high either when they can be broken.




#127379 Cats or dogs?

Posted by Mercurius on 26 June 2016 - 11:24 AM

I can't believe you, zac.

 

What the fuck is with these bitches and thieving cats and their fucking majority privilege, seriously. Other animals exist too for fucks sake. Where are the rights? How come everybody goes all up in arms when dogs or cats get eaten but routinely hunt the most sacred animal comprehensible? Unbelievable. This is why I hate humanity.

AyGN1rx.jpg

Now prostrate before your new overlords, infidel. Or do you want us to do as we did with medieval Europe?

 

160608124046-medieval-killer-rabbits-4-e




#127359 Why do humans lust for zombies?

Posted by Mercurius on 25 June 2016 - 07:01 AM

I've asked this question several times before (not necessarily here, can't remember if I did already) because I simply cannot be satisfied with the answer that is often provided, as though all of them are being dishonest, either just to me or also themselves.

 

Now when I write the title the way I do I did it on purpose. It is not enough to say that people want to be afraid of zombies. The most common reason given for why zombies are popular is because of the idea of how the zombie apocalypse appeals to fears in a particularly intimate way.

 

The thing is, popular culture is simply far too comfortable with zombies to actually restrict them to being horrors. It's practically a rotten fever for zombies the way there's a yellow fever for asians. You don't have zombie modes in FPS games, casual games like Plants v.s. Zombies that have obviously ridiculed the entire affair in the way people don't really take pirates seriously anymore, all sorts of ideas for preparation against a zombie apocalypse, and even people displaying manufactured zombie heads in their homes as stands for medieval helmets, because people are afraid of them. It would not surprise me in the least if someone wanted to french kiss the maggots out of a zombie cheerleader and then fuck her in the ass with all the moist, fragile, decomposing flesh serving as a novelty. Disease and decay is desired.

 

If you ask me, what's far more terrifying than zombies themselves are people that long for zombies. That applies to most reasons I am a misanthrope and this particular kind, where humans actively indulge in weakness through a particularly disgusting medium, is actually the first and most significant.

 

I did not want to hold human throats at knife point against jagged walls in the dark to ask them "What's the matter? What's the matter? Isn't this what you want? Don't you like being hurt? Don't you want to realize your powerlessness through being dominated? Isn't it great to know just how disgusting you really are? To be recognized and humiliated in your least dignified state? Don't you want your dreams to come true? Your dream of being sickening to the core, taking pleasure in just how helpless, insignificant, and desperate you really are? Or is it that you simply realize that I have not come to make your fantasies a reality, but rather to take away that very reality from you so that all those hopes to engage in such debauchery will expire?" prior to realizing the level of acceptance, understanding, and expectation humans have for those of such tastes.

 

Zombies in their most popular form are weak, ugly, slow, rotting, infested with vermin, without wills or intelligence beyond hunger for your flesh, have their strength only in great numbers and are thus commonly depicted as so, and convert others into becoming zombies themselves. Why? Why are there so many humans so very fond of them?




#127219 Calling all sword collectors

Posted by Mercurius on 28 May 2016 - 04:30 AM

I believe I recall Blazer and Arim saying that they do this and if anyone else happens to do so that would be nice to see. Though even if there aren't 3 people is a pretty high number in a place like this.
Spoiler
Considering that I only have two swords in possession and don't actually intend on buying more of them it may seem somewhat strange that I would even consider myself a sword collector but just these two give me enough to talk about as-is.
 
The first sword I bought was the British Royal Horse Guards 1832 Officer Dress Sword which at the time I had thought by far to have the best aesthetic within my preferences relative to the price, as at the time it was on sale for a little less than $150 IIRC. It was also priced in that way primarily because it was not actually a high quality production but rather a defective product that was still worth selling. 
 
And...to be honest, as someone who almost never goes online shopping I had mistakenly took the advertised image too seriously. I'm not claiming that the website that sells this stuff has low credibility or anything because the sword does seem to be what it's supposed to be, but the use of particularly marketable lighting and more specifically the omission of a certain angle that hides a certain feature it possesses caused me to make a purchase that was not quite as well-informed as I would have hoped it would be.
Spoiler
As you can see in the close-up photo, it looks a lot less appealing in comparison to the advertisment when in less specialized lighting conditions and it has a particular engraving in it that I really wish wasn't actually there. It looks like something I would have attempted on a whim in a college project (since I have actually engraved in silver before) rather than anything professionally done. 
 
Overall the sword does lack a certain elegance to it that I would have expected from the advertised image, but I really can't get mad over this because when I am both stingy and picky about what I purchase for obvious reasons my options are severely limited. I think part of the reason for why I couldn't tell how nice it would look in real life is because it had been too long since I had seen a sword in real life, which made my estimate of the actual size of the weapon quite inaccurate.
 
One serious issue I do have is that the guard appears to only be brass plated rather than fully made of brass because trying to sand off a particularly oxidized place revealed to me that it was colored silver beneath. Why they actually did this I do not know as brass is not a particularly expensive material from what I can remember.
 
For all its problems though, which should be expected from a cheap sword, the blade etchings are better than I would have expected them to be, with little that can be said to be crude about it.  If I recall correctly in jewelry class there was this one indian girl who told me engraving is all the rage back in her home country and I would presume the similarities in the purpose of etching and engraving explains why the company(based in India) that manufactures this stuff can afford to do so and sell their swords at a fairly low price alongside criminally underpaid workers and for all I know outright slave labor.
 
This sword has no optimization whatsoever for actual use and the size of the handle truly taught me what it meant for a sword to be one-handed. Both because I only do minimal exercise and because the sword was not balanced for use as a weapon, not being able to reliably two-hand this makes it impossible for me to use it without very awkward movements unless I hold it in reverse grip(far less pressure on the wrist), which it was obviously not intended for as my knuckles are exposed with the direction the guard faces if I do so. The reverse grip does have an advantage in that it decreases the range of the weapon, making it less difficult to use inside my house against thieves and date rapists should the need arise, though I seriously doubt the latter is ever going to happen again as I rarely leave the house(or start unnecessary relationships in real life to begin with) or let others in now. It also just feels less natural to use it that way which is a very important factor given that I do not actually know any specific techniques for striking someone with a real sword outside of using my body's momentum to get as much force out of it as I can.
 
The second sword I bought is the British Midshipman's Dirk for $120 (same conditions as the first, defective product for a lower price) and I made this choice mostly because of my experience with the first purchase. I bought this sword because it felt awkward having only one sword on a three sword stand (which was an old gift from someone who didn't realize I did not actually possess any swords at the time), because of the contrast it had with the first sword with the white rayskin handle and the black scabbard, because I had actually used this type of sword before in an MMO where getting a better weapon than the default was both fairly difficult and not particularly beneficial, and because if it was going to be poorly balanced and heavier than it should be anyway a short weapon would suffer a lot less from the drawbacks and be significantly preferable for use at home in situations where I should defend myself against someone in my home with non-lethal violence.
 
Originally I was the type of person who would prefer a gun for home defense simply for its high effectiveness but guns have their drawbacks for situational reasons. It is far less accurate than a close range weapon if actually shot in the dark and the mere presence of it being there even if I don't actually fire it increases the seriousness of the situation extremely, meaning things could get a whole lot more dangerous than they should. It is also extremely difficult to give a justification for using it to society if I were to threaten someone I know, that entered my house with some level of permission, that does not intend to do a crime that warrants retaliation with the use of an extremely deadly object. There is no way in hell I am getting away with claiming I used a weapon as particular as a gun (outside of using it as a blunt weapon) without deadly intent. The sound of firing alone makes you far more suspicious to anyone in the neighborhood that doesn't know what is going on; alongside bullets, blood, and corpses, there are just too many social consequences in any case I am not facing someone who is straight up intent on assassination and full of incriminating evidence.
 
However, because I do not possess much strength, having a fairly long, blunt, durable steel object that was designed to be comfortable for the wielder to hold but not particularly inciting for an enemy to grab (it still looks like a blade, grabbing onto it is not an intuitive thought) gives me a sufficient advantage over anybody that has less reach, which should be the case almost every time outside of ranged weapons like guns. It being an ornate sword in the first place probably makes it less threatening but considering the rarity of the situation I don't think I should buy one for practical use only.
 
I have also tried using the former sword with half-swording, however this significantly reduces the range of my weapon for obvious reasons and significantly limits what I can actually do with it. It also tells people that you can, in fact, grab the blade. I have also tried using the sword inside of the steel scabbard, but this makes it particularly heavy and the weight distribution either favors trying to use it backwards which is not a particularly great idea with this specific kind of weapon or if I try to use pretend to use it like I'm half-swording the weight distribution is just way too awkward to use effectively, in both situations the weight simply makes striking with it far too slow. The scabbard alone can be used as a relatively efficient bludgeon but it is hollow and can presumably be dented with too much force and is obviously the easiest thing to grab. It also loses the advantage of the point of the sword which, while not sharp, still allows for very concentrated force in one location.
 
Anyway, onto the actual sword.
 
When I looked at the advertised images, there was a certain feature that I thought would persistently annoy me, those being the acorn-like ends of the guard. However, to my surprise, when the dirk arrived it was even smaller than I had expected it to be (cameras just make everything look bigger I guess) which minimizes how clearly I can recognize its details and the S-like curve looks much better as well. The brass of the sword also appears much less crudely shaped than the first and to my surprise the handle, in spite of rayskin being harder than I thought it would be, alongside all its bumps and the like, is not actually that uncomfortable. One thing I am somewhat puzzled by though is how snugly the hilt fits onto my hand, specifically when my hand is raised to the bottom of the guard. It seems like something anyone with big hands would have a lot of trouble trying to use.
 
The crown over the anchor symbol on the guard (which I presume is the symbol of the Royal Navy) is part of the reason I bought the sword in the first place, and I'm very glad it looks about as nice as it was advertised. I'm not sure why, but there's something about swords that were used in naval combat that appeal to me a lot more than ones that were meant for land. On that note, I must say that the length is incredibly well-suited to combat use indoors (it was meant to be used in a ship after all) and that I have a much higher appreciation for shorter weapons as a result of actual experience handling something like this, though I still have a hard time actually finding knives and daggers cool.
 
As expected, while the weight of the sword is probably heavier than it should be and not balanced that well, it is far lighter than the previous sword (which, I should mention, is an exceptionally long one-handed sword at over 39 inches of blade) and I can actually swing it with so little encumbrance that the speed is more or less equal to how quickly I can swing a fruit knife. It is a little more tiring, but the force behind it when I wield it certainly makes me feel fairly confident in the weapon. The exception, however, is when I am trying to thrust with it, which I can't really seem to do very well unless I switch to reverse grip (and that only applies to striking directly below me) but whether this is because I lack the technique or if it just wasn't meant to be very good at that, I'm not sure. It's probably the former.
 
Of course the lowered price has its drawbacks and upon taking the sword out of its sheath for the first time, there was one thing I have to say I was not by any means happy to see.
Spoiler
There is a crack in the blade that runs so long you can't miss it. If it wasn't for how the steel used in this is fairly soft, there would be a part of me concerned over its structural integrity and it is easy to see just why this was discounted. That said I can't really see any particular flaws elsewhere on the sword, and this issue isn't visible on the other side of the weapon, essentially meaning that this one crack saved me about 40 dollars on it, which sounds like a fair deal for a low-end product that was specifically mentioned as having defects. Overall I feel like both purchases were good enough to warrant the money spent, but if there's one thing that won't stop bothering me, it's that both of the swords I own are straight when I actually prefer curved swords.
 
For comparison, this is the sword I want most out of the selection the retailer I buy from offers, but it's also twice as expensive and does not serve as a convenient to use tool for self-defense. Buying this after the other two would also be kind of redundant as it shares design similarities to both of them. The swords I have now are like if they were once this sword and then split into two which somehow caused them to straighten out for some reason.
 
If I wanted to avoid being redundant, there were two other swords I took interest in. The first was the Agincourt War Sword from Windlass Steelcrafts' battlecry series, with an all black finish that gives it a malicious style that is only further accentuated by its realistic and practical shape with little in the way of decoration. This would be the kind of sword I would want to hold when I want to foster a zeal for carnage, as if it were the devil's gift. The second is the Skull Sword Cane from Hanwei for which I have similar feelings toward as the black sword except I suppose this one would give more of a drive for assassination with its nature as a concealed weapon. (It's not just the clothes that make the man...) However, neither are curved. x:



#127000 The NEW Post your Desktop thread...

Posted by Mercurius on 12 May 2016 - 10:31 AM

Yeah, the same artist that worked on SMTxFE did the designs for the player character, main heroine, mascot, the mysterious fortune teller that appears at the beginning of the game, the most plot relevant queen and her knight commander, and a bunch of other unimportant characters nobody cares about (not sure why toi8 didn't do the artwork for the three other starter characters you get...)

 

At first I felt it was really weird seeing a ton of artists work on the same game, but I've gotten used to it over time since most of them follow conventions that share design similarities. All bets are off when collabs happen though, the majority of those look so out of place I can't ever get myself to field them.




#126978 2nd Nintendo Humble Bundle

Posted by Mercurius on 09 May 2016 - 06:37 AM

I'd have jumped on Darksiders II if I actually had a Wii U.




#126324 Post Your Fates Avatar

Posted by Mercurius on 25 February 2016 - 01:13 PM

...I didn't get any free DLC that let me change classes to Great Lord.




#126258 Which Route Are You Playing First?

Posted by Mercurius on 17 February 2016 - 02:53 PM

After realizing that there wouldn't be Japanese voices and the localization fucks up a lot of stuff, I won't really consider getting the other two routes. Just Hoshido cuz AZN PRIDE here. Already pre-ordered it and everything. I'll just watch an LP of the other two or something.