Not my usual gig, but this made my jaw drop so hard, I had to cover it. And there are likely many, many people who won't entirely get this, but...it must be said.
But I'm up to Episode 78 of Campaign 2, and...let's pause a moment and explain Sam Riegel.
...
There's no explanation for Sam Riegel. Let's just sum up what he's doing here. For the...two years? Two years! Critical Role has been running (at the time of ep. 78, at least), Sam has been doing on-the-spot comedy promos for DnD Beyond, the official digital support program for keeping track of character sheets, spells and the like for paper gamers.
In this episode...he went...well, his version of goth. And as the "Web Weaver", he essentially did a surfer dude's take on what goth culture is. Taliesin's face during this...abomination...was intense.
Now, that video gives you the exact play by play, but I wanted to pull out a few screen captures to focus on.
But Sam, Sam, Taliesin is right there! His Twitter handle is @executivegoth, for the love of all things! How can you say that?
Because what else would he say? It was a staggeringly disconnected statement from Sam's everyday reality, which includes a goth person.
Sam retorted in response, that Taliesin seems so normal, and:
I bet. After Surfer Goff Emo Boi...
It was indeed. This would be a shock of cold water to the gothic soul.
Anyone would.
AND THIS WAS THE BIT THAT BROKE MY BRAIN, because--
They were all at a live show of Critical Role in Indiamapolis! In August!
EVERYONE made the choice to go goth for the live show! So Sam...Sam...YOU SAW TALIESIN'S GOTH SELF! How can you have forgotten from August to October??
This is just fun. (Not sure if NSFW? No actual nudity, but pinups, so...?)
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/lotus-juice-overdrive-lyrics.html
And a brief chat capture:
[10:23] Mxxxxxxx Wxxxxxxxxx: I feel you're skeptical
[10:24] Emilly Orr grins
[10:24] Emilly Orr: No, just trying to figure out the dance numbers.
[10:24] Emilly Orr: With zombies and all.
[10:24] Mxxxxxxx Wxxxxxxxxx: Shamble in e minor
Now then.
I...am not sure if I'm delighted or appalled. Welcome to Morioh Cho.
The buildings are even cel-shaded!
The rules:
"We are a group of people who enjoy the imagery, music, tone, and pure memehood of the “Jojo's Bizarre Adventure” anime series and manga. Most avatars, decorations, houses, naming conventions, and events in Morioh Cho will likely have some connection to JJBA. We encourage anyone visiting to join us in that appreciation, but are NOT by any means obligated to change avatars to be related. Only that whatever avatar used comply with overall SL standards."
"Property is available to rent at Morioh Cho - primarily Residential until we decide the need for Commercial. Until then, while store fronts are intended for strangers to come in and out of, homes are not. Respect the limits of rentals."
Guys. You can rent one of the cel-shaded houses!
== Short Form / TLDR Version: Instead of the Block ‘o Text below that spells out the fine-print, Morioh Cho would MUCH rather have people remember and follow “Wheaton's Law”: == “Don’t Be A Dick.” ==
To sum up. It is pretty easy shorthand for "just be nice".
There's a radio station building. I didn't turn on sound, but I wonder if they play the theme song...
Some specifics:
"Don’t Be A Dick: -- in how you behave towards others in the Parcel and Group. (No harassing someone. If they wish to be left alone, respect that.) (Keep adult content, unless it is simple nudity, in private areas or IMs.) (Absolutely NO Childplay or child-like avatars are allowed. This is an adult land, and LL's rules for adult areas of SL also apply here.) (If you dislike it, you can choose to MUTE, BLOCK, or BLACKLIST it.) (The group chat is for information regarding the Parcel and Group ONLY.) -- regarding other people’s personal / private residences. (Private residences are private. Do not enter without permission)
There's more, but I'm only going to quote one more section from the rules card:
-- to the STAFF.
(If you have an issue, message a STAFF member for help)
(If you’re not sure if something is OK, please ask the STAFF)"
Also seems very rational.
"First, we will follow and enforce Linden Labs’ rules for all users * Morioh Cho is an ADULT rated sim. Avatars, as judged by multiple staff, to have a child-like physical appearance will not be permitted to remain on Morioh's grounds. Additionally no one under 18 years of age is permitted in Morioh as well. Anyone discovered to be under-aged or having falsified their age will be kick-banned from the sim and the account reported to LL. NO EXCEPTIONS. * Do not post anything that would be: defamatory, demeaning, false, harassing, harmful, hateful, illegal, inaccurate, inflammatory, involves terrorism, libelous, misleading, threatening, racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable, or invades another person's privacy in Morioh Cho. This includes open chat, voice chat, images, constructs, etc. Anyone doing so will be warned, kicked, or kick-banned from the sim as deemed necessary by staff. Additionally the account may be reported to LL. * Rezzing of Griefer Items, including, but not limited to bloomers, audio players, pushers, mic spam etc, meaning anything designed to disrupt people’s experience in Second Life, is prohibited. Anyone doing so will be warned, kicked, or kick-banned from the sim as deemed necessary by staff. * Projectile weapons (Non-Pushing) will be permitted, provided the projectiles are ‘temporary’ / derez within 2 minutes. That said, ABSOLUTELY DO NOT shoot anyone who does not want to participate!! MORIOH CHO uses a “Three Strikes” Rules system; Warning, Warning with a Kick and Temp-Ban, Banned. We would much rather not have to enforce those punishments, however, so please do not give us a reason to.
it's like a burning sunrise
I'm, not even sure how to describe JoJo's Bizarre Adventure for those who've never run across it. I was trying to explain why finding this sim was such a cool thing, and...well, I finally resorted to linking this video. Does it help, or hurt, to say that everything both people are saying is pretty much true? They are the manliest, most sculpted, fabulously dressed, extravagantly graceful, impossibly arrogant bunch of straight gay men you'll ever see.
I honestly don't know if I could live on this sim. I do know it's making my brain giggle.
Once the host of ritual murders, disappearances and biochemical experiments by the government, this town hold its fair share of secrets. Residential with opt-in roleplay.
Vampire, Werewolf, Zombies , Witches, Alien , Ghost , Redneck , Hobo, Grunge, Soap.
When I landed, I was IMed:
[14:10] Soap (soapco): Hello Emilly! Welcome to Missing Mile dark rural community!
We are a residential sim within WoS. We feature affordable rentals and opt-in roleplay. Accept the group invite for the latest sim news and your starter RP tag.
NO TAG REQUIRED FOR OOC VISITORS OR PHOTOGRAPHERS!
Oh, that's good news. I still may change my tag to something that more reflects what I'm doing here.
[14:10] Soap (soapco): Looking for a home? Check our map for available rentals. For more roleplay information, visit our website ---WOSRPG
I'll keep that in mind.
We begin in a run-down train station. Appropriate.
Of course a "dark rural community" has swamp shacks. And the ghost crab is a nifty touch. What I want to know more than that, though, is--what's the X in the water for?
Apparently, there are also shops on sim. Behind the two mannequins are vendors, mostly for clothing and urban accessories, boots and the like. There is a vendor just to their left, though, that somewhat matches the outfit on the one closest to it, and it's reflective of Clockwork Orange. What does Clockwork Orange have to do with the World of Soap?
Oh, Missing Mile, you were doing so well...until this. On the other hand, the fast food restaurant behind this bus stop is Mooby's, and Soap itself started out as the Paper Street Soap Company, from Fight Club, so...yeah. Maybe they've always had copyright infringement going on.
Here's my thing--I've been involved in a lot of fandoms over the years. In SL, in RL, and there's always a fine line between homage and absolute infringement. For instance, someone who makes a nurse costume from Silent Hill and wears it to a convention, that is more fan tribute than direct violation of intellectual property--though, as I said, I will grant the line is fine.
There's at least two Silent Hill sims I know of in SL, and if I saw Robbie anywhere on those sims, that would make sense. Yes, it would still be a rip, because that doll comes directly out of Silent Hill 3, but it would be an understandable in the sense of fans creating things for fans. It might still be actionable, if someone legally cared to pursue it, but it would make sense.
This? In Missing Mile? Makes zero sense. It's clearly copyright infringement, it has nothing else to do with the rest of the sim, it's jarringly out of place.
And Totoro. Which is even more jarring. Maybe it's just something about the bus stops in town? Is that it? The rest of the place is basically okay but the bus stops are nightmares of actionable content?
A short but pithy chat capture. I won't say which group, precisely, this is from, but it is for a maker of skins, and quite nice ones. Someone fails to get the point of true artistry:
[22:55] zxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Rxxxxxxx: have u guys seen the movie ready player one??
Unfortunately. I hated it. Why?
[22:55] zxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Rxxxxxxx: can u make a skin like that??
[22:55] Emilly Orr: Like...which skin??
Because that film? That film is packed with looks for virtual avatars, by design, so..."a skin" won't really cover it.
[22:56] zxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Rxxxxxxx: the um/// avatars the blue guy and the red chikc on the movie "ready player one"
You mean Parzival and Art3mis, of course. And it's "chick".
[22:57] Emilly Orr: So...grab a Kemono avatar, the Venus M3 head, some anime eyes, a reasonably-approximate skin mod, and some Ayashi short hair, there's the girl.
I'm doing my best to track down things after the fact, a skin mod that might work is this, but the facial tats are pretty much going to have to be custom.
Also, I was pretty sure at the time Ayashi would be the best bet, but that specific backswept Mohawk they seem to have not. CaTwA, however, seems to have one.
After the fact, again, I realized Krankhaus' Kuroo avatar would work better, and in that case, ditch the chest mod.
But pretty much, right? I mean, this took all of ten minutes to stare at pictures of both of them and track down approximates. They won't be perfect, but on the other hand, this particular skinmaker does not design for Kemono (or Kuroo, for that matter), so it wouldn't help if he wanted that type of very anime look anyway.
And ultimately, again, why? Because that's pretty much asking someone to infringe copyright on purpose. No thank you. No one's interested who has ethics at all, and those who would be interested, because they are immoral weasels, want a high amount of cash for their trouble. Why bother?
[23:01] zxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Rxxxxxxx: can I live in your belly button?
[23:01] zxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Rxxxxxxx: im bored lol
No. Also gross. Also go away, kid, find something else to do. The adults are busy.
Does sunscreen harm coral reefs? Surprising answer: yes.
The Tower Bridge in London is now glass-bottomed. Why? Got me. Because people look like little ants that far above the ground?
This is fascinating: Hogewey, near Amsterdam, has no walls, no bars, no gates. The patients stay because it's where they live. They have shops, salons, entertainment options--and houses furnished terrifyingly accurately to the periods they best remember--the 1950s, 1960s, or 1970s.
It would be like a time warp. The caretakers of the patients pose as gardeners--ubiquitous, but non-threatening.
Scientists are planning to clone a woolley mammoth, based on a collaborative project that has merged enough active DNA strands from enough different mammoth discoveries to warrant a successful effort--potentially. The bigger question: is this a good idea? What are we going to do with a woolley mammoth once we have one?
Hayao Miyazaki is one of the most impressive directors of animated film we have. Tomorrow, those who have the tech can get three of his best works on Blu-Ray, for HD glory never seen before:
Kiki's Delivery Service
Princess Mononoke
The Wind Rises
Considering each of these is worth seeing in standard, in HD they must be truly epic.
Painter, illustrator and photographer Hannah Rothstein designs Thanksgiving meals to be reminiscent of the work of famous artists. To be fair, it never would have occurred to me that Mondrian would use gravy as a separation medium, or that Pablo Picasso would shatter the plate, but they're all interesting takes on the concept.
In the meantime, for another take on food as art, how about hand-knitted food? You can't eat 'em, but that doesn't mean they don't look good enough to try.
While the Paris Longchamp Grand Prix races were far from a casual event, between 1910 and 1920 they were enough of a draw that photographers took both posed and casual shots of the fashions for public view. Some of the looks are quite stunning.
Going back a bit earlier, how about some cabinet cards from burlesque dancers in 1890? While of course much of the attire is part and parcel of the times in which they lived, still, some notable things stand out for me. For example, Ella Chapman's stockings (or tights, it's hard to tell): are they sequined or actually beaded? That sounds stunning visually, but uncomfortable to wear. Though Minnie Marshall's jacket dress is something I'm seriously tempted to attempt remaking.
The one common motif they all have is that they look like strong women, not merely curvaceous, but actually powerful. While curves were in, and corsets added to that impression, the overall sameness of their legs, the size of their thighs, bespeaks to a specific style of dance that must have, at the time, been nigh unto universal. One wonders who trained burlesque dancers, and how? Obviously they could act; many could improvise and were gifted comediennes; but it's that specific musculature on their legs that makes me wonder how they trained.
For vintage photography buffs, the earliest known photograph to feature a recognizable human being was taken in Paris, France, in 1838, by Louis Daguerre. Yes, that Daguerre, the invention of the daguerrotype, a specifically-processed, silver-plated sheet of copper that could engrave images via gunpowder flashed into a shadowbox, essentially. It was a great step forward for the time as a process, but how did this image capture the human figure?
Simple: he stood stll long enough. There are many, many unseen people, horses, carts and carriages in that photograph, that we will never see, because their movements meant they were out of frame before the exposure time ended. This one man, however, was having his shoes shined, and thus held his position long enough to be captured for posterity.
There was a secret message in Abraham Lincoln's pocket watch that even he never realized. History is strange.
Having never heard the term "thundersnow" before, I gleefully announced it to Miss Neome--who, since she grew up in Wisconsin, knows this as an everyday word. Oops. Well, it's new to me, and it landed in Buffalo, New York, to the tune of seventy inches. Eep.
I love John Malkovich for these. Especially the recreation of Dorothy Lange's famous Dustbowl photo. (If you haven't seen the original, compare it: it's a stunning recreation.)
So, I haven't been here for a while. It wasn't my intent to abandon blogging, and I seriously regret that I missed blogging any of the haunts this year, because while this October was fairly dismal overall, there were some standouts that were worth blogging. I didn't do that.
Not necessarily interested in going into the reasons as to why, because past a certain point, this blog becomes a confessional, and I'm trying to avoid that. In large part due to the fact that it was so very much a confessional for the grid in its early days.
I'm going to leave it as "struggling with personal issues" and work harder on blogging more frequently--even if they're likely all going to be clip posts for a while. At least it will get me back in the habit, because it's a habit I really don't want to lose.
From an anonymous spammer on a very old entry on the blog:
At the least 8-10 candidates were killed from the function-about the political election, and there are others acquired every day loss of life dangers. Comply with a comfortable diet program that consist even more of proteins and dietary fibre and fewer acrylic, carbohydrates and starchy foods. The spanish language is usually a gorgeous language to equally converse and take note of and is particularly viewed as by a lot of to get one of the easier dialects to find out. part similar to the point here [link redacted]
Well. These are surely words of wisdom. I know I will particularly heed the instruction to get less acrylic in my diet. Because I'm sure that's very important.
This next one's a bit more gruesome, but it is that time of year--an urban explorer has discovered the decaying remains of a former veterinary school in Brussels, with what looks like dozens, if not hundreds, of teaching samples simply left behind to rot. The pictures are fascinating but two questions keep springing to mind:
Why were all the samples left behind? And
Why were most of the samples left uncovered?
I can't figure those two things out, and it bothers me.
Moving to the lands of cute things, how about Hello Kitty eyewear? And by 'eyewear', I mean costume contact lenses.
They seem to be simply tinted violet along the outer ring--where the Hello Kitty heads are printed--so the base color of the eye shines through, but...to walk around with teensy little kawaii kittens on your eyes, do you really care?
And this may be the cutest thing that ever cuted this week. An anime Japanese spirit dances with the animated shoes of Gene Kelly, before he takes her to a showing of Singing in the Rain. It's touching, beautiful, and--as stated--very, very cute.
Digital painting is an art form all its own, if a more technical one than most. But there are aids for it, that can also work for painting in general. The artist behind the Ranarh account on deviantArt is trying to make digital portraiture a wee bit easier.
She has others on painting backgrounds, waterfalls, rock formations--she's really a great one-stop resource for both budding and established digital artists.
Saint Lucas, anyone? Well, not so much, but some familiar faces from Star Wars drawn in religious icon form. Beautiful work.
Speaking of art, did I mention the Vochol Beetle? Commissioned by several art and museum groups, and crafted using over two million glass beads by Huichol artisans in Nayarit and Jalisco, Mexico, it's a stunning tribute to both art cars and the arts in Mexico.
Moving to games, Metal Gear 5 is planning on a sooner-rather-than-later release, and to that end, has released nearly six minutes of 'real gameplay' footage. I'll warn you now--it's actually painful for me to watch. Not due to gore--there isn't any--or horrific things happening, per se--it's just I've had lower-body injuries and I've done the pulling-myself-across-the-floor thing. It's not fun. This video makes it seem as grueling as it actually is, so...yay for realism?
And now fun new toys! Or at least, new disturbing ones. Which brings is to Japan and Sanrio, who's decided this year's best nightmare-fuel offering is the reversible Hello Kitty. What does she reverse into? A turkey, of course.
Next up, science--the MindWalker's been launched, subject to review by the European Commission. It actually utilizes an EEG cap that measures electrical activity across the scalp to control the exoskeleton. This could be big.
Also, Dmitry Itskov wants everyone to live in virtual reality. No, really, that's his goal:
Mr. Itskov says he will invest at least part of his fortune in such ventures, but his primary goal with 2045 is not to become richer. In fact, the more you know about Mr. Itskov, the less he seems like a businessman and the more he seems like the world’s most ambitious utopian. He maintains that his avatars would not just end world hunger — because a machine needs maintenance but not food — but that they would also usher in a more peaceful and spiritual age, when people could stop worrying about the petty anxieties of day-to-day living. "We need to show that we’re actually here to save lives," he said. "To help the disabled, to cure diseases, to create technology that will allow us in the future to answer some existential questions. Like what is the brain, what is life, what is consciousness and, finally, what is the universe?"
Grand dreams, indeed. By 2045, we'll see if they're dreams that can come true, too.
Speaking of robotic aids, someone else has an idea. And it was an idea gained through watching Chobits. Danny Choo is currently in the process of designing a Smart+Doll, based on his Mirai Suenaga mascot character, that he's hoping will be fully interactive.
Whatever that's going to end up meaning for Japan.
And finally, if anyone's been watching ABC's "Once Upon a Time" series, there's going to be a spin-off...sort of. Titled "Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, it will tell the tale of Alice's journey down the rabbit-hole, but--as we might expect from the changes wrought on "Once Upon a Time", ever so slightly altered from the stories we know.
I'm still willing to give it a solid viewing, because I'm enjoying the first show so much. We'll see how it goes.
Jean Grey is coming back, apparently. I'm just baffled. Marvel, seriously, just let the poor woman die. She's done enough. You're just bringing her back for dramadramadrama anyway. Leave her alone.
And I may have found the worst anime ever made. Or at least the most baffling: in twenty minutes, one character is named, and we're only quasi-sure that the guy we're seeing is that character. And that's not even the largest question of this piece. There are other, bigger questions, like:
why are all the police girls? And twelve?
why are all the twelve-year-old girls in form-fitting plugsuits?
do they have names?
why was one of them--after being beheaded--brought to the hospital where resuscitation was performed?
actually, let's go back to that question again--how was resuscitation performed?!?
And that's without going into the scary bondage (and internal-organ-removing) process required to get into the big alien suit in the first place by the one named character.
We move on...to SCIENCE! Seriously, that's one of the greatest explanation of the Higgs-Bosun particle--and the CERN scientists' work in general--that I've ever found. (Though I'm going to be amused for a long while that the biggest protests around the announcement of finding the particle were over the Comic Sans font used in the official presentation.)
There's a really odd JIRA involving Microsoft SkyDrive and SL crashes; I don't entirely understand all of it, because I don't use SkyDrive, but it sounds serious. Nalates Urriah goes into it a little bit more here, along with some other concerns that are SkyDrive-specific, and nothing to do with SL in general.
I would tend to agree that Agnes Richter's embroidered straightjacket should be considered a repurposed diary, not a textile art object. While there is textile art in the world, she wasn't trying to make art as much as she was trying to explain her experience, using the tools she had on hand. Nevertheless, it remains an amazing testament to the power of creativity in captivity, and there's a new book on the subject, too.
Remember the breedable Twisted hunt cubes, the last hunt back? They now exist RL. BE AFRAID.
Finally, this is weird, surreal, suitably bizarre and a whole lot of fun. It's a ska version of "Still Alive", the Coulton song from the end of the first Portal game. Starts off slow, then starts jumping off the walls. If you like ska, you need to hear it at least once.
What did I just watch? Creeper stalkers? Endermen that fight back and steal chests? Air kraken?
Wait, air kraken? So it's not just a CaleCraft phenomenon!
Somehow that relates to this, which is the opening of an anime that's very nearly too weird to describe, but I'll make the attempt: it envisions a world where the elder gods are aliens, and one of them--Nyarlathotep, to be specific--decides to transform into a silver-haired high-school student to protect a high school boy.
I'm not kidding, that seems to be what it is. It's been a small but pervasive part of Japanese culture, in that it's appeared in manga, anime, and light novel formats, and is at least partially based on the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game.
Ooookay. Moving on...It seems glaringly apparent, now, that Marvel has decided to make the X-Men villains. Now, sure, they're supposedly possessed--en masse--by the Phoenix Force (the same sort of nebulous world-destroying entity that turned Jean Grey into Dark Phoenix), but that doesn't explain the weird changes in costume.
For instance, the Sub-Mariner--Prince Namor--went from this:
(from the media album, a cover of the Sub-Mariner comic)
(which made sense for a mostly sea-dwelling superhero) to this:
(from the media album; the so-called "Phoenix Five")
which...makes no sense for the character.
From left to right on the above (Prince Namor is on the far left) picture: the Sub-Mariner, Husk, Cyclops, Emma Frost, and Colossus. So, we have Namor in red and black scaled tights, black winged boots that belt around the thighs, opera-length latex gloves (and bwuh, Marvel? Why fetish gloves?!?), and gold spaulders (bet those would be hell to swim in). We have Husk, one of the more disturbing of the new crop of X-Men due to her ability to tear off her surface skin to reveal metal, stone, or differently-organized skin underneath, wearing smoking red, riveted spaulders, seemingly studded black opera-length gloves, black studded thigh-high boots, and a kicky little miniskirt in red--plus carrying a flaming sword. We have Scott Summers in pretty much Nightwing's costume, but in red and black--and with added, wholly ridiculous-looking, red thong (who's also carrying Captain America's impossibly damaged shield, and Thor's hammer, which also makes no sense). We've got Emma Frost in gold and white, when gold has never been one of her colors, either (though weirdly, she's actually wearing more in her new outfit than she does usually). And finally, we have Colossus with gold touches over his metallic form, but wearing red and black boots and gauntlets, and what can only be described as a loosely belted red toga. What the hell, Marvel?
[Late insert from the Editrix: I'm wrong! While Marvel.com has nothing on this, Scans Daily had it incorrect, and the one I identified as Husk is actually Majik, the younger sister of Colossus.]
So what's happening now with the Marketplace JIRA? Glad you asked. I have a picture:
