Just Keep Trying

The difference between the two is one is a regulated term. Anyone can call themselves “couture”, all that typically (not always) means is that their pieces are hand-made and one-of-a-kind, though many brands just stick it at the end of their name to sound fancy. It’s a glorified marketing buzzword.

Haute couture, on the other hand, is determined by the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode (formerly the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture), which is a part of the French Ministry of Industry. They have somewhere around 100 members last time I checked, and only these brands can present at Paris couture week, though they don’t have to have a live show.  These are some of the criteria for selection:

Additionally, I’ve seen a lot of confusion about the point of couture, which is somewhat understandable. I think sometimes the fact that certain brands couture collections are worn on red carpets leads people to think that couture just means “extravagant, expensive evening wear collection”, but as I’ve stated above, that’s not at all what it means.

Plenty of couture is never really meant to be worn outside of exhibiting it at the runway show, which is why they only make one. I’ve seen a lot of comments either not understanding why anyone would design something that’s unwearable or saying there should be a separate “fashion as art” category. That’s what couture is. 

Specifically looking at this season’s Viktor & Rolf collection as an extreme example, it’s truly a walking art exhibit. Not only is the craftsmanship needed to make the dresses stand like that absolutely insane, they’re also using it as a critique of how the internet has warped our perception of reality. If this was framed in a museum, people would be all over it. And yet, because it’s labelled as “fashion”, about 75% percent of the comments on that post are “stupid fashion people have gone too far who the hell would ever wear this what’s the point” (almost a direct quote FYI) Most people still see fashion as something that needs to be pretty, functional, and wearable, not something that could just be for the sake of artistic value. 

THAT SOLVES NOTHING, sure, it makes it better. Its not the same friend skipping playing every week, but someone still has to skip playing.

Most modern ttrpgs ive seen either treat the GM as a referee that is supposed to follow the rules, or as an auteur that turns the game the players are going through into a performance. One is a computer and one is an artist, neither of them are gamers.

Older ttrpgs may treat the GM as an oppositional force to the players, but still gives them total power over the game, leading to the classic "rocks fall, everyone dies" situation.

GMs dont have a game to play, they don't have a win condition or lose condition, and they don't have obstacles set by the system to make reaching those conditions a game.

Draw steel and Daggerheart do have metacurrencies that serve as obstacles, which could be a great starting point. Draw Steel's Malice feels more to me like a difficulty dial players can shift, with the GM being only able to choose which Malice abilities to use, but Im also of the opinion that GMs shouldnt be left alone during combat, I make flowcharts for the monsters I make so that the GM can at least have a baseline of what the monster wants to do in every situation, and ideally Malice would be included there (the GM could always ignore it, but the flowchart is meant to mimic the decission process of a monster, even at the detriment of their combat skill if needed). Daggerheart's Fear does have a bit more variety, but its also very similar in its limitations.

I've been working on a ttrpg for time now trying to do exactly this. The sort of asymmetric play is compelling, but very difficult to implement!

i have a file or folder on my pc that i want to share with other people. let's call it gayshit.mp3

unfortunately gayshit.mp3 is 750mb and im not paying for discord nitro so i need another way to send it

i put it into qbittorrent and it makes a torrent file. this is essentially a very small file that points to gayshit.mp3 so other computers can find it. kinda like a treasure map

i send this tiny file to my friend, who loads it into qbittorrent. their computer takes a moment to find mine over the vast expanse of cyberspace and then (as long as my pc is running and the file is still where it should be), it gets copied from my hard drive to theirs

this is the cool part: if somebody else loads that tiny file, they can download it from both of us. if i'm offline but my friend is on, the third person can still get it. this also means that if two people have separate halves of the file, they can download the other half from each other. as long as some combination of people have the pieces between them, they can all have the whole thing.

crucially this does not require a server!!! you can just upload the file to a few people and as long as they keep it, it's still accessible. as long as somebody, somewhere is still connected, it's available forever. the only way it goes away is if everybody disconnects from it.

You do not get to profit, financially or attention wise or another way, off of a *potentially* queer jew whilst we are banned from pride events.

We do not know if she was questioning her sexuality but ultimately straight or if she was actually queer because she was killed for the crime of existing as a jew before she could come out. Queer rights obviously matter. Anne Franke is not the person you should be using.

You need to protect alive queer jews. You need to love all jews, not just the dead ones.

"But they banned zionists not jews", they banned jewish organizations, who refused to say they disavowed israel. That's like asking a local Chinese diaspora group to disavow the CCP or they can't be at pride.

This is a perfect time to read the brilliant and unforgettable graphic novel(s) Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, about growing up in Iran during and after the Iranian Revolution, and the rise of the oppressive theocracy that persists to this day.

Both graphic novels are available free online (Persepolis vol. 1, Persepolis vol. 2)

You have to chew before you swallow.