I've written a bunch of stuff for homestuck and lost a few blogs along the way so I may well have lost you from before. I have bipolar and adhd, as well as an inability to write short things.
My ao3 is here
My Ko-fi is here if you ever feel like tipping me for the wild shit I write/say/do
My *current* published project is EMC2, which is related to Mc Escher That's My Favourite MC. It begins with the same timeline starting point as MCE with a few changes and unfolds from there.
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Tomodachi Life: Living The Dream - Personality Chart
Feel free to save and share around. This is just a simple cheat sheet to get the personality you want fast. I made this based on the European localisation btw, the US one should take the same inputs but the descriptions for the personalities might be different. I unno. Enjoy
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I just learned that in Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, the problems that Miis have that you have to solve (formerly called Problems) are now called Ponderings. So in light of that
thought about tomodachi life too hard and realized that people being shocked by the lack of filters in a single-player game they own with their own money is actually cartoonishly messed up. we've grown so used to everything being filtered and not being able to do anything even remotely un-family-friendly in single-player games that bring able to make the miis say fuck is a monumental occasion. insane.
when i was a kid i decided that killing people was bad therefore war was bad therefore the military was evil. and adults would tell me it's more nuanced than that and i would understand when i grew up. well i'm a grown up now and idk i still think that killing people is bad and war is bad and the military is evil
"app" is without a doubt one of the deepest evils of the human race. "hello. would you like to be expected to have a bespoke piece of software for every single Brand you might theoretically interact with in a day" <- statement dreamed up by someone who should be drawn and quartered
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i am losing my mind over the lighting of the Hail Mary
Project Hail Mary does very deliberate things with how the Mary feels and the way its shot. The directors have said as much explicitly, but you can feel how distinctive PHM is compared to most other films set in space.
I grabbed the above clip as a clear example of the Mary be set up in such a way that, divorced from the emotional cadence and symbolism of the film, honestly feels like the result of the ship being a rush job. There is so much shadow and darkness and incomplete lighting, it seems like it would interfere with the Science. As we watch Grace working on things with meticulous care, the light moves and circles and cycles and he relies sometimes on additional lamps to see.
Alternatively, it reminds me of how meticulous and thorough lighting has to be in space movies. For instance, any film you've seen where the characters are in a helmet, you may notice the helmet is aggressively lit on the inside to illuminate the actor's face. (Most prominent example is probably Ridley Scott's Prometheus.) This is because natural light is so bad inside helmets, costuming/lighting have to shove a bunch of bulbs in there for illumination or all your expensive Acting is for nothing.
(Left, Prometheus and the infamous bubble helmets. Right, PHM, which seems to have lighting inside the helmet but it always draws the color from the environment and scene.)
Compared to PHM, we have a movie that is still trying to create a clear image for the audience, but is not afraid of shadows nor of darkness. It seems to revel in them, trusting the mood of the scene to contribute as much as the acting.
Back to the clip: That specific shot after Grace catches Blip D when the light swells with the music-- it's a gaze sweeping over Grace and away again, the warm suffused light coming in and out. It's as though space is breathing around him.
This is emphasized by Daniel Pemberton's composition. Pemberton is up there with Lorne Balfe for my favorite film composers working, and he's done a lot of tremendous, experimental, interesting scores. (The Man From UNCLE is a stand-out to me, but he's also done the Spider-verse movies, Birds of Prey, the Slow Horses TV show-- tons of great shit.) As the light peaks, there is an organic sounding "oooooooooooooh" that moves with it, like it's a breath or a sigh.
Look at these side by side.
These are the same shot, seconds apart as the light changes.
So many shots go from bright to dim, vice versa then back again. As Grace paces around the lab, you can even see the space go from completely dark to the light in the foreground, then moving past a point that dims it, then bursting bright again as it passes over the lab itself.
There's an article in Variety about just how the xenonite tunnel was lit with tungsten lights all lined up and programmed to be controlled so the light move as needed. It's unclear if the same rig was used for the Mary but given how light cycles, it's likely at least a similar system.
Another instance of same shot seconds apart. It goes from illuminated to dark then back again. Which begs the question why? What purpose does all this serve to the story, beyond aesthetics?
My answers will not be yours, but here's what I think.
The flashbacks of the movie become increasingly cold. Grace's classroom is warm-toned, but each 'step' into PHM gets colder. This is partially in service to the plot, conveying the sun's dimming. but emotionally, the Mary is golden with life and love and emotional honesty.
But emotional honesty is intense and difficult to handle. Watching a character emotionally break down stretched over seconds is hard to watch. So the lighting breathes, so the audience breathes, so it's still gentle. Given the emotional climax of the movie, the final flashback, it feels like the audience is being primed to deal with that. To understand that it will hurt, but there will be warmth after. Do not forget you are here. Do not forget that Grace is here. Have faith. Breathe.
Whether that read is correct or not, I think it's clear: it's an artistically deliberate choice.
... Okay now that I've finally written this post I can work on another post.
Yeah, all of this? Was just to establish "it really IS that deep" so we can now talk about Grace's recurring motifs of glass, reflections, and diffused/refracted light. More on that soon.
UPDATE: The sequel to this post is here
Under the cut are more cleaned up screenshots for anyone who just wants more pretty pictures.
This is a follow-up to "I am losing my mind over the lighting of the Hail Mary," which I wrote pretty much to set context and argue It Really Is That Deep. Going into this, I am assuming you also believe the way lighting is used in PHM is intentional.
(Note: My screencaps come from a specific leak of PHM that is shockingly HQ but does have desaturation issues. I've done a HSV Saturation run on several images but not all of them. My screencap folder is like +300 items now and there's only so many hours in the day. If I could buy this on blu-ray TODAY I would.)
Sooooo... what's up with Grace and rainbows, question?
In Grace's very first flashback/recovered memory, one of the first things we see is a ring of light, rainbow. When he finally remembers being betrayed and put onto the Hail Mary against his will, this memory is triggered by the refracting light in Rocky's ship connecting to the rainbow overhead on the day he tried to run.
Refracted light is practically Grace's thumbprint smudged onto every corner of the story, the narrative voice in prismatic form. It truly reaches drinking game levels of ubiquity.
When Stratt first meets Grace, he just happens to be draped in a cloak of rainbow light. More subtly, but still obviously once you're looking for it, when he arrives on the aircraft carrier, he brings along a small halo of colored light.
At its most subtle, it comes from glass. Every time the camera implicitly slides into Rocky's POV, settling over his shoulder to observe Grace through xenonite glass, there are coronas to be found, touching Grace at all times. In the Clock Bros scene, when Grace leans in to observe Rocky's eridian clock, a smudge of refraction just happens to pop up. I cannot emphasize enough how no frame of this movie is safe from the rainbow.
Dr. Ryland Grace adjusts a light and it looks like a dance club in the Castro, it's absurd.
So, down to basics: why? What makes cameras do That Thing?
Well, it's not unique to cameras. It's a matter of glass and white-toned light. Modern camera lenses are either treated with a diffusion layer or have specific filters meant to diffuse light-- to break it up more clearly. When you use a lens without that coating, almost any light source can make this happen.
The rainbow, the prismatic light, it comes from a lack of filter, from the removal of deliberate or accidental barriers. You need light. You need glass. Clarity.
Okay but why, narratively?
Nope, not yet. First, let's look at Grace's physicality as more and more lenses surround him. I'm personally deeply obsessed with how Grace interacts with Rocky's xenonite barrier.
In their first meeting, Rocky assumes he's dealing with another creature that relies on hearing as primary form of perception. After all, Rocky can hear through to the other side of the Mary with pinpoint accuracy, can even track Grace's status and location on the hull of the ship when falling into high orbit. But this weird alien bypasses each section of the nice big solid acoustically-friendly wall to focus in on the one spot where light shines through.
So the next wall Rocky builds is geometric blocks of glass. Which Grace, without prompt, makes himself comfortable with, finding any and all alcoves and wedging himself in.
Fun fact: It takes less than 30 seconds for Grace to go from "IDK you watching me sleep is weird" before the smash cut to "i have now dragged a cushion, pillow, and my favorite quilt into the glass to sleep here." I counted 26 seconds.
I can't even make that weird by pointing anything out about it. We have already started at Grace making it weird, to my absolute delight.
But even when Rocky decides to move onto the Mary, Grace doesn't seem to mind beyond some token protests on his little vlog. Which is quite remarkable, because wow. Wow. Look at this.
Here is Ryland Grace, under glass.
There is such an secession of space to Rocky. Even if it weren't, these shapes and the way they bend light and cast shadows are the focal point of every scene. Always center of frame, and we always watch how Grace interacts with this, how he bends to duck underneath, how he drags monitors closer for Rocky to see, how he continues to sleep pressed along any sympathetic angle he can find.
Add to that how Grace is framed, as a significant chunk of the film is looking through the glass at Grace, and this begins to invert the core concept of what's occurring here. Who is in an enclosure here, really? Does the glass keep Rocky safe? Yes, but does it also keep Grace safe?
Even after the two have gone their separate ways, Grace doesn't dismantle the enclosures to reclaim the space. Instead, as he contemplates turning back to his almost-certain death to save Rocky and Erid, he lays in the Don't-Go-Crazy room with a foggy memory surrounding him, his body weight against alien glass.
Grace's happy ending was something that I could not even conceive of until the moment it happened. I honestly couldn't imagine the story would let Grace live, let him save Rocky, and then let him be a teacher again.
Erid is a planet without enough light to see, and yet the people there build a ball of glass just for Grace, tailored to his happiness and whim.
That's a whole lotta motif-building. Now is time for the question: what does it mean?
Art is subjective and my answer will differ from yours. Here's what it makes me feel:
Between this post and the previous table-setting post, the thing that I cannot stop fixating on is how this situation should feel versus how much effort the film goes into to avoid that exact emotional beat.
We have a story about a man from earth, sent off into space, expected to live out the remainder of his life on a spaceship. This ship is further encroached on by necessity as the space is sectioned out to create a habitable area for an alien. In the end, this man's reward is a dome built to give him a habitable space on an otherwise inhabitable planet. He'll never see his home planet ever again.
All of the markers are there. This should be a story of claustrophobia and small spaces and feeling trapped with the walls closing in and no way to break through them because death is on the other side, be it the void of space or the hot, ammonia-drenched atmosphere of Erid.
Should be.
But there's the other side of the story. Grace's last memory of Earth is his voice failing mid-sentence as a needle pierces his skin, as one of his only friends and protectors watches him struggle, and overheard there is a rainbow.
Earth wouldn't take no for an answer. He'd never be a teacher again. A barbed wire fence stands before the rainbow.
I know writers who use subtlety and they're all cowards.
Here's what Project Hail Mary is really saying, with all of its rainbows and refractions and a crying man who sleeps against prisms: Ryland Grace was the light the entire time. It's not something he's looking for, it's not the Deep Truth he's seeking. He just needed a way to shine, to remember it was there.
"Oh yeah, uh... I'm Grace," he says, introducing himself as the world blooms with colored light around him.
They told me that the end is near; we gotta get away from here.
we should globally ban the introduction of more powerful computer hardware for 10-20 years, not as an AI safety thing (though we could frame it as that), but to force programmers to optimize their shit better
I reblogged this like 9 times kinda jokingly, but software should be able to run on older and less powerful hardware, and consume less power on newer hardware. Like, this is a real problem imo
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The Burger still gets made, even if you go Vegan. If you don’t buy it, it just winds up in the trash. If you want to do something meaningful about waste, you need legislation: It must become a crime to waste food in those ways.
If you care about Animal Cruelty in Factory Farms, you need to get legislation passed. It must become a crime to mistreat animals in those ways, and when malfeasances occurs, the onus of responsibility for those crimes must fall upon wealthy shoulders. That, also, requires legislation. It requires regulations, and regulators.
The largest source of Microplastics is wear and tear on automobile tires. It doesn’t matter what brand of shampoo you buy. It doesn’t matter which company you support with your dollar. The issue of Public Transit is too large-scale to be handled at anything less than the municipal level.
It’s not enough to just not participate in society
If you want the world to Change, you must leverage the mechanisms of political power.