Random Thoughts Thread

[Mattias]

I'm obsessed with Ado.

It's odd, I really don't like the high pitch she uses for the fast parts of the song, but the more appealing mid and lower register wouldn't keep the tempo up during those segments.

It's like a story heavy tailing mission from an open world game, you don't like it, but the game would be lesser without it.

[pinetree]

She definitely does the high pitch better in other songs, but I like how much it constrasts with the rest of the song in this one.

[Mattias]

Interesting. To me the lower bit is the contrast in the song, and the higher one the average.

But this is also the first time I've heard of them, so I only have this song as a basis, not any of the other works.

[SeiKeo]

Holy shit I haven't been in here forever. Do you guys have a discord now? Where did Spinach, Leo, FiveX go?

went right behind you, kid...

[Mattias]

I caught Covid.


Fuck Weddings.

[ResidentSeagull]

Welp.

Hope you get better soon, at least.

[LegalLoliLover]

Upon learning the difference between hard magic and soft magic, I think that I hate soft magic. I watch fantasy for the giant lizards, the cat people, and most importantly the higher chance of legal lolis (though obviously, that's not a fantasy exclusive), but definitely not for morality being an actual superpower.

[Ideofago]

you really do like hating things

[Random]

Talking from a writer's perspective, both systems have their place. Hard magic is generally better when the perspective characters have to care about it. Either they use it, or it figures into the story somehow in a way that makes the specifics important. It's the same thing as a locked room mystery: the solution isn't very satisfying if it comes completely out of left field. Soft magic generally tends to be more suited to a story where the fantasy elements are poorly understood or you don't have any reason to waste time expositing about it.

You can roughly connect it with whether the magic is better connected with the plot or with the setting. Having a finite number of plots in which the magic in question is basically a one-off that doesn't really figure into the world is better suited to soft magic. If your magical elements come from, say, a brush with some larger-than-life cosmic force that's fucking everything up and the heroes have to save it, then soft is good, and you can even tie it to something like emotional beats to make larger statements on the themes of the story: mechanical relationships are implied. Using morality as an example, those moral precepts or systems you're trying to engage with being directly connected to the nature of magic does actually mean something. The mechanisms behind the magic are baked into the story structure.

But if you were to have a hard magic system for that which has stricter and more defined mechanics, you'd need to go into a lot of detail to establish that properly. That's worldbuilding, for better or for worse, and generally your audience is going to want you to make something of what you're expositing to them. You did just spend all that time explaining Scrimblo's Constant and such. And if it's being explained, that means someone has to be explaining or discovering it, and then - to stick with the passing-through cosmic force example - that's a very different kind of story you've written. It's no longer about, say, the ways that our consciences can lead to outcomes that resonate with a decidedly affected universe; it is now a first contact story about the peculiar mechanics of this bizarre thing, and that means that setting has kind of become more important simply through the comparisons and contrasts you're drawing with your characters.

I think both sides of the spectrum are fine, you can use elements of both well, they're not inherently incompatible. It's all about the atmosphere you're trying to create and the questions you're trying to raise. Soft morality-based magic and hard morality-based magic take two very different approaches, by necessity, to "where does morality come from" which is going to have wildly different answers depending on what you're trying to say. All art is statement.

Breadth likes hard. Depth likes soft. Good rule of thumb.

This is kind of a stilted way of saying things and it's probably got a lot of holes. I'm tired and pretentious, and my natural thought processes are apparently structured weirdly. Basically there's nothing wrong with having preferences, I just also think it's good to root around in the weeds and find worthwhile stuff you can pluck out of the stuff you hate.

- - - Updated - - -

tl;dr i'm a pseudointellectual and i approve of having tastes

[Mattias]

I think you can boil it down further to "is magic the protagonist or antagonist?" If the protag uses magic you want the system explained so that problems aren't solved with asspulls that get explained after the fact. You set up how MC uses his powers, then how his antagonist does, and then when he reverses the polarity or whatever it seems logical.

But if the villain is the one with magic, you keep it vague so that can do just that and feel like a bigger accomplishment when they're overcome. Then you get an extra reward when you the viewer also noticed that the main villain was always using his right hand, and only the right hand, to cast voodoo so the hero disables that hand in the climax to get the victory.

Basically, Magic should be like a horror monster. The less you see of it the more threatening it is.

[Random]

That's definitely another good rule of thumb. But I don't think it's necessarily universal either. I don't really give a shit about the mechanics of, say, Gandalf's magic all too much. It's an example of soft magic that deserves to be soft, but I wouldn't call it antagonistic in nature, even though it gets about as much explanation as the comparably soft magic of Lovecraft which definitely is.

[Mattias]

Fair. But then again Gandalf isn't the protagonist of the stories either, he's an ally who exists mostly as a deus ex machina. The protagonists we know what they do. The ring turns you invisible (and an asshole), the sword glows when near evil, and the shirt is impenetrable.

[Random]

Got an email back from my doctor. Apparently, a preliminary screening has me down as "moderately anxious" and "severely depressed".

That feels like an exaggeration, but I guess it explains the bed-desk superposition.

[Deathhappens]

Nowhere in particular.

Some people move on. Some people stay around. Some people do a little of both.

And let us not forget, some people come back unexpectedly.

- - - Updated - - -

Upon learning the difference between hard magic and soft magic, I think that I hate soft magic. I watch fantasy for the giant lizards, the cat people, and most importantly the higher chance of legal lolis (though obviously, that's not a fantasy exclusive), but definitely not for morality being an actual superpower.

I'm sure one day you will graduate from being an edgelord, don't worry. It might be a long way yet, though.

[Random]

Chuunibyou is merely the final form of art.

[Laserman]

[Mattias]

I'm trying to figure out if I've seen a pairing weirder than girl x chair. Outside of Genderbent!Oppenhiemer x Table in Code Geass, at least.

Utena x Lamborghini?

Char Aznable x twenty year old ghost of a girl he knew for a week?

Jeanne x Cardboard?

[Random]

I don't know if this particular ship sailed, but

[Random]

Degree result came back. I actually got one grade higher than I had calculated, so I guess I got the relative weights of each mark wrong. Pleasant surprise.

[Petrikow]

Good job,

meanwhile I have COVID for the first time.