Welcome to the world of having studied film and other narrative-driven art forms....only, without having the media literacy and technical knowledge to make the tradeoff worthwhile. At best, it sounds like false knowledge based on elements, such as surface trope patterns. On the one hand, I kinda feel for them because it's a legit industry hazard....on the other, they brought it on themselves.

Of the ones presented, 2.... But I think having the high saturation around the man/center of the piece and lower on the phoenix (so man and background 2, phoenix closer to how you have it in 1) will help most of these in general. The natural value of a hue will have the most saturation, but the closer you get to white and black the more saturation of a hue will be condensed as indistinguishable—so to blow out the pheonix, go with more desaturated lights instead of super-saturated color.

Looking good.

No DEI in games is how you get unmodded Rome 2. I ain’t going back to that!

;)

In addition to what others have said, liability is also a factor. If you don't work out, it's because you somehow lied about being able to do the job and not that their training was inadequate or that they failed to prepare/equip you. Additionally, less training is required theoretically, which means less cost on the investment of a new employee. Less risk overall for presumably better results.

Lack of experience also means they have deniability not to hire someone. I've had interviews go south immediately when the interviewer realized I was LGBTQ+ (stealth fail), but their stated reason was that I didn't have enough experience with MacOS. I've done volunteer work in my field for the UN using MacOS, but alas, I was "too inexperienced". The higher the requirements, the safer those sorts of dismissals are for them to make.

But then they couldn’t blame the humanitarian crisis on Yemen rebels when it fails to materialize.

It would have been nice if they had kept the axii in the same order between the charts

It's a fun ride, for sure. I would love to see slower pacing like many others, but then again, a lot of the world exploration has been handed over to its sister show so I'm not sure how much slower pace they can actually do. Helluva Boss still has more of my heart due to its wonderful cast of characters (My SO and I even did our own sort of 'his-and-hers' Moxxie and Millie t-shirts), but the character cast of Hazbin is growing on me pretty quickly.

Isn't this the plot of A CHRISTMAS CAROL?

It's not weird at all. In fact, I'd argue it is very healthy.

Stories are our way of transferring human experience from one to another. Our brains intentionally blur fiction and reality to facilitate this transfer regularly. While not a positive example, you can see it in action when fictional representations of, say, trans people are only informed by the media consumed due to the lack of other experiences to draw on. Once an experience/story is no longer relevant or helpful, we forget it. When you read a forgettable story, that's exactly what happened.

To categorize them in the way of the Ancient Greeks, Tragedies are cautionary tales, and Dramas are explorative/navigational—meaning they primarily help us navigate the comprehensive options of situations.

Looking at the stories themselves, we can see their structure parallels that of proper arguments.

One-act stories are a thesis—they answer a single question Three-act stories are a thesis, countered by an antithesis, and then the synthesis/conclusion. Five-act stories are more based on Marxist thought—a thesis that examines the contrast, contradiction, and possibly the negation of the negative before forming its synthesis.

Long story short, what is a story beat but elaborate dressing for points A, B, and C, leading us to the next logical point and its reasoning? It's an illusion and allegory of crashing emotions, symbols, and situations for our subconscious to process the same way it does all our experiences. Memory itself is a story we are retelling ourselves.

And that's underlying all stories that at least have some structure holding them up. Of course, it's going to affect you. And it should.

I've taken a morbid interest in watching the drama of the Kaldorei/Night Elves story unfold and the drama erupting from it. For some in the Imperial core, it's the first thought they've ever given thought to the complications and effects of colonization and genocide on a people. Is it anywhere near enough? Oh, hell no. But the capitalists' need to sell [edgy] stories at least is breaking the veneer of silence civility of not talking about hard issues. And they'll keep having to push that line to make money. And as they do, more voices that generally get glossed over will slip through in the trend-chasing. And now and again, we might get a comrade's allegorical voice (see some of the classics like A CHRISTMAS STORY). Contradictions exist in storytelling, too, and it plays out the same way as it does in other areas. It will affect you like everyone else because you are digesting it like everyone else. We communists, arguably more so because we can see most of it as the junk food it is—and trying to enjoy the odd bit of nutrients that slip through capitalism/liberalism's processing. But these imagined yet shared common experiences are also what will provide us with the common ground needed to reach others here and there.

If garlic is such a threat to the American people, then why isn’t garlic (and other alliums) allergies covered by any overly priced health insurance plan I’ve seen?

ROFL. Accurate. I've found that between 5 and 10 years after transitioning, many of us have evolved into some flavor of commie.

My personal goal is to launch a webcomic/graphic novel project I've been contemplating for a while. A fun adventure story that isn't infested with liberal ideology subtext for comrades to enjoy, but also is subtle enough that one can also show it to liberal friends and introduce them to some basic theory in the process.

Trying to find a suitable name during my transition was like "Hi! Don't mind all the glitter and sparkles, I'm totally not a faerie....but can I have your name?"

Yea, the discussion within the mods teams has been pretty energetic about it. I'm looking forward to seeing what we can do with this update.

There's a quote from Huey Newton, "The first lesson a revolutionary must learn is that he is a doomed man." You're describing the stage/phase/step before the comrade has come to terms with that first lesson. And because it is the first step, we also see a big part of why the Western left is still learning to walk/baby steps.

I will second Brecht's ON THEATRE. There's some good gems in there.

Of a strictly ML nature, not many immediately come to mind. We have the Socialist Realism movement, but it is often examined through a western lens, which loses much of its nuance unless the audience is well-versed in art history. A few speeches by important figures touch on art and it's purpose, but rarely in a way that would help us construct better, more engaging stories. But all this was also the problem identified. We don't have a strong tradition to compete with capitalist media and their methods of confining stories to mere, and often shallow, entertainment. And what examples I have stumbled across, such as Han Qixiang, I'm not fluent enough in the language or culture to delve into their work as much as I'd want for contextual analysis to really comment or advocate from. And Western works, usually more hidden in history (pockets of French and German expression), such as Walter Benjamin's DER ERZAHLER, I should probably re-visit before fully recommending since the last time I read through it I was only a baby commie.

There have been a couple of times my worldview has collapsed, and I took better/more accurate positions afterward.

1. That I was male, with a considerable amount of low-key sexism and not-so-low-key queerphobia thrown in. That was a hell of a shakeup, and probably responsible for the spark that started the rest.
2. I was raised an evangelical bible thumper and oooohhh boy, does that carry some hefty baggage—ranging from Isreal being -THE- holy land, Evolution is a lie, and those godless, evil queer commies have it coming. So much cringe. Karma is not without a sense of humor.
3. Was a right-wing Libertarian, very interested in military theory, military history, and was offered full scholarships to military colleges type. Was, unfortunately, definitely on the proto-fascist track politically. Although it did result in reading my first book on any kind of communist thinking in the form of SOVIET MILITARY STRATEGY by Vasiliĭ Sokolovskiĭ.
4. The Hollywood, mainstream Western storytelling methods are the best/key/correct/fundamentals of the craft. This happened around the time I started becoming a communist. With all the liberal assumptions modern storytelling makes/requires, I had to re-evaluate and relearn my career craft completely. This is the only one I openly talk about because it can be presented as a safe topic in all circles, isn't as cringe to admit to, and ML Narrative Theory is unfortunately not touched on that much—especially here in the West. And I believe it's one of our great weaknesses because we have little to challenge the subtle and constant torrent Hollywood and mainstream entertainment douses us with. This is a shame because storytelling is humanity's evolved mechanism for sharing our experiences navigating life—we should have this tool in our toolbox. Maybe I should post some lecture/essay posts on narrative theory, how it relates and connects to ML theories, and how it breaks away from Hollywood's simplistic formulas...

Hell yea! And I'll be happy to offer up some of my art skills to the project if needed.

The ruling class try to not only rule altogether but to convince the masses of their legitimacy.

It might come from Engels, but I remember reading this line is straight out of the beginning of Lenin's STATE AND REVOLUTION recently.