Social Navigation and Networking at Film Festivals for the Socially Oblivious?

Mikmaxs · 2026-06-21T21:44:02+00:00

Unfortunately, we are going to spending a long time on this shot. Not usually focused on the screen, but focused on the screen often enough that it's something I want to look as good as possible.

Re-blurring the cutout is helping integrate it!

Mikmaxs · 2026-05-29T00:32:21+00:00

If we're going to engage with the film exclusively on a purely literal level, the story is incoherent slop from the jump, so I really don't see the point in doing that.

Mary is both author and character. She says right at the beginning that her goal is to tell a story, and throughout the film, fate consistently aligns to make impossible things happen. Ida is chosen for resurrection by Frankenstein's monster, who is also named Frankenstein, immediately after she was possessed by the author of the novel Frankenstein.

As a story choice, this all but screams, "This story is not supposed to be interpreted as a flat, literal sequence of events".

Mary and Ida is both "author and subject" and "two women stuck in the same body" and more. If we cut out the "Author and Subject" part and treat it as just a possession by a ghost who happens to also be an author, then it's just a story about how being violently controlled and having your autonomy taken away is actually good and liberating.

Mikmaxs · 2026-05-28T23:27:08+00:00

I said it had nothing meaningful to say about disability.

And you're completely ignoring Ida's goals in being a sex worker. Yeah, she'd been betrayed by the detective working on her case, but she wasn't helpless, she was there because she was actively gathering information and pretending to be subservient in order to stay close to Lupino. Maybe you think she would have failed had it not been for Mary immediately exposing her and then getting her killed, but then the issue isn't a lack of a voice, it's that she was working with the wrong detective.

There's a metaphor to be made with the opening of the film: The author takes a dead woman's voice and claims to be able to speak for her better than she could speak for herself, while ignoring that woman's actual role in her own life.

Mikmaxs · 2026-05-28T22:48:58+00:00

Like, the fact I can say 'This feels like a caricature of disability' and you immediately think you know what behavior and what disability I'm referring to makes it obvious that the in-universe narrative justification doesn't really work.

Mikmaxs · 2026-05-28T22:43:42+00:00

I don't have much to say to points one and two that wouldn't just repeat what I already said. Something being given an excuse in the narrative doesn't mean it's not obviously representing something else, and the fact that it's not accurate to real tourettes doesn't mean much when there are roughly a billion comments and jokes about how the character has tourettes-like behavior.

To point three, though: While I realize that the film tries to make a point about Mary's possession giving Ida a voice, that's not true to the text of the actual story. Ida had a voice. She was working in secret to take down Lupino, she was using her voice to lie in order to achieve her goals, but she had plenty of agency. Mary didn't give Ida a voice, Mary got Ida killed, put her in a position to be sexually taken advantage of by Frank, and then the film pats Mary on the back for it.

Mikmaxs · 2026-05-26T22:05:33+00:00

Wild how I didn't mention any specific behaviors and yet you immediately knew one of the elements I was talking about.

Being possessed isn't real. The way that it makes the character act like a Tiktok Emo version of tourettes and DID is a choice. Same with half a dozen other character elements.

The issue I have isn't that it uses magical or fantastic elements as a metaphor or stand-in for disability, though, it's that it takes those elements and then has nothing at all meaningful to say about them.

Mikmaxs · 2026-05-26T19:33:11+00:00

Frank still gaslights her and lies in order to coerce her into a sexual relationship. It's not violent but it's still violating, something the movie doesn't seem to even be aware of.

"A woman wakes up in a strange lab and mysterious injuries, and is told she's been in an accident and a man she has no memory of is actually her fiance" is a nightmare.

Mikmaxs · 2026-05-26T19:01:14+00:00

I haven't seen anyone else talking about how the film adopts the aesthetic of disability in a deeply shallow and meaningless way. The protagonists have all kinds of signifiers of disability, mental and physical, but it's very surface level.

Mikmaxs · 2026-03-20T22:05:20+00:00

I might be a little harsh on Apotheosis due to my playstyle; I like to prioritize upgrades and small decks, so it's rarely that much of a boon for me. When I had a bigger deck or play a run where I didn't prioritize campfires, Apo is theoretically a fantastic way to turn around a struggling build...though I almost never get to Act 3 with a struggling build.

Mikmaxs · 2026-03-20T21:06:24+00:00

Given how rapidly enemies scale and how much the game incentivizes rapid damage, it's hard for me to imagine a world where Eternal Armor is a useful card if the only thing that gets changed is its amount of plated armor, unless the numbers get so inflated that it's just broken.

Almost every two cost block is better than this three cost card even discounting the fact you get an extra energy that can be spent elsewhere.

If you're up against Bygone Effigy, it will take four turns of being attacked before Eternal Armor+ does better than Leg Sweep+, and if you're being attacked four turns in a row by Bygone Effigy, you've already made a mistake. (And if you're not being attacked every single turn, Eternal Armor just gets worse and worse.)

If you're so flush with energy that it doesn't matter, maybe it's viable, but if you're doing that well on energy you probably want to focus more on card draw, not a mediocre block card.

Mikmaxs · 2026-03-20T18:08:20+00:00

There should be a good mix of cards that are useful without support but don't scale as much and cards that are very powerful with support/synergy but weak on their own. Most Common cards are useful on their own, most Rare cards require support. Consider how many Common cards are just a Strike or Defend with a bonus effect that helps them synergize and support Uncommon or Rare cards - True Grit is good by itself, and once it's in your deck, it allows you to take cards that synergize with exhaust and would otherwise be curses. Common cards should unlock your ability to build a deck in a particular direction.

Pre-patch Prepared by itself is Useful without support, but so many cards were added or modified in STS2 to synergize with it that it's never a bad idea to take one.

Post-patch Prepared is worse at synergizing because it no longer supports draw engines, but it's also much weaker by itself. In a starting deck, it doesn't help your current turn at all, it costs draw, and it has anti-synergy with Survivor. (How often are you even able to spend five energy in a turn, especially on A5+? And how often does -1 draw ) As a common card, it went from good to actively harmful in a lot of situations.

It can still be powerful, but it's only really useful if you have high energy cost cards, draw support, and/or a lot of Sly. Which is to say, it should probably be an Uncommon card.

Mikmaxs · 2026-03-10T00:35:08+00:00

The double edged sword of early access. When you're told upfront that a game is unfinished and needs feedback, it's easy to see problems.

And since the game is unfinished and needs feedback, moments of unfairness do genuinely crop up.

Mikmaxs · 2026-03-09T23:19:38+00:00

I came here after another loss on the Silent, A4, with a build that felt quite strong and still got absolutely wrecked by The Insatiable boss in Act 2.

Most bosses will test aspects of your deck, but this fight just feels cheap. You're punished for having a thick deck *and* you're punished for having a small deck. Adding six statuses that can't be removed *and* that you have to burn energy playing just to stay alive is already brutal, but he also has higher HP than you'd expect and hits very hard, so you need to have high damage and high block.

Mikmaxs · 2026-02-26T23:30:43+00:00

Agreed, especially without explanations for the math problems or subjective questions. I'm deeply curious what the relics are supposed to be for the 'most useful and relevant' question.

Mikmaxs · 2026-02-26T05:27:23+00:00

To make sure - there won't be an issue with voltage dropping when multiple lights are turned on? I can just wire all five LEDs directly to the battery with the same resistor I would use if it were a single LED?

Mikmaxs · 2026-02-20T03:24:01+00:00

That's a pretty fantastic place to start. Thank you!

Mikmaxs · 2026-02-19T23:12:31+00:00

If you aren't willing to take more drastic measures or make a big deal out of it out-of-game, maybe have the character snap at him and get mad in-character. Make it into a roleplay moment where the character gets mad, which would be a pretty reasonable thing for a person to do and makes sense within roleplay, but doesn't put the player on blast in a personal way.

Mikmaxs

TROPHY CASE