what is this???

[deboratibi]

2 hours ago, jellysundae said:

I suppose the fact that we're learning to have to expect to lower our expectations is just a sign of 20teens living? :^/

Oh my gosh, I think you're right on the money. lol

2 hours ago, jellysundae said:

I just had an epiphany. The way JS operates? It's like a digital version of a McMansion - a poorly thought out hodgepodge of poor quality materials, thrown together any old how, with no consideration given to what was there before...

Speaking of...this blog's cynically amusing if it's your kind of thing. McMansion Hell

I'm familiar with that blog... it makes me kind of sad though, because I liked to think of myself as someone with some sense of aesthetics, but that blog makes me seriously question myself. If I'd seen all those pictures without the captions, I wouldn't have noticed more than a third of the issues listed. To me, a lot of the indoor pictures are blatantly terrible, but when it comes to the façades, I'm like "well, a few things are off, but why is it so bad?"  lol

Anyway, for that reason I'm not so sure about that analogy, because I feel McMansions are probably better at fooling people about their quality/tastefulness than JS is. Unless there are only a handful of people who can't tell how bad McMansions are... That would make me feel even worse about myself 

[jellysundae]

7 hours ago, deboratibi said:

Oh my gosh, I think you're right on the money. lol

I'm familiar with that blog... it makes me kind of sad though, because I liked to think of myself as someone with some sense of aesthetics, but that blog makes me seriously question myself. If I'd seen all those pictures without the captions, I wouldn't have noticed more than a third of the issues listed. To me, a lot of the indoor pictures are blatantly terrible, but when it comes to the façades, I'm like "well, a few things are off, but why is it so bad?"  lol

Anyway, for that reason I'm not so sure about that analogy, because I feel McMansions are probably better at fooling people about their quality/tastefulness than JS is. Unless there are only a handful of people who can't tell how bad McMansions are... That would make me feel even worse about myself 

 

Yeah some of the things she points out I don't know what she's talking about because I know little about architectural styles I suppose, lol. But some of it's hard to miss. This pic's a good example I think. The stuff in white's just shapes to me really, I can see there's no symmetry so it's not visually pleasing to me, and OMG that portico's SO pretentious, no McMansion's ever going to look classy, but stuff about gabled pediments and hipped porticoes etc. mean nothing to me.

But that column cutting through the roof is pure gold

Hmm! So now I'm wondering if my analogy does still work, because only a percentage of people look at a house like that ^ and think it's a quality place that they'd love to live in, and only a percentage of people are happy with the poor quality content from JS.

Now then!! Wouldn't it being very interesting if you could know if all the people who thought JS were doing a bang up job on Neo, also all lusted after their own McMansion!... That would definitely reveal a certain mindset, I think!

Maybe that person is EXACTLY JS's target market? They've clearly got dollars that they're keen to spend on poor quality badly crafted items, so they're perfect!

Anyway, don't doubt yourself like that, don't forget that blog's all about hyperbole, it wouldn't be entertaining for others if things weren't exaggerated.

 

I wonder if the people who go rooting through the source code have dug up anything more yet. I don't have the mental energy to go looking at the moment, or for people's conspiracy theories and whining, lol. I may avoid the boards today!

[charelan]

On 9/22/2017 at 9:33 AM, jellysundae said:

Hmm well, considering JS is portraying the faeries at the academy as cliquey teenage human girls behaviourally, bad precedents seems to be another of their "things".  

I thought that was weird too - why aren't faeries better than that?!! lol

[jellysundae]

Just now, charelan said:

I thought that was weird too - why aren't faeries better than that?!! lol

They are, but JS is treating them like humans. I don't like this at all but I'm hopeful that they're doing it to enable them to work acceptance of Kaia into things later on. But again they're projecting human behaviour onto non-humans, so any moral lesson is kind of moot. :^/

[balloongal247]

Yeah, McMansions generally use cheap materials to make a product that looks good on the surface.

Yeah, both the faeries and the Shenkuu are painted as quite xenophobic in this, when before they were painted as much more advanced.  Though, I guess the faeries did have their own city which they magically raised to the clouds.  I guess they always allowed neopet tourists, but they were setting themselves very much apart and above.  And wasn't Shenkuu the one that was a magical floating ship?  Also apart and above, separated from anyone new and different.

[jellysundae]

1 hour ago, balloongal247 said:

Yeah, both the faeries and the Shenkuu are painted as quite xenophobic in this, when before they were painted as much more advanced.  Though, I guess the faeries did have their own city which they magically raised to the clouds.  I guess they always allowed neopet tourists, but they were setting themselves very much apart and above.  And wasn't Shenkuu the one that was a magical floating ship?  Also apart and above, separated from anyone new and different.

I quite literally look down on you...yeah. I don't know about Shenkuu being a floating ship *googles*

Ah, it was discovered by a floating ship.

Quote

Shenkuu

High in the mountains North of Altador is the mystical city of Shenkuu. Unknown to Neopians for centuries, it was revealed to the world by the crew of the Cyodrake's Gaze after a terrible mishap at sea. Its citizens were cautious at first, but have since welcomed visitors from all over Neopia with open arms... as long as they have their wallets. They are a merchant town, after all.

Hmm, so both were definitely always aloof, but we are into stereotypical xenophobic behaviour right now. I suppose all JS are doing is writing things as generic people tend to behave. They just don't seem to be taking into consideration the nature and attitudes of the actual people they're writing about. It's going to be interesting to see how this pans out.

 

 

[balloongal247]

How were they a merchant town if they were unknown to the world for centuries?  You kind of have to interact with other people to be merchants.

And I guess, because faeries are supposed to be supremely long lived, most of the time Kaia lived in Shenkuu would have been before they were discovered by the rest of the world and opened their borders.  When there was just the same group of the same neopets who had all lived in this same town isolated from anyone different, and then there's this faerie who is a completely different species (much more humanoid as opposed to the...animaloid?... neopets) that looks completely different.

[deboratibi]

4 hours ago, jellysundae said:

Hmm, so both were definitely always aloof, but we are into stereotypical xenophobic behaviour right now. I suppose all JS are doing is writing things as generic people tend to behave. They just don't seem to be taking into consideration the nature and attitudes of the actual people they're writing about. It's going to be interesting to see how this pans out.

Yep, this is why I'm not excited about the plot, in terms of actual story.

4 hours ago, balloongal247 said:

And I guess, because faeries are supposed to be supremely long lived, most of the time Kaia lived in Shenkuu would have been before they were discovered by the rest of the world and opened their borders.  When there was just the same group of the same neopets who had all lived in this same town isolated from anyone different, and then there's this faerie who is a completely different species (much more humanoid as opposed to the...animaloid?... neopets) that looks completely different.

Well, now you're just asking them to make sense and give things more than a minute of thought  lol

[jellysundae]

4 hours ago, balloongal247 said:

How were they a merchant town if they were unknown to the world for centuries?  You kind of have to interact with other people to be merchants.

I was JUST coming here to say this very same thing!

I'm kind of dreading Kaia's backstory; they are calling her a young faerie...and sure they'll say things like "well young is a comparative term as faeries live a very long time," yeah yeah whatever, but seriously, you could already drive a truck through the holes in what story she has so far, and I see more hot mess being served up to us as this develops, with a big side order of more tasty faerie-flavoured prejudice probably.

I shall try my best to enjoy the mechanics of whatever happens in the plot, and shut my eyes to the ham-fisted and unoriginal story which at the moment is threatening, otherwise all I'll be doing on here is being an obnoxious hag about it. >_<

Though I do have a serious question here...WHERE DO FAERIES COME FROM!

How do they spring into existence? Do they grow on trees? Do they fashion more faeries out of the ether? Why is Kaia the only "young" faerie? Why do they have adult female anatomy if they don't procreate? Ok, so I have a LOT of questions.

[balloongal247]

And they only don't have male faeries because they "haven't found a use for them"? Like procreation?

[jellysundae]

1 hour ago, balloongal247 said:

And they only don't have male faeries because they "haven't found a use for them"? Like procreation?

Well, I read someone on the boards saying faeries don't breed. This person was freaking out about Neo's faeries being sexualised because they've got lady chests, which she says they wouldn't need as they don't have babies. But then I don't think I've EVER seen a mainstream gender-less faerie, have you?

But if they don't procreate we're back to how on earth did they come to exist in the first place. >_<

 

[hopisabel]

There was this on new features. It might be a reference to the wraiths?

[jellysundae]

Lol, shoe-horning something about the wraith in where they can.