Talk:Characters

Walpurgis Night

Walpurgis Night has been confirmed to be a witch on the official website. Hence, I added a link to the speculah article here. When more info on the witch is gathered, I think we should make a separate page for the witch herself. --Homerun-chan 18:18, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Refactoring

I like that new design. We should apply it to the witches section too. The problem is that using the cards as images renders pretty meh (see below -- the biggest problem is that we lack a lot of cards). Any idea? --Homerun-chan 16:42, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Snip: see also witch table on the article page

I like it, but the lines between cards and links should be removed. We could use normal screenshots for the missing pictures or a ? pic like Suleika if the character did not appear in the series. On a related note, the parts about the witch in the Sayaka article should be moved to the Oktavia article. -- Anon-kun 18:39, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Anon-kun about the lines. I think a ? pic would be better than a screenshot. And can someone take a look at the speculah on Gertrud I added (under talk)? --Cleo 21:01, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

How about a strong line like this? (See above) --0x99 06:03, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the strong line. I think it catches too much attention. Maybe keep the normal line between the card and the names, but remove it between the witche's name and its familiars? --Homerun-chan 11:31, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I tried doing what you suggested, but it looks weird because padding in the top cell and bottom cell are merged together; what do you think if I changed the strong line to a simple space like this? --0x99 15:27, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Here's a blanked card Prima 06:22, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Tried adding the blank card. Generally speaking, it looks good IMO, but maybe we should change the question mark's style a bit, it look too much like Suleika's card right now (well... It is Suleika's card after all) --Homerun-chan 11:31, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Here's something different. It's not polished at all (especially the runetext at the top which looks funny for now) but that shows another concept --Homerun-chan 11:41, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Cleaned a little, changed the texture to give it a slightly different look. Revert it to version two if it's unsightly. Prima 11:51, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I think this card works. --0x99 16:34, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

What do you think if we use 7 cards per row? I think it looks cleaner this way (and looks less important than the main character section). --0x99 16:42, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Prima 16:52, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Overall it looks good, but

• I would split "Main characters" and "supporting characters" in two different tables. It looks a bit messy now. (maybe make the supporting character's cells a bit bigger in height too?)
• The fact that some names (the long one: Kriemhild Gretchen, Oktavia von Second Thoughts and the familiars that share one cell) have a smaller font than others bugs me. On the other hand, that gave me an idea: make the familiars appear slightly smaller than the witches they belong to (but all witches would have the same font size).

--Homerun-chan 17:02, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Who is Oktavia von Second Thoughts? :) Joking aside, I put their name in smaller fonts to avoid breaking names into multiple lines (admittedly for aesthetic reason alone). I'll see what I can do about supporting characters table. --0x99 17:26, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Fanart in Character Pages

Okay, so there's a lot of new fanart being uploaded to the wiki, and that's not necessarily a bad thing -- especially when they're translations of Japanese fan comics, since ordinarily we wouldn't be able to just look them up on Pixiv and the like. Some of this stuff is too hilarious to not share.

With that said, can we please take the fanart out of the character pages and put it in its own section? The character page galleries just look messy now, and a general "Translated Fan Comics" or "Best of Fanart" repository would probably do a better job of getting fanworks out to everyone. Momoism 03:52, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

How about we split up the character art gallery into several sections, like anime, manga, figures, fanart, etc? - Prima 03:59, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

It's not only the character pages, but elsewhere like episode pages and pretty much everywhere on the site. I think it's important however it's categorized to separate fanart from what is official screenshots or artwork, or the work people have done for speculah like designs, charts and graphics. There's also a grey area with things like Ume's doujin where she is the official character designer but she's working in the capacity of a fanartist with doujins (or at least that's how I'd interpret it). --randomanon 04:04, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Splitting up the galleries is a good idea, but how exactly will we determine what should go into the "fanart" sections? Would the criteria just be "I liked it, and I think other people will like it, too," or "This comic was originally in Japanese, but I translated it for everyone to read"? Another problem is that, to my knowledge, most of the actual fanartists go unnamed, so we should really try to source the fanart whenever we can.

Having one particularly apt piece of fanart at the top of a theory page (e.g., Speculah:Kyubey is Evil Theory) or a "side" page (e.g., Weapons) doesn't bother me that much, since they add flavor without being misleading. I'd consider Ume Aoki's doujinshi in the same vein, since her visual depictions of the characters would technically be "canon" (even if their actions might not be). Momoism 04:14, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I think splitting up the Galleries would be for the best. Per say one section would be the default gallery in which Screenshots of said character from the show itself would be shown. Another section would be Official art, those would be the concept art for the characters along with some promotional pictures of said character. And since Aoki Ume is the series character designer, her doujinshi and illustrations should probably be included into this section as well. the last section would probably be Fanart in which Fan renditions of the said character would be put in. So recap, the gallery per character should be split into "the Default Gallery", "Official Art", and "Fan Art" MochaCoffee 06:11, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Regarding fanarts, don't forget that there's also the Image Pack that didn't get updated for a while. Maybe if there's too much fanarts on the pages, or images you would like to share but aren't relevant enough to be put on a special page, we can add them to the image pack? Then we'd split the galleries into several categories as proposed above, and add a link to the relevant part of the pack (e.g. on Mami's page, we'd add a notice under the "Fanart" section with something like "You can find more fanarts of Mami in the Image Pack Part. A) --Homerun-chan 10:00, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Those all sound like great ideas, and I'll get to work on setting up a template for the separate galleries. I'd also like to put a policy in place mandating that we credit all fanartists on the individual image pages, with uncredited art either getting bumped to the image packs or deleted. Momoism 17:16, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Emblem

I was thinking about adding an information on shape of their emblems via the soul gems and their location while in magical girl form... For example Mami's is flower and it's location is in her head as a hairpin. It will be nice for some people to know. -Dandan550 09:04, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

If you managed to find a good place for that information, here's some prior research, Speculah:Grief Seeds. - Prima 09:18, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

"That"

About the recent poorfag edits, since the character only exists in canon as an unnamed background extra in a couple shots, it doesn't warrant its own character page entry. It would either belong in fanworks under parodies:alternative stories (which would require a decent writeup, with good grammar and links that won't 404, before posting there), or we'd have to do a "background characters" or "background classmates" page listing many unnamed background characters and mentioning the whole poorfag thing in its speculation section.

It's actually an extra? I thought it was just some random drawing some idiot came up with. Well, +1 to them, but still not enough.

She appears in those shots of the full classroom. She's in the seat next to Kamijou's vacant one.

Height chart

This is from a collection of official sketches released for sale.

Witch Art

Has anyone thought about making vectors of the Witches and Minions? - SPDUDE48 10:16, 03 July 2011 (UTC)

Kazumi's Grandma

I assume until we know her name we will create a page for her as a minor character... --Mutopis 13:14, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Witches

Hey guys, long time no see!
Say, since the witch(es) from Madoka Portable are listed under the "witches" section, wouldn't it make sense to also move the witches from Oriko Magica up there? --Homerun-chan 20:45, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

It's clearer if they're grouped with the Oriko characters as to the source. If the PSP game introduces new magical girls or other new characters, the witches will be grouped with them the same way. Or for that matter, the new material for the anime characters. As previously discussed, we need to keep the sources separate so people don't get confused, e.g. anime-only viewers wondering what the heck we're talking about when we say Mami became a witch. --randomanon 20:53, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, the point is, they're clearly separated from each other given the subsection's headline. I see your point however, but then maybe the character(s) from the game will need their own section later on. Not that it really matters right now as there is only one, it just seemed quite inconsistent to me as a "new" visitor (i.e. after months of inactivity). --Homerun-chan 06:07, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

What about witches from the anime that have game-only familiars? At this point in the second trailer, a new familiar of Patricia's is visible to the right. How should things like this be integrated into the table? Neuchadjinys 21:15, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Under a PSP game header, same as we've done for the Oriko manga which has new characters, manga-specific characters that also appeared in the anime, and new witches. It clearly separates the source from the anime, so people don't get confused (well, or at least reduce confusion). --randomanon 21:58, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Thought so. Familiars are listed in subsections under their respective witches, though, so... should the familiar be by itself in the PSP table, or should Patricia's card be duplicated above it (even though she's the same as she was in the anime)? Neuchadjinys 22:11, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't think there's one "right" answer to this kind of situation. Duplicating the whole card seems consistent with the current layout. Another solution would be to add that new familiar under the existing card (i.e. together with Mathieu), but adding a footnote. That last option makes the whole table a little more messy though. In any case, I don't think adding just the familiar under the PSP section would fit with the rest of the layout. --Homerun-chan 22:31, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

In this case, Patricia herself appears in the game. Game witches from the anime could use separate pages. The game provides different information and scenarios than the anime, and there'll be a focus on gameplay mechanics and strategies, so to someone only looking for anime info, it would seem like a confusing, irrelevant wall of text if game info is added to the regular pages. If a familiar is independent, I suppose formatting (Suleika-Ulla style within the game table vs. giving the familiar witch-size billing) would depend on whether they tell us anything about the witch it came from. KM 10:55, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

To make it easier, I created the PSP character page. The structure should be apparent and why it's best to group it all, like we did for Oriko. I imagine there'll be a new line added for "Original characters" but otherwise this is more or less how it would appear. --randomanon 12:42, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Feedback on New Characters Page

Overall, I really like it. There is one problem through from a user standpoint. I understand having everything but the anime collapsed looks better but in practice it's awkward to use. For example, if I expand to see the bars to see the witches and pick "Homulilly" then go back to see another profile, I have to expand them each time. It ends up being easier to go directly to the character pages. Is it possible to have them expand by default or possibly a button to expand all of them at once, rather than one at a time, at least? It's not that long a page to have everything listed and we can always make the images smaller to conserve some space if needed. I've tweaked Oriko characters to save space. --randomanon 04:48, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, I think I could make expand/collapse status persist across visits with a cookie (just like the sidebar, which I've disabled it temporarily until I found a fix to disappearing sidebars). I won't be able to do it until very late tonight though (in 6-7 hours), as a stopgap, if you feel like to, just edit the page and remove collapsed=1 line out of each template. --0x99 07:45, 29 March 2012 (UTC)