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ouroborosorder · 3 months

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Arknights VFX question: Any highlights or personal favourites as far as the "Stick a whole background/huge jpeg in there behind the character" category of skills goes?

Oh I like this question. This made me consider things I've never looked at before, so thank you for that. I had to do research.

So, there's not a lot of ops like this, and shockingly, I don't have many positive things to say about them. BUT I did find a few interesting highlights I think are worth discussing.

First off, I will leave Eine Variation out of this, as I have made my thoughts on that Thing very clear.

But, my favorite skin in the game actually does indeed have the Background.Jpeg - Specter's As One!

Aaaand it's easily the worst part of my favorite skin. Don't get me wrong, i think it's probably one of the better executions of the idea, since it's like, a skybox, it matches the pallette, matches the artstyle of the skin, it's almost perfect. I wish it was a LITTLE less static, maybe have some distortion ripples across it like waves to keep the stars moving, or maybe have them twinkle a bit or something. But it's fine. But a good effect isn't everything.

Effects relies heavily on the principles of animation, too. Appeal, weight, color, and most importantly of all - timing. Having a proper lead in can make a bad effect good, and having a bad lead-in can make a good effect fucking terrible. And having no lead-in at all will absolutely fuck your effect and make it super clear that you took a jpeg from the skin art and superimposed it behind your operator.

Here. Look at the picture above. Now, I am going to tab back literally just one single frame in the animation and...

oh ...there's no fade in at all. It just literally appears in a single frame. It draws way more attention to itself than it needs to just by virtue of literally popping in. It's SUPER obvious that it's just Skybox.jpeg. If it faded in with some sort of noise mask (which takes literally less than 2 minutes to make,) it would be so so so much better. Again, this is my favorite skin in the game, and I already think S3 is quite beautiful, so this is nitpicking, but this skybox always bugged me a lot.

Now to say a sentence no one has ever said - going up a step in quality from Specter to Hoederer!

I can't fully get this one in a still image and I'm too tired to record a video / gif so just go with this, alright?

This one is ALMOST GOOD. ALMOST. IT'S SO FUCKING CLOSE. The texture is being distorted by a wavelike noise that is giving it the rippling effect of fire, which is the standard thing to do for making a stylized fire. The problem is that... The texture itself doesn't fucking move? It's just being UV distorted, just a bit of offset to the material and I just AUGH.

It's so so so obvious that it's just a static jpeg of fire that's being waved around like a flag to get it to contort into being fire. This wouldn't bother me if the actual fire texture didn't have implications of movement in the little waves and fades and stuff. I hate it it's so irritating it's so CLOSE. But also, animating an entire fire flipbook would have taken a lot more time, and I can 100% guarantee you the VFX artist is also unhappy with this one. Their A team was probably on Arturia or something. Speak of the devil -

I've had a few people ask how I feel about Arturia's S3 after I expressed my hatred for Eine Variation, and I am here to say - this unambiguously fucking rules, for a few reasons.

First and least importantly, THE MONSTER MOVES. The monster itself has slight movement, you can notice its arms wiggle a little and mouth open and close. This is a small thing that goes a LONG way to make it feel way more dynamic and alive. It's also being distorted by a noise like Hoederer is, which is quite nice as a touch, really helps to make that limited movement feel way more significant than it is.

Second, is that the texture is monochromatic, but in a different way than Arturia is. The grays are colder, harsh blue-grays to contrast Arturia herself, who is a very warm gray. This makes it so that it adds a really nice background that looks like part of her, while also standing out and allowing her to stand out against it. It's a really smart use of monochrome to create visual interest using just different subtle shades of gray.

But that bluish hue also serves to compliment the only color in the effect - the blue light from the cello. Your eyes are naturally drawn to brighter glowing things, which is also the only colored spot on the effect - the cello from which her Arts emerge. As a result, the Beastie.jpg fades out of your attention, becoming monochromatic noise, which, due to being just kinda chaotic and aesthetically dissonant, you interpret more as abstract Shape than anything else. That abstract shape then makes a cone which leads you down into Arturia's center, which is her cello, which is where her Arts are coming from.

This is basically to say - These are very emblematic of what I think makes good effects textures in general. They work best when they're not alone. When these backgrounds are part of a larger whole that's all coming together to make an effect, rather than being the centerpiece of the whole thing. When I notice the background, it's a problem, in my eyes. Maybe people disagree. They keep putting them in skins, and a lot of people thought the Eine Variation goat was cool as hell, so clearly I'm in the wrong here, but hey. Who gives a shit.

I'm sure there's way more examples of this, (actually I know there are,) but I'm extremely tired and need to go the fuck to sleep. If there's any particular backgrounds ya'll want me to take a look at, lemme know and I'll get back to you when I've woken from my dread slumber.

#arknights #arknights vfx breakdown

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local-diavolo-anon · 3 months

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Ok i give up, here is the au i thought about in the post about my D&D character

So basically, its a ✨️Gods and Mortals✨️ kind of au (it also has nothing to do with my actual dnd character lmao)

At first i had a very different idea for this au tbh, but now i have a clearer view on where and how i want this to work

Eclipse is a preschool teacher and a daycare robot, his job is to care for the roudies children and take some weight off of the teacher's shoulders

One day, everything was normal, he gets his ass isekai'd into another world. Why? Because i say so

Jk he probably died somehow like in all isekai stories

To save him are the god of the stars, and the god of planets, those being Sun and Moon, who take a liking on this funny looking mortal and send him on an adventure with them as patrons

Sun and moon are two weirdos and being gods they do not really. Percieve. Eclipse as its own thinking being

This is not a plot point, actually, it's just to specify that Sun sees Eclipse as how you'd see a cute pet, while Moon as how you'd see a toddler of someone you barely know

They also have wildly different approaches when they talk with Eclipse, Sun does babyvoices at him, while Moon is the incarnation of the babysitter who tapes the baby to the wall and asks them if they want a beer

Sun is Eclipse's patron during the day and companion during the night, Moon is the other way around

Eclipse slowly loses his patience and gets progressively sassier and less keen to take shit from anyone he sees

Picture Gertrude from 'I Hate Fairyland', Eclipse is stuck in that world since months and has ho idea how to go back to his own, his "patrons" are not helping and anyone he meets is either a normal person or the worst weirdo he has ever run into

So he goes slowly from "ok now lets calm down and talk this out ok? We don't want anyone getting hurt ^^" to "i cast fuck you and your family!"

This is a sandbox au, so there is no real story, just some beasts to put in situations

If you want to know what they look like, Eclipse is the same eclipse from my 'sun and moonless' au/fic

Sun and Moon on the other hand appear as these titanic and imposing beings when they are in their real form, and as regular sun and moon when they take the 'shape of eclipse' (as they call it)

Sun wears a white tunic and a red scarf both as a god and as a "mortal", in his god form the tunic fades into clouds! his head is a half sphere and from behind rays and light come out, it looks like he is wearing a floating crown but you can't really tell because he is too bright. Also je probably has like, a few tens of eyes, but uses only between 2 and 5 at the same time usually

Moon on the other hand does not even have a real head as a god! His head is a clpud of space dust and darkness with a thousand stars inside, you can also see the moon where his head would be, and it always shows the same side no matter where you look at him from (it also shows the current lunar phase); he has eyes tho!

Moon wears a dark cape, and the cloud from his head forms a train behind him that looks like a night sky (similar to a nun's headwear in appearence)

When i draw anything good for this au i will post it because i keep imagining it with walt disney old comic books artstyle but I CAN'T REPLICATE IT

#not an ask #fnaf #fnaf moon #fnaf sun #fnaf sb #fnaf eclipse #fnaf au #five nights at freddy's #fnaf dca #fnaf daycare attendant #gods and mortals au #someone please help eclipse he is TRYING

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pinksdoodles1 · 3 months

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[with the voice of a person who just crawled to shore after their ship sank] heyy hiii it's me again, with yet another drawing made by yours truly. this time, it's my dnd oc reimagined as a sinner from hazbin hotel!

i'll admit i'm not completely happy with how it came out, but eh, it took me a lot of effort so i might as well go ahead and post it. this was my first time trying to properly imitate another artstyle, on top of it technically being my first digital full-body drawing as well - it was an experiment more or less.

(i can trick my perfectionist brain into quieting down by telling it it's version 1.0)

anyways, basic idea behind sinner aury's design was making her look more feral - to lean further into that gladiator lioness theme she already has. i gave her big paws (and claws) like carmilla to give off the impression of strength, then slapped a brick pattern on top to give them "more weight" (in hindsight, maybe a cobblestone pattern would have been better to give off that greco-roman feel) - assume it gives her hits more oomph.

i imagine a sinner version of aurelia would be a bit more violent and competitive than usual, climbing her way to a respectable position in hell's rankings through... mainly violence and the willingness to maul the competition.

iirc in hazbin hotel canon, the form a sinner gets when they die isn't necessarily one they like - so i thought of giving her such strong limbs (emphasizing a physical trait) at the cost of taking away her sense of touch (considering she's a physically affectionate person, it'd bother her).

another aspect i was gonna play around with regarding this was her horns, which i originally sketched as looking like a twisted laurel crown; unfortunately, i couldn't find a way to make them look as intended when i passed the drawing to digital, so i just settled for giving her bronze-colored (a "third place" color) horns, with golden bands, and a laurel wreath (a symbol of victory) wrapped around it - perhaps deliberately so.

i mentioned this being my first time properly imitating another artstyle, and while it wasn't the most extensive study, it was fun! it's quite interesting to observe and try to take notes of what marks a character as "belonging" to a certain show - the use of shading or lack thereof, the colors, the lineweight, if the clothes have any impact on the silhouette, etc.

i'm no character designer but it's fun to look at those aspects.

#pinksdoodles #my art #aurelia smith #but she's a hazbin hotel sinner

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nerves-nebula · 4 months

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Sorry bout this thing but I kinda wanted to tell my thoughts about your stuff. Im kind of hoping this will get drowned in your inbox honestly, since this is just a really long unsolicited rant of mine.

Sometimes when i scroll through your account and I encounter csa, incest and mentions of suicide in your posts I get uncomfortable but then I remember that one phrase that goes something like "Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comforted" and I just feel kinda bad bout myself.

When I was a kid my nannys bf forced me to kiss him in the lips whenever we met. I was 6. It was uncomfortable. I never did tell my nanny about it. My parents are both police people and my mother had long explained the concept of rape and how unconsensual touch is bad and you shouldnt allow that but something prevented me from telling anyone what was happening. I dont know why. I know they would immiedietly jail that guy if they did but somehow it felt like no one would believe me. I never told them until now, then when I was what, 6-8 years old? I cant even remember. Yeah somewhere around that, he molested me when my nanny was few feet away and asleep and for the next 4 years of my life i felt dirty. Desecrated. Stupid. I couldnt even look down at my naked body when i shower back then, but somehow I managed to trudge on living by trying to forget the fact it happened. Its been 8 years since Ive last seen him. Ive told anyone who I knew who doesnt care enough to be friends with me but cared enough to listen about it but my Parents are none the wiser and i plan on keeping it that way.

Also. Im a year away from being legal now. Ive thought about killing myself or just generally not wanting to exist anymore many times since then, cuz lifes equipped with motolov cocktails of "get fucked dumbass" and i somehow managed to get a coupon for at least a million of them.

(I hope that line made you laugh if you read this).

Coming back to the phrase i mentioned earlier, it feels weird whenever i feel something similar to the feeling of being triggered while looking at csa being depicted. By definition, i would be considered a victim, and id of course would be comforted by seeing similar experiences happen to people because relating to something usually induces a positive feeling. I dont. I see your art and it guts me. It guts me and the fact that it does also guts me, because what does that mean? I am supposed to be the comforted? Despite the fact that I was taken advantage of as a child and spent night after might thinking how stupid i was and why I let that happen to me even when I was equiped with the information that makes me less vulnerable than other children? So i do I correspond more with those who are defined as comforted then, was i not disturbed after all? Was i victimizing myself all along? Am I a bad person for thinking i was? No wait, that doesnt make any sense at all. Its all wrong. Why am I so guilty about this? Why am i subjecting myself to this?

And then it repeats.

I still go through your blog because well, i love tmnt, i love your artstyle, i love the way you tell stories, I love how you dont sugar coat csa, incest and other darker topics like body horror, erotism and sadism, i hate how much it haunts me, i love the fact i can relate, i hate how much you hurt them, i love the fact that you dont hold back, i love how you show the ugly sides of healing, i love how you depict how much people can change and struggle. Its comforting to me. Its discomforting to me. I stick hand into the fire knowing I would be burned, then I do.

And i like it. I like it somehow, like taking a nice smoke break when you have mild asthma, but like, better. Its a nice change of pace to feel so conflicted like this, its a nice change of pace to feel anything at all really.

But yeah. Tldr. Sorry for the trauma dump and your art makes me feel complicated. Its neat 👍

lot to reply to here! also, unfortunately for you, i check my inbox obsessively and dont get nearly as many asks as you seem to believe i do.

so firstly, no snappy saying is meant to encompass all of human experience, and you certainly shouldn't judge yourself for not fitting into it. easier said than done, i know, but still. i'm gonna try to address some things here, not gonna touch on all of it, but just know that i appreciate you sitting down to write me this.

(I hope that line made you laugh if you read this).

it made me smile, but i laughed at this, because it's a very sweet look into you writing this. puts into perspective how, even though this is public, it was written TO me. like a letter in victorian times or something. that's sweet, i like that.

and id of course would be comforted by seeing similar experiences happen to people because relating to something usually induces a positive feeling. I dont.

you're making a lot of assumptions here that are kind of wild in that "this thought process was clearly designed by your mind to upset you specifically" sort of way. I mean, would you say this to literally anyone else when they feel uncomfortable or triggered about viewing media that relates to their trauma? There's really no telling what a survivor will feel comforted by and you aren't Doing It Wrong by having a different reaction.

there's a reason i tag it as "csa tw" and that's so people can AVOID it as well as search it up.

how stupid i was and why I let that happen to me even when I was equipped with the information that makes me less vulnerable than other children?

i know you recognize at the end of the thought process that this is not true, but i feel the need to reiterate: there is no such thing as being less vulnerable than other children through your own actions. you can try to equip kids with knowledge that might protect them, but that doesn't make them any less vulnerable.

my dad told me about rape and molestation all the time, but he never accounted for the kinds of scenarios i was actually the most likely to fall victim to, partly because i don't think he actually knew much about childhood sexual abuse, and partly because he was more obsessed with the idea of me being kidnapped and raped/murdered than he was about forms of sexual abuse he'd consider more "mild"

No wait, that doesnt make any sense at all. Its all wrong. Why am I so guilty about this? Why am i subjecting myself to this?

i can't answer that one, unfortunately. personally, i like to feel gutted, it's cathartic to me. might be something like that to you, based on how you go on to describe it, but you might also be doing some kinda self harm.

I stick hand into the fire knowing I would be burned, then I do.

saaaaame. i triggered myself into a breakdown in class once cuz i'd been reading fucked fanfiction before class and i got SAD lol.

Its a nice change of pace to feel so conflicted like this, its a nice change of pace to feel anything at all really.

we are shaking hands over this.

anywho, no need to apologize! i am glad, if nothing else, to provide you with a strange and upsetting experience that is not entirely bad.

I really do adore hearing how my stuff makes people feel. it's like, a solid one third of the reason i do this. i still make stuff that doesn't exist to be shown off but WOW showing shit off and getting a response feels FANTASTIC. like, i'm in your head now!! you have been CHANGED by my ART. it's maybe the best part of being alive.

#nnstuff #ask #csa tw #asks are sweethearts

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stellarunimoon · 2 months

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im so scared right now. this is the first time ive posted on here in a WHILE so my artstyle is :skull: completely different. i plan on revamping this whole uhh profile. ill still keep up the artwork though so my growth can be visible :- )

so this is a part of my blue diamond au i was doodling. i dont plan on making any comics or anything just some little silly pictures cause i like that kind of thing.

so i kind of felt like keeping all their previous personalities, i dont like when they take after the one that they were replacing, but thats just a personal preference. im just gonna infodump lmao

yellow - since shes more of an easily aggrivated one and has a superiority complex, i thought instead of controlling gems like white does, she could paralyze them, so the finale keeps its effect while still being in character. her pearl is still the same, likely a different outfit or form though, i havent decided yet.

pink - she's still childish and tempermental, but it's more forgiven due to her rank, and it's less because of her responsibilities. her old pearl, pink pearl, was still given to white, however white also already had a pearl. she just has two now. ( it is not our regular pearl, its a new one with a new design ill give. ), she's probably the one who needs them the most, and they will NOT be controlled, pink pearl will just be rejuvinated and given a new form <3 more on that later. our pearl does not exist in this au, or she does, i guess, but since our pearl is just the "default" settings, i feel like THIS pink would give her a form that actually matches her, and due to the different style of her being raised, she felt less remorse for damaging pink pearl. still remorse, just less so due to her desensitization and her having to shatter gems with her role.

white - this was mentioned in the artwork but my handwriting is sloppy so ill repeat it. she controls all the gems in her court, because she wants perfection. this includes the gems of different colors, for example.. our peridot, our peridot WILL be a different gem, and she'll probably be a light pink naturally, white when controlled. during future all of whites court will be freed. these gems are controlled from screens, like the ones in yellows room in SU:F. most of her gems remain idle until necessary, but her pearls would assist her in controlling them because. That's a lotta work. she likely has a lot of different gadgets to figure this out cause, yeah, the gempire is big but . . i made this up like an hour ago so cut me some slack.

blue - blue will still be emotional, and that's likely a causation of her rebellion. her pearl is the same as hers in the canon, she did not hit her like pink did. their relationship is still toxic, and like rose in canon, she was trying to change. she just failed. while pink affected the gems because she didn't realize the power she held, and never finished what she started ( spinel being abandoned... she's a little freak for that honestly. also commanding pearl to stay silent, (i don't think that was intentional, i think she just felt like it was a normal request, and didn't realize how much power she still held. that could be debated though cause "for my last order to you as a diamond"..) i think blue affected them emotionally. guilt tripping, self pity, and 2-D thinking. blue was probably more prone to shattering, but would also be very hypocritical. she could not see from the rebel gems perspective EVEN THOUGh she's trying to recruit them. to her, she just wants to win.

anyways that was what i was thinking lmao i kinda just made this up #Sorry

i only drew banded white agate because i did "random steven universe character generator" and it was like "holly blue agate" and i was like Yea Sure im down.

thanks for listening if you did. if not i dont really care i mighjt just add do this IDK WHAT IM DOING!!! this is probably just gonna be a doodle account for my different fixations. (except saw i dont like drawing real people. yet.)

#steven universe #steven universe au #blue diamond au #diamond swap #fanart #original art #draw #character design #character

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umihoshi · 2 months

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God, that was so much more difficult than I thought it would;;; but here's my anime 3x3!

shows that formed me to be the person I am, the type of writer, the type of artist, the type of thinker. I am as surprised as you that JoJo didn't make the cut ???? but these are the core series from my life and JoJo has been..... very very recent...

They're not in any particular order, just ended up random cuz I kept accidently forgetting to click an empty box, lol

Nobody's boy Remi - I used to cry when I missed an episode on tv TAT I was like 4 or 5 years old, hahah... no clue what anime was yet, but it stuck so strongly with me. the beautiful art, the emotional storytelling. my very first step towards being a fucking weeb =v=

Prince of Tennis - I've done so much art, so much writing, so much meta for Prince of Tennis x_x nothing to awaken the analytical mind than a sport anime. also, the first thing I really got to enjoy without my toxic ex-bestie

Ashita no Nadja - I originally only found like 3 episodes on a German website with no subtitles;; it's so horribly cringy and disney princess vibe, but it brings such warm feelings and memories in my heart. the classic 'orphan girl meets a mysterious masked man who is actually a prince', masked balls, traveling circus, history and culture. these are the type of corny things I want in my oc stories, yes, thank you.

Good witch of the West - a bit overlapping with Ashita no Nadja, but this one strikes a very special cord with me. It's probably the most obscure anime I have in my entire list and I've watched it so so many times.

Hunter x Hunter - it's from a period where I met a lot of my first non-school friends. having cosplayed Leorio and Kuroro more than I can count, and I am very normal about Illumi. I just feel very comfortable and nostalgic with it. and on like the day where I finished the original, the remake was announced, hohohoh~ Also, Hisoka helped along to reel in this clownfucker bestie of mine~~ ;))

D. Gray-Man - this show was an experience for me, man. I've spend like 5 years stuck in OC hell, but I'm still very fond of my little arrogant idiot noah oc, Chrome =3= the Noahs are the best villains in the entire wide world and I will not take criticism.

Glass Mask - relatively less old than the other 8, but it was there in a very important moment of my life. Glass Mask will forever mark the period where I started living on my own. I was so proud of myself how well I was doing without having my parents around all the time. watching a complete anime on full screen in the living room for the first time, what a blessing.

DNAngel - I still see certain resemblances in my artstyle to where I started drawing anime with DNAngel. the soft eyes and the shading is still one of my favorites. and Hiwatari Satoshi is my very first Megane boy~<3

Magic Knight Rayearth - not so much the anime, but the SNES game changed my life forever. My oldest brother had installed an emulator and some roms and MKR was among it. It was my first introduction with 'anime' where I actually learned what anime was, that it was Japanese and that there were MORE series like this wooooow! Until this very day, even after 25 years, I still listen to the name Umi.

series that JUST didn't make the cut: JoJo - Golden Wind Ouran Highschool Host Club Detective Conan Final Fantasy Unlimited Dangan Ronpa Interstella 5555 Pretear

make your own 3x3 here: https://gqgs.github.io/3x3-generator/

#anime 3x3 #3x3 anime #tenipuri #prince of tennis #d gray man #glass mask #hunter x hunter #good witch of the west

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tiangouaway · 23 days

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thoughts on little goody two shoes

took me a while to get around to it, but i finally finished watching a playthrough of this game and all the endings! i wouldn't say it's a game i would want to play for myself, but it's definitely one i would recommend to anyone with an interest in the genre

spoilers for the game below

positives!!

the game is... a lot less scary than i thought it would be? even with the all the sacrifices and monsters everywhere, aside from some blood, there was nothing too grotesque. no jumpscares either! just running from creatures ^_^

honestly, for all the creepy shit going on, the game is just pretty wholesome? the reason elise does everything really isn't to get rich - she wants love and respect. she mentions that she feels worse after her grandmother passed, and wants to leave the village where she gets pushed around all the time. she just wants to be happy.

the conflict between ozzy (+ his followers) and walpurga is just really cool to me. i like the thought of two beings fighting over a person, and the specific situation this game presents is interesting. ozzy made elise for holle, but in walpurga's grove. her desperation to have a child makes her obsessed with claiming elise as her own, causing a conflict. not to mention ozzy's followers! i just love infighting between antagonists for some reason.

the artstyles are all so pretty! and they all blend together so seamlessly?? the 90s sprites for the dialogue, the pixel chibis for the gameplay, and the more detailed/painted look for the backgrounds!

the music!! it's all so good, and i just love the female vocals even if they're going la la la or ba ba ba ba! i've rewatched elise and rozenmarine's cutscenes multiple times now, and even though i muted the playthrough at times bc the bgm and sound effects were too creepy for me, i always turned it back on whenever a golden girl appeared. the mysterious yet calming music that plays whenever a girl speaks is definitely my favorite track!

i LOVE the minigames being structured like arcade machines. just. beloved <3

negatives...

FUCK that part of the thursday witching hour where you have to play in complete darkness. just fuck off. i know i sound dramatic but this is a "what were the devs thinking" bit for me. no one on earth would want to play that.

some comments of the playthrough said that the puzzles were a nightmare, especially for first time players. and i have to agree to some extent. all the puzzles that take place in the crow's section (the yellow castle/wheat field/maze) just feel exhausting, mainly the shaky bird trees and the saving apfel quest. at times it feels like a "you have to take damage to continue" segment

muffy :/ she's adorable, but she's only used for the suspicion mechanic and stealing your food. maybe it was just the playthough i watched, but food can be pretty costly along with buying regen supplies and oil. maybe she could've vouched for elise in a tense scene if the player helps her! that would've felt nice. also, the joke about elise constantly calling her the wrong name is just... really lazy humor

when it comes with the endings with the girlfriends (1-3 and 5-7), despite how the happy ones are very different, i don't feel like replaying the game to get them is worth it. honestly, the ending that intrigued me the most is ending 4 with father hans because it's so unique

as i said above, the game wouldn't be something that i would want to play for myself, but i would definitely share with others. i'm tempted to check out the original pocket mirror and the remake now!

#waba talk #games #lgts #OH #ALSO #JUST REMEMBERED #why does elise call her “rosmarine”#the voicelines don't even match up #was this mentioned somewhere. am i dumb #waba thoughts

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bartholomew-junior · 1 month

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2, 3, 4, sips exact same questions from my last ask sure we ball

ok i’m gonna throw in 2 freebie questions 4 this one for fun, if that’s alright, apologies if it isn’t ^-^ i was just eyeing this 4 sips and thought this was a good chance.

2 . you could probably find some1 in the fandom who could ramble and rave about sips’ personality, design, vibes, etc. for DAYS. and i am no different, really. the themes of his character are being lost in the world and trying to find purpose and learning to be vulnerable and heal, which speaks to a LOT of people, as well as his personality (that is kind of infused with dingo’s humor, quirks, struggles). also the way he’s drawn, shit-eating grin and generally being a prick gets a lot of people hooked. basically, his whole design and personality pretty much, but if i had to narrow it down, i would say his special kind of defiance and general prick aura.

3 . i feel like his base design without the croc arm could be spiced up a liiittle bit more and given a few more ornaments, but that’s just me. the combo of open vest and harem pants just reminds me of aladdin lol. but who cares i’m not his character designer and its just a nitpick lmao

4 . same kind of genre as erina, aka obscure old anime. i’d give his a few more shonen elements and jttw inspiration, and a different artstyle kind of like jojo’s bizarre adventure (LOL) with more crosshatching and messier lines, more distinctive atmosphere, and draw sips very similarly to how he is in the series. the original series has a kind of storyboard feel, especially in the later episodes, and i think dull/greyscale backgrounds with some bright colors could make things more visually interesting. also psychological horror

bonus. kind of:

7 . same headcanons they give to ohio jack, which is making him trans, autistic, etc. i do enjoy the more realistic takes on his design, like making him look like a whole ass macaque cuz i think it’s fun. i’ve drawn sips w top surgery scars b4, and i think it’s a cool addition to his character. also, i really, really like that at least this part of the fandom acknowledges that he’s aroace and doesn’t really ship him and instead focuses on his friendships, which i think does his character more of a service than shipping him with gothi. bit fandom will fandom, and i have nothing against shipping, etc. in short, i like this little corner of the fandom :]]

18 . i already wrote about gothi and sips, so i’ll do a different one this time. i wouldn’t say admire like at all, but this one is rlly interesting to me (and if you’ve been looking @ this blog 4 a bit, i do mention this duo), which is xanu and sips (and also the existence of xips). they’re foils, and have so many parallels like in the way they were both experimented on, hold their friends in high regard and everyone else is suspicious to them, etc., but sips seems more aware? which is a rarity when he’s contrasted with other people and both of them bring out a less seen side of each other, with sips meeting an actual Bad Guy and being less murderous compared to him, and xanu being especially annoyed and irritated by sips and kind of enabling him. agh. they should never talk to each other again. sorry 4 the ramble

summary: hehe funny little guy

comiclink: https://www.tumblr.com/dingodoodles/174215134831/doodle-of-a-scene-from-this-weeks-session-sips?source=share

#sorry this took 20 years #additionally sorry for yapping #thank u again circular!! these r always fun #fools gold dnd

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thefanciestborrower · 1 year

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(asking this anon because I’m a bit nervous lol)

Ok so sorry if this has been asked before or if you’ve already explained it but would you be able to explain exactly I guess the appeal of vore? This is coming from a place of genuine curiosity because I think it’s really interesting, and also the different types of it too? I’ve seen a lot of shortened words (like pred, etc) and was curious about those as well :0

P.S. I love your artstyle!!! It’s so cottagecore and cozy, you seem like a lovely person :)

No worries buddy! I’ve got anon for a reason haha so no shame in doing what you’re comfortable with :)

I’ve talked about this a bit before, but I genuinely don’t mind talking about it again! It’s kinda fun to think about actually.

I think the appeal is different for a lot of people, but for me, I mostly see it as a fascinating story trope to mess with. It adds this whole other level of character dynamic and such to mess with that I’m not sure you could really get otherwise you know? You can get extra layers of friendship shenanigans, very sweet romantic interactions, up the stakes for fights between villains and heroes, and other things like that. I think that the threat or option of being eaten, wether by friend or enemy, opens up this whole other side of characters you wouldn’t get to see normally. Just how much do they trust their friends? Would they really be so confident in the face of that sort of danger? How much will someone put themself through just to protect a friend inside of them? Stuff like that.

It’s also fun from a world building perspective! Especially if we’re talking sci-fi or fantasy, since both genres deal with loads of different species and weird tech/magic, and I personally find it hard to believe something along these lines wouldn’t exist as a cultural practice or smugglers’ trick you know? It just adds a cool layer to the world and gives even more options when fleshing out weird otherworldly feeling concepts and I love it.

I also see it as probably one of the most...oh how do I say this without sounding weird...intimate forms of connection that can be formed platonically? Personally, as someone who is both aromantic and asexual, I am not really interested in stuff outside friendship (though vore can absolutely be used in romantic and other situations and I like it a lot in romantic scenarios), but I still very much enjoy the concept of being incredibly close to a friend, so I guess that might have fused with my love of anatomy and formed my current interest in vore. I think it’s a very interesting to think about expressing affection in a “hey man I love you so much I want to put you inside my own being” kind of way. I’m also fairly touch starved in general but at the same time am not a fan of being touched if that makes sense, so the thought of laying inside of someone I trust, completely surrounded by them without feeling like I’m being poked or prodded is very appealing. Plus I don’t know, I think there’s something very beautiful about the body in general. All these internal systems working overtime to keep us alive that we never even get to see... There’s a whole other world inside of each and every person, unique and yet the same, and oh so beautiful. A wonderful machine painstakingly crafted by a master artist piece by delicate piece.

I think this little quote from an essay I wrote on what it means to me to be an artist describes my feelings on the matter the best.

“Most of what I reflect in my art is a really specific idea of beauty I’ve been toying with for years that has to do with hidden aspects of nature not often really looked at or paid attention too. Then I take those overlooked aspects and put my own strong personal emotions into what I create to make something new and unique. I also enjoy exploring interpersonal relationships between unique and complicated characters in my art. “

Okay now on to the less philosophical stuff haha! You asked about shortened words and shared terms and stuff so I’ll do my best to explain a few of the most common ones

Pred is short for predator, and refers to the person doing the eating

Prey is...well, the person being eaten lol

(Full disclosure, I’m not a huge fan of the terms pred and prey, but we don’t really have better words for said roles at the moment either so 🤷🏻)

Soft vore means there’s no biting involved, but the prey could still be killed via digestion

Safe vore means the prey isn’t killed, though there could still be some mild injury

Hard vore includes things like biting and is usually fairly gory

Fatal vore is, well, fatal for the prey. They don’t make it out

G/t vore stands for giant/tiny vore and refers to scenarios with an extreme size difference, like a fairy and a human or human and giant

Half/similar sized vore would be vore between a human and say...another person anywhere from one to three feet. So the prey is a fourth to half the size of the pred

Same size vore is vore between two characters of roughly the same size, though it might be hard to tell with creatures like nagas and such since they’re pretty long

I hope all of these answered your questions, and if you want to know more or even just chat you’re more than welcome to send as many asks as you like! I genuinely don’t mind and am always happy to explain anything you have questions about. Also, I am so flattered you like my art! As an aspiring illustrator that really does mean a lot haha.

Thank you so much for the ask and have a good day/night! :)

#Ask #vore ask #anon ask #vore mention #nonsexual vore

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cacaitos · 2 months

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(setting lhc aside for the moment) well, let's get out of the way the long overdue thoughts on blue period, mostly for the sake of further conversation. (mucho texto tw)

clearly i lost the peak on popularity and attention it had and at this point, if you've heard it's good in that good taste gang type of animanga fan voice, well yeah it is. i gots nothing new to say on that regard. if anything the tone and artstyle were the differentiating factors from the outside impression i got from it, not so much on the big strokes (like the spokon-like sense of urgency and vigor, but that's serious enough that people seem to express being moved in specific ways).

those things i get- but tsubasa's incredibly thin and sinuous line art, and her high contrast, flatter use of shadows (and inking)- i think were the ones that best ended up portraying yatora's feelings. in my opinion, the greatest feeling i got all through reading BP was tension, a certain uneasyness. now BP isn't necessarily a downer series- it's got its consistent sense of optimism and interpersonal warmess- but it ambients always have a certain air of loneliness, coldness, the aforementioned uneasyness and sensation that there's always Something- that something is gonna happen or that something is lurking aorund- that sort of feeling yk?

the lineart, to me, makes me think of asumiko nakamura's and her bodies that- while they do evidence her skill with the line and detail- at moments feel almost grotesque or sort of uncomfortable to look at, at least. tsubasa's even thiner lines, while she doesnt get to the point of nakamura (and im not saying she was inspired by nakamura. dunno if she's that popular to inspire people like that), make her characters- their expressions and body, look even more fragile, like a balloon about to burst, a thin skin.

clearly a lot of the time is dedicated to make understand that yatora is less of a social butterfly, much more shyer, more sensitive, more concerned and aimless than he might seem at first glance. much more fragile, in personality and identity, than he might have thought of himself. within the undercurrent of all the takes in the manga of what makes good art, or a good artist, as an extension of the many ways one can define one's idenity and relationshisps with others, i cannot really tell you which is more true or anything like that... but what i do feel is that in yatora's pursuit to find out, more often than not, what he results in is alienating himself from others (from the abovementioned traits). now, obviously some stories about identity do end up having similarly arduous and downer types of arcs but usually more on the Relationships Are Dificult angle than the stressful part being the action itself of selfdiscovering, an stress of the Individual. i said in my LB that if you told me BP was a cautionary tale i would believe you (half joking tbh), mostly refering to this seemingly (in my opinionnnn) downward emotional arc yatora seems to be going into so far in the story. i understand it's not necessarily a bad thing it's *happening* bc some parts are just gonna be tough and can ease with time, but it's nonetheless a fact that it *is* happening and feels bad.

closing, with the paragraphs stating how i feel about the art and specifying the uneasyness, and the above part on yatora now i think i can elaborate on why the former complements the latter, though it's probably apparent by now. yes the loneliness of shadows felt the strongest as the gedai exam approached and yatora's physical state worsened against his loved ones preocupation, and on the cold room he was in with yuka. the same room they did their self portraits and the odd lineart shows us as awkward as yatora (or yuka, anyway) sees himself (following the theme of identity etc). yes it's stressing to wonder if he passed and relaxing when he did, but the tone hasnt changed one bit. *here*, when he does get to gedai is that the real uneasyness starts and contrary to the clear objective or urgency of the exam, there's not really anything that allows for that tension to be released. nothing bad is happening and being a bit hurt is part of the process, yes; he as many others does have to learn to take critiques and not break down as easily, yes; but the tension persists.

it is a style that portrays very closely his sense of aimlessness of coming of age, of profession, imo. of shallow accomplishment -not bad- but rather non-cathartic. at the verge, and never quite there, of an emotion. of course we're in the middle of the story i assume so it's not like i find the sense of unreleased tension comes out of nowhere if anything particularly important happens, but also there's just a certain reality to that sort of static state.

but while yatora's spirits seem to go progressively down while relatively good things happen to/around him, and he seems to.. administrate his emotions better or at least neutralize them, all i can worry about is something like the exam rash happening again. a combination of his alienating tendencies and unexamined, unattended personal and honest feelings and needs. hence why i mention the neverending sense of tension so much, bc now what was limited by the Event creeps much more slower and all the time as he navigates this part of the story where he's much more heavily scrutinized.

#txt #all im asking is to give yatora a good hearty cry or something of that sort brother you need it i need it-

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epicsandwich301 · 3 months

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So... Hotel Hazbin, huh?

I'd rate it like 7/10. Nice casual watch.

Now, WARNING!!! My opinion:

Chapter 1. story

It's alright. I'm glad it doesn't take itself seriously most of the time. With that said, I don't really understand why writers thought bringing up certain themes would be a good idea, but it's not my place to criticize it on this decision. What I can mention is that sometimes it's hard to understand whenever something important is happening or not, so I mayhaps missed something. But I like the main idea, characters, plot points, lore, ect.

Chapter 2: artstyle

When I was just starting watching this show I heard a lot of people saying "character designs are too complicated" or "the artstyle sucks" But you know how many characters were too complicated for me? ONE. Those were Husk's wings that dazzled in my eyes, in a bad way.

What people should be talking about more is how LOCATIONS are designed. Because, I feel hell is too bright. And I don't mean it's too red. I mean it's like... Too clean. I'd imagine place full of sinners to use less saturated colours. In my opinion, it would help characters stand out more and make the atmosphere a bit darker, and if I recall correctly, a lot of more serious/important moments happened outside. So yeah, I'd prefer more mud and dirt around the place.

Also I feel like I'd be lying if I didn't mention Vox's(?) design. I don't like his face, I'll be honest. I feel like it's a missed opportunity of adding interesting visuals to him, but hey. Maybe we'll have more stuff later? Who knows.

Chapter 3: representation

Now the big stuff. I've heard the main person behind the project doesn't like t-spectrum that much. I don't know if this statement is 100% truth or not, but if it is, it shows.

It's great this series has gay/pan/ace/lesbian/bi/ect characters, but lack of they/thems or trans folks is noticeable... And it saddens me a little, personally. I'm not going to hate on the creator for that, but I will say I wish this show had at least one nb/trans person in it. And I'm more than confident that there would be a way to implement such character with the correct time period in mind.

With that said, I feel like queer relationships were shown in a good way. I especially like Vaggie/Charlie's dynamic.

Chapter 4: dialogue

Sometimes I felt like people just said stuff a bit out of character. Like, I wouldn't expect Charlie to swear. Also I feel like Adam was acting unacceptable in court and should've been criticised by Sera(?) but that's just nitpicky. Lots of people said the dialogues are too vulgar but... We're in hell?..

Chapter 5: overall opinion

Honestly, this show is criticised a bit too heavily. It doesn't take itself seriously, y'all can relax. As far as I'm aware creator of this show isn't liked by the public but some people take it to extreme levels. Yeah, it's far from perfect and I feel like it could've done a lot of stuff differently, but it isn't that bad. Animation is nice, voice acting is nice too. (Vaggie's VA made me like their character, same with Adam. Didn't save Charlie tho, she's annoying lol) Would I recommend watching it? Eh, if you have free time and don't wanna think too much.

#long post #omg I had something to say about it after all #maybe controversial #but idc about drama and don't know shit so I'm unaware of almost everything behind the scenes #yep

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ticktockmyclockworkhart · 2 months

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I'm perhaps one of the most easy to please Pokemon fans ever. I wouldn't identify myself as a nintendo fanboy or anything even though I love a lot of their IPs (largely because the number one prerequisite to being a "nintendo fanboy" is hating Nintendo more than anything on earth it seems), but I will be the first to admit my standards are much lower than they should be. I eat up everything Pokemon related like the blindly eager little consumer I am, I've beaten every main series game and damn near every spin-off.

All this to say I think it says something when even I haven't beaten BDSP yet, and not for lack of trying. But the game bored me to tears. I've reset my saves on that game more than any other I have in the hopes that "well, maybe the next file I'll be more attached to". I can eat my way through new Pokemon games when they first come out in a few days and never put them down, but whenever I'd put BDSP down I'd have to reset my file again when I picked it back up because I no longer cared about whatever I had going on.

I've been grappling with this for a long time, trying to figure out what it is about this remake that makes it the one Pokemon game someone as easy to please as me couldn't care enough to finish. I'll be fully honest when I say I'll happily take whatever table scraps Game Freak cares to toss me and I'm not proud of that fact lol. I love Gen 4, it's one of my favorite Gens, and I actually like the BDSP artstyle too, I think it's a fun way to keep the spirit of the original games, though it really would have been cool to see Sinnoh at full scale and free to explore in 3D.

But today after another attempted replay I think I figured it out. It's the dumb. Fucking. Experience Share.

Pokemon is a turn based RPG, battling is literally the main gameplay loop and I found that I kept putting the game down because I would get so incredibly bored by the battles. None of them felt necessary and all of them felt way too damn easy. Pokemon Scarlet/Violet had this problem too, I noticed, but what got me to finish those games was I'd never experienced the story before and I wanted to see it finished. But with BDSP I know the story, so why should I finish it if the battles are such a drag? In the original Gen 4 I'd make a point of battling every trainer on every route. I'm very meticulous about my leveling and my Pokemon all need to be within one level of each other, lol. So my incentive for fighting every trainer was to keep my team at a high enough level and also to keep my levels rounded out. But with that EXP share they're always rounded, or god forbid they have different growth rates and I have to keep putting Pokemon away to prevent overleveling which just bothers my OCD more than anything lmao.

It also makes me care so much less about my Pokemon. I cared about my team because I took time to individually raise and train each Pokemon, and if I don't care about my Pokemon then frankly I barely care about the game. In Scarlet/Violet where trainer battles have become entirely optional for the most part I barely did any of them! And in BDSP all I am is annoyed by the trainer battles. There's next to no new content to keep the game interesting and give me a reason to keep playing, and when the main gameplay loop isn't even fun anymore, why would I play at all?

I was worriedly thinking that maybe I'm just getting old and it's hampering my enjoyment of the games (Terrifying thought) but I have just as much fun with ROM hacks that I did with older games. Most notably, there's no broken EXP share. Can't we at least get the option to turn it off? I get trying to find a solution to make grinding less of a miserable drag, because grinding is always the worst part of playing Pokemon, but the broken exp share hasn't made grinding less tedious, it's just made battling as a whole feel hollow and boring.

I still want to beat you some day, BDSP, I really do. Nothing makes me feel sadder than being bored by a franchise I love and I know can do better.

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bringina · 2 years

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So Owl House Season 2 Finale Aired And Now You Need A New Hyperfixation To Occupy Your Time: Why You Should Read Witch Hat Atelier Manga

Hi! So that Owl House season finale ey :´> how we all holding up. Here's the thing; you can either process your feelings and deal with the show inevitably inching closer to its early ending (now and always, why are you determined to be like this Disney) in a sensible manner OR you can swerve your car into the direction of a new media to fill out the void. I'm here to give ya a tip!

(in reality I'm just hoping to drag more people into this fandom, but I digress). So without further ado let´s gooooooooooooo

Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirahama: The Seal Drawing Witch Kids And Their Disaster Dads

First, let me give you a brief overview of the premise; Coco is a young girl living in a world where only a few can perform magic, and though she has been fascinated by witches for a long time, she cannot cast magic herself. That is, until she meets a witch named Qifrey, who takes her under his wing to teach her after a series of unfortunate events. Coco joins the atelier, meets three other apprentices Agott, Tetia and Richeh, as well as Olruggio, who is Qifrey's.... well, everyone ships these two and its very hard not to because they truly are made for each other. White and Black. Water and Fire. Angst and Angst. Forever pining husbands-for-decades-in-everything-but-official-capacity vibes through the roof. You get the picture. Found family and shenanigans ensue.

The characters are all phenomenal. We have: caring if chaotic mentor/father figure with a penchant for revenge and a "please just talk to people" "haha, nope" avoidance tactic; his very tired workaholic husband trying to keep chaotic energy at bay (Olruggio is totally part of main cast, can't change my mind); your upbeat starry eyed protagonist with no sense of self preservation about to learn the harshness of reality and figuring where she stands; Sasuke but as an actually well written girl (THE best character dont at me) and also the one name where NO ONE can agree on spelling (I've seen no less than six different spellings of Agott's name and three versions of her surname, can we PLEASE figure this out); the one who's seemingly cold and disinterested but will not hesitate to fight you for what she believes in; and sunshine incarnate that will so break my heart when we learn her sad backstory (because I refuse to believe there isn't a sad backstory lurking in future chapters given the series' track record). Also I'm doing them all injustice by summarizing like this; they're all deeper characters than they appear, but I assume you don't want to read additional sixty pages of me gushing on this already long post. Not to mention the delightful side characters. Moving on.

Something that Owl House fans will notice near immediately is the magic system; WHA has a remarkably similar idea of magic that is cast through drawing just like glyphs, only “seals” are more complex.

This leads to almost endless possibilities as long as you have needed imagination and skill to execute the spell properly: and you bet the characters show real ingenuity time and time again. Seeing all the spells you never would have thought of truly is a, hah, magical experience.

Of course, endless possibilities mean disasterous consequences in wrong hands, and the world suffers as a result. Even the best of intentions can lead to ruin, and not everyone has those. Rest assured, the system WHA witches operate under to try and prevent the repeat of past mistakes is far from perfect, and the story doesn't shy away from exploring how it affects the people who "fall through the cracks" so to speak, along with other 'heavier' topics like disability and the responsibility adults have towards children to name a few (some of these adults are! Actually competent and try their best! Can you imagine!). Needless to say all of the characters have trauma, angst ahoy.

Witch Hat Atelier is unique in its absolutely breathtaking artstyle, and especially the way it plays with the manga media itself. My words cannot do it justice, but this youtube video from someone way more knowledgeable may give you a glimpse at understanding one part of its charm. Suffice to say, it sure is a pretty read in addition to being engaging.

And well, that's about all i can say without going on an even longer, more spoilery tangent. As of the time of this post, there is 59 chapters total with 57 of them translated in English. I hope i was able to at least pique your curiousity enough to give it a shot, and I hope you have a good time reading it :>

#witch hat atelier #the owl house #wha #toh #(chanting in your ear) oooooh you wanna read wha so baaaad #seriously though please please give it a chance in any of this sounds appealing to you. the manga truly deserves more attention #i tried very hard to give my best salesman pitch please just read this manga you wont regret it #bringie talks

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asachuu · 10 months

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Okay, I’ve drawn some edgy stuff before and I’ll obviously do it again, but this…well, it’s probably not a lot in the general scheme of things, but as for this account so far, who knows.

Content warning for blood, and I’m not sure if it counts as mild body horror as well or not, but it’s better to be safe.

He may be a horror beyond human comprehension to you, I understand him just fine…but all jokes aside, I suppose I’ll explain the thought process here before rambling on about all else, just because I considered posting it a while ago already…and I’m sure it requires that.

In short, the context is an AU I initially thought about just to draw a single shitpost which I still haven’t ended up making, and I’m truly hoping nobody has come up this before as I generally don’t interact with the BSD fandom as a whole, so I wouldn’t really know.

Regardless, I guess you could say it’s a worse version of Fifteen in which Arthur doesn’t end up taking in Chuuya’s ability, but Paul’s instead, and the logistics of this are really wonky at the moment since I haven’t exactly spent my days planning it out, but oh well. My thought was, if that had happened for whatever reason, in the scenario that the plot would have continued the exact same way as Fifteen up until the fight between Arthur, Dazai and Chuuya, what would have been the outcome? On one hand, in the better case, it could have gone the same way, perhaps with Arthur forgetting he could have used an ability other than his own, ultimately failing and meeting the same exact fate as in the novel— believing he ended his partner’s life and having all end on that note, nothing truly changing…but on the other hand, if he hadn’t forgotten about it, perhaps he could have won the fight much easier in some entirely different way, and what would have been of it all then if he’d been the lone survivor, succeeding in taking in Chuuya’s ability, yet learning what he’d truly done, what and who he’d sacrificed for that knowledge, even what he’d actually used to win the fight itself, which would have been the last thing left of his former associate?

You can interpret this in two ways, either as genuine speculation of the most awful outcome or merely an excuse to draw some messed up semi-Guivre-style abomination that I now believe I should have made far, far worse considering how it’s described in Stormbringer, but no matter which it is as not even I know, I’m quite tempted to write something about it over on AO3, although my ongoing WIP is slightly weighing me down. I could potentially postpone the latter, but due to some personal circumstances, I’m not sure if that’s the right decision here…but who knows. Either way, it has major angst potential, and I’m one to latch onto that sometimes.

Now, as for the artwork itself, to set aside that concept…I’m not particularly sure how I eventually got this done as it’s one of those drawings that were threatened with deletion several times, looked absolutely unpublishable throughout the whole process before something miraculously changed five hours in, but it’s here anyway. I was first meant to use my usual artstyle for this, then I got inspired by a few other posts and tried something close to them for a while, yet I somehow wound up with a style similar to Beast again, which…wasn’t the intention. Nonetheless, I’m quite content with it, which I’m really surprised by considering how much I truly believed I was only finishing this one up to send in a chat once and never think of it again.

All that said, maybe this would have had a few bloodstains less if I hadn’t been listening to some stuff that, although lyrically completely unrelated, probably still played a good part in what I eventually turned to, so the playlist to thank is Chronostasis, Deus Ex Machina, Lovers In Abyss — Release Hallucination, 断罪の焔と恋人たちの輪舞曲 — Imperial Circus Dead Decadence, and if this is just an excuse to throw these songs here, I’ll never tell.

#art #my art #rkgk #bungou stray dogs #bsd fifteen #bsd fanart #bsd arthur rimbaud #randou #asachuu #I’ll confess to something #I’m drawing and writing all this #while there is a chibi Randou plush on my desk #just about the least serious thing ever #and I finish up all this angst just to stare up at it #I guess it’s refreshing? lol

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2hoothoots · 1 year

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I was wondering what if anything you thought of B-mask's P2 analysis on youtube! he brings up points of thematic dissonance about the way the maliks were handed (as well as wishing the interns/the P1 gang were better included which I think we all concur on)

ooh, LOVE a good video essay! i hadn't seen this one before but it was great to have on while i was sculpting this morning. i'm gonna link it here for anyone who hasn't seen it, if you've got the time it's a good watch:

youtube

i'd say i broadly agree with it, although i think the analysis loses me at the end. imo he tries to read in much too literally to the parallels between the Maliks and the real-life case of Tsar Nicholas II/the Romanov family. to me that's always been a much more allegorical reference, and i'd actually specifically point to '60s-era Cold War tensions between the USA and the USSR as a much closer thematic parallel to the whole Maligula thing, which is mentioned but not really dug into properly in the video. (in fact, i think that comparison makes the themes of propaganda in the game much clearer, especially given how the Psychonauts are so clearly American in all but name.) it's a shame, because i think everything else is pretty good stuff, but the last 20-or-so minutes feel pretty weak to me.

the video kind of pulls double-duty as an analysis of PN2's themes, and also a comparison and in some ways a critique of it versus the first game. that's something that i've been chewing over since... basically the moment it came out, haha, because i'm in the exact same boat of someone who's absolutely in love with the first game and doesn't quite feel like the sequel was as good (although it's a fantastic game in its own right and i love it a whole lot). so i'm gonna take this as an opportunity to dump my own thoughts on it! this is gonna get long so i'm putting it under a cut: tl;dr, the conclusion that i've basically come to on the game is that while it's not perfect, Psychonauts 2 is, in my opinion, probably the best possible version of what it is, given the circumstances around it and the nature of it as a crowdfunded sequel to a 2000s cult classic and a clear passion project by everyone involved.

the video brings up three main points of comparison/critique: the visuals, the structure/novelty of the gameplay, and the depth of the ensemble cast. i'm gonna borrow that structure, and then go into a little more of why i think certain decisions and compromises were made. overall, i think there were a lot of difficult decisions that had to be made during the development of PN2, and the more i dig into each one the more it seems like a lot of these decisions were made the only way they could be.

in terms of visuals: i can't disagree that the new game looks absolutely great, although i personally wish they'd gone just a little weirder with it. the stylized ugliness of the first game is one of my favourite things about it, and i know that part of that was due to the low poly count... but i dunno, i think there was still the opportunity to make the designs in PN2 a little less cute and a little more grotesque. it feels like the edge has been filed off, pun intended, and a little of the gloomy gothic feel of the first game is gone. i do love the look of the second game, but i can't help but feel that a little something was lost from moving from the deliberate asymmetry and exaggeration of the first game to something a little more... i guess i'd say 'clean' and palatable.

i can't lie, i think that's kind of a shame! but i also definitely get it, especially from a marketing standpoint. the style of PN1 is deeply mid-2000s, calling to mind properties like The Nightmare Before Christmas (which was cited by Tim as a direct inspiration for the game's artstyle) or Invader Zim (iirc, Jhonen Vasquez is a friend of the studio). there's definitely an argument to be made that that kind of angularity would feel dated in a modern game, and certainly similar games that have recently gotten refreshes (take Spyro, or Ratchet and Clank) have also moved towards a cleaner, cuter, more doe-eyed look. maybe that's just the aesthetic upgrade needed to make the game more appealing to a modern audience. (similarly, i think a lot of the tone shift between the games also has to do with being a product of their time. the first game feels a lot meaner, and the second more sincere, in a way that i think is in service to the shifting conversation around mental health. i think it's appropriate, but i do also miss some of the zingers from PN1, hahaha.)

gameplay: yeah, the lack of innovation in the structure of the mental levels is something i absolutely agree with. PN1 did a fantastic job of making every level feel deeply unique, and tying that into the themes of each level as well (ludonarrative!). even when these levels were a little frustrating to actually play, it always felt in service to what the game was trying to do. take how the Milkman Conspiracy is confusing and convoluted and even a little nauseating to navigate, all deliberately designed to create that uneasy atmosphere; or how Black Velvetopia literally traps players in a loop, constantly being forced backwards and only able to make forward progress in little steps before it all comes crashing back down again, as a reflection of Edgar's anger issues. in comparison, other than the noteworthy exception of Compton's Cookoff, most of the PN2 levels are just 'big platforming area that branches off from a hub'.

but i think the video stops short of diving into what i feel is the reason why some of these levels are less innovative. imo it comes down to the shifting market. 3D collect-a-thon platformers aren't really a thing any more, not like they used to be. the genre feels like it's stagnated in a lot of ways; it's not being innovated upon or moved forward, and it's also not something players are really used to any more. again, i think there's an argument to be made that designing a level that's unique but a little obtuse and clunky (take Gloria's Theater - which is great, but by god does it seriously suck to play the first time round) would be a huge turn-off to a lot of players. i sympathise with the devs feeling like they needed to prioritise a smoother platforming gameplay experience, rather than getting a little weirder with it.

story and ensemble cast - yeah, it probably won't surprise anyone to hear that i really wish the interns had gotten more screentime and depth hahaha. i know not everyone loved them, but also, anyone who didn't love them is wrong. they're the best. give me one million new intern voice lines please now

anyway, i think my biggest critique of PN2 (esp. storywise) has always been that it feels like it has one more cast of characters than it knows what to do with. it introduces the interns and the Aquato family and the psychic 6, and between everything it feels like no individual group is given quite enough focus and screentime and room to breathe to really make them shine. so the obvious answer becomes, hey, why not just cut some of the characters?

but on the other hand, like... think about what this game is. this is a sequel from a studio that really doesn't do sequels (and afaik is never planning on doing another one, certainly not a PN3). this is a passion project 16 years in the making. it's a follow-up to a beloved cult classic, and it's something Tim and the others were only going to get the chance to do once, and from that perspective i absolutely can't blame them for wanting to put everything in it. it's clear the team were bursting with ideas and themes they wanted to touch on and plot threads to resolve and cool new characters to introduce, and this was their only opportunity to do so. in their position? i would've done the exact same thing every single time.

a related point that i see brought up a lot, and that i also agree with, is depth - something that's there in spades in PN1, but feels a little lacking in PN2. i think comparing the interns to the campers from PN1 is a pretty obvious way to compare the two games, and yeah, i'll wholly admit that they're one of my favourite things about the first game. they just make the whole summer camp setting feel so alive. there's a huge amount of depth and care given to them; each one has their own little drama that plays out, and while i think there are a few obvious standouts each of them is still interesting and compelling in their own way. that's the kind of depth that has fans coming back a decade after the came first came out. Tim famously got super sidetracked making MySpace pages for all the campers over the space of a few days so that he could really get into their heads and understand their characters. it's great.

most people who play the first game casually will never see any of that. heck, i barely saw anything from the campers on my first playthrough. it was only on subsequent plays, when i went digging and started diving into the fandom and the discussions, that i realised how much there was. i still find new cutscenes and bits of dialogue and interactions every time i play. hell, the fandom is still digging up cutting-room-floor stuff that suggests there was going to be even more interaction with them. i love that depth, i really do. but is it worth putting that much dev time into something that most players will never see? especially in a game when something as fundamental as the boss fights was nearly cut for lack of time and budget?

actually, cut content is something that's pretty interesting to talk about in itself. there's a ton of stuff that's been discovered through datamining: sidequests (like finding Nona in the forest), stuff from early story beats (like the whole Mentathlon - an early version of Hollis' mind?), a whole Gruloky minigame (which presumably would have helped flesh out the Aquato family), and new mechanics (like Otto's bottled emotions - the lines related to which give what is, to me, vitally important insight into some of the characters. i'm not kidding when i say that Norma's bottled sadness line is load-bearing for like 80% of the way i characterise her, it drives me nuts i swear.) in this cutting-room floor content are glimpses of a game that was even more ambitious - dare i say overambitious - than the final product ended up being. we'll never know how much of it actually had a chance of ending up in the game, and how much was cut early due to various reasons, but...

games are made differently now than they were in the 2000s. an AA title like Psychonauts 2 takes more hours, more manpower, and a lot more money than the original. (this isn't adjusted for inflation, but PN1's budget ended up being $11.5mil; in 2012 a projected Psychonauts sequel was ball-parked at $18mil, and i can only imagine that number's gone up.) like i said, i deeply love the depth of interactivity in PN1. but is something like that really feasible, or worthwhile, in the current climate? PN1 was made on some pretty serious crunch. it was a passion project from a small, dedicated team who worked themselves to the bone on it, and due to a number of factors it ended up being a commercial flop that almost ruined them. for PN2, the team were committed to eliminating crunch, which i think is really laudable, especially given the wider state of the industry. in terms of the scope and the cast, PN2 is broader in just about every way than its predecessor. if that was the decision made in favour of added depth to character interactions that only a small number of players would see, was that the right decision to make?

when i look at PN2, what i see, above everything else, is a series of compromises that were made in order to bring a game that a lot of people really cared about to life as best they could. in a lot of ways, it's nothing short of a marvel that the game exists at all. seriously, before the whole campaign dropped if you'd asked me whether i thought Psychonauts could ever get a sequel, i'd have thought you were playing a practical joke. it was a one-in-a-million shot, and they made it, and i kind of think that given everything Psychonauts 2 is actually a hell of a lot better than it has any right to be. there's a lot of factors to the story of its development - it's a sequel, it's a collect-a-thon platformer that released in 2021, it was crowdfunded, it's a passion project through and through, oh yeah and there was a global pandemic midway through development - and i don't think any of those things necessarily hold it back, but they definitely shape it in ways that i don't think can be ignored if you're talking about the game as a whole.

i don't think it's a perfect game. i don't think there is such a thing as a perfect game. but the more time passes and the more i think about it, i think this is... maybe the only version of Psychonauts 2 we could have gotten? i dunno if it's the best game it could have been, but i do think it's the best Psychonauts 2 it could have been, if that makes sense. and the game that it is is, in my opinion, really damn good.

#psychonauts #psychonauts 2 #we had a power cut while i was trying to post this but it's back now #so everybody gets to see my essay on my favourite video game and its sequel! unsurprisingly i have Thoughts #but yeah the video essay's definitely good. i might make a separate post that goes into more of what i see as the Themes of PN2 #because i agree w a lot of the video's points but i also think it misses the mark a few times #also would love to hear other peoples' thoughts on this!

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