maplesamurai

[maplesamurai]

There's a cool idea for some OCs in here somewhere...

[maplesamurai]

Got bored and started Odysseus tweeting

[maplesamurai]

Train anon here: I completely respect it, I just wanted to know who to thank personally

[maplesamurai]

[maplesamurai]

lil comic bout choppers nose bc I rewatched drum island arc

[maplesamurai]

Characters co-owned w @_magic.stardust_ on IG ✨

This comic is all over the place bc it took me a week to finish 😭🤙 But I'm still fu¢king proud of it 👁️👁️

The green one's Jess, as you might notice, and Brook is the one in all brown

A little bit of Solarpunk infodumping for the curious:

Jess is a librarian overseeing the book part of the library, though there are many things other than books you can find there. As this position is popular, they always have at least one person who can come substitute them if need be 💅 i suspect the library also works at night, run by and for night owls.

While Brook is a district manager, they don't tell people what to do, but just organize all necessary info from people living in the area. Every couple of years (or in case of a serious accident) a new manager gets selected through a district vote

In the case of this stargazing event, they'd spend some time notifying people about it and (when a majority agreed on having a stargazing night) they'd make sure all electricians turn off the street lights.

The district probably has a limit on how many stargazing nights can take place a month, and they notify nearby districts so that people who have plans in the blackout area can change plans accordingly. Hospitals etc. keep the power on, naturally 🤙

[maplesamurai]

Characters co-owned w @_magic.stardust_ on IG 😌✨ (a couple more comics abt this on my account already)

I'm not a very positive person, i have a LOT of doomer tendencies. I feel everything like it's cranked up to the max, and as you can imagine it doesn't feel great. Every day throws more atrocious things in my face, and i can't ignore it 🥲

I see other people feeling the same way. We dissociate and numb ourselves by watching, playing, buying stuff. Hateful movements are gaining traction and climate change has its foot in the door

And it's all happening either way, to some degree. I feel like shit, and i'm sick of that. I might as well have a little bit of hope, otherwise i'll go bonkers 😭 Do we continue doomering our way through life or ignoring things altogether, or do we choose to hope a little?

That's why i'm looking into Solarpunk and am thinking of taking any readers (and myself) on a little journey through a better world, and how it might work, through a series of mini-comics I'm posting here. I don't have all the answers (no one person ever does), and i don't hold any pretenses that this kind of world is going to be our future. But i often hear "You love critiquing the status quo, but what do you propose instead?" I'd like to find out too. Here's to something we can hope for, no matter how slim the chances are! Because as I said, i might just lose my mind otherwise ☠️

P.S for new peeps: this is an AU with me and my friend's OCs, so all characters are genderless and go by they/them. It's not identical to our world in that regard, but other than this fact we try to keep it more or less realistic 🤙

I spent a thousand krillion hours on this and the other Solarpunk comics, consider throwing 2$ at me on Buy Me A Coffee to raise my spirits :] I'm not doing well mentally these days, but people's appreciation helps a lot. Thank you very much!

[maplesamurai]

Jackson’s Climbing Salamander (Bolitoglossa jacksoni), family Plethodontidae, endemic to Guatemala

CRITICALLY ENDANGERED.

This species had not been seen since 1975, but was refound in 2017.

photos: Lindsay Renick Mayer & Carlos R. Vasquez-Almazan

[maplesamurai]

You know the scene where Markus is talking to Occam about (spoilers) and he says the line 'Well don't leave me in suspense." With a cocky grin? Is there a version of that face without the subtitles I can use with my face stealing magicks so I can present myself as cocky Marcky on social medias?

[maplesamurai]

[maplesamurai]

Idea: the day Elon finally dies we drop our usual boycotting of ai art just to ask grok what its creator looks like burning in hell. I think this would be funny

[maplesamurai]

Why is it some writers, when approaching old characters and stories they used to work on, so often drop the ball and end up flanderizing or even outright destroying their own characters? (A few examples being that if Beamdog was so stacked why was the writing noticeably worse, and to a lesser extent if Korra had basically the same people working with it Airbender did, why was it trying to chase the wanime golden goose and push the "MORE EPIC" button every season?)

Good writers aren't infallible. The writing for RPGs has shifted over the years from the kind of grounded and melancholy writing of Baldur's Gate 1, to the "huge of personality" kind of characters of the Enhanced Editions and Dragon Age.

The reason this happens is because of characters like Minsc and HK-47. They become really memorable for the memes, to the point that people are surprised to see how different they are from the memes when they revisit the work.

Ever played KOTOR recently? HK talks like a bored professional. He says "meatbag" maybe twice in the whole game. It isn't until KOTOR 2 that he's like "Oh please master! Let's commence with the killing!"

Minsc in the original Baldur's Gate is actually a very grounded character. The schtick of his character is that he's eager to do heroic deeds. He's actually NOT comic relief. And even in SoD that remains true. BUT... he talks to Boo and his battle cries are shit like "BUTT KICKING FOR GOODNESS" and that's what people remembered.

These characters ended up being so stand-out that they're what people remembered first. The memorable characters in one game will influence how they're written a few games down the line. So you end up with characters whose personalities are more rigidly tied around one trait.

Veilguard is the nadir for this. I love Veilguard's companions (most of them) but they are still "The Serious One" "The Polite One" "The Suave One" "The Token LGBT Character" "The Jumpy One" and "The Deadpan One."

This goes hand in hand with the sheer amount of stakes behind each character's story, because "Stakes Inflation" has effected the entire industry. So whereas in BG2, you could have a companion whose whole thing is "Man I'm just down for a fight. Wanna make some money?" In Veilguard, your companions are all dealing with these massive, earth-shattering revelations about not just themselves but the entire world or their entire culture.

This isn't just a BioWare thing either, the most suspension-breaking example is Baldur's Gate 3, where a bunch of Level 1 characters all have self-insert fanfiction backstories about how cool their character was and all the adventures they went on that didn't cause them to gain any levels at all.

But problem for that is on the audience, because the audience cries 'Boring!' if they're not stimulated with special destiny plots every five seconds. Look at how much pushback I get for such a mundane concept as "no villain."

As for Korra, it's the same thing: When Korra came out, the whole "the villain is the real protagonist" bit and the "social revolution villain" bit was in vogue, it was seen as the smart way to write. It was a bald-faced lie, but it was the trend. So it's what Korra did.

That's literally it.

[maplesamurai]

I wanted to do a valentines day theme picture of kikue and Athena. But wasn't sure what to do to actually color any.

So have my favs out of the sketch ideas I had.

I wanted to give them cute valentines day themed outfits, kinda inspired by the hazbin hotel merch lol.

[maplesamurai]

I need her CARNALLY and DESPERATELY. My cringe weeb wife that may or may not be a ghoul.

[maplesamurai]

[maplesamurai]

Manga only reader here, and what do you MEAN the anine cut Atsuko out of the Dark Tournament?!

Do you like Yu Yu Hakusho?

Do you specifically like the anime version, and haven't read the manga? Do you know what the anime version changed?

One major thing was removing Atsuko (Yusuke's mom) from the Dark Tournament. In the manga, she's there, part of the gal squad, cheering Yusuke on the whole time, but the anime cut her entirely.

Here are my favorite moments of Atsuko in the Dark Tournament that the anime cut:

During Kuwabara vs Rinku:

During Yusuke vs Chu:

Between Rounds:

Hiei vs Bui:

And then she REALLY turns it up for Yusuke vs Toguro:

Post-Tournament:

She's so awesome, I hate that the anime cut her, I think she's my favorite of the Gal Squad.