#I think maybe it will be less than my other chibi style?

[nymphrasis]

I really love the Kantobirds and Bulbasaur little guys. Artist do you do commission types like those art works & how much would it cost?

Heya heya! I am really happy that both you and others really like my chibi work of both the Kantonian Legendaries and lil bean Bulbasaur >w<! While my comms aren't currently open, I do want to say that at some point I do want to set that as an an available option of a chibi of that type! The only unfortunate part is that I do not know how much to charge them ;w;. I don't think I should charge them as the same price as my other chibi type, because they are two completely different styles and one does not take as long as the other. I don't have a firm price set in mind ( Or any at all really ), so sadly I cannot offer this as a commission type just yet. When I do tho, I do plan to make a public post about it ^ ^! Since you are under anon, I cannot be able to send a message to you about when these types are open for comm! You may need to keep an eye out for that post ;w;

[gloomy-prince]

SUPER OLD RAINBOW! ART THREAD!!! Open only if you are brave enough to face teen me's cringe art...

(mostly joking but fr white Mimi and skinny Boo jumpscare below)

Very first digital piece of Boo and Mimi circa 2011!! I was 14 when I drew this. Usually I'm able to look back fondly at super old art of mine but this one does make me cringe a liiiiittle bit. Mimi girl what are you wearing, why are you white. Boo also had pink eyes in the beginning, which she would continue to have for several years to come (even in the current iteration of RAINBOW! they were pink at first, I later recolored those pages) but it was only later that it was due to the color scheme of the comic and not because they were literally pink. I'm pretty sure they were meant to be contacts, because their hair is and always have been dyed rather than anime-esque natural colorful hair, so that was some crazy dedication from Boo back in the day.

More 2011 art showing off Mimi's goth/scene-ish style and green eyes. They were initially meant to have pastel and neon fashion senses, respectively. The story was already named at this point, only a few days or maybe weeks into its inception, which is impressive considering it has taken us literal years to name other stories (I'm looking at you, Phantom Pains)

this one is from super early 2012! Interesting to think that this was less than 9 months later since it feels completely different to me. The first version of the comic had started at this point, and the pink and green color scheme was just starting to develop. This lineup features some characters that would later be cut. Lucian and Lily were friends of Boo, and Cecilia was Mimi's ex girlfriend. Notably Clarice is not on this lineup, and frankly I'm not sure why.

A picture I drew to commemorate 50 fans on RAINBOW!'s smackjeeves page, mid 2012. Boo's outfit resembled a recolored version of her 2011 outfit, but I have no idea what Mimi is wearing. What. are. you. wearing.

Chibi-ish drawings of Boo and Mimi cosplaying various characters, from early 2013. Homura Mimi is very funny to me, I really don't know why I didn't draw her as Kyoko. I assume I was trying to keep them as paired characters, but I didn't do that with the Sailor Moon or Disney ones, so I who knows why I did it with PMMM. Mimi's hairstyle changes to a shaved cut somewhere around this time, but it is much more dramatic than her current undercut, and her hair is still pretty long. Boo is wearing a closet cosplay of Fluttershy that I myself wore once. These also resemble the chibi-ish drawings on the chapter intermission pages of RAINBOW! Vol 1.

A character study I did in late 2013, which would be shortly after I made a major style shift into the art style that would eventually develop into the one I currently have. At this point, Boo was meant to be fatter than Mimi, but the execution wasn't really there at all. There is also a doodle at the bottom of me and Sunny at the time (I am the one with long hair), expressing thanks for 300 fans on smackjeeves. Considering it had 50 in mid 2012, the readership was pretty slow growing back then.

outfit exploration for Mimi, circa 2014. At this point I started to expand the color scheme a little bit more so that not every character would be paper-white, though she is still very pale even though she is no longer meant to be white anymore. None of these outfits really resemble her current style, and I don't particularly like any of them either. It took me a very long time to settle on a fashion sense for her.

an Adventure Time-eqsue drawing of Mimi and Boo that I actually drew less than two weeks after the previous image despite the difference in things such as the way the hair was drawn. I had to include this one because it blew up overnight, which was a huge deal for highschool me, I remember checking my phone at school a lot because it was just getting hundreds or even thousands of notes over the span of the day. I think it has something like 16,000 notes. Still the post with the highest number of notes I have by far, so I guess I peaked in high school, whomp whomp

More fashion exploration, this time of Mimi and Boo, from early 2015. The color scheme is starting to approach what it currently is, but much more dull since I used to be afraid of bright colors. Mimi's fashion sense is starting to get closer to what it currently is, but the pastel goth influence that was popular in early-mid 2010s tumblr is apparent. In chapter 1, Boo wears an outfit that is extremely similar to the one with the bear shirt, except it's a rabbit instead. The dress that Mimi gives to Boo is also almost identical to the depiction of it here. This drawing implies that Mimi was originally going to be present in the film noir scene where Boo finds her mom, which is interesting...

Another cast lineup! This one is from late 2015-early 2016. Mimi is wearing an outfit pretty similar to what she wears in chapter 1 but with the colors altered. The execution of Boo's body type is starting to improve but she's still kind of pear-shaped. Mimi is also a little more square, and her hair finally looks like the style she has now. Clarice gets to be in the lineup this time and she is SUPER tall. I think she is still taller than Milo. And Mimi is around 5'7"-5'8", so Clarice must be around 6 foot by that logic.

The original version of chibi-ish Boo riding a bike in her Kiki outfit, from 2016. I think it was meant to be a banner of some kind, possibly for tapas or tumblr. A newer version of this drawing features as a chapter intermission drawing in the physical book.

The original cover for RAINBOW! from 2017. The color scheme is finally starting to get a little brighter! This is actually a redraw of an older drawing from 2014, I want to draw it again someday. Also, I was going by Rain at the time.

A drawing I did in late 2017 for a class in which we were meant to try digital painting and I went for a very simple approach. I like that Mimi's legs are a little noodle-y. This is also the first drawing where Mimi's eyes are no longer green, but dark pink instead. By the language of RAINBOW!'s color scheme, that means they are brown. Boo's eyes are still pink, however.

Another drawing for a class, this time from 2018. I can't remember the specifics of the assignment, but I used the opportunity to draw the playground and Max, the dog, for the first time. I like the way the trees look in this. That little snip of hair by Mimi's ear also made a reappearance here for some reason.

The original version of the drawing that would become the cover of RAINBOW! Vol 1, from mid 2019! I believe I drew it to be a banner on Tapas, but I used it for tumblr as well.

And lastly, Boo and Mimi outfit sheets from 2019-2020. I messed with them for a while, hence the timeframe. Boo's eyes are finally green, which I changed since I liked the idea of Mimi having green hair and pink eyes, and Boo having pink hair and green eyes, as if they are reflected a bit in each other. Outside of RAINBOW!'s color scheme, Boo's eyes are actually blue though. It took about a decade, but I finally settled on a fashion sense for Mimi.

BONUS ART!!! 💖💖✨✨ I thought these would be better grouped together rather than chronologically with the rest.

RAINBOW!'s banners from its era on smackjeeves! Smackjeeves didn't have square/circular icons but rather these thin long banners which could also be animated. I thought that was so fun, so I always animated them at least a little, even though one doesn't seem to work. It was customary to write girls love/boys love on the banner of mlm/wlw romance stories then, so almost all of them say that. I still see that trend on some comics on webtoon and tapas nowadays. They are from 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2017. I don't believe the 2017 one was ever used.

And RAINBOW!'s icon throughout the years! I always refused to change it, only update it, because I thought it was really cute. They are from (approximately) 2017, 2018, 2020, and 2021.

And finally, art from 2021 of Mimi with her cousin August, who will be the protagonist of our next comic, Phantom Pains. Weird to think that we'll be on that comic in foreseeable future, since it is also over 10 years old now. Bit of a passing the torch type drawing to end on. 💕 If you made it all the way here, thanks for reading! Hopefully it was fun and didn't hurt your eyes.

[adobe-outdesign]

since u reviewed the other three dragon neopets, maybe you could review the draik next? it's one of my favorite neopets!

Draiks are one of four (4) dragon Neopets, which is entirely too many. Despite coming last however, it does feel like they're one of the more memorable dragon designs on the site.

Part of the reason for this is that Draiks are restricted Neopets, which is a fancy way of saying that you can't make them through Create-A-Pet the way you can almost every other species. Instead, you have to either use a morphing potion or get a Draik egg item and bring it to the Draiks' Nest page. Thankfully TNT has made Draiks much easier to get over the years due to wide releases of morphing potions among other things, reducing them from an elite status symbol to just a somewhat less common pet with a neat gimmick.

The other reason is that Draiks have an usually slim and detailed design for Neopets. There's no hard rules for Neopets, but they generally skew towards thicker and almost chibi-ish in terms of proportions—think like the Scorchio. The Draik's slender body stands out amongst the more standard dragon designs, as does details like the subtle speckling. It also helps that they have a lot of really good colour options.

Base colour wise, the light grey accents work well as they blend with any given color and don't overpower the design. The color distribution is also very good, with the large swaths of grey used on both the underbelly and on the wings and ear fins. Meanwhile, the eyes pop due to a combo of red and yellow.

Visually, I also really like how the little whiskers by the mouth are matched by ones on the head (which are missing from some colours?) and the ear fins, and how the fins mimic the shape of the wings. It feels very well thought-out and cohesive.

Draiks were improved greatly by customization and I am prepared to die on this hill. The old art had such a weird expression, like it just accidentally dropped your iPhone into the pool and is trying to figure out how to gently break the news to you. The way everything is cluttered towards the center of the body also makes the silhouette very hard to read, and the red head hairs ruin the cohesion thing I mentioned earlier. The tail standing is sort of neat, but unlike Meercas I don't think think they've really ever done this outside of the original pet art.

Favorite Colours:

Maraquan: A particularly pretty design, the Maraquan Draik looks a bit like a lionfish crossed with an eel. The whit base with the orange and magenta accents looks really nice, and the subtle changes to the design—one back fin instead of two wings, fins around the tail, long whiskers—feel appropriately aquatic but keep the species recognizable.

The converted version is very similar to the UC/styled version, just flipped. However, it always felt subtly off to me, and after some investigation I've figured out that it's because, in addition to shorter whiskers and a slightly smaller head, the head isn't turned enough relative to the body so it doesn't quite connect right. It's a minor thing but it low-key drives me nuts.

Chocolate: The chocolate Draik, while not necessarily unusual for the color, looks really nice. I love the use of wafers for the wings and fins and the subtle cracks. The white chocolate parts add nice contrast and the chocolate topping and whipped cream add some nice finishing touches.

Mutant: The mutant Draik has much more realistic dragon-like proportions than usual, which makes it look particularly different compared to the usual delicate design. I do think it looks more zombie-like than mutant-like due to the exposed brain and ragged wings (plus the base anatomy remains unchanged), but it's still a good design regardless.

Both versions are fine, but the UC/styled one is just a superior take overall; better shading and beefier proportions in things like the tail and arms, plus the cool tongue. I honestly don't know why they changed it, seeing as mutants can't wear clothes and nothing significant changed; it's like they didn't have vector files so they redid the entire thing instead of properly redrawing over it.

BONUS: Speaking of Draik colors that got butchered in conversion, the Tyrannian Draik is a travesty. The UC/styled design has a triceratops-like head crest, which works because the head is incredibly flat. I get that there was no good way to convert it, but maybe just... don't, then? Regardless, the original design is great. I really details like the banding on the feet, hands, and nose horn, the subtle speckling, and the nice brown/greenish-grey contrast.

[astrobolical]

A (Hopefully) Helpful Guide to What in "Hell" is Bad?

Part 6 - Secret Club (Adore), Secret Club (Unholy Board), Hell-Oh! Talk

Last Updated: Oct 30, 2023

I have a mild love of documentation (okay, it’s a problem) and I find it fun— so here we go! I’ve hopefully written out most of the options you’ll encounter while playing, as I know it’s been a confusing start with the game coming out in the state that it did.

And let’s be real here, most gacha-style games can feel overwhelming at first, especially if you’re new to them overall. It happens, and with all the questions I’ve seen floating about, I wanted to maybe help someone out, as well as have some fun. Or this’ll flop, either way, still fun.

There will absolutely be things I’ve missed, or glossed over— or even gotten wrong— so feel free to ask about anything, tell me things, or correct me.

For full transparency— I have spent money on this game, but I have not “whaled” whatsoever. I wanted to test certain things, and I have a strong sense of curiousity.

Looking for another part of the game? Check out the other parts:

Part 1 - General Overview, Achievements and Contracts

Part 2 - My Devils, Levelling, Skills and Artifacts

Part 3 - Chapters, Levels and Dark Sanctuary

Part 4 - Unit Types, Elements, Battle Boards & Battle Tips

Part 5 - Shop, Secret Shop, Inventory and Management

Part 6 - You Are Here!

What is the Secret Club?

The secret club is where you can give some extra attention to your L-Grade devils! They are the only ones you’ll find here, and there’s a couple things that we can do.

From here you can access or view:

Unholy Board - Extra benefits for your devils, we’ll touch on this in a bit

Ero Lv. - This goes up the more you adore your devils

Icons of Actions - Below the exp bar there’s four circular icons, showing how often you’ve used actions in those categories during Adore

Chibi - A little chibi of the L-Grade Devil (there’s a reason it’s here, I’ll show you soon)

Devil Select - Scroll through your L-Grade Devils— you have to have them to adore them!

Adore - Costs 15AP, but is quite an interesting interaction…

Let’s look at “Adore”

It’s a bit more than adoration, and I don’t recommend having your volume on while playing this if you’re in earshot of anyone who may think you’re listening to something a bit less… tame. These boys are vocal!

The game is going to ask you to do this at least once daily within your achievements— and you’ll also find the Unholy Board sometimes asks for it as well.

While adoring your chosen devil, you’ll be brought to an interaction screen.

What can you do here?

This is where you can touch your chosen devil in various ways.

On the left side you’ll have a close up of your devil’s face (in this case Mammon), his expressions are going to change as you ‘adore’ him.

On the right there’s a bit more to do— let’s take a look.

Two bars (empty and black above) towards the middle of the screen — these are what you want to fill, however you only want the right one to fill completely. It shows as blue as it fills in most reactions, and the left shows red

White Circles — These circles come off of certain areas of your devil, depending on what action you have selected. These are the interactive areas, tap on one to see what reaction he gives!

Circular Action Icons — These will show you your options for interacting, click on the circles for more options within them— some are locked, though! We’ll get to how to unlock more options when we cover the Unholy Board

Reactions? Bars?

Reactions

Indeed! Depending on where you touch, there’s two different things you’ll see.

Regular - The bars will fill with red and blue respectively

Rainbow (shown above) - The bars will both fill with a ‘rainbow’ reaction— this is the good spot, apparently! Finding this reaction will reward you with items as you fill the bars (not letting the bars fill entirely will allow you to continue getting items, if you want). It’s not a ton of rewards, but it’s something!

Wait— what about the bars? What?

Right, right, that’s important, actually!

You do not want to fill the bar on the left, ever. This bar fills faster than the right one (which is why it’s more filled in the screenshot), but filling it will not satisfy your devil. You want to tap intermittently to steadily fill the RIGHT bar, which fills significantly slower.

Completely fill the bar on the right and your devil will be satisfied.

Once again, I sincerely do not recommend having your volume on when using this function if you’re around people you’re not comfortable with hearing some risqué voices.

Basically— look for the rainbow reaction, and enjoy adoring your devil.

Hang on!! I can’t use this with people around??! Look at him!!

PrettyBusy thought of that, too! If you’re not in an area you want to be looking at a devil in all his glory then click the three-lined icon in the top-right corner and select the icon that has a “12” on it.

You’ll get his little chibi I mentioned, instead!

The screen is much more simple, but hey at least you can do it around people, right?

Secret Club - Unholy Board

Each L-Grade devil comes with his own Unholy Board, which gives him some benefits as well as unlocks some nice story or additional actions for you! It’s essentially a skill tree, with different requirements per node. It’s really simple, thankfully! When you’ve accomplished something, you’ll get a little notification (but it won’t tell you which devils board it was on…).

What does it want from me?

It will ask for things like:

Win a battle with this character participating x times

Enter x amount of Pure Gold

Achieve Ultimate/Skill level x

Satisfy this character in Secret Club (Adore) x times

Enter x amount of [Promotion Material] (Varies)

Reach x level

Promote character

Use the shop x times

Defeat a boss monster in Dark Sanctuary x times

There may be more, however this encompasses most of what you’ll find, especially early on (I have not completed my devils skill trees at the time of writing this).

Okay… what does it give me?

Oh! This is easy, mostly it gives your devil benefits, but I’ll some things out for you. (Once again, this list may not be every single reward you may find.)

Increasing a stat

Decrease DMG taken from a certain attribute

Acquire Story— a special story for your L-Grade Devil, you’ll unlock it over the course of his Unholy Board

Adore Actions— unlock new actions to use during adore such as Slap, Holding Horn & Shake, etc

Increase skill duration — at least of passive skills

It’s honestly worth it to pick away at it as you can— L-Grade devils are worth the effort, given how strong they are. Increasing their stats or resistances is always worth it— plus, getting a unique story for them, and more actions for adore is worth it, too.

Hell-Oh! Talk

This is just a simple chat functionality where devils will send you messages from time to time. You’ll usually receive three over the course of a day from one devil.

Like most text messages, you get a little notification saying who it’s from, and the start of the message itself. You can either click “Go” to follow it immediately, or access it later by selecting Hell-Oh! Talk on the Home Screen.

Once you do, you’ll see a list of all the messages you’ve received— find the one that says “You have a new message” and you’ll begin the conversation. These are always short and sweet— so they won’t take you long at all. Typically you’re also able to send a response to the first part of the message.

Once you reply they’ll finish what they want to say, influenced by your response. Once complete, you’ll get a single Guilty Gem— but hey, some of their messages are honestly very cute, like Leraye just being so happy to have the ability to message you.

(Ignore Leviathan and his angry emoji, he’s fine.)

I honestly really love seeing who’ll be texting each day.

Oh! You can also see their profiles.

By selecting horned devil icon on the left hand side, above the chat one, you can see their very simple profiles. Just their icon, status message and number of exchanged messages with you!

If they’re your devil of the day, there will also be a bar along the bottom telling you a rough estimate of when to expect their messages.

And that’s that! Wow, finally reached the end of Part 6! Originally I was going to include an item list in a Part 7… but I wasn’t sure if that was really needed. Is there anything else I should touch on? Devils, individual artifacts, items, I thought of them, but wasn’t sure if they’d be overall useful.

Hopefully all this helped someone out!

[wolverinedoctorwho]

[ID: Photos showing the progression of a chibi-style drawing of Gale Dekarios, done with marker and colored pencil. In Thorass, the word "Illusion" is written on the left side of Gale, while "Gale Dekarios, Wizard of Waterdeep" is written to his right. /End ID]

Did a chibi Gale!!! I really just wanted to practice drawing him. I know my current style is pretty repetitive (hell, I trace a cutout to get the base shape correct) but it's what I'm most comfortable/confident with right now. I'm currently flirting with the idea of making a Gale paper doll, so this gave me an idea of what he might look like!

More rambling under the cut!

Things I wish I'd done differently:

The bracers and belt. Dear gods. I tried the details in the base sketch and realized it looked awkward so I erased it, and then when I went to do my initial line I just started drawing them in again! Next time I draw this outfit I will definitely NOT ink those in that way!

I wish I could do more shading. I'm not really sure how to shade, but it's harder with colored pencils when your color options are limited and you can't just slap on a Multiply layer. I tried to shade on the leg with black colored pencil and I wish I had tried that on a different project first 😔. I also think the arms and torso blend together bc even with the little shading I tried they're still not distinct.

Overall I think I could have found a better balance with the details. The bracers and belt did not need to be that complicated compared to the pants and boots and earring. I just kind of got lost in the lines when I was trying to get the shape of Gale's belt figured out.

This is less a critique and more a lament, but I really wish I had more markers and some paint pens. They would have really spiced this up!

His eye shines looked so good in the sketch and then I messed them up with the first brown pencil and couldn't fix it 😞

Things I like in this piece:

I like the way the orb and the lines came out! I'm not very good with inking fine details like that, so I'm happy with the way it turned out.

I really like the shade of colored pencil I found for the robes. It's almost exactly the shade of the robes in game.

Though I wish I could have made the eyes darker, I still like the way they turned out. I'm not really sure how to draw eyes that aren't anime-girl-shaped, but I tried to convey Gale's sweetness and softness. (I did forget about the eye whites when drawing on his face-lines, though...)

Despite going overboard with the details I do still like that I was able to do them. The belt turned out messier than intended but I think I figured it out in the end, and having never drawn a bearded character before I think I did a decent job!

I was honestly really nervous about this one until I put down his hair and face colors. That was a really fun moment when it all came together! I think adding in color really helps with a style like mine, because otherwise I find the details kind of mush together.

By the way, I wrote "Illusion" in Thorass next to him because of how much the word gets associated with him in game. If you choose to do Gale's Weave Sex Scene, the book you look at on his balcony says "Illusion" in Thorass, albeit backwards and upside-down.

Things I want to work on next time I draw:

Body types!! I know when drawing in chibi style it's hard to show a character's actual body, but I want to make it obvious that this Gale is chubby!! I think widening the chest would help with that, and rounding out the torso in general as well.

Shading, as mentioned above. That might be something I have to practice with digital art, but maybe someone out there is an expert at colored pencil art and can throw me some advice.

I want to make him even Gale-ier. I wanted to include all his wrinkles and put some gray in his hair but the former is difficult in my style without making him look angry and the latter is hard when I don't have any silver drawing tools other than a regular pencil. I think he's pretty Gale-y already, but I want more.

I need to be more careful not to press my pencil in so hard when getting my shape down and sketching. I can see lines in the paper where the sketch happened :(

I gotta get a better idea of what his boots look like. And learn how to draw boots in general. Lol.

[thearchertheprey]

OOH MAYBE GEN 9/4 QUESTIONS 19 and 23!!!! And for Voltron free pick or just tell me a fun fact :D (<- knows nothing about voltron)

i like this. deep cuts. gen 9

19. you’re mad/ashamed/horrified you actually kind of like…

the limited dex :cry: i think choosing what pokemon best fit a particular climate is fine when it's intentional. i do miss the completionism and im sure pkmn COULD do a complete dex game if they werent timecrunching so hard but i'm not like particularly mad about dexgate

23. ship you’ve unwillingly come around to

im not really invested in any scarvio ships but rika/geeta is growing on me. i have never seen it on purpose but every time it is put on my timeline im like ohhhhh.... crazy women.... i get it! ^_^

gen 4

19. you’re mad/ashamed/horrified you actually kind of like…

the bdsp art style. if it was better executed it would have been awesome. i really like chibi overworlds (gen6 bias showing) i think bdsp could have been great if theyd incorporated some fresh elements like oras and hgss

23. ship you’ve unwillingly come around to

anything with barry. i was so indifferent to the gen4 characters for so long but tumblr keeps recommending me barry content and i am warming up to him. lucas&barry is so cute

DUMPASS LION SHOW

screenshot or description of the worst take you’ve seen on tumblr

i'm a hidge truther forever so it used to make me so mad when other teenagers on the internet would bitch about the "problematic age gap" they are less than two years apart and in the same high school grade level. youre insane. youre insane. nobody understands hidge like i do. nobody gets it

Tch. You just don't see the vision

[extracontentmediareviews]

Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright - Game Review

Tl:dr - Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright presents an inspiring and enchanting world beautifully executed and scored. Even where the story fails in its egregiously drawn-out third act and glaring plot holes, I constantly find myself returning to this title to be visually and musically inspired. 

In regards to game play, Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney provides enough intrigue for veteran players of either series while also serving as a soft introduction for newcomers.

My first interaction with Ace Attorney was several years prior to me stumbling upon this title…probably 2008-9ish. However, I had never spent more than an hour with it. It wasn’t until one lazy summer day in 2015, while wandering the ways of Walmart I found this game. It intrigued me with its catchy box art and semi-familiar brand name. I remember thinking to myself, “I know about Ace Attorney (sort of). And I’ve heard Professor Layton is quite popular…why not?” Almost immediately following the completion of this game I purchased and played every single mainline AA game up to that point. I was sold. Professor Layton on the other hand…I decided was less up my alley after playing an additional 1.5 titles (Miracle Mask and 2 hours in The Curious Village). With this in mind, my review below will reflect thoughts colored as an AA fan rather than a PL fan.

Review

First and foremost, how does this game stand on its own without regard for the brand names and gameplays it leverages? 

The music in this game is beautiful: catchy, pleasant, and memorable, with absolutely gorgeous medleys and mash-ups of each series’ iconic themes. It’s as if these series were meant to exist together.

Visually, this game is a masterpiece. The characters, design, and style — the world of Labyrinthia — is so enchantingly rendered and visually engaging with just the right touch of whimsy. The overall color pallets were sophisticated without forfeiting color or brightness — like that of a classic children’s storybook. The use of 3D graphics brought a unique charm to the entire presentation too — one that would become a pleasant staple in all future AA games. For the puzzle sections, there was an absolutely adorable chibi execution in both 2D and 3D drawings, along with delightfully whimsical illustrations for the non 3D elements.

The character designs in this title were also highly inspiring, both in terms of concept and visual execution. I have not encountered another AA game to date that pushed the idea of “witness singularity” quite as uniquely as the 10-as-1 Vigilantes. Though the commonplace humor and banter between Nick and his clients/opposition was largely toned down in comparison to his native titles, I found the trade-off for competent (and likable) prosecution quite agreeable. Inquisitor Barnham was such a breath of fresh air from the, what I feel to be too often, narratively pumped up prosecutors that specialize in throwing out mundane objections dipped in ad-hominem attacks (Franziska, Sahdmadhi, Barok van Zieks etc). Dare I say, Barnham actually felt competent as a prosecutor, unlike Franziska. Then there’s Darklaw — I love everything about this character. Her name, her concept, her (real) name, her outfit (specifically the regalia version), her personality, her presence, her voice. I can’t tell if I want to be her or want to be her girlfriend. As far as Espella and the Storyteller… they were the least compelling characters in the game as she was lackluster and he was just an a**hole they tried to redeem at the very end.

Gameplay-wise, this title offers the puzzles of Layton and the courtrooms of AA. I’ve seen other reviewers largely agree the puzzles are collectively easier in this game than in other Layton titles. Personally, I didn’t mind this. I thought they were engaging enough without becoming too much a narrative roadblock to the plot like I felt they were when I played Miracle Mask. Maybe this isn’t the title to pick up if you want to spend a solid 20 minutes figuring out a single puzzle, but it’s a decent taste to what you can expect from an exclusively PL game. And regardless, it’s still largely enjoyable. The courtroom battles of AA are also a little more succinct than what you could expect from a full fledged AA game, but I still found them fun, engaging, and a decent representation to the AA experience. Until the last act…

As visually compelling as this story is, the narrative is where I find this title fumbles the most. The premise holds great promise for ⅗ of the game (yes, that number is chosen very specifically) but the final act, in both its telling and gameplay, is unnecessarily convoluted and drawn out. The third act is almost longer than the first two acts combined (hence the ⅗), and not for good reason. There are several instances where you are forced to trudge through 2+ hours of interrogation that position the dialogue for the “dramatic reveal” you, as the player, already figured out an hour and a half prior. This happens in AA games regularly (the player figuring out the plot twist before the game does), but never to this degree of offense. It doesn’t help either when much of this interrogation feels like the developers mistaking convoluted storytelling for gameplay. The number of times you have to “press” statements, and re-”press” statements (in which little to no new dialogue was added from the character being pressed) is absurd. On top of that, the story just wouldn’t end. This is a common frustration I encounter concerning Japanese storytelling in video games and anime: where 2-3 additional “twists” and drawn-out explanations for things are jammed into the final act just to extend the conclusion by another hour or two. There’s an art to knowing when to end things. 

Back to the narrative’s conclusion however…yes, it ties its bow on all the major questions itself purports, but this sense of satisfaction is short lived in the face of two glaring plot holes.

*spoiler warning*

I’ll keep this brief. The people of Labyrinthia are hypnotized by exposure to a special ink, and through that hypnosis they are unable to perceive pure black. For that reason, the bell tower draped in a pure black tarp, and a bunch of machinery used to simulate “miracles” and “magic” remain imperceivable by the denizens. However, the hypnosis only makes the objects “invisible,” it does not actually remove or displace the mass of the objects. Shadows (I hope you see where I’m going with this) are not pure black, and would therefore be visible. Labyrinthia isn’t just some simulation, it exists— outside and exposed to the elements. Outside where the sun is. Outside where the light from the sun would cause objects to cast shadows. All that machinery that existed in Labyrinthia, though imperceivable to the eye, would still cast very noticeable shadows…everywhere. On top of that, you expect me to believe that no one, in an entire decade, accidentally crashed into the hidden belltower while crossing what they perceived to be an empty clearing? 

*spoiler over*

Admittedly, these plot holes are cleverly disguised with the dramatic and emotional climaxes of the story, and don’t cause the entire experience to implode... until several minutes into the credits. There, as you ruminate the revelations, the flawed logic may just begin to naw at you. In conclusion, if you can look past the plot holes of the narrative, this game still offers a (temporarily) satisfying conclusion. The game is fun and the game is beautiful. It’s definitely a title worth playing regardless of your familiarity with the properties.

[randomositycat]

Artist/animator brain telling me to pick apart each episode for subtle differences in comparison to the show as a whole

What seems like it could be on model and what feels like it was pushing boundaries to developing a semi-new style for the anime

Rant under cut bc hi I do this a lot in my head,, and I could go through each episode and pick them apart but I've got e 17 on the brain so we'll stick with that for now and maybe I'll check out the older ones later

I only bring it up now bc,, well I didn't want to before

In e 17 (since it's the one freshest in my brain) the art differences I notice are purely in the chibi style, and minorly in the closer shots of characters

This shot specifically feels like it belongs to a different show! But still suuper super cute all the same!

And we go back to something more fitting with the other similar style shots from previous episodes! Not to say that it's all and all the same style every time, but again the differences are subtle and you have to look very closely to even say "huh, that's a bit different!"

I also noticed that usually they don't skip out of drawing fingernails? which sure most animes dont but it feels different here? If that makes sense,,

They really upped their detail game compared to other episodes! all the little things that pain me to even think about doing as an animator! The work put into some of these shots is super impressive! They even shaded the fake mole?? Come on!! The idea of doing what they've down with these shots makes me tired,, kudos to the artists for having the nerve

The fingernails stand out the most to me bc there is so much detail in them!

From the cuticle to the beautiful lighting and shading when she was applying make up to his face (I don't have a gift sorryyy 😣)

And we already know the eyes are beautiful, but my favorite attention to detail is Jinshi's eyes. Maomao never fails to comment on his beauty, and artistically it shows as much, emphasizing it to no end really, but he's so subtly feminine that I find myself studying his eyes quite a bit! His long eyelashes really draw you in...

You can see they dulled it down a little, for his Jinka disguise, but even then he's got such gentle eyes that could easily be mistaken for a woman's if he were to hide his face :) (looking at you Hunting arc, missed a chance! I'll tell you!)

Maomao's expressions in this episode really take the cake too LOL

There's no shortage of good maomao faces, especially not here >:)

As each new episode releases I'm just soooo enamored with how steady the improvement is! Artists finding their rhythm with the characters and sprinkling little things here and there that can go unnoticed but definitely enhance a shot! It's amazing!

And it brings me to talk about e4 which yes I agree is gorgeous animated, but im someone who prefers consistency rather than quality in my animated shows

(quality is good yes but to go from very fluid to standard fluid is jarring to say in the least)

I adore the fluidity in e4, obsessed with it. I was under the impression that an entirely different director + team was in charge (I wasn't wrong abt the director)

My favorite bits have to be the expressions,

And how each movement feels less like a show and more like a movie, like we got a spontaneous budget increase for this episode alone!

Lip syncing too, REALLY on point! I love angry Maomao and I'm a sucker for lip syncing any time!! When she was scolding Lihua's lady in waiting, the animators really hit every keyframe on the nose! (generally makes e4 dub a bit of a hassle for me to watch) I rewatch the sequence again and again because of how well done it is :) a spectacular moment indeed

Another episode with really fluid moments is episode 10, I think 🤔 when she confronts Lady Lishu about Fengming. The entire scene is wonderfully done, with Lishu's expressions and her ladies-in-waiting being excited to talk to Jinshi :) all things I gladly pay attention to

All in all the show has a gorgeous art direction 😊 I hope they continue to enhance it little by little with subtle things like everything i mentioned above

Makes an artist's heart flutter thinking about the dedication and care put into its production

[littlewalken]

Ap 17

I don't think that Unoa yawn-sneeze face plate will fit my Unoa Chibi and the more I look at it the more meh I feel altho I have an opportunity to get one on a hybrid for the next five minutes and I'm thinking maybe.

Otherwise it's measuring day for my Unoa. Had a sudden trip to the fabric store yesterday and got her some. So far we think her style is going to be a bit like that "pastoral prairie" look from the mid 2000s, if you had doll mooks then you know what I mean, with a dip towards more historical so she can pull an Anne Shirley or Caddie Woodlawn.

Yup, I have the movie with Emily Shulman what makes you ask?

A mini ginger dolly has been dropped on my lap and a ginger storybook girl she shall be. It'll just take a bit longer to make a Pippi outfit.

Red Heart has a brushed yarn which looks to have a good texture to make a wig for her but the colors are too pink. I'll be taking her to Hobby Lobby tomorrow and we'll see if we can find a yarn that is just right.

I think a slightly textured mohair look will suit her, but being that she wears wigs there will be several.

She's also going to get a straw hat.

And the longer I blog the less I want that sneezing Unoa face. Yeah, I'd pounce on more legit ones for the Chibi but I'm not buying any recasts.

Everyone deep in the dollverse gets one, that they earnestly didn't know was a recast not from an Ebay seller screaming it, and I love mine to pieces. He's a little not a BJD or anything on topic to DOA, he's very obscure, and it's something worth debating as a grey area because it's like a physical sort of lost media.

Other real life still goes on.

Don't make me wish I had bought the other sets of Imperial metal dishes from that lady and flipped them because they're heavy and I wouldn't want to hear it about the shipping cost.

And if you're bitching about the price to restring you're in the wrong hobby.

*And for future reference, self, the Chibi are smaller than the ones that use the sneeze face so that settles that.

[comicaurora]

I'm very much enjoying the recent pages and just how much character is pouring out especially through body language and facial expressions. My favorite being how Tess is just so nonchalant like this is a normal Tuesday and Tynan's mix of confused and pissed. So I wonder how do you draw facial expressions? I do pencil and paper art as a hobby and for me they're one of the harder things to get down right.

Ahh, facial expressions, the backbone of a character-driven story. I can't remember ever sitting down and perfecting How To Draw Faces, but while I struggled with it a lot early on, I don't remember having much trouble with it in recent years, so evidence suggests that the faces I draw were in large part refined naturally during my chibi-drawing video-making process, which makes me think that the skillset can be refined even if the faces in question are incredibly stylized. Eyes, eyebrows and mouths are apparently all you need for the basics.

Cartoon facial expressions have a benefit of modularity - you can get away with swapping out or tweaking individual parts of the expression without having to do any redrawing of the underlying head shape (a difficulty faced by more realistic or more squash-and-stretch-heavy styles, as faces can be VERY flexible and a mouth shape or eyebrow arrangement can reshape the entire profile of the head). This can help us see how extremely complex our ability to read facial emotions really is. Tiny changes can communicate entirely different vibes.

It doesn't take much repositioning or tweaking to get across a potentially very complex emotion.

Every time I try to think of a hard list of do's and don'ts for this, I fail. Facial expressions can be arbitrarily complicated. Rules like "make sure each part of the expression is communicating the same emotion" might sound good on paper, but in practice you can get a lot of mileage out of an expression where every part is saying something different - a big smile with sad eyes, a small smirk with a calm open gaze, etc. We parse facial expressions as a whole, not as a sum of parts. Like a lot of art, getting an expression to say what you want it to is mostly a matter of tweaking it until it looks right. Suppose we want to make our example elf dude look devastated.

Pretty good, but maybe a little too subdued. This gives me "you just told me something horrible that I haven't fully processed yet" vibes. Let's tweak the mouth to pull the corners out more, putting more tension in their face.

That makes them seem a little less frozen. It looks like they're breathing in, getting ready to say or yell something. But maybe instead of SAD devastated, we want FURIOUS devastated. So let's tweak the eyebrows, where anger is stored.

The other expressions give a feeling of open devastation, perhaps witnessing some incomprehensible tragedy - this new expression looks more focused. Maybe they're currently staring down the person who got them so upset, waiting for them to stop monologuing. Maybe once they're done processing, they'll look a little more like this.

That's a powerful face, but we've strayed pretty far from "devastated" by the end there. Maybe they've started their "you can never win" speech against whoever got them so upset. There's determination in that expression - whatever they were feeling before, they've sharpened it down to a knife's edge.

I wish I could give better advice than "just draw about a million little chibi faces and eventually you'll work it out through sheer numbers" but I really can't think of a better way to get good at pulling together specific emotions to match what's happening in the character's head.

sidenote this ask reminded me how much otherwise solid superhero comic art absolutely blows at facial expressions and how much that annoys me, it cannot be that hard to draw nightwing pretty

[guerilla935]

My Favorite Fishing in Video Games Where Fishing is Not Core Game Play

A really awesome surprise for me is always to boot up a game that is full of action and suspense to be introduced to a fishing side activity. I have toiled away at fishing in games for hundreds of hours at least. It has gotten so bad in some instances that my friends have asked me why I haven’t just taken the plunge into real fishing. It’s definitely because that is a lot of work and in real life I don’t catch a fish every 30 seconds. They have also wondered why I don’t just play a fishing simulator like Planet Fishing (Shout out to Planet Fishing that’s a great game). And that’s where I have to think for a while. Fishing while you have better things to do like save the world is very special. You aren’t fishing because it’s the objective of the game or because that’s why you are there, you are fishing because it’s fun and maybe you need a break to swing a fishing rod instead of a sword. And then you can stop, and get back to fighting or whatever the rest of the game entails. Below are games that have fishing in them for mostly no reason at all. I have shamelessly spent way to long with my bait in these waters and absolutely loved every second of it and I hope that you (the reader) can find a lot of relaxation in these waters as well.

Pokemon Series

Since the very first Pokemon game there has been fishing. You get the old rod from some guy and then you are free to fish up as many goldfishes that you want hoping that one of them will grow up to be a 21 foot tall dragon. Pokemon has combined their fishing with their main game play and makes you at least start a battle with the fish you drag onto shore. Now fishing in Pokemon is pretty subpar mainly because a single Pokemon game hasn’t really been known to have more than a handful of Pokemon that you can fish for. Also if you are looking for a strong water type Pokemon you could do a lot better than fishing for it. Typically a Pokemon player will fish about 5-10 times total. And although fishing for Pokemon isn’t all that great it has been in every game for over 20 years and that is pretty impressive. It’s a small detail that makes the world of Pokemon feel like a real world of wild creatures.

Sonic Adventure DX

In Sonic Adventure DX you are given the choice to play as a lot of different characters, one of which is named Big the Cat. Most of the characters are combat characters that rely on speed and attacks to get through levels, some even wielding rocket launchers and extremely oversized hammers. However when you start the story of Big the Cat you are thrown in a completely opposite direction. Big the Cat is a giant purple cat who lives in the jungle with his best friend Froggy. Froggy accidentally swallows one of the most powerful objects in the Sonic universe and Big the Cat must chase him all over the world trying to fish him out of where he is hiding so that he can eject the Chaos Emerald out of him and they can return to their life in the jungle. The fishing mechanics in this game actually are really good and this is probably because Sega had just put out a series of mildly successful Bass fishing games before releasing this game. Either way its absolutely hilarious that Big the Cat gets to defeat Chaos 6 right before Super Sonic has his showdown with Chaos Perfect.

Final Fantasy XV

In Final Fantasy XV you play as Noctis and his favorite hobby is fishing. When I first played this game I sped through it and never fished once and reached the end of the game never indulging Noctis in his hobby. When I replayed Final Fantasy XV I fished for 50 hours and then ejected the disc from my console. The fishing in Final Fantasy XV is surprisingly deep with a lot of the vendors supporting what you could call a fishing road trip. In the game it is extremely dangerous to be out at night so I would plan day trips to lakes to maximize the amount of fishing I would get to do. I would prepare days in advance to make sure I could afford the trip and that I had enough supplies to both protect myself at the lake and have enough supplies to last the whole day. Final Fantasy XV really is a game about getting really distracted and fishing is probably its best distraction. My days on the lake were the perfect balance of peaceful and rewarding, this game offers an awesome reward of well planned trips and a good haul of fish.

Final Fantasy XIV Online

Final Fantasy XIV is the only game I have ever played where the fishing played exactly like its combat. When you are fighting enemies in a dungeon in FFXIV you are constantly adding buffs, landing hits, using consumables, and managing resource bars. When you are fishing in FFXIV you are constantly adding buffs, landing hits, using consumables, and managing resource bars. Note you are doing so at a much more leisurely and less life threatening pace but you are still doing it. I never maxed out the fisher class but I got it into the expansion content which was a really long and relaxing experience. Yet another Final Fantasy title where the real meat of the game is in getting distracted. When you fish you also sell on a player market that fluctuates based on market price just like real fish. You get the relaxing fishing side of the game and also an aggressive economic number crunching side as well. I spent way too long with a real pen and paper deciding how much I should sell for on any particular day and bossing around my two cat girl employees.The MMO aspect of the game adds so much to what you would expect to be a very solitary experience.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Have you ever gone fishing for hours to receive an empty bottle? That is exactly what kick started my addiction to fishing in Twilight Princess. An empty bottle in Twilight Princess means another way to heal yourself, another way to add oil to a lantern, another way to carry useless water around. The only way to get the 4th bottle in the game is to go to a dedicated fishing spot and fish until you pulled it out of the pond. The actual fishing is pretty weird, it involves motion controls which I still am not entirely sure what they do or how to properly use them but it is really fun to hold the pole in gyroscope and set the lure in the water waiting for fish to come get a nibble. Although the physics with the water make it difficult to see if you have actually gotten a bite or not it still is enjoyable the other 85% of the time it works.

Stardew Valley

So this one is at the top of every other “fishing in games” list and there is a big reason for that. It’s really good. I think in my first Stardew Valley farm I gave up farming entirely and fished all day every day and stopped to buy food to replenish my energy and go back at it. I really didn’t care about getting rich or making enough money to expand the farm or get to know everyone I actually spent about 50 hours just fishing. The fishing takes some skill and a pretty keen eye but the random jerks of the fish and the rhythm of the game play are so fun to try to master. It’s a part of Stardew Valley that I felt like I was continuously improving on as time went on and it was really fun. I mean I don’t recommend it because you’ll end up moderately poor but it was really fun.

Fantasy Life

Fantasy Life offers you 12 potential jobs, you could be a brilliant blacksmith or a devious potions maker, a lumberjack or a knight, a hunter or a seamstress. However your inner dad is calling and you decide you want to play through a fantasy RPG as a fisherman, hell yeah. the story is relatively short so you can quickly unlock a lot of locales to fish at and there is a manageable economy system that lets you deal in fish in advantageous ways. You can even pick up cooking on the side and make fancy dinners and sell the fish for higher you can do that as well. Fantasy Life is like a clever mix between Animal Crossing and Final Fantasy XIV and it kind of succeeds and falls short of it. The fishing also takes a good amount of skill and rhythmic approach to master so it doesn’t get boring almost at all until you have cleared the game.

Maple Story 2

Maple Story 2 is one of the most expressive and cutest games that I have ever played. And the fishing is no different, its all about style. The fishing in Maple Story 2 is monotonous and can get old but you do it for the chibi clout. Because much like the rest of the game you can look however you want and do whatever you want and sometimes you just feel like kicking back and throwing lure in the water at the beach. I never got super into the fishing in this game but it won me over with its adorable design and stylish atmosphere.

Animal Crossing Series

Of course I had to include the most popular game right now. Animal Crossing has become something of a connection between people when we can’t leave the house. A thing we all have in common on social media and with our friends. My first experience with Animal Crossing really starts with New Horizons and I was completely blown away. The fishing isn’t super complex or difficult but the range of what you can pull out of the water and what you can do with it is absolutely breathtaking. For a game about cartoon people living with humanoid cartoon animals the fish looking photo realistic. And the museum where they can be kept is stunning. The museum looks like it was designed to capture the feel of being in a museum and matches the design of all the great real life aquariums and observatories. Although it is a bit frustrating when your rod breaks it is easy enough to make one (or worst case buy one) to get your bait back in the water.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Tell me I’m wrong, you can’t. Isabelle getting added to Smash brought a very powerful fishing move that isn’t practical all the time but is really funny. Wouldn’t recommend this game if you are looking to relax and fish but I do recommend hooking your friend with a fish hook and send them flying off screen if you had to.

Minecraft

I have a very special role in Minecraft when I join a friends server. A role that I assign to myself. While everyone is off getting awesome swords, spelunking for diamonds, and exploring the infinite landscape, I build a small wooden shack and I set up a farm with an irrigation canal and start fishing. A steady supply of food is necessary and while I’m hanging out with my friends in a server I’m happy to be the one to provide it. The fishing in this game is probably the slowest of all the ones on this list but is the most useful. just throwing the fish in the oven creates food that can help keep you and your companions alive for a long time. I think I definitely have my limits with Minecraft fishing and I couldn’t do it for hours on end it is rewarding to set up shop and find a nice place to settle down for a few hours to fish.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

This is the only Tactical RPG in this post. Fire Emblem: Three Houses has sections between combat where you can go and talk to your students and do other activities. We aren’t here to discuss other activities though we are here for the fishing. The fishing allows you to catch fish for some reason that I’m sure is good but never intrigued me enough to learn. All I know about the fishing in Fire Emblem: Three Houses is that it’s fun. I started to bust through combat just so that I could get back to fishing. The funniest part about this one is that the fish has a health bar. Pressing the A button at the exact moment finds a way to become easier and still find ways to mess you up. Either way, I’m not that interested in tactical RPGs but I heard there was fishing in this game so I had to play it and it was worth it.

Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy

In Jak & Daxter, Daxter gets turned into a small animal by dark eco while exploring a dangerous island off the shore of his home with his best friend Jak. To get back to the island to investigate, the pair have to borrow a boat owned by a fisherman who is troubled by an invasive species of poisonous eel that is ruining his haul. He asks Jak to catch fish for him without catching any eels. This fishing mini game can only be done once but it is going to either be something you think is very unique or a huge waste of time. All I’ll say is that the sound that the fish makes when it goes into the net is absolutely a reward in itself it is so satisfying. But anyways, more intense than some other options here but get it done so you can get back to absorbing eco powers and jumping on stuff.

Shovel Knight

Shovel Knight is a 2D action platformer but you can also fish. And you fish for the best kind of fish, money. You can get some other stuff too like health pickups and magic replenishers but we know what you want. You see that little glint and you pop out the fishing rod and pull out those money bags. If you are devoted enough you can even get a surprise from the Troupple King (long live his highness) if you fish out the right stuff. I don’t even know if I fished all that much when I played Shovel Knight but it’s hilarious that you can.

NieR: Automata

I did not play a lot of NieR and that’s because I was fishing. I don’t know why all I did was fish but you throw your little robot in the pond and you lean on a magical stool so honestly it was good enough for me.

Club Penguin

If you know then you know. In hind sight there really wasn’t a whole lot to do in Club Penguin but this mini game really messed me up. You basically get to move up and down, catching fish and avoiding trash and other hazards. Basically trying to do this and catch as much fish as possible to avoid having to ask your parents for real money to pay for snacks to feed a virtual ball of fluff with eyeballs. I don’t really remember how challenging it really was but I remember getting decently high scores to about like 100 fish per round so I guess it was pretty easy if I could do that at age 10.

Rune Factory 4

I’m gonna be very honest about this one and say that the fishing in Rune Factory 4 is basically just Animal Crossing fishing but more anime. The fish react to the pole the same, the fish almost look the same, and the buttons to respond are the same. What makes this one special is where you can take it. You can fish in the little moat in town, in the lake, in a dungeon full of monsters, in a lake that is eternally the season fall, anywhere. You are constricted by the boundaries of Stardew Valley and that is how much energy you have and how much time you have in the day. It’s still fun to fish but I wish that they had used their fun fantasy setting to give the ability to fish up some cool made up fish instead of strictly things that exist in real life.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Ok, diving, fishing, same thing. Diving in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is just fishing with your whole body. It works a lot in the same way as Pokemon where you fish up monsters to fight and get the rewards from them. It is a completely optional activity however if you decide to undertake the grind of scavenging in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 then you will never hurt for money ever again. It makes my wonder why Rex stopped being a salvager to do odd jobs because this was PROFITABLE. The main incentive is that there are spots that spawn a certain enemy that drop cores. Cores are like gacha or loot boxes that contain new anime girl partners that deal huge damage in fights. They even have their own side quests and story lines. I spent maybe 30 hours grinding before giving up on this game and while it does become tiresome I really enjoyed the random rewards of possibly getting a new companion or a really cool weapon.

It’s been tossed around that every great RPG has fishing in it. I won’t argue that point but a lot of great RPGs certainly do have fishing in them. Everyone needs a break sometimes and fishing is the perfect activity to remind us to stop and take that break. Even games can get long and without these distractions it might be so much harder to complete these harrowing tasks. Don’t forget to take breaks and just enjoy the sound of the water every once in a while because there’s no rush playing video games.

Honorable Mentions:

Kingdom Hearts: Sora fishing with his bare hands on Destiny Island

Persona 4: Weird aqueduct fishing

Persona 5: Marina fishing life

Sea of Thieves: A pirates life for me

[a-girl-called-bob]

I know everyone has their ‘nintendo franchises that are never coming back and it’s a fucking travesty’ list and i know that fangames and spiritual successors do exist but I still feel the need to scream about this so here’s my personal list of nintendo ips that I’ll nut if they ever decide to revisit

panel de pon/puzzle league - this is the biggest one for me personally, like it is such an ideal fucking form of the block puzzle genre that it is a crime that nobody else can just make one of those legally.  the version of it that they perfected by about the gbc-era pokemon puzzle challenge should just have been rereleased as-is on every nintendo system like so many of their other games like i would actualy have paid 40/60/whatever dollars for each one every single time like tetris or puyo puyo or fucking any of the other million franchises that get incremental updates every three years or so.  the ds game was an incredible stride forward too like the touch controls are such a natural fit for the style of puzzle game but because they directed intsys to completely file off the personality of the game it didn’t sell well and now the franchise is dead.  it makes me SO MAD

chibi robo - dude when i first read the plot summary for the fan translation of the DS game (the sequel, usually called “Clean Sweep” due to the patch name but its actual name is much longer) I cried real tears.  You’re just a li’l robot guy!  You go around this poor family’s house and do your li’l chores and make them happy!  And then I played it and it was at first much less emotional than I felt reading the summary and much weirder and goofier than i expected and then i played it some more and the emotions came back and hit me like a fucking truck.  The original on gamecube is really good too but the DS sequel (which takes place in the next generation like Jenny the kid from the first game is the mom in the sequel which!  wow!  Jenny Sanderson Autistic Icon with the Frog Outfit who Only Speaks In Ribbits becomes Single Mom living a hard but happy life with her son she had out of wedlock!  THIS IS SO FUCKING GOOD WHY DON’T MORE PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT THIS (yes the stuff with the literal devil would not play to an american audience in the mid 2000s i know BUT STILL)).  Nintendo basically torched the franchise by trying to go all in on Chibi Robo as a cute li’l mascot robot guy instead of doubling down on the weird parody of 2000s Americana and Toy-Story adjacent lore they had going on and it’s SO.  AGGREVATING.

earthbound - you already know what it is but like, this one I actually get it.  Itoi told the stories he wanted to tell, it’s over, he doesn’t want to make any more, and we should respect that.  BUT.  Tell me a full remake in the style of Link’s Awakening with the toy-like aesthetics but leaning heavier on the claymation models used in the promo material wouldn’t do goddamn gangbusters.  Seriously.  Is it pandering?  YES.  Would I drop 60 bucks on it without thinking for more than 0.2 seconds?  YES.

Elite Beat Agents/Ouendan - I’m actually okay with Nintendo not revisiting this franchise for a few reasons - the DS was really the ideal vehicle for it, the OSU fan community is wild and vibrant even if I don’t go there, and it’s just not the same playing with fingers or a mouse as it is with the stylus.  However.  They could make a just dance knockoff using the joycons to track hand positions and put their funky guys in suits up on screen and I’d probably still go ‘y’know what for the price of their B-tier catalogue games? I’ll give it a shot’

Kid Icarus - I’m not even going to go into this one in full detail we both know we’re not getting another one until 2037

Punch Out!! - actually I think we can leave this one behind it’s, uh, kind of driven by cultural caricatures.  the boxing is good and seeing someone speedrun one of these blindfolded fucking rules but.  there’s an irishman named Aran Ryan.  maybe we should just keep moving.

Warioware - I’ve recently been playing through Warioland 2 and I can confidently say that I could write an essay and record it on video about how this game’s level design is ahead of its time.  Nintendo’s platformer repertoire includes sprinklings of puzzle elements here and there, but more recently they’re all pretty firmly in the realm of ‘skill-based’ platforming with puzzle elements primarily as a gate to accessing bonus materials or collectibles.  Warioland is the reverse of this - in some cases you literally cannot fuck up too terribly, as Wario is too powerful to die.  There’s some occasional tedium (Warioland 2 in particular is structured such that you can’t get hit by bosses even once or you have to start over, which Sucks Very Much) but it’s really a design philosophy that I think is worth revisiting.

Freshly Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland - no I think we’re done here

[sunchipanim]

So much of Final Fantasys identity is through ripping off other games. FFXIV would not exist without WoW, the FF TCG would not exist without Magic the Gathering, and actually maybe I should have started with this example but the very first Final Fantasy game wouldn’t even exist without D&D first edition. There are further spinoffs that are probably less important like My Life as a King coming from Matching Maker/Metropolismania or FF Explorers just being Monster Hunter but with FF enemies, but no one really talks about those. I’m not here to deride the FF franchise for iterating on already popular games, far from it. I actually wanna list more it needs to start ripping off.

Animal Crossing - lemme dress up a chibi warrior of light in FF cosplays and decorate my house while talking to bipedal chocobos and behemoths and shit

Minecraft - Dragon Quest did it and it was great. It took place in an alternate history timeline of the first game where the villain won. Do that with FF1. Say Chaos won. How do we rebuild? Minecraft style with eccentric NPCs, duh.

Dynasty Warriors - You keep making these numbered FF games with action-oriented combat reminiscent of either KH or Nioh but what you fail to understand is that Musou is way cooler. Give it Stranger of Paradise’ job system and let me customize how I kill hoards of catuar. Better yet give the customizable avatar MC the job system and let all my cohorts be returning FF characters from series past. And gimme obscure shit, too, I don’t mean throw Cloud and Sehpiroth in there and call it good - don’t fucking skimp on Faris FFV or Maria FFII or any lovable character from games you don’t milk annually.

[Your Favourite 2D Fighting Game Here] - I know you think Dissidia is cool and original or whatever but take a step back and look at how much more popular 2D or even more grounded arena fighting games are. How much more character-per-character you could shove in a full move roster rather than just “Brave attack and Damage attack”. Hey, @ SquareEnix, this isn’t just for the fans, dude, this is for YOU. It could sell gangbusters. You like money enough to sell NFTs but not enough to make a 2D FF fighting game? Lazy dogasses. Call it Fighting Fantasy like you were originally gonna call FF1, have some fun with it. And again, I swear to god, if you topload it with VII I’m going to bite your ankles off.

Octodad: Dadliest Catch - 

Pokemon - Another thing Dragon Quest dared to do and strived off of. Call it Final Fantasy - Beastmasters as a callback to the cool recurring job that Yoshi-P won’t add to XIV for some reason.

Rune Factory/Harvest Moon/Stardew - I think this is what Harvestella is supposed to be, but it doesn’t go hard enough IMO. MORE Final Fantasy. Romancable returning characters. Ranching baby behemoths. Real-time combat in dangerous dungeons. Maybe farming.

Elder Scrolls - You guys have a good thing going here, you’ve got a grand RPG series with history and lore and recurring enemies and themes - now make it open world, first person, and release it several times in an identical state over the course of a decade.

uuh anyway in conclusion if u make video games then rip off as many other games as you can cause you’ll probably do better than them eventually

[isa-ghost]

JSE Renaissance Week - Day 4

Day 4 (June 28th): Artist’s/Writer’s day. Do you have favorite pieces of fanart, an edit, or a fic that you or someone else has created? Reblog that sh*t with a comment saying how much you love it– it’ll probably make someone’s day! Bonus points if you create something for this. Extra bonus points if it’s a collaboration with another community member!

BOLD OF YOU ALL TO ASSUME I HAVE ANY EGO ART I’VE CREATED THAT I STILL FEEL OKAY POSTING. I’VE IMPROVED SINCE THEN AND IT IS NASTY. EGO ART COMING MAYBE EVENTUALLY.

YEAH THAT’S RIGHT I USED TO MAKE EGO ART. ONLY OG FOLLOWERS WILL REMEMBER THAT SHIT. PLEASE DON’T GO LOOKING FOR IT, I DON’T LIKE MY OLD ART.

Until then I scream like a moron about my favorite creators, some of which have actually moved on from the JSEC but I love them anyway so they can fight me in a dark alley for having the audacity to love them.

*BIG GAY INHALE*

@turquoisemagpie. YOU ABSOLUTE TRADITIONAL ART WIZARD. MY GOD. Your art style has me head over heels all over again with every piece you post. You’re where like- 14 year old me wanted her art to be. You are so insanely talented, your style is amazing, your range is mindblowing, and I cherish the commission of my infamous Bunker Trouble Trio SO MUCH. It was my laptop’s wallpaper for probably over a year. If I hear your commissions are open, I will be HEAVILY considering coming back. I could write an entire post just gushing about how much I love your art. Always keep creating, even what you might think is your worst or less than your usual quality would more than likely be something I’m still working my way up to. You are the DEFINITION of goals. <3

@septic-dr-schneep. WHERE DO I START. Hyperfixation or no hyperfixation, your work ethic is INSANE. I can’t BELIEVE how much you crank out in one hour let alone one day. Even if that’s slowed since before my little Tumblr break, you still blow my mind. I feel drained of creative juices just managing out one long piece for my OCs! Keeping track of a whole series of blurbs, defining canon and not within those, and coming up with a coherent story through each blurb, BASED OFF REQUEST PROMPTS FROM RANDOM PEOPLE? That’s AMAZING. I admire that passion you have so much, and even your breaks and burnouts don’t stop you. I LOVE that!

@lum1natriix. GOD where do I start with your gifs. JSE or other content, they are STUNNING. They’re such smoothly moving, high quality. You put so much work into them and it SHOWS, and I don’t even know where you would Start with making one, it’s always sounded like a Big Process, but your finished products look so awesome! No matter what you make gifs (or edits) of nowadays, I still adore your work. :)

@huffletrax. YOUR ART STYLE IS ADORABLE. It’s so squishy and fun and your coloring is IMMACULATE. And I love that despite your cute, round style, you still really pull off those angsty doodles you make occasionally. >:D You have a range and I’ve loved watching your improvement from the time I was new on Tumblr up to now. Keep going!!

@huffle-dork. I hope this doesn’t count as a mass post because BOY YOU DESERVE SOME APPRECIATION. You have crazy talent, both in your characters AND BACKGROUNDS. MY GOD DUDE, YOUR BACKGROUNDS. Even the ones that are just maybe a swoosh of colors look BEAUTIFUL. Dare I say they’re print worthy all on their own! I love the way you color things, and your style has such range too! Sometimes I can see similarities in my art to yours, and that’s been such a helpful way of keeping my motivation to keep improving up. I admire your art so much, and I love your Subnautica Egos series. <3

@d-structive. GOALS. JUST- GOALS. AGH. I love your style range so much! Your usual squareish stuff, your chibi stuff, your silly shitpost style (dare I callback to the buff ballerina Jameson,,,). All of it!! There’s just something so fun and fluid about it, yet its so square and neatly sharp at the same time! You balance those sorts of elements so well in your art, and I really love your ego designs too. <3 You probably have one of the most easily identifiable Marvin designs in the community, and he’s a little sneaky bastard man. >:D

@spunketpunk. BRUH DO I EVEN NEED TO SAY ANYTHING CAUSE LIKE. WOW. Your COLORING. Your art POPS and its so fucking cool. I love neon and saturated colors and its so rare to find artists who do (at least in my experience) and that’s something that seems like a huge part of your medium and I LOVE THAT. It makes your art insanely unique, and I love the aesthetic of those colors combined with your usually sketchy, messy lineart. Just- *chef’s kiss.* Your originality is fantastic, never lose that no matter what you explore. <3

@dumbthinmint. HEY WHAT’S UP LENGTHY SUPER DEVELOPED AU MAKER BUDDY?? LIKE HOLY SHIT DUDE. The lengths you go research and lore-wise for your AU? BRUUHHH. *slams hands on table* INSANE. And the way you make theory posts IN REFERENCE TO IT? That makes your theorizing stuff SO UNIQUE, I love it! Even when I feel like I can’t push my Ego AU lore with my friends too much further, you’re out here constantly dropping BOMBS of lore and honestly that makes my personal motivation with my own stuff soar right back up. I LOVE watching your AU unfold and progress, and your dedication to it is stunning. :D

There’s so many other artists, writers, editors & more I could tag but I don’t want this post getting 53826 miles long. :’D Just know that if any of you create things and I follow you, I think you’re doing great, I admire your stuff, and I hope you keep it up, no matter if its JSE related or not. <3

[unnocturnal]

HEY BRO its me.. sending u a bunch of fun ones⚡️🌈🌿✨🍜🔥🍒🍊☕️

OHGFHGFDKJGHDF I ALMOST FORGOT TO ANSWER THESE THANKS BRO (+ Vivi's question from the comments!)

⚡️Who are some artists that have influenced you?

Literally... too many to count LOL. There are many many MANY twitter artists over the years I've frankenstien'ed my style from. Though, I can say 666pidgeon on twitter is someone I've referenced for the way they shade hair/clothing, and my chibi style is heavily based off PSG

🌈Do you find yourself gravitating towards certain colors?

Purple. Definitely.

🌿What piece of advice would you give your younger/less experienced self in regards to your art?

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO THE WRIST STRETCHES But hm. use references. i was literally into everything as a kid (comics, animation, illustration) so.... yeah. try to find what you're looking for and don't be afraid to take pictures of yourself LOL

❌Is there any subjects you would never, ever draw? (+ what I wouldn't like to see in fanart including my characters)

Really just the usual taboo stuff. Oh and political shit. I'm just here for a fun time...

As for what I don't want to see regarding my characters' fanart... Whitewashing. That's all I can think of on the top of my head LOL

✨What things inspire your art?

Music, other artists/friends, and cute comic/show scenes....

🍜Do you like to snack while you create? If so, what is your favorite snack?

Unfortunately no.... my parents don't allow me to eat in my room LOL but for a brief period I snuck candy in my room to eat while I doodled lmfaooooo

🔥Describe a WIP or project you are excited to start.

I literally have too many to choose (crying emoji) Though to pick one... hm. This WIP I have of a comic for a Rosario/Sebastian pre-relationship moment lol. Rosario gets sick and tries to tough it out but he ends up fainting in Sebastian's room, he's sick for a couple days n Sebastian takes care of him! Sebstian struggles w recognizing his budding feelings for Rosario while Rosario's struggling to be vulnerable n let himself get taken care of hehehe

🍊Your strengths as an artist?

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I've been told I'm good at... body language? LOL If I had to choose though... maybe.... coloring.... (when i really really try)

☕️ What is something about your art that you think is underrated/goes unnoticed?

I REALLY DON'T KNOW? Um. Maybe. Chemistry? If I draw two characters together I try my best to show their chemistry through their poses/body language. I don't know if it translates well half the time (and I barely draw more than one person in a shot anyway FHKJFHDK)

[hag-rambling-on]

Boys hc’s feats Diaspro

Riven

Riven Cassios was born to two Omega prisoners. What surprised everyone, because staying healthy enough to carry out a pregnancy on a planet that sucks your magic is... Obviously the Rocalucce Council keeps an eye on the planet, they took him out of there because no child would pay because his parents, and he has been in foster homes, although it doesn't last long since the requirements for his adoption were more strict than most -which in the long run the Council would realize was COUNTERPRODUCTIVE for his character-. That is what Darcy detects and why the high spheres are somewhat "permissive" with him.

His mother died giving birth, it was already miraculous that she lived so long and ‘bout his father I think I'm going to kill him too, maybe. The father I assure you would be love him (he called Riven to himself Daru, his gift) thought was not his initial idea, the mother always saw him as an experiment (she was a witch who followed the Ancenstresses). Ohm, also in his blood there are dark elves and giants.

Riven surname is actually the name of the galaxy where he was born or a derivation of it, as is common for orphans. So the boy knows NOTHING about the above.

Timmy and Riven are the only specialists who have passed the full course at Fonterossa, without skips. In the end they bond about it. Timmy gives him a recommendation to work as a part-time mechanic at Magix (good boy face, he knows how to use it)

Timmy

Timeus “tshhhh, it’s Timmy.... i’m not my grandfather” fulfills the physique requisits as much as any other specialist, but it is true that his physique and abilities, adapted to the distance, give him a more "feline" air.

He is also the one who wakes up at night and moves silently, scaringthe rest of the squad if they wake up unexpectedly.

His glasses are for both sight and Aura Vision. His parents are rich enough to pay for an operation, but since he would have to wear glasses for his ability anyway, why? Practical guy.

And the glasses make people look down on him, something that when his self-esteem is high and he’s being rational and cunning he knows it’s wonderful, although many others times may hurt. He is mostly leprechaum with something human.

Nex

Nex is still a Paladin born in Lymphea and with blood of literally ALL races. He adapts well to any planet, although not its people at first. His race mix makes his face “charismatic”, like always draw attention even if people don’t know very well why they are draw.

His ability is Delay Sleep. It allows him to hold over his need to sleep for days without going crazy or losing physical capacity or needing many days to recover (he can stay awake for 5 or more days, sleep 8-10 hours and go back to being his usual self). Sometimes he does not control this well and has plenty of energy in need of drop but he is the one who has the most control of his ability.

One of his parents spent time in Rocalucce Fortress as a "guest" so at times he feels like he has something to prove.

Roy

Coming from Andros, most of the population are merpeople with a few elves and humans. which avoids the 100% aquatic population. Roy, unlike Aisha is mostly human-elf with a bit of merpeople in a grandgrandgrand level. One of his parents comes from one of the colonies on the moons of Andros and he was born there although they moved almost immediately.

Roy’s paladin ability being the canon “Triton Aura” used to breathe underwater. That and learning to swim and drive all kinds of water vehicles was what made him feel "adapted" to Andros. But he always try to be useful.

He only became a Paladin at the beginning of season 6, and it was visiting him that the season began. He’s bi but he thinks of himself as straight.

Nabu

I plead guilty to liking Nabu even though I shipped Aisha with Flora and Nex. So I have a hard time thinking about him. Except, EVERY time I try to think of something. EVERY TIME. Rapunzel. So, he will never cut his hair.

But with an island instead of a tower and a babysitter (male and wizard) more dumbledoor (not, actually more like Newt Scamander mentor like).

Sometimes he misses out on some "social customs/things/normalcies" whatever is called due to his little dealing with people. He may seem naive or that don't understand sarcasm. He understands and learns quickly, but people were very respectful to him and there are things he is not used to. 1/2 merpeople 1/4 half elf 1/4 human as both of his parents are half merpeople.

He likes to swim as much as any merpeople, but they didn't let him do it much because they were afraid he would go away or lost, so he usually went off "to the heights", going up to the rooftops and things like that.

Helia

Helia is trans but keeps his first name as chosen name which I don’t understand. Also he has formally tried study practically everything he wanted. Specialist, Paladin, Wizard (of Threads). Painter.

He can't make up his mind, his family hurries him just to STOP making them dizzy and spend a few years with everything -and actually end a single “major” choice- he wants to experience, that he has a very long life and can dedicate a few decades to Everything and they can support them. Well, more or less, but he was vip pass to all these options because family connections.

Long story about Sky, Brandon and Dia.

Sky, Brandon and Diaspro's first meeting was a show. Has it all. Costumes, lies. Confusion. Kidnapping. And that is why Diaspro insists on the wedding (I would like to mention that although I don’t know her romantic orientation yet surely bi or lesbian, here, Dia is asexual. And Sky is non-binary but his parents do not approve so go for he/him to avoid problem with them. And here our story begins)

A bit of background. Brandon actually hails from Isis, the son of the military and was chosen by the whimsical chibi!Diaspro as a playmate and future personal guard (because then she believed that touching children gave "lice" and her character and age did not have the 18like wall of royal education, then in a random encounter he called her among many things what Dia's mind translated in a strange way "uncracked geode", which is a double-edged compliment in Isis that many would not accept from strangers but she liked it). Rarely they would end up becoming friends in the end. When the series begins, Brandon and Diaspro keep up with calls, which will prevent Dia's reaction with Bloom on the one hand.

On a visit (officially only from the kings of Erakyon to to the kings of Isis) for the children to get to know each other, somehow, they all ended up happily dressing up, with Sky and Dia looking like two pretty princesses and Brandon assessing whether his dress would be green or yellow because Diaspro insisted that she and Sky had already taken the blue and red and so it would be more "thematic".

Here began the first of many attacks on Sky's head, because before it had begun to be rumored (true) that Erendor had fertility problems (btw his race dwarf-high elf and Samara is leprechaum-high elf, Sky gots mostly high elf part). When they came in and saw two girls and a boy, Brandon, not the highest IQ, but one of the wisest of his team and definitely the best fighter, played along so he ended up pretending to be Sky (also helps that his hair colors looks like Erendor) Everything worked out well in the end, although Brandon ended up as Sky's squire (better for him, worse for Diaspro), and Diaspro made Sky promise that he owed her a big favor. Anyway they grew up over the years in friendship and they both knew they were not of each other's true love interest, but, they could put up with each other (because that's what royalty does).

Sky and Diaspro have a sonorous (affectionate) war over Sky's hair to annoy/exasperate Brandon. Diaspro always complains that he doesn't grow it and it would look great then. Sky says that he is fine as with his hair at it is (it's actually Erendor's thing). The soft part of Diaspro that she doesn't usually show off has taught Sky many ways to style his hair and subtly put on makeup to look more feminine if he wants to.

How I am amused by that image from wikipedia and that Diaspro entered Sky's guard so quickly. Another headcanon is that Diaspro would sometimes change her appearance a bit and go into Sky's guard to be with Brandon to annoy him and Sky, when Brandon has to talk about her without giving details, she is simply "his sister Charbonne" (she hates that alias). They were discovered when she was 15 years old but she had already trained and the royal families considered it a sign to formalize the engagement since “they search each other” (people only sees what they wants).

The Diaspro family is not good, first Brandon was a shield (emotional) because as a child they were not “that” bad and then Sky joined him (physically and politically), handling things with Bloom so like that was not a good idea when the floor was full of cracked bottles.

... omg i’m sorry you three i’m sorry what I did to you

Also, Brandon's ability as a green user is very interesting and helps with this a lot. I temporally call it “Keypoint Warning” and I like it a lot, it's like a "tic" that tells him "be careful, what you say, what you do now, even the smallest thing could change everything for youself (for better or for worse)”. He actually has a scar on his forehead (not a lightning bolt) that his hairstyle hides after “that” day but a little less fine on the words and the kidnappers might have broken his mouth so... His parents have been cured (spoiler: no) of heart attack since then.