#I’m lazy and like reusing ideas

[ivyithink]

here on this fine day to spread my agenda: uhtred's actually a good dad to aethelstan. edward can have his other children, but aethelstan is uhtred's little boy. uhtred is his mom, dad and cool uncle all in one and i think that's beautiful actually

for those who choose to reblog/comment! if you’d be so kind to take a moment and write a few words in your tags/comments, I’d be very grateful!

I’m messing around with some stuff and your input would be super helpful! can you please say:

1. when you saw these pieces, did you immediately notice anything weird/off about them/their quality? did you notice it when looking closer at them or specifically looking for it after reading this question?

2. was it distracting/annoying/unpleasant to look at? or did you just take it as part of the piece/chosen texture and were fine with it?

please be honest, I swear I won’t take offense at anything you might say, I just want to know your opinion!

thank you so much to those who indulge me in this request!)

[physalian]

“How do I know if my story needs work or if I’m just being hard on myself?”

As I sit here accepting the fact that at 70k words into Eternal Night’s sequel while waiting for my editor for Eternal Night itself, that I have made an error in my plot.

Disclaimer: This is not universal and the writing experience is incredibly diverse. Figuring this out also takes some time and building up your self-confidence as an author so you can learn to separate “this is awful (when it’s not)” and “this is ok (but it can be better)” and “this isn’t working (but it is salvageable).”

—

When I wrote my first novel (unpublished, sadly), years ago, I would receive feedback all over the chapters and physically have to open other windows to block off parts of the screen on my laptop to slow-drip the feedback because I couldn’t handle constructive criticism all at once. I had my betas color-code their commentary so I could see before I read any of it that it wasn’t all negative. It took me thrice as long as it does today to get through a beta’s feedback because I got so nervous and anxious about what they would say.

The main thing I learned was this: They’re usually right, when it’s not just being mean (and even then, it’s rarely flat out mean), and that whatever criticisms they have of my characters and plot choices is not criticism of myself.

It did take time.

But now I can get feedback from betas and even when I hear “I’d DNF this shit right now unless you delete this,” I take a step back, examine if this one little detail is really that important, and fix it. No emotional turmoil and panic attack needed. I can also hear “I didn’t like it” without heartbreak. Can’t please everyone.

The only time I freak out is when I'm told "this won't need massive edits" followed up by, in the manuscript, "I'd DNF this shit right now". Which happened. And did not, in fact, require a massive rewrite to fix.

So.

What might be some issues with your story and why it “isn’t working”.

1. Your protagonist is not active enough in the story

You’ve picked your protagonist, but it’s every other character that has more to do, more to say, more choices to make, and they’re just along for the ride, yet you are now anchored to this character’s story because they’re the protagonist. You can either swap focus characters, or rework your story to give them more agency. Figure out why this character, above any other, is your hero.

2. Your pacing is too slow

Even if you have a “lazy river” style story where the vibes and marinating in the world is more important than a breakneck plot, slow pacing isn’t just “how fast the story moves” it’s “how clearly is the story told,” meaning if you divert the story to a side quest, or spend too long on something that sure is fluffy or romantic or funny, but it adds nothing to the characters because it’s redundant, doesn’t advance the plot, doesn’t give us more about the world that actually matters to the themes, then you may have lost focus of the story and should consider deleting it, or editing important elements into the scenes so they can pull double-duty and serve a more active purpose.

3. You’ve lost the main argument of your narrative

Sometimes even the best of outlines and the clearest plans derail. Characters don’t cooperate and while we see where it goes, we end up getting hung up on how this one really cool scene or argument or one-liner just has to be in the story, without realizing that doing so sacrifices what you set out to accomplish. Personally I think sticking to your outline with biblical determination doesn’t allow for new ideas during the writing process, but if you find yourself down the line of “how did we get here, this isn’t what I wanted” you can always save the scenes in another document to reuse later, in this WIP or another in the future.

4. You’re spending too long on one element

Even if the thing started out really cool, whether it’s a rich fantasy pit stop for your characters or a conversation two characters must have, sometimes scenes and ideas extend long past their prime. You might have characters stuck in one location for 2 or 3 chapters longer than necessary trying to make it perfect or stuff in all these details or make it overcomplicated, when the rest of the story sits impatiently on the sidelines for them to move on. Figure out the most important reasons for this element to exist, take a step back, and whittle away until the fat is cut.

5. You’ve given a side character too much screentime

New characters are fun and exciting! But they can take over the story when they’re not meant to, robbing agency from your core characters to leave them sitting with nothing to do while the new guy handles everything. You might end up having to drag your core characters along behind them, tossing them lines of dialogue and side tasks to do because you ran out of plot to delegate with one character hogging it all (which is the issue I ran into with the above mentioned WIP). Not talking about a new villain or a new love interest, I mean a supporting character who is supposed to support the main characters.

—

As for figuring out the difference between “this is awful and I’m a bad writer” and “this element isn’t working” try pretending the book was written by somebody else and you’re giving them constructive criticism.

If you can come up with a reason for why it’s not working that doesn’t insult the writer, it’s probably the latter. As in, “This element isn’t working… because it’s gone on too long and the conversation has become cyclical and tiring.” Not “this element isn’t working because it’s bad.”

Why is it bad?

“This conversation is awkward because…. There’s not enough movement between characters and the dialogue is really stiff.”

“This fight scene is bad because….I don’t have enough dynamic action, enough juicy verbs, or full use of the stage I’ve set.”

“This romantic scene is bad because…. It’s taking place at the wrong time in the story. I want to keep it, but this character isn’t ready for it yet, and the vibe is all wrong now because they’re out-of-character.”

“This argument is bad because…. It didn’t have proper build-up and the sudden shouting match is not reflective of their characters. They’re too angry, and it got out of hand quickly. Or I’m not conveying the root of their aggression.”

—

There aren’t very many bad ideas, just bad execution. “Only rational people can think they’re crazy. Crazy people think they’re sane,” applies to writing, too.

I just read a fanfic recently where, for every fight scene, I could tell action was not the writer’s strong suit. They leaned really heavily on a crutch of specific injuries for their characters, the same unusual spot getting hit over and over again, and fights that dragged on for too long being unintentionally stagnant. The rest of the fic was great, though, and while the fights weren’t the best, I understood that the author was trying, and I kept reading for the good stuff. One day they will be better.

In my experience beta reading, it’s the cocky authors who send me an unedited manuscript and tell me to be kind (because they can’t take criticism), that they know it’s perfect they just want an outside opinion (they don’t want the truth, they want what will make them feel good), that they know it’s going to make them a lot of money and everyone will love it (they haven’t dedicated proper time and effort into researching marketing, target audiences, or current trends)—these are the truly bad authors. Not just bad at writing, but bad at taking feedback, are bullies when you point out flaws in their story, and cheap, too.

The best story I have received to date was where the author didn’t preempt with a self-deprecating deluge of “it’s probably terrible you know but here it is anyway” or “this is perfect and I’m super confident you’re going to love it”.

It was something like, “This is my first book and I know it has flaws and I’m nervous but I had a lot of fun doing it”.

And yeah, it needed work, but the bones of something great were there. So give yourself some credit, yeah?

[ciaossu-imagines]

Fun idea to think about:

What food "atrocities" would your faves get up to?

For example my brain went straight to: Yamamoto is the type to put ketchup on Pasta and get instantly banned from the entire country of italy.

These do not have to be only italian crimes. As a german for example I feel my toes curl outwards when I hear of "sweet Pretzles", and i know for a fact that sticking your chopsticks into rice is not just rude, but a straight up taboo in japan.

So I wondered if you could think of anything. Doesnt have to be KHR related.

Just wanna give you something fun to think about

You are right! This is definitely a fun idea to think about! I’m sorry it took so long to get the reply out to you, but thanks so much for the request and for allowing me such freedom within it. Also, totally not feeling called out by the ketchup on pasta comment. Totally not…for what it’s worth though, a bag of pasta and a large bottle of ketchup costs about $10 where I live, so it’s cheap and does a lot of meals, which is good for when you’re a broke bitch but still want to live. I hope you’ll enjoy some of the thoughts I have on each of my current favourites or focuses from a variety of my fandoms!

From KHR, two words – blue steak. Because it’s certainly one of Bel’s favourites. His steak? Yeah, he wants it to have just been mooing like, two seconds ago. He wants the steak and the pan it was cooked in to have had just the barest, briefest hint of a romance. They barely kissed, in other words. The level he eats it at isn’t just rare, but even below rare, and it sometimes kind of grosses other people out. Of course, Bel being Bel, he kind of delights in this fact and it makes him even more enamored of this particular ‘food crime’.

From K Project, I think Fujishima eats Kit-Kats without ever breaking any of the bars. He just unwraps the top part of the Kit-Kat bar and takes a big bite out of it.

From Servamp, Tsurugi eats with his hands a lot of the time. Unless it’s absolutely inconceivably to eat something with just his hands, like hot soup, he’s probably eaten a dish using solely his hands before. He does know utensils exist and he’ll use them, only sometimes when it’s a more casual setting, or most of the time when he’s in a public setting, he just vastly prefers eating with his hands.

From Iruma-kun, Sabnock has eaten hard-boiled and soft-boiled egg with the shell on. More than once. He doesn’t even really see much a difference in eating it whole or peeling the shell off besides that there’s more flavour and texture with the shell on.

From Bungou Stray Dogs, when Dazai really feels like pissing people off, or is just extremely lazy, he makes tea completely incorrectly. He’ll just pop a teabag in a cup, run the tap water until it gets really, really hot, and fill the cup and ta-da, tea. He makes sure to let everyone around him know how delicious it is while he drinks it. He also reuses teabags…just never for his own cup of tea.

Rock from Nanbaka definitely puts ketchup on his eggs. He also kind of really digs French fries dipped into ranch dressing.

Togano from Eyeshield 21 is just kind of really guilty of forgetting to season any food he cooks. Despite what people think, he can cook more than just cup noodles, but all of his cooking is pretty unsatisfying and bland, though he doesn’t really understand why, which is why he eats prepackaged foods or takeout so often.

From The Vampire Dies In No Time, Satetsu really likes mayo. He’ll eat just mayo sandwiches – just bread and mayo. He also enjoys it on rice, but he only indulges that guilty pleasure when he’s alone.

Charles Bernard from Jujutsu Kaisen scrapes off the frosting from Oreos and throws it away because he thinks it tastes gross. He then just eats the chocolate parts of the cookies, but instead of chewing them, he kind of just lets them slowly dissolve in his mouth.

In another Oreo related crime, Fenrir Godspeed from IkeRev would eat Oreos with honey mustard unashamedly.

[gotham-at-nightfall]

I’m gonna say it: I don’t care for the idea of RDJ as Doctor Doom.

I’d be fine if it was a one-off appearance as a variant of the MCU Doom. But to reuse your arguably most popular cast member in an entirely new role just feels lazy. Like they’re trying to piggyback on RDJ’s popularity. And I’ve nothing against the man himself. It’s not that I doubt his ability to play Doctor Doom. But after years of fancasts of Giancarlo Esposito, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau or even Mads Mikkelson, it’s almost a cop-out. What’s fucking next, Chris Evans is back but as fucking Magneto?! A million great actors on offer, and they went backwards.

[drkineildwicks]

Okay so let’s talk about Palworld

Because I really do gotta talk about it this thing blew up

Apparently the guys who made it were expecting to sell like 300K the first week and ended up selling two million

They’re having to run damage control on the servers because the servers legit cannot handle the traffic

Last time I saw a game look like this it was Temtem on its first days

Because literally everybody underestimated how much game freak ticked off its fanbase

Which brings us to the Donphan in the room

Pokémon VS Palworld

Look we all knew going in that this was going to be a meme factory, whenever we talked about it the game is Pokémon: Gun

But it was also one of those games that popped up when GF started its stunts with dexit, reused assets, releasing half-baked games, etc.

People made fun of it and it’s stayed off the radar until this year, when it released

And yes caution should be exercised because this developer’s other game is still in early access so people are on the lookout for a scam

Not to mention the whole thing about using Pokémon assets, apparently aping Legends’ UI, the AI stuff, NFTs, a ton of other stuff

There’s apparently a whole thread on Twitter comparing and contrasting Pokémon designs with Pal designs and you can easily pick apart where assets were, if not outright stolen, were closely copied

So going in there’s a lot of weighing of pros and cons and some actual moral dilemmas as opposed to the whole fabricated BS of Hogwarts Legacy

Yes it was terrible that Rowling said *checks notes* that biological women exist and that victimized women should be allowed to dictate who is allowed in their safe spaces, these are obviously reasons to cancel somebody please don’t slip on the sarcasm there

But I’ve been watching streams of Palworld and…I want to play it???

You can look at it and 100% name that Pokémon and go okay they got THAT idea from THIS game (watching it I can list BotW, Sunkenland, and a couple others) apparently it’s the Pokémon ripoff version of Once Human

Which also ticks me off because after watching videos of that one I want to play that one too

And originally the big reason for looking more seriously at Palworld is…game freak needs to suffer

They’ve been releasing trash games for years now, the only good Pokémon game as of late is Legends Arceus and do not get me STARTED on the state that ScarVi released in

And then them having the gall to charge the price of a full game for DLC

So in order to play the ‘full game,’ you have to pay for BotW, TotK, and possibly a Mario game on top of it

Ain’t nobody got funds for that

Also the shills

I was telling Mom about all this earlier and when it came to discussing Pokémon games, even comparing them to previous Pokémon games, discussions online go like this anymore: “Well it’s not MADE for you!  It’s for kids!  Go find something else to do and quit picking on the poor multibillion dollar franchise! uwu”

And thus the people who grew up with Pokémon move on to other games, like Nexomon, Temtem, Cassette Beasts, Kindred Fates, Coromon, Palworld, etc.

Shills: “Wait no that’s illegal”

Honestly it’s like the YouTube vs Rumble or Twitter/Tumblr vs Conservative/right-wing websites thing—if you chase them off, what did you think they were going to do?

And then the design thing…a big fat part of me does not feel sorry about that

Because every single other game I listed?  The shills will look at those designs and go “what ripoffs they’re obviously Pokémon but not friend-shaped so ugly!”

So basically anything’s a ripoff, you might as well go full ripoff because the ‘fans’ are going to hate on it anyway

Also if anything even remotely shaped like a Pokémon is a ripoff, then Flamigo angers me even more because that is such a lazy design yes I’m still mad

Most of Gen IX legit looks like they asked an AI to spit out some Pokémon-shaped stuff and called it a day maybe a quarter of the ‘dex is salvageable and that’s being generous

And having spent the past year or so designing ‘mons for the DA group I help mod…three people doing designs have no problem filling a ‘dex out, the most time-consuming part of creating new Pokémon ought to be modeling the thing and once that’s down you’re good

Which means that Pokémon…has honestly asked for Palworld

Because let me tell you something—when I look at this ripoff of a game, this scam game that comes from people who think that NFTs and AI scraping and plagiarism is a good thing, that claims that every Pal that escapes from a ball had parents that never married, and I STILL want to play it over Pokémon?  When the scam game released in a better state than ScarVi?????

Pokémon drove every single customer to Palworld and because of it Palworld deserves every single one of those two million purchases

[luckyqueenreign]

They also need to stop with the gimmicks, enough with the seasons revolving around cheating exes and snakey twins. Or at least reuse the bombshell concept again, at least that one didn't persist the entire season and it'd be fun to steal a crazy bitch's man again.

Babe yes!! I think the main problem is that the writing team just takes an idea and absolutely butchers it. Because why in the the hell did they mention Zeph all season just to literally never introduce him as a character. Bc if they weren’t going to bring him in at least for “closure” why did they make Amelia the worst sister ever ??? To whoever wrote her character… it’s giving only child who lives under a rock and only has only child friends.

Also maybe this is super niche and I’m the only one that does this …but when I play the game I play it in a way that if I were watching this “show” how would I react to this as a viewer. when I played s2, I always rooted for MC and Noah because it felt like to me that they both had strong feelings, that started off as friendship but developed into more as the season progressed, to a point that neither could deny their feelings for one another. And then this season we had Ozzy, and as much as I was rooting for him and MC at the start - that route quickly TANKED! It had SO MUCH POTENTIAL and they ruined it 😫😫 the Noah route was far from perfect but it made sense. The problem with Ozzy was it started great and was progressing nicely but then he went to casa and had a “licked her tit or whatever” moment when he didn’t need to. We didn’t need that for him and Grace to end, especially since if you’re not on his route THEY DONT! Just whyyyy do they keep having these ridiculous moments like the Roberto being crazy shady and weird after casa ala Nicholas 2.0.

Last point and sorry for ranting - lol if fb is going to keep charging diamonds for premium choices and pay to make that choice, for the love of god incorporate that in the script you lazy fucks!!!

[miss-galaxy-turtle]

I watched the Clone High S2 Ep1 leak!! Here are my thoughts 

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

Overall, I liked it!! It's not perfect, but I think they're still finding their footing 

Normally when shows, especially reboots, do the whole "cancel culture" thing it can come across as lazy and cheesy (looking at you, Velma), but I think it made sense here, given the context of why the show was literally cancelled. Side note, the "canceled table" joke is how I found out Andy Dick voiced Mr. Sheepman

I also thought the idea of a Columbus clone wanting to distance himself from his clone dad was really neat!! It really hearkens back to the whole overarching nature vs nurture theme the show has 

Speaking of the new characters, I like the clash between 2000s teens and 2020s teens but I don't get why they didn't reuse the Harriet design from season one. It's not that her design isn't cute here but it doesn't fit as well in my opinion

Ik Frida and Confucius also had original designs in season one but I really love what they did with Frida's and I like that Confucius has a bit more personality than "stereotypical Asian guy." I'm wondering how they're gonna handle old bg characters being new students here tho 

Continuing with new characters, it was kinda predictable that the new leader was gonna be a love interest for Skudworth, but seeing him in a new light was fun since we didn't get to see him interacting with people besides Mr. B, the students, and occasionally the board. That being said tho I hope she's gonna have a personality besides "hardass that becomes a love interest," but I have faith because Clone High has always had a way of turning things on their heads 

I'm so here for Abe getting called out for being an asshole. The whole apology video(s) thing was hilarious, and he definitely gave me the vibes that he'd casually use slurs lmaoooo

I definitely miss Gandhi. He was my favorite and you can really feel his absence. I actually saw a reddit post saying how they should handle him going forward that I really liked so I'm gonna link that here

I'm really curious to see how they're gonna handle Cleo no longer being popular, it'll be fun to see her personality expand past that of "popular slut"

Last but not least, JOANFK CONFIRMED!!! I love how JFK respected Joan when she wasn't sure about agreeing to be his girlfriend officially or not. I think that really shows the difference between him and Abe, if that makes sense? And at the end when they finally made it official

All in all, I liked it! It's not perfect but I think it just needs to find its footing moving forward. I'm cautiously optimistic!

[twisted-tales-told]

hi arik <3 17, 55, and 58!

HI LINDS!! Thank u for asking!!

This ask game

3. Do you share your fic ideas or keep them to yourself

It depends on the story! Sometimes I am possessed so quickly that the story is done before I can even tell anyone about it!

Mercy Be has a wonderful beta reader @thisliminalspacedaydreams who is helping me so so much with all my weak points in writing (CLOTHING!! I AM SO BAD AT CLOTHING!!)

I love brainstorming sessions so much, truly they are some of my fondest memories with friends.

17. Do you have a writing routine

Yeah! Sort of? Honestly I just like being somewhere quiet. I don’t like background noise when I’m writing

THAT BEING SAID I write most productively in lectures I should be listening to. Thank u poetry class for your Literally Useless 1 hour lecture a week. 10/10 good for fanfiction.

55. Have you noticed any patterns in your writing?

Definitely. I am nothing but patterns. Coming up with new things is hard so when I find really good phrases I try rlly hard to reuse them in new and interesting ways! Is it brilliance? Is it laziness? Sometimes they’re the same thing:)

58. Do I have a favourite piece of figurative language that you’ve written

I do write a lot of figurative language. Some of my best of it is definitely in Ghosts Of Us. I also write a lot of poetry and maybe I’ll share that one day!

[quibbs126]

So another of my requests is a purelily fankid, and I’m debating what to do, because I did have an idea for a Pure Vanilla kid, whom I named Vanilla Powder, and it was supposed to be that her design was somewhat ambiguous as to whether or not White Lily was her mother (like she has white hair and other details I haven’t figured out yet). Should I just use that? Or should I just save Vanilla Powder for her own thing? Because she was originally supposed to be like an oc that could theoretically exist in the main, like her lineage is what eventually branched off to the Custard family

I know it’d be a bit lazy to just use a character I already had in the works for this, but the problem is I’ve seen other people use the obvious choices for a purelily kid already, like Vanilla Orchid or Vanilla Pompona, so I feel like I shouldn’t just reuse what other people have already used, you know?

[bbyboybucket]

For the ask game - 1, 3, 14, 20, 21, 42

Thanks for asking love 😚

1. ONE SHOTS. I can’t do multi chapter. Even way back in my early fanfic days, I would try to do them and then I’d just never finish them, I’d never update again. For me, they start strong and with every chapter the quality greatly declines. And even if I do finish a multi chapter, it’ll be deleted in like a month bc I’ll hate it so much 😂 I just stay far away from them

3. I’m a lazy writer most of the time 😭. Usually either I’m day dreaming about a scenario or I just have vague idea/headcanon. And I mean sometimes it is VAGUE, like borderline nothing. Then I think to myself “hmmm. this could maybe be entertaining to other people.” Then I brainstorm how to turn it into a story and make a little note of the important stuff I wanna include, or if I’m feeling fancy I do an outline. Then I write all the fun stuff or whatever pops first up in my stream of consciousness, and then I go back in later and connect the all dots lol.

14. When I do emotional stuff, I definitely do draw from experience sometimes but I always try to put myself in whatever characters shoes and try to imagine that feeling. But I only base off myself to an extent because you know, you have to go off of your character’s personality and obviously how I feel things is different than what they would.

But I draw from sympathy a lot too? Like I kinda think about what would make me wanna comfort them the most 😂 Another thing when it comes to emotional writing is I try to mix in an objective stand point, if that makes sense? I feel like I need to do that to keep things grounded and from being over dramatized, but I def still get carried away sometimes 😂

I feel like none of this answer made sense so I hope you kinda get what I’m saying lol

20. I definitely have my things. I write friends to lovers so much it’s my staple. Wether it’s self insert or a ship, I always do it. I do banter a lot, even if it’s just a little bit off the top of my head and half-assed, banter always makes an appearance. I haven’t reread my own stuff in a while, so I can’t think of specifics but I know for sure that there’s words and phrases that I reuse a lot.

21. I’ve honestly never really thought about it before but I probably would be open to it bc two heads are better than one. Especially since I hold myself back bc my weakness is more plot intensive things, I usually can only come up with half the idea, so I definitely feel like I’d enjoy mixing my half with someone else’s. I also just think it’d be fun because it’d be catered to me but it’d feel fresh because parts of it would come from another person

42. Holding Onto You by SunsetMaiden. It’s so very cute and sweet, it’s very domestic and I think they write both Sam and Bucky very well, so I def do recommend. Sadly I couldn’t get the link to work though 😔

[misscaptainbear]

A while back I wrote a blog on how I'd make a soulslike using retro hardware, I'm gonna repost it here :D

Yeah, so the twitter post where I first explained my idea was my most liked/shared post by like a factor of ten. Since there was so much interest, I figured I might as well make a mockup in Unity. Look what you made me do. 

Here’s a link to the build, and the controls are detailed on that page too. For the full effect, I’d also recommend using JoyToKey or a similar program to convert controller inputs to key presses, because I was too lazy to implement key rebinding for a mockup. See the itch.io page for suggested bindings.

Also, if you (yes, you!) want to continue this work, the zip file for the build also contains inspiration art, models, game data, and source code. It’s low polish code and almost nothing is systemic, but maybe it’s a springboard for someone who wants to push this project farther. I’d love to see it. The work that I have the rights to (i.e. everything except the inspirational art) is hereby released in the public domain.

Findings

Animation

The first and most noteworthy thing I’ve discovered while implementing is that there were more animations than I anticipated. Like, I figured there’d be a lot, and there were more than that. As of right now, there are 532 player sprites, each at 100x100 pixels, giving us roughly 6.4 mb of sprite data. (assuming indexed image format and smartly cropping fully alpha 8x8 blocks)

Bruh

One of the things we could to further shrink these is to run-length compress them, and also reuse tiles. I considered writing a python script to go over all 8x8 tiles within all sprites, and saving them in a massive lookup table. Then, it would go through all sprites again, replacing the tiles in the sprite with any similar tiles. This would mean, say, the thigh tile from one animation might be the cloak in a different frame if the pixel colors and shapes were sufficiently similar. However, I decided not to because it doesn’t actually have any savings on modern hardware, only on tile based renderers.

I could have also hand deleted specific entire frames of animations and reused similar enough ones - just by eye - but I also wanted to include all of the animations in the data that I distributed, just for the sake of it all being there for anyone who might need it, for whatever reason. I think these techniques might get the total data down to 50-60%, but that still means a ton of data just for the main characters sprites. 

I could also cut the animations in half by simply making the character designs so that the left-facing animations can be reused for the right-facing animations, but I felt that put a lot of constraints on enemy design and combat readability, so I didn’t pursue that either.

Turns out tons of animation variants work better on skinned 3D models (which is why I’m pitching my next souls game on the Nintendo 64. Hit me up Bandai Namco!) I chose to do one player model with no costume changes and just a boring sword. Any variants like clothing, weapons, or equipping a shield would have completely blown the animation data budget.

Framerate

You’ll also notice the game runs by default at a low framerate, 15 frames per second (The quality can be changed with the - and + keys during runtime if it causes discomfort). I did this for two reasons. One, it made the animations, which run at a consistent 10 frames per second, feel much more in line with the sprite movement and the camera rotation. Plus, it might accurately simulate the game running on actual hardware; making the game run a quarter at SNES framerate might be required for the “high-fidelity graphics” on show here. (Who knows if the hardware would actually allow that without awful artifacts though, ha). But throttling framerate is a tried and true tactic for better visuals. 

Environment

Another thing that surprised me is the amount of reuse on environment assets I was able to get. I was ready to put together a bunch of textures for the walls and floors, but I finished up what I wanted to achieve and found I’d only used 20 64x64 textures. I think the real game would benefit by focusing on unique tilesets to give each zone or level a special feel, and I think that’d be within the budget of a real game.

Environment took about 20 textures total

I also quickly abandoned the differing-heights-of-walls idea I talked about in the first blogpost. The requirements of the way walls are rendered described in the post made certain arrangements of walls impossible, and those were kind of the only level designs I wanted to use. That’s confusing, here’s some drawings to explain what I mean. Basically, having shorter walls in front making a visually tiered level with hedges that obscure the walls behind them just isn’t possible using that technique.

The rendering technique causes gaps where there would be walls behind walls.

While we’re on the topic of environment, I guess I skipped over the way we’d have to z-sort sprites to allow walls to layer correctly over them, and for sprites to draw back to front. That’d be a performance issue too probably. 

Palette and Rendering

One of the big wins I had was the palette I set up, I felt it was super moody and conveyed the tone I was going for. It felt muddy and sad and tired. It had pops of blues and greens, but even then they muted and melancholy. To achieve this look, there were three mechanisms here. First, all the sprites and environment textures were palletized to those colors. Then, in-game, I used a fog effect to fade the world to black. Finally, a post processing shader took any pixels outside the gamut and palletized the final game render, so every pixel displayed is within that palette.

The palletization is most noticeable in gradients, where it slightly changes the tone of colors. In a cool retro way, I think.

To create the sprites, I was kind of forced to do it by rendering 3d models (blender files included in the data!). This was due to time and money. As mentioned previously, I would have loved to dress up in costumes and downscale, pixelate, and rotoscope real pictures, but that costs stuff. Also, I’m sure hand-pixelled sprites would absolutely look more appealing, but like I said above, there were just so many animation sprites. The upside to hand authoring is you can have more control of implied movement during animation, and therefore probably fewer frames. All said, I don’t dislike the rendered results, it has a bit of a Diablo 2 look to it, but I wish I had been able to experiment with different techniques, mostly for fun.

I remember loving to see these render breakdowns in gaming magazines and websites back in the day

I think if I had lower-resolution-better-looking sprites, fewer animations using the techniques described above, and designing levels so as to not have to  z-sort sprites, it just might be able to run on SNES. Just maybe. A commenter mentioned it might actually run on GBA, and I could see it being possible. Shoutout to the most impressive 3D gba game ever.

One final design note I liked: The ducking mechanic was inspired by Super Mario World. I felt that was a nice homage, and there wasn’t enough buttons for more soulslike interactions like parrying, so it felt like it was a good choice with some mechanical depth with the limited inputs I had available. And, this game being simpler is alright by me - we are theoretically in the realm of before King’s Field. 

Summary

So there it is. I said I didn’t have time to implement it, and I did anyway. This is all your fault.

But for real, I really enjoyed tinkering with this, and I’d love to see anything that gets made out of this idea. Hoped you enjoyed reading this!

[0zzysaurus]

how does one go about making gifs? ive always wanted to try but i have no idea where to start.

Well the way I do them is super basic. I make no-nonsense gifs with minimal to no editing - but I suppose that’s helpful if you just want to get into making simple ones!

I do all of it on iPhone, so it’s gonna be iOS specific, but as long as you have a decent screen recorder on whatever device you’re using, you shouldn’t need to download any videos.

Downloading videos is mostly done to avoid quality drops if your wifi isn’t very good. I personally screen record all my clips because cannot tell the difference between gifs made from screen recorded videos versus downloaded videos, and I just don’t have the time/space to be downloading full videos that can be potentially two hours or more. Screen recording also helps you get around copyright problems if you’re trying to download videos from YouTube. It’s a personal preference thing and if people shit on you for screen recording then they need to get a life.

The first thing I do is find a movie/show that I want to select clips from. I’ll do a quick example with a shot from The Matchmaker (1958) because I could do with some gifs of that movie.

First thing I do is find it in the highest quality I can, put my phone on horizontal & full screen (so you can get the biggest resolution you possibly can) and record a reasonable sized segment I want to make gifs of. Have some buffer space so you’re not fiddling with pauses, and record long enough to maybe get one or two good gifs out of a few minutes of recording.

Once I’ve done that, I trim the video to just be the parts I want to make into a gif. Usually something between 2 and 7 seconds helps to keep the upload size for Tumblr below 10MB, but the more colours/higher the definition the bigger the file will be regardless of runtime, so be aware. Always save as a new clip so you can keep reusing your initial screen recording.

I’ve got three clips here I wanna make into gifs.

Now I go to the best website ever, ezgif to actually rotate (crop sometimes) and convert video into gifs. It’s 100% safe and a shit load better than the native iOS gif making tools.

I’m sure there are better ways of doing this with editing software on your computer, but a) I’m too lazy for that and this works just fine for making gifs for your blog, and b) you wanted a beginner tutorial and this is something fun you can play around with if shit like Adobe AE is too daunting/expensive.

You wanna click this option:

And then use the following settings (the seconds are just the maximum length of the clip I chose, feel free to play around with those to shorten your clip more if you didn’t quite get it accurate the first time.)

The size and frame rate options here WILL make the largest file option available, but it will look the best. Lower them if you are okay compromising quality for file size, or shorten your gif if you are okay compromising length for quality.

The fire size here is JUST under Tumblr’s file limit. 10.00MiB will always be too big for Tumblr. I find optimising a gif often makes the file size BIGGER 🙄 but try it if you want. There are a lot of decent options here for a simple gif tool :]] I’m just gonna quickly crop the black bars out.

To download it, I always hit the save button and open it in View so it’s in its own tab. Then I just save it from there.

And that’s how I do it :]]

[justamethyst3]

Rui’s friend from middle school. The two met properly when Mizuki tailed Mafuyu home after school one day, and they’ve stuck around since.

They became fast friends with Emu and Toya, too, and soon spent time with the group nearly every day they were together.

Anytime Mizuki goes out exploring shipwrecks with Emu or the others, or by themself, they’re often found searching through clothes chests for new materials or fabrics they can use to make cuter clothes and accessories than the torn sail cloths and plain shells most sea folk use (though if they find sail cloths in a decent condition, they’ll consider taking it to recolor at home).

They keep contact with their sister, who left for another kingdom, through their sea mirror. She’ll sometimes send them clothes she’s worked on, and they’ll use them to make something new or cuter to practice their skill.

Mizuki doesn’t like being a siren-in-training, and is vocal about wanting to leave the kingdom the next time their sister visits to escape the training and pursue something they want to do instead, usually saying so when they and Rui go out for an after school snack or hang out around the market.

.

I was gonna post Mizuki earlier but I was taking a nap 🥲

But here they are!

I originally said Mafuyu’s redesign would be next, but I wanna post chapter 5 before the end of August (if I can), and I want Mizuki and Toya’s designs finished before that, so I’m skipping over Mafufu (for now).

And I did some research the other day to try and decide which fish our fishy cast would be (at least, for the ones that make an appearance and aren’t casually mentioned in the fic).

I like the idea of Mizuki being a clown fish, since clown fish live in a hierarchy, and they can change from male to female as they mature, or if anything happens to the female to remove them from the group (from what I’ve found in my research).

I remember my biology teacher mentioning that certain fish could do that before I stopped going to school, and I wanted to keep that in mind while researching for Mizuki (and it kinda fits considering their character in-game, and what we’ve learned and assume about them through the stories and such)!

Although, I didn’t decide this until after I’d colored them in, and I didn’t want to redo the lineart and coloring for their tail cause I’m lazy, so I just added the stripes to their tail last minute and left it at that 😅

Sea folk would also be accepting of the transitions and those who are part of the lgbtq+ community underwater, since it’s a part of their… culture, I guess you could say (I think that’s the right word…)? (And yes, that does have importance for later in the story hehe)

Uhhhhh… Oh! For anyone wondering, a sea mirror is basically just the underwater version of a phone, though it only makes ‘video calls’. I haven’t worked out how exactly it would work, but my first thought usually goes to something along the lines of sea magic. Since sea witches and potion making are a thing, it’s not too unreasonable of an explanation lol

Anyway… I think that’s it now…?

Thanks for sitting through my rambling if you made it this far, I didn’t think there would end up being this much of me talking for Mizuki’s FtW design lmao

.

time : 10 hr 19 min

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Pls don't repost/reuse/edit

[mitchelljdavis]

Adam Sandler would be a great software engineer.

Bear with me; the title of this one is a bit strange but I promise I’m going somewhere with this.

I was talking movies with my trainer at the gym, as we tend to do quite often (almost more often than talking fitness, in fact). If I was to plot out our taste in movies in a Venn diagram, I feel like there’d be a pretty sizeable intersect, mostly populated by superhero movies that’d be more likely to help you inhale a box of popcorn than to actually make you feel something.

After discussing Don’t Worry Darling (which disappointed me in more ways than I could possibly know), we got onto the topic of Adam Sandler.

I’m no massive fan of Adam Sandler’s work; it so often feels like cookie-cutter humour, trite movies shoveled out to meet some kind of contractual obligation, or, famously, to allow his family and friends to travel to some idyllic far-flung location for filming (no, really).

I have not-so-fond memories of sitting through Jack & Jill on a disastrous date in a failed relationship. I remember almost banging my head against my desk watching Little Nickyduring a lockdown watch party. I still laugh myself silly listening to the Industrial Revolution speech at the end of Billy Madison (which I still absolutely adore as a comedy and as a pastiche of 90s culture). The fact that I can rattle off three instances in which Adam Sandler found his way into experiences in my life with very little effort is testament to how much impact he’s had on the filmgoing public over the last few decades.

One word that my trainer used during our conversation caught my attention though; he mentioned that Adam Sandler was a lazy filmmaker. Now, normally, laziness is a profoundly negative attribute. Unwilling to work hard, lacking in work ethic, unproductive.

But one of the maxims drilled into the head of every software graduate treats it entirely differently; the best engineer is a lazy engineer. The idea here is that you want to extract the maximum amount of benefit from the minimum amount of effort. Reuse code that’s already been used, build only for the scope of what you’re trying to do, and (most critically in my role) automate anything tedious that you have to do more than once.

This doesn’t draw a direct parallel to Adam Sandler’s work; I’m not sure if he’s even so much as authored a function, and his curated everyman image makes me think his unit test coverage would be sorely lacking.

But his filmmaking style embodies the idea of minimum effort for maximum benefit. The premise of his films is usually predictable, and the formula for an “Adam Sandler movie“ varies very little. Even as I attempted to struggle my way through shoulder rehab exercises at the gym, we could rattle off a few of Sandler’s more prominent collaborators - David Spade, Kevin James, Rob Schneider, even Norm Macdonald (RIP).

His films are very rarely critical darlings, but they’re often loved by audiences, who jump at the opportunity to sit in a cinema and turn their brains off for 90 minutes. Even Happy Gilmore turned $41.2 million off of a $12 million budget, all of the way back in 1996. They do exactly what they say on the tin, and never try to surprise their viewers. In engineering parlance, they stick to their scope and don’t try to be too clever.

So if we look back at the three factors we defined for a successfully lazy engineer:

Reuse code that’s already been used; tick. Adam Sandler’s movies won’t deviate much from what’s been done before, and you could reasonably place bets on when Rob Schneider will show up.

Build only for the scope of what you’re trying to do; tick again. Do your requirements describe a peurile comedy/romcom featuring a manchild in overgrown clothes? You’ve got an Adam Sandler film.

Automate anything tedious that you have to do more than once? Not just yet, but give it time…

This post may seem slightly unfair to Adam Sandler, and it may indeed be; but I’m certainly not the first to be saying it. But here, as it is in my chosen profession, laziness isn’t something to be decried, but something to be celebrated. Sandler’s proven that he’s a talented performer; his against-form turn in Uncut Gems was worthy of even more accolades than it received, and his standup specials are very clearly the work of a talented comedian with a sharper wit than he lets on.

Not only this, but he gets to roam around in loose-fitting, comfortable clothing, sometimes flying his family and friends to exotic holiday destinations to create fun distractions from the day-to-day, opposite a procession of some of Hollywood’s finest leading ladies. If only being a lazy engineer was so rewarding!!

[hidingoutbackstage]

Okay aside from my hatred for how it treated Eveline, the DLC also just, wasn't great? And didn't matter? Spoilers below the cut

Okay so getting big thing out of the way: The DLC takes place before the 8 epilogue of Rose at Ethan's grave. Meaning that everything we see doesn’t matter. Rose was never going to lose her powers, she was always going to escape the mold mind palace (btw I’m gonna call it “mold mind palace” this whole time) and it just felt cheap to have the ENTIRE epilogue shown at the end. Like just show her on the bus, we know this scene. I kept waiting throughout the scene to see if they would show us anything new or different, but they didn't. That ending was pointless.

K was also such a nothing character. I speculated that it could be John, since the two characters' faces are similar, but it wasn't. Rose calls him K. John's HWS name is Lobo. If it were Dion she was meeting, that nickname might make sense (K9. There's actually a file in 8 that refers to Canine with that shortened nickname so it would've been possible) but Dion obviously doesn't look like this guy. Not to mention the reveal that he was never there doesn't do anything for us. We knew nothing about this guy, had no attachment to him, so Miranda tricking Rose the entire time means nothing to us. If it had been an actual former HWS member, or, hell, CHRIS then we might have felt something.

Also just the insinuations that 1) Chris is STILL leading HWS 16 years later 2) they're inviting more people to be part of HWS 3) HWS hasn't been shut down yet despite them having been a rogue team when we saw them operating in 8 and they went straight to BSAA HQ, meaning they probably would've received some consequences for going rogue and 4) they've asked Rose, a 16-year-old, to join their team, are all absurd

The DLC is also just really lazy. They recycle ideas, like Miranda using illusions to trick someone into seeing a person that wasn't even there, they recycle models, like seriously Evie looks exactly how she did in RE7, and her model there wasn't great and was still super clunky here and she wasn't proportioned like a child, and they reuse her tantrum animations from 7, they recycle locations just making things more messy or adding the new bloody mold goop to indicate this is the mind palace and not irl. They're lazy with Miranda's motivation too, like there's no reason for her to need Rose as a vessel for Eva anymore. If Eva's consciousness was truly in the mold like Miranda believed, then great! You're in the mold now, Miranda! Go find her! Why are you wasting time with Rose?

The "Michael" mystery was stupid. There was no real reason for him to not reveal himself to Rose right away. It wouldn't "complicate" anything, in fact she'd be more likely to trust you. He kept telling her to turn back, meaning if she had listened, they never would have gotten to speak, which is kind of what Ethan wanted. He wanted her out of the mind palace, safe, even if it meant he never saw her again. She probably could've taken solace in speaking to her dad, even if it wasn't face to face. Also the wording of "Not an enemy" was sooo dumb. Say you're a friend! Say you're family! "Not an enemy" makes her even less likely to trust you, because you aren't being anything reassuring to her right now

The game also tries way too hard to tug on the heart strings, and it doesn't work. I'm gonna bring up Evie here a bit although I'll do my best not to. I do not feel bad for Rose. As a long time fan and player of most games in this series, I can name more characters who have been through worse shit than Rose has than I can count on my fingers. Actually I will, this is my post, fuck it, feel free to skip the list

Sherry was orphaned at 12 and was infected with a virus that nearly killed her, then was held captive in a strange man's house for eleven years, that's 5 years of her adult life still in captivity, before gaining a false semblance of freedom by being forced to become an agent, on one of her missions was kidnapped and tortured for 6 months, and oh yeah her body stopped aging at 20

Manuela was infected with a disease that should have killed her, lost her mother at 5 years old, nearly died several times during DC, became an orphan at 16, and was locked up after being rescued because she still had powers and was still infected. Despite controlling her powers, she was not given any freedom, because the government was cautious (KEEP THIS IN MIND FOR LATER)

Claire, Chris, and Leon are all orphans, Leon definitely when he was a child, Chris and Claire it's up to speculation. The three of them went through the horrors of the early games as young adults, Claire only being 19.

Jill was kidnapped, brainwashed, and forced to become a murderous slave for a genocidal maniac who she sacrificed her life to try to kill

Ashley was kidnapped multiple times, infected, and had her body taken control of by another person against her will

Natalia was an orphan (WHO WATCHED HER PARENTS DIE BTW) who was isolated from her peers, kidnapped, tormented for months by Alex, experienced hallucinations, had an adult woman try to take control of her body, and despite having seemed safe, apparently is still suffering ptsd or worse from what Alex did to her. She was adopted by a normal family and treated like a normal child, but she was still safely monitored and there's no indication she had a normal social life (KEEP THIS IN MIND FOR LATER)

Lisa Trevor was kidnapped at age 14, became an orphan when her parents were killed and she was infected with a virus, and went mad as she was continually tortured and experimented on until her death at 35 years old

Alexia and Alfred Ashford were given a life of comfort, but were still an experimental vanity project that their father enacted because he was in love with one of his ancestors, which they learned of at only 12 years old. Alexia willingly infected herself at age 12, Alfred was forced large political power at that age, and went insane without his sister there to support him, and when Alexia woke up from cryo sleep, the first thing she saw was her brother's dead body

Eveline was created to be a bioweapon. She was never given a choice as to if she had these powers. She was younger than her ten-year-old physical appearance, because she was aged up artificially, she was tortured, abused, forced to kill people with powers she couldn't control, and denied any source of comfort despite having the wants and needs of a child, and she was murdered by a man who called her a little bitch as she cried and lamented why the world seemed to hate her.

Now. What struggles does Rose have? Why, her dad is dead and kids at school call her a freak, of course! Now Isn't that sad? Don't you feel terrible for her and can't wait for her to pick off Eveline, who was taunting her, like a bitter child would?

Also yes you read that right, kids at school. Rosemary Winters, who shows physical proof in public that she is an actively infected person who cannot control her abilities, is allowed to attend public school and receive childish bullying. Un-fucking-realistic. Such bullshit.

Like I said, they lay on the pathos thick. There is an entire section, with no real gameplay, as you walk around the house from the beginning of 8 as you get to hear Ethan's voice and Rose's commentary on things her dad said because wahhh isn't it sad that Ethan died? They tell you how Rose feels through dialogue instead of allowing the character to feel for the obviously forced pathos. The letter was also written way too on the nose to try and tug at some heart strings. The ending where Rose talks to Ethan (while still HILARIOUSLY obstructing his face) goes on for too long and not a single line isn't something sad/sweet/sappy to try and get in the audience's feelings. (Also Rose bringing a physical object of Ethan's ring out of a MOLD MIND PALACE makes no sense but w/e)

Okay but is the gameplay at least good? Nah not that either. You get two weapons, a handgun and a shotgun, the occasional pipe bomb, and Rose's freezing powers. Now I know that this is a DLC and of course there doesn't have to be a lot of content, but this was pathetic. There are only two real puzzles either. The playthrough I watched was 3 hours long. The only part I thought was really scary was running from the Mia mannequins, but gameplay-wise they're like super easy to defeat.

The story jumps forward 16 years for no real reason. We don't get any insight into this new world Rose is living in, 16 years from the current furthest point in the timeline, we meet no new characters except for K who we can't really assume told us anything real since he was an illusion. This story was unnecessary, a mess, none of the gameplay was spectacular, and it went out of its way to torture and villainize a character who had already suffered in life, not even giving her peace in death. Really shitty DLC, really bad time.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Rocketear

The Rocketeer is a 1991 Disney movie set in 1930's America where a test pilot gets a jetpack and uses it to fight Nazis and— Wait, what? “Rocketear”? Oh, damn it!

Let's get into the eleventh (chronologically the seventeenth) episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fourth season: Rocketear.

We start off with Carapace and Cat Noir struggling to hold back some T-Rexes brought back to life by a scientist Jurassic Park style. Seriously, they reference the movie in the same scene.

Why wasn't this the plot of the episode again?

After managing to tame the dinosaurs with a whistle of all things, Ladybug notices something's wrong with Nino after he gives the Turtle Miraculous back to her. Apparently, he's wondering why Rena Rouge (who he knows is Alya) wasn't recruited with him today. Ladybug tells him that he was the only help she needed today. In reality, it's because Alya has adjusted to her new role of supporting Ladybug behind the scenes in her new form, Rena Furtive.

And I'm not a fan of the new form. I get the camo, but it doesn't really help her blend in when her suit is bright blue. I think it's based off the arctic fox, but that animal is able to camouflage itself because it's fur matches the snowy environment. I'm sure a bright blue jumpsuit won't stand out when she tries to blend in at all. Also, the fact that Alya can just change her hero form gives even less excuses as to why Ladybug's new form is only when she uses her Lucky Charm.

Alya is struggling to keep this a secret from Nino because they don't have a lot of secrets in their relationship. Marinette says she can kind of get it because she had to keep her identity a secret from her friend and has to keep keeping her identity a secret from everyone else. Basically, she's telling Alya to suck it up because this is what being a superhero is.

So the next time she sees Nino, Alya tells him she's no longer Rena Rouge, but not about Rena Furtive, which troubles her. The very next scene shows Alya showing Marinette pictures she took of her new costume and asking her which version looks better.

You could always try reviewing Akuma fights. I heard there's one blog that does it when they're not criticizing the famous director Thomas Astruc on social media.

Yeah, in case you can't tell, Alya was only able to rent her brain for a few episodes because she really doesn't seem as understanding about being a superhero as she was in earlier episodes. In episodes like “Optigami” and “Sentibubbler”, we saw Alya use more strategy and show discretion as Rena Rouge, seemingly taking her job more seriously, but then this episode just had to go and piss it all away. I also love how the first time the animators made Alya's skin the same when she's transformed is in a single frame for a joke.

Alya thankfully deletes the picture, but Nino overhears her talking about struggling to find more content for the Ladyblog, and decides to go to the movies with her to help take her mind off things. Nino, in turn, proceeds to give the same reaction to the in-universe Ladybug movie that Astruc gives to the PV.

Apparently, that movie's already getting a sequel and it has a teaser. So was the sequel animated at the same time as the original like Back to the Future Part II and Back to the Future Part III?

Nino gets pissed the next movie in the Ladybug Cinematic Universe will feature Rena Rouge and not Carapace... even though Rena Rouge debuted first. The teaser then shows Rena Rouge falling for Cat Noir (yet another creative liberty taken by the writers or something Astruc's self-insert threw in himself), and takes it like it's the real thing. Dude, the first movie said Ladybug was afraid of cats, and the director yelled at the person it was based on for judging it. He clearly has a hard time distinguishing fiction from reality.

Alya leaves Nino early so she can go on patrol, but Nino sees Cat Noir heading out as well. He then watches a video on the Ladyblog where Alya praises Cat Noir which is totally not Astruc projecting or anything.

I don't know what your definition of a prince is, Alya, and I honestly don't want to know.

So Nino takes this as evidence that Alya is in love with Cat Noir and decides to tell Adrien, who naturally laughs him off. And just before you think we have an episode where Adrien plays the straight man, Adrien decides to visit Alya because he's afraid he accidentally charmed Alya.

Yes, because Cat Noir is so charming, girls are just fighting over him, aren't they?

We then cut to a black and white film noir monologue by Nino (dressed like a detective with a fake mustache), who decides to spy on Alya. When Cat Noir asks Alya if she is attracted to him, she naturally laughs him off, though Cat Noir is thankfully a good sport about it, even giving her a hug to apologize. Unfortunately, Nino took this the wrong way.

The next day at school, Nino takes Adrien into his “office” (it's really an excuse to reuse the boiler room setpiece), and shows him the picture of the hug. Adrien says that Alya would never fall for Cat Noir because she's always dedicated to finding out the truth and telling her boyfriend everything. What's Nino's retort?

Okay, several problems with this bit. First of all, why would Nino even tell Adrien any of this? What would it accomplish? Why not say all this to Alya while confronting her about her alleged unfaithfulness? Second, Ladybug didn't give Nino and Alya their Miraculous at the same time until it was an absolute emergency. She outright said in “Hero's Day” that she didn't have time to recruit Nino and Alya separately.

Ladybug: I'm sorry for what I'm about to do. I know I'm revealing your secret identities but I don't have time to find a good excuse to give them to you separately. Rena Rouge and Carapace, I need you both!

Nino and Alya kept their identities secret from each other until then, with Alya even keeping the fact she knew who Carapace was a secret as well. Nino didn't find out because “they don't hide anything from each other” (which I plan to talk about later).

Other than that, I actually liked Adrien in this scene. It was really investing to see him try to justify the whole secret identities rule while Nino blatantly said there was an exception. This is the kind of stuff I wanted to see when it came to Adrien doubting Ladybug, not him destroying things in his anger.

While Nino rants about how Cat Noir “stole” Alya from him, Shadowmoth sends an Akuma his way, turning him into Rocketear.

And the design he has is just boring. It's just a blue jumpsuit with some black spots that look like teardrops, a teardrop-shaped head and a visor. I think the reason this season's been relying more on past Akumas and using more Sentimonsters is because DQ is terrible at character designs. I mean, compare this suit with Aigraon from Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger (his Power Rangers counterpart is Wrench from Dino Charge).

The design does so much more with the teardrop motif, giving him a perpetually miserable face with tear lines going all over his body. Add that to a more diverse color scheme, and you have a much more visually stunning design. And this was created in real life, not rendered on a computer. I'm not sure if this is a budget thing or a laziness thing, but if it's the former, you really need to do better, animators.

The powers are meh, giving Nino the ability to fling explosive tears at enemies. It's a clever idea, and it makes sense he gets a power that parallels Cat Noir's, but I think maybe it would have been more interesting if he couldn't control the tears at all. Like, imagine if he was constantly crying like Blue Diamond, and with every tear he shed, Rocketeer could send it at whoever he felt was causing him misery, mainly Cat Noir, all while serving as a metaphor for people who blame others for their own personal issues. Better yet, make him look like the detective outfit Nino wore for the second act. It would have made him more unpredictable instead of making his tears generic projectile weapons.

Marinette and Alya see the fight and transform into Ladybug and Rena Furtive respectively, the former summoning her Lucky Charm, a projector. Is it just me, or has this been happening with Ladybug a lot recently?

Back to Rocketear, we get a good moment where Cat Noir intentionally lets the Akuma hit him so he can get a chance to resolve things diplomatically. See, this is a moment where Cat Noir's self-sacrificing nature feels heroic and not selfish like when he does it without Ladybug's permission to spite her. Unfortunately, it doesn't really go anywhere as Ladybug shows up and plays the recording Nino took (Alya found his phone earlier), while Rena Furtive uses her Mirage to give the audio to what actually happened that night.

Rena transforms back into Alya and embraces Rocketear, who apologizes to her for his behavior. And then he just... rejects Shadowmoth's power while looking like it wasn't that much effort.

At least when Chloe and Alya did it, we saw them struggling for a little longer. I guess maybe it's because Nino is motivated by his love for Alya, but I think it should have been fleshed out more. So Ladybug purifies the Akuma, gives Nino a Magical Charm, and Cat Noir is still unsure about his feelings for Ladybug at the moment, though they still pound it.

Back in his room, Adrien ponders why Alya and Nino get to know their identities while he and Ladybug can't, but Plagg points out it's because she's the Guardian. It's brief, but I do like seeing Adrien start to doubt Ladybug's judgment, and it looks like it'll foreshadow future episodes. This is a problem I've had since “Hero's Day”, and I'm glad the writers are finally acknowledging this double standard. I just hope they don't end up blaming Marinette for whatever happens later on.

Marinette, of course, apologizes for what happened between Alya and Nino, and I have to say... yeah, no. It's obviously Nino's fault here.

Nino really pushed personal boundaries in this episode, much like Marinette's friends in “Gang of Secrets”. Yes, honesty is a valuable trait, but sometimes, people have secrets they want to keep to themselves. Nino's idea of “not hiding anything from each other” is somewhat controlling, like he's demanding Alya tell him everything whether she wants to or not. The fact that he immediately assumed Alya was cheating on him without giving her freedom to make her own choices doesn't make him look good. Let's be honest, a more realistic outcome would be Alya choosing to break things off with Nino or at least lecture him about how she can do what she wants and keep the secrets she wants. But instead...

And that's how the episode ends.

Okay, Marinette just said she trusted Alya to make the right decision, but I highly doubt she meant this. Marinette strictly said Alya had to keep Rena Furtive a secret, and now she's telling Nino this despite the risk? The whole reason Marinette and Luka broke up was because Marinette had to keep her secrets from Luka, but now it's okay for Alya to be completely honest? How is this not a double standard?

This episode was just dull, and there’s not even much I can really say about it.. There were a handful of standout moments, and the stuff with Adrien was somewhat compelling, but Nino's behavior was just insufferable and dragged the episode down. The Akuma fight was weak, only lasting about four minutes at most, and while the Lucky Charm was more creative this time, the plot was just frustrating. It's really one of the weaker episodes this season.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to watch the better Rocketeer.