#I'll link the other parts once I'm less lazy

[redrawthecolorlessworld]

((not really) poorly) explaining rhymix characters' backstories (part 2)

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

———

1. Snow

she was born with a mysterious immunity to snow. that's all i have for her lmao.

2. Miaya

created by amazing mighty around the time felys got kidnapped by a Mysterious Person™. mighty felt lonely and misses felys, and then ended up creating miaya to make him feel less lonely. ended up seeing her as his own kid which is nice :) miaya doesn't really see him as her own father by this point tho :( she also has dreams of meeting someone in the past........she just couldn't remember who it was.

3. Upshift

nothing too special about him. he's just some dj living life normally.

4. Lorn

i haven't come up with anything for her yet :/

5. Ray

was like ether strike back then—blinded by light. eventually cut herself off of it and swore to herself that she'll not be so naive and stubborn anymore. also met strike when he nearly died from being. you fucking guessed it. blinded by light. yippee

6. Lady

literally just axium's backstory but in her pov. she ends up really hating axium for dragging her into his stupid exhibition to the vicious labyrinth and just. Really wants to hurt someone and let out her frustrations on them.

7. Stasis

nothing much for him. before main story happened he tried saving his home nation from being colorless (not the character) forever with some others. that's all.

8. DRG

haven't come up with anything for her yet :(

9. Alxaid

he had some kind of illness where once he dies, everyone he has known will forget about him. he just disappears just like that. was friends with abstruse and hung out with him a lot. he even spent his final moments with abstruse :( by the time main story started he's already long gone :(( rip...........

(...but, would he ever come back? the dead can't go back to the living, you know. unless a case similar to lumine's were to happen—i'll stop now.)

10. Ionostream

a telegraphist (THAT'S NOT AN ACTUAL WORD????? OR DID I TYPED THAT WRONG-) from years ago who accidentally time traveled to the present day and now has to adjust to living in the current resonation (the rhymix nation based off of resonark i guess???). she's...trying her best lol.

11. Aleph-0

he was so fucking smart that he graduated high school early 💀💀💀💀 (probs before the second semester of his first school year there—he managed to meet mantis in that short time tho) he has really REALLY high curiosity with this thing called Temptation™ and then made it his life goal to hunt down its true meaning. he keeps getting himself in near death experiences in the process tho. so self sacrificial.....and all for knowledge too......

12. Mantis

is an assassin of sorts i guess. met larva, falls in love with her, but then got told that she was his next target, and then killed her (with a heavy heart). made a promise to himself to come find her again one day if she were to come back, and then years later reunites with her..........except it's not a her anymore it's a him now. hashtag sort of transgenderism??????????

13. Astra Walkthrough

idk yet.

14. World Fragments III

literally her name. in a sense she's sort of like primeval???? she's like. a result from a bunch of actual world fragments in rhymix put together to become one. lol.

15. Chronicle

idk yet either :/

16. Hikaru

he got a WHOLE ASS BACKSTORY POST ALL TO HIMSELF ON MY OLD ART BLOG AND I'M TOO LAZY TO LINK IT HERE BUT BASICALLY- was a famous idol who had loads of fans but had a really creepy stalker who went to the same school as him. initially she kept sending him letters with the sign off name being just "T", but then it gets worse and worse and eventually hikaru found out she was stalking him all this time. eventually gets murdered by her in some way and then becomes a god. WOO. THAT'S A LOT.

17. ultradiaxon-N3

was created by momento and arghena solely as compensation for the bullshit that happened during one of memoria's many april fools events. now is the nation's trustworthy AI :3 she would not steal art and writing btw

18. Hivemind

can't think of one for him yet ughhhhh

19. Hivemind Interlinked

an alternate version of hivemind who accidentally time traveled to the future. ends up just living through it normally lol. also ended up time travelling AND universe hopping to current day rhymix for one of memoria's april fools events (and accidentally meets his past self in the process).

20. Felys

was some kind of musician who's also really good with classical instruments like the violin and the piano. got really famous for that too. met mighty, fell in love with him, feelings got returned, and then bam they're lovers now. uhhhhh also got married to that fuckass god but then days later got kidnapped and locked up in some prison realm away from rhymix by an Unknown Person™.

21. Cybernetic Vampire

vampires in rhymix are rare. the few ones who were alive were then taken down (aka literally killed) by the humans to prevent anything bad happening to the humans. cybervamp is one of the last few vampires in rhymix and really does fear extinction :(

22. Chronomia

she's just a gal who likes clocks. she's fine.

23. Perfect

oh boy. honestly idk how to explain it in a post like this when i could just make a whole different post about it, but to sum it up quickly:

parents dead -> lives alone and overtime develops severe depression for a reason i haven't decided on yet -> got found by a group of people in her lowest moment -> got taken in by them -> eventually gets abused and changed in horrible ways possible to make her into a "perfect human being" -> gets traumatized -> eventually runs away with some other kids in the science lab place because she's experimented on in the same place as terabyte, satellite, and opia -> lives independently now

....ok moving on.

24. Destr0yer

explained in her introductory post, but basically she was the previous goddess of destruction before destonio came in and took that role. she had the same desires he did; destroy the world. got stopped by amazing mighty in the process and then got "fired from her job", as she likes to describe it LMAOOOOOOO

25. Credits

was basically unnoticed by the people around him for his whole life, got sick of that, and then took up the role of becoming a tv program host. his fame skyrocketed because he's just That good at this job and good looking. the fame got into his head tho, and then he suddenly became kinda greedy, eventually appearing in a lot more tv programs across different channels. capitalism sucks lol

ALRIGHT I'M DONE FOR NOW. SEE YOU ALL IN PART 3 LMAO

[dashawfrostart]

This Week In "Time & Again" #13: Lucky Thirteenth Post! And... whatever, i'm lazy 😅

62 layers

is the number of layers that the most complex page currently has in Chapter 5. And mind you, that actually might not be the final number, for some "layer work" might require slight reorganization. All for the sake of ease of turning all this into a webcomic, which is, as you already know it from this incredibly old post, an objective for the near future. Hitting an important and a peculiar stage of work right now, my mind keeps going back to questions of automation I mentioned earlier and... less earlier in regard of a somewhat different problem. Now I dream of a mass layer import algorithm for Inkscape - and PLEASE don't take me for a fool after doing your minute-long google research session on the matter! Yes, I know that mass layer import plugins for Inkscape do exist. But alas, during my last year's exploration of the problem, after spending a whole day trying to find a good plugin like that, I came to a disappointing conclusion that absolutely none of them currently work. But that would probably be a story for another day. In fact, I already have a post draft prepared, for this particular occasion 😁

Anyways,

at this point of time, Chapter 5 is at the stage of "post-production and finalization".

This is truly amazing, and I must admit, overall, I am very happy with the end result. Even though the road was not paved with nice and smooth stones, but it appeared to be sorta bumpy and crooked (or maybe it's just my perception). Even though it took me significantly more time to make it this far with it than I originally estimated - but often that never goes smooth either. Now, my main objective is to complete the cover arts and all the bonus materials that must be included. That would be my goal for the next few weeks ahead. Thus, very little is left to do - but this little stuff is pretty important for a conceptual, through-and-through synergistic endeavour such as "Time & Again". I also intend to make a few teasers for Chapter 5. At least 3, I think. I intend to... but we'll see if it actually happens, because the release is nigh(ish), but I still didn't invest my time into those small teasers. They are supposed to be pretty entertaining though. So, alongside with everything else that needs to be done, I'll try to manage.

As already has been indicated in the previous post, working on Chapter 5 sure improved my drawing skill in Krita - or rather, I found ways to do everything faster, more efficient time-wise. Which is very precious. Aside from the incredibly useful Filter Layer function that I discovered recently, one of my favourite "tricks with layers" in Krita is Erase blending mode that I was finally able to make a good use of 😅. I like to correct certain parts of the backgrounds with it, at times isolated from the other layers in a group, to avoid permanent destruction of the background in case if I want to revert back to its original version without regret or having to redo everything from scratch again. In other words, instead of using Eraser tool to destroy something forever and ever, I use a "fake erase" layer that can be turned off any time, need be. Sweet! Another one nifty layer trick I found long ago - but never used it previously in my graphic novel - is the usage of Destination In blending mode (that, for some reason, isn't even mentioned in the documentation, so I cannot provide a link 🧐). Technically, it's absolutely not necessary to use that trick, and some might even say it's counterproductive. But! - I personally like to use it in special cases when creating a background that consists of a smooth gradient that might be a challenge to fix once done. Because how many times have you tried to correct a shape that has been filled with a nice gradient to make it look like a certain spot on it was not just artificially attached?.. I remember myself from back in the day, in my photoshoppin' years, going through the pains of using Clone Stamp to try and recreate the smooth change of colour on the spots that have been added later, just to make it look like it all was made in one sitting, right off the bat. Oh boy, that brings... painful memories. So, Destination In blending mode resolves the aforementioned issue for me completely.

But alas, if it turns out I did screw up something that requires a smooth colour change - in certain other cases, primarily when correcting shapes of the foreground objects/people - I resort to the magic effects of blurring/smudging tools. Like recently I had to remove the door on the picture of a corridor and turn it into a wall corner. And can you tell it originally existed there, but has been removed afterwards? - not to sound like a stuck-up snob, but I really doubt it.

And that might sound weird, for Krita actually has a wonderful Smart Patch tool that functions pretty much identical to Photoshop's Clone Stamp I'm so used to. And you would think that that would be an ideal resolution to the problem I described just above. But no: for some reason I simply like to repaint the section that requires a correction and then to blend the colours for a smooth transition instead. Why do I do that? That I cannot tell you. Those are the mysterious ways of Frosty's artistic cognition.

Also, I finally returned to using character colour palettes. When I worked on my other, much older random pieces featuring Jade, Alan and Stu under the codename "Trio", sometime between 2010 and 2016, I used to have a special file called "Trio colour palette" that looked like a colour swatch for each character. Kind of like an eyeshadow palette, but for a significantly more important purpose. 🎨😁 I had a file like that for "Time & Again", too, but at some point of time I simply stopped using it, for the reason completely unbeknownst to me (and The Past Me probably cannot explain that either). So I found it, opened it, and decided to use from now on it while working on the current chapter and the future ones. Here's what it looks like right now (obviously, with potential spoiler notes artistically blackened with a marker brush 😁):

Yup, it's terribly messy, but I don't complain. I can navigate it with ease - and that's all that matters. ... And of course, lil old me cannot avoid a nice (and horrible) use of another videogame reference that is circled with red on the screenshot... Well, you know the drill. That's typical for me. And of course, I most certainly did not have to link back to the original, for it's very famous 😁 (dear goodness, that game definitely affected my sanity long ago... good times!).

You know what? That would probably be enough for today. I'm lazy and don't want to invest too much time and effort into writing about something that most people don't even understand anyway 🤣😅 Well at least not right now. So I wrap it up right this once and will ruminate more on some certain other topics in my next post. Cheerios!.. I mean, sorry. Cheers! (wait, what? no! instead of Cheerios, shouldn't it be Chex then, for a Doom nerd such as myself?..)

[tswwwit]

I have no idea when the love potion thing happens! But here’s some more of it.

Three hours without Bill is possible. Beautiful, even. It’s only a matter of heading off to do something Bill thinks is boring. Or shoving Bill back in the Mindscape, where he finds far more entertainment than hanging around a grumpy human.

Unless -

Dipper feels his lower eyelid twitch -

Bill somehow senses that you don’t want him around.

Then he’s impossible to get rid of.

“Hey,” Bill says, and dangles another book in Dipper’s view. “Guess what I got from your little ‘hidden stash.’. So much for your secrets, kid.” And he leans in, very, very close. “They’re no good to you now.”

Dipper meets his demon’s eye, staring into that slit pupil. He feels hot and sick in his chest, something roils inside him.

And he hates this, he hates it so much, and he can’t-

He can’t hate Bill. Even if he wants to.

Part of him wants to wrap his arms around Bill. Bury his face in that nice, warm human chest, to feel that unnatural heart beating.

When he looks up at the stupid smug face, and reminds himself that he’s seen the truth, what Bill really is - 

Another part.

The worst part.

Is that he would hug onto the hard-cornered, triangle version of his stupid asshole husband, because.

Because, fuck it, he’s warm in that form, too. And has lots of arms to hug. If he makes them. Bill’s not much into hugging, though. He’d only mock Dipper for even wanting it. Those edges wouldn’t be comfortable anyway.

Dipper buries his face in his hands.

There’s only an hour and forty minutes left, out of the three the potion should last.

And it completely fucking sucks.

Dipper hasn’t acted weird, he knows how not to. And he isn’t going to. He won’t hug onto Bill. Or kiss him. If at any point he felt the urge - he could stop himself, easily.

Bill’s pulling this bothering bullshit because Dipper’s not paying attention to him, when Bill thinks he should, and that’s something Dipper is nowhere near in the mood for.

Love potion or not, Bill’s still super annoying.

“Whoops!” Bill says brightly. He claps a hand to his cheek in surprise, as the book burns up in his hand. Ash falls onto Dipper’s lap, trickling down in a grey pile. “Guess that’s gone.”

“Mmh,” Dipper agrees. He sits in place, stares at Bill, and simply feels sick inside.

In front of him, Bill makes an annoyed noise.

Whatever. That was a duplicate book anyway. Dipper knows it, Bill knows it. He was only doing it to piss Dipper off, for burning any of his property.

Dipper can keep himself calm.

One hour and thirty-ish minutes, until this stupid thing ends. Then he’ll be over this…. Thing, and everything will be fine. It’s halfway done, and he hasn’t horribly embarrassed himself yet. In terms of bad situations, he’s already doing better than his previous records.

Something cool presses against Dipper’s forehead. He jerks back.

Bill’s glaring at him, pulls the back of his hand away from Dipper’s face. “Jeez, kid, you’re all outta sorts.” He frowns. “And you’re a little hotheaded. Caught a bug or something?”

Dipper swallows.

He doesn’t say, ‘you’re so handsome it makes my stomach do flips.’’ He doesn’t say, ‘You’re stupid, and insane, and I think that’s more interesting than I should’.

He definitely doesn’t say, ‘I think that sometimes you might care if I’m okay, and that’s.”

Something in Dipper’s chest surges. It’s gross and painful. Bill’s glaring at him like Dipper being out of sorts is some kind of personal offense.

Dipper grimaces. He can feel his stomach twitch. “I think I’m gonna puke.”

Bill recoils, standing up.fast. “You are sick! I knew it!” He points at Dipper accusingly. His eye narrows. “You do anything deadly recently?”

“Not that I know of.”

Bill sticks his tongue out in disgust. “Yeah, you wouldn’t. King of blunders, right here.” He rolls his eye, gets up. “I’m gonna get a bucket before you hurk up your stomach and ruin my outfit.”

“Okay,” Dipper says. He leans into his open palms, eyes shut. “Cool.”

Ninety more minutes. That’s all it’ll take.

If he can put up with everything else. With everything about Bill, even outside of. Any influence. 

Then he can last that long.

[foricecream]

Short Thoughts: The Daily Life of the Immortal King

Every once in a while, I'll watch something fully in my recommended section, usually when procrastinating heavily. I saw the title, skimmed the premise, watched a trailer and from there I had just about everything I needed to know about The Daily Life of the Immortal King, another magical high school fantasy starring a disinterested, but all-powerful male lead who easily juggles school and global disasters.

But there are certain things that I'm a sucker for, and this show had them: devotion in love, recognition and resolve of loneliness, a strong burst of emotion, an enjoyable magical contest, and feeling as a viewer that my nostalgia is healthy and beautiful at times.

If I had to make a comparison to other shows, it was as if the main character setup for The Disastrous Life of Saiki K and the romantic line of Chivalry of a Failed Knight inserted themselves into a less elitist version of The Irregular at Magic High School. Most of the episode time was spent documenting Wang Ling's (the main character's) power and how hard people have to try to hide it. And this show had some of the bad, sometimes lazy parts of all of those shows. But I watched all those fully too.

I also like it when action shows have romances that begin relationships in the early parts of the show. I don't quite know why, if it's just because that's rare in most entertainment, or if to me, that's where all the interesting stuff starts. Like in the same way that I would love to play a version of Breath of the Wild where the story has only started at the end of the first game, where you can play Zelda and Link together. Love the way Sun Rong just asks him out at the beginning of an episode.

But really, the very end made me like the show a lot more. Sun Rong suddenly gets some serious character development and a talent showcase boost, Wang Ling and the animators do their best to show an emotional explosion, and the use of flashbacks from a new perspective almost makes an extremely accelerated romantic buildup plausible. And then it's watching the ED after the show ends because then it hits different, especially the ED scene where they're looking at old photos.

For whatever reason and for good reason, certain parts of these kinds of shows still make me feel both relieved and motivated. Despite the obvious flaws and the fact that I couldn't recommend it to any of my friends, I still really, quietly enjoyed it and feel more mentally healthy about this mountain of studying and testing I have to do this week.

- For Ice Cream