#also i'm aware the design has changed a bit from the original concept. it probably will change more in the future

[elle-p]

Ramblings about the state of the 'canon romance' in each version P3

Original P3

There were 2 main characters: Hero and Heroine, with them being romantically involved. Hero obviously became Hero, but Heroine's a bit harder. Her design and personality eventually became Yukari, but not before her love interest role became player decided and her main character role was given to Aigis. This must have been an early change, since the characters have an internal order probably mirroring the order they were created, and Aigis is 3rd(after Hero and Yukari). In the Commu Make(Social Link) section of the pitch for P3, it mentions that if you become part of the student council, there'd be a 'cute vice-representative'(probably becoming Chihiro) there too. So Hero was never going to be fully faithful to Heroine. Originally, every romantic Social Link(Yukari, Fuuka, Mitsuru, Aigis, Yuko, Chihiro) was of the Lovers Arcana. Worth noting here is that the SEES girls aren't in the internal order(Yukari, Aigis, Mitsuru, Fuuka), but instead probably in the order you would unlock them. When it was decided that they would all get unique Arcana instead, some got cut. The relevant ones are Elizabeth's(which got replaced by Fuuka's) and Aigis'. This is something that a lot of people misinterpret, but there are no platonic female Social Links because Hero only pursues them with the intention of dating. Not because he can't say no or that m/f friendships don't exist. The only times doing a Social Link affects the story that I'm aware of is Yukari's adding a bit in the bad ending and Fuuka's adding a bit in Junpei's January conversation, but there could definitely be more I'm not. Marketing focus is pretty evenly split between Yukari and Aigis. Yukari was revealed in the first Famitsu magazine alongside Hero and Junpei, and is counted as the 2nd character after Hero. Her focus feels like it's because she's one of the first characters to be introduced. Aigis got her own, being the last member to be revealed. None of it mentions anything about romance, at least not in any way different to the other characters.

FES

To what extent Aigis' Social Link and Elizabeth's dates are restorations of the original ones is unknown, especially since they were unfinished. But now Elizabeth does show interest in Hero. However, she's the only person Hero can reject. Aigis' Social Link is treated as something special, with marketing focusing on it(really funny they blur the dates so you can't tell it's so late in the game. The text when starting a new game doesn't say who it's with, but the marketing does. It's also kind of obvious it's Aigis because of the new bit added to her dialogue in September), it getting its own special Arcana, etc. There's also the Answer, which only really focuses on Yukari and Aigis.

Persona 3 FES Official Fanbook

The other books aren't really worth mentioning in this context, but the FES one has a section where every day has a bit about it from the pov of a character. It shows Chihiro having a crush on him, Yukari getting jealous of Chihiro, Leader making Mitsuru wear a maid outfit(at the start of November wtf), Leader bringing Elizabeth to his room on Christmas, Leader going out after school with a different girl every day, Yuko having a crush on him, Aigis confessing to him on the roof, Aigis' rank 10, and probably more I skimmed over. Yeah there's really no favouritism at all basically every girl has a moment. Even Ryoji's got some stuff like. It's kind of genius because people will just crop out the other ships even if I hate how it characterises Leader.

Drama CDs

Masters of Schrödinger's romance. The girls appear to have a crush on Leader, but it's left vague as to if he recipricates or not. All the girls(including the Social Links and not counting how more screentime results in more teasing) have the same prominence. The same concept of Schrödinger's romamce, wherein Hero is simulaneously dating and just friends with a girl, is in other things like Q, Dancing, and even the game.

Manga

The only Social Links that it adapted are Yukari's and Aigis'. Aigis' was changed so that he does her rank 4/5 with Yukari as well and her rank 7/8 are her talking to Fuuka instead of it all being just her and Minato. This means that both Yukari and Aigis get feelings for Minato. Yukari's gets some of that Schrödinger's romance since it's vague whether Minato reciprocates as she never confesses, but it's pretty obvious he friendzoned Aigis. But, now we have to mention why P3 doesn't just have a girlfriend. Shuji Sogabe was discovered by Atlus because he was selling P3 doujinshi. After being hired to work on the manga, he still wrote doujinshi under a penname. 2 of these(the only ones that are known about) are based around shipping Hero and Ryoji. What a legend. Anyway, especially with that context, Ryoji and his relationship with Minato is also worth mentioning, with him getting far far more screentime than in the game, appearing in the 2nd part and having some of the most art. Kudos to the consistancy too he was on that grind for 10 years.

Portable

Nothing has really changed from FES. You can go to the summer festival with Mitsuru and Aigis, putting them on more equal ground since their Social Links start too late. There's also the Yukari, Fuuka, and Mitsuru ng+ endings, which are unlocked after completing their Social Links. Those endings are ng+ specific since they didn't want P3P to feel like a dating sim and the original one is so important to P3. I'm not going to touch on Heroine's relationships since that's a whole other thing and I don't think it's too relevant since Heroine's a different character and I don't like the idea that 'they love the MC regardless of their gender/character' makes them inherantly better.

Movies

All the movies were created together. The changing directors doesn't change the overall premise of them, especially since lots of people like Jun Kumagi(the script writer), Kazuki Adachi(the producer who fun fact was going to direct 4), and Seiji Kishi(the supervisor) worked on the same jobs for all of them. Taguchi also worked on all 4 movies, being a series producer for both 1 and 4 and storyboarder for 1. The directors are also listed pretty low down on the staff list on both the website and the actual in-movie credits. The reason the directors changed was to allow them to be worked on simultaneously - Makoto's name wasn't even decided on until the middle of 2's script. So a single movie's director's bias wouldn't be enough to change the direction of the movies as a whole. Aigis and Ryoji were always going to be the main characters. Yukari's focus on 1 is because she's Akitaya's favourite character, and he wanted to give her the spotlight before Aigis came. I don't have any interviews with Motonaga, but Taguchi must have been smoking that yaoi cocane in February 2016 because there's not just one but two seperate magazines that released that month where he says that Makoto and Ryoji are in love(one of which being themed around Valentine's day with Ryoji holding sweetpeas and Makoto holding what has to be blue roses you can't make this up). He also says that Aigis' feelings for Makoto are unrequited, and that her not being the love interest is important. Those are the only two things I'm aware of that mention the existance of any kind of love interest. I guess Fuuka has a few cute moments in 1 but Makoto was originally going to charge her for the takoyaki and it doesn't go anywhere so

The Weird Masquerade

I'm using so many interviews and mentioning the original versions because I want to be as objective as possible when saying if something is romantic or not. And I don't have any interviews on WM, especially not ones that mention a love interest, so I don't really have anything to say here. I guess something of note is that the only relationship to have any meaningful change between Sakuya and Kotone's routes is Shinjiro's, so saying that Sakuya's interactions with one character as romantic requires also seeing Kotone's relationship with them the same way and vice versa since the only thing that's changed is the gender of one character.

Reload

Reload added platonic routes for the girls and flags that can lock you in to one route. This was done to give the player more freedom in both what they can do and their interpretation of Hero's personality. Since all the Social Links work the same, there's no favouritism in any of the objectively romantic things. Elizabeth's dates went unchanged, meaning she went from the only girl to be deniable to the only girl to fall in love regardless. Following the trend of everything(except FES), Reload also added more for Ryoji. He gains explicitly romantic feelings for Hero in his Linked Episodes and, unlike any of the girls, has no option to either stay friends or accept him and everything after happens regardless of what you chose.

Overall, the love interest of P3 is left intentionally vague to let the player chose. It's simultaneously everybody and nobody. The main contenders are always Yukari, Aigis, and Ryoji, but to say that either of them are the definitive 'winner' is untrue. This was mostly just to clear up misinformation(like Yukari originally being the love interest, Aigis being it in the movies, and Ryoji not standing a chance), but it's really interesting to analyse how each version portrays the system. One of the most consistant things is that they don't care, which makes sense because the entire idea of it being player determined means that it doesn't have to happen and thus can't be important.

[campcoldlakeartroom]

Here are some different drafts and the process of working on my own poster for the SPO poster project! Long post below!

My initial concept was to have the poster be heavily grafitti'd as a sort of fun little gag towards my headcanon of the Snes and Wii iterations of him being different characters and how frequently the fandom bullies his design.

I then got sad cause I realized I'd put a lot of work into making the poster, and Aran himself, look really good and I didn't wanna hide either. So I decided to make it an open invitation for others to fuck around with their own posters!

I ended up being pretty indecisive on what I wanted to do for the graffiti itself- I had far too many ideas.

I obviously got the stache, brows, crossed eyes, and stink lines form the contender intro for Aran but I thought I'd add my own touches like silly shit people did in my server (playing tic tac toe on his massive forehead) and generally what I think Wii Aran would do to mock his counterpart.

The original iteration ended up too mean especially with all the fat comments, so switching them for more varied words ended up looking much better! 'Men gotta be fart, stupid, and hideous' is my favorite line.

To translate some other insults: Jackeen means a city person, usually mocking Dubliners. Dryshite just means boring.

In the final set, Wii Aran also has another piece of graffiti on the wall- it's meant to invoke spray paint but I didn't do too well here. This is far from the first time he's made a mockery of branch B's Aran and it won't be the last.

As for the plain poster- from the original, the biggest changes are the background of the portrait and his blurb. Yes I'm aware he has no ear holes I can't draw them I'm sorry.

I kinda HATE the way the background is tbh- the spo manual already makes everyone ugly as shit- there's no need to make it worse lmao.

I went with bricks spattered with dirt and blood to evoke a feeling of being in a back alley fight. My original attempt was garbage but then I found this simple brick brush that made my entire life easier.

I wanted to give him a black eye and bloody nose too but it ended up being too hard for me to figure out.

Tbh I don't like the original blurb- it feels clunky and empty all at once. I tried to go with a snappier rendition of the same main ideas while adding a bit of flair and appreciation for how he is in SPO.

The hardest bit of the whole process was probably figuring out all the strange quirks of the text. It looks good but damn is it hard to replicate.

My favorite part was playing around with all the layers and ways I could use effects- a filter or two really does a lot to add to the feeling of a poster. And for one last bit of funsies, here's the poster without any effects vs all of them. (I lost the version with highlighting on his face, whoops!)

I'm really happy with this piece and how quickly I finished it! I think it's a really good sign for my progress in digital art! If you've got questions, feel free to ask in the replies!

[starguardianniom]

The Paris Special irony

I'm gonna be real here people, the Paris Special was flooded with irony.

We basically got to see tons of stuff we wanted to see forever in it alone, many of which are also quite ironic themselves.

Akumatized Ladybug? Check. Well kamikotized or something similar. The purple Hatsune Miku look slayed.

Akumatized Chat Noir that actually sticks and isn't erased from a timeline? Check. Funny how he's still all white like Chat Blanc but also has white angel wings despite wielding the power of destruction, makes me think of Lucifer.

Evil Ladybug and Chat Noir? Check. Shadybug and Claw Noir are the new cool kids. And dang I want to have an entire series/spinoff of just them, heck I want an origin story of their first outting as villains and how they got their miraculouses cause I need answers on how that happened thank you very much.

Good Hawk Moth? Check. Still lousy parent I guess, unless Emodrien actually makes it difficult for him, like he lashes out and refuse to spend anytime with his dad and Gabriel just tries to respect his privacy and boundaries and thinks he might just need some time to grieve maybe, we only have Emodrien's side of the story, but it's probably more complicated than that, I mean if Emodrien is angry that his father seems to have moved on from his mother he might takes it as a personal betrayal and acts out in some misplaced retribution, but I have a feeling he doesn't bother explaining himself to his father like he does with Adrien, though there might still be hope for them now.

Ladybug using the Butterfly Miraculous? Check. Lady Fly is a stupid name cause it sounds she has the Fly miraculous instead of the Butterfly, but at least her outfit is ok.

Seeing the Butterfly miraculous being used to create heroes instead of villains? Check. Ubiquity my beloved.

Goth/emo/punk Marinette and Adrien? Check. And I love them for it.

Reverse love square? Mostly check with Emodrien having a crush on Emonette who has no idea that he knows she exists until the special.

Alternate Universes? Check. I wanna see more of that Mister Bug and Lady Noire universe and that Scarabella and Kitty Noire Universe, I lowkey wished to see an Aspik and Multimouse universe but oh well, at least this probably means that all the heroes and villains probably gets to wield all the different miraculouses across universes.

Emodrien was slowly dying and Good!Gabriel wasn't even aware of it, probably Emodrien didn't bother telling him and just covered it up with his makeup. Check.

Emonette actually knows Emodrien by name and sight unlike Marinette in Origins despite him never going to her school. I really found that funny.

Emonette and Emodrien having better fashion sense than the main heroes, check. Until they switched to become good guys. Still pulled a bit more effort.

Everyone else in the other universe have different designs, check. And thank god for it, they all look better than the ones we've seen in the show.

Nooroo actually being happy and treated well? Check, judging by the Gabriel opening.

PV universe actually existing and not just being a movie, check.

Identity reveal that actually sticks, check. For Shadybug and Claw Noir sure but at least it will be a lot less frustrating for them than their counterparts, thank god they'll have a break on that.

Seriously the special delivered so many nice ideas and concepts and also there was tons of stuff we wanted to see forever and we got our wishes and it's also ironic in some ways but like hell I'm gonna complain when we were all so well served.

Not gonna lie but it almost gives me hope for season 6. Almost.

Now I'm just gonna watch the show in the hopes of ever seeing the heroes Shadybug and Claw Noir again (yes I know they changed their names and I don't care it's less confusing to keep calling them their original names rather than their new names, like Shadybug, we all know you wanted to be more like Ladybug, but you didn't need to take her name when you almost copied her looks, which was also a downgrade for you sweetie).

[duckyfruitbat]

Let's Look at the Luigi's Mansion Trilogy Why Not? (spoilers abound)

If you've read any of my Mario posts, you'll know that I'm a Luigi boy. What can I say, I relate to being player two, I find his personality charming, he took out a CEO, I'm also the tall younger brother, and he's just better than Mario. This only truly started for me when I played Luigi's Mansion 2 on the 3DS and I loved it. With a need for some serotonin, I decided that I should do a retrospective on the whole trilogy because it sparks joy.

This will only be on the original release of each one because it's always fun to experience a game in its original context on the original hardware. It's also all I have.

Luigi's Mansion (GameCube)

Luigi's Mansion was a launch title for the GameCube released in 2001. The game was put in a weird position being a Mario game where you didn't play as Mario while also being a Nintendo Launch title. It was received well with demonstrations and was only received better on its release with a solid A-B report card among reviewers.

The concept was pretty simple, what if Luigi was a ghost buster. The story itself is that Luigi has won a mystery raffle that he didn't enter for this old decrepit Mansion that no one wants. Mario went ahead of him, probably to check for black mold and other mystery stains. Later when Luigi arrives he quickly finds out that the mansion is very haunted and is told by his new eccentric scientist neighbor that this is obviously a rouse as the mansion didn't even exist until a few days earlier. Mario is missing having been captured by the ghost but luckily Professor E. Gadd has some ghost-hunting equipment he loans to Luigi to capture these ghosts and find his brother, which incidentally used to be his vacuum cleaner.

From here the game can officially begin, from here it's just sucking up ghosts and sucking off ghouls. You also quickly get a sense of how atmospheric this game can be, it's a very claustrophobic experience. Each room and hallway is built like a normal house minus some fake doors, Luigi also doesn't jump in this game, so if anything is out of reach you gotta use your brain to get it down. When there are ghosts in a room there is no light and the music sounds like an amateur chorus of the ghosts singing from the drawers. The hallways are usually populated by ghosts of rats and bats as well as a couple ghosts that just like to give Luigi a good scare. The music in the hallways sounds like it's mostly just the baritone and bass sections playing, all the while Luigi is nervously humming along. Oh yeah, Luigi is constantly humming the main tune, it's a fun and cute little touch. When each room is cleared the lights come on, the mood changes and Luigi starts whistling the theme.

The mansion is divided into four sections and each section has a handful of portrait ghosts. The portrait ghosts are mostly just one family, each one is unique design-wise and in terms of how to suck them up. For example, the first one is a middle-aged father who is just relaxing in his library, and to get him, you have to wait for him to yawn, that's when he exposes himself. From there you have to whip your flashlight around stunning him and start sucking before he can compose himself. When you start sucking you gotta dig in your heels and resist any move he makes. Every ghost will start flying in any direction possible so you gotta use your lassoing skills to finish them off. The portrait ghosts will also drop poison mushrooms that will shrink you but also interrupt your sucking. You also gotta be aware of any surrounding ghosts because they will attack. This is the core of the gameplay and it's pretty solid and easy to understand. I've only had issues with the stunning mechanic often being me not sucking soon enough and the ghosts vanish for a bit. Beyond that, it's easy to get the movements down.

From here I got in the zone, finding ghosts sucking them, finding the boss ghosts, and putting them back into their portraits with E. Gadd's portrait machine. At some point, you discover the Boos, the classic Mario ghosts being led by King Boo who has orchestrated the whole thing. You are then tasked with capturing a total of 50 boos, they are semi-required to reach the area boss. You don't need all of them, but you do need a fair amount of them. This is also where we find that in these games, King Boo has a unique design. He's usually depicted as a boo with a crown like Peach's but here he has a giant diamond and sleep deprivation eyes. I don't think this difference has ever been explained, but it exists.

Finally, you get to the main boss fight and I don't know why but I always struggle with this one. King boo creates this Bowser puppet and to get your boo you gotta knock the head off with spike balls you gotta suck and blow at his head. It's all pretty simply explained, yet I still struggle. Still satisfying to finally get him though. I get him, put him in a portrait, put the machine in reverse and Mario is tortured a bit before being freed. This game is so much fun, the ghost designs fit perfectly into the Mario universe, the music really sets the mood, each boo and portrait ghost has their own unique name and they even tell a couple jokes. It's just so much fun, and for some reason, it didn't get a sequel for twelve years.

Luigi's Mansion 2: Dark Moon

Over a decade later we finally got a sequel for the 3DS and this game to most of the good things about the original and just rolled with it. This time when the game opens we see that E. Gadd has moved to Evershade Valley to continue his paranormal research and this time the ghosts are pretty chill with him, to the point of being his lab assistants. That is until we see king boo flying into the air and using his own crystal to blast a crystal moon out of the sky. Doing this makes all the ghosts lose their minds and start wreaking havoc across the valley. From here E. Gadd takes shelter in a safe house and calls Luigi to once again help him to suck up some ghost. From here Luigi is teleported through his TV and E. Gadd reveals that the way to fix the valley is by finding all the pieces of the Dark Moon, the crystal from earlier. This time we have multiple mansions that are all around the same as as the one in the original.

Luigi is sent into the first mansion and the game proper begins. You find the upgraded poltergust and it is time to suck. This time the art style is a bit more cartoony but still keeps the spooky atmosphere. The gameplay itself has evolved by making it more rootin tootin to wrangle the ghosts. Now you get to flash the ghosts to stun them, and while they're frozen in shock at the audacity you have to take their picture taken without permission you start sucking hard. This is also where you find the next addition, as you're sucking you see this bar fill up, and when it does you press A to give the poltergust a quick surge of power for some extra hard ghost-sucking.

Luigi also quickly learns that the boos are involved in some way, and here is where we get the dark light. Shine it on an invisible object to reveal it and get the chance to catch a boo. Each mission has one, and finding them all unlocks a time trial. Kinda wish there was more to that, but still had fun.

You also learn that there isn't really anything like the portrait ghosts here, which is unfortunate, but the boss ghosts are something special. These ghosts hold the pieces of the Dark Moon and what they do is they possess spiders, clock towers, or walls of ice as part of the boss fight. Lots of fun and challenge to be had here, and the whole time E. Gadd is watching you on security cameras. He gets really into too, he makes a crack about making popcorn while watching the show.

We may not have portrait ghosts but we do have a ghost dog! This dog is a little rascal who appears in each area to cause some trouble and manages to evade capture each time. This little guy is just the best thing here. He takes one look at Luigi, and despite being driven crazy by the situation, he only sees a friend to play with. Unfortunately, that often means stealing the important mcguffin of the mission, bad doggy! Every time Luigi is putting ghosts in the vault the little guy comes out, drowns E. Gadd in puppy kisses, and runs off. Rinse and repeat until the final mansion.

Luigi eventually finds out that King Boo is behind this and he has also captured Mario again. The final boss fight is much more hectic than in the original. Luigi is taken into a pocket dimension where he sets up an arena and shoves Luigi into a hall to crush him like the boulder in Indiana Jones. To get any damage on King Boo, you gotta trick him into moving under a falling spike ball that he dropped. Seeing that marshmallow getting squashed with an audible thunk did make me laugh a bit.

Once King Smores is defeated, he is sucked and Luigi can free Mario, piece together the dark moon, and the ghosts come back to their senses. As the ghosts are flying free a certain pupper comes up to Luigi with a sad apologetic pouty face. Yes, Luigi adopts the doggo, and it is glorious. We all love the spooky doggy.

That is Luigi's Mansion 2, despite losing a couple things from the original, we also see the game play evolve so much that greatly improves the experience. The next entry didn't take a whole decade to come out, but it is a nice return to form.

Luigi's Mansion 3

The third entry was released for the Switch in 2019 and I ended up clearing my schedule for a weekend to complete it. Listen I laser-focused on this one, it was too much fun.

The story this time is that Mario, Luigi, and Princess Peach are all invited to a five-star resort hotel by the owner Hellen Gravely. You walk into the gilded front entrance of this hotel and instantly you see that the staff comes directly from the grave poorly disguised. They need to take some queues from Team Rocket with this low effort. The game doesn't really beat around the bush when it comes to the reveal that the place is full of ghosts. Hellen shows the gang to their rooms, Luigi settles into his bed as his polterpup snuggles up next to him, and they both pass out. Yes, the polterpup is back and you can pet him when he appears. He is the goodest boy.

Luigi is later awoken by a scream coming from Princess Peach and quickly notices how dark and dilapidated his room is. Stepping out of his room he finds that all the shiny gold and clean floors are just an illusion as it fades away. He gets to the elevator and there he finds Hellen who gives up the ghost and reveals that she is a ghost before showing King Boo has once again escaped with her help. He reveals that he put everyone else in a portrait and he chases you down the hall into a laundry chute. Down in the basement, you find the polterpup who leads you to the newest model of poltergust in E Gadd's car. The upper gives you the tutorial and you are then given the mission to find the professor and head for the penthouse to find Luigi's friends, and now the game proper can begin.

As you make your way to the ballroom to find E. Gadd, you'll find that there are of course several returning features. The strobe light, the dark light, and the charge have come back. There is some new stuff, you can shoot a suction cup out of the poltergust to give some extra leverage while moving large items. We also get an assist character called Gooigi, which is just Luigi made from lime jello. There is also now a doge function of sorts where the poltergust blasts downward pushing any ghost away, this is also helpful in getting out of a couple of traps. Now the best change, the charge is back, but instead of giving the suction an extra boost, once the bar is charged you get to beat the ever-loving shit out of these ghosts. It is too much fun to be wrangling one or two ghosts out of a crowd and then being able to beat one mother fucker with another mother fucker. You just start swinging them around and start smacking them into whatever. Yes, this also applies to boss ghosts. Speaking of which.

The boss ghosts are a return to what the first game had. Each one has a unique design, and they all have such a fun personality. I have two favorites, the movie director and the DJ. The director has you act in a kaiju movie and is a completely optional capture. The DJ has her own dance team that challenges you and as you are capturing her she starts dancing. Before each boss is fully sucked in, they all actually have their own special animation. They either pose, start whacking Luigi, or fix their hair and makeup. There is so much fun to be had here and I was here for it.

I did encounter a couple glitches which caught me off guard. In the second basement during the battle with the maintenance man, I did not realize that I needed to be in the water to fight him and I ended up breaking the game that way. The second one was at the final boss fight where Luigi got knocked around and then disappeared over the ledge and I couldn't do anything, not even a game over. I'm starting to wonder if he fell off the hotel. Speaking of the final bosses.

There are two ghosts that I'd count as the final bosses because they are back to back and hyped up the whole game. Throughout the game we see Hellen Gravely watching Luigi's progress through the security cameras and there is also of course King Boo. The Hellen fight gets pretty hectic. You have to control both Gooigi and Luigi to avoid Hellen's attacks, as well as environmental hazards. The arena is in two floors stacked on each other that you have to keep an eye on simultaneously. It took me a few tries to actually get Hellen. Once I did I could free Mario and head for the roof for the final battle. Here we find Peach and get her out of the painting before King Boo appears. Just before he tries to put everyone back into a painting the polterpup saves Luigi by knocking him out of the way. Good boy!

From here King Boo sets up a timer to beat him by threatening to put the entire resort in a painting. Once again, the goal is to land a hit with one of his spiky balls. Eventually, King Marshmellow is mushed and cleaned up, but then the hotel collapses in on itself. A few of the ghosts escape and realize that their home is now gone. This is another place where we return to some of the things the old game does. Here Luigi and friends decide to rebuild the hotel and the design gets grander the more cash you have.

That is the Luigi's Mansion trilogy. It is so much fun and charming and full of personality. From Luigi humming the main tune, to the way he interacts with the world and other characters. Even the way the ghosts behave around Luigi is just fun and endearing. These games are oozing charm. If you never played these, please go get a copy. These games have been the best thing to happen for Luigi since he was first created as a pallet swap Mario.

[fmp1omarsviner]

Concept Design [The Sacrifice]

In this post I will be describing the design process behind my concept sheet for The Sacrifice character in my project.

As a reminder, here is my moodboard for the Sacrifice.

Unlike the first one where I made each part one at a time, this time I made all the base linearts at once. I feel this helps with consistant style and also gives me more choice on what to do without overwhelming me. With the text, I decided to make it look like it was scratched into wood or stone with a knife, keeping the lines straight to help sell the theme.

To start, I began by making the side view. While making the bun, I realised that the basic design was similar to my pirate in our first project, so I looked on pinterest for some facial scars to see if there was anything that fit my character.

Eventually I found this artwork of someones OC and I knew I just had to add it to my character. I cut the lip and added the gum undenreath with some teeth, adding texture with my pencil brush. It added an aspect of mystery to the character as it makes you wonder where he got it. Was it inflicted by the cult? Self inflicted? Born with it? It makes him a little more unique so I kept the idea. I also like gore and body horror, so this fills that slot too.

Here I had finished the front view. My studies on Wednesday really helped with the face, so I'm very glad I spent the day worknig on that. I kept his irises small to show that he was scared, which I imagine he would be if he was assigned to be the Sacrifice for a cult. Once again I added the lip/cheek tear too.

Here is the fullbody finished. I am aware the anatomy isn't perfect for the fullbody, but it was more about the design than accurate anatomy. I gave him an oversized ripped t-shirt or dress and added some shackles to his wrists and ankles. I then added the ritual markings that you can see on The Follower, although his are way more obvious because he has barely any clothes. Underneath his shirt you can see a faint outline of his ribs because I wanted to get the message across he was malnourished/frail and I wasn't sure how to do that accurately so I just added some ribs to show he hasn't eaten in a long time. His face/head was a little difficult because it made him look child-like, I think it was the size, so I adjusted the size a bit and I htink he at least looks closer to an adult.

Here I started colouring. I used the purple in my original colour palette and coloured in the eye, before moving to the front view. I made the hair a really dark brown because my hair is really dark brown so I'm a little biased. I then coloured the gum in his lip/cheek tear as well as the teeth and I used the red in my original colour palette in the muscle. It's both an accurate colour and it is also the main ritual colour of the cult, so it kind of gives a hidden meaning that his connection with the cult is always inside him, even without their ritual markings.

Here I coloured the side view. The colour of the lips was a little more obvious here but nothing else really changed. It was difficult choosing an accurate skin colour because he's unhealthy so I wanted him to be really pale, but using a pink undertone of the cream still makes him look healthy? So when I make the reference sheet, I think I'll experiment with a blue or yellow or maybe even green undertone to make him look properly unhealthy.

Then finally I coloured the fullbody. I used the cream colour from my original colour palette and filled in the ritual markings and the shackles. I also added some purple corruption to his hands like that one imagine from my moodboard, but I'm not 100% on the idea. I'll get some feedback from my friends and see if they think I should keep it or not.

Designing this one was fun. I way preferred this brush over the last brush I used for sketching and my method of making all the lineart first really helped me keep focused. His design is probably the design I like the most in my head right now, but maybe (hopefully?) that will change later on when I design The Leader and The God. I'll do some more research before I work on those so they can stand out and look even better than how they would with no research.

[zoewilkinson]

Development Project 1 – Week 6

An Update and Changes Coming

05/01/2024

Well, I sadly needed to take a longer break than anticipated and a lot has changed to my project plans since. Over Christmas break I was very unwell and was completely unable to move, and therefore work on my projects. This put a huge dent in my planned schedule and has made working on all my projects, as well as other modules, rather tricky. Nevertheless, I’m now back and have some updates on my projects.

When I last updated my work, I had left the model right before using the dynamesh tool to begin sculpting in high poly. After using the dynamesh tool, it removed the majority of my details and I had to go through the process of adding them back in, with the additional challenge now of a higher poly count and therefore sharper details.

Dynameshed model.

At this point I felt okay about how I had remade the details, but definitely not as confident as I wanted. I decided to continue on with the tutorials, while feeling a bit uneasy about my current plans for finishing this piece. After the second dynamesh, I made the decision to change my original idea.

Further details/problems.

Because of my new time management schedule, I was no longer confident that I would be able to produce this piece up to the standards I wanted it to be. I was struggling to use ZBrush and keep up with the tutorial, and started to come across a lot of issues when making the eyes that I wasn’t able to fix after about five solid hours of working back into it. My main concern was the fact that I knew I wouldn’t be able to make the eyes as strong as I needed them to be, because the eyes are what completely make or break a model.

So, I went back to my original mood board for my places of the mind weekly task to take further inspiration that I felt more confident with. Maybe this was a controversial choice to make, and potentially even not the smartest, but I decided to put this piece on hold and work on developing these skills in my personal time. I wanted to keep to creating a humanoid form so I wasn’t straying too far from my idea, but also switch it to a topic that will always interest me: horror characters.

Art by Piero Macgowan (Macgowan, 2015)

I was really drawn to this design in my original task, but wanted to try and make a human face because it was something I was less comfortable making. I think by switching to this design, while a bit last minute, I’ll be able to make a much more successful piece overall and learn a wider range of tools and techniques. I felt stuck with the bust piece and was becoming very aware of the fact that I probably wouldn’t make it past the modelling and sculpting stage if I continued with it, when I wanted to continue experimenting with different ways to use Substance Painter and UV unwrapping. I’m excited to see how this project progresses going ahead.

Initial block out of the new alien bust.

I worked on developing the base block out of this project and already feel much more confident in this piece and how it will progress. Since this model is mostly being sculpted instead of modelled, I'm trying to keep the subdivisons at a decent middle ground around 100,000 polys so it's high enough to get the sharp details I need, but low enough that it won't affect my PC speed.

Bibliography

Macgowan, P., 2015. Sectoid Concept - XCOM 2. [Online] Available at: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/4an6Y [Accessed 11 October 2023].

[randybutternubber]

Little Nightmares unused 2017 comic content master post (WILL BE UPDATED)

Okay, so disclaimer/info: None of these have been "leaked" by me, nor are they leaks in the first place; I just found them because I'm a HUGE LN comic fan, and I cannot keep the silliness contained. They either came from posts/portfolios made by the original comic creators or official announcements (with a few exceptions.) All of these are real. Obviously, don't take my word for it, but all of these have come from official sources that can be found online (if you want me to, I can prove it). Also, I know I might get people asking me about this/asking me to add it, but the supposed "leaked" comic pages of the Runaway Kid and Six interacting are fake. As far as I'm aware, these were either made to push sevix as canon or to troll. Either way, they were presented as being real leaks. Any other leak posted by this person was, while convicting, faked. (I don't want to start drama, and this happened years ago, so obviously, I'm not going to mention who made these posts.) Also, I will be updating this post with new content once I find it. I am currently looking for a couple of early sketches I saw a while ago. LAST THING: not all of these are unused content. Some are unused covers that didn't make it into the display at the end of the comics or inked and uncolored versions of existing pages.

Taken from Aaron Alexovich's website. This is an alternate version of an existing panel. The North Wind seems to have shape-shifted itself or created the visage of a wolf to blow at the barn. This is probably a reference to The Three Little Pigs, which fits, considering that The Tale Of The North Wind has many references to the fairytale "The North Wind And The Sun" and some other stories that involve the north wind as a character. One other minor difference is that the crows, which are implied to be skeletons in the original panel, are shown to be fully skeletal. Looking at the original panel, it seems like this version came first. Not sure why it was changed.

This is an unused cover. I found it on the twitter of one of the people who worked on it.

This is an unused/alternate version of the hunchback girl destroying the music box. Found (If I remember correctly) on the colorist's ArtStation.

WIP version of an unused cover

This one is an alternate cover version, so not really unused. As far as I'm aware, they don't sell selling physical copies with this cover anymore, but they do exist. Also, this can be seen in the cover display on the last pages of the comics, so if you've read them you've probably seen this. Might be a bit of a copout but it feels right to add it hear for some reason

I wasn't sure if I was going to include this one because, honestly, I don't really know what's going on with this cover. While this cover is used, for some reason, the colors in this version are super warm. It might be a reprint error, but it may also be an issue on the side of whoever took the photo. This may be a specific issue with the physical version as well. Really not sure what's up. (original below for comparison)

Unused alternate page where Six hauls in the music box. Also found on the colorist's art station

This is also an alternate cover that was used. I put it in here because a lot of people haven't seen it, but it isn't necessarily unused content.

These two pages seem to go hand in hand. They were used on the steam announcement for the LN comics. The top page looks like two panels oddly edited together. The children in the top panel seem like an early scrapped design for the campfire kids. These two pages honestly feel more like promotional material/concept art or something because of the sketchiness and scrapped designs. I believe these were specifically created for the announcement. This is just my speculation, though.

All the photos below are uncolored, inked versions of pages from book 2. These were found on a deviant art page which seems to be owned by one of the artists involved, probably the inker. Nothing super out of the ordinary until we get to the last of these inked pages.

This is an alternate uncolored, and unused version of the mirror monster first appearing.

I hope you guys enjoy this post, and I do plan to update it when I find those sketches. (sorry if the grammar is a bit messed up I'm tired and a bit out of it)

ONE SKETCH HAS BEEN FOUND

I found this on my camera roll and if I’m remembering correctly it came from one of the artists’ twitter accounts or one of their Deviant Art accounts. (Because I can’t remember exactly where it came from, please take this one with a grain of salt.)

[juicemitio]

Alright I went to Louisville Galaxycon and saw Travis and Clint twice, for their worldbuilding workshop and their Q&A. Here's some interesting stuff I learned (I didn't include stuff they talked about that's pretty common knowledge or they talked about on the last ttazz)

Graduation 

Fitzroy was originally going to be a jock that was weak bc he no longer had a team, Travis told Griffin that that didn't really work for the world so they reframed it as him training to be a hero, was great academically and behaviorally, but had a problem no one had seen before and no one felt like dealing with. It specifically wasn't "barbarian fails bc he can't keep his rage in check," it was that no one was willing to deal with his magic so they shipped him off

Someone asked Travis to explain fitzroy's magic, so from the DM's mouth- he's a barbarian subtype with elemental magic which has a random effect while raging, which we haven't seen yet (path of the wild soul if you want to look it up and see what he can do) and he took a feat which gives him the ability to cast 3 cantrips of his choosing. What I thought was interesting was that Travis described Fitz's magic using the word "elemental" twice, even though that isn't specifically stated in the path of the wild soul entry

Travis knows Argo's secret and is very excited about it 

Clint has a pirate fiction book he reads every night before they record to get into the headspace to play Argo, he told us the name but I forgot it 

There is one small little concept that made the whole of graduation make sense to Travis and is what the arc will be about, and he only figured it out a few days before recording. Obviously he didn't tell us what it was

Originally it was going to start with everyone starting at age 11 and slowly killing the other kids off, but Justin didn't feel comfortable playing a game surrounded by kids dying 

The accounting scene is already one of Travis' all time favorite taz scenes

The pegasus scene informed Travis on exactly how he was going to treat the firbolg

Also Travis referred to Justin's character exclusively as "the firbolg," which means "master firbolg" is solely a thing going on with the npcs in the game which I find hilarious. They just all decided to give him a dope title bc he deserves it, meanwhile no one will call Fitzroy "sir"

To Fitzroy, social threats are an extremely real and serious thing, like the Biggest thing to him (we were talking about what characters found threatening in the workshop, for context)  

There's some big concept/idea that comes up in the next episode that travis almost let spill and had to quickly stop himself from saying it

Someone mentioned eating breakfast in their question in the workshop and Travis goofed on it for a second, then said "cereal world" suddenly, and Clint had to pick up the question bc Travis had to take a second to make a note of it in his phone 

Travis started brainstorming graduation in March and they recorded the first episode in October, and his main job in that time was working on graduation 

Before Buckminster was adapted for graduation he could not fight at all, if he got into a fight he would die, he poured everything into charisma and could talk his way out of any fight (even the big bad of the game he crit 20d his check and the big bad walked away from the fight) 

Travis is really into psychology and how if you assign a label to someone they're going to act more like it (ie you tell a kid they're amazing and smart and talented and they become more like that, you tell a kid they're annoying and dumb and a problem they become more like that), and how that was a major contributor to play into hero/villain/sidekick/henchperson dynamics, you get assigned this arbitrary title of good/evil/subservient and you become like that to fit the role, and then the inevitable pushing against that mold

Travis is fully aware of his story being compared to harry potter and he doesn't care bc it's apt (people in a school arbitrarily divided into four groups and one of them is the Bad One), also he knows people describe it as "sky high meets Harry Potter meets my hero academia" and he actually finds that really flattering bc he thinks that sounds cool and like something he'd want to watch 

On that note, Travis is a self-identified Slytherin and he's always upheld that the reason Slytherin is depicted in a bad light is bc Rowling decided she didn't like them, and he's always sympathized with the idea of a first year Slytherin working their ass off following the rules and doing their work and getting points, and Dumbledore rewards three idiots for breaking like every rule and pulls the trophy away from you. This was a big inspiration for graduation, of one group getting a bad rep and being portrayed as evil for literally no reason 

Amnesty

Clint & Travis's favorite scene they've ever done together was Ned & Aubrey's final scene together 

Aubrey and Dani do move in with each other at the end of amnesty

Balance

Travis' main emotion around taz is pride and he's most proud of the scene in stolen century with the spirits in the robots, bc they had to record it a second time bc it got way too dark and ended in a really grim way and about 20 min after they finished they all decided that they weren't happy with it, that it didn't fit the tone, he's really proud they didn't just leave it be and they took the second pass at it to make it right

I'm pretty sure he's talked about wanting to kill Magnus off at the beginning before but he mentioned that it was only at the end of petals to the metal he actually realized he wanted Magnus to live, bc Hurley had to sacrifice herself to save Magnus bc Magnus had been so reckless, that hit Travis really hard. Travis realized that Magnus' recklessness was getting people hurt and so Magnus did too, so Magnus become a bit more cautious and took up rogue training to try not to get anyone killed again 

Dust

Dust wasn't designed to be anything more than a one off and the workload was completely unsustainable, the document of notes for dust was about 100 pages and only about 10% of it got used

The reason Travis loved it so much was bc it was a mystery and he found it really fun

Commitment

Clint would love to revisit commitment, but probably not in podcast form bc he didn't find himself really being in the moment as much bc of all the different things he had to keep track of, he'd like to see a comic adaptation/continuation if possible

It was based of a comic he wrote that never got published bc the company producing it failed (he still cashed his paycheck) so he reused it bc he still liked it a lot, it was about how America was founded as a monarchy instead of a democracy and what that changed in the usa's (united sovereignty of america's) history, and how people now were fighting to establish a democracy. Also there were cowboys and spaceships and other cool stuff he put in there bc he liked it

General adventure zone

The reason why they're are able to do romantic relationships w/o being weirded out by it (they joke about it but they don't actually care) is bc it's never done in an explicit or sexual way and since it's the decision the characters would make to pursue the relationship then that's the decision they make. He reframed it as it wouldn't be weird if a family were writing a script together and there was a romance and one person wrote lines for one character and the other wrote lines for the other. He did mention that two siblings playing characters in a relationship as actors on screen wouldn't be cool though

They sometimes get comments that some of the stuff they do is "fanservice," but they feel that they owe their success to their fans and they owe some to them 

They are both aware of and proud that Justin is the best at character creation, Clint specifically really was talking about how Justin's strong suit is definitely character creation and characterization

General mcelroy stuff

They walked pretty close to me when they entered the stage room for the q&a and like… they're short, like shorter than you think

Travis referred to his unborn child as "baby dod" (I'm not 100% certain but I'm pretty sure) which I looked up and is a nickname for George, and given with their older kid being named Barbera and nicknamed BeBe and Travis talking before about how he and his wife like classic names with cool nicknames it makes sense

Travis had an earing in his right ear, I didn't get to see his left ear and I couldn't tell if it was an actual piercing or a fake, it looked really good though. Also his tinted glasses look a lot cooler irl than they do in pictures

Clint told the teenage mutant Ninja turtle story with the signatures that griffin told on mbmbam, but Clint remembered it as happening at King's Island, not Disney. This story was prompted by the question of the biggest lie he ever told his kids, and he only came clean about this a few months ago

Travis told a story about how he finished a videogame when he was younger and was so excited that he picked up a plastic knife, yelled "throwing knife!" threw it directly at Griffin who dodged it and it hit and shattered a window

[marshmallowprotection]

One major factor that can make it confusing for players is the difference between the international age and Korean age. Because the international age will be less than their Korean age. The Korean age will always be one to two years older than the age we would consider them to be internationally. Like, Yoosung being 20 internationally but 21 in Korean age is a good example. That's due to the fact that everyone has another year added to their age at the time of the new year.

Another Story takes place a year and some change before Casual or Deep Route. We know that much since it says so at the beginning in the prologue as it designates time. That means everybody would be one year younger than they are in those routes. At least, they should be. It would mean that Yoosung would be 19 intentionally but his Korean age would be 20. If we used that same placement of time to apply to the twins with their original age, Saeyoung is introduced to us in CS/DP as 21 international and 22 in Korean. If it were the same logic, his age then would be about 20/21 respectively. It's the same for Saeran.

There are many things we can apply to find an answer. There is a chance that the boys do not know how old they actually are. There's also a chance they don't know if their identity actually matches up with who they are. Saeran might not be Saeran and Saeyoung might not be Saeyoung. Do any of us think that their mother would have cared to figure it out? It's not like Mother Choi would have been celebrating their birthday. I'm surprised they even know the day they were born on this Earth, but I know the only reason they know is because their mother would make a point of making that day a living hell for them, so, of course, they know what it is.

So, there is one chance that they don't know how old they are and they just have to guesstimate the exact age. It's not like you could tell how old they are in flashbacks because they were suffering from malnutrition as children and it stunted their growth in some capacity. That is the only explanation for why they would look like they were 10 when they were actually closer to 13 or 14 when V and Rika came around. We can't guess what they are just by looking at them because of the art style.

Now, if we just want to take the information given to us at the end of Ray Route, 22 years from that point would roughly be close to the time Mother Choi became pregnant, but not close enough for her to be pregnant. If the twins are meant to be at the age of 20, that's two extra years that aren't all accounted for. So, that would make them 22/23 in Another Story if we used that to gauge their ages in Another Story. In turn, that would mean Saeyoung and Saeran are actually 24/25 in Casual and Deep Route. But, again, they have no way of knowing how old they actually are.

They know their birthday but that doesn't mean they know their age. By the time they would have been aware of that as a concept, it would be much later in their lives. The twins aren't getting quality or even subpar education from their mother. Neither of them learn how to read or write properly until the time Saeyoung goes to the cathedral which is in his preteen years. They know a little but not a lot until that point. They just have to make an educated guess. If this is the case, I feel as though Saeyoung probably took an approximate gas depending on what kind of donations he could receive from the church depending on how old or young he was and just ran with it from that point. So he might have underestimated the age a little bit. I can't blame him for that since he has no idea.

A lame answer is that it is a possible mistake on Cheeitz' part. It wouldn't be the first time there was a continuity error that happened because writers didn't communicate face to face or there was a minor translation error somewhere in the process and something got bungled. That's the realistic thing to think about but it's not the most fun to consider. But I will point it out since it is the most viable option here.

From the OS prologue, call with Ray in AS day 2, and Ray good ending, respectively.

So, did Saeyoung lie about his age initially or did cheritz forget how old the twins are? Because if AS is two years before OS the would make the twins 20 in AS (or 23 in OS if Ray has it right).