#because while sprite doesn't take crap

[pharawee]

First & Sprite

—TWINS, Episode 1

[autisticandroids]

i've been seeing ai takes that i actually agree with and have been saying for months get notes so i want to throw my hat into the ring.

so i think there are two main distinct problems with "ai," which exist kind of in opposition to each other. the first happens when ai is good at what it's supposed to do, and the second happens when it's bad at it.

the first is well-exemplified by ai visual art. now, there are a lot of arguments about the quality of ai visual art, about how it's soulless, or cliche, or whatever, and to those i say: do you think ai art is going to be replacing monet and picasso? do you think those pieces are going in museums? no. they are going to be replacing soulless dreck like corporate logos, the sprites for low-rent edugames, and book covers with that stupid cartoon art style made in canva. the kind of art that everyone thinks of as soulless and worthless anyway. the kind of art that keeps people with art degrees actually employed.

this is a problem of automation. while ai art certainly has its flaws and failings, the main issue with it is that it's good enough to replace crap art that no one does by choice. which is a problem of capitalism. in a society where people don't have to sell their labor to survive, machines performing labor more efficiently so humans don't have to is a boon! this is i think more obviously true for, like, manufacturing than for art - nobody wants to be the guy putting eyelets in shoes all day, and everybody needs shoes, whereas a lot of people want to draw their whole lives, and nobody needs visual art (not the way they need shoes) - but i think that it's still true that in a perfect world, ai art would be a net boon, because giving people without the skill to actually draw the ability to visualize the things they see inside their head is... good? wider access to beauty and the ability to create it is good? it's not necessary, it's not vital, but it is cool. the issue is that we live in a society where that also takes food out of people's mouths.

but the second problem is the much scarier one, imo, and it's what happens when ai is bad. in the current discourse, that's exemplified by chatgpt and other large language models. as much hand-wringing as there has been about chatgpt replacing writers, it's much worse at imitating human-written text than, say, midjourney is at imitating human-made art. it can imitate style well, which means that it can successfully replace text that has no meaningful semantic content - cover letters, online ads, clickbait articles, the kind of stuff that says nothing and exists to exist. but because it can't evaluate what's true, or even keep straight what it said thirty seconds ago, it can't meaningfully replace a human writer. it will honestly probably never be able to unless they change how they train it, because the way LLMs work is so antithetical to how language and writing actually works.

the issue is that people think it can. which means they use it to do stuff it's not equipped for. at best, what you end up with is a lot of very poorly written children's books selling on amazon for $3. this is a shitty scam, but is mostly harmless. the behind the bastards episode on this has a pretty solid description of what that looks like right now, although they also do a lot of pretty pointless fearmongering about the death of art and the death of media literacy and saving the children. (incidentally, the "comics" described demonstrate the ways in which ai art has the same weaknesses as ai text - both are incapable of consistency or narrative. it's just that visual art doesn't necessarily need those things to be useful as art, and text (often) does). like, overall, the existence of these kids book scams are bad? but they're a gnat bite.

to find the worst case scenario of LLM misuse, you don't even have to leave the amazon kindle section. you don't even have to stop looking at scam books. all you have to do is change from looking at kids books to foraging guides. i'm not exaggerating when i say that in terms of texts whose factuality has direct consequences, foraging guides are up there with building safety regulations. if a foraging guide has incorrect information in it, people who use that foraging guide will die. that's all there is to it. there is no antidote to amanita phalloides poisoning, only supportive care, and even if you survive, you will need a liver transplant.

the problem here is that sometimes it's important for text to be factually accurate. openart isn't marketed as photographic software, and even though people do use it to lie, they have also been using photoshop to do that for decades, and before that it was scissors and paintbrushes. chatgpt and its ilk are sometimes marketed as fact-finding software, search engine assistants and writing assistants. and this is dangerous. because while people have been lying intentionally for decades, the level of misinformation potentially provided by chatgpt is unprecedented. and then there are people like the foraging book scammers who aren't lying on purpose, but rather not caring about the truth content of their output. obviously this happens in real life - the kids book scam i mentioned earlier is just an update of a non-ai scam involving ghostwriters - but it's much easier to pull off, and unlike lying for personal gain, which will always happen no matter how difficult it is, lying out of laziness is motivated by, well, the ease of the lie.* if it takes fifteen minutes and a chatgpt account to pump out fake foraging books for a quick buck, people will do it.

*also part of this is how easy it is to make things look like high effort professional content - people who are lying out of laziness often do it in ways that are obviously identifiable, and LLMs might make it easier to pass basic professionalism scans.

and honestly i don't think LLMs are the biggest problem that machine learning/ai creates here. while the ai foraging books are, well, really, really bad, most of the problem content generated by chatgpt is more on the level of scam children's books. the entire time that the internet has been shitting itself about ai art and LLM's i've been pulling my hair out about the kinds of priorities people have, because corporations have been using ai to sort the resumes of job applicants for years, and it turns out the ai is racist. there are all sorts of ways machine learning algorithms have been integrated into daily life over the past decade: predictive policing, self-driving cars, and even the youtube algorithm. and all of these are much more dangerous (in most cases) than chatgpt. it makes me insane that just because ai art and LLMs happen to touch on things that most internet users are familiar with the working of, people are freaking out about it because it's the death of art or whatever, when they should have been freaking out about the robot telling the cops to kick people's faces in.

(not to mention the environmental impact of all this crap.)

[professor-abeloved]

It Loves Within (a review of goodbyes, gratitude, and gay screaming)

i read somewhere that an aspect of the horror genre is pain. and if you're a fan of the it lives anthology, pain is inevitable.

the pain of choosing who has to take jane's place, a game that (doesn't) end(s) in sacrifice, betrayal, and anguish. the pain of losing one's parents, finding family anew (in both blood and found) - only to potentially lose it all.

the pain of an impossible choice: do you end this, once and for all, to save everyone - only to never see them again when you finally return home? do you remain in this world, with gaping wounds patched by temporary bandages, for the life you've never thought you had the chance to live? or do you try try try to bridge it all together, pushing for a world full of potential, a reality still out of reach, but still worth fighting for all the same?

every ending of It Lives Within is tragic in its own way, a bittersweet balm to the trauma-filled fuckaganza of a journey of these characters we know and love.

i'm never going to stop saying thank you to everyone at the @itlivesproject team for making the choice to create and collaborate on this masterpiece. the pain of pixelberry cancelling sequels (er, trilogies) broke my heart, but this fan game is more than a dream come true.

(the rest of this is kind of a rambling review under the cut)

looking back, i'm actually glad that they cancelled it - because i wouldn't trade every second i played ILW for anything. (and my girlfriend knows i've spent numerous all-nighters just playing and/or talking about ILW <3. i tell my therapist it started with abel's first diamond scene--and okay getting side-tracked).

first off, i want to mention all the variants. the It Lives series were unique and notorious for having different branches and endings that carried through to the next book, something which isn't very common in mobile visual novels. since ILW had not one, but two books to reference... hoo boy. coding, writing, making art + sprites for, testing, editing, and hell even just thinking of the different variables and how they impact a third book is such a herculean feat and i applaud everyone on the team for all the blood, sweat, and tears poured into this endeavor.

the gameplay itself was super fun!! i think it hit the right balance of action with timed choices and puzzles (i now want my own crown paperweight), implementing that Nerve Score system that the It Lives series is known for. not only did one have to keep in mind their Nerve, but also their choices between Blood and Shadow that would seal the fate of everyone in this Pixelberry Cinematic Universe (hello, horror Julian HSSgame). it was fun as fuck, i really liked and appreciate the decision of 3 different main endings <3

because the plot was a downright banger. every twist and turn had me on the edge of my seat and frantically screenshotting everything (somehow i've gotten to 20k screenshots, but at least 98% is ILW. the other 2% are random crap and also Choices, lol). it was cool to theorize and guess correctly on some things and still be utterly shocked at the brilliant execution. i can't list every single thing that made me gasp, but the crumbs of foreshadowing are incredible. not just saying this as a tester, but the replay value is nuts. (also the different personalites of sarcastic, genuine, and aggressive are so good).

having character relationships as a core stat was also an organic, lovely choice. i adore how everyone started off at various points (joss at 0 and amalia at 75 iirc?) and could develop differently and sometimes independently of nerve (abel being easy to befriend but having tough nerve to raise because he's going through Some Shit, while jocelyn was more closed off yet had easier nerve to raise). it really colors the ways the main 4 interact with rowan, and i love how even the romance variants played a part in it. from jealousy-laden glances to the famed Union Walk Out, this game was a breath of fresh air to the usual 'i accidentally have 1 flirt point with this LI and somehow they're in love with me' vibe of current mobile VNs. (mattyass is an outlier and doesn't count <3)

speaking of characters!! holy shit they slayed and served, giving closure to our favs from the first book and then some (being pro connor green wasn't in my 2023 bingo card, but it happened! i like that funky lil dude), giving the cast of the second book vital yet natural roles, while letting the new cast shine in their own right.

the It Lives cast is vastly beloved for a reason, and the ILP Team not only nailed every single one of the canon characters, but they breathed new life into them (literally in the case of RF!noah/devon). i'm beyond words to express how amazing it was to not only have my blorbos back, but to be able to see a beautiful devonoah romance and flirt with dan pierce after years of pining and get married to andy kang?!?! the gift just keeps on giving. (i'm just biased in mentioning them because devon, noah, andy, and dan are my ILITW biasline but i'm so happy to have seen stacy, lucas, ava, lily again <3333)

i also adore the ILB crew to bits!! i had the impression they were barely gonna be featured (and valid), but the way the showed up!! the way harper was important and could kick ass while injured??? slay.

and the way everyone interacted in ch19 was some avengers assemble beautiful dream. i don't think i'll ever be that happy again in my life, fr <33

and onto the stars of the show...

it's been an honor to spend time with each and every one of the main crew. jocelyn was someone i was hyped to see, ever since her cameo in the ILB end credits scene. redemption arcs are tricky and while i admittedly felt the initial trepidation... the execution of her development blew me away. it is fantastic and realistic (getting to encourage her to be better or to leave her alone was also a cool mechanic. i love how it's in firm yet empathic encouragement that she works to better herself.). she grew into such a fierce, gruff protector with a heart of gold and fists of fury. i love her so much. her nightmare sequence facing her shadow past self is one of my favorite's. arcs of self-forgiveness vs self-flagellation hit hard, and it moves me to tears to see how far joss has come <33 her route having either a slow burn vibe or a fwb tinge was also an excellent choice !! i enjoyed fwb route (she's so sweet and considerate, putting a blanket over us with a frown lmao) and i can't want to replay for sb + to write fics with her <3

now onto lincoln, my fav mlm cowboy son. i was initially jealous because i thought my girlfriend would be into him + i thought abel and he were exes, but i came around in ch13, iirc. i connect with his arc of wanting to prove your worth to your parents very painfully, and it means a lot to see him know that others' approval will never define him. i'm also happy to see him process his pain and give others a chance - give himself a chance to apologize and let abel in again. he's also fun to torture write for in fics, and somehow he's soulmates with my most complex ILW MC, wan, despite me son-zoning him real bad, so that's just amazing characterization. excited to write more <3

amalia my beloved <33 the brains, brawn, beauty of rowan's rogue monster hunting operations. i love her and her route so much. childhood best friends to lovers always slaps (i mean, cmon thats most of the ILITW ships), and the way it was executed for amalia is chef's kiss. the angst of your best friend not being the person you thought they were was an excellent spin on the trope. but the love she has for you and the love you have for her is something all on your own?? perfection <33 also her dreams of wanting to make a difference, especially what happened with her family is a very relevant experience today, are so inspiring <3 i'm so excited to replay her route with a different mc and also to write her as well <3

AIJDBFHDFJDOK abel aifhsohifOSDHDSIGH okay that's it.

JK abel, my love, my light, my stars. professor dorklord. the reason i've changed my url after these long years. i love him and his sexy sweater vest of sin so much. my favorite scene of all time is when pretending to have a lover's spat with abel in amalia's university AISHFIOG. he's funny, sweet, and charming. i'd listen to his nerdy rambles all night long - and yes, partially an innuendo, and partially that i like nerds who ramble about things. i love how he can be too rational (yet always with a heart <3) yet also so selfless, and i love how he can choose himself and his happiness at the end instead of living with ghosts <3 i love you abel, baby, i'm coming back for youuu in every route, in every wip <3

to ro, my trans-coded, queer-coded power entity <3 i was so happy that MC had powers (not from a suit we had to spend diamonds on), and wow they executed this trope so well. rowan is so well written with 3 different personality types, it's wonderful. y'know, i used to make MCs for every choices book (until i got lazy lol) and i can't believe i have at least 4 MCs again <3 the creativity this game sparks in me i swear to the power. i'll see you soon: ronaldo, genuinely sweet and genuinely terrifying baby boy. wan, my sweet snarky selfless drag queen. amor, you tough dorky tcg-playing sweetheart. reg my flirty failgirl (gender neutral), beanie baby charmer.

shoutout to daddy mattyass for being the GOAT choices antagonist/secret LI. you know i have so much to say about him, but it's almost 2 am and also 90% of my ilw meta is about him anyways <3 love to hate him, hate to love him!! he lives rent free in my mind <33 (but fr, such a compelling character and no one else would've been as satisfying to deal with in the finale. i miss the king of delusion pathetic meow meow <3)

also loving luis, sunny, elena, jessica, milf mayor green, babygirl adrian kim, girlboss marianthe. every npc, every pixel and line of code and text and just everything, every thread that makes up the tapestry of this beautiful, priceless experience.

it lives on, it loves on.

pain is inevitable. it hurts because it's over, it hurts because i love this game with every fibre of my being... but love doesn't really die, does it? it lives on in a different form. the game will always be there. if anything, the fandom is alive with the love that's put into the project, the love that reaches us no matter where we are - even from the fictional town of Westchester to the Power dimension and beyond.

[randomnameless]

I don't know why so many people are so persistent with this idea that Fodlan's worst mom (using your terminology) dislikes Rhea, just because she criticizes her decisions? For crying out loud, she criticizes Billy for their decisions especially when they get stuck in Zaharas, but was willing to fuse with Billy so that they could save the day. They really be trying hard to make it all about Rhea bad.

No worries lol

Sothis is an... odd character, to say the least.

Given how volatile FE16 is, especially since uwu and nightgowns, you cannot shed too much light on the Nabateans, and Sothis cannot be a likeable gremlin but also the same gremlin Supreme Leader vows to terminate, else Supreme Leader won't sell nightgown Cipher Cards (or not as much).

As a result, we end up with Sothis not reacting to the Nabatean plot and story (in FE16, we have the amnesia excuse, and when it falls, we have the "yeeted away by the plot" excuse) because Fodlan doesn't really want to tackle the "and those people were genocided and turned into shinies and saying Crust BaD is akin to saying "blood from this race of sentient beings BaD" else no turf war, no "maybe they're all fighting for their ideals" without spending 0.3 seconds wondering if one of those "ideals" isn't nauseabond, etc, etc.

We know Nopes!Sothis really doesn't like Agarthans, and from her battle quotes, thanks to voiceline anon, we know she plans on toasting their asses and even if she's rekt'd, she goes full Terminator "I'll be back" on them when the "time will come".

Story!Nopes!Sothis sort of weeps about her children turned into relics, and extra battle lines!Nopes!Sothis seems rejoiced to see her kids grown up (even if the lolcalisation lolcalised the crap out of her lines with Flayn.

Which makes... Story!Nopes!Sothis's lack of involvment in Supreme Bullshit or even Golden Shower all the more glaring - KT added and wrote lines where Sothis gives a crap about her kin, but in the canon, because player pandering is the way to sell subpar games, she can never oppose the player - on that grounds, no, if she opposes them, it's on the pseudo rivalry sold in the trailers between Billy'n'Barney.

We have a Sothis with her memories, who is able to be pissed bcs her children were killed, who remembers her bitter enemies, who shares her host's grief...

And yet, who doesn't move the little finger to protect or at least avenge her family members.

And I typed Rhea because it's always the best way to fish trolls, but it's the very same thing with Flayn and Seteth - Sothis knows who they are (or thinks she does for Flayn!) and yet will happily chill in Billy's brain as they hack them to pieces using her spine.

Really, the only thing I genuinely wonder about her is why KT bothered to add her battle lines/quotes depicting as, well, someone who at least cares for her family, if it's to ghost them in the main game for no plausible reason ?

Were they planning to sell a DLC with the assets we've found in the datamine (golden rhea sprite!) ? One that could and would shed more light on Sothis, her relation with her "creations" and with the Agarthans and Humans?

IDK, but imo Nopes is an example of a trainwreck, you can't sell a product that is so unlikable that your home fanbase disses it everywhere mere hours after its release, and hope to patch everything with a DLC.

Imo, Nopes getting no DLC and no further traction isn't only because Engage was on the way, but it might be because IS saw this, and went "okay stop we're taking back our franchise, fig off" to KT. It might have sold a lot for a musou, and reached the 1mil sales, that reception from the home market was something unplanned.

Tl; Dr : while the games play coy about what Sothis really thought about her children because Hresvelg Tea and whatnot, the Fodlan OST artwork is telling enough to reveal that, for some reason, as we're told but not shown especially not in the games, Sothis seemed to have cared a lot about her children (and also played the harp?).

[yourlocalshinguji]

hihi! can i request hcs of kazuichi taking care of his sick female s/o?

Kazuichi taking care of his sick Fem!S/O

Here ya go! I may be in love with pregame Kazuichi (I mean, Kazuichi before going to Hope's Peak), that's everything I'll say—

By the way if you've been constantly taking a bunch of medicines for a while I do not recommend to say "fuck it" and suddenly stop only because they taste like shit. I'm in physical pain right now.

Also, I know I said I wouldn't write for "a few weeks" but guess who miscalculated.

The reader is female.

—Mod Korekiyo.

—We all know how this boy genuinely cares for his beloved ones. But when it's about his girlfriend? Kazuichi is the first one to be there for you if something happens.

—Call it simping if you want.

—He got so worried the moment he found out you were sick and had no clue about what to do. He's probably asking you what you need and how he can make you feel better all the time because he has actually no experience in taking care of people.

—Glass of water? He gets one for you whenever you need to drink. Medicines? He's also the one getting them. Need help getting up or walking? He offers his arm to help you right away. You wanna rest for a bit? He lets you fall asleep on his lap or wherever you feel most comfortable.

—Sometimes he gets you the wrong medicines... Usually he's not that clumsy but he's so worried and thinking about you that he can't focus on tasks like that. Luckily, he always realizes on time and goes to get the right ones.

—"Wait... this isn't what she's supposed to be taking, crap-"

—If it were someone else, Kazuichi would just try to stay far away from a sick person since he doesn't feel like catching whatever they have.

—But then there's you, and he becomes even more clingy than before.

—Literally by your side at all times until you recover, asking you if it's okay to give you a hug every minute.

—If he sees that your sickness is also affecting your mood, he'll try to cheer you up no matter what. Mostly by telling bad jokes he considers funny and lot of affection, physical and verbal.

—He'll also try to calm you down and tell you you're gonna recover soon but at the end you'd have to be the one calming him down.

—"You're a pretty strong girl, y'know. I'm sure you'll get better soon, babe!"

—"...You will get better soon, right babe?"

—"Please tell me you will get better soon."

—You know that one sprite where he's holding his hat with both of his hands and is almost in tears? Yeah that's basically him.

—Still trying his best though.

[auxiliarydetective]

I promised you'd get so see some results!

Unfortunately, there’s not a single good way for me to turn the sprites I spent literal days on into an animation without me getting frustrated to no end and it looking absolutely awful. So, you might never get to see them in action unless I somehow find a way through some miracle.

But, there is one thing I can show you:

An edited version of the main menu! Click on it and zoom in, take a closer look!

Since the edits may not always be that obvious, here's a list of everything I did, taking me around 3 days:

Added L and R buttons on the Mario & Luigi version since the screen wouldn't fit four cards

Made a second top screen version for Sherry & Bowser

Created Sherry's info card and figured out her stats

Created unique rank icons for Sheryy

Pieced together the bottom screen and edited the "Info" logo to have four passports

Created a unique icon for Sherry's "Magic" stat which replaces Mario & Luigi's "Stache" stat aka Bowser's "Horn" stat

Created a unique icon for Sherry's dress items

Figured out the rest of Sherry's stats

The most work were actually the not-so-obvious things. The name tags were super difficult to make and I nearly broke my mind figuring out her stats. The problem is that she'd be fighting with Bowser in-game and Bowser's enemies are a lot stronger. So, she needs to be able to a) deal enough damage to be a factor or b) have some other significance if she's not dealing significant damage and c) not be one-hit-ko'd by the first enemy in the game while also having stats that make sense for her character. So, I came up with a magic system for Sherry that's kind of inspired by DnD and supportig characters in RPG games.

Sherry's melee attacks are absolute crap when going up against Bowser's enemies. For comparison, Bowser has POW 55 on level 1 and Sherry has POW 16, which is the same as Luigi's. Her HP are the lowest of all the playable characters since she's inexperienced but she has lots of SP because she needs them for casting spells and her speed is pretty good too so she can cast her spells before Bowser attacks to give him buffs. Now, you might have noticed her crazy high DEF and Magic stats. The Magic stat is responsible for lucky hits - which you're gonna need if you want to be offensive with Sherry because her spells' strength relies on a random number generator - like rolling dice in DnD! Her defense stat is my way of making sure she doesn't faint every other round and it's backed up by the game's lore: The source of her magic is her amulet and the amulet's main purpose is protection, so it has strong shielding properties

Prepare for some more stuff - especially Sherry's adventure dress that you can see on her stats screen - in the future!

[retronator]

It annoys me how tumblr's app doesn't display your art in the crisp, HQ beauty that it is. We should all complain about it. I love your work.

Oh boy, this is a topic dear to my heart. I hope you won’t regret hitting my nerve, because this issue and I, we’ve got some history, so buckle up because it’ll be a long, nerdy ride.

Before retina displays came along, if everything else in your OS was set correct, and you would display an image at 100%, then one pixel in your image would map onto one pixel of your (LCD) monitor. There’s only one way to do this, so if the source image was sharp (as it is in pixel art, including manually scaled pixel art) the displayed image was sharp. I’m saying manually scaled, because from a 100×100px pixel art image, you can make a 500×500px image by enlarging it 5x with nearest-neighbor interpolation in your drawing software, which creates a big, but still sharp version of your pixel art. If on the other hand you let the browser do automatic scaling (you give it 100×100px image and instruct it to display it at 500px width), browsers by default use higher order interpolation (bilinear, bicubic etc). This smooths out the edges, which is great for photos, but not so great for pixel art. The result is a blurry image.

So if you enlarged the image manually for Tumblr’s 500px wide dashboard (today it’s 540px), Tumblr didn’t have to change the image’s size, so it left it as it was, keeping pixels sharp. Everyone is happy. Back in those days I spent a lot of time and effort cropping images to 500/540px so that on the dashboard they would appear crisp as fuck.

Enter retina displays. Now each pixel in the OS was displayed by 4 pixels of the LCD display (2×2). Great for vector things, such as text. Great for photos, where you see 4x more details at the same physical display size. Bad for pixel art, because a 540px image uses 1080 retina pixels per row, interpolation needs to get turned on, and its the blurry, bilinear kind. 

“OK, Retro,” you say, “then we will upload a 1080px image, and interpolation won’t happen.” Nice idea, but what Tumblr does is, it takes the image you uploaded, saves the HD version (which can be up to 1280px wide), but also makes a number of variants for sizes at 540px, 500px, 400px, 250px … And yes, it does this downsampling by using interpolation = blurry pixel art. The way Tumblr displays images on the dashboard, they show the 540px image, even if you’re on retina and you could technically see up to 1080px of information. It saves on bandwidth, but also renders the 1080px upload idea impossible.

Now this is all desktop, computer version, in your browser. What they do in apps is harder to tell, because there are many more screen sizes they have to worry about and I’m guessing things vary between apps. What I can say is that on my iPhone 5s, it’s just as bad as on the website. The 540px native image that Tumblr didn’t scale gets fucked up due to app/iOS scaling, and the 1080px image gets scaled by Tumblr first to 540px (and then again up by the OS scaling) so it’s all the same crap.

Could Tumblr do any better? Yes, but it would require a convention. Because higher-order image interpolation produces better quality in general, it makes sense for it to be turned on by default. They would have to agree on a tag, for example “pixel art” or “crisp-edges”/“pixelated” (if they wanted to mimic the CSS image-rendering directive), that would trigger rendering using nearest neighbor interpolation. As of now, I don’t know any general website that does this. Even DeviantArt, where you semantically choose your image to be pixel art, they don’t use this information to change the way they render the image.

What can you do yourself? You can force your browser to use nearest neighbor interpolation. I made an extension for Safari that does this (called Pixelize), and I think there should be others for other browsers. Obviously I don’t want it turned on all the time, so it’s a button in your toolbar that you can hit when you need it.

For your mobile app, you don’t have any such power. The best I can say is to upload images as big as possible and let the browsers just do the downsizing. This doesn’t apply to tumblr, because it manually creates the shitty 540px version that it then displays enlarged, but for any other network, if they actually display the high-res original (or at least x2 the OS pixels, as it should be on retina displays), you’ll get decent enough quality. 

Quick note for Twitter: inserting at least a pixel of (semi) transparency forces it to save the image as png, which uses lossless compression. If there is no transparency, they will default to saving it as jpg, which creates blurriness/noise due to lossy compression, which is another topic altogether. Don’t even get me started on the idiotic decision to convert GIFs to videos. I’m glad I was able to convince Medium to change back (yes, you can thank me for that, because I am passionate about this).

One final thing needs to be said, of which I was reminded by Cyangmou. Pixel art, or better said old game graphics, were never sharp to begin with. They were displayed on blurry CRTs where pixels bled into each other. Dithering, for example, worked extra well due to this. So when I see ZX Spectrum art today, I’m not even mad if I see it with bilinear image interpolation. It’s actually closer to the original than sharp pixels. Sharp, big pixels are a unique idea to pixel art as an art style and it’s just that, an art style. We love it because of its own inherent interesting look, but it’s not actually something we’d have a nostalgic attachment to, because things never looked like this back then. We do have a nostalgic connection with the characters, the sprites, but their modern pixel art rendering is a new construct. That doesn’t mean it’s not good to display old sprites sharp (as you can see I spend much effort to do so), it’s just an interesting thing to keep in mind.

Bottom line: Don’t worry about it. Looking at art on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, etc. is like looking at Mona Lisa in Walmart. Besides, you might care, but 99% of people, including your fans, don’t. In 5 seconds they’ll be 3 screens away from your image already. The way we consume art on the Internet today is (especially on social media): we see an image, we acknowledge it, “Oh, that’s nice,” we double tap for a like, and we move on. Less than 3 seconds. I might sound bitter, but I’m not. I do this too. But I also want places dedicated to looking at art, just like I go to an art gallery once in a while. It’s why you can see images in my new blog design without any distractions (click on them). It’s why you can do the same in my Pixel Dailies archive. It’s why Pixel Art Academy will take this even further. I care. Just not on social media. Long are the days when I spent 1h cropping images so they’d appear sharp on the Tumblr dashboard.