#but this is the first and final time i'm seeing this as full rendered quality

[sharlmbracta]

👀

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

How to tell Arcane leaks apart from trailers and teasers

There are NO LEAKS in this post, so please read.

In summary: to identify leaks, look out for 1): watermarks, 2): unfinished animation rendering, and 3): poor image and video quality.

Tumblr isn't too bad right now, but Twitter is rife with clips and screenshots of the leaks, and YouTube has full uploaded leaked clips. These leaks show up on YouTube if you even search just "Arcane" or "Arcane season 2."

Here is a list of legitimate trailers and teasers posted by Netflix and Riot. These are not leaks and the clips and gifsets about them on Tumblr are from legitimate sources:

Season 2 first look

Season 2 teaser (short)

Ekko and Heimerdinger sneak peek

Season 2 teaser trailer

Jinx and Sevika sneak peek

There's some confusion in the tag about what constitutes a leak and what is simply a trailer or a teaser shared legitimately by Netflix and/or Riot. This is understandable because the first 5 episodes of season 2 leaked at the same time that Netflix and Riot were accelerating season 2's marketing.

Most people in the fandom do not want to be spoiled at all, and so are not excited about the leaks. Most people don't want clips, screengrabs, or even vague allusions to the leaks in the Arcane tag. They most certainly do not want spoilers sent to their inboxes, either. (DO NOT DO THIS. Don't be that person either on anon or off. Goodness gracious.)

Still, there is always going to be someone who posts the leaks in the fandom tags. However, there are many more people who make gifs and posts about the legitimate season 2 teasers and trailers. There are still almost 3 months until the first episodes drop, so we will be dealing with dodging these leaks for a long while.

Here's how to tell what's a leak and what isn't:

1): Watermarks

From what I've put together, someone at one of the dubbing studios leaked the first 5 episodes of Arcane season 2. In their entirety. However, these leaks were not production ready. The leaks are also completely watermarked and have a big running timestamp ticking throughout the run of all of the episodes.

This is difficult to visualize beyond what little Riot shared about the production of season 1 in Bridging the Rift. So I will post a NON-SPOILER screengrab of the title card of one of the leaks I took (just a few seconds before I realized I was looking at a leaked episode).

Below is a screenshot I took of nothing more than the Arcane title card from the season 2 title sequence. This is not a spoiler! Please use this example to help you tell a legitimate teaser from a leak:

Can you imagine watching 5 EPISODES of Arcane with these watermarks all over every single frame??? I'm begging you, do not subject yourself to watching Arcane in this manner, no matter how bad you want to know what happens in season 2.

These watermarks are practically impossible to remove, especially from every single frame. So any visuals you see that look clean, production-ready, and gorgeous from season 2 are definitely from trailers or teasers, not from leaks.

Here's a screengrab from the recent sneak peek posted by Netflix/Riot for comparison:

No watermarks, the animation is finished, the video quality is high. This is a legitimate teaser and not a leak.

2): Unfinished animation render

You don't need the full finished painterly animation from Fortiche to complete a dub. You just need basic character models and their movements, along with the finished script.

Much of the leaks are just this: the full complete scenes from every episode, character models are moving as they will in the final edit, the episodes' composition is complete, but the animation is unfinished and doesn't have the final painterly polish yet.

Below is a NON-SPOILER screengrab from Riot/Fortiche showing the animation process. This screenshot is from season 1 episode 5 during Vi and Sevika's first fight and shows the stage of completeness of the animation that most of the leaks show:

Notice that the scene is comprehensible, but the lighting effects and painting-like style of Fortiche is missing. It looks... okay, but unfinished-looking compared to what we know Arcane looks like. A big chunk of the 5 leaked season 2 episodes look like this.

Here's the final render of this scene for comparison:

However, I will say that I accidentally watched the first few seconds of the leaked season 2 episode 1 before it registered in my brain that I was watching a leak. There were watermarks like in my first point above, but for this particular scene, the animation was finished, and it seems like the sound mixing was finished too.

So it is possible that there are leaks floating around with gorgeous finished-looking animation. So look out for watermarks no matter what, and also -

3.): Poor image and video quality

When people say that the leaks are "potato quality," they mean it. On top of the watermarks and big timestamp across the runtime of all the 5 leaked episodes, the video quality is also pretty bad, certainly less than 360p.

The legitimate teasers and trailers and screenshots released by Netflix and Riot are all of very high video quality.

A note on early leaks

There are some leaks from earlier this year pertaining to Vi and Caitlyn's story that came from the Annecy Animation Festival Arcane panel. These leaks weren't treated as seriously because no full clips leaked, and they were mainly high-level summaries of season 2 plot points.

Those leaks are now difficult to tell apart from text posts about these new complete episode leaks. There are a lot of text posts out there about Vi and Caitlyn's story in particular as well as extremely spoilery text posts about certain characters who were in the Council tower at the end of season 1 episode 9.

There isn't much we can do about text posts

In the end, Tumblr has been pretty okay with keeping visuals from leaks out of the tag. I still see a potato-quality screenshot from the leaks every now and then. But most pervasive is people talking about spoilers from the leaks in text posts. These posts are tagged with the fandom tags and spoilers are only tagged sometimes.

Often, if the person is only vaguely alluding to the spoilers, they won't tag spoilers at all because they think being vague is enough. It usually isn't, because the post is still alluding to events outside of season 1 and the teasers/trailers.

The only thing we can do to completely avoid these posts is to not only block "spoiler" or "leak" related tags, but to avoid and block the Arcane fandom tags altogether, which is a shame.

Please, if you're someone who saw the leaks and wants to post about them, all I can ask is to at least tag your spoilers: "arcane spoilers", "arcane season 2 spoilers", "arcane s2 spoilers", "arcane leaks", or even just "spoiler", "spoilers", or "leaks" is better than nothing.

Even better would be to simply avoid using the word Arcane in the post and not tag the post with any fandom tags at all, keeping the post relegated to your blog with as little context as possible. This includes avoiding using the correctly-spelled character names in the post as well. Until the episodes drop in November, this is the most polite way I can think of to talk about the leaks and spoilers on your blog.

[the-male-synthographer]

💋 Hello, I'm so pleased to write to you with this August Newsletter. Thank you so much for all the likes and welcome to the new followers. The-male-synthographer page has seen an impressive evolution this past month, with so many new followers. I'm glad that this page is encountering such success. Regarding the upcoming issue No. 04 of the printed magazine "The Male Synthographer," I've rendered almost all the synthographies, totaling more than 150 pictures. The magazine will keep the 104-page format. The most difficult part was infusing emotions into the renders. It's not always easy since they are AI-generated, but I'm quite satisfied with the results. Now, I just need to write the narratives, and I still plan to deliver issue 04 by the end of September or October. Aside the magazine that i will continue, I have another project I'm thinking about for this autumn or next winter. It is to open a Patreon page where I will place exclusive content in, ultra high 4k definition, suitable for wallpapers or screensavers. Currently, I'm rendering only square pictures, I need to finalize and normalize the way to deliver 16:9 panorama pictures that meet my posting high quality standards. There will be no porn, as I prefer that people dream and imagine, but it will definitely feature sexy dudes. Well, I have tons of ideas but so little time. (I have a full-time job on the side.) By the way, I will be on holiday for 3 weeks this month. Long awaited holiday. I won't post new content during this time. I'll be back at the very end of August. See you, 💋 For those who want to support me and discover exclusive creations, you can check out the offers of my first three issues here (Same magazines but different shops depending the countries) World -> blurb.com/user/Synthograph (USD) USA -> blurb.com/user/Synthograph (USD) UK -> blurb.co.uk/user/Synthograph (GBP) DE -> blurb.de/user/Synthograph (EUR) FR -> blurb.fr/user/Synthograph (EUR) IT -> it.blurb.com/user/Synthograph (EUR) ES -> blurb.es/user/Synthograph (EUR) AU -> au.blurb.com/user/Synthograph (AUD)

[lillifaba]

Here's why I'm still unimpressed with the Wicked movie trailer

A while ago I made a post explaining my thoughts on the Wicked teaser trailer. A lot of it was mostly negative due to the poor CGI, acting, lines etc... Well the official trailer dropped and I've got some new thoughts both good and bad. This is going to be way longer than my last post because I'm going to go into detail about why I think this movie won't live up to the musical by comparing it to other movies and musicals. I'll also be talking about some scenes from the featurette.

THIS IS JUST MY OPINION SO FAR ON WHAT WE SEE IF YOU LIKE THE TRAILER OR LIKE ANY OF THE ACTORS THEN DON'T GET YOUR PANTIES IN A TWIST MY WORD ISN'T GOSPEL NOR IS IT MY FINAL OPINION ON THE MOVIE.

Starting off with things I liked:

I'm actually starting to warm up to Cynthia as Elphaba. In my last post I argued I didn't entirely see her as Elphaba mainly because it was obvious she's a thirty seven year old playing an eighteen year old. While I still believe she doesn't pass for younger Elphie and her simple "I am" comeback is weak, hearing more of her lines and performance is actually on point with Elphaba's character. I wouldn't be against her revisiting Elphaba on stage after the movie. Bottom line: I think she's a great singer and am happy a fellow WOC is playing Elphie.

Holy shit that witch cackle gave me goosebumps. It might be the editing and sound in the trailer that makes me feel that way so we'll have to see when it happens in the movie.

Michelle Yeoh???? Like hello? Although she seems more toned down compared to the campy personality MM has on stage, she plays the role of the evil villain quite well. (I'm sad she had to stop using her beautiful Malaysian accent ;_; I hope it was by her choice and not by the choice of the executives.)

Some set designs look quite nice. I'm particularly curious about the scene where The Wizard is dancing around a full size diorama of Oz.

The effects of the grimmerie are quite neat. I despise the new shape of the book, but I think it's cool how instead of going for some floating colorful lights to pass as "look magic oooo", they're going for the spells to be coming out of the pages. Very unique.

And now, on to the negative. This is where I'll be comparing some of the shots and scenes of the trailer to other movies and parts of the musical.

I hate hate hate the CGI. You don't understand I absoultely for forever deeply truly LOATHE the CGI. It cheapens the movie and all that talk and show about how they built up the sets and rainbows showing over their productions goes all out the window when I see those flying monkeys.

Let's talk good CGI vs rushed CGI.

First off I do not blame the VFX artists for this movie looking the way it does so far. VFX artists are one of the most overworked and underpaid workers in the film industry who have to pump out content in a short amount of time. It is also not their fault that audiences are tired of seeing overdone CGI movies every month. It's part of the reason why the Wicked teaser trailer got so much hate when it came out (on top of Ari/🧽, reactionary bros, etc...)

The CGI (mostly in the Emerald City) looks AI generated. Most of my issues with it come from the effects looking poorly rendered. Elphaba flying looks obviously fake. I know they recently touched up some of these scenes but honestly it doesn't make a difference to me at all in quality.

If John Chu and the team behind this movie really cared about this like they insist they do, it wouldn't hurt to take time with the effects. When you do so, you get mind blowing results like this:

Onto other effects: The flying monkeys don't look great. They look poorly rendered along with the rest of the effects. For that I wish they would've stuck to practical effects like Pan's Labyrinth did or literally any character Doug Jones plays like down below.

Heck, even the musical does a better job:

I seriously encourage you to watch B T S footage of Wicked to see how insane and amazing this effect is. Once you see it, you'll realize just how bad the movie fucked up on this.

Bottom line: movies that take their time with CGI effects and utilize other methods like practical effects before leaving everything up to post have better results than your run of the mill CGI Marvel or DC blockbuster.

I'm still not feeling Arianna as Glinda. Before you fans eat me up alive I need to say again I don't hate her and even like some of the stuff she puts out there. This critique is not a reflection on who she is as a person because I don't know her personally. With that out of the way I still cannot stand her Glinda impression. "But Lilli!" You say. "You said you didn't like Ari as Glinda because she's not giving Glinda but she's doing Glinda's voice!" And I stand by that. She's not giving Glinda. She's giving Kristen Chenoweth. You might think that's the whole point of playing Glinda but let me ask you; When you watch Megan Hilty as Glinda, did you think she was imitating KC to the bone? What about Kendra Kassebaum? Ginna Claire Mason or McKenzie Kurtz? Did you think KC was imitating Billie Burke? Or were all of them doing their own interpretations of Glinda that made the character unique to themselves and not a copycat version of the original? Because I argue that's what makes every Glinda special and unique from the previous actress who played her. Doing a copycat rendition of KC makes me believe you have no faith in yourself as an actor and you are incapable of playing character that's been done before without having to copy the source material beat for beat. Because of this, I still cannot seperate Ari the pop star from Glinda The Good.

This point has less to do with Ari as Glinda in the movie and more as what she's doing to promote the movie. I have no idea where else to rant about it but here. I hate hate HATE how Arianna is making this movie and Glinda her ENTIRE personality. She acts like she's part of this fandom yet never interacts with anyone in it (unless its directly involves her) and it all feels so... artificial and money grabbing. Someone please tell me I'm not alone. Like girl please call me when you read and write fanfic on AO3 and get three kudos on your multichap fic lol.

DTL: Again I ask, WHY IS THIS MOVIE SO DARK? DTL is meant to be in a ballroom with tons of bright lights and projections. This ballroom looks so dark and depressing. I'm not thinking "let's dance because dust is what we come to" I'm thinking "turn me into dust already." When I saw Elphaba putting that hat on in the teaser trailer, I thought that was a scene in defying gravity. John Chu failed this scene which makes me angry because I this is my favorite scene in the musical.

Adding on to DTL, we have to talk about the scene where Elphaba and Glinda establish their friendship. If you know this scene in the musical (which duh) you'll know that this is where Glinda realizes that she did a horrible thing to Elphie and wants to make things right, even if it means putting her reputation in the gutter in front of her friends. I know this is an edited trailer so we won't know for sure how the full scene plays out in the final movie, but Glinda immediately going for a hug before they start dancing threw me off guard. At this point, they still aren't best friends because Elphaba doesn't realize that Glinda is sorry for what she did, their relationship is only now starting to build up. Let me ask you, what do you think makes a scene more impactful? Glinda hesitantly and nervously walking up to interupt Elphaba doing a solo dance and then cutting in to make her feel less alone, which eventually leads to all while making them ease up around each other as the song and dance progresses OR Glinda rushing into a bear hug with Elphaba before they even establish them making amends on the dance floor? One seems like a slow burn that tugs at your heartstrings while the other feels like a cheap attempt to get some kind of emotional response from the audience? (Then again not sure how this scene will play in movie but it's not looking good right now)

Final point, why is Elphaba crying during this scene? I get she's just been put through public humiliation and is just now getting an act of kindness from someone but don't you think it's too soon to show her in such a vulnerable position? One of the things about Elphaba in both the musical and books is that she's built a wall of apathy around her because she's been judged her whole life and doesn't care how other people percive her. We don't see her breakdown in the musical until Nessa's death because she's been forced to stay strong her entire life. Maybe at the earliest, we'll see her tear up during defying gravity but I'd argue that's a part of the actress playing her and not the character herself.

I hate how this trailer has been edited to make Arianna look like the protagonist. I get she's bringing in a large audience, but she's playing the secondary character, not the main one. It just pisses me that the protagonist (who is a WOC) has to be in the shadow of the white woman. It almost makes me believe they're doing it because they're more worried people would be offended at the prospect of a POC being a leading role.

The main actors still look way too mature to be playing their characters. I spoke about this already. I don't buy any of these adults (with the exception of Marissa Bode) as college freshmen.

Still hate that riff at the end of defying gravity and that after all the backlash, they're still going with it. I also can't believe some of you are defending it to the death and acting like Cynthia Fucking Erivo can't do a better take than what she gave. (Yes, I know every Elphaba does a different take on the riff and we all have our favorite ones but I'm going to say something that is controversial yet brave: Not every riff that every Elphaba does is great. Some of them are range from underwhelming to straight up bad) Here's a reddit post I found that better explains my gripe with the riff since I'm bad at explaining musical terms:

Costume and makeup design is still atrocious. I'm sorry, but the low effort looking costumes cannot hold up to the extravagance and camp the stage has. They should've brought Susan Hilferty back. Look at Elphaba's act 2 dress and the dress movie Elphaba wears and tell me you're not disappointed.

Adding on, why does everything look modern, including the makeup? Arianna using her brand of makeup in the movie doesn't impress me when she's using a modern day mascara wand over her wispy falsies in a 1900's inspired society when she should be using one of these:

Like... come on? Can you imagine a scene of Glinda doing her makeup while she's ranting to Elphaba about how men (except for darling Fifi of course <3) are so entitled and disrespectful and in the middle of her sentence, she just SPITS on her mascara cake, scrubs the brush like she's scrubbing the floor and does her lashes? Iconic honestly.

Adding on to the makeup looking modernized, I'm not a fan of Elphaba's modernized makeup either. It could be the deaging filter they added on everyone older than thirty but one thing that stood out to me is they used 90's era lip liner on her. I'm much aware if you're darker skinned, you will often times need to use a liner in order to blend in parts around your mouth that are darker in comparison to your lips. Counterpoint however:

They could've easily used a dark lipstick post-Popular like they already do. The 1900's era mostly used a single shade of lip color anyways. And no, I don't want to hear from any of you how none of this matters because Oz is an advanced society or some half assed excuse why it's totally okay they didn't care about the miniscule details while they cared about the number of tulips used in Munchkinland for NMTW. (also note: Oz was considered an advanced society FOR THE TIME IT WAS CREATED. Meaning they weren't envisioning the future items we have now like a mascara wand) If they allowed Arianna to use her own brand of makeup for the movie, they could've allowed an expert on BW's makeup history on set for their main protagonist.

Set design. I've got to say, while some of the sets are impressive, they really don't fit into Wicked or Oz. I mostly blame CGI and lighting, but even then, it can't hold up to the simple, yet brightly colored sets we see on stage. Shiz looks like something out of Hogwarts, which nearly every fantasy academia story looks like these days. Can we please have something original for once?

What I would've enjoyed seeing the movie do is something similar to Melanine Martinez's K-12. They were working on one location on a smaller budget, yet it looks better than the dimly lit and CGI sets we're seeing.

Obviously I'm not saying Wicked should look EXACTLY like K-12 because they have completely different themes and genres, but my point is good lighting, original set designs and color correcting can take you a long way. Wicked is deserving of having the same whimsy look that the WOZ movie had, while still having dark parts where needed.

Some more examples of good use of lighting during dark scenes in movies:

Continuing from not being a fan of the sets, I'm FUMING at the location of Fiyero and Elphaba freeing the lion cub. Why is it in a dark dreary forest?????? Did John Chu mix up the locations between INTG and ALAYM???? The lion cub scene takes place in the poppy field, with a soft orange pinkish lighting that creates a romantic atmosphere and establishes the growing romance between Fiyero and Elphaba (<3) This forest looks too erie and mystical, which should've been used for act 2.

Another hot take: I think the tulip field in Munchkinland looks completely unnecessary. I literally do not care if they planted thousands of rows of them. They look CGI'd because nearly everything in this movie is CGI.

Now onto some things I'm confused about.

God I was so looking forward to Peter Dinklage as the voice for Dr. Dillamond,but from what I heard of his voice acting so far, it just sounds... underwhelming. But I can't complain too much because at least it's not James Corden. I still believe in Peter and hope he will pull through.

Why did they feel the need to change the shape of the grimmerie? It was fine the way it was!

Adding to Dr. D, I'm not sure if I like his new design. I'm guessing they're taking inspiration from the book but if we're discussing live action, I really prefer makeup effects over CGI. One of the things I liked about the Animals in Wicked and in Cats the Musical is they find a perfect balance between blending human features and animal species without it going into the uncanny valley.

I feel underwhelmed by Jeff Goldbulm's acting as The Wizard :( I can't complain too much because he kinda-

On a final note: I think this movie just cannot and will not match up to the excellence of the musical. Will it be a good movie? I don't know yet. I'll still see it in theaters and will give my thoughts.

While brainstorming my thoughts for this trailer, I've really been thinking about why I hate what I'm seeing so far while I enjoy other interpretations of Wicked, especially when it comes to costumes. Then I realized something.

I love non-replica productions of Wicked... So why don't I like the design of this movie?

Part two of my take COMING THANKSGIVING 2025

Not really, give me like a week or two.

[blogofloathing]

Part 1 of 1, Victoria And The Bespectacled Girl

"Got anything on your line?" Gesturing vaguely in Walter's direction with her back turned to him.

He paused, as if maybe Victoria had summoned a fish with her query, but the rod stayed slack.

"m'nope, maybe they're gone fishin'" he coughed, letting out a joke so dad she didn't even bother with a lighthearted sigh in admonishment.

And in any case her lungs were busy working, as she dug through another large hill of refuse,

Bottles and wrappers, shopping carts, broken glass and jagged metal, but still no food.

These dubious materials clinging to each other with whatever weird algae grew in these parts.

For a moment she thought she felt something, but one again it was snatched back by whatever spirit had brought it out to her in the first place.

And finally she wrenched herself free of the garbage heap, sat dam to the river, her only findings were a new set of scrapes along her arms.

An unpleasant risk when scavenging, though she found the scratching to be oddly satisfying

"Walt I'm tellin' ya these fish ain't bite these days!"

Her companion giving a strained sort of chuckle, something between tobacco and weed.

It was a wonder you couldn't see clouds billow out when he spoke, to obscure his patchy stubble.

"Mm, maybe we need to pick a new spot.." the words themselves glancing around the little hovel,

Recollecting her favorite graffiti or nastiest gash.

She paced around idly, shoes providing less than comfort with soles long since worn out.

This had been their spot, finding a pile of trash comfortable enough to sleep on took time!

But she couldn't deny that if the fish had run dry, and not due to being cooked, something would have to change soon,

"I'm cool with whatever though" Walter added, a disclaimer just incase his plan didn't work out.

Victoria stood thinking for some time, it's not like she had much to move,

She could count her possessions on one hand, half of which accounted for the clothes on her back.

The rest summing up to Walter's various bags of supposed bait—and though she questioned the quality of his selection—it had worked until now.

She allowed those fish one last rain check before Bus Victoria would depart.. and..

"Urgg okay! Let's go!" Her exclamation a symbolic and literal stomping of her foot.

Walter's face maintained a neutral, calm smile, as she began marching around.

"m'all I've got's my fisher pole, so just let me know" Walter mumbled, taking a debatably deserved rest.

Back flat against the bridges support beam, it was so old she wondered if he would collapse it.

The whole setting was a minefield of rusty metal and discarded items tossed over the railing.

Which lended well to the hobo lifestyle, someone's always too full to finish their food, and equally too lazy to seek out a trashcan.

And when that didn't work, Walter knew his way around the fishing pole.

This is how the pair had subsisted until new government regulations swooped in to sever this lifeline, making it illegal to actually fish in the river.

Signs were pegged all around warning passersby that to catch anything here was punishable by law

Including those same signs, sitting in piles nearby. Transformed into yet another nameless trash pile.

She set her hands together and closed her eyes,

"Please let there be food soon" both to herself and any god watching, a quiet prayer, just incase

Maybe some divine inspiration would come down and show her how to fix her life somehow,

Victoria had let herself become comfortable here, stupidly, of course this was unsustainable.

She just didn't think it would have to end so soon, despite all evidence, she had remained optimistic.

What if their next spot was flat too, or one of them got sick? Either would be a death sentence

These worries and tragedies-to-come swirled in her head, a violent rapid of her own making.

Rendering her mute in this airless terrarium.

She wordlessly "packed" her things, sure that Walter had said something—probably another stupid joke—but even the river din was inaudible

It felt like her life had all been building up to one big explosion, with her at its centerpoint,

An auto pilot careening herself right towards the nearest mountain, "god this sucks"

Said to no one in particular, but all the same Walter wilted back "amen to that sister"

The two of them giving a limply disconnected fist bump, an unspoken friendship with the air.

Though even if they had touched, Victoria knew she was far too insulated to enjoy his warmth.

She wandered around the small bit of land they called home, trying to take everything in

To grab every piece of herself she'd strewn about in her short time here, it was all so scattered

Like every night here had taken another minuscule of herself and plastered it onto the concrete,

Victoria almost wanted to resent this place, for coddling her, allowing her a short rest.

Like the bridge itself had deceived her, but all the same she knew it was her fault in the end.

Once again standing still in the eye of her storm, surely she was used to this by now right?

She hadn't even noticed her pace halt, as if these lingering thoughts had slowed her to a stop

The careful drag of the wind against her hulking fears and great unknowable anxieties.

Maybe this was how it was supposed to be, she'd been homeless almost as long as she'd been.

Maybe it was just the way the world worked, the losers lose, and the people up top throw their trash down on them. Out of sight out of mind.

This contemplation carried her right back into pacing, a dead man's trot, rendering her oblivious to anything around her but the weight in her heart.

Oblivious enough apparently, that she didn't see the large tread-wheeled machine in her way.

Despite its whirring and raggling, she only took notice of it when her feet had met its path.

But rather than courteously stepping to the side, it continued on, pulling dust and sand up in the air.

And out of her; an embarrassing cry of surprise, as she stumbled head over heels onto the ground.

Landing unceremoniously in a heap, adding a new scar to her already bled through knees.

She found herself staring at a pair of greasy boots, evidently belonging to the owner of the device.

"Youch! Hey watch where you're goin with that thing eh?" She clattered, rubbing her head.

As she sat up and muttered unheard profanities, sitting crossly criss cross, sans apple sauce.

"Me watch where I'm going? You almost ruined my school project being so careless!" The palid toned girl spat back, this was gonna be fun.

A sly grin gravitated onto Victorias face, "oh ho you one of them S.I.T smarty pants' huh?"

She sneered down her nose at her, despite being generally shorter on even footing.

"Yes infact I am one of 'them S.I.T smarty pants" she spoke venomously, mocking Victorias accent

"Are ya now? Well I just could never tell by ya four eyes and little gizmo here" pointedly eyeing both.

Her dark hair seemed to frizz up at the remark as if itself had felt offended on her behalf,

With a quickly reddening face and equally faltering temper she grumbled "well at least I'm educated"

"And you know I ain't? Psh, figures for an upper crust like yourself" the retort acting like a push to the chest, an overzealous verbal challenge.

Both now standing straight, Victoria looked down

"Do you even know who I am? I-" this remark pushed aside by Victorias "ohh you're one of those types huh? Well sorry missy I haven't heard of you"

Seems lucky I haven't, thought Victoria, of course some preppy trust fund kid is who she'd run into on her proverbial eviction day, "and I don't want to"

The still yet to be named girl seemed fit to burst with unpleasantries, "I'm Simone Chekhov! of the S.I.T Robotechtronics department!"

This smattering of accolades fell from her like it had been sitting right on the edge from the start.

"I've received several letters from several colleges even more prestigious but I've refused all of them because I take this field very seriously and S.I.T is the only college with a proper robotechtronics department that allows me to do what I need to do because I'm already higher level than my teachers and I'm involved in every single robotics club and related groups studying how to-"

She continued for quite a bit, Victoria had mentally tuned her out around halfway through,

A manic fire had lit in her eyes, as if she hadn't just been trying to one up this dirty hobo

At parts her expression fittingly incredulous, a fury at being questioned on her credentials,

But equally adopting a strange sort of excitement, Victoria sensed she didn't get to say all this often.

"And that's not even the half of it!" She finished, panting like her monologue had run a marathon

Victoria was partially stunned at the conclusion, just who was this girl? She wondered, even after hearing what was effectively her life story.

She glanced back at Walter for support, but all he provided was a shallow sort of thumbs up.

"I didn't understand a word of that, but congrats to ya, I'm sure your science friends love it"

A dismissive little remark, that seemed to thunk on impact with Simone, like hitting a wall

"Yeah, they do" short and snappy, a little too quick of a response, something in it trembled

"I'm sure they do.. Simmy?" Victoria said, though she remembered her name quite clearly.

"It's, Simone, thank you" something had shifted in her tone, while it hadn't been haughty before..

It was certainly more subdued, "struck a nerve eh? Figure your dorm feelin empty?" She slithered

"That's none of your bui-" a scarlet sheen leaking back into her face, gosh was she a cute one.

Victoria eyed her up and down, her hair black and glossy, strung up in two pigtails.

Giving off the effect of a disappointed rabbit with the pair tucked behind her ears.

With an oversized pair of nerd goggles sat atop like a pair of rings for a wedding.

"Look you're a real sweetheart I'm sure but me an' my pal over there-" pointing backwards to Walter in the complete wrong direction.

"Need to go find our next fishin spot-" but before Victoria could finish her exit,

Simone cut her off with a pippy sort of ahem, "you do know fishing in the lake is-"

"Illegal yeah and unless you have a machine that grows fish, you can shove it"

Simone looked a bit shocked at the expression on her face, but hit back with.

"Well if you knew anything about robotechtronics you'd know that's not how it works!"

"Well I don't need to know a thing about it because it's not a field worth pursuing!"

The two let out a growl of frustration, moving closer, their words circling each other like lions.

"At least I'm not living under a bridge!"

"Well la dee da misses richy rich here!"

"I'll have you know I worked hard to get into this college! Something you clearly wouldn't get!"

"Oh it's real easy to get, you put together a few nuts and bolts and now you're a fuckin genius!"

Simone had an almost hilarious expression of indignation, as if she wouldn't be able to stand this stupid girl a second longer.

Victoria snarled each biting remark like a beast at the bedside of a dying animal, eager to hunt for this entertainingly easy prey.

With each advance of their argument the deep maroon shuttering their faces flooded in.

The pairs fists clenched as if to strike, but using only their words, flames licking at their skin

"ugh!! You are impossible! I don't even know why I'm still standing here arguing with you!"

She shouted, the angry expletive echoing around the cavernous space where they stood.

"Then why are you still standing here dumbass! We need to find a new place before it gets-"

A well of emotions that had been prime to rupture the entire time finally exploded inside her,

Even her freckled ears turned a dark shade of red, staining every part of her pale skin.

"Do you wanna sleep in my dorm?!" Less of a question, and more so a screamed exclamation.

Suddenly the mood had seemed to shift, but not in too drastically different a manner.

This was the last thing Victoria would've expected, it caught her so off guard she nearly fell again

"W-What? You want me to-" but the shorter girl had already started dragging her alongside.

"Let's just go! You look like shit anyway, and smell as much too!" Though this seemed unrelated.

"Well why don't we go then? We don't need you stinking up the place anymore" Victoria hissed.

"You're the one with stink lines coming off you!" Following up with "not to mention that hair"

Practically spitting in the bespectacled girls face, "fuckin nerd I can't believe I'm gonna go see your stupid ivory tower" rolling her eyes exaggeratedly.

"It's not like you're moving in, idiot!" She blistered hotly, "I'm bending the rules enough bringing a girl like you into this school.." Simone grumbled further

"Well thank you soooo much I'm sure it'll be very hard for you" Victoria drawled sarcastically

"Yeah it will be actually thank you very much!" A delightful fury painting her round face.

The two bickered all the way to her campus, their faces a moment apart at every step.

Their loud shouting battle soon replaced once more with the sound of the rushing river,

While Walter contentedly watched them walk off, good for Victoria, he thought, mildly amused.

He reached for another wriggling fuzzy worm, and skewered it expertly onto the aged old rusty hook.

And with a hefty swing.. he slung the line back out.

Part 1 of 1 END! What A Delightful Start To A Surely Long Lasting Friendship, Walter Was There Too!

[hydrus]

Version 586

windows

zip

exe

macOS

app

linux

tar.zst

Hey, I did a hotfix to fix a stupid bug when moving from videos to images. If you got the release within twenty minutes of this post going live, get the updated v586a above!

I had a great week getting siblings and parents lookups running faster and finishing some long-planned Client API work. The update may take a minute this week!

full changelog

highlights

I am happy with the new siblings and parents dialogs, but unfortunately the fetch jobs were frequently running super slow on the PTR. This has been a long time problem in other sibling/parent places, and I could never really figure it out. This exposed the problem better and I simply put a bunch of time into the database sibling/parent storage structure and search code this week, and I think/hope I have fixed the worst of it. I also fixed the crazy-long lag spikes we were seeing, which was, unfortunately, just me being stupid last week. If you sync with the PTR (or not!) and have had slow sibling/parent lookups (including in places like the tag autocomplete results list), let me know how it goes!

If you have the media scanbar set to hide completely when the mouse is not over it, I think I fixed the issue where it would come up blank if the media was paused while the scanbar was hidden!

The options widgets that are an editable number with a checkbox beside saying 'no limit' are now initialised with a nicer default number when they start with 'no limit' checked. Previously, this stuff was all initialising to 1 every time, which wasn't always helpful if you actually wanted to go edit it. I'm pretty sure all the 'noneable' integer widgets in the options dialog now soft-initialise to the actual defaults those numbers are on a fresh client.

If you use multiple local file services, then when you middle-click a tag in the media viewer, the new search page now correctly retains the original file domain of the media viewer. Although I use multiple local file services myself on my IRL client, I do not browse around in them all that much, so let me know where else this sort of stuff defaults to 'all local files' or 'all my files'.

I have removed a hard limit that said 'don't run an import folder for more than an hour'. If you have a mega import folder with hundreds of thousands of files, let's see how it goes.

If you have done Client API or tag migration work and ended up with some bizarre tags that are both pending (+1) and petitioned (-1) to the same service, check the changelog this week!

client api

Thanks to a user, the Client API call that renders images can now output in jpeg and webp, can change the quality of the output, and will render to a target resolution!

I also think I finally finished off the first full version of 'multiple local file services' Client API support. You can now set a custom import destination for the 'add file' and 'add URL' commands, and you can now copy files from one local file service to another using a new 'migrate_files' call.

next week

I've been working on several things recently that can populate a multi-column list with a hundred thousand or more rows, and it has reminded me that my core list code relies on an old hack in it that makes initialising and sorting such big lists super laggy. I have researched how to improve it and hope to do so next week!

Unfortunately, I do feel myself going down with something, so it might be delayed.

[nathank77]

5/17/24

10:15 p.m

I got my hdcp bypasser to work yesterday.I did absolutely nothing special but fuck with wires for over 45 minutes and all of sudden eurica.

The only trick I learned was load the game up. It can bypass it but when you have the ps3 menu up and then load the game it goes to a black screen and then the Hdcp error gets thrown up bc it disconnects to the tv i guess..... but I can't tell you what I did special to get it to bypass it beyond that with the wires.....

Idk if I'm going to keep it. I took full advantage of it just bc I still may return it. Sure it bypasses it but only after 45 minutes of fucking with wires and the screen between the menu and the game loading breaks the handshake....rendering it useless unless you load the game first. Once I turned the game off it said no video lmfao

I have until May 30th to return it... I may just fuck with wires and enjoy it until then... as it should be plug and play... but I want to play my old silent hill games... so I mean idk... something smelled like it smoked... that's what bypassing hdcp is like despite it not being illegal.... thank you PS3! anyways I'm glad I got to record the greatest hits version of silent hill 2. Despite being all the clicks but one on each video I posted... I'm also the likes too.. I'm getting desperate bc click rate matters all my videos get filtered to invisible land bc I get hardly any views..

I took 1MG of Xanax, 25MG of Hydroxyzine and 2MG of Melatonin at 3:30 a.m... I passed out around 5:20 maybe. I woke up at 7:51 a.m needing to pee wayy too bad to ignore it... so I took Benadryl 25MG and fell back to sleep after eating a Think Protein Bar. I slept until 12:30 p.m. I kinda woke up a lot but kept falling back to sleep... I know I shouldn't have to drug myself so much just to sleep but this is my life now and I don't get the best quality sleep but I sleep.. so that's all that matters..

Anyways- I did my disability appt the close out letter was a error which infuriated me. I didn't show it to the representative though.. and now I am scheduled out into July... she told me to call every week and see if he got his final determination... I'm annoyed af. Cause like the drugs I got to take to sleep just to wake up at that fucking time.... anyways it won't happen again cause I'll call weekly.

I tried to get a hold of the licensure department to confirm they got my report. I can't get anyone to pick up after 30 minutes of waiting...so I emailed them tonight referencing my tracking number and when I shipped it and when It said delivered I provided the tracking number and everything asking for a confirmation from the department.

I also went to New Hampshire and got cigarettes. I cleaned out my car when I was there. When I get my oil change I'm getting a full car wash and detailing to clean up the leaves and dirt and shit and wipe down my dashboard and shit. I also have to figure out how to put freon in my car. It's coolish. The compressor is working and once I replaced the fuse the air started coming out of it but- it could be cooler and nicer...

So I already have freon I guess I'll figure it out. In June I've had Beauty for a decade. So I'm going to get that oil change and the car wash. I might do a tune up depending on the cost... if it's like 80$ and what they replace of course.. I got to call and ask but I'm looking to do that the 28th. Hopefully I can do the freon before that.

The drive was okay. Going home I cried hysterically about Nala. I ugly cried. Hardcore as I drove home. I guess I still got to cope with it. I don't want to say more I want to cry typing about it.

I also had some mental images of her dead. So that's great.

I'm starving. I still got to check my car. I made dinner, veggies burgers with vegan bacon its really good actually the bacon and the veggie burgers lol and then I'm going to do that and maybe shave my head. I got to set up my sleep pill too which is stressful with ocd and the hallucination....

So the rest of the night will be fun lol not really.. I'm worried about sleeping on the half MG of xanax bc I had to do the 1mg last night. I also had 2 Red Bulls to get me through the day.

I have to go grocery shopping tomorrow, and do laundry.. so that's cool but Sunday I can relax and hopefully use my HDCP bypasser and play silent hill something. Idk what yet.

I took some photos of myself in the bathroom bc I'm wearing this white shirt and I look good as fuck. I have like 9 or so and I like all them but they all look the same lol the self love and overconfidence is overflowing.

I had a weird mental picture on the car ride home of a naked trans guy who was buff but it was rather segmented. I knew what it was but- like it was very unclear..

It was psychosis trying to say no matter how buff I get I will never have a dick. Cause I'm hardcore considering working out and also fun fact I have no desire to get bottom surgery. At all.

What's so great about cis penis? The image made me horny a little of the naked buff transguy like I could look like that..of course there was some self hate but not really cause it's hot.. like 1 out of 10 for self hate and 9 out of 10 for horny lol

The only thing a cis penis is good for is babies and penetration.. I get it some girls like it, and the g spot and all that but the majority of cis gendered relationships the girl doesn't cum.... every person I've ever been with cums every single time and my next girlfriend will too if I ever find one..

I mean also what can't a dildo do that a cis penis can? Move and pulsate. So I get that that might be awesome but some fancy dildos can do that but I wouldn't wear anything like that anyways. You take my body as it is or you don't have to. I like my body.

The whole biological children thing sucks but I mean- if I wanted to go through procedures technically I could get a girl pregnant and or carry myself but I'd never do either especially carry.. but both never ever. And I've thought about it- my genetics are broken. Idk if we need anymore of us. There are so many kids in broken homes and orphaned and they need love and I have a lot to give.

I'd love to see my eyes or my nose but depending on my partner I'd love to see her eyes. Like Elise for example if somehow she could carry a child that is biologically mine I'd be disappointed if they had my eyes.... something I love about her children despite the fact that I may never meet them is they have her eyes and they look like her. And yea. So I don't need a child to be biologically mine although if I end up with Stacey I mean- one of the only pluses is my name being on the birth certificate. Skin cell babies aren't really a thing but being involved in the whole pregnancy would be cool although it doesn't matter. I just want kids to love me as much as I love them and be seen as a father figure.

I feel like when I wrote that about Stacey It made it sound like I wouldn't be happy if I ended up with a mother who didn't want more kids. That is not even remotely true. It would be a plus to be on the birth certificate/be apart of the pregnancy. I can't lie. It would be great to have a skin cell baby or to help pick a donar who looks a little like me, a short Italian with glasses lol I feel like the glasses at a young age are required but yea. Idc honestly.

All I want is to be apart of a family to be needed and loved and receive a father day card and be depended on and loved. I would like to be called dad but it is not required the father's day card would be a dream. I tear up thinking about it. Nathan is good enough I never get tired of hearing it.

Anyways I just wanted to clear that up. As when I think about being with Stacey I try to see the very few, "positives." And when I imagine a mystery girl it's like tbh idc if she wanted to get pregnant or already has kids. I JUST WANT KIDS. That's all.

Whelp I got to check my car and then take a shower at least. I hope I fall asleep easily. I am truly worried. Tomorrow I'm going to have a red bull day with silent hill if I can get home from the stop and shop quickly enough.

When I go to the dentist I'm going to get an estimate for the teeth sealant regardless of back pay since it still isn't a thing. I'm hoping it's affordable enough cause I'd go through with one of them to start at least and the second a few months later... although I likely won't get a 6 month cleaning... but I won't need it as badly if that stupid groove wasn't plaque central. The other one isn't too bad...but one is brown and it drives me crazy with all the stuff I do to take care of my teeth...

I'm also worried about getting to my bloodwork/t shot on Wednesday but I guess I'll worry about that later...

Erin can see me until at least the end of May. She doesn't know if she can after due to her losing her license. At that point I may just go to two days a week with Mike so I don't have to look for another therapist and get rejected by so many therapists due to being trans and having auditory hallucinations...

I'm probably going to join planet fitness the 1st of the month, the start up is expensive but I'm going to hit my super prime. 👌

June I only have the cardiologist minus my biweekly t shot. So yea. I hope the complaint for Kristen is taken seriously and isn't thrown out bc I'm "crazy."

[hxdrostorms]

// Don't reblog this post, I don't want it being spread around!

I'll properly sit down and write a more elaborate post about this, when I get deeper into Omega. But I feel like I should mention that with Kiki's introduction in my roster, that means it will affect my other gold saints' post-canon verse's plotline. More like, it may make me split up their development. Bc after I'm done with Omega, I'm looking into start reading ND.

OFC it's all up for debate, and I'm aware how both series take very different directions with the source material. Needless to say this is going to get very canon-divergent/compliant.

Anyway, real quick sum up on how I'll be connecting my stuff with Omega:

It's worth pointing out there's a 25 years gap between the series events, so there is a relatively large window of space to work with.

Golds are granted a new life after battle against Hades -> Aiolos + DM leave the Sanctuary/Shaka is appointed as the new Pope -> For about 5-8 things stay like this with the other golds maintaining their duties

During these 5-8 years period:

Ionia was brought back by Athena to assist her as another counsellor for her future endeavours;

Kiki is promoted as the new Aries saint at the prime age of 13, officially taking the role that was filled by Mu;

DM (once he rekindled his connection to the Cancer cloth) was granted an apprentice Berenice / Aldebaran was granted an apprentice Harbinger (he was still found by Ionia, but Aldebaran personally trained him). However, they wouldn't get to see their pupils become full on saints, for reasons I'll be explaining very soon;

Shaka ruled as the pope and fulfilled his new duties. However, he would go down in history as the shortest reign of a pope;

Aiolos returns to the Sanctuary after spending +5 years away from it.

On the subject of Palaestra.

It comes as no surprise that the Golds would oppose the creation of anything, that remotely came close to resembling it. Accusing it of being an attempt to water down, and minize their traditions. Shaka also spearheaded a strong opposition against it. However, the discourse around the topic would drastically change, once the looming threat of Mars approached them. It only got worse, when the first few confrontations with the new threat appeared, and it forced drastic changes onto the cloths.

Ultimately, Athena's word was final on the matter, and the Sanctuary would move on to make it into a reality. Choosing to prioritize the chance of maximizing quantity over quality. This proved to be a breaking point for the Gold saints. While they respected the Goddess' decision, they couldn't work anymore under those conditions, thus they have all "prematurely" retired. Shaka stepped down from his Pope position, at the same time and walked out alongside the others.

Even Kiki saw himself removing himself from the picture, he also stood by his parents views on the matter. Despite that, it didn't stop him from having to study and learn new set of skills to fix, the new wave of cloths.

Following this massive rapture, it meant that the old generation of Golds were at last, truly free from their ties to the Sanctuary. To a degree. Because, despite them no longer officially being recognized as gold saints, they were still hunt down by Mars and contracted the same curse that prevents them from properly using their cosmos. Rendering them as not as helpful as one might have hoped for.

Nobody knows that the previous Golds are still around, during the Omega series. At most, there are rumors suggesting about their whereabouts. But not much else.

I'll be later properly writing in their about pages, more specific details.

[freelanceexorcist]

The 20s are shaping up to be a big decade for me. Let me tell you why with my Worst and Best compilation.

2020 Worst: The pandemic. The goddamn pandemic. This could have been avoided, but it wasn't, was it?

2020 Best: Corporate Earth employers realizing that yes, you can let your employees work from home and your profits will actually increase because you're paying way less in utilities.

2020 Best Subverted: Corporate Earth still demanded that their employees come into the office because they come from a time when face to face conversations are the only ones that matter and for whom "old school" means "I want to work the way we did when I got my first full time job in 1982 because if it worked then it will work now." They enforce this by sending out the most cryptic and unhelpful texts and emails they can manage.

2021 Worst: My mother got unreasonably sick from a treatable illness that the self-proclaimed medical gods of UPMC could have prevented if she had gotten there sooner. She died from pneumonia because her body was too weak to fight it off because of the preventable illness. Fuck you very much, UPMC (but the doctor and nurses who cared for her in the ICU were absolute angels for me and my family). A month to the day, my dog suffered a herniated disc that compressed her spinal cord and rendered her back legs paralyzed. She was given a 50/50 chance of ever walking normally again after emergency surgery.

2021 Best: My dog had her injury in june. By July she was walking again. By August she was doing zoomies.

2021 Best Subverted: It wasn't a 100% recovery. Oh, the walking and zoomies went swimmingly. But during the 7-9 weeks that she had no control over her bowels because she was paralyzed, she completely forgot all of her house training, so everywhere is her potty these days. Every bit of retraining I've attempted has failed so far, because she's old and stubborn, so I have to just keep the floors as clean as I can. You're welcome, Bissell.

2022 Worst: Moving to a different department in the company and my old supervisor making it his purpose in life to get me fired like he was the workplace version of a domestic abuser who gets more dangerous after the victim escapes.

2022 Best: You failed, you cunt. I'm still here. My new supervisor put me on a performance improvement plan with the intention of actually helping me improve and training me instead of using it as excuse to fire someone like you did to the HSEQ manager's assistant two weeks before a quality audit and three weeks before Christmas. You may as well install a revolving door in your department because of all the people who up and quit on your ass because you're so toxic to work for, and don't think people who have more clout than your boss (who is as bad as you) aren't going to notice that.

2022 Best Subverted: For as much as my new supervisor can't stand that chode either, he's a "path of least resistance" kind of guy. I hope that he'll have my back from here on out, but until that hope becomes a fact, I have to do my job perfectly out of pure spite.

2023 Worst (so far): I wanted to install crown molding in the living room but can't. You know how the vent for the furnace/AC is usually on the wall near the floor? Not in this place. It's about 3/8" down from the ceiling. See, these places were built by Westinghouse and the US DOD to house the workers Westinghouse had to bring to pinch hit for the men who were shipped off to WWII or were needed to fulfill labor demands for the wartime contracts that W had, so they were considered temporary housing and kind of slapped together. Slapped together extremely well, mind you, because they're still standing 80 years later, but they put the duct work in weird places presumably because it easier and faster. The housing became privately owned in the 50s and became a co-op.

Anyway, if this is the worst thing that happens to me in 2023, it will be a banner year.

2023 Best (so far): I finally bit the bullet and started to gut this place and make it my own. My mom lived here with me until her death, and as you can tell from the Before and After pics I've posted, she didn't have the best taste in home decor or paint. I put up with it because if you knew her, you'd know that it was far less painful to live in ugly surroundings than to try to get that stubborn bitch to compromise on anything. I work full time and she was retired, so she was here a lot more than me, so I said fuck it, I don't want to argue. The living room is 98% finished, it looks fucking fantastic and Mom, you would absolutely hate it and there's nothing you can do about that. Next up is the kitchen.

2023 Best Subverted: there actually isn't a subversion. Even if I don't pull this off flawlessly, I will still have done it 100% myself and have picked up some great skills and interests during this journey. That makes me feel really fucking good about myself.

[ultramarine-studentfilm]

Development 2

For this progress checkpoint, I've nailed down my story idea a bit more to a version I'm finally happy with. At the end of this post, I'll put my most updated beats with a simplified version of the story I put in the past post. For now, here is where I've also made progress.

Character Designs

My characters now have final designs and a test render! I'm working on a turnaround for Phoebe for my co-pitcher, Heather, to model and texture. For the time being, I wanted to experiment with stylized textures and get down the general idea of what direction I wanted to take the aesthetic for this film. This definitely required me to mess around with a lot of brushes!

Character Design Lineup

I wanted to get creative with how I first introduced my characters in my pitch, so I decided to sketch out what I'd like to show to introduce my character designs before going into the more detailed designs and descriptions of them!

Style Frames

I sketched out some of the style frames I'd like to illustrate to be able to tell my pitch visually for the major beats of my story. Some carry over from my last pitch idea, but most are very different from what I thought version one would look like!

Updated Prop Designs

I improved upon my previous prop designs by breaking up the silhouette of the sketchbook, adding some more texture to the paint jar, and getting a better idea for how I want the textures to look.

Updated Crew Call

With suggestion from the time I pitched my idea first, I updated my crew call list to be a bit more realistic. I'm thinking this is a bit more accurate for what I'll ask in my official pitch presentation!

End Slide Card

I wanted to end on a happy note in my presentation with Gamsol, since I've really grown to love his character since I've started developing him! I feel he'd be a fantastic conclusion to my pitch.

Updated Story Beats

Phoebe, an artist, shuts the door as the person she was painting leaves from her studio for the day. She sighs, obviously unsatisfied and frustrated. She looks around at her studio. Her paintings are high quality, but all monochromatic beige and look like they’re staring down at her from their places on the walls.

Phoebe goes to sit down to do a painting, but as she goes to begin again, she gives up, swiping her paint brush across the canvas and burying her face in her hands.

Gamsol meows from off screen. He jumps onto Phoebe’s shoulder, rubbing her ear. She giggles, sniffling a little, then gets a determined look on her face.

We cut to Phoebe scribbling on a page in her sketchbook, which now reads “Phoebe’s Ideas for Overcoming Art Block.” The first point reads “draw a still life.”

Phoebe is painting with an arranged setup of some objects from around her room in a still life. Jane is leaving a basket of vegetables for the still life sneakily in the background of the shot to where you barely notice. However, Gamsol quickly jumps up onto the table and rapidly knocks everything off. Phoebe shouts “Gamsol!” just as he’s about to knock over the last item. He freezes, but then softly knocks it over anyways. Phoebe’s shoulders drop in defeat.

Among a full list of ideas that are slowly getting crossed off, the next point that focuses in Phoebe’s sketchbook says “draw my garden.”

Phoebe is sitting in a lush garden with her house in the background, her painting setup ready to go. Gamsol is curled by her feet, and Jane is in the flowerbeds in the background, again to where you barely notice. We can see she only has construction lines down on her small canvas when a torrential downfall foreshadowed by a single clap of thunder soaks both Phoebe and Gamsol. Gamsol lets out a loud wail that gets comedically cut off in a perfectly cut scream to the next scene.

Phoebe moves down to her final idea in her long list: “Go to the falls just off house grounds.” The camera pans up from the page to a beautiful view of a waterfall embedded in a forest.

Phoebe looks hopeful, about to pencil to page to sketch in her sketchbook. Gamsol is clawing his way up a tree behind her, however, after a loud crack, a beehive that was attached to a branch Gamsol knocked down falls to the ground, the bees angry. They find Phoebe and Gamsol as targets, and they quickly take their things and run.

Phoebe has just about given up. She is walking through another less wooded area of the forest at a higher elevation, and she hold up again her crumpled canvas in disbelief. Gamsol, feeling bad, rubs her face to comfort her, and she pets him. She can’t stay mad at him. She looks at her sketchbook and crosses off her last idea with a heavy sigh.

Suddenly, the two of them hear a cracking sound. They both look down, but it’s too late, the two of them are falling. Gamsol just barely leaps back up to safety, but Phoebe is stuck. They were standing on rock by an edifice, and part of it has crumpled, leaving Phoebe just hanging off the edge.

Gamsol worriedly looks down at Phoebe, then runs off. As Phoebe struggles to try to get back over the edge, the rock continues to crack, just barely holding her on. Phoebe looks below. It’s a long drop. She’s in danger.

Just as the rock is about to give out that’s holding Phoebe on, a rogue hand reaches down and grabs Phoebe’s wrist. Slowly and with much effort, Phoebe is pulled over the edge, her life being saved.

Her and her savior take a moment to recover. Gamsol runs over to Phoebe and rubs her, happy that she’s alive. Once Phoebe takes a moment to pet Gamsol, he walks over to the person who helped, whose face until now had been obscured.

A farmer, Jane, props herself up and looks concerned at Phoebe, wanting to check to see that she’s ok. Phoebe had been so absorbed in her book to notice, but not far away, there’s a small cottage with a pasture of sheep where Jane lives away from Phoebe’s grounds. Phoebe has a tunnel vision moment where when she sees Jane, she gets her light bulb moment. She is the inspiration she’s looking for.

They both get up, but Phoebe looks the most excited she’s ever been. She picks up Gamsol, sets him on her shoulder, and drags Jane off screen.

It cuts to Phoebe painting Jane in her pastures, having been some time later. Phoebe is surrounded by half-finished paintings with one she’s working on on an easel, all with bright, vibrant colors. Gamsol is being chased by one of Jane’s dogs in the background in a panic.

Jane takes a moment to open her sketchbook one more time. She flips to her page that had bullet points written, all of them crossed off. There’s one last one written that’s not crossed though, and it says Jane. She closes the book, and the screen cuts to black.

[kingofthewilderwest]

What did you think of the last two episodes of TNR S4? The plot was about what I expected, but I did like the alpha(?) Night Light design

In some ways, this two-part episode has been waiting to happen since Gift of the Night Fury, where the lack of other Night Furies got highlighted the first time. It's been waiting to happen since ROB's We Are Family where Hiccup was hoping to chase down Toothless's family. It's been waiting to happen since THW had us meet one Fury, but not provide the specific awe my imagination has been envisioning for a decade: the inevitable moment our characters come face-to-face with a flock of Furies.

Of course, some HTTYD fandom members are extremely attached to Night Furies as a concept, and will draw fanart of OCs, or at least alternate designs of Night Furies, Light Furies, Night Lights, and all things Fury. I suspect many of them have had the same fantasy fly through their mind as I have about meeting a Fury flock up close. But because I'm not one of those people who rests my love of HTTYD closely on the Night Fury, I am both worse and better suited for enjoying the TNR S4 finale.

I'm worse suited because I'm not the Fury fanatic that this episode would want to appeal to. There's less chance of my emotions catching in my throat finally seeing this come to be. But I'm better suited for the same reason: there's fewer emotions to disappoint if TNR doesn't hold up to standards. And we all know that TNR has not been a show of great standards - and I'm someone who hasn't minded that.

I'd say I had a mediocre reaction to the two-parter, feeling both mild yays and nays to it. Like many fans, I was offended and appalled when the human cast encountered Hiccup's somehow-still-intact prosthetic and flung it around. What the heck!!! That was too far even for me!

But for a brief moment, watching the full Night Light family take flight, I was teleported back to a younger version of myself: the self that dreamed for a full Fury family flight and desperately hoped that'd happen in HTTYD 3. Bad animation quality aside, questionable dragon design aside, for that short moment, this decade-long expectation got met.

I didn't care that TNR had us wait with anticipation for the Fury reveal in the sense that Thunder, in parallel to Toothless, was mourning a scarce family. But I do like that TNR gave us a full flock of Night Lights because that's absolutely what should be the case - this is no longer a "last of their kind" situation, and so we got to see them!

The believability of carrying that much black is low genetics-wise and designs could've used improvement (why did Mom have to have EYELASHES and why did we color code "white" as female???), but there were also designs with potential, and I accept them and like imagining what they'd look like on a bigger budget. I liked the roughness of the father's scales, as though they've gotten thicker and grayed with age. It looked odd with the limited budget and the light rendering in particular, but the concept is something I get behind.

And the Elder? The Elder? Best Fury of TNR, hands-down. Honestly, best Night Light of the franchise.

For starters, he had the best design of the furies pattern-wise. I like how the blacks and whites faded into one another rather than being a stark black jutting against white. I liked his particular pattern being both understated and regal, as well as realistic and common to real animals (once Night Light pattern ideas get too wild, I quit caring for them). I liked his scars and tears on his wings - this is a dragon of great experience. The animators needed to fix his chest size, but other than wonky proportions there, he gave a grandeur to the Night Lights I quite liked.

And it got me thinking: I wish the Elder, rather than Thunder, had been Tom's dragon. Too quickly stories lean into youth, including trying to make animal companions the same age as their owners. We did that with Tom and Thunder. But Thunder doesn't hit in part because he has virtually no personality. The Elder does. How cool would it have been if our main character's dragon was this suspicious, slow-to-trust, grand old man? Think of how the development of their relationship could've gone! When Tom was riding on the back of the Elder, I found that fantastic, and for a brief moment could enjoy the idea of the Elder and Tom being the pair instead.

The thing about the Elder is that he evokes a concept I wish the main HTTYD movies never left: this is an Offspring of Lightning and Death. This is a wild animal of great power. The reason Toothless was lovable and compelling in HTTYD 1 wasn't just "awww cute pet." It's because he was a real, complex creature of majesty. Real creatures can be silly and dorky, too, and it's fun to get to know a goofy side as he becomes familiar with Hiccup. But Toothless should never have been close to the category of "cute animal sidekick used for marketing," as he increasingly became as the years passed. Dare I say it, he was Flanderized. The Elder reminded me of the dignity that made me stare with appeal at Toothless in the first place.

Amidst all the questionable plot choices and questionable designs and questionable graphics, that one sentiment is worth it, ain't it?

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | War and Peace (Bondarchuk, 1967)

For all the possibilities opened by computer-generated imagery, it's hard not to feel as if we've lost something along the way. When blockbuster cinema regularly conjures images of world-or-universe defining stakes, scale starts to lose all meaning. I think back to seeing Avengers: Endgame in theatres and, despite enjoying most of the film preceding the climax, finding myself totally unmoved when it produced that splash page image of all the heroes joining forces, as flat and shapeless composition as I've seen in these things. (Rarely have I felt so out of step with the reaction of the surrounding audience, so I realize I'm in the minority on this one.) There's a certain thrill in seeing something physically real on a giant scale that a CG facsimile just can't replicate. For recent movies I can think of that feel truly grandiose, I'd have to go back to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, and even then shortcuts were used in the way of special effects and stand-ins.

In this respect, Sergey Bondarchuk's War and Peace represents some kind of pinnacle of this lost art, a work that feels truly colossal in ways few films have approached. One way to grasp the film's scale is in terms of hard numbers. It runs a total of seven hours (released initially in four different parts). At the time of production, it cost reportedly $100 million, estimated by the New York Times to be $700 million in modern times when adjusted for inflation. The cast totaled approximately 120,000, many of whom were extras supplied by the Soviet Army. Thousands of costumes, sixty cannons and 120 wagons were made, and over forty museums donated artifacts to the production. This would all be moot were the movie a mess, but the production is a masterwork of controlled chaos. The sheer scale of the battles is captured with clarity by the expected crane and helicopter shots, but Bondarchuk's style is spontaneous and constantly evolving. Handheld camerawork hurtles us through the combat, while the liberal use of filters, splitscreens, superimpositions and jagged editing give the proceedings a heightened, hallucinatory quality. There's an exhilarating documentary quality to seeing anything of this scale, but the stylistic abandon with which the proceedings are captured render them almost a fever dream. There's a tendency to treat important novels like homework (I'm sure everyone has at least one example from their high school English class), and truth be told, I haven't actually read War and Peace (because it's like 1200 pages, c'mon), but Bondarchuk injects a spontaneity into his adaptation that should lay those fears to rest.

Bondarchuk produces some truly remarkable images, like a sequence where the composition of shot of a battlefield full of soldiers morphs real time as clouds of gunsmoke erupt with orchestral precision. Given the scale and scope of the movie, it's hard not to compare it with that famous American epic Gone with the Wind, and War and Peace contains certain moments that feel like direct responses to some of the former's most memorable images and scenes, outdoing the burning of Atlanta and the landscape full of wounded soldiers with even more vivid, forceful images. In the face of the sheer size of the spectacle, the human element can seem underwhelming at first, and that seems intentional in the first part, Andrei Bolkonsky, where a joke about an illiterate messenger seems completely limp after a horrific battle. It's in the second part, Natasha Rostova, where the human element comes into focus, carried by a trio of lead characters, a fallible but good hearted noble played by Bondarchuk himself, an innocent young woman played by ballerina Ludmila Savelyeva, who is lit and shot to look as achingly beautiful as possible, and a prince played by Vyacheslav Tikhonov who goes off to war against the invading Napoleonic army. (On a side note, the actors resemble Thomas Mitchell, Anna Karina and Christopher Plummer, respectively. Should your attention happen to drift, as is possible during a great yet somewhat unwieldy seven-hour epic, you can amuse yourself by pretending they're in the movie.)

Bondarchuk's character is deployed as an audience surrogate during the third part, The Year 1812 (where he views the excitement and madness of the truly astounding battle scene firsthand), and develops a capacity for every day heroism in the fourth and final part, Pierre Bezukhov. As such, his arc is most closely tied to the film's nationalist viewpoint, but because Bondarchuk understands human weakness (in this character and others, like the half-blind general who mistakes his pyrrhic victory for a real one), it's also the most moving in the film. If anything, Bondarchuk, despite allegedly being an enthusiastic party supporter, renders the nationalistic fervour transparent, like when he slaps on a patriotic coda to the carnage at Borodino and immediately follows it with a retreat from Moscow. This moment is further subverted when he applied Napoleon's stentorian narration over the sight of a weakened French army retreating in the thick of winter. Napoleon himself is more of a figurehead in this movie than a real character, and is denied any real interiority, yet I suspect Bondarchuk identified with him at least a little. Near the end of the battle at Borodino, there's an image of Napoleon sitting down on a chair not unlike one used by a director during filming as he observes a vast formation of his men moving across the landscape, and in this moment he comes as much a stand-in for Bondarchuk as the character the director actually played.

[william-afton-positivity]

I'm desperate for more malhare content soooo... Maybe headcanons about his/its state of mind? How conscious actually is it before the merge, did it make up that dance, does the person it merges with effect its personality at all? Anything about malhare tbh.

I have two different Malhares. The first Malhare is a plain fursuit that didn't have its own will of thought and was simply the temporary suit given to FazEnt after the Spring Models were locked up after an employee wearing SpringBear had died. The second one is technically Lolbits brother.

Lolbit and Malhare were both viruses who had advanced intelligence. They were one string of infected code that split into two (sort of like twins). These codes evolved rather quickly but Lolbit was the strongest since she evolved faster. Lolbit attached herself to the computers of CBEAR (circus babys entertainment and rental) and played pranks on unsuspecting workers. She even connected to a prototype Funtime Foxy every now and then to try and become "alive".

Mal was stuck living as a code, surfing between devices and wires, trying to find a way out for years. My Help Wanted takes place several years from 2019 (haven't decided on an exact date). Malhare did some pranks on computers and such. He was like a child.

A part of his code (since the code was attached to FazEnt itself) was opened into this gateway during the events of UCN. He was able to have rough contact with William and after some conversing and trust building, Mal wanted to help William. He let him merge with him and take semi control. Afton was filled with rage and.Malhare.kept that anger in check and prevented Afton from killing the VR player. William kept reassuring the oblivious code that it was just another game. Another prank with a friend. Now, he had no.physical contact with a living person, even through the VR system so it took a while (and part of Williams code stuck with the tapes about the past) for him to manifest. His waving was an excited Malhare wanting a new friend and him standing still was William watching.

At the time in HW where Mal finally merged with the player, William seized control in order to poccess the player through Malhare.

When he turns into a plush, this was Malhare's last resort to try and make Afton harmless to the player. What harm could a plushie do?

The dance was mainly on Wills end. All that time spent locled up for thirty years prior of fnaf 3, events before FFPS, and UCN hell had made him completely insane and he celebrated in his passion of theater dance. His control had rendered Mal weaker than usual but his code is slowly recovering.

That's my back story for my Malhare but heres some extra fun headcanons

He can't really talk. He expresses words through physical manifestations of glitching words around his head. Sort of like how Sandman communicates in ROTG or green text against a black screen. If infecting a phone, he makes his own contact labeled as "Mal" and communicates through texting

Malhare himself is really energetic. Almost child like but with an adult matureness when hes serious.

When he "infects" a device, a small green rabbit icon flashes slowly in the corner of the screen like an "I'm here. Hello!" Message. He's not rude and doesnt want to spy secretly

Youtube. Its got everything he wants

If he infects your computer or phone, take it with you. He'll be like Siri and loves to help. Ask for a recipe! He'll give step by step instructions AND an animation of him preforming the recipe

He can't manifest in the real world. In order to see his full form, he'll have to do it on a screen like Face time but with HD quality

Free wifi. He hates not having wifi so he invented his own string of wifi like a Hotspot. Just ask nicely

He can play muliplayer online games. Just make sure he has his own device to connect to. He can play Call Of Duty on a phone via his own type of BlueTooth

Hes easy to make friendship bonds with. If you give him permission to access a device you own, it'll be like a home to him and he'll be forever grateful for your generosity

Just...be firm with a curfew and make sure the device is plugged up. He will stay up all night surfing the web and draining battery (since he can't charge phones or anything)

[blznbaby]

Treasure

Book: The Royal Romance

Pairing: Liam x Marcella (MC)

Rating: G. Fluffy

Disclaimer: Characters belong to Pixleberry Studios. I'm just borrowing :)

Tag list: @museofbooks @callmetippytumbles @cocomaxley @hopefulmoonobject @pixieferry @i-choose-liam @zaffrenotes @brightpinkpeppercorn

Liam stared at his wife with adoration. She was beautiful, amazing, incredible...in the six languages he could speak he still couldn’t find the right words. He’d cherish the precious memory of her holding their son for the first time for the rest of his life. In his mind, Marcella had become elevated to something more than a goddess. Their love had created life and that fact alone was enough to render him speechless. Good thing, because he didn’t want to utter a word in fear of spoiling the perfect moment, but once Marcella looked up at him with so much love in her glittering chestnut eyes, the dam broke and the tears flowed freely down his face. He’d never been so happy, so proud, so humbled, or felt so blessed in his entire life.

That night, Marcella refused the offer to have the baby sleep in the nursery so she could rest; she didn’t want him out of her sight and honestly, neither did Liam. Even the amount of time he’d been whisked away to get weighed, cleaned, and checked had almost been too much for him to bear. He watched them like a hawk and asked repeatedly for his son to be brought back, much to the amusement of the staff. However, the king was not amused and commanded his son’s return. Despite Marcella’s fears, Liam knew she’d be a brilliant mother. She had a kind and caring nature about her and possessed all the qualities that made for a good mom, and the first night with their baby proved it. Throughout the night, Marcella had woken the instant their son stirred, having him already changed and fed before Liam could blink his eyes open. He offered to get up with him so she could sleep, but she declined. He didn’t want to be one of those fathers who just stood back while the mother handled everything. He wanted to help. He laid his head down hoping she’d be more willing to share him once they were back home.

It was strange and exciting, having a baby, their baby in the palace. Marcella had relaxed a bit and Liam had taken endless pictures of their son sleeping…because aside from feeding that’s all he did. Marcella watched Liam carefully as he cradled and fed Fabian Leonidas Yo-han Rhys. They’d named him after Liam’s role model, King Fabian, while his middle names payed homage to his brother and his mother’s Korean heritage. Afterwards, he laid the baby across his chest, telling Marcella to go to bed while he put Fabian down. Afterwards, Liam crawled into bed next to his wife, her body perfectly tucked into his. He smiled as he held her, grateful that life had given him a marriage and family based on love instead of duty. It had only been a dream until recently. “Love, are you still awake?”

“Hmmm…I am now,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry. I just wanted to tell you that I’ll get up with Fabian tonight so you can rest.”

“You don’t have to, Liam.  I can—“

“He’s my son, Marcella. I want to. I will handle it,” he argued, a soft note of admonishment in his voice. He’d been trying not to take her insistence at doing everything for the baby personally, but he was. She turned to face him. His face was serious…intent. She had to admit she really hadn’t given Liam much alone time with the baby, if any. Not that she didn’t trust him, she did…completely, but she knew her refusal would be taken as the opposite. “Okay.” She was met with his signature thousand-watt mega grin and she brushed a kiss to his lips. Liam fell asleep almost instantly with the corners of his mouth turned up and his heart bursting with joy. Everything he ever dreamed of, he had. He was a lucky man.

It was well past midnight and Liam slept as the baby cried. Marcella gave him a swift kick to the shin and told him to get moving. He stumbled from the bed and prepared a bottle before heading to the nursery. He took his time with the diaper change, savoring the moment, etching it into his memory, and then settled in the old rocking chair that once belonged to his mother and proceeded to feed his son. He studied Fabian’s dark hair that he inherited from both him and Marcella, but his jaw and chin were definitely from the Rys bloodline while the shape of his nose and eyes were identical to Marcella’s, much to his satisfaction. He remembered telling her on the balcony in Valtoria that he wanted children whose eyes looked just like hers. He was the perfect combination of them both. He counted ten fingers and ten toes and brushed his finger over his son’s impossibly soft cheek. Once he was done feeding, he laid the infant over his shoulder, patting his back gently to bring up any wind. When all was said and done, he looked down upon his son cradled in his arms looking so calm and peaceful and decided to stay and hold him a little while longer.

Marcella watched quietly from the doorway. She knew the point of him getting up was so she could get some uninterrupted sleep and her spying defeated that purpose, but she just wanted to take a quick peek to see that her boys were okay. But once her eyes caught sight of them, she couldn’t will herself to leave. She honestly didn’t think her heart could be any more full with love than it was in that moment. The picture of father and son together was so moving and beautiful, it hurt. Tears welled in her eyes as she watched her amazing husband rocking their son in the same chair his mother use to rock him in. Feeling like an intruder on such an intimate moment, she began to walk away when she heard Liam speak. “I’ve been waiting for you, little one. Mommy and I love you so much already. She’s an amazing mom, and I promise to be a good dad. I will always be there to encourage and support you…and to challenge you. So just know that if I ever ask more of you than you think you’re capable of, it’s because I know you’re capable,” Liam smiled and continued to rock, his thought turning inward. “I can’t believe you’re here. Mommy said she wanted to wait a bit to have children, but I’m so glad she settled for sooner rather than later.”

Marcella bit her bottom lip at his words to keep from crying. They had it all planned out; they would start their family immediately after the wedding, but with all eyes on her and the constant pressure to produce an heir, Marcella had a change of heart. She told Liam children could wait and he seemed to understand, telling her he was happy to just have her, children or no children, but she saw the sadness behind the façade, a sadness that hadn’t been there before. He never pressured her, but the longing looks anytime they encountered a family, or the gentle smile that appeared on his face whenever he saw a newborn didn’t go unnoticed. Liam adored children and got on with them naturally, citing it was because he never had a real childhood and was still a kid himself in some aspects. It wasn’t until that day she’d been watching Bertrand and Bartie playing together in the hedge maze, she’d realized she wanted that for Liam…and for herself. She was terrified, excited, and nervous to tell him she was ready, choosing to do so after one of their weekly Netflix and chill nights when they were relaxing together with a bottle of wine.

“Everything all right, love?” Liam asked. His cool, calm, and collected wife had been stammering over her words the majority of the evening, which was very unlike her. Marcella was always so sure of herself. Something was definitely bothering her and he was growing more alarmed by the second. Marcella sighed, trying to pull herself together. “Well, there is something that’s been bothering me and I don’t know how to bring it up to you.” Liam could only think of the negative connotation that came along with her statement. “What is it?” he finally asked, his gaze never leaving hers.

“Are you…are you ready to try for a baby?” she asked him softly. Liam almost fell off the couch at the question before his eyes softened, welling up with emotion. He swallowed hard, trying to get past the lump in his throat. Marcella watched as he struggled to speak before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. He exhaled and opened his eyes a moment later, much calmer than before.

“You’re ready?” he managed to choke out.

“I am.” And she was. Sure, she was scared, but with Liam by her side she knew she could conquer anything, including parenthood. They were ready. Liam couldn’t help the smile that formed across his face as his mind filled with thoughts of having a mini version of him or Marcella running around.

“Are you sure?” All she could do was nod from the lump now in her throat. He grabbed her face and crushed his lips to hers. A cry escaping him as he kissed her deeply thought their intermingled tears, holding her so tight she thought she might break. He had wanted this so badly, and he had feared that it would never be the right time.

She smiled fondly at the memory of them “trying” for a baby. They both had a more than healthy appetite for each other and they’d joked that increasing the frequency of their lovemaking might leave poor Marcella unable to walk properly. She stopped taking her birth control and conceived in no time. Liam adored her pregnant body, saying that it made her even more sexy and beautiful. He’d kissed her belly every day, rubbed it every night and he even sang to it—terribly—but the gesture and the lullabies he crooned from his own childhood were beautiful all the same, and sometimes she’d look up to see him watching her with the softness expression of happiness, love, and admiration. He was fiercely protective. He went overboard on the nursery. He went overboard on the clothes. He went overboard on the toys. It was sweet until he started reading baby and pregnancy development books absorbing the information like a sponge. Much to Marcella’s dismay. She tried not to choke hear dear husband…one cup of coffee wasn’t going to harm the baby.

And even though she had her fears as a mother, she knew Liam would be an incredible father. Liam smiled down at his son, “you know, I’ve loved your mother from the moment I saw her. I was planning the wedding inside my head before I had even asked her to marry me,” he chuckled before his face grew serious. “I love her so much. And I love you too, little guy. I will stop the earth on its axis for you, if necessary,” he swallowed hard, and she knew he was fighting back tears. “Fabian…you are the greatest gift she could have ever given me.” Marcella’s tears overflowed; she could no longer stand by and watch. She pushed the door open. “No child could hope for a better father than you,” she said kneeling beside Liam, wrapping her arms around both of them. “I love you. I love you both more than anything.” Liam wrapped his free arm around her and pressed a kiss to her forehead, amazed that his whole world fit in his arms.

[speeps-highway]

Hey have you heard of the SARemastered project? It's on YouTube and Twitter, we're doing a fan remaster of Sonic Adventure. I'm one of the texture artists/developers for the project.

Hi! I have heard of that project!

I really like the thought of remaking SA1’s gameplay for fangames, but I’ll be totally honest here - I haven’t been impressed with what I’ve seen of it so far. I get that it’s a bit outdated info, but at the moment there’s nothing yet that makes it stand out from the ocean of other “Remasters” all there.

Look at how the Sonic 06 Unity project stands out. That’s just a remake though - you’re a remastering, you should be aiming to outdo that.

I think my biggest issues with what I’ve seen so far of it are the art direction and the use of Generations models. I’m assuming the Gens stuff isn’t final, but you gotta make sure you get the atmosphere right! I mean, look at how gray and dull this looks compared to the original game:

If you’re going all out on having a remastering, there’s a whole lotta things that need to be improved. Here’s some tips from me!

You probably already do this, but make sure that everyone uses the Dreamcast version whenever they need to look at assets from the original game. SADX messed up a lot of things and you don’t want to end up missing a lot of the original game’s quality.

It’s also very important that you have some good programmers. SA1 has a lot of complicated gameplay mechanics and you don’t want to end up getting stuck in that field and putting it off. Across his story, Sonic has 6 different types of gameplay! Whoever’s programming your game not only has get Sonic’s normal gameplay controls and physics right, but also the controls and physics for Pinball, Boarding, Driving, Goin’ Down and Sky Chase too!

Make sure you really capture the color and vibrance of the original game. Don’t settle for stock lighting packs or SADX-quality, take time to study all the details of each stage. Just because the lighting can have fancy gradients and shadows doesn’t mean it’s good, let alone a remastering. There’s a lot of tweaks that the original game has too. For example, the buildings in Speed Highway are very bright because they ignore the lighting altogether. The screenshots from November shouldn’t be anywhere near what you’re aiming to achieve.

When you’re touching up entities and environments model-wise, make sure you pay close attention to the art, conceps and renders available so that you can see what Sonic Team wanted their characters to look like. Sonic for example has both 3D renders and the 2D Uekawa art, where you can see he’s a lot more stylish without the limitations of late ‘90s console specs.

I’d suggest before you start remastering the stage geometry you should focus on getting them up and running first. Once that’s out of the way, there’s a lot of work to be done. For an example of how much there would be, how much stuff can you see that would have to be modelled for textures in Station Square and Speed Highway like this:

Don’t make a lot of unnecessary design changes either. My example here would be the HUD - you want to the HUD to look pretty much just like the original game’s does. Experimenting might something for spare time, but it doesn’t look good if you’re pushing it as a representative of the product.

You’re also going to run into the problem of other languages. I see you’ve got a team of VAs, but Sonic Adventure also had a full cast of Japanese voices as well. The Japanese script doesn’t have any problems, so really all you need to do is just get someone who can understand enough to sort out the clips and put them in the game.

My suggestion for remastering the scripts is not to go by the offical English script, because it has a whole lot of flaws in it. You should use either the retranslated scripts provided by Windii, or a merger of that and the English script to minimise awkward lines. (Eg. “Great! I’m in a good mood” sounds strange to say but “Ah yeah, this is happenin’!” doesn’t make sense. A more fitting line could be something like “Ah yeah, I feel great!” or something along the lines of that).

Also, I’m not sure how much this’ll help considering it’s about SA2 but I also made a similar post a while ago:

http://speeps-highway.tumblr.com/post/157855246940/i-am-here-to-give-you-the-almost-useless

Best of luck on the project though! Hope it turns out good. If you want me to clarify anything or just have any questions about the game, let me know.

[mi4014markellaarkoudea]

Final Animation

So here it is! Finally finished.

After all this time the animation is complete, and I have to say as my first longer 3D animation I am very happy with it. Of course there's things I do wish I had done differently, like in the second environment I wish I had corrected the colour of the sky dome since I didn't realise it would come out that dark in the render, and also I never managed to get the textures of the musical instruments to show up for some reason either. But other than that I'm very satisfied with everything.

I struggled a lot with quite a few things at the start, I think that was because I didn't warm up to 3D animation from the beginning , and Maya seemed to complicated for me to handle , but while working on models and exploring more of the software's abilities I found myself really enjoying the process. Maya as a software , is very powerful and it does provide a lot of tools and options, though I found it to be quite hard to work with at times, since it tends to break out of nowhere sometimes and other times it just wasn't doing what it was supposed to do. For example , in the last environment it just wouldn't render it. I tried to render it about five times, I looked online trying to figure out what could be happening but I found nothing that suggested I was doing something wrong. Even so I never actually managed to render the last environment since each time it only rendered about a hundred frames and then crash, so I had to screen record the last few seconds of the animation , in the sakura forest, which is very unfortunate and brings down the quality of those last few frames.

After rendering out all the frames for each animation , it was time to take all the separate clips and put them together in premier, adding sound , doing colour corrections and finalizing the full animation. I think when creating animations, editing everything together and adding sound must be one of my favourite parts, I just love seeing the animation come to life the moment I add sounds and music, and since I practice with premier a lot I have become very familiar with the software, and I think that adds to my enjoyment as well. So I didn't face any issues when editing.

So to conclude , even though I struggled quite a bit in the beginning with 3D modelling and animation , I did come to enjoy it towards the end, even though I'm still nowhere near to being good at using Maya. The animation came out very beautiful, even though its a bit longer that 30 seconds, and all the sounds really added to it and helped it come alive. It looks a lot like a low poly video game which I'm happy about since that was the look I was trying to achieve after getting inspired by the game Journey. One of my friends even said that they thought it looked like the start to a trailer for a video game which makes me very happy , since I know other people can see what I was going for. Overall it was an interesting experience creating this animation, to say the least. I do look forward to working more on 3D animation next year, even if it wasn't my favourite module this year it did really trigger my curiosity and peaked my interest , to discover what I can do with it and to what extent I can push the limits of my imagination when it comes to making 3D models. Overall , a great experience :)