#i can visualize a map for it pretty clearly

[crowcrash]

the slow decline into fear and paranoia that engulfed bluestar at the end of arc 1 that lead her to completely losing trust even of her closest allies and religion all because of tigerclaw’s betrayal is so interesting to me and i think about it sometimes

non filtered version vvv

[not-terezi-pyrope]

Ok. It's pretty clear you are more welcoming of AI, and it does have enough merits to not be given a knee jerk reaction outright.

And how the current anti-ai stealing programs could be misused.

But isn't so much of the models built on stolen art? That is one of the big thing keeping me from freely enjoying it.

The stolen art is a thing that needs to be addressed.

Though i agree that the ways that such addressing are being done in are not ideal. Counterproductive even.

I could make a quip here and be like "stolen art??? But the art is all still there, and it looks fine to me!" And that would be a salient point about the silliness of digital theft as a concept, but I know that wouldn't actually address your point because what you're actually talking about is art appropriation by generative AI models.

But the thing is that generative AI models don't really do that, either. They train on publicly posted images and derive a sort of metadata - more specifically, they build a feature space mapping out different visual concepts together with text that refers to them. This is then used at the generative stage in order to produce new images based on the denoising predictions of that abstract feature model. No output is created that hasn't gone through that multi-stage level of abstraction from the training data, and none of the original training images are directly used at all.

Due to various flaws in the process, you can sometimes get a model to output images extremely similar to particular training images, and it is also possible to get a model to pastiche a particular artist's work or style, but this is something that humans can also do and is a problem with the individual image that has been created, rather than the process in general.

Training an AI model is pretty clearly fair use, because you're not even really re-using the training images - you're deriving metadata that describes them, and using them to build new images. This is far more comparable to the process by which human artists learn concepts than the weird sort of "theft collage" that people seem to be convinced is going on. In many cases, the much larger training corpus of generative AI models means that an output will be far more abstracted from any identifiable source data (source data in fact is usually not identifiable) than a human being drawing from a reference, something we all agree is perfectly fine!

The only difference is that the AI process is happening in a computer with tangible data, and is therefore quantifiable. This seems to convince people that it is in some way more ontologically derivative than any other artistic process, because computers are assumed to be copying whereas the human brain can impart its own mystical juju of originality.

I'm a materialist and think this is very silly. The valid concerns around AI are to do with how society is unprepared for increased automation, but that's an entirely different conversation from the art theft one, and the latter actively distracts from the former. The complete refusal from some people to even engage with AI's existence out of disgust also makes it harder to solve the real problem around its implementation.

This sucks, because for a lot of people it's not really about copyright or intellectual property anyway. It's about that automation threat, and a sort of human condition anxiety about being supplanted and replaced by automation. That's a whole mess of emotions and genuine labour concerns that we need to work through and break down and resolve, but reactionary egg-throwing at all things related to machine learning is counterproductive to that, as is reading out legal mantras paraphrasing megacorps looking to expand copyright law to over shit like "art style".

I've spoken about this more elsewhere if you look at my blog's AI tag.

[downtroddendeity]

@turnkeyassurance saw your tags and figured I'd take the opportunity to pause my descent into madness to give my more sober opinions on the Ni no Kuni franchise, lol. (Warning: I am a humongous JRPG nerd)

The NNK games are really odd ducks, quality-wise. You can call either one a good game or a bad game and call either one better than the other, and any combination of those opinions can be something I think is entirely justified. Both of them have things they do remarkably well and also serious, profound, deal-breaking flaws, and the really weird thing is that there's almost no overlap between those two lists for the two games. What clicks and doesn't about both of them is going to be deeply individual.

What Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch does, with resounding success, is Vibes. It sets out at every single step with the goal of being a playable Ghibli movie, and it sticks to that principle. It's all about beautiful, cel-shaded whimsy. It's a game for people who want to feel like they're wandering through the meadows in the movie version of Howl's Moving Castle. There are lots of puns, and you can befriend all the random encounter monsters and feed them ice cream.

But that's also its Achilles' heel: because it's dedicated entirely to imitation, it has trouble bringing things to the table that are really its own. It has the visual and narrative aesthetics of Hayao Miyazaki's films, but it doesn't have the raw emotion at the heart of them. And as a game, its mechanics combine the clunkiest features of menu-based combat and action RPGs, and while everything about the Pokemon-esque mechanics seems designed to encourage players to collect and experiment with them, the balancing turns attempting to do that into a miserable grindy nightmare.

The other problem is that it... isn't actually the first Ni no Kuni game. Wrath of the White Witch is, in fact, a remake of the Nintendo DS game Ni no Kuni: Dominion of the Dark Djinn, which was never released outside Japan. The reason for this is pretty easy to explain, because DDD had another gimmick besides its aesthetics: it came with a real-life physical copy of the wizard spellbook, and the player had to look things up in it and draw sigils on the DS touchscreen to cast spells. So, we've got a high-effort remake that had to completely cut the central mechanic... and which also expanded the plot so that the original main villain was no longer the primary antagonist. This results in a game with what is very clearly a final dungeon and very clearly a final boss and very clearly a resolution to the story, which suddenly has a completely different plot dropped on it like a fucking anvil that it expects you to be just as invested in even though it hasn't had anything like the same level of buildup.

And ironically, this is almost the exact opposite of the biggest problem with Ni no Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom, a.k.a. the one with my new blorbo, the President of the United Union of Eagleland. 2 is an effort to try to cement an identity for the series that can be its own, rather than requiring them to depend indefinitely on borrowed Miyazaki nostalgia. It just has the teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy problem that at some point in development it had a budget shortfall so bad that you can finish the game without ever realizing that there is a continent-sized crashed interdimensional spaceship on the world map.

This game has had a machete taken to it. Don't get me wrong, I genuinely respect the work they did to make what they could with what they had, but you can see the signs of massive scope cuts to literally every aspect of the game. The back half of the game has almost exclusively recycled enemy and environment assets; voice acting has been trimmed down to canned voice clips; the catboy protagonist's ears and tail are barely animated; one minigame was so inadequately playtested that a level 16 mission is massively harder than level 50 ones; and while whatever restructuring they had to do to the main plot still left the final version with a more solid and coherent central arc than WWW in my opinion, it also left a lot of truly gaping plot holes, like oh, I don't know, why the President of the United States got turned into a 19-year-old.

Literally, they just. Entirely forgot to explain that. Half the DLC is just the writers scrambling to fix stuff like that and add a bunch of character development that should have been in the base game.

However, despite all this, I personally enjoyed NNK2 more than NNK1 unironically, not just for Rolandposting reasons. Compared to the first one, it plays much more smoothly as a straight action RPG, and while it can't provide the same knock-your-socks-off aesthetic cohesion, to me it seemed a lot more heartfelt- that is, like a game that was made because people had a story they wanted to tell.

But, well, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the non-unironic reasons, because the story they really, genuinely wanted to tell was about a magical catboy growing up and learning to become a leader, and somehow, miraculously, they really thought that was the story I was here for too when they opened the game with the President of the United States being isekaied by Nuke-kun.

Sorry, guys, I have a crippling addiction to dramatic irony and my day job is tech work in local politics, you could not have more laser-targeted this at making me specifically laugh my ass off if you tried.

[magicluckystars]

William, Liam, Harrison, Alfons, Elbert, Roger and Jude playing among us

did I know that among us is dead? yes. did I decide to do this anyway? also yes. this is my contribution to the Ikemen community for today. I hope you all like it!

I would love to see your ikevil ocs playing among us with crown, what do you think it would be like?

Was originally planning to do everyone, but this has been sitting in my drafts for forever so decided to post it

I am still a beginner writer so my work may not be the best and characters may be ooc! constructive criticism and reblogs help <3

genre: crack. pure crack. but you can clearly see my favourite

TW: mentions of death in game

***

generally I think they’d all be pretty good considering they kill ppl irl too, but here are specific headcanons!

William:

you can NEVER tell when this man is imp or not. when he’s accused/voted out he just laughs.

Always watches people do visual tasks

when he is imposter, he would probably use sabotage relentlessly to get everyone distracted and then kill someone. Would probably kill in comms because almost nobody goes there

Uses vents when necessary, but prefers to walk to his locations to avoid suspicion

probably likes to see everyone scrambling to fix his sabotages.

when he’s crewmate, it’s somewhat hard to sneak up on him but he can be killed. Likes to fool around in the ghost chat

pairs with victor (unsurprisingly) all the time, but works well with everyone else too

Liam

Makes a decent effort not to reveal himself as imposter but admits it when he’s backed into a corner

when he gets imposter, he kills people so damn fast- uses sabotages as he needs it, but probably uses o2 sabotage or comms sabotage the most

mainly uses vents to get around

As a crewmate, ALWAYS knows when someone is sneaking up on him.

forgets about his tasks sometimes but does them when he remembers

probably does his elec tasks last

pairs with Harry (unsurprisingly) but also likes to pair with William and Alfons.

Harrison

AMAZING at imposter. Lies so fluently sometimes even Alfons and will can’t tell when he’s lying.

mainly uses emergency meetings and dead body reports to kick people off the ship but kills people too

again, uses sabotage when necessary. Uses comms sabotage and reactor sabotage the most

uses vents to get around, not as good as liam when it comes to sensing someone behind you but still pretty good. Knows when someone’s in the room, or in a neighbouring room

As crewmate, he does his tasks as quick as he can and can make accurate guesses as to who is the imposter.

Likes to pair with Liam, Ellis and Will but doesn’t like to pair with Victor.

Elbert

Probably took him a while to get the controls

doesn’t talk much as crewmate or imposter, only when he’s questioned directly

As imposter, he uses kills and o2 sabotage to win. he uses sabotage a lot to again, distract everyone while he’s plotting something

directs the blame onto someone else usually

as crewmate, does his elec tasks second or third, doesn’t really get why elec is such a hotspot for imposters but uses it anyway when he is

forgets about some of his tasks but when he’s done he just kinda. stands in one place unless there’s a sabotage

Usually pairs with Alfons or alone, but sometimes he likes to pair with William as well

Alfons I had no idea for him I’m sorry

Decently good at both imposter and crewmate. Although better at imposter

probably places bets on the outcome of the game

as imposter, he sabotages a lot and uses the admin map to win(like if everyone’s on one side of the map, he’ll sabotage something on the other side of the map)

if he wants to finish the game quickly though, he’ll kill people more. probably self reports but kills someone, runs away from the body, then runs back and reports it

one of those annoying types that doesn’t do their tasks unless told to

definitely uses vents primarily to get around

usually kills when people are doing the upload and download task

watches people do visual tasks if he’s in the mood

Usually pairs with Elbert or alone, but likes to pair with Liam sometimes. Doesn’t like to pair with roger.

Roger

Equally good at both, but better at crewmate

as an imposter, he mainly kills people and uses sabotages. he mainly uses o2 sabotage.

like will, prefers to walk to his locations but uses vents when he wants to.

probably likes to see people squirming when they’re wrongfully accused

does his electrical tasks first to avoid getting killed

does his tasks quickly and reminds everyone to do theirs

Usually goes alone, but likes to pair with Ellis if he agrees. Wants to pair with Alfons but he never agrees

Jude

Doesn’t like crewmate, but does it when he gets it. Alright at imposter

denies being imposter to the end

usually intimidates someone into a corner, either to wrongfully accuse them (when he’s the imposter) or to get them to admit their guilt. Jude believes in guilty until proven innocent and does not trust anyone.

does his tasks sometimes, but focused mainly on outing the imposter

when he’s imposter, he uses a combination of venting and walking.

likes the lights sabotage and the reactor sabotage the best.

Doesn't usually pair with anybody and mostly works alone, but sometimes pairs with Ellis

[emlan]

Finished DLC!

Here's some Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree ramblings, spoilers under cut.

.

.

.

.

. DLC catered to me a lot since I'm a Zanzibart cutscene enjoyer who loves map exploration and Vista money shots but I'm kinda HUH-cat.clip when it comes to some new lore bits and in general the world feels divorced from main game even though main game characters and topics are around?

I don't remember how much souls DLC tied into the other story, but I'm using The Old Hunters from BB as base and it really added extra value to its world and characters and there's just nothing new of real interest in SotE from what I can see…

In a vacuum I can only appreciate even more (literal) brother on brother action but Miquella seemingly being deeply obsessed with Radahan is so out of left field??? Granted I'm not an lorester but what I remember as Miq's key things from flavor text when it comes to ties to other people is him being sad about being unable to cure Malenia of her rot and also sad about not being able to grant Godwyn his true death. The only ties to Radahan is by proxy of his sister fighting him? (Was she even fighting him just to bring bro his crush to him? This makes Caelid getting nuked by her even more of a waste.)

It's so out of nowhere that the Epic Prime Version of him comes off as a cheap soyjak pointing bit pandering to Radahan fanboys (pretty sure he's like no1 fav guy for players right), but fanboys will obviously not be happy about him just being a hollow shell again (?) that might not have wanted anything to do with Miquella (?) so I just can't see this as satisfying for ANY kind of player even on a full Gamer Dude to Deranged Fujoshi spectrum? I imagine deep lore enthusiasts also feels a bit… Ambushed.

I'm not against Miquella doing dark unpleasant or just stupid desperate acts since it was already a popular theory that he was a brainwasher type, but the issue for me is that I'm not sure if this Miq/Rad union is "intended" to be read in such a twisted way even when it's the only way I can read it.

Though I guess the fact general consensus going from "wow Mohg is so messed up claiming Miq no matter Miq's consent" to "wow Miq is so messed up claiming Radahan no matter Radahan's* consent" is poetic….?

*I'm writing Radahan here but really it's also a synonym for 'Mohg' considering he's the one getting desecrated the most.

I'm sure I'll end up watching some vid or writeup making pieces fall into place later but I can't believe Miyazaki is handing me visual age gap brother incest and all I can do is force a strained smile in response!!!

Anyway general whining time:

As much as I love filling out up the map I feel there was too much big "empty" areas. Climbing the dragon mountain was the worst presentation of anything I've seen in a FS title, extremely cheap unfinished filler feeling with the spirit jumps instead of at least adding some kinda atmosphere like the open flower/gravestone fields. The Abyss gimmick overstayed it's welcome since it's too miserable checking if you missed a shiny somewhere without your horse, but at least the stealth parts was such a non-issue it might as well not be there.

While I like that you can see several inaccessible areas from where you stand, and I do think it leads to some fun moments when you're taking a random path halfway across the map and ends up on the other side as an a-ha moment, it was a bit frustrating not being able to tell more clearly how to reach sections. Plus I would've died 10000 times from drops if it wasn't the fact Rainbow Stones protected me from making bad choices.

What mindbroke me most was trying to get into the flower field area north east, having an "oh boy, beating this guy will let me reach it for sure!" moment for both Gaius and Sunflower was such [record scratch SFX]. I did figure posing in front of the statue was most likely the entry afterwards but somehow I had missed the gesture needed (most embarrassing DLC moment considering I tend to fine comb pretty well and the gesture pickup is just sitting there out in the open………. why am I even admitting this shameful thing). Watching trees get knocked over from something moving under the water in the church district was really cool and unnerving and then you realize it's just branch dragon number 800……………..

The wicker men has a great design but fighting them was either a boring slog or a frustrating jankfest trying to toss the bombs right. Peeved that you HAVE to use a furnace pot for the sleeping one blocking the ruin puzzle, hefty should've been fine too.

Bosses are too hectic/aggressive for my taste but that's just business as usual for ER so whatever, last boss really is way too punishing compared to other Hard bosses tho, in fact I just watched ending on YT since I'm stuck still on them :V Camera also makes a glorious return as the toughest challenge of them all.

Think my biggest highlights was seeing the bizarre finger/tongue path under the church and the finger mom boss visual itself and the black humor of the miserable living jars stumbling around with the pot on their head. Ansbach is a hot new waifu and it's very precious how such an upstanding man stays all-in loyal to a Deranged Satan (said lovingly) soooo cute you actually get a "Um, so about how Mohg died…👉👈" prompt with him. There was more NPC voice lines than I expected which was fun. St Trina's design was very neat and shoujo manga. Having to sip syrup 4-5 times instead of the classic Third Time's The Charm is a crime however and I missed making the Trina fanboy jealous until it was too late :/

The open world for all of Elden Ring is such an incredible experience that I'm happy I got to play and I had such a good time and I can't imagine any other studios will be able to reach these map heights but I also hope they never make an OW game again because it's too much when you "need" to replay it.

[directdogman]

In the light of getting Randy facts, could we in theory, get some Oliver ones too? For the Gays?

For the Gays?

And who exactly do you think the Randy facts were for, HMMM? alright, alright. i guess you guys can have a second character post, as a treat. so, what, you wanna see into his head, is that it?

Oliver has a deep well of confidence inside him which he pulls from constantly. This helps give Oliver the zesty enthusiasm that he's known for. As a down side though, Oliver's vast confidence can make him somewhat reckless when it comes to picking his battles.

When Oliver is with his friends and a random problem arises, Oliver has a tendency to say "aha, step aside, I've got this!" and will (slightly more than) occasionally hurt himself through his eager attempt to attempt to perform a task that he clearly isn't remotely qualified to perform. Oliver is right about 20% of the time, and it's beautiful when he is. He just doesn't know how to pick his battles. I swear, Oliver's brain is 25% border collie at times.

While Oliver doesn't exactly think wisely on his feet, his ability to work through puzzles when let think about a problem in silence is basically legendary. Oliver is a natural troubleshooter, subdividing and solving most problems with relative ease.

Oliver has a naturally poor attention span and badly struggles to commit to tasks he doesn't care about, leaving most things he doesn't care about until the very last minute. He's a skilled 3d visualizer and while his long term memory isn't great, his ability to remember a ton of tiny details, short term, while working is exceptional.

Oliver has a natural sense of direction. His brain maps alternate transport routes automatically and he usually knows shortcuts around places he often visits that others miss. Oh, I'll mention a few cross-cast relationships.

Karen: Some of Oliver's humour just genuinely does not land with Karen. It's not even, like, offensive to her, just incomprehensible. "Is this image trying to drive me insane? Is that the joke?" However, she finds about 1/3 of Oliver's humour the funniest thing in the world. Oliver is the only main cast member able to reliably make Karen laugh out loud.

Norm: Norm admires Oliver for being open-minded, honest and compassionate to others. Oliver's tendency to overextend himself and eagerly offer any help that he can think to ask (like an eager greyhound or borzoi, sprinting around in circles) when he offers help to his friends is something Norm has noticed and admires. Oliver has a hands-on attitude and a natural sense of duty/responsibility to others, which reminds Norm of his younger self.

Stabby and Shooty: Stabby: "You can't mug him. Really. We tried and he said no." Shooty: "It's true, you can't. He knows the game." Stabby: "Yeah, he knows we're not actually gonna hurt him if he says no. Someone must've told him." Shooty: "Nah, I reckon he just... didn't think we were capable of taking him when he saw how we were built. Even two on one, bro, the odds aren't really in our favour. Like, we're not exactly BUFF." Stabby: "Yeah. Shit. Yeah... Anyway, nah, still haven't gotten a dime from the guy. But, whatever! FUCK HIM. HIS loss, bro." Shooty: "Yeah, his loss, bro!" Stabby: "..." Shooty: "...You can't deny though, the guy has style." Stabby: "YEAH. Can't deny, the guy's pretty stylish."

[majorproblems77]

Sacred realm update! so I'm back!

Hi all!

Hope your doing well! :D

Only a few days late, Exam season man, what can you do?

This update shows link and Time Escaping. And time having... a Time....

Alright, now for the important stuff! Sacred realm belongs to @zelda-the-sacred-realm, and all art from the comics belongs to the comic artist. I've got their permission to do these! I love the comic so much its so good and so well done!

The link to the update can be found here! You should go reblog it, it's great, give it some love, please? :D

Let's do this, grab your popcorn and your water. Let's go! :D

Cinnamon roll Link strikes again, Clearly, the big purple guy just wants a hug!

oh no...

Panic!

Time's little superhero slide here.

Also, it must be said he's doing all this while carrying an adult. (Or close enough.) I know he's a spirit and all but that's VERY impressive!

You know when you're reading and you can hear the atmosphere, you can hear the moment that a breath is held. And time stands still.

This. The moment in a movie when everything stops before the action picks up in another way.

The talent it takes to get it from still images. I just am in awe.

Pure fear from Link.

Props to Time here for remaining calm while he's got the cinnamon roll here just scared out of his mind.

Time... Being reassuring?

Wow.

This is important I think for these two's relationship. The need to protect someone only comes to people who dont really hate someone. Before this, I'm pretty sure Link doesn't think Time cares too much about him.

Why would he right? Time's been nothing but cold to him.

(More on this later)

Link getting cocooned in Time's cloak is just, everything to me. It's such a caring more from him. (Even if it is a you can't die thing)

Ouch, that's gotta hurt

Oh man, this man is like... low-key gripping onto him.

Excuse me while I cry a little?

Twilightttttt ;-;

DIRECT FAMILY CONNECTION

EXCUSE ME WHILE I CRY MORE? ;-;-;-;

TIME? OH YOU POOR MAN

This reaction gives me father-son vibes but with time and Link, it's giving me life because oh my god these two.

Link is a cinnamon roll and must be protected.

PFFFFFFTTTT

Rip

This made me laugh I won't lie. Damit Time I was rooting for some Dad Time in this world.

Says the 'Small cinnamon roll with scared of everything issues.'

I love him but ohhhh man Time is gonna kill you

SEE

RUN LINK

RUN

Link, poor guy. Man needs help okay.

This map is interesting, I reckon is a list of the first three heroes we meet.

That top one is Skyloft. With Hylia and the floating island. - For Sky. who we met first.

The middle one has someone holding The double helix sword... That's the fierce deity on the middle level. We know Time has a connection to the Fierce deity mask. And in turn the deity himself. So this middle level is Time.

And that lower one.

If im right, This is the Twilight realm, and we will find ourselves there soon. The people look similar to the 'Link' we see on the land level to an extent while still holding a semblance of individuality.

Its almost, inverted? Like the twilight people were. Rather than looking different different.

I'm excited to see where this goes.

Also

Hi it's later

So I'm a sucker for visual storytelling in backgrounds and I think this might be more than an exploration into the depths beneath the ice.

Starting with this.

I think this, is Time being vulnerable.

The break from a cold icy exterior to something a little more personal.

Funny how when Time begins to see more personal stuff, he has more visions of the past.

The trigger has him almost scared, just look at him.

Why would Time be scared, if he didn't care?

Time appears to carry a lot of guilt around Twilight.

And when Link calls him out on it, he returns to that icy exterior, not allowing himself the opportunity to be vulnerable again.

And I wonder if that has to be explored before he can take his place within the medallion. Trials by fire, as they are so suitably called, can be for the spirits as much as Link.

Just a thought tho.

That's all from me! Hope you have a great day! :D

[falmerbrook]

Regarding ayleid specifically, their skin is darker than that of altmers and their eyes are more consistently lighter, almost always with blue tint. Yeah, they still look like a generic elf, but their appearance is clearly separated from that of altmers

(slapping the other ask on this one since they're related)

Yeah I like that there's something visually different about the Ayleid's from the Altmer/Aldmer (and by eso design standards, skin tone is about as far as they can significantly go). It's mostly based on how Dynar looks, but I also like to imagine they are more square and boxy-er looking than the Aldmer/Altmer (less like your stereotypically tall and graceful fantasy elves) to set them apart.

And I agree I like the yellow Dunmer lol. I mentioned it briefly when I did the ear headcanon thing, but I pretty much picture Chimer as a mix of Dunmer and Altmer characteristics, so it works for me!

Speaking of, when I did the ear headcanon thing I also did this skin tone thing for my own reference as a sort of mapping of general trends. Might as well post them while we're here

[just-prime]

Take 6 I guess...

Wow. Just everything about that is wrong.

A cool visual here or there for sure. Whale falls in space? Fucking impeccable. The Chimaera fixed up with the gold plating? Very pretty. The weird Dark Crystal horse thing? Strangely cute.

Getting some Baylan backstory was nice, and he continues to the MVP both acting and writing-wise.

Have I run out of nice things to say? Yes

First off, fuck the 'a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away' shit. This show has not earned that! Not in the slightest!!!

Also I know it's supposed to be super mega turbo hyperspace…but still, it looked like utter shit. I can't understand how a show with this level of budget keeps shitting out crappy visuals...Oh wait it's Disney! Nevermind, makes total sense.

All the stuff with the nightsisters? FUCKING DUMB. Nowadays, no one cares about the nightsisters anymore unless it's Merrin or Ventriss, and Elsbeth is a far cry from either of them. I was worried from the start when the map temple was clearly nightsister in origin, and Elsbeth being revealed as one in hiding made absolutely no sense. It's weird and very much Filoni throwing darts at Clone Wars arcs he wants to rehash and recon. Also, the live action Mothers are lacking the grandiose nature that made Talzin have such compelling character design.

The fact that Sabine never slipped the cuffs seemed deeply weird. As did Thrawn somehow having an entire battalions-worth of Stormtroopers who survived the ship crash. There was also a throwaway line about some of the rando bandits on the world being Jedi trained, which REALLY came out of nowhere, but is clearly setting up Ezra having learned new skills.

Oh and Ezra shows up, is ALSO wearing noticeable contacts (blue). He looks way too old, and I felt absolutely nothing when he and Sabine hugged.

Okay, on to why we are all here...Thrawn

Let's start of with the mandatory FUCK YOU FILONI.

There was weirdly bad music through this entire sequence too, which was glaringly noticeable. Just to you know...set the mood for the butchering going on.

HE'S TOO PALE!!! They colored him like everything else in this show, copied whatever colors Rebels used, and then mutes the hell out of it. So everything looks washed out and sad. Also I don't know what it is about the eyes that feels off but there's something there that hits uncanny valley in a way that I feel could have been easily avoidable...

Yeah, and all the 'Army of the Dead' rumors that have been going around are all confirmed. They are literally emptying the catacombs of this ancient nightsister city directly into the cargo hold of the Chimera. It's so dumb. I hate this.

Two more episodes left, and given the rate of the leaks being true, it's probably gonna end on a cliffhanger, which is gonna be fucking stupid. So yeah. I'm gonna go scroll @ascyndic's blog so my eyes can rest and look at some incredible art of how Chiss should look...And potentially reread @furiosophie's fucking incredible post·mor·tem series to get a hit of realistic Thrawn characterization...as opposed to whatever this gross HttE ripoff swill we got.s

[miyakuli]

Digimon Survive

Digimon Survive is a visual novel with tactical rpg part that breathes new life into the franchise, and may be a good way for newcomers to discover this universe and its bestiary. Personally, I only had distant childhood memories of the first animated adaptation I watched, but despite this I was able to immerse myself easily in this new story, which is much darker in tone. However, while the visual novel is pretty good, I wasn't totally convinced by the other aspects of the game.

❤ A mix between the naive, childlike side of the original series and a much darker, more violent tone that works quite well. ❤ The visual novel part is not based on static images, but on high-quality animated sprites, which liven up each dialogue scene. The scenery is equally well done. ❤ Rather endearing characters with good development (even the most unbearable ones become likeable). ❤ On the dubbing side, the actors do a very good job, and on the Japanese side, the original seiyuus are even used for the digimon voices - a nice touch! ❤ I liked the fact that the affinity between the characters was linked to the evolution of their digimons, which encouraged me to talk to each of them and get to know them so I could make the right dialogue choices. So it played on my attachment to the characters and also to my desire to unlock each evolution x)

+/- Significant replayability (3 "normal" endings, 1 bad ending and the true ending). These endings are attained through a system of auras (virtue/harmony/wrath) that are increased according to our dialogue choices....but they will always be placed in exactly the same place (for example, the answer to increase the harmony statute will always be in the bottom right-hand corner). This makes our work easier (==)" For my first game, I personally like to make choices based on my mentality, without knowing which dialogue will influence which stat, so I discover the ending I've set myself. Here, the fact of knowing indirectly influenced me, and I'd have preferred them to save that for the New game+. +/- The musical themes are pretty (especially the main theme), a little redundant because there aren't many of them, but they never bore. On the other hand, I found that some scenes had music that didn't quite fit in with the atmosphere and action going on, it was a bit weird. +/- The true ending provides real redemption for certain characters who were really annoying to begin with. On the other hand, I found it a lot of length with constant back and forth (probably to stretch the story, but it doesn't add anything) and the ending is nice, but nothing more. I found the "virtue" ending more impactful.

✖ The tactical combat system is laborious and almost boring. The tactical side is bland; we're presented with a strength/weakness system based on elemental abilities (water/air etc…) but in the end it doesn't really matter as brute force will win out almost all the time...also, the fights are SLOW!!!! you can speed them up via the menu (I set them to x2 because I couldn't take it anymore). ✖ The method for recruiting digimons is really not that great; you're given a sort of quiz with the digimon you want to get, and unless you know the universe really well, you just guess at the answers and hope it works, but sometimes the solutions are really lunar (or maybe it's the translation that doesn't sound right). ✖ The Skip function, which allows you to skip through the text you've already read if you want to complete the various endings, is far too slow, and you can't even skip through the evolution animations. This discouraged me from finishing all the endings in a row. ✖ The map during exploration phases is ugly and not very practical, I find, and the constant change of music as the map opens is annoying.

Digimon Survive is bound to be a divisive game, as the balance between visual novel and combat is clearly not equitable (70/30% in my opinion). Personally, this wasn't a problem for me, as I'm used to this genre, but it's true that the tactical combat phases are this title's major weakness. At least it gave me a pleasant nostalgic feeling at the side of these little digimons (🎶are the champions!🎶).

➡ My personal VN ranking (in french) ➡ My Steam page

[wrenseyeview]

Gotta ramble a bit about Dredge because it's got that Good Game Design.

For one thing I saw it classified as a horror game, but it also felt fundamentally at odds with my (very limited) experience of horror as a genre? Primarily, that it kept control very squarely in the player's hands, including control of pacing and encounters. I mean honestly that's rare enough in a lot of games generally, but I'd probably most categorize Dredge as a creepy-themed puzzle game more than anything else, and not just for the cargo/fishing mechanics. The entire game is very deliberately structured so the only time pressure is solving how far you can go in a single day cycle and ideally making sure you end the day on the same square as the fishmonger or merchant (or not having fish in your cargo that day). You get a heads up that the night is when the scary shit happens and your main four zones are where some big bad lives and if you observe their patterns and ask the locals, even those don't tend to jump scare you? Fundamentally the game feels surprisingly and entirely safe, which is not the vibe I would classify as horror.

The fishing/dredging mechanic is a very solid foundation and has some nice little variety to it, just a good timing test to break up the more mystery and exploration sections. Good visual interest, crunchy sound, just very good detail focus on the design.

I think I only looked up two things during the entire game (where the last stone tablet was, and how to find the catfish), which is also astonishingly rare for pretty much any game nowadays that I'm getting at least mostly completionist on. The low-hanging comparisons are pulling up an icon map to find all the damn korok seeds, but even say, Fenyx Rising - I had to look up how to catch and ride a horse because some specific input just wasn't intuitive. Dredge did a very good job at not using text heavy tutorials for game functions and still very clearly and easily getting the point across. In large part by gating progress in a way that allows the player full access to the game's entire core mechanics from very nearly the beginning, and offers clear ways to progress further that don't feel too much like grinding given the available space to explore. To look back at those examples, BOTW/TOTK and Fenyx all lock very basic movement mechanics (among lots of other skills) behind lengthy tutorial areas. It's genuinely difficult to open up the entire core gameplay from the start and not have players feel overwhelmed, and I don't think Dredge accomplished such a thing by just being simpler (I wouldn't necessarily say that it is much simpler either, just... economical about it's constituent parts?)

Good map density too, in terms of fish locations and populating the in-between islands with things to discover and revisit. BOTW (lesser extent in TOTK but still there) and AC Valhalla both suffer from having maps a little too big for their contents in places, just in terms of how far you can run across barren fields between fixed map markers with nothing else to really do except maybe collect a few low-level creature loot bits if you're lucky. Even when I'm crossing the map with purpose in Dredge, there's still nice opportunities to get distracted and find more stuff that's going to be useful, though not at such density that it's no longer interesting to find the specific things I need.

[spinningbuster98]

Metroid Zero Mission Part 3: No Ridleys were harmed during the making of this video

So Zero Mission is an easier game that tries to be more beginner friendly, that part everyone knows. However I don’t think people realise to what extent it makes things easier

See, even beyond the whole Chozo Statues debacle, if you think about it the sheer act of finding the way forward in ZM is comparatively easier than the previous games

In Metroid games you will often gave to shoot or bomb certain floors or walls in order to proceed (not to mention finding secrets). Often the games (post Super) communicate to the player which things can be destroyed and which can’t in a number of ways

In Super we can notice a sort of increasing complexity in what the games asks you to do in order to find the way forward: at first breackable blocks will be graphically distinct from all the other ones, either having clearly visible cracks or having a design that clashes with the rest of the foreground. But as you progress the game will start to no longer use visual cues and will actually ask you to pay close attention to the map: for example in Norfair, in order to reach the room with the Speed Booster, you will be tasked with figuring out that you have to destroy the ceiling of a seemingly empty room to proceed. The catch is that the ceiling looks perfectly normal, the clue lies in the fact that on the map the room looks like it extends upwards, as if it had no ceiling. By the time you reach the Wrecked Ship the game largely stops giving you visual clues, most likely because it expects you to use the X-Ray scanner on any potential dead end

Fusion is an oddball, because it almost never features any real clues as to which surfaces are destructible or not, without even having an equivalent to the X-Ray scanner until you get the Power Bombs. However that game will regularily trap you in a strict set of rooms when this happens, so the number of potential solutions to these tasks are greatly limited, which means that even the most bumbling of players should figure out the solution eventually by just bombing everything. For example in Sector 6 you will, at one point, bust through a couple of Speed Booster blocks which will regenerate right after, thus trapping you in 2 small rooms, with the only way out being bombing the floor of the eastern one

Zero Mission is closer to Super’s way of doing things but it’s actually toned down in terms of difficulty, as 8 times out of 10, knowing which surfaces to break is made really obvious because you can often clearly see the path continuing on the other side, or maybe there’s a clearly destructible block, or even a combination of both

Take obtaining the Wave Beam for example: you’ll stumble upon the fork in the road leading to it while on your way to Ridley’s Lair, it won’t be possible to go through the next room without first grabbing it, the floor that separates the main path from the one leading to the Wave Beam very blatantly features objects beneath it and one of the blocks making up the floor is much bigger and squarer than the rest, pretty much screaming “shoot me!”. The only somewhat tricky part is the fake lava, but even then Kraid’s Lair had the same obstacle once so it shouldn’t be an issue here. This is a (roughly) mid-game item, by this point Super was already asking you to look at the map for clues rather than for cracks and stuff, by comparison ZM is pretty much still at early game levels of complexity.

Kraid’s Lair however is an interesting case because it actually features some more complexity: there’s the aforementioned fake acid path which is tricky the first time. At one point you’ll have to bomb a spot in a narrow corridor to drop down, with that spot featuring a clearly visible shaft underneath. A bit later the game will ask you to do the same, only there’s no shaft this time, only some barely visible cracks that you can easily miss if you’re not paying attention

In Brinstar getting the Varia Suit without help from the Chozo Statue can also be interesting...kinda

The visual indicator that it uses is a bunch of bugs crawling inside the floor of the room you have to shoot in order to reach the Varia, which is cool and unique! However the bugs will only spawn after you beat Kraid for some reason. What this means is that should you happen to pass by that room before then (which is very likely) you won’t notice anything weird about it, so when it’s time to actually get the Varia to proceed you won’t know to go to that room, nor will you get the idea by looking at the map as it will show you that you’ve already been there and there doesn’t seem to be anything special about it at a glance, thus pretty much forcing you to use a Chozo Statue. So much for giving the player the option to figure things out for themselves eh?

Aside form these few instances however the game is always pretty obvious on what you should shoot to proceed: gotta get the Power Grip? There’s a clearly visible passage beyond its breackable wall. The floor in the Norfair shaft? Pretty clearly the shaft keeps going down beyond it

Let me be clear that I’m only talking about having to find mandatory items: optional expantions are generally harder to find and will require more effort, in fact Zero Mission has an absolute truck load of secret passageways, some of which are there to allow low % runners a way to proceed through the game even without all of its others, while others are a lot of shortcuts that have you use the Speed Booster, which sees a much greater and original use than in Fusion, though it still feels limited and situational since you still have to run a long distance before triggering it due to the lack of a run button. If you like finding these sorts of secrets then Zero Mission will be your favorite game in the series by a mile, since not even Super is this chock full of them

However, on the topic of expansions, the game is actually very generous with those as well...

Super Metroid tended to serve you a couple of Energy Tanks and Missile Tanks for free at first. You could find them on your way to your next mandatory destination sitting in the open. They were there to get you started, but after a while the game would pretty much stop: most of the expansions needed to be found on your own, either by backtracking to previous locations by your own initiative, or through meticulous use of the X-Ray Scanner. This essentially meant that you had to look for most of your expanded arsenal yourself, and if you didn’t put in the effort then stuff like Draygon and Ridley could get really hard for you

With Zero Mission there’s a shift: the game is far more generous with expansions. The game places a shit load of Missile Expansions out in the open for you to easily nab, and Energy Tanks are either something you run by as you progress naturally (for example: there’s one in the room where you get the Varia, as soon as you drop in the vat of acid the camera will pan down showing you the little spot where the Tank is, so the game ensures to inform you of its presence and it wont’t take long to find the entrance by simply bombing the floor). Some may be hidden but indicated on the Map by circles but it’s usually as easy as shooting a block in the room to reveal it. There are only 2 Energy Tanks in the game that are truly hidden in a hardcore way and they’re booth tied to Speed Booster puzzles, otherwise more than half of the game’s tanks can be comfortably collected as you go through the game’s intended path.

The reason why I called this a shift is because pretty much every single game afterwards will do things this way: Prime 3 pretty much just gives you Energy Tanks like candy, Other M speaks for itself, Samus Returns has the Scan Pulse which makes finding stuff easier in general and Dread pretty much does the same as ZM, except it makes things even easier is some ways, since at least ZM has Super Missiles as a seperate resource, and their Tanks are actually a bit more interesting to search for, while Dread goes the Fusion way and makes Super Missiles the same as normal ones.

The effect all of this has is that it further pushes pure, player driven exploration to the backburner: while in the original trilogy (and also the first 2 Primes) you had to look for expansions on your own in order to ensure your survival, now the games just give you most of what you’ll strictly need as you proceed normally, so the games can be sure you’ll be ready for the next threat. This means that you can mostly just cruise along as the game does most of the important exploration for you. This doesn’t mean there still aren’t expansions that are more interesting and even straight up difficult to find, but they’re relegated to completely optional stuff that you’ll in no way truly feel the need to collect if not for a 100% run

Wanna know the real kicker for me? I’ve noticed that AM2R does all of this too! Many Missile Tanks are out in the open, most Energy Tanks are, again, out in the open and not that difficult to find etc. I find this case interesting, because this is a fan game not tied down by the need to be as accessible as possible for a market, yet it still adopts these simplefied design choices.

Anyway to get back at the game proper: I always laugh when I think about Ridley in this game XD

After beating Kraid the game tries to hype him up so much, showing you these glimpses of him travelling to and landing on Zebes, having him ambush you in his boss room, knowing that by this point him being responsible for the death of Samus’ parents has been canonized etc

...then you fight and he keels over in 5 seconds, especially if you’ve managed to get all Super Missile Tanks on the way. He’s SO pathetic! Which I guess is pretty faithful to his original fight but godDAMN!

I swear the more I think about it the more hilarious it gets: this is his first battle against Samus, he approaches it all smug and sure of himself, all Alpha Predator and shit...and then Samus just unloads decades of pent up PTSD induced rage at him and he fucking croaks before he can even blink lmao

And then by canon the Pirates had to pick up what was left of him and stitch him back together with cybernetic implants, forcing him to live as a cyborg for YEARS. No wonder he always looks so pissed at Samus!

About his Lair: I had never noticed that it pretty much locks you in as soon as you defeat the Larva, only being able to get out once you beat Ridley, which unlocks the room with the cannon. It not only feels unneccessary, but can also fuck up any player who decides to sequence break to do Ridley first.

Tourian is pretty interesting: these are my favorite versions of Larval Metroids in the whole series, they are fast, drain your health super fast, are hard to shake off, don’t stay frozen for long and the area likes to pull pranks on you by having you drop in front of multiple Metroids at points. These guys feel genuinely dangerous and I love them for it

You know what? I actually don’t mind Mother Brain!

Listen, say what you will, all opinions are valid yadda yadda...but if you think the NES version of the fight is better you’re out of your goddamn mind XD

That fight lagged like a motherfucker and if you fell in the pit of lava in front of her you were almost guaranteed to be screwed

This fight doesn’t lag, you get more space to maneuver and Samus controls better. It’s still a bullet hell, but, especially with the Screw Attack allowing you to destroy her projectiles, it actually feels like you stand a consistent chance if you just pay attention! (Can’t say the same during low% runs though...)

I have only one issue with all of this though: difficulty inconsistency

Zero Mission has been an easy game up until now, where, between the Metroids, Mother Brain and the following stealth sequence, it suddenly jacks up the challange and it starts to feel like a different game

I like the challenge, but there’s absolutely no sense of gradual change whatsoever, the game just flips a switch and then suddenly you’re in hell until the game decides to go into easy mode again, with no in-between. I think this is the only game in the series to have this problem

[stitching-in-time]

Voyager rewatch s4 ep26: Hope and Fear

The season 4 finale! It's a bit unusual that they didn't do a big two-part cliffhanger, but I don't really mind. It was torture to wait a whole summer to find out what happened back in the day, and it was nice to have it neatly wrapped up for once.

It opens with Janeway and Seven playing Velocity on the holodeck, and Seven is upset that Janeway is winning. Janeway tries to explain that her experience with the game and ability to anticipate it gives her an edge that even Seven's borg perfection can't match, but Seven is still petulant like a teenager, and grumbles as the Captain walks away. (Side note: why in god's name would they not let Seven wear her Velocity outfit the whole time?? This outfit is so much better! It's black, so you can't see every bit of her anatomy on display, it has blue stripes to add some visual interest, it's got flat shoes that are way more practical, and she still looks thin for the shitty straight guys to ogle, but actually pretty. Why did they insist on sticking her in that godawful brown catsuit, of all things?? They can obviously do better, but apparently they just wanted her to look like she's wearing poop-colored footie pajamas that are several sizes too small.)

Meanwhile, Voyager is working with an alien who just happens to be great at languages, while Janeway continues working on decrypting the message that Starfleet sent them. She asks the alien, Arturis, to help her decode it, and he figures it out in no time.

The message from Starfleet contains the coordinates to an experimental ship equipped with state of the art quantum slipstream drive, which they've sent to bring them home. Most of the crew is thrilled, except Seven, who has no desire to return to Earth, and the Captain, who begins to suspect that everything they ever wanted being suddenly handed to them feels a little too good to be true. She sends away teams to the new ship to check it out before they abandon Voyager and trust what they're being told.

While they're looking over the ship, Seven asks B'Elanna why she wants to go back to Earth when she could face charges for having been Maquis. B'Elanna replies that she'd rather go home and face whatever happens than spend forever in the Delta Quadrant. She reminds Seven that people might not be too happy about having an ex-Borg around either, and that they might end up outcasts together- Seven doesn't realize she's joking in an attempt to commiserate, and Seven is already doubting whether she should go back at all. (There's a nice moment where Harry tells Seven it wouldn't be the same if they went back without her, which elicits a rare smile from Seven- she clearly does care about the crew, even if she's too afraid to admit to it.)

Seven tells the Captain she's not going with them if they go back to the Alpha Quadrant, which Janeway refuses to accept. Seven is now part of their crew, and Janeway won't abandon any of them in the Delta Quadrant alone. Janeway realizes that Seven is just scared, which Seven doesn't even want to admit to herself. Seven gets mean and defiant like a teenager once again, and Janeway has to be the mom and try to reign her in.

It soon becomes a moot point though, as Janeway retrieves and decodes the rest of Starfleet's message, which Arturis had said was lost. Starfleet's real message contained maps and star charts, but lamented the fact that they didn't know how to get Voyager home yet. Meanwhile, the away team finds alien tech on the supposed Starfleet ship, and Janeway recalls the crew to Voyager immediately, now deeply suspicious of Arturis. Arturis feigns ignorance at first, but once it's clear they're on to him, he drops the charade and admits that he was trying to lure the Voyager crew onto his ship to deliver them to the Borg. He blames Janeway and Voyager for showing the Borg how to defeat Species 8472, which freed them up to assimilate his planet, and he wants revenge. Janeway tries to explain that Species 8472 were an even greater threat, and she couldn't have known what the Borg would do to his planet, but he powers up his slipstream drive to try to take Janeway and Seven to the Borg, since the rest of the crew is already back on Voyager. Voyager follows them using their own modified slipstream drive, and they manage to catch up long enough to beam Janeway and Seven to Voyager before they lose the slipstream, leaving Arturis on an unalterable course into Borg space, where they assimilate him instead.

Though the crew is disappointed not to be going back to earth, and to not be able to use the modified slipstream drive again, they soldier on as always, headed toward home. Seven, while grateful not to be going back to Earth yet, also finds herself grateful not to be assimilated back into the Borg collective after all, despite wishing for it since she was freed. It's a turning point for her character, and Janeway seems proud of her as they resume their Velocity game, this time with less complaining from Seven.

Tl;dr: An episode with an exciting premise that did a pretty good job of giving the whole crew at least a little something to do for the season finale.

[entropy-game-dev]

Here are a few random gifs/screenshot showing some new features/fixes that have accumulated since v0.08!

The first gif is showing proper attack missing behaviour and associated player feedback! I mentioned in the previous post’s patchnotes that missing an attack softlocked the game, and now not only does it not do that (yay) but it shows some “MISS” text too! If you’re wondering how this bug was not caught in 8 versions, it’s because all attacks by default have 100% accuracy, and a scarce few status effects can cause attacks to miss.

The second gif demonstrates players being shifted around by attacks. Before, only enemies were able to be moved around, but now player units can do so as well, which I find quite amusing. We found in v0.09a that the status effect icons don’t travel with the player panel, so that’s something that still needs to be fixed. But considering I just repurposed the code from the formation menu option, it turned out pretty well!

The third gif shows off some improved attack animation timing. Without going into too much detail, some visual effect sequences were mistimed a bit, due to my awful spaghetti code. I’ve tidied things up such that if an attack gets conducted or reflected, all the animations and damage numbers associated with it display properly, leading to better readability of attacks.

Speaking of readability, the next screenshot shows off some summary text after performing a routine, as suggested by another friend. Specifically, the 4th line is completely new (although I don’t think you guys have seen the 3rd line, indicating when a status effect has been applied either). The [ ROUTINE SUMMARY ] displays who got attacked, how much damage/healing they took, what element(s) they were, and what affinity they had to each of the elements. Keeping in mind that all those icons have mouse-over tooltips, I think it helps a bunch!

The second last screenshot shows a new room/corridor determining algorithm when generating dungeons (rooms in light green and corridors in dark green). Initially I had rooms/corridors marked as such when the rooms were being placed, but this didn’t work so well, when it came to actually representing the map after it had been roughed up etc. My friend suggested an algorithm where, after the map was generated, it’d scan through squares, and if a square had at least 6 or more tiles around it, all of them would be marked as a room. I added an extra condition to ensure that there had to be at least one 2x2 section in a room (otherwise you could have a capital I shaped room).

Finally, and possibly most excitingly, today and yesterday I’ve been drafting up a new routine selection interface, to replace the horridly ugly and extremely temporary one that has been a blight on the game for a few years now. It’s finally time to get all that player facing information presented nicely and clearly, and I think this does the trick! As you go up/down between moves, I’m also planning for the viewport to display the attack range and effectiveness of each move in real-time, much like how in SMT/Persona, choosing a target for a move will indicate whether that enemy is strong/weak to it if the weakness is known.

That’s it for now; thanks for reading and stay tuned for more patch notes soon!

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Actually sighing coming up with things to say about this. Your cast are the same obviously, composer and sound director as well - we kept Asaka but not Eri Sasaki, but that sort of change doesn't really matter I'd say. All of the producers have been here before, although the number of them was cut in half. And then everything else is different. Your studio is the big easy one to point to, alongside your director. Different character designer, art director, colour designer, series composition, director of photography, background artists, the works. But that's not a bad thing, right. Like, even for fairly prolific series you see studio changes all the time, core staff changes a little less frequently but it still happens. And like it doesn't have to be a bad thing - sometimes a show will even look and feel better once its in someone else's hands. The problem here is...

What the fuck is this? This looks really bad. It's distractingly ugly. There's always been a contrast between Yuru Camp's quite realistic backgrounds and simplistic character designs but the former had enough of a painterly overlay to where everything harmonised and the whole thing looked pretty great! We're not getting that here. The characters and the objects in motion just look like they're imposed over real photography. Or alternatively you have something like the first and third shot there where every element clearly exists on separate layers with separate rendering detail and so the entire image looks really bad, like that composition is downright amateur, right? This hurts me to look at.

And like, look. This isn't the majority of the season so far. Most shots look fine. Not good, nowhere close to what was on offer before (even bearing in mind shit like the visible google maps logo in the second season), but they look fine. I don't like the character designs quite as much but I can get used to them just fine and they animate well enough. I still have many of my favourite seiyuu giving many of their most pleasant sounding performances. Yumiri Hanamori in particular I don't get enough of her in my usual anime-watching life, especially doing the Nadeshiko voice. Akiyuki Tateyama is still giving us one of the most relaxing anime soundtracks I've ever heard, but with enough going on to where I can actually listen to them in most moods. And more than anything else it's still Yuru Camp. I'm still getting to see a bunch of cute girls I like go camping and enjoy nature and be sweet and lovely. I'm still expecting to come home after a stressful day and put on Yuru Camp and just completely decompress. I'm still going to enjoy this.

But fuck me man if visuals like this aren't gonna just keep distracting me for the rest of the runtime.

[lizzylucky]

Thoughts and Observations From The Movie, Part 2/4

Welcome to part two of the silly things and fun details I picked out from the Rise movie!

My sister and I often pause the movie here to reread the options on this whiteboard for destroying the key, and it never fails to make us laugh. My one question: when and how did they test Donnie’s stomach? He wasn’t even there!

Also, feels like a callback to TummyTello, somehow. It also leaves me wondering why Donnie’s Stomach was an actual idea for destruction, regardless of whether it involves TummyTello. Guy must eat some crazy stuff XD

Further content below the cut!

“So… You’re Running Out of Ideas.” by Syr E. Piphany.

Okay, okay, bear with me- I actually have a little theory for this one.  This is a screenshot from when Leo asks Donnie to locate Raph. Donnie tells him that Raph is practically- and then that he actually IS- on top of them. What I noticed here is that on this visual locator he has, none of the little character icons are oriented the same way their real life counterparts are. All six characters are in the same area and standing pretty close to each other, and I would assume that, kinda like google location sharing or snapchat location maps, you have to zoom in further on the map to get more specific locations.

This kinda sounds like it’s going nowhere, but what I’m getting at is the idea that when multiple people are in the same location, given that we know the icons will not be oriented perfectly to the people they represent, they’ll probably appear in the same orientation every time. 

Which would mean!! that Donnie has intentionally designed his tracker app to have icons show up with this orientation when people are close together, furthermore meaning that he chose to put his big brother in the center of them all on purpose. As an artist myself, this could be coincidental, but very rarely are things like this done without purpose, and I like to imagine it’s a subtle way to represent Donnie thinking the absolute world of his big brother; that he would turn to Raph for guidance even before Splinter, whose icon is on the other side of the circle from Donnie’s. 

I also love that the icons for Donnie’s best friend and Donnie’s “twin” are on either side of his.

And, as one last afterthought, I think this could also be a subtle nod to how Raph’s krangification becomes the center of the story and main motivator for all the characters for a huge chunk of the movie.

Does ANYONE ELSE SEE THIS?????

That absolutely looks like a masked face in the biogrowth at the top of this building. In truth, it actually looks a lot more like one of the paper ninjas than it does the Shredder, but the similarities are still there, and it works as further evidence that the Shredder and the goals of the Foot Clan were all hinged around the Krang.

Is anyone else floored by the size of this skull that Krang 1 or whatever is sitting on? I always would forget about it pretty immediately given Leo’s cheeky “surprise!” here, but this thing looks like the head of a freakin’ dragon or something. I wonder what it is? And how it got to, let alone died in, the technodrome.

 One genuinely non-serious theory my sister and I occasionally talk about is the idea that the technodrome is actually a massive egg, and this was the incomplete embryo of whatever it would have become. Further non-serious evidence, which can be seen in the next images, is that the technodrome, in spite of being extremely technologically advanced, is clearly… alive, not just pure tech. Actually, everything the Krang use seems to be bio-mechanical in nature, to some degree.

It will probably be made pretty clear here that Donnie is my favourite character, just a fair warning XD But man I love this scene- one, because of the Autism-ADHD solidarity shown between PB&J immediately previous, and, two, because it’s actually a seriously incredible show of strength from Donnie. 

Many fans of Rise, and of Donnie especially, also have Autism (like Donnie is confirmed to have) and/or ADHD (including myself) and understand that sensory issues mixed with New Things You Don’t Understand can be absolute hell. Like, ruins your day, renders you inactive, unfocused, nonverbal, made to be a shaking ball of anxiety, hell. Not always, but the point still stands.

Additionally, and as much as I am all for Donnie’s softshell not being seen as a big weakness because it’s natural and still more protection than any normal person has (not to mention the advantages it offers him in terms of swimming and flexibility (also probably feels really nice for scritches and sleep piles)), it actually does seem a relevant point here that this is, technically speaking, the most vulnerable part of Donnie’s body. So actively choosing to expose it to an unfamiliar and highly advanced, invasive and living technology on top of the difficulties that come with the above described neurodivergent tendencies goes against his nature in so, so many ways, but he does it anyway. 

Mikey being worried about his vulnerability here, in spite of feeling out of place before, makes a lot more sense from this perspective. Knowing all that, honestly-- it just never fails to impress me.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4