#i was going to get example dialogue from them but then i remembered hp exists

[orchidbreezefc]

the reason i find phonetically writing out accents tacky at best and xenophobic at worst

it treats the author's accent as normal, the default. that's plain english with no need to indicate any way the words as spoken deviate from the words as written. everyone ELSE'S accents warrant being denoted by the spelling, but we don't need to change OUR text, we're just speaking Regular.

do you say "axe" instead of "ask"? do you combine the words 'would you' into 'wouldjoo'? do you swap whole-ass consonants to pronounce "comfortable" as "comfterble"?

chances are you do at least one of those things; i certainly do. none of those is 'correct' english; none of those is pronouncing the word as written. if you spell out accents other than your own, do you also spell out those pronunciations in yours? why is that?

i'm not saying not to drop a g for a rootin' tootin' US southern accent. i'm definitely not saying to misrepresent the actual words a person says when those differ because of their dialect. if someone says 'me' instead of 'my', write it that way! changing their words to conform to your version of english is just as bad, if not worse.

i am saying think about what you're doing. think about whether you really need to indicate someone shapes their vowels differently from you or whether you're just othering them while presenting yourself as neutral. if the reader is aware the speaker has an accent a light hand is probably sufficient.

at the very least please pump the brakes before you end up with hagrid from harry potter. ever notice that mcgonagall is also scottish but her accent isn't written out? it's almost like the less educated person is more heavily affiliated with their accent. that's the kind of thing that happens when you don't think about this stuff.

[vampkomori]

anyone else think neo’s reports are weird about composers i think theyre weird about composers. lets make sense of joshuas status as composer and hazuki as comparison

this is gonna be a bit long. so anyway the og reports are p straightforward about what Composers (specifically, joshua) can and cannot do:

- Joshua can only pick up Hanekoma’s vibe, because Angel vibes are too high frequency for him to pick up

- Inter-planar contact (so, communication between the UG and the Higher Plane in this case) is difficult, which is brought up because

- The Composer, Joshua, only resides in the UG.

- But the Producer, who is an Angel, mainly resides in the Higher Plane, and only occasionally lingers in the UG.

The whole matter of jumping between worlds highlights the difference between their abilities even more:

- As Composer, Joshua is one of the beings who can jump between worlds, but isn’t meant to do so often. His vibe dipped too low, so Hanekoma had to come retrieve him, because as an Angel this sort of travel is simple for him.

the OG reports make it pretty clear Joshua isnt an Angel

*But. unfortunately its not that easy. because by clearing the final time trial joshua gives you an item called Angel Feather (天使のハネ in JP), of which the description says “Our buyer used divine means to acquire this mysterious feather that was once in the possession of Shibuya's Composer.“ (which some have interpreted as, “in the possession of” meaning “it was given to him” potentially by hanekoma, who actually IS an Angel)

and if things are vague, we turn to the JP to clear us up! but its. still vague there bc it says “バイヤーが特別な力で入手した渋谷エリアのコンポーザーが持っていた謎の羽根“ (The mysterious feather that was held/carried by the Composer of the Shibuya area that the buyer obtained with a special power)

so. we are none the wiser about whose feather this is. i imagine its up to interpretation whether its joshuas feather or hanekomas, who then gave it to joshua. but given how clearly the reports differentiate between the Composer and Angels in regards to their abilities, suffice to say theres two interpretations that are most likely

- Composers arent Angels, their power disparity is just too much

- Composers are Angels, but theyre so much weaker compared to the Angels who reside in the Higher Plane that they’re never referred to as Angels, just as Composers

which takes us to neo, and hazukis little lightshow

i think its notable that the reports dont comment on kubos so-called “exorcism”, and only on haz erasing his noise.

haz himself refers to his little stunt as “exorcising” kubo, while in JP he actually says haiki 廃棄, get rid of, revoke, invalidate.

i think its important that he clarified “i didnt erase him, i exorcised him”. because with kubo, the executor, being an Angel from the Higher Plane, a Composer shouldnt be able to erase someone of higher ranking than them. i think as the person who called upon kubo in the first place, haz could specifically revoke his services and send him back to the Higher Plane.

which means kubo wasnt erased, he was just sent back. hes still kickin

we could leave things right here as they are. Canonically, Composers are so far beneath Angels to a point where even if they were Angels themselves, they are so much weaker than them that they could hardly be referred to as such

this is where the facts end. but im gonna keep going and have fun speculating about things and include some i dont have physical proof of (yet)

its notable that in JP, hazuki says that kubo tried to purify shibuya probably because he wanted to be praised by Hazuki. which is weird if kubos supposed to be higher ranking than haz. (in EN, haz just says hes always been an overachiever) but lets put a pin in that for later 📌

which takes us to the matter of Shinjuku’s Producer. or their lack thereof

throughout all of neo’s reports, there is not a single mention of Shinjuku having a Producer. before neo, we kind of assumed every UG’s setup follows largely the same structure. a Composer, a Conductor, a Producer, and then some Reapers. but Shinjuku does not seem to have a Producer. and i think its because it doesnt need one.

its important to remember Who is writing these reports and Who theyre for. the reports are written by shibuyas Producer, and theyre written for the Higher Plane. and shibuyas Composer cant pick up the vibes of any Angel except hanekoma, so he cant be the one writing the reports for beings he cant even pick up the vibes from, especially since he only resides in the UG.

and yet, hanekoma comments that Hazuki should have filed a report, and that haz is disinterested in the lower planes.

in English its a little vague about who hes talking about, but the JP specifies Shinjukus Composer as the subject of this sentence.

throughout both reports, the UG and RG are considered part of the lower planes. its strange for a Composer to have no interest in the very planes they govern, plus for a Composer to file a report to the Higher Plane when its been established that Joshua, as a Composer, cant even perceive anyone from there.

so i think Hazuki may actually be a proper Angel from the Higher Plane, who was potentially demoted to become Shinjukus Composer.

though you can very much interpret haz “exorcising” kubo as simply “sending him back whence he came”, its of course pretty anticlimactic to see this massive laser beam essentially disintegrate kubo on a molecular level, only for it to have been a quick ride back to the higher plane with kubo being perfectly in tact after. if haz were actually much more powerful than an ordinary Composer, itd make sense why he would have been able to erase an Angel like kubo so. thoroughly.

this would also explain why kubo may have wanted to be praised by hazuki in the JP dialogue. with hazuki potentially being an outlier for Composers and being far Higher ranking than kubo, our executor may have wanted to sucker up a bit. maybe get promoted and away from his “basically a janitor” job if haz puts in a good word for him upstairs

theres also hazukis entire demeanor, and how Bad he is at acting like a normal person

we know of four paths that Players can take

they can choose erasure

they can choose resurrection to return to the RG

they can become Reapers

they can become Angels

and Reapers can eventually become Angels, though its yet unclear if the only way for that to happen is

for them to become Composer (potentially the Lowest Angel-rank there is) and thats it.

or if Composers can ascend and become Actual Angels and eventually reside in the Higher Plane, though how a successor for the seat of Composer is chosen in that scenario is yet entirely unknown since Usually the seat only becomes vacant when the previous Composer is defeated

or if they, as a Reaper, need to Ask the Composer who then asks the Producer to send a guy for evaluation or something

or if the Higher Plane has like, a talent scout guy somewhere.

potentially more than one may apply but at least the last point is the most likely, because

Conductors are invited to the Higher Plane (probably to become Angels) upon purification

(interesting to note that Composers are not mentioned as being invited, which would point to “theyre Angels, but like, weak-ass Angels”)

anyway, the point is that so far weve been told that Angels were Players or Reapers at one point. we know Joshua was a Player for sure, given the morsels of backstory we get from him and Hanekoma. but we dont know if All Angels came from the RG at one point, or if Angels that have always been Angels exist.

either way, the point is that for Hazuki to act so non-human like and to be disinterested in the UG and RG, he either must have been an Angel for a very long time, or he was never human to begin with.

this is relevant to how he interacts with joshua in the Secret Ending, though its a lot less obvious in English, in JP their dynamic is clear: Joshua is his senior, and as his junior, Hazuki looks to him as an example.

for one, thats hilarious. secondly, that recontextualizes like everything

‘course, you could keep the interpretation that theyre just Both weak-ass angels and hazuki just made kubo use a flashy dramatic elevator to the HP and nothing groundbreakingly powerful happened, but thats kinda anticlimactic

so. staying w the idea that hazuki may be a demoted Angel from the Higher Plane, then itd make sense for Joshua to have been Composer for longer than him, and for haz to act Like...That, since he couldve been not-human for a Very long time, or Never was one in the first place, but is still a younger Composer bc he got demoted like. 4 years back or something.

it also explains why Shinjuku may not need a Producer, and why Hazuki is the one writing his reports. its because hes still an Angel from the Higher Plane, so he does not need an intermediary to contact other Angels.

so to summarize what im tryna say here

Hazuki may have initially been a regular Angel from the Higher Plane, before he eventually got demoted to become Shinjukus Composer, despite how disinterested he is in the UG and RG. (he is considered to be “infamously unsympathetic”, a trait which is reinforced in the JP version to be something he is known for amongst the Higher Plane, which could potentially be the reason for his demotion)

Since hes Joshuas junior, that means he hasnt been Composer for as long as Joshua has, so Hazuki looks to him to know what youre even supposed to do/how to act/etcetera as Composer. With his Special circumstances, he does not need a Producer as an intermediary to interact with the Higher Plane, because hes already an Angel so he can do it himself.

whatever Angel Hierarchy there may be, Hazuki is at the very least a higher rank than an Executor, considering how kubo wanted to impress him, and how haz effortlessly got rid of him. with kubo being from the Higher Plane, joshua is decidedly lower ranking than kubo, and cant even pick up his vibe. which clearly positions haz into a unique circumstance as a Composer bc of this discrepancy in ranking and power. amen

<><><> <><><> <><><> <><><> <><><> <><><> <><><> <><><> <><><>

theres other things that back this up but i unfortunately do not have a source for them, so This section, take with a grain of salt.

Supposedly, in neo’s data files:

Joshua is referred to as an Advanced Angel

Kubo as a Junior Angel, and

Hazuki as a Senior Angel

i only heard this secondhand and have no way of corroborating this myself, but if this is true then that lines up with the super long super sexy little essay i just wrote up there

this “ranking” solidifes Kubos position as Hazukis underling. which, if he were an ordinary Composer, wouldnt even be possible.

Joshua is notably a different rank from Haz, though its difficult to figure out if “Advanced” is supposed to be Lower than junior, or Higher than senior. thats up to interpretation until its possibly ever acknowledged,

but my interpretation is that an Advanced Angel is lower than a Junior Angel. i think “advanced” in this case is meant to refer to the traditional evolution of players to reapers to the composer, advancing from one status to the next.

--

**Little post-edit, @/inkerii gave me the actual designation in the files! (so this ones backed-up!)

so in the files, theyre designated ranks are as follows

Joshua: 男、天使上級 ※前作  (Male, Senior/Advanced Grade Angel ※from the Previous work)

Hazuki: 男、天使上級 (Male, Senior/Advanced Grade Angel)

Kubo:   男、天使下級 (Male, Junior/Lower Grade Angel)

so haz and joshua are the same rank bc theyre both Composers! since thats an internal data text kinda thing it might not have any bearing on like, potential Technical exceptions since they Are both the same “job”, but mightve gotten it under different circumstances.

as for kubo potentially being lower ranking than even a Composer, i think unless we find out what a Producers ranking is, we cant say much abt whether an Executors lower or higher. i kinda mean it in the sense of,  Producers are a Composers subordinate bc they follow their orders and have to create the things theyre tasked to make by the Composer (pins, etc), but may still be “higher” in ranking because they reside in the Higher Plane/jump between parallel worlds, while a Composer cannot. an Executor may be in a similar position where theyre a Composers underling, tasked by Composers to purify things, but may actually be “higher” in ranking because they reside in the higher plane, etc!

i think regardless of whether kubo turns out to be lower ranking than joshua or not, hazuki could still be Even More Higher in a way where he actually has like, sway over whether he could get a promotion! if that was his intent. he could also just be a huge suck up. a real kiss ass. teachers pet for angels

---

theres also the ntwewy Official Guidebook, which has a small comment beneath hazuki that says

and i additionally remember an interview, though i dont have a source for this claim and i could very much be misremembering, but i recall seeing the reason for hazuki not being the final boss is because they did not think players could suspend their disbelief far enough to accept that the twisters would be able to defeat a being from the Higher Plane.

which is perfectly reasonable, but

Composers are meant to be able to be defeated by Players or Reapers. if hazuki really was so powerful that itd be impossible for them to defeat him, then hed be far too strong to be an ordinary Composer, since thats. how you take over in the first place. thats kinda the whole plot of og twewy.

anyway that concludes my case

[kindestegg]

Deltarune: On tea, relationships, and why people probably need to stop exaggerating

Alright, so ever since the introduction of the “character flavored” teas in chapter 2, there has been a lot of discussion about them. If you haven’t heard of it yet, in Deltarune Chapter 2, there’s an item that’s a tea that you can buy from an NPC and choose the flavor of, giving you a flavor that is named after a party member. So, Kris tea, Noelle Tea, Susie Tea, and Ralsei Tea.

The fun thing about this item is that it can more or less be used to “track” the relationships between the characters, so to speak. For example, if Noelle has the Susie tea, even if she’s not supposed to drink it due to normally leaving the party, she’ll still have a reaction to it, wondering if they would sell this in gallons and recovering an absurd amount of HP, 400 to be precise.

(this is long as hell, so please continue reading under the cut)

These teas are also actually a reference to a book series Toby is a fan of, Sideways Stories from Wayside School, which does have a chapter about students having ice cream flavored after their classmates. This is most evident when the characters drink their own tea, which tastes like nothing to them and recovers the least amount of HP: 10. In the books, the students also could not perceive the taste of their own flavor of ice cream.

So, the fandom gets ahold of this information and starts testing out the teas and how characters react to them, right? The thing is, I’ve seen people kind of exaggerate the importance of these items and even the meanings of them, and while I think everyone’s entitled to harmless headcanons speculating on the relationship of characters, the problem is people are using these teas as immutable proof and part of their theories.

One of such exaggerations comes mostly in the form of the infamous Ralsei Tea, as to which Kris apparently does not show much reaction, though curiously Ralsei is still happy to see Kris drinking it, and it only recovers 60 HP. For reference, the teas usually cap at a good 120 HP, which is when a character loves the flavor, Noelle being the outlier because she really is just that in love with Susie. For the most part the Fun Gang has pretty positive reactions to each other’s flavor of teas, recovering 120 HP… with the exception of Kris’ reaction towards Ralsei tea.

And the problem starts now: Due to this, people started using this little tidbit in their theories, claiming this was proof that Kris actually dislikes or even hates Ralsei, that we should be ashamed of ourselves for making Kris hug Ralsei, that it is torture for them that we choose nice dialogue options towards Ralsei, some going as far as to claim this is somehow tied to the infamous “Ralsei is secretly evil” theories.

But does this speculation hold any actual weight when analyzed more deeply?

… No. I’m sorry, it just does not, I’m not going to entertain this. In this post, I’m going to deconstruct how the teas really work, and exactly why claiming that this is good enough proof that Kris would dislike Ralsei is an exaggeration at best and downright false at worse.

To truly make a precise conclusion, we must first look at the full picture. We know that 10 HP means “tastes like nothing”, and we know that 120 HP means “tastes amazing”, but are there any other reactions that aren’t either 10 or 120, aside from the 60 HP we already know from Ralsei tea?

Pictured: Noelle reacting to Kris tea.

Pictured: Kris reacting to Noelle tea.

Pictured: Ralsei reacting to Noelle tea.

Pictured: Noelle reacting to Ralsei tea.

I think what people forget here is that you don’t have to really adore someone or outright hate them. Sometimes you’re more neutral on people. And I think that’s what happens here. As you can see here, Ralsei recovers 10 less HP for Noelle than Kris does for him, and still calls her flavor “soft and sweet”. Meanwhile, Noelle claims his tea has “nothing in it”, even though she still recovers 50 hp.

Does this somehow mean Ralsei hates Noelle, or she hates him, for that matter? … No, that wouldn’t make sense, they just met, they know nothing about each other. We do learn here one important thing though, flavor is not tied to HP recovery, as in, the flavor of each character’s tea will taste different to a different person based on what they perceive of them.

As a comparative example, while Kris tea tastes like apple juice to Susie due to her always smelling the apple shampoo they use, Kris tea tastes like blueberries, which is a reference to Kris’ appearance in the Dark World. So while Ralsei tea tastes like nothing to Noelle as she can’t perceive him well enough yet, it still heals 50 HP due to it not being her own tea, and Ralsei heals for the same amount, but he seems to perceive others based on appearance and wants to find something good to say, so he ends up tasting it as something “soft and sweet” because that’s what Noelle appears like.

We can also gain a new “base” HP recovery that is accounted for when characters drink tea that is not their own: 50 HP. And we know 50 HP means “I was literally just made aware of your existence and can’t comment much on you yet”. Now, if you look at Kris and Noelle, they recover 70 HP from each other’s tea. In Noelle’s words, they have been neighbors their entire lives, yet they still find it hard to call each other friends, necessarily. Although you can choose the prompt “we’re friends”, the reasoning still stands: Kris and Noelle just don’t have that much to say about each other. If you remember, when you visit Rudy at the hospital in chapter 1, then Noelle afterwards, they’ll comment on how Kris usually isn’t as involved or interested in their neighbor’s business, suggesting they really don’t hang out as much as you’d think.

So, 50 HP, 70 HP. Where does that leave us for Ralsei’s 60 HP? Does it actually reveal evidence of hatred or at least dislike?

… The answer, if you’ve been paying any attention, is no, of course not. If 50 HP means “literally just learned the other exists” while 70 HP means “not exactly great friends but have known each other for a long time and shared memories”, then that puts Ralsei at a pretty advantageous spot all things considered. Even with him acting somewhat suspicious, even with him being a creature from an entirely new magical world Kris was made aware of literally a day ago, even with Ralsei’s clingy behavior, Kris considers him more than just some random person they just met, and almost a good acquaintance to the level of Noelle.

And sure, you could still bring up comparisons to the higher HP recoveries, like Susie recovering 120 HP from everyone despite also not really being exactly friends with any of these people for too long, and for that I will say…

That girl will eat anything and considering they are all flavors she enjoys she’ll obviously down it in a second, and

Susie is just… a more open person. Once you get her guard down and let her know you truly want to be her friend and think she is cool, she’ll immediately consider you a friend and part of her team. (It’s also kind of sad in a way because it shows she may be desperate for the feeling of belonging but let’s not get into that right now).

Kris, however, is a much more reserved person. Once again I must remind you how everyone in Hometown comments about Kris not usually being very outgoing or talkative. Hell, even when they drink Noelle tea, no one can tell whether they like it or not. Susie may be an exception to this rule, simply because they do have a lot in common, particularly to the fact she was also always an awkward quiet person that their classmates could never place and would often get in trouble. Even if she was mean to them and a downright bully in chapter 1, teens can still have some pretty weird appreciations, and you can tell they must have been wanting to befriend her from the start. It simply just is a better relationship to them. Otherwise, people they haven’t invested in knowing well will probably not cause the same reaction.

Bottom line is… why are we having this debate again? In the end, it feels rather silly. Yes, Kris doesn’t recover 120 HP from Ralsei tea. Big deal? That doesn’t mean they hate or even dislike him, that there’s a deep turmoil and conflict going on between the two already. Ralsei is just a new friend they are still getting used to, that’s it. Can’t blame the kid for having boundaries.

For further proof, if you learn more about the content that is being referenced here, you’ll learn that in the same chapter of the book, there is actually a way for one’s flavor to taste “horrible” due to a person being perceived that way, but at no point in these reactions it’s suggested anyone’s flavor tastes bad, that any of them are disgusted, so I doubt any of these reactions can be seen as dislike.

Dang… this got a little long… but I just felt like I had to make this post because, reiterating, I find myself a little irritated at the fact people will use the tea’s reactions as part of their theories, claiming it as actual proof, when it is far from proving anything.

And before someone brings it up, yes, Kris has been shown to prefer Susie over Ralsei, do I have to point out the flaw in that logic? Preferring someone doesn’t mean you outright dislike the other person.

Moral of the story is: Don’t take conclusions for your theories without good backing in canon, feel free to make your headcanons but don’t state it as proof, byeee.

[shouldertallabyss]

ObsidianPen’s Fanfiction and Why It Lives Up to the Hype

As you have eyes, this is a rant. Apologies, I could not be brief. These thoughts literally roll around when I’m running, driving, standing in the pickle aisle at the grocery store, etc. I very much wondering if I’m not just off my nut. Fearing the worst, I have come to the Internet to commiserate.

How good is the Haunted and Hunted series? Allow me to try to put it into examples:

- It’s like, if you were leaning over the edge of the CN Tower--fun, right? Enjoying the Views? Then someone comes up behind you and pushes you off. That’s the adrenaline.

- It’s like, you had a first crush--teetering on obsessive, right? Really infatuated. Then, before you get the chance to tell them how you feel, because you’re so nervous to get rejected, you find out they’re with someone else, interested in someone else. That’s the emotional impact, but only topically.

- Say you’re a little religious--you see symbolism in the little things of life, yeah? You can look up at the stars and it makes you feel small, like your choices don’t matter, but then you look at the friends you’ve had in your life--even one nice person that you liked--and you remember that you had an impact on them as much as they had an impact on you. This includes the perspective that one or both of you don’t even realize the impact, because life sometimes just happens, consequences happen--all because of choice. That’s the humanity aspect.

- Say you’re athletic, or were ever forced to run the mile in a gym class--you know what it’s like for you to lose your breath, but keep going, yes? When the mile was over, how did you feel? Exhausted? Exhilarated? A mix of the two? That’s the end of most chapters.

- Have you ever looked at something for a long time, and then realized that you’ve just been staring off into space, not even thinking about what’s in front of you? That’s been me for two years (two years?), hi.

- Two years ago, I read the Haunted and Hunted series in one sitting (one weekend, I read slowly, don’t @ me) and then later moved on to No Glory, which was a MISTAKE, because I just wait for updates and it’s a semi-inconvenient distraction from my real life. Always worth the wait, as good entertainment is--the anticipation is part of the experience.

- I swear on it, I do not see the world the same way after thinking through all the aspects of OG Hauntingly. There have been plenty of other fictions that are good, but Hauntingly already has the pull of the love you have for the Harry Potter fandom, and it adds another real story, despite it being the same story, to the mix.

- In my heart, there is the Harry Potter series as J.K. Rowling wrote it, intended it, and finished it...and then there is the fork in the road that happened before Harry’s 6th year, and changed my love for the Harry Potter universe. It definitely made it deeper, because it parallels the canon timeline perfectly, and introduces all of the points from the view of Harry being removed. Not a common theme in canon, but still maintaining Harry at the focal point. Astonishing. Outstanding.

- J.K. Rowling created and ObsidianPen took that groundwork, that beautiful masterpiece, and shaped something new...using almost all of the themes from the OG HP plot. Wow.

- These are not just stories, they are philosophies. I believe that, because they have been written from a place of passion--for the fandom, for friends, for the sake of telling the same story with a few elements removed, and how a few elements make all the difference. Despite every new take OP makes, it is always in a way that is not too far off of being familiar. That’s just what I think.

- The dialogue is incredibly in character. Dialogue feeds interactions, and makes those scenes come to life in a more authentic and real way. You could have a whole story without dialogue, but here, it is the beloved characters continued.

- These are my own opinions, but like, seriously, I’ve been down the rabbit hole, and I have so much respect for the writing style of ObsidianPen--who is an artist in stunning form, in captivating ways--and I’m wondering if I will ever be in a mindset where I will live my life not analyzing the end of the series every other month. It’s like, burned in my memory.

- Let me try to explain that more:  it wasn’t even the story that had me so captivated. It was everything that was so emotional, every new word that floated up and described a mental state, or an emotional renaissance, or just trying to be human. The “just trying to be human” piece is what throws me, because it will always be philosophical, full of change, and you could read how Harry falls apart from the surface, or you could go deeper, take the dive, blend with what is being told to you...and listen to the undercurrents. ObsidianPen has a grasp on writing fiction in a consistent and impassioned manner. There is world-building, on the bones of the landscapes that Rowling describes, as well as just the world at large. It is the familiar with the new, mentioned above. It is perfectly temporary, just like life. This fanfiction is not a story I took lightly, and I just want to KNOW that all of these listed things weren’t just coming out of some fever dream that attached me to it. It really got me. It didn’t necessarily teach me something new, but it opened my melancholy heart to the love, or compassion, that exists when someone tries to say something that they think is important, and has the means to do it well. Like with the intermixing of philosophies, fandom feels, and unique character expression that you can find inside yourself.

- ObsidianPen, without dispute, has the means to do art well. In this narrow-scoped case, through fanfiction writing. I know OP is an artist in other fantastic ways, we are just not getting into that. Life’s a journey, and it is as complex as the descriptions in the Haunted and Hunted series, round 1 & 2.

- No spoilers for the sake of the rewrite, but gd if I don’t sometimes stand in the shower and just think about church.

- Or maybe I’m off my flipping rocker......irrelevant. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Read these works, if you haven’t. They are...godlike.

[jimmyandthepulsatingmass]

A Look Back at Old Jimmy

Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass is one year old today!  To celebrate, I thought I’d share some stuff about what Jimmy looked like in its original incarnation.  Spoilers: not as good!  But, fans will probably find it interesting, so check it out after the break if you want a super long, super informative post about a version of Jimmy that was never meant to be!

When I originally conceived of Jimmy, it wasn’t meant to be a huge game with a focus on exploration.  Instead, it was meant to be around 8-10 hours and mostly linear.  It wasn’t going to be a commercial game; instead, it was going to be a game that I posted on rpgmaker.net, like many of my other earlier games, and a means for me to show everyone that my game design had matured.  The game was broken up into four segments, each representing a different character.  Each segment was its own game.  For example, Lars’s segment was going to be a first-person dungeon exploring game (called Dark Dungeon), Andrew’s segment was going to be a visual novel about going to school, etc.  I forget if Helga or Buck had the more straightforward RPG segment, and I can’t remember what the fourth segment was going to be.  Of these, I’d only been working on the RPG segment, and I’d finished all the battle designs and locations, so, at the point that I stopped development, this section was almost complete.  So, naturally, that’s what most of this post will focus on.

In the frame story, the house was uncolored, and by completing each segment of the game, you’d gradually color in the house and make your family happy.  When you had colored everything in, you would leave the house and then the ending was very similar to the ending that eventually made it into the game.  Everything was drawn with crayons (by which I mean the crayon tool in MS Paint, haha) other than the sprites.  Also, looks like this screen showed off Jimmy’s old sprite.  Yikes, right?

Here’s the whole family.  This isn’t a scene or anything (none of the dialogue was in at this point--other than some battle dialogue), but I just wanted to show off all the sprites.  Let’s just pull that band-aid off quickly.  The setting is a castle that gets destroyed by the Pulsating Mass.  The entire RPG section takes place in a faux medieval section.  I pulled some ideas about the videogamey aspect of that world into the Everchip segment (mainly how dialogue is delivered), but nothing too important story-wise.

This was Jimmy’s room inside of the RPG world.  If it looks familiar, that’s because the opening of this segment of the game was going to be a shot-for-shot remake of the opening scene in Chrono Trigger, just drawn way worse.  Helga would have delivered Chrono’s mother’s dialogue, but, like I said, I hadn’t done the dialogue yet, so I’m just manually opening the curtains.

Here’s a look at the world map.  The little dragon aspect of the map could also breathe fire; he moves randomly, so I didn’t happen to catch it when I made the gif.  The gif quality kind of sucks, so here are the area names: Hazeleye, Stoney Craw, Bursa Pass, Marrowick, Eastern Brow, Legs of the Ancient Giant, and Pulsating Mass. 

Here’s a little effect that I thought turned out alright.  The areas in dungeons were short and the paths were narrow.  Enemies were designed to be at chokepoints, so there were fixed encounters.  You didn’t get any experience or money from them--you just got to progress.  I’ll get into that more, later, but here are some other shots of maps I thought didn’t look totally terrible:

The entrance to Bursa Pass, a mountainous area.  You’ll probably recognize the bird effect in the background from Lars’s beach scene.  This is actually where you would have first found Lars; he would have been sitting in front of the sign and carried off by a giant bird similar to Grimclaw, but its name was Throbbing Feathers; you can see how I cannibalized a lot of that stuff and used it in different ways in the final game.

This was Throbbing Feathers’s nest.  He was the second boss.

Another shot of Bursa Pass.

This is a little reflection effect I liked in Marrowick, a forest area where you encounter the Rotting Jack-o’-Lantern, among other things.

This is a short area called Eastern Brow.  It was meant to be an observatory, but it also kind of looked like a cannon, so I ended up planning for Jimmy and the family to go there and fire themselves out of it to get to the top of Legs of the Ancient Giant.

Here’s a typical part of the Pulsating Mass.  It was very pink.

Equipment was fixed.  You couldn’t buy equipment or items, and you only gained levels after beating bosses.  Like I said earlier, the game was super linear.  Battles were built more like puzzles since you couldn’t power level to get around them.  Here’s what every other character had equipped for the curious:

My favorite part about looking through the equipment was that I forgot that Lars could only equip a Tommy Bahama Shirt on his upper body.

Here’s a weird part of the battle system that didn’t make it into the full game.  In addition to their normal skill sets, characters had a “Moxie” set of skills.  These four skills were the same for every character.  In addition to HP and MP (SP here), battles utilized RPG Maker’s TP system.  You would gain a set amount of TP each turn, and you could get double by guarding.  TP allowed you to use these Moxie skills, which were basically surrogates for items.

Here are a few skill sets, starting with Helga’s.  There’s a lot of overlap with the full version of Jimmy.  Helga apparently was a cheerleader in Jr. High.

This is just to show that some of these skills that you’re familiar with didn’t operate the same way.  Also, the characters’ HP and SP would normally be full, as you get full recovers after each fight, but I had artificially leveled him, so the numbers are wonky.

Here’s Jimmy’s complete list of transformations.  He had a few extras that didn’t make it into the full game, as you can see.  The final four were optional ones you could get for fighting new monsters that replaced the bosses in each area.  “Imagine Face” lets you transform into a monster called “Giant Face,” which was the tank role; the Revolting Blob was more of a status inflicter.  “Imagine Tree” is the “Tree of Life,” which took over the Phoenix’s big healing role (the Phoenix focused a bit more on offense), and “Imagine Guardian” was a monster called “Ancienter Guardian” (A harder version of the Ancient Guardian you could fight earlier in the game).  It had an offensive role and the ability to interrupt, kind of like a more powerful Red-Billed Squawker with a group attack.

By the way, transformations could only be used inside a battle.  There wasn’t a point of transforming in the field because of the linear level design.  They also took a turn to use; a lot of the combat was slower and built around utilizing each turn correctly.

Speaking of battles, here’s what one would look like.  As you can see, Mortimer made the transition from Old Jimmy to new Jimmy, but his design is a bit different.  The battle backgrounds were stationary.  The TP I was talking about earlier is shown here (as MP--Moxie Points).

Here’s Mortimer getting wrecked by Andrew.  Some of the battle animations look pretty cool as crayons, but there just aren’t a lot of them.  This is because anything that was used on players didn’t have an animation because of how VX Ace’s default battle system works.  Note the end message says “Jimmy’s Family;” HItomi, Jonathon Bear, and Punch Tanaka weren’t playable characters in this version.  Of these, only Punch shows up in the game at all.  Jonathon Bear is just referenced via Jimmy’s shirt, and Hitomi wasn’t planned at this point.  Jonathon Bear’s history with Jimmy wasn’t even conceived at this point.

Since I showed off Mortimer, here are a few more friendly faces:

You’ll notice their designs are basically the same as in normal Jimmy.  There were only a few monsters that I kept, design wise.  These two operated a bit differently in battle, though.  The Elder Mr. Asp was invincible, and he would berate his son every turn.  Then, at the end of each turn, the message, “The Elder Mr. Asp is ravaged by age!” would appear.  After a few turns he died of natural causes.  Here’s how it played out:

Apparently the Elder Mr. Asp was originally kind of a creep in addition to being a jerk.  Also, I kind of wish I would have gotten a gif of him coughing, because I was using timing tags so that the cough and hack were instant, then the wheeze was drawn out really slowly.

The last thing I’d like to share is a bunch of monsters.  There were a LOT, so I grabbed some I thought people would find interesting:

50′s Style Vampire’s original design.

This guy’s name was Albert Hands.  Just kind of liked that.

Bad Weather’s original design.  None of the other cloud people existed yet.

Elegant Ice Swan was an enemy rather than a piece of furniture.  There was a mechanic where you could use elements--like fire--and they would have adverse effects on some enemies.  Elegant Ice Swan would just melt if you hit it with a fireball.

Flesh Orb’s old design.

Here’s the Giant Face I mentioned earlier.

Grumble Bear’s design is the same for the most part.

Happy Little Sunflower’s original design.

This is a superboss named Karma.

Luna and Sol’s old designs.  Sol looked okay.  But, uh, Luna...

This guy’s name was Mumbles.

Here’s what Buck looked like when he got taken over by the Mass.

This is a dude named OctoCarl.  I think he’s a cool dude.

Overweight Dinosaur was an early monster.

Early Phoenix design.  You can still see this reflected in the Phoenix’s sprite in the full version.

There’s Punch Tanaka; he was too cool to have an action pose.

Here’s the Red-Billed Squawker’s early design.

...and Revolting Blob’s.

This is a monster called Bad Lunch.  It tries to trick you into eating it.

Rotten Jack-O’-Lantern’s early design.

Here’s a monster called “Seeing Lips” that operated the same as Lingering Eyes.  It also had a mechanic like Balanced Equations where if you didn’t kill both before the end of the turn after killing one, they would revive (and get a full heal).

This is a monster called The Amazing Residue. I wish I would have been able to include him in the full version.  All he does is show off every turn and beg for people to pay attention to him, and the way to beat him was to use Andrew’s “Boring Lecture” ability to put each party member to sleep.  Afterwards, he sulked off.

Here’s Throbbing Feathers, aka proto-Grimclaw.  In this battle, you didn’t ride on his back, but Lars was in his claws, so you had to keep Lars healed while beating Throbbing Feathers in order to win.

This is the Tree Man that you didn’t get.  He looks terrible, but if you set him on fire...

...this happens.  It changed his move set and made him lose HP each turn.

This is a monster called Water Spirit.  The way you beat it was by alternating freezing and melting it.  Each of its forms had different abilities, so you had to switch the forms smartly in order to win.

Wubbly was one of the few unchanged designs.  He had way more health, though, since there wasn’t an artificial “last 8 turns” challenge to draw the battle out.

Well, that’s about all I think I want to share.  Old Jimmy was a way different game, and there was way more planning and A HELL OF A LOT more work between what you see here and what Jimmy eventually became.  I hope y’all enjoyed seeing the little ideas that germinated into something more in the final product and all of the weird evolutionary dead-ends that never made it out of Old Jimmy’s bizarre, crayon-colored world.

[comicteaparty]

May 6th-May 12th, 2020 Reader Favorites Archive

The archive for the Reader Favorites chat that occurred from May 6th, 2020 to May 12th, 2020.  The chat focused on the following  question:

What’s a detail in someone else’s comic that few people notice but deserves praise?

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

I have a couple. For @Eightfish (Puppeteer)’s webcomic I like how the style in general reminds me of a notebook. The font, the pen used to draw the line art...makes me think of a diary/journal and as a result it sucks me into the story. @Deo101 [Millennium]’s webcomic that I like is that the way the dark past of the characters are revealed naturally through dialogue. Instead of being spoon fed exposition I was treated to sage in the shower, depressed and with bloody holes. You feel emotion for these characters and as a result it’s more immersive.

Finally, for @LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)’s webcomic I liked the horrific implications of her world under a veneer of bright strong colours and characters. While it may seem like a world you want to live in, you are constantly reminded that it is NOT safe and there are monsters around. I liked that it was fun to read, but I loved it even more when Claire wasn’t afraid to shy away from the more menacing, gory details.

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

Not a lot of people gush about this, but I love to see the setup of their sites, specifically the cast pages of comics! One of my absolute favourite cast pages is Black Out Citys. Jay did an old school video game aesthetic mixed with 80's pink vibes, and it's so so beautiful! Layouts on comic sites specifically dont get enough praise, like how there is hover icons that tie in the comics aesthetic, headers that draw intrigue, font that just clicks- all details that usually aren't a point to be discussed when praising a comic but definitely should! Another is the way Giselle does StarTrip lore at the end of each chapter- they way they render each planet and have these tidbits are one of my favourite details in that comic.

Miranda

I just gotta say, I love how Ghost Junk Sickness does the little bio blurbs about every character. They are informative and don’t interrupt the story heavily, and the Interests sections are hilarious

Elliot

Oh, I’ve been meaning to read that one!

I always love the expressions in Sunny and Rainy. The main characters are real, chaotic people.

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Something I just noticed in the most recent chapter of @keii'ii (Heart of Keol)'s Heart of Keol was how gradually Ethan has been improving at speaking the language. Such a subtle detail that I love.

RebelVampire

Archive pages. While many comics have them, few comics actually take the time to make good archive pages. I think weve all been there where we want to ref a specific page/event, but heck if we remember if it was page 26 or page 100. Some archives though really put in that extra effort. For example: http://www.phantomarine.com/archive/ and http://sarilho.net/en/archives which use thumbs to make it visually easy to spot a specific page or https://moonslayercomic.com/archive/ which besides being a well designed archive visually includes little tidbits about what happened in each chapter without spoilers. Overall, good archive pages make life easier when talking about them.

Elliot

^I tend to totally reread long comics every time I need to go looking for a specific page, good archive or no, but I’ve definitely had a few friends give up on reading comics I love because they couldn’t navigate the archive pages. It means a lot to some people.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

A thumbnail archive is so convenient both as a reader and a creator. And it’s really fun to see a whole swath of pages that you’ve done, all in one place. It acts as its own motivation! I think I understand if more ‘daily-strip-like’ comics have only text archives, but for narrative comics, I really love visual archives. I absolutely had to do one myself.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I can't imagine a thumbnail archive working smoothly for comics with 500+ pages... but I do appreciate a functional, existing archive page. Simply having one > not having one.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

True. I use an image gallery plugin that's convenient for a lot of images. I just swap out the 'expand image' code for 'go to page' code, and voila But I've only got 98 pages posted, so... once it hits a couple hundred, I'm not sure how it'll run

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

(ooo 100th page celebration coming soon?)

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

(more or less, haha! the page itself is its own celebration)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

(my favorite type of celebration TBH)

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Yokoka's Quest (https://yokokasquest.com/) does a really fun thing to go along with every chapter - character status pages! It treats the comic like an RPG, with party stats and inventory slots and HP/MP gauges. I really like it - gives it an extra fun flavor.

Miranda

Oh that's clever!

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

Ohhh love that!!!

eliushi [a winged tale]

I don’t think it’s something few people notice but I absolutely love the paneling in Kochab comic by Sarah Webb which simulates architecture. https://www.kochab-comic.com/comic/page-67 The painterly look and fairytale aesthetics are chefs kiss

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Oh my... Those are beautiful panels!!

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

One thing that some comics do that I quite like are recap episodes. Some comics can have stories that are quite long and convoluted, with a non-linear narrative, and it can be nice to get a recap of the events from time to time. Especially if the comic's updates are infrequent and/or irregular. Example: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/scoob-and-shag/recap/viewer?title_no=210827&episode_no=84