#kinda janky but still cool

[vampirezogar]

Nice Lady is here! Mind your manners.

[sibyl-of-space]

on the plus side I FIGURED OUT HOW TO USE LISTS IN UNITY to PROPERLY INDEX WHAT SCREEN I AM ON. hashtag game dev

[indiiglow]

Why is Ubisoft getting so much hate recently?

I'll be honest I'm completely out of the loop on this but they kinda went to shit when they started mass producing AC games

Also some general drama about games getting downgraded when released compared to demos? Idk you'd be better off looking it up yourself to see what bs they've been up to lately

[femonologue]

Many years ago, I was wandering around downtown Ottawa with my best friend. We ran into a friend of his who offered us some hash (it sucked), then said there was a really good house party nearby if we wanted to go. We were like, yeah, sure. So that's how we ended up at some completely fucking random person's house.

I look around to ask if my friend knows anyone here and he's simply gone, as is his friend. And this isn't some red solo cup hangout; this is a party. There's people counting out pills on the kitchen counter. I am clearly neither as cool nor as drug-savvy as the kitchen people, so I back away and instead wander aimlessly into the living room, which seems to give off more of a chill vibe.

A bunch of people are seated in a circle on the floor. One of them is fiddling with a big wad of newspaper or something. A really cute grunge girl with piercings and tattoos scoots aside to make room for me, so I sit down.

"What's that," I ask her, gesturing at the newspaper wad.

She gets a really big smile on her face. You know the smile. It's the I'm About To Watch This Innocent Soul Get High As Fuck smile. "You've never smoked a tulip?"

"What's a tulip?" I ask.

"It's like if a joint was also a bong," she replies. "You gotta try it."

"Alright," I reply, a little uncertainly. This will not be my first encounter with weed. I am more comfortable with the janky newspaper bong than I am with whatever the fuck is going on in the kitchen. Besides, this girl is really cute and I would like to have a friend here now that my existing friend has turned into vapor or been transported to the Upside-Down or whatever the hell happened to him.

I watch as one person holds the newspaper joint-bong upright and holds a lighter over the top while another gets beneath it, tilting their head back to take a puff. Apparently smoking this Cheech & Chong monstrosity is a two-person job.

"Oh," I say, looking at the fist-sized knob at the top of the wonky newspaper joint. "Yeah, it does kinda look like a tulip." Grunge girl smiles at me.

I watch as the tulip is passed around the circle, along with the lighter, and hits are cooperatively taken. It reaches grunge girl, who takes a huge puff and holds it for an extended moment before exhaling an impressive blast of smoke. She smiles expectantly and holds the tulip up for me, preparing to spark the gigantic meteor of dank that makes up its tip. By this point I have completely forgotten about my missing friend. I only care about making a good impression on grunge girl. I tilt my head back and hit the tulip like a smokestack.

It is the following morning. I am sleeping between a couch and a wall. I'm not positive that this is the same house I was just in. My memories are gone. Someone is yelling at me: "dude! Dude! Wake up, dude!"

I sit up. My mouth tastes like cigarettes. I do not smoke cigarettes. "Wha," I ask the yelling man, who I am quite confident I have never met before in my life.

"We're going on a quest," he tells me, gravely. "You have to come with us."

I look around. Neither my friend nor his friend are anywhere in sight. I also do not see grunge girl anywhere. I shrug helplessly. "Okay."

We embark from this house. I learn that the destination of this quest is Tim Horton's. This is a relief to me, as coffee and a donut sounds really fucking good right now. Somehow, the route to Tim Horton's takes us past the Governor-General's residence, which everyone else in the group loudly heckles on the way past. I do not know what the Governor-General has done to raise their ire, nor do I particularly care. I trudge along with my hands in my pockets, pleased to note that I still have my wallet, phone, and keys. I fervently wish that I could remember anything about last night. Maybe I talked to grunge girl. Maybe she's why my mouth tastes like cigarettes. The tulip tasted nothing like cigarettes.

I am asked about my politics. I voice my frustrations with corporate corruption, the pay-to-win electoral system, the lack of transparency and accountability. This is met with great approval. The guy who was yelling at me claps me on the back. I get the impression that we became friends last night. I don't recognize his face. I do not know his name and he definitely does not know mine. I behave as though we're friends anyway. We are comrades on a quest.

By the time we make it to Tim Hortons, the gaggle of stoners I'm walking with have all run out of energy and/or attention span. People order snacks and break away in pairs or solo, to call for rides or plan the day's events or just vegetate and wait for the drugs to leave their systems. I look around and find that my nameless friend has also gone to the Upside-Down. As I wash the cigarette taste out of my mouth with coffee, I unsuccessfully try to remember whether I saw grunge girl smoking tobacco at any point. I remember nothing. That tulip was so fucking powerful that it instantly sent me a whole day forward in time.

Alone in the city, I try to call my best friend and get no answer. I walk to the nearest bus stop, catch a bus most of the way home, and call up my parents to ask for a ride back. They ask where my friend is. I tell them that I have no idea; we went to a house party and I don't remember anything else.

When they pick me up from the bus station, they ask me some very safe, nonspecific questions, and seem to relax when I describe what little I can remember. It isn't until years later that I realize they were probably terrified I'd gotten rufied or something, and were so relieved to learn otherwise that they didn't even bother chiding me for smoking myself unconscious in an effort to impress a strange woman. In any case, they were probably happy to find out that I did, in fact, like girls; I suspect they had been privately wondering whether I was gay.

After getting home, I finally manage to get my best friend to answer his phone. I discover that he tried the kitchen pills, spent most of the night crossing the entire city on foot, and crashed at his cousin's house. He sounds like shit. I tell him that he should have tried the tulip, instead. He fervently agrees with me.

I never see grunge girl again.

That's okay, though. She got to see a clueless stranger get fucked the entire way up on some ungodly strain of giga-weed, and I got smiled at by a cute girl, and then I got to go on a quest. Wherever grunge girl is, I hope she's happy. I hope she's smoking the fattest fucking blunt and smiling as some kid passes out behind a couch.

[lovelyiida]

Imagine Bakugo does overseas promotions in the west and you’re the only one that he can tolerate.

next part :D

As Katsuki becomes a pro-hero and rises in popularity, his talents land him a spot for overseas promotions. Specifically to market students from America to join UA, or to recognize the strong talents that Japan has.

Katsuki was hating every second of it, from the press tours to the janky translation device in his ear. He mostly sat there in silence as the other hero’s who spoke English gallivanted one flashy quirk to another.

As he walked off another press-interview, he went straight towards the bagels and coffee. It’s not like he can do anything else sense he really can’t speak English…

“Excuse me.”

Turning his head from his half-split bagel, he turns towards you. Blinking at your presence in confusion.

“Hah?”

You looked around akwardly for a split second before letting out a forced chuckle. “Could you hand me a knife please? A girl’s starving.” Letting out a polite smile as you reach your hand out.

Jibber jabber flies pasts your lips fast as Katsuki tried to hang on to each incomprehensible word. Looking down at your hand, he pondered for a moment.

You couldn’t help but to look at his hero costume, smiling as you stood in short awe. “Wow, I’ve never seen a hero-costume like this before! Who made it?” You asked sheepishly as you tried to break the awkward tension.

In a fast motion, Katsuki points towards the badge on his shoulder—poking at the tiny Japanese flag. Suddenly your eyes widened, letting out a noise before you nod your head in understanding.

Suddenly, you whipped out your phone and started tapping away. While you were busy with that, Katsuki begun to start slicing away at his rock hard bagel.

“Why’d they give us these dull plastic knifes to cut these hard ass bagels.” Katsuki cursed under his breath as he still struggled to slice down the dough path.

“Stupid bagel, stupid press-tour, stupid people, stupid–“

Katsuki halted in his spew of anger once he felt the soft taps of your finger press against his bicep. Turning towards you once more, you shove your phone up close to his face.

Flinching back for a moment, he reads the text on your phone.

ENGLISH: Your hero costume is so cool!!

JAPANESE: ヒーローのコスチュームがとてもカッコいいですね！

Oh.

“Thank you,” he says with a short bow. You bow back, now your body language began to read differently to him. From standoffish to almost a giddy like state.

It was kinda cute.

ENGLISH: I’ve never met anyone from Japan before! What’s it like?

JAPANESE: 今まで日本から来た人に会ったことがありません！それはどんな感じ？

Reading the text again, Katsuki lets out a chuckle. Politely reaching out for your phone, you give it to him with a smile and await his response.

After typing quickly, he shows you the phone.

JAPANESE: 地震

ENGLISH: Earthquakes.

“Oh.”

Erm🥸

[shima-draws]

OKAY I’ve been playing for a couple hours now and here are some thoughts

-I LOVE that they actually give you time to hang out with the starters and bond with them and see what their personalities are like before you get to pick one. That was really neat

-They were right! This game really do Open World RPG! I haven’t even gotten to the school yet I’ve been too busy running around the map for two hours

-Not sure how I feel about items in the field literally having a neon light showing where they are from a mile away. Kinda defeats the whole purpose of open world if the items are too easy to find. The novelty of “treasure hunting” is gone because of this

-MIRAIDON REALLY DO BE LIKE TOOTHLESS FOR REAL…

-I’m going to kick Arven’s ass if he even LOOKS at Miraidon the wrong way. “Oh this Pokemon is too hard for me to deal with so I’m abandoning it and shoving all of the responsibilities I had caring for it onto you” OH YEAH?? Alright asshole I’ll take it off your hands CLEARLY it was so difficult for you to take care of a living breathing creature that also happens the be the coolest looking motherfucker on this side of the continent. Your loss

-Ohhh the clipping is so bad! It’s so bad! If I rotate the camera too far in my own house I just get a black screen! Yikes 💖

-The concept of being in battle and still being able to see Pokemon doing their own thing in the background is REALLY neat? Like life just moves on around you while you’re duking it out with another trainer. I know we had a specific saying for this when I was in school for animation but I forget what it was exactly RIP anyway just the whole organic. Breathing life into the game kinda thing.

-APPARENTLY WE CAN’T GO INTO OTHER PEOPLE’S HOUSES ANYMORE???? Like that’s one of Pokemon’s staple features throughout ALL the generations, we’re allowed to barge into random people’s homes. At the very least the first town had all their doors locked so all the houses were off limits. I was VERY upset

-The graphics may be janky as all hell but the story is really intriguing so far!! I wanted to cry bc the scene of us rescuing Miraidon really gave me HTTYD vibes. This game is just HTTYD in disguise we are all Hiccup taming and training our Toothless

-Standing on the beach before battling Nemona just gave me a HUGE rush of nostalgia bc it had very very big PMD2 vibes

-The controls for Legends Arceus are ingrained in my brain so I keep pressing buttons and getting confused when they do something different. LMAO

-I’m sorry I don’t like that the Pokemon Centers are outside now;; it just feels Wrong. Like clearly this was some cool edgy thing they wanted to try but I in fact hate it :-/

-THE PLAYER CUSTOMIZATION THING IS SOOOO SICK. The fact we get to customize SO much and at the very beginning of the game is awesome. Props to Nintendo for this I’m really glad they included so many options and right at the start so we don’t have to actually UNLOCK customizing what we look like

-Nemona is just Ash Ketchum but Girl and I love her

-And, most importantly:

[violetsquare111]

The Dark Lord's birthday is not on october 2nd

so I was seeing a couple people also celebrating dark's birthday today. which makes sense, since that's the youtube upload date for ava3, and the date used in the flashback of ava uh.. 6 is it?

but this gave me pause because i did a tiny bit of research earlier on the general release timeline of ava, and i'd read on the wiki that ava3 was released on a completely different date: october 4, 2011, being first uploaded on atom.com (the site of the company that helped produce ava 2 and 3, now bought by paramount/comedy central)

now that is a drastically different date... but this is completely unsourced. do we know the actual date that ava3 was uploaded?

so i went on a web JOURNEY that i'd like to share with you all :D

tldr it's not oct 2 or oct 4. it's oct 11 2010

so the first thing i decided to check was who added that date to the wiki in the first place, and when. turns out it was an anonymous editor in 2016, not even a wiki account created... so, that's not going to get me anywhere. they didn't add a reference or any information other than just the date.

(ps you should read that 2016 version of the wiki page it's a fun janky mess lol /affectionate)

so i should just, like, check atom.com, right? well uh

yeah okay that is definitely not the same website. WAYBACK MACHINE IT IS (god bless wayback machine)

i scoured through different atom.com pages that were archived on wayback machine and found a few different tidbits:

the atom.com main page footer was updated with a link to ava3 on september 10, 2010 exactly. that seems pretty early!

the earliest capture of ava3 itself was on october 16, 2010, and the video is listed as being uploaded on october 11. interestingly, the video here was uploaded by "JO3Y", not Alan Becker... but later captures do show it as being uploaded by alan. i have no idea what is going on there

this isn't really relevant to the question at hand but you can watch ava2 on the website and it's very clearly flash-controlled, with a cool custom-made video control bar meant to look like Windows??? that's so cool????

this is also not relevant but the original description of ava2 seems to imply that this "chosen one" was originally meant to be the same stick figure as "victim". which is clearly not canon anymore but like. woag.

JO3Y's user page as of october 14, 2010 lists ava3 as being uploaded either... 6 or 7 days ago. (for some reason there are 2 uploads?? both are the same link.) that would put ava3's release on either october 7 or october 8, 2010.

guys there was an animator vs animation actual flash game. did anyone know about this wtf. the wayback machine link is busted but i managed to find a working version here and i am going to play it RIGHT as soon as i finish writing this

none of this was ultimately very helpful, though. there's multiple different dates here, none of which correspond to the elusive october 4th, and it could've even been as early as september. there's not many captures to look at, not many saved atom pages in niche places... what to even look at now?

oh.

oh i've been a FOOL.

the facebook link here is some kinda broken mess on wayback and also i don't know how to use facebook, so let's just check twitter. the given link is-

holy fucking shit did twitter look like this

right well. there's unfortunately no captures of this twitter account around the time ava3 could've released, and you can't scroll to see older tweets (those pages weren't archived), so no luck here. the account itself has also since been either deleted or renamed. a link to one of the tweets would surely also be defunct, right? but let's try it...

and oh my god. OH MY GOD. the account is STILL UP it's just under a different username oh my god. CAN WE FIND THE ORIGINAL AVA3 ANNOUNCEMENT TWEET.

lo and behold, one date-filtered twitter search later, here it is:

october 11, 2010. (and i DID confirm that was a monday)

dark's 14th birthday is coming up in a little over a week, guys...!

now, when was ava2 released? uhhhhhhhhhhhh oh hey the snipers are at my hou

[itsonlythee-sims]

Fortnite to TS4 Conversion: Sylvie Hair

My first hair (conversion) !

I'm not really a Marvel person but I was looking at Fortnite models and thought this Sylvie hair (based on the Loki show) was kinda cool. I decided to take another stab at working on a hair conversion and managed to get this one working with proper weights, LODs, and hat chops! Quite a confidence booster as previously I've only done minor edits to existing EA hairs. There may still be some jankiness (minor clipping with some cc hats that I will try to fix in the future, possible unforseen uv1 related issues - I tried my best) and if you encounter any issues, please let me know so I can try to fix it. I played around with a bunch of CAS trait poses and there didn't seem to be any obvious issues even in weird positions so it's most likely okay.

More info and download after the cut.

Sylvie Laufeysdottir hair from Fortnite

BGC

25 swatches in Simandy's MM palette

available for both frames, T-E

color tagged, disabled for random, custom thumbs

hat chops, all LODs, normals, no spec

8.5k poly @ LOD0

TOU

Download: (no adfly)

Simsfileshare | Mod the Sims

Original mesh & texture by the Fortnite art team, extracted by malakisuglypotato TS4 conversion by me Color actions by Simandy

[the-hanged-mans-ghost]

Y'all I just finished my first tablet woven belt and it looks so cool!! I wanted to go for a flame vibes, and I think I nailed it with the colors. The pattern itself is a recreation of one of the patterned weavings found in the Viking Oseberg Ship Burial!

My sister helped me warp the loom bc I suck at putting the cards on the correct way(great at wrapping the cords around the loom, I just fuck up the threading the cards part often lmao), but I did all of the actual weaving on it myself, and I'm decently happy with it. I messed up ina few spots, but it's also only my first time weaving something on my own lmao.

I think next time I might use better contrasting colors since the orange and red kinda don't contrast too well, but live and learn lmao, I still like it, janky transitions and errors included lmao!

[yourmilwaukeebeers]

suika game BTS

i'm just gonna dump a bunch of stuff here take it or leave it all song sprites:

dave & joe play "turn it off" from book of mormon

craig's gang plays "let's fighting love" from south park

oscars m&t play "put it down" from south park

coop & remer play "montage" from team america world police

concert m&t play "the ballad of lemmiwinks" from south park

2000s m&t play "hello!" from book of mormon

the main 4 play "blame canada" from south park: bigger longer & uncut

packer & humphrey play "shpadoinkle" from cannibal the musical

small ike here is your cursor

here's every fruit from largest to smallest so look away if you don't want to know what picture is the suika:

and i didn't take many photos of it in the process but this is essentially what the game looked like while working on purely functionality:

this was soooo much fun though and i keep playing my own game amazed that it even though it's very janky, it. kinda works. which is hysterical because even though i made suika i am NOT GOOD at it, and my computer is still stuck together with a couple pieces of tape and charging 100% of the time i use it. i haven't made a watermelon, so good luck to you if you manage it lol. either way, have fun and enjoy! here's my high score!

trust that my next advent day will not be this cool........ UNLESS?

[heartbreakincident]

Hi I'm the one from a03 who tried fan binding your fic

I made a little title page thing with some art on Pinterest. The binding is a little janky and I didn't have any card that really fit the vibe so I just went with orange because it kinda suits them. Like a fireplace I guess haha. Still I think it turned out alright! Especially for a first attempt!! Thank you for writing such a great fic!!

i am freaking out this is SO COOL AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! i have never been so flattered in my LIFE. Addendum was something i wrote literally in the middle of the night in a burst of inspiration, so i am just... unbelievably blessed that it's something people enjoy. especially enough to literally physically bind it? this is so cool????

i love it, seriously, you've made my week.

[moocha-muses]

Can I join the hallowpoems party? 🎃 Here's a prompt: prosthesis

Of course you can! Everyone can insert as many tokens as they want into the Hallow Poems machine. Here's what you get if you put in prosthesis:

It's great, right? I wasn't sure about the color at first, the shade of green's kinda sickly, but now that I've had it for a week or two it's really growing on me! Ha, get it? Growing on me. 'Cuz it's- oh, you got it? Okay. Yeah. Yeah, it's one of Ndidi's new 'biotech' prototypes, you can tell, huh? See, these little daisy things help power it. They draw in sunlight. I've only had to charge it once! It's almost lucky I lost the other one- I mean, not lucky, it was a goddamn tragedy, my sister going with it, and Didi's own girlfriend, -all right, her own wife, I mean, sheesh, they weren't even married a year. I'm allowed to forget- I had that old arm longer than they were married, and it still didn't latch right. Guess I could've tried to get it fixed again before we went hiking, but there's always about fifteen million things to do, and, like, obviously, I thought I'd be the one at risk. God, I hated that janky old arm. All rough, and rubbery- It's no wonder Sarah couldn't keep holding on. Bet she wished I still had my real one. That she hadn't talked me into- Hey, but I love this new one! Look, just feel it. It's so smooth and cool, but you can feel all those exciting little impulses under the skin. I can't ever get enough of touching it. I told her this research was the right way to use up the insurance money. She wanted to endow that scholarship in Sarah's name- Now, what good would that have done anyone? These arms are gonna do a lot of good. This one's already doing me good. You know, sometimes I could swear that it's got a mind of its own? Like, I'm gonna grab something and, whoa! It's already in my hand. Scratches itches I didn't even know I had. Sometimes, it's like someone's stroking my hair as I go to sleep. Sometimes-

[immortalarizona]

“This is chaos magic, Wanda. And that makes you the Scarlet Witch.”

— Agatha Harkness

a sketch showcasing my Wanda design!! credit to @adorkastock for the pose reference used :)

below the cut is a full breakdown of my design, including its evolution, my thought process, and other unposted drawings relating to this project, so read on if you’re interested!!

okay, so real talk, I first decided I wanted to make my own Wanda design because I Could Not be bothered to keep looking up refs for whatever tf is going on with her mcu costume bodice. I mean, look at this:

I mean, maybe it looks okay onscreen, but there’s so many fiddly little details, especially around the collar, and it was just a pain to draw whenever I would draw my Wanda. and okay I’ll be real I also wanted to distance my Wanda from the whitewashed Wendy version of her, because I Do What I Want. and also, the dullness of the reds did not spark joy within my heart. she’s the Scarlet Witch, people, not the Vaguely Maroon Witch!!

and I fell in love with the Kevin Wada design when I first saw it. it’s gorgeous, it’s sleek, it’s witchy, and it’s significantly less frustrating to draw!!

so for a while, I drew my Wanda in a variation of this fit, blended with some of my own touches (a high ponytail + an occasional choker) and a few of the things I did like from her mcu fit (the crown + the half skirt thingamabob + the long cape). but I was still feeling :/ about it, mainly because while the off-the-shoulder design looks lovely, I found it tricky to draw whenever Wanda would raise her hands above her head. exhibit a below:

behold, the sketch for an old drawing I never finished!! and I know artists smarter than me have figured out How The Sleeves, because some comics even today still use this design, but I only have so many brain cells to spend, and I felt like simplifying things for myself even further.

that was when Russell Dauterman’s design for the 2022 Hellfire Gala dropped. and I went FERAL.

it’s gorgeous!! it’s stunning!! high collars my beloved!! so I took the collar design and ran with it for my own design.

behold, a janky rendition of my costume design in the crappy colored pencils provided to us during my fashion design class!! I know, I know, the coloring looks atrocious, but I was working with what I had. now, you may have already noticed some elements not present in any of the designs I cited as my influences. let’s talk about those!!

the sleeves are split from the main bodice as gloves: this was for my own sanity, haha. it was a construction my smol lizard brain could comprehend and work with much better than Whatever is going on with the comics designs.

the red portion of the gloves tapers in kind of a V design rather than cutting off at the fingers: personally, I felt like this accentuated the elegant flow of all the hand gestures Wanda makes when using her powers better than the classic fingerless design, or whatever thumb strap thingy was going on with her MoM costume.

where’d the design for her cloak clasp come from?: now we all know that tumblr’s pixel budget is next to nil, but if you zoom in, you’ll notice that the clasp of Wanda’s cloak is not her M crown design, but rather a golden kinda coffin-shaped thingy. see, I saw this one theory that this hex shape in Wanda’s mcu bodice was an homage to Vision and the Mind Stone, and I liked that theory, so I referenced it with a hex-shaped clasp.

and the runes on her bodice and skirt?: I actually referenced the Enochian font for those!! according to wikipedia, it’s said to be the language of angels, which feels appropriate for a character as tied to cosmic powers as Wanda. also, real talk, it just looks cool. the script on her bodice originally said “not born, forged,” in reference to the Darkhold’s Scarlet Witch prophecy, but it’s become truncated as the bodice has become shorter to accommodate a more high-waisted structure, which I personally believe to be more flattering in general. I added the runes pretty late in the design process to her skirt to tie the whole fit together visually. from an in-universe perspective, I like to think of the writing as Chthon visually marking Wanda as his creation. his witch.

why does Wanda have a high ponytail when she’s never had one in her most recognizable incarnations?: because a) I do what I want, and b) Alba Flores looks STUNNING in a high ponytail.

and let it never be said that I am not fruity as all heck about Wanda Maximoff <3

so there you have it, a Wanda design that I think is as beautiful, regal, and magical as she is, not to mention one that I can draw repeatedly without having to immediately reach for my phone to Yet Again look up references for how the heck the bodice works.

(and really, it only seemed fitting that the Scarlet Witch of Earth-19384 should receive her own unique design.)

[n7punk]

for all the None people who follow me and care about Trace Memory/Another Code (spoiler free I promise): if you're interested in the remaster, I recommend you only get it if you're getting it for the sequel that was never released in America. they changed a lot in Trace Memory (Another Code 1) and this isn't a "new is bad" thing (usually I prefer remasters), this is a "they cut puzzles, 'streamlined' the game, and reworked/removed the best scene in the entire game" kind of thing. the game undoubtedly looks better, but it's also missing some of the hand-drawn art that really added to its story. there are some improvements (the new voice acting is cool to have, especially having it be optional, and the way they implemented the autoplay feature for that is clever. there are some improved scenes they could rework with the benefit of 3D graphics and voice acting), but I don't think it should be your first Trace Memory experience.

if you can't get your hands on the DS line and an emulator isn't working for the puzzles (something I can see - some of them did actually need to be cut just for being janky or more difficult than they needed to be) and this is the only way you can ever experience the first game, I recommend it over not playing the game, I'm just saying it's not the original. from what I can tell they normed the style of the first game with the second, so it's brighter and all the dialogue and non-flashback cutscenes are rendered in game, which loses some of the impact of the stylistic comic panels. I never thought I'd prefer flat art to rendered cut scenes but in a game like this the hand-drawn, kinda gritty art did a LOT and the brightly-rendered 3D models just don't lend themselves to the mystery of all these people's deaths. I am excited to play the second game since, changes or not, this is the only way to experience it in America (like I said, I still recommend Another Code: Recollection if it's the only way you can experience Trace Memory), but I would say the remaster is mostly worth buying for the sequel if you like the original game.

[calcium-chan]

OLD BULLSHIT DUMP

its time to dump a bunch of stuff i have no other place for but i want online somewhere! its a total fucking shitshow wahoo

first is an alien nine fan comic (its read right to left if it wasnt obvious, oops). this was made as a for an alien nine discord i lurk in. they had missed yuris birthday, and some discussion was had about what present is best to get her. most of the options were aliens?? anyways take this as the anti-kasumi propaganda that it is.

next is two separate love web doodles. uh for anyone who doesnt know i have a half joke love web AU where cybermare and manon just fucking hate each other, and its just sad and awful for no good reason. im sorry shadok, i am physically unable to let blorbos be happy. second image is more of a doodle but i like it. and the first image i thiiiink was made when i was planning out a little one shot comic i never finished. for the 1 of you (oretal) who are maybe curious, i had a bunch of dialogue written out, the comic would have been a really tense conversion that culminates in a shouting match, i had this really cool idea where the comics color palette gets darker and darker as the sun goes down and their little apartment becomes so dark that its hard to see but neither of them want to bother turning on a light (many such cases). i care about these two way more than i probably should, uh thank you silly deer lady for the blorbos.

the next one is a drawing ruru chan (you saw the alien nine bit of this post, you know what kind of fucking blog this is) i keep forgetting i made forever ago. i ended up hating it and never finishing it. i still dont want to bother finishing it but i like it enough now to post it. shinsei kamattechan is one of my favorite bands and i really like this dumb melodramatic song a lot. noko is one of the realest ones going and i hope i can draw something i actually really like one of these days to express my love properly.

lastly i wanted to post this absolute dumb bullshit fuck ass stupid technique. i was commissioned by a friend to make some custom buckshot roulette cards (he is paying me in sandwiches), and i decided that i liked the idea enough to go whole hog at least a little bit. this is just showing the process for the rendering technique im using in krita. i will be posting the final images once theyre all done (my deadline is fucking thursday, pray for me girlie). this method of rendering is super janky but its fucking worked so far! to any aspiring item key artists, please just render shit in blender, save yourselves. looks kinda nice tho once its on a card.

thats it, please listen to "all my little words" by magnetic fields and "cant run away" by brave little abacus. GOODBYEEE ill post my drawmegle drawings next maybe?

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Rereading The Fellowship of the Ring for the First Time in Fifteen Years

Ok guys, gals, and nonbinary pals, welcome to the Aftermath. We left the fellowship last time as they were hauling ass out of Moria sans one wizard. At this point we probably still have orcs on our tails, so we have to keep on hauling ass for Lothlorien. Let's dig on in to chapter 6, "Lothlorien."

Not gonna lie, y'all, this chapter was a sloooooooooooooooooooooooog for me. I literally got like five page in, realized I was heckling fictional characters and reading tones that the text legitimately did not support, and had to put the damn book down for a week. Picking it back up...I might still be the problem here, because I know, I KNOW, that Aragorn saying "Farewell, Gandalf [...] Did I not say to you: if you pass the doors of Moria beware? Alas that I spoke true" is not meant to be the world's most poorly fucking timed "I told you so," but I CAN'T HELP IT. I read it as not the complex, nuanced expression of grief and regret and the painful realization that they must go on that it's clearly intended to be, but as a snarktastic "I fucking told you" that even the most cynical are going to side eye.

So y'all are just going to have to bear with me on this, because I know I'm the problem, I can see the intent, but my brain wants to play ragtime on this pipe organ, and frankly, we're not going to get ANYWHERE if I wait until my brain adequately appreciates the work. Sometimes we just have to roll with our inner irreverence.

The pacing at the beginning of this chapter felt very weird to me, because we start with Aragorn trying to chivvy everyone into moving, but then he stops to give an orientation lesson to the reader. And before we even really feel like we've made any progress, Gimli insists on taking a quick break to drag Frodo up to Durin's Stone and Kheled-zaram, which goes about like this:

They stooped over the dark water. At first they could see nothing. Then slowly they saw the forms of the encircling mountains mirrored in a profound blue, and the peaks were like plumes of white flame above them; beyond there was a star, though sunlight was in the sky above. Of their own stooping forms no shadow could be seen.

Which is very pretty and a nice moment, but it does also SUCK THE URGENCY COMPLETELY OUT OF THE NARRATIVE. I know, Lothlorien is meant to be slower than the Moria chapter to give the overall arc some variation and let everyone catch their breath, but we've got orcs on our trail and we're not safe yet! Not that that's going to stop Aragorn from describing yet ANOTHER river (seriously, this man and rivers...) or Legolas from waxing poetic about what the Mirkwood Songs have to say about Lothlorien and its silver and gold winter aesthetic and green and silver spring aesthetic. Which...honestly, I am here for this aesthetic? Lothlorien sounds absolutely lovely. Elf aesthetics in general are kinda my thing, but again, this makes the pacing feel really janky. Especially since Aragorn basically goes, "Yeah, sounds great my dude, maybe HURRY YOUR ASS UP???"

This whole first couple pages feels very "hurry up and wait," which kind of makes Aragorn forgetting that Sam and Frodo are both hurt until they literally fall behind a little bit weird. At that point he does insist on he and Boromir carrying Sam and Frodo, and then breaks out the athalas when they stop to rest. This is also where Aragorn finds out about the mithril vest that saved Frodo's ass. Although uh...the fact that Frodo got hit hard enough that the maille rings were driven THROUGH leather into his side kind of makes me wonder about the physics of mithril. I'm not saying it's world-breaky, I'm saying tell me more about how clearly mithril can flex and distribute force with such INCREDIBLE efficiency that Frodo survived this shit. (Seriously, if any Tolkienites out there have engineering or physics backgrounds, please get in my comments and explain this to me because it sounds cool and I'm an English major, I don't know how STUFF works.)

Once everyone has gotten high recovered thanks to the athalas, they get moving again, and they travel through the night. And this is where we get THIS:

[Frodo] looked at Sting, and the blade was dull. Yet he heard something, or thought he had. As soon as the shadows had fallen about them and the road behind was dim, he had heard again the quick patter of feet. Even now he heard it. He turned swiftly. There were two tiny gleams of light behind, or for a moment he thought he saw them, but at once they slipped aside and vanished.

Y'ALL WE HAVE A GOLLUM SIGHTING. The little dude is following Frodo and the Ring, and when Frodo SAYS SOMETHING to Gimli, specifically that he thinks they've been followed SINCE MORIA, Gimli is over here going "Yeah, I don't see or hear anything, keep moving, halfling." Soooooooooo...I guess we're just going to ignore this for now. Good plan. That won't bite anyone in the neck or anything.

Anywho, we finally GET to Lothlorien, and Legolas is bitching because it's winter and he doesn't get green leaves, Aragorn is just like, "PLEASE let them cover our asses tonight," and Boromir pops up with "Is there no other way?" And honestly? While Lothlorien is objectively the best and probably safest path, I kind of get Boromir's logic here:

"A plain road, though it led through a hedge of swords," said Boromir. "By strange paths has this Company been led, and so far to evil fortune. Against my will we passed under the shades of Moria, to our loss. And now we must enter the Golden Wood, you say. But of that perilous land we have heard in Gondor, and it is said that few come out who once go in; and of that few none escape unscathed."

Ok, elf bigotry at the end there aside...I get what Boromir is feeling right now. Dude is having SERIOUSLY big feelings about being in situations he is not prepared for and honestly is unequipped to handle. Gandalf's magic wasn't enough to save him in Moria, Legolas's elf shit wasn't enough to get them off Caradhras, and whatever ranger mojo Aragorn has is just fucking barely holding their skins together. Boromir is the big man on campus in Gondor, where the number of orcs you can kill is the most important thing, but here? Where the mission is "Keep the ringbearer alive long enough to yeet Ring into volcano"? He's not feeling confident, and he is just a dude with a big sword. I'd be insecure too, and I would also be wishing for a dead simple straight fight, because that's my comfort zone. That's not like...the BEST strategy to go into this mission with, but like, I get where our Gondorian dude's coming from.

And I am way more disposed to empathize with Boromir right now than I am with "let me bathe my feet in this magic elven stream" Legolas at this point. Although Sam's ongoing lore education is VERY well served here, because he's picking up all the Mirkwood and Lothlorien stories, plus the song of the maiden Nimrodel.

Then we keep heading deeper into Lothlorien, and Haldir pops up and gets sassy about how Sam is breathing so loud, they could have shot him in the dark. Which like...really man? BREATHING too loudly? Somebody really likes his dead silence...

Sam's breathing stops being a problem real quick once Legolas explains that they want to bring a *GASP* Dwarf into Lothlorien. Haldir is fully over here like:

"A dwarf!" said Haldir. "That is not well. We have not had dealings with the Dwarves since the Dark Days. They are not permitted in our land. I cannot allow him to pass."

And even with Frodo invoking Elrond and explaining that Gimli has been hella useful and awesome on this trip, Haldir has some conditions:

"We will do this, though it is against our liking. If Aragrorn and Legolas guard him, and answer for him, he shall pass; but he must go blindfold [sic] through Lothlorien."

We're going to put a pin in the blindfold thing, because that comes up again in a minute. What we're going to yell about NOW is Elf racism against dwarves, because WHAT THE HELL? Gimli is a grown-ass adult, and they're not letting him speak for himself, making bargains on his behalf without consulting him, and they're insisting that he's inherently unstable and needs GUARDS. This is just bullshit and honestly I'm not a fan. And...before I yell any more, I am aware that Tolkien was a white male academic in the first half of the twentieth century. The racism could have been a whole lot worse and a whole lot more endorsed in these books, but I also feel that as an academic, Tolkien is a little bit skimming over this stuff, because Gandalf and Aragorn just generally give off the vibe of "OMFG, you people's racism is SUPER ANNOYING and is GETTING IN EVERYONE'S WAY. STAHP." Which...I appreciate the "racism bad" in there, but the vibe also has some MASSIVE imperialist tones to it, so...Augh. I genuinely think that Tolkien missed a chance to talk about race, imperialism, and power dynamics in depth here, but that's an academic paper in and of itself and I...do not want to do that here. I'm sure a Tolkien scholar somewhere has ALREADY done that work, so if you want more on that, go find it there. Basically, Haldir, if you have a problem with Gimli, talk to GIMLI. We can still have Frodo and Aragorn supporting him, but TALK TO THE DWARF.

Anyway. They get their Lothlorien passports and a couple talan to spend the rest of the night in, because everyone needs a bit of a rest here. The hobbits have a minor moment of being deeply sus about having to sleep in trees since they are literally hobbit hole dwellers, naturally, but we do get a little bit of sleep before the orcs show back up! Thankfully though, the Lothlorien elves have this shit on lock, so the hobbits don't have to worry.

Well. Except for how Frodo is still getting stalked by Gollum:

He was almost certain he could hear stealthy movements at the tree's foot far below. Not Elves; for the woodland folk were altogether noiseless in their movements. Then he heard faintly a sound like sniffing; and something seemed to to be scrabbling on the bark of the tree-trunk. he got up and crawled to the opening and peered down. He stared into the dark, holding his breath. Something was now climbing slowly, and its breath came like a soft hissing through closed teeth. Then coming up, close to the stem, Frodo saw two pale eyes. They stopped and gazed upward unwinking. Suddenly they turned away, and a shadowy figure slipped round the trunk of the tree and vanished.

Frodo, sweetheart...tell someone when creepy pale eyes are stalking you. You KNOW that Gollum literally ate babies, this is not a Twilight scenario. Gollum is not gonna turn Edward on you (at least not outside the slash fics). At the very least though, the elves are good at seeing what shouldn't be in their woods. Haldir pretty much confirms that it's Gollum too, because he says "I might have thought it was one of you hobbits." That's Gollum, guys. ITS GOLLUM. And had someone thought to tell Aragorn, he might have made that connection.

The next morning, we cross into the Naith of Lorien. Remember that pin we put in the blindfold? Time to return to it, because Haldir goes to blindfold Gimli, who VERY RESONABLY goes:

"The agreement was made without my consent. [...] I will not walk blindfold [sic] like a beggar or prisoner. And I am no spy. My folk have never had dealings with the servants of the Enemy. Neither have we done harm to the Elves."

And like...yeah, valid points. However small an imposition on bodily autonomy a blindfold may be, it is still an imposition on bodily autonomy, and one Gimli did NOT consent to. Nor should he have to consent to it if nobody else does and there is, as he points out, no other external reason to distrust him except "dwarf." And it gets shittier because literally Gimli can't even go BACK at this point. It's "take the blindfold or die," which is just WILDLY fucking out of proportion, and given that explicit threat to his life, I don't blame Gimli for drawing axe on them. And LEGOLAS is not helping with his "A plague on Dwarves and their stiff necks."

Aragorn gets like...bare minimum points for asserting that their entire party--Legolas included--will go blindfolded if Gimli has to. He gets an extra point too for his "Now let us cry 'a plague on the stiff necks of Elves!'" when Legolas protests.

Legolas LOSES points for getting pissy about having to wear a blindfold with exactly ZERO self-awareness. Like...Yes, Legolas, the blindfold is demeaning and shitty. That is ENTIRELY THE POINT. And this is at least the second time in this book where a dwarf has made a solid point about racist mistreatment from elves. But where Gandalf was like "fuck it, whatever, move on," Aragorn at least is over here going "fair is fair, you're gonna need nine blindfolds." That's closer to a show of solidarity than Gandalf got, and if it makes Legolas and Haldir uncomfortable enough to REFUCKINGTHINK their position, then all the better.

The fellowship spends like two days waltzing Matilda through Lothlorien with blindfolds until Galadriel sends new orders about losing the damn blindfolds. Haldir doesn't waste time about it, and he personally removes Gimli's:

"Your pardon," he said, bowing low. "Look on us now with friendly eyes!"

...Haldir. Sweetie, honey, friend. AN APOLOGY AND A DECLARATIVE STATEMENT ABOUT HOW GIMLI SHOULD FEEL NOW IS NOT HOW ONE APOLOGIZES AND DOES BETTER AFTER DOING A RACISM. I swear to Eru, I know the early 1900s were a different time, but the high-handed bullshittery here...

This is more or less where we leave it, because the fellowship gets to relax a little here, and hang out "inside a song," as Sam says. They're in a place of safety, and it was a heck of a trip to get here.

That's about where I'm leaving this chapter, because honestly this one was SO hard to get through, SO irritating in terms of the Elves being snarky assholes, and SO weird in terms of pacing. People say the "The Council of Elrond" chapter is a slog, but I'd read that one multiple times before I'd revisit this one. This just didn't speak to me, and I did not have fun. We get Galadriel next time though, so I'm hopeful that this is the lemon chapter in an otherwise good book.