#making animals part of that mechanic was a good decision

[talietikasero]

i'm like 40 away from getting all 200 aloha links and i cannot get over how one of the dogs you can befriend is a very good girl named justice

[jizter]

Persona 5 Royal: A Masterclass in Storytelling And Soundtracks

Diaz, Juliane Cyruz

BSIT - 1A

OVERVIEW:

Ref: TechRaptor - Persona 5 Royal logo

Persona 5 Royal isn't just a game, but its also an experience with a storytelling that captivates the audience and unexpected character developments, and an engaging storyline along with polished gameplay of turn-based strategy. I really appreciate the art style of the game and the animations, along with its really good soundtrack composed by Shoji Meguro himself. The game also packs a rich gaming experience that combines the turn-based combat, intriguing narrative, and the immersive social simulation. In the game time is also crucial, because players have to carefully allocate their days. Basically almost everything in the game requires strategic decision making that enhances the gameplay, because different choices lead to different outcomes, especially the ending variations, time being part of the strategy mechanic adds another layer of intensity to the game, making every moment of the game meaningful.

STORYLINE AND THE PROTAGONIST

The game follows the story of Ren Amamiya (Joker), a high school student who was forced transfer to another school after being falsely accused of illegal acts. Upon his arrival, he discovered something weird, he stumbled upon a hidden realm called the "Metaverse", where the protagonist and his companions face the distorted desires of the corrupted individuals. After discovering the dark truth inside the realm Ren formed a group called "The Phantom Thieves of Hearts, their goal is to make a change on the hearts of those who opposed to exploit others.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AT IT'S FINEST

Well for me one of the best aspects of this game is the character development. Each character from the group has their own personal struggles and backstories, exploring the depth of their characters through confidant interactions, and these quests are no ordinary side quests but it provides insights on the characters and their growths.

UNFORGETTABLE SOUNDTRACKS

Of course the iconic soundtracks of the game can never be forgotten, almost every player find the tracks really cool, some content creators even use the tracks for their background music, composed by the infamous Shoji Meguro, mixing rock, pop, jazz, and funk genre's, making players hyped during combat encounters, and enhancing the emotional beats and energetic moments within the game. I also saved soundtracks from this game and play it when I'm studying, that's how good the soundtracks from this game is.

Here are some of the iconic soundtracks from the game:

For someone who's addicted with the Persona game series, with the game's enriched narrative, character development, beautiful animations, iconic soundtracks, and smooth and polished gameplay mechanics, this game stands as a benchmark within the RPG genre. I can definitely say that this is hands down a masterclass of a game.

[pawborough]

July 2024 Check In

Hello, all!

Happy update day! Thank you for your support and patience while we work. This has been one of the busiest times for our team, and we’re making good progress. But it's challenging to share without sounding like a broken record. Lots of coding. Lots of numbers. Lots of items. So little time...!

But first, I must share solemn news. Our backdrop artist, Kzart, has passed away. He died of cardiac arrest just the day after our last update, where we previewed his wonderful work on the Cogwheel Outskirts.

This is a deep and mournful tragedy. Our heart goes out to his family, friends, and loved ones. Kzart was a welcome, cheerful, and bright part of the team, and the loss is devastating. May his memory be a blessing.

We are dedicating our work this month to his memory. We hope to ask your patience while we make decisions for future team members in the wake of his passing.  

To start off, here are some asset updates.

New Icons

We’ve been picking away at icons. Populating the site itself with estimates for cooking, crafting, dailies, site store, and guild play has been a behemoth of a task which has taken weeks of calculating out delicate numbers, drop rates, and seeding tactics. We have an insane amount of spreadsheets. I’m very proud of how much we’ve figured out.

Wild Boar, Bison Calf, Kid, Lamb, Blackbird, Red Squirrel and Brown Hare illustrated by Tybaxel and Remmie

The young animals will be available as plain food in Alpha and part of Beta, but are designed in preparation for our Farming and Husbandry mechanic, explained more in this update!

I’m dying to see the dye icons!

Illustration by Tybaxel

And lastly, we’ve started work on the stone assets!

Harvest Stone, Metropolis Stone, and Luna Stone by Hydde

Above you see the Harvest Stone, Metropolis Stone, and Luna Stone. Paw-carved by catfolk out of various precious stones and the elusive Prismaline—Mewmoia’s magical mineral and the origin of modern magical technology—these stones act as a magical catalyst for sorcerers performing transmutation.  

We also want to note: we see the discrepancy in the Harvest logo and its child assets. While we were working on the visual development, we found that the leaf was not only more recognizable as a symbol, but more reliably adaptable in different simplistic forms. We will be experimenting with replacing the vegetable in the Harvest logo with a leaf.

Recolorings

Recolors continue! This month, we have the Guard set.

Colors done by Emma

New Decor 

We have begun our work on decor!

Our goal is to have a substantial amount of decor befitting every type of backdrop we are starting with. Our first set we are tackling is the Summer Natural set. We have sets known as Sea Faring, City Clearing, Academic, and Winter Natural planned as a starting roster.

Florals by Giulia, lemonade by Jerso, butterlfies by Asp

And here it is put together!

NPC Sketches

Early last month, we shared a preview of the initial sketch for Wheatley and Crowley, the sitewide general store!

Initial feedback included a poor merge of cat-like anatomy and anthropomorphized character acting. We took this feedback, spent another day on visual development for NPCs, and updated our character design visual philosophy!

So, presenting…

And here is how they look on the website!

This sketch is still subject to change as we hash it out, line, and render it, but we’re excited to share what we’ve developed so far!

Wheatley and Crowley were the first NPCs ever developed during pre-production. 

(Just as the Bovine was the first Mystic breed ever developed, and Sugar was the first color palette ever designed!) 

So there is something a tad emotional about making it this far. Seeing them animated and on an actual game UI has been very rejuvenating. We’re nearing the end of this development hole!

So you want to form a team and join the Guild, huh? Meet Maven, your guildmaster. She’s rough, prickly, and can scare the faint of heart. Yet the Guild is dedicated to helping poor cats in need, in the wake of wastebeasts and outlaws terrorizing outskirt villages. You wonder who she is under that thorny exterior…

Maven is a primary character in the ongoing site plot. We have the technology for NPCs to emote during dialogue. Many story-focused NPCs will get this treatment. This means that Maven's expressions will change as you talk to her!

All NPC sketches by Hydde

Everyone knows Winnipeg, the longhair chef from Luna. Introducing his twin sister, Winnifred! Winnifred sells husbandry and farming supplies, including young animals and seeds.

(Note: all 3D assets used for render references are ours, minus the watering can! Credit to Toonz Media Group from Sketchfab.) 

So let’s talk about the farm mechanic!

In Development - Farming and Husbandry

See the initial UIs for our major in-development mechanic.

Plant seeds on plots of land in your camp. Certain plants will raise or lower your soil quality, which in turn will affect how many items these plants yield. It’s up to you as the player to grow a variety of different plants to diversify your soil and get the most yield.

Husbandry will feature the same concept, utilizing livestock as opposed to plants. Grow different animals over time and maintain grass density to get the best quantity of items!

Lastly, some folks were curious about incense, how it works, and its attainment method.

Incense will be craftable, and its ingredients will be farmed! Incense ingredient seeds will be scattered around the game, including as reward drops for gameplay. It will take intentional cultivation to attain an incense item.

Because we had a few users who were curious to the specific ingredients of every incense scent, here is each Borough:

Luna = Lavender and Jasmine Sol = Cinnamon and Fennel Abyssal = Lotus and Sakura  Zenith = Rosemary and Sage Harvest = Basil and Oregano  Cogwheel = Saffron and Turmeric  Metropolis = Patchouli and Vetiver

For testing until farming is implemented, items which would be farmed will be available to buy through Winnifred. 

Cooking and Crafting

Lastly, a peak at the UI for the cook and craft mechanic!

We surveyed the playability of the original grid system and weighed the pros and cons of managing a grid and memorizing recipes in a multiplayer resource game, and ultimately decided that our platform and format doesn’t quite suit the crafting grid playstyle.

Instead, recipes and blueprints are found, added to your collection, and able to be insta-made.

We found the act of users individually adding items from storage to be tedious, and ultimately our original format would end up with users researching recipes on wiki articles instead of engaging in explorative play. While other games have crafting loops which incentivize exploration, the petsite setup as we have built it simply does not accommodate it without serious overhaul. 

But we hoped to preserve some of that magic by including the “add ingredient” feature. Users will be able to discover new combinations by experimenting with add-ons. For example, a pizza recipe could become mushroom pizza by adding mushrooms!

Users may still end up just looking things up, but the mechanic itself is now not ultimately dependent on off-site research.

Peak at this mockup recipe!

We are currently experimenting with how to include the NPCs in this UI format. Fear not that you do not see Winnipeg here. He will be in the game!

This mechanic in general is what we are currently working on! Thanks for sticking by!

And that’s all we have for today. We know that a lot of users are holding out for Mystic breed updates in the demo, and we are working on those. But game playability is taking the highest place for us, as we want to get testing ASAP! So, we appreciate this patience. Moontails, and likely Thumpers, will be here for Beta, but our #1 focus this last month has been the sprint to the finish line for playability in both development and assets. The semi-quiet activity is because we're putting all our energy into this huge milestone. 

Which to mention!

Alpha acceptances have been sent out! If you have not yet, check your email!

We asked those who receive it to reply that they have. There is not a strict deadline on this reply, we simply want to ensure that those who received the email have seen it and are ready to volunteer. We will still be sending keys to everyone who received an email, minus those who are dropping out. If someone is MIA by the time people are registering accounts, we will consider reaching out to other potential testers.

Home stretch, everyone! It’s starting to come together just how much we’ve completed, and the application is beginning to feel real in a way it hasn’t previously. We’re all super antsy to buff it out and get people playing!

Thank you all!

To summarize: We shared icons, Guard set recoloring, decor assets, 3 new NPC sketches, the farm and husbandry mechanic, and the cook/craft functionality.

What to expect next month: Further asset and development updates. Check-ins for how Alpha will be going, timeline expectations in the wake, NPCs and lore. 

[firethekitty]

Ranking Every Wolfwood!!

happy wolfwood wednesday! i've ranked every wolfwood and it very quickly got out of hand and turned into more of a character analysis/meta. it was really fun and helped me better understand why i love this guy so much!

yes, really!

i hope you guys enjoy and that my autistic rambling makes sense!

1. trimax wolfwood. yeah he’s perfect. nothing else to say. god bless

while i can’t fit everything i love about him into one post, just know that i’ve written almost 30,000 words in wolfwood (and vash) character studies. so when i say “i like trimax wolfwood” that really means “i am fucking obsessed with trimax wolfwood”.

he’s the perfect mix of silly and heartbreaking, funny and serious, annoying like an older brother, deeply kind, so so painfully human; and a PERFECT foil to vash. simply phenomenal writing.

my only complaint would be that his tits are not on display like they are in the 1998 anime. but i can appreciate the subtly, so this doesn’t detract from his otherwise flawless score.

2. 98 wolfwood. omg hiiiii hehe twirling my hair ohh he’s so handsome what an absolutely beautiful design for him. his nose, his spider-esque shape, his TITS…… they even kept his little whiskers!

on top of an amazing design, he’s a very good balance of silly, irritable, playfully annoying, and serious! he fits pre-trimax wolfwood to a T!

but, as trimax progressed…

he’s cool. too cool. he has too much pull. wolfwood should NOT have swag. genuinely it is imperative to his character that he is, and i say this as lovingly as possible, a fucking loser with no friends.

wolfwood is a deeply traumatized man. he isn’t nearly as charming as we, the audience, thinks he is. no one laughs at his jokes, his insults are crude and immature, he embarrasses himself in front of literal children…

god, he is so painfully awkward. and who wouldn’t be in his situation? to have your childhood stolen and forced to grow up as a weapon? not allowed to interact casually with anyone else during the most important developmental stage of your life?

he's just not suave like tri98 wolfwood is. so, while 98 wolfwood is an excellent character, he doesn’t entirely read “wolfwood” to me. similar to how 98 vash is good on his own, but he’s just not ��vash”. this is, of course, the result of making an anime out of a manga that wasn’t even 30% finished at the time. while i don’t understand the reasoning behind this, i know that nightow desperately needed the funds the anime brought in, as well as the motivation to keep making trimax, so i have to simply make peace with the dated characterizations tri98 has.

but don’t get me started on the milly situation. really a godawful writing decision, idk who approved that mess.

3. tristamp wolfwood. he is so bullyable. he’s like a sopping wet cat. absolute fucking dweeb.

i debated this for a long time—whether i should rank tristamp wolfwood above tri98 wolfwood. and i asked myself, do i love tri98 wolfwood because he’s a good character and is similar to trimax wolfwood? does he even remind me of trimax wolfwood at all? well, not really, he’s very clearly based on pre-trimax, just like tri98 vash is.

ultimately i decided i do genuinely just prefer tri98 wolfwood, but i felt the need to defend tristamp wolfwood because i see a lot of fair criticisms but also really dumb discourse throughout the fandom about him. so here’s my attempt at trying to address these:

so, there are some things i really enjoy about him and some things i really dislike; and, unlike vash, most of these criticisms are not a result of time/pacing issues. they’re easily fixable.

like, for the love of god he NEEDS to get sillier. they got the loser part down, but he’s a bit too overtly sad in tristamp. i think he will be more like his trimax self in season 2, but wolfwood’s humor is in-part a coping mechanism and important to his character. he’s an older brother! he’s fucking annoying! he thinks he's funny when he isn't! we do get a little bit of this with him and meryl, when he's tormenting her at the campfire, and that’s what i want to see more of. even if he’s playing it up, he should be working on getting their guards down, convincing them he isn't going to betray them.

since tristamp takes place in a weird prequel sort of canon, i get that he would look/act younger than he is in trimax. i think he was modeled after the teenage wolfwood we see in the flashback scenes of him training for the eye of michael, where he’s noticeably less outgoing and more reserved.

however, this doesn’t change the fact that he WAS silly as a kid in trimax, before his “teenage angst phase” (hate to call it that when it’s more like a “realizing he’s going to die by the gun and not being able to do anything about it” phase). but he’s still a lot quieter and reserved in tristamp as a kid, so i think we really need to find a good balance here in the trigun adaptations.

another example of an easily fixable issue—i really hate how they did the “vash sees how kind wolfwood is” scene, in which wolfwood gives money/snacks to children. in tristamp, wolfwood already knows the kid is zazie, which tells us absolutely nothing about his character. this scene is almost entirely worthless, only good for reminding vash that he should eat, which gives tristamp its own not-as-good hospital yuri scene.

and, so, about the elephant in the room… i don’t think he was whitewashed. let me try to explain my thought process.

tristamp, as far as i can tell, doesn’t seem to be taking any inspiration from tri98, whose wolfwood is very explicitly a brown man. trimax wolfwood i feel is a bit more ambiguous in his skin tone, which alternates between dark screentones and completely uncolored pretty much at solid 50/50 odds. just fairly inconsistent overall, even on the official manga covers.

but this doesn’t mean wolfwood is white in tristamp, and it doesn’t mean he doesn’t have his aquiline nose. the notorious scenes of him in the suns, looking white as a fucking sheet, shows us how a 3D environment can diminish a character’s silhouette and distinctive features.

compare this to scenes of wolfwood in a dim environment, or to the 2D scenes of child wolfwood and livio that i can't include bc i'm only allowed 10 pics. he looks MUCH better, much darker than vash, and as they both should appear in such lighting. it just doesn't add up—he should be much darker in strong light if they followed the same color values:

SO, even though i feel like all of this is more of a technical issue rather than malicious whitewashing, that doesn’t mean i think it’s acceptable. it looks fucking awful, and the lighting system needs major improvement to work with darker skin tones.

and, like, at the end of the day, wolfwood isn’t canonically latino, and he doesn't really have a consistent skin tone either. it’s a great headcanon, one i partially share, but it’s not canon. the only ethnicity that could technically be considered somewhat canon is japanese, as wolfwood was based off a japanese singer named tortoise matsumoto. you can see this resemblance best in early trigun!

and i really need to defend his nose!!! a lot of people say he lost his nose but he didn’t!! i promise it’s there!!! another victim of his 3D model, you can only see his nose from the side or in the 2D frame after he gets his shit wrecked. see how clearly he has a very well-defined nose when he’s hand-drawn? this is what i mean when i say a 3D environment can drastically alter a character’s important features, as much as i otherwise adore the animation for this show.

also, if you think nightow would let studio orange get away with not including his nose, you got another thing coming.

in conclusion, while i think tristamp wolfwood is a great start, he’s just not quite there yet. but i have immense faith that the next time we see him, he’ll look and act a lot more like he does in trimax!

i know this is true, because there are already some shots in tristamp where i’m just like. oh yeah. there he is. that’s wolfwood. there's the guy i love so much

...

well, that was long! this was really fun to write and i

oh jesus christ what the hell is that thing

4. badlands rumble wolfwood. ah, now here’s a great example of overt whitewashing. no lighting excuses this time, just blatant colorism.

even if he wasn’t ghostly white, there's just something about his design that makes me viscerally uncomfortable and i can’t pinpoint what it is exactly. he’s just so… angular. he has no scruff, no kitty cat mouth, his eyes are very oddly shaped, almost no eyebrows... i just really hate looking at him!

his ONLY saving grace is how mentally ill he acts in this movie. and his tits. otherwise i don’t really have much to say about him!

ok, now we’re done! and here’s a handy wolfwood chart i made to summarize everything.

really hope this was fun to read and if people liked this i'd be glad to write a vash version or other characters!! happy woowoo wednesday :)

[jonquilyst]

Briar Vinca for @ethicaltreatmentofcowplants' Simply Lilac BC

Contestant

Name: Briar Vinca (Brai-err Veen-kuh) Age Group: YA (about the same age as Lilac) Pronouns: She/Her Orientation: Pansexual Hometown: Henford-On-Bagley Occupation: Florist Skills: Gardening and basic cooking Traits: Lazy, Green Fiend, Vegetarian Aspiration: Eco Innovator Life State: Human Likes: Gardening, Spirited Sims, Small Talk, Blue, Green, Pink, Nature Enthusiasts, Singing, Affection, Deep Thoughts, Discussing Hobbies, Discussing Interests, Family-Motivated Sims, Homebody Sims, Singer-Songwriter Music, Cottagecore Music, Romance Music, Pop Music Dislikes: Fitness, Potty Humor, Deception, Arguments, Gossip, Argumentative Sims, Emotional Decision-Makers, METAL MUSIC, Electronica Music, DJ Booth Music, Alternative Music Gifts: A finished cross-stitch piece (1), A painting (2), any flower (3) Misc: A nerd about flowers. She is very knowledgable in flowering plant biology

In Depth: Briar is an environment-conscious florist who was born, raised, and still a current resident of Henford-on-Bagley. She was adopted by a pair of mothers, Estelle Vinca and Madelynn Goth (yes, a descendant of the Goth family). She has an older brother named Oakley, who is a science baby born from Estelle and Madelynn's genetics. He is now a professional mixologist and a seasoned bowler living in Chestnust Ridge, but he and Briar grew up together in the most rural part of Henford-on-Bagley: The Bramblewood. Their mothers ran a farm there (both with crops and livestock) and it was this farm that Briar grew to love gardening and plants. She's not as good as Estelle (who upkept the garden), but she's learning the ropes! Briar is now living in Finchwick, but she's still very much a country girl and loves her life in Henford-on-Bagley. Briar cares a lot about climate change and wants to help save the environment. She makes sure she's wearing ethically-made clothing and one of the reasons why she's living in Finchwick is to be walking-distance from the stores, no car needed! She's also vegetarian by choice because she grew up surrounded by animals and doesn't like the thought of eating meat (though she is ok with consuming things like eggs and dairy as long as they were ethically produced). Briar wants to take her shot at the BC because she thinks she and Lilac have a lot in common, and also because she grew up simple-living her entire life because of her remote upbringing. Therefore she doesn't think the simple-living will be much of a challenge for her

Other: She's my Gen 7 spare of my Vinca legacy and is the niece of Lucian!

Watcher

Are you comfortable with your pixel person:

Flirting with other contestants? (The bachelorette will have the ‘player’ trait cheated and her boundaries set to no jealousy, so it will not impact your sim’s relationship with her.) [Yes]

WooHooing other contestants? [Yes]

Flirting with/and or woohooing NPCs?  [Yes]

Flirting with the host?  [Yes]

Changes to traits via gameplay prompts? (ie. Evil to Good, depending on what your Sim does, or adding traits)  [Yes]

(Humans Only) Becoming an occult?  [No, I'd like her to remain human please ^^]

(Werewolves Only) The Fated Mate mechanic? (If a werewolf ends up winning the challenge, I will cheat out that sentiment)  [N/A]

[ladytauria]

a night of revelations

Pairing: Jason Todd/Slade Wilson Rating: Explicit Words: 10k Content Warnings: None

Jason knows Slade would rather be with Dick.

i've been craving a fic where jason is insecure about slade's history with dick, to the point that the thought wouldn't leave me alone and i finally had to give in and write it dfghjk

MAJOR thank you to @paprikadotmp4 probably would not have been able to write this fic without her---or if i did, it would have taken twice as long and been half the length ;) thank u sm for all your encouragement, help, and sprinting with me! <3

also a big thank you to paprika for betaing this for me <3 and providing a couple of the lines i used dfghjk truly doing so much of the heavy lifting xD

>> AO3 <<

Jason knows Slade would rather be with Dick.

The man has never said as much, but Jason's not stupid. He's seen the way Slade looks at Dick—can read an entire history in the way they move with each other, the glances they exchange.

Jason thought he could handle it.

It’s hardly the first time he’s been someone’s second choice. He thought as long as Slade never called him by the wrong name, he would be fine.

He should have known better.

Jason has the terrible habit of catching feelings for anyone he sleeps with more than once. He thought he would be safe with Slade. Slade’s an asshole. He’s gruff, stubborn, emotionally unavailable, and—honestly—kind of a deadbeat.

Exactly the kind of guy Jason thought he wouldn’t fall for in a million years.

But…

Slade is—good. For him.

He shouldn’t be.

But…

He’s honest. He doesn’t lie to Jason.

Doesn’t withhold information ‘for his best interest.’ He gives him the facts, no matter what they are, and lets Jason make the decision.

And whatever decision Jason makes, he respects.

Slade treats Jason like an equal. A partner.

He doesn’t get upset when Jason is prickly, doesn’t chafe at his humor. Doesn't judge Jason's coping mechanisms—or lack thereof. Jason can be himself, and Slade just—

Accepts it.

It’s… refreshing. Invigorating. Part of what drew him to Slade in the first place.

And Slade himself…

He’s funny. His humor is dry. Sharp. Almost always delivered in a slow, deadpan drawl. They play off of each other, the two of them, in a way that leaves Jason feeling giddy.

There’s also a softness to him, under the gruff exterior. Jason is one of the few who get to see it—experience it. The gentleness in Slade’s hands when Jason is injured. The sweet tooth he rarely indulges, the fondness he holds for animals—especially the pathetic strays Jason can never stop himself from feeding.

And—he’s trying, with his kids. He reaches out to them—haltingly, stiltedly. Keeps tabs on them from a distance. Never hesitates to answer on the rare occasion they ask for help.

Each moment softened Jason a little more, lowering his walls bit by bit. He hadn’t even noticed it was happening until it was too late.

It’s just his luck, to fall for someone who will only ever see him as second-best.

>> AO3 <<

[screamingcrows]

Good luck with your exam! Dropping a 🎲 for destressing if needed. :>

Aaah thank you! Your luck certainly worked wonders!!💙

You rolled 62! "That's too wild for me" and I'll pick.. Dottore (who's surprised) I'm going with one of my fav silly headcanons for this man.

It had been surprisingly easy to convince Dottore that a little time away was necessary. Suspiciously easy. Only a few honeyed words along complaints about the cold winter had him agreeing. But you knew better than to start questioning him, lest you present an argument that made him rethink the decision.

Fontaine was everything you'd longed for, lush fields teeming with life that had you gawking at every opportunity.

Dottore had convinced The Knave to let you stay in one of her little cottages a fair way outside the city, insisting it would be far more comfortable with a more private retreat.

"You're sure everything is fine?"

Not wanting to disturb the curious little creature happily chatting and pointing out landmarks, your voice remained a low whisper. You drank in the sharp outlines of mountains, the outline of something cubic briefly visible. You shook your head to clear it, surely it hadn't been floating?

"Quite."

His fingers tightened a little, thumb beginning to rub circles into the back of your hand, as if you were the one currently looking strung so tightly they might snap. Seeking to alleviate the tension a little, you leaned against his side, glint in your eyes when you whispered.

"You aren't tense because you're afraid those mechanic guards will arrest you the moment you set foot in the city?"

In the interest of subtlety, he'd forgone his usual attire, even the mask had been left behind on the nightstand when you'd gotten up this morning. The click of his tongue brought your mind back in time to hear the low grumble of a reply.

"You'd think so little of me? Nothing that can be traced back, of course," he paused for a moment, moving his free hand to your thigh and giving it a small squeeze, "and they're called 'gardemeks'."

Fontaine's Research Institute had filled the main streets with wondrous inventions, sounds of laughter reaching your ears the moment the aquabus docked. Neither of you had known beforehand about the festival, and you swore Dottore suddenly didn't seem as pale as he had seconds before.

It was always amusing to observe when he became so animated, eyes lighting up with an almost childlike sense of wonder as he paced around, prodding and fidgeting with anything they'd let him touch and then some.

He'd flashed you a toothy grin upon acquiring a fully functional miniature clockwork mecha, moving about the joints as the inventor happily gushed about how he'd optimized the pneumosia relays far beyond what should be possible.

A mistake on the inventors part, but who could fault him for disregarding the possibility that he might be aiding someone considered an enemy. You chuckled, shaking your head with a smile, on second thought, you could mention at least one person who might fault someone for that.

What had caught your eye in particular, was a large metal construction, the top barely visible from within the city. It didn't taken more than a tug at his sleeve and a glance cast towards the attraction before Dottore was making a beeline towards it. His enthusiasm paled when it came fully into view.

A large wheel made of metal beams, spinning languidly as small, colourful carts dangled from the framework. Colorful lights were scattered along the structure, adding to the oddly whimsical atmosphere around it. Before you could notice how wide Dottore's eyes had gotten, you were already trying to tug him closer, grunting at how much resistance the man was suddenly putting up.

Upon turning your head, confusion began to flood your thoughts. Why did he look almost afraid?

"You don't want to go with me?"

"I do, there is just," his eyes flickered and you knew he was lying, "something I must take a look at first. I'll join you in a moment, go on and get in line."

"Will you at least tell my why you're acting so strangely all of a sudden? Shouldn't you be excited about an opportunity to try something like this, the first of its kind? Sure, it's not as 'useful' as the stuff you make, but entertainment has value and I for one would like to-"

Before you could finish, he'd yanked your wrist and was holding you flush against his chest.

"Kinetosis. It's simply too... wild for me," he practically spat out the words, disdain dripping from the words.

You noted with a raised eyebrow that he'd turned his head away, the tips of his ears slightly pink. That in itself was enough to keep you from laughing despite the ridiculousness of something so painfully mundane being the cause of his anguish.

Butterflies fluttered in your stomach at the trust it had no doubt taken to disclose. Despite knowing it would only last for the few days you had left in Fontaine, you couldn't help but relish in the feeling of such an inconsequential thing being the cause of your worries.

Link to the prompts

[egg-emperor]

Oh what has Oshima stated about Eggman? I'm curious.

This Twitter DM which was from quite a while ago, can't remember when, where from, or who to but it still gets spread around:

All respect to Oshima of course, like I said, the man is a legend and treasure. But that first part literally isn't what happens in the game at all. The way he's describing it makes it sound like Eggman came along with innocent intentions, Chaos appeared and started doing something evil and then he wants to protect the world and be a hero or something. But the game's events simply aren't anything like that at all.

Eggman specifically intends for Chaos to destroy Station Square, so he can build Eggmanland on the ruins.

Sonic story:

Tails story:

The only problem he has is Chaos betraying him and making him his enemy, which means he's now a threat to him too and that's when it's a problem.

Last story:

He specifically states that it's because he defied him/didn't follow his orders. Instead Chaos is doing it on his own terms and making him his enemy, meaning he can't build Eggmanland and is now in danger too instead. Otherwise he'd love that shit because it was literally his goal to destroy it XD

JP translations are showing me the context doesn't change and Eggman's reasonings remain exactly the same.

Sonic story:

Tails story:

Last story:

I like that last line, it perfectly represents his selfish "if you don't serve/obey me/aren't useful to me, you have no reason to exist" mindset. 🥰 But yeah, he's extremely blatant with his selfish reasoning in both versions.

But yeah what Oshima said about Adventure makes no sense. The Adventure guide also said something like him not thinking of himself as evil, I believe? Which is the only possible thing one could cite in relation to him "not being evil" in Adventure. Which doesn't make any sense there either for all the above and every game ever actually.

And what I have to say to the idea that he doesn't think of himself as evil in general is this post, showing just a few of the examples of him very clearly understanding that he's evil and doing bad things and not caring, and and specifically calling himself, his creations, and actions "evil". Bios which can and have been inaccurate in various ways for multiple characters don't change that.

Also I get where Oshima is coming from with the second part of the man/machine/science vs animals/nature thing but it seems like he's kinda saying it in a way that seems to imply that the one is just a threat to the other in general. When this appears to not be the case in Sonic CD, as good future is a world that can be both natural and mechanical in harmony. And I think that's a lot cooler.

Eggman represents the harmful, selfish, greedy, dark parts of humanity, it's clearly never been presented in a way that paints humanity as a whole as a bad thing. It's not a misanthropic all humans are evil messaging, just an example of the kinds of evil that humanity can be capable of, how they can destroy nature, how they can be greedy and power hungry.

Also the whole Eggman wants to make the world "beautiful" thing is true because as a selfish egotist, it will be the most beautiful and perfect it can be when it's under his control in his eyes, in by his own twisted definition, that's detrimental for nature, wildlife, and everyone else in it. Nobody else will want but will have it forced upon them by him.

People trying to present this as fact are ignoring how Oshima emphasized that it's his "personal opinion". That's not what determines decisions made during actual production and finalized solid canon, which in this case shows something completely different in the game, English and Japanese. But he's not trying to pass it off as final fact so I have no issue with him, it's the fans that are.

Word of god that directly contradicts canon events and characterizatiom doesn't hold up no matter who it's from. Something especially doesn't suddenly become true canon fact because someone was privately sent a DM about a creator's personal opinion, that they also specifically emphasize to be just that to them on top of that lol

I only ever note word of god in fact sharing or analysis I do if it's just reiterating/explaining what was already shown/described/implied in the actual games and very blatantly so, for reasons like these. As there can be stuff is literally completely different in the games and isn't just a matter of interpretation.

So yeah thought I'd finally bring this up and break it down properly since it's been around for a little while now but I've seen it getting spread around again like it's fact lately. Eggman is very aware that he's evil and he certainly wasn't a good guy in Adventure, nor any other game XD

[hikayunas]

Hikaru being reduced down to nothing but "horse" jokes by the wider fandom -- instead of treated as a proper character to be examined and taken seriously -- is something that's stuck with me for a while. It's ironic, if a bit sad in its irony, once you think about it for a moment or two.

Hikaru being "the Horse" isn't just a gag thrown in for a cheap laugh -- "the Horse" is Hikaru's coping mechanism; how she dehumanizes herself, and creates a mental disconnect between herself and her identity as a Futatsugi magical girl -- as a weapon -- a tool -- to further Yuna's goals, for her use alone. Hikaru may not want to stain her hands for Promised Blood's goals, but if Yuna wills it, then Torayamachi's Horse certainly does -- "the Horse" will take as many lives as it can for Yuna, or die trying.

"The Horse" started off innocently enough; Yuna suggested it when she and Hikaru were both still fresh into the ranks of Futatsugi's magical girls. It was meant as nothing more than a nickname, inspired by Hikaru's ability to summon her army of smoke-puff soldiers -- Hikaru would be Yuna's Horse; her cavalry in the shadows to assist when called upon by their general.

But it did not stay that way. At least, not entirely. "The Horse" has certainly stuck around as Hikaru's playful nickname among Promised Blood's ranks -- but it runs much deeper than that; much deeper than Yuna ever intended for it to. For a nickname, it's incredibly personal to her -- she's quick to become offended when Juri makes a mocking play on it, calling her a "stupid mule" instead of the usual "Horse." And, constantly having the "Horse" title referenced in Promised Blood just reinforces the disconnect between Kirari Hikaru, Futatsugi citizen, and Torayamachi's Horse; pack animal, weapon, and tool for Kureha Yuna's use only. In Promised Blood, she is the Horse -- she is not Kirari Hikaru.

As far as coping mechanisms go, it's not as good as she believes it to be. It certainly does get her through the harder parts of magical girl life in Futatsugi, and later on, through the Kimochi wars as a member of Promised Blood, and it serves to connect her and help her bond with the other Promised Blood members -- but it is, by exact definition, dehumanization. Kirari Hikaru -- the Horse -- is not a person, she is not a human being; it is a pack animal, a weapon, a tool, for Kureha Yuna's use. Without Yuna, it is nothing.

Hikaru cheerfully agrees when Ao says that she really is an empty shell, grinning and chirping back without hesitation that as long as she's with Yuna, she's full. A horse needs its master; a weapon needs a general to wield it; a tool needs someone skilled to put it to use. Without someone to use them, they are useless. Without Yuna, the Horse is useless. If Yuna dies, the Horse -- and Hikaru, with it -- dies, too. Where Yuna goes, the Horse follows.

Every little thing that the Horse does is for Yuna. The Horse is not its own person; it's not a person at all. Yuna is Promised Blood's general, and a general needs her loyal horse. When all is said and done, Hikaru does not need to feel any guilt nor remorse for the blood on the Horse's saber, even if their sabers are one in the same. This is simply what the horse was meant to do. It was made to do this. The horse is not its own person; it's not a person at all. It is a pack animal, a weapon, a tool. Its decisions are not its own, and certainly not Hikaru's own.

...which is to say, boiling her character down to nothing but "horse" jokes is something that I think about a normal amount.

[frecklystars]

I’m in the hospital but I’m gonna be ok + I’ll be going home in a couple of hours. I’m sorry if I worried anyone. I have had the worst year and a half of my life and it is very obvious I am not handling it well

I put a lot of pressure on myself to try to enjoy today specifically because I think I unconsciously told myself that if I couldn’t enjoy today, I could not possibly enjoy any day; if I cannot feel good with these f/os who mean so much to me, then that must mean I can’t feel good with any f/os, that it is proof I am incapable of healing unless if I am able to feel good self shipping and celebrating an f/o anniversary today for the first time in two years.

But that wasn’t what made me spiral so badly— what drove me to make such an impulsive drastic decision that led me into being injured + at the hospital was just, my ptsd and the situation I’ve been stuck in has been so. fucking. vile. It has been extremely difficult for me to feel safe IRL, as well as with self shipping, which is awful because self shipping has always been my strongest coping mechanism for a little over twenty years. Not having self shipping feel the same for the last year and a half has been so hard, and I still haven’t found any other coping mechanism as effective (affective??) I find it difficult to feel joy anymore bc my ptsd/anxiety has been flaring up so much it has made my depression astronomically worse.

which is what today was supposed to be for, I am supposed to be celebrating the fact that I found two f/os who made me feel safe again for the first time one year ago and breathed some life back into me to help me self ship again. But i never feel 100% safe. I never really feel fully loved or like I am able to relax with any of my f/os because my trauma feels like it’s done too much damage. I grieve the special interest I lost every day, i grieve the 200+ tf f/os that I was conditioned to believe would harm me. Besides tf, I have still lost so much due to trauma. Songs, colors, certain clothes, certain phrases, certain animals, characters, there’s so many triggers. I don’t go a day without getting triggered by something and then getting angry with myself for being triggered, beating myself up for being traumatized. Then I feel utterly heartbroken that this happened to me. Then I get angry again because this all should never have happened to me. It’s like, the moment I’m triggered I start snowballing, and I cannot find the off switch. I don’t know how people are able to turn off their emotions. I can’t function.

I don’t go a day without a flashback or a nightmare reliving everything that happened to me, that is still happening to me. I am always crying over the things I’ve lost and I really don’t think I am able to go back to the person I used to be. I already was so unhappy before my trauma, which is why I was so reliant on self shipping my whole life, but now I’m like… just some scared, broken, jittery thing. I feel like just a shell of a person way too often and it’s so hard to not feel hopeless

I had today all planned out these last 2 months, I had a special breakfast made, I was planning a really good dinner, I was going to make a beach cake and heart cookies, I ordered flowers, etc. a ton of shit planned. I was going to go to the beach, go to the movies, customize my dolls. My favorite part of f/o anniversaries is looking back on my love notes and reblogging them. I had sooo much planned for Barbie and Ken for my blog. They’re so important bc they’re the only good thing I’ve been able to cling onto this whole year, yet I am doing so fucking badly and have barely felt anything for them for a few months now bc I’m so overwhelmed with reliving my trauma. I didn’t get to queue anything special for today. I should really be happy today but I’m not, and it’s really making me believe “ok well if I can’t feel any joy from these f/os then I can’t feel any joy with anyone ever again bc my ptsd is just too fucking bad.”

I haven’t slept *at all* in the last couple of days which obviously makes my emotional distress way worse. i could not for the life of me make today work. I wasted a lot of time and energy and money trying to feel something for my f/os when I am in the worst headspace. I don’t think it’s worth even postponing the anniversary celebration bc I just feel… absolutely nothing except dread and grief 24/7.

I don’t know what else to say. Physically I am injured and emotionally I am Not Okay, but I’m alive I guess. I didn’t want to go offline and say nothing whatsoever because then people would probably worry after seeing that last post. I am sorry if I worried anyone, I am obviously just. going thru it right now and idk when it’s gonna get better. I’m gonna try to get back into the habit of self shipping and watching movies with friends again, y’know like the saying fake it til you make it, maybe it’ll trick my brain into feeling better. I won’t go offline entirely but I am probably not gonna open any messages for a while, I’m sorry I know I haven’t opened any dms in over 4 months, it’s just been so hard and my energy levels are dead. But I make sure they’re unread/unopened so the notification is still there to remind me and I’ll be able to get back to ppl when I gather the strength. Um I don’t know what else to say. I love you.

[grison-in-space]

Hi! I've just stumbled onto the dogblr side of Tumblr and it seems fascinating. Could you recommend any fundamental reading/watching material for people who want to start learning about dog training/behaviour/cognition? It would also be cool to hear about how you, personally, got into it if you're okay sharing- it seems like a niche field and I'm curious about what the journey might look like for different people. Thanks! ^.^

Oh, sure! Bear in mind that my particular path is, um, actually much weirder than most folks': the dog training with clients is a very new (and very part time) development in my professional life. In my full time job, I'm a postdoctoral associate in neuroscience working on motivation and decision-making in the context of animal behavior. And even for that, my career path has been bizarre: I started out in population genetics, did the PhD in behavioral ecology with a side of metabolic neuroendocrinology, and have now wound up in a NIH-oriented lab focusing on topics related to sex differences, neurodivergence and addiction.

It just occured to me that the dog training thing puts me squarely on the grounds of applied animal behavior research, which means that I've done it! I've poked into all the disciplines that can be described as Animal Behaviour and collected all the achievements! I really gotta reinvest in the Animal Behavior meeting, huh. Oh, wait, no: I'm forgetting behavior genetics, which is an area of strong interest I've poked around the edges of but never myself published in.

See, animal behavior as a formal study contains at least four different disciplines of study that really only loosely interact with one another. Behavioral ecology often appears in concert within ecology and evolution, and it focuses on the study of animals within their own natural context according to their own concerns and experiences. Neuroscience is typically thinking in terms of understanding the mechanism of the human brain, and behaviorism is similarly trained on the universal mechanisms of learning and behavior. Applied animal behavior involves studying how to most effectively, safely, and ethically manage animals in human care, including both domestic animals and captive wild ones; it also covers finding out how to teach animals to do complex but useful behaviors, like training working animals. Neuroendocrinology involves studying how hormones effect changes in the brain and body: metabolic hormones, stress hormones, sex hormones, the works. Behavior genetics (and epigenetics) include studying the effects of genetic variation on behavior itself.

It's certainly not uncommon for people to jump fields once or twice, or to straddle an intersection of approaches over their careers. It's.... less usual to bounce around one's career to quite this extent, which I attribute to the fact that a) I have quite a bit of fairly obvious ADHD, b) I've never worked for anyone who hasn't had their own case bedeviling our focus, and c) I graduated directly into COVID, which meant that I had to figure out a solution on the fly when all the positions I had intended to cultivate dried up overnight.

Not that I'm bitter.

As for how I got into the dog training gig, essentially I like dog training, I really like this outfit, and I have some credit card debt I would really like to pay down. I wanted to meet and talk to more dog folks in the area and I also really missed teaching—I taught every spring and fall through my 8yr PhD, I'm good at it, and I really enjoy it. Since I've respected (almost) every instructor I've had through this outfit, and the one exception involved being listened to immediately about my concerns and increased supervision in response, and I knew that one of my instructors worked part time with them, I figured it might be a neat side gig. So far, that's been bourne out.

I also do have some longer term plans to do some behavioral genetics and neuroscience work on dogs, and I would like to incorporate some noninvasive experiments that use dogs from the general public. My facility also has a robust doggy daycare program and it'd be rad to work with them to build opportunities for everyone in a few years. I'm hoping to leverage a permanent tenure track job at my institution over it, but I might go in several directions from here. Predicting the direction of my career has been a losing proposition so far, so let's see what seems good at the time and stick around as long as I'm having fun.

As for how I got into dogs and dog behavior specifically? In addition to the ADHD, I'm autistic enough to have been diagnosed as a tween girl in the 00s, and my special interests never quite leave —they just flare up and simmer down in long periods over my life. Dogs are the first and earliest of these; my parents told me that they'd seen me gravitating towards the family Lhasa from pretty much the moment I could roll over on my belly. That seems about right. Dogs have been my gateway to huge corridors of my intellectual world, and dog training specifically have been a hobby for some time. In addition to my training gig, I'm experimenting with functional service tasks to support me as burnout and neurodivergence have limited my capacity.

Books and reading recs I'll try to get to later, mm falling asleep right now.

[undertalebravebeginnings]

Undertale Brave Beginnings is looking for more team members! + Min Update! (Artwork made by Luz the aurora)

Application Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdWdY5EmbQMYm4Tz4VXtEa6DmpgYowlamMc_zuWNMM2CcHtTw/viewform

We need Spriters, Coders, Concept Artist, and Music Composers!

Pixel Art- We need Battle Sprite, Overworld, Tileset, & Background Artist

Battle Sprite- We are looking for spriters who can draw and animate Undertale Battle Sprites.

Tile set- We are looking for spriters who can create tilesets that can be used for area/map design & creation. There is no special criteria for this role.

Overworld- We need overworld spriters for both Characters and environments!

Background- We are looking for spriters who can draw backgrounds for in game use/ There is no special criteria for this role. Any animated Backgrounds may be done by you or the teams animators. [EXAMPLES DOWN BELOW]

Concept Art- Environmental/Area, & In Game Events

Environmental/Area- We are looking for concept artist who can draw concept art of in game locations and possible sub areas for said locations. There is no special criteria for this role.

In Game Events- Certain in games events like a cut scene, character interactions, etc. There is no special criteria for this role.Music Composer - We need music composers who can really help bring the game to life by help making an awesome soundtrack. There is no special criteria for this role.

Coder- We need more programmers to help turn Undertale Brave Beginnings into reality! Must have experience in GMS2

If you’re interested, here’s the application form!: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdWdY5EmbQMYm4Tz4VXtEa6DmpgYowlamMc_zuWNMM2CcHtTw/viewform

Update on The Battle System!

Hey guys! Quick update. The base UT engine for UTBB is complete! Now we are moving on to room/level design and UI changes.

We plan on changing the fight button UI and are currently juggling concepts for it. The thing is- [SPOILORS FOR UTBB]

Valor will have four slots. WEAPON, ARMOR, HANDWEAR & SIGIL.

[EVERYTHING HERE IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE]

HANDWEAR is where items like the tough glove (An item you get later in the game) goes once equipped and WEAPONS and ARMORS will work like they do in base game Undertale. For the fight button, we plan on having it take both the WEAPON slot and HANDWEAR slot into account. And because we believe in quality over quantity we will be working hard trying to find a new mechanic that will be new and fun to use. Sadly this may delay any gameplay videos minus a few in-game areas sometime in the near future. We have plans to make a 3-5 min gameplay video showcasing the new battle system + reveal the first area of the game ^^. Oh, and you may have noticed a slot that says SIGIL. . . . Don't worry about that for now

And yes, you do have 15/15 HP at the beginning on the game. There will be ways you can increase your HP. . . One of them I'm sure you're very very familiar with = )

Demo?

The team has been making good progress so far. However, we have decided to take a different approach when releasing the Demo. Following in the foot steps of the main project that inspired Undertale Brave Beginnings (That being Undertale Kindred Spirits by PurrSum ) We are releasing two Prologues to Undertale: Brave Beginnings. It will go as follows

- Prologue- Begin Again (Part 1)

- Three Character reveals/bios

- Prologue- 365 Days (Part 2)

- 1 character reveal/bio

- Full Release

- Full OST Soundtrack release

(Clarification: The prologue for UTBB is just the demo with a fancy name lol)

There is a reason we have split the prologue into two parts. The start of UTBB will be important. It will serve as an introduction to the story and used as a stepping stone for what's to come. The choices you make will have consequences later on. And due to how the story is set up, we feel like this was the best decision. With that being said, we are going back to rewriting somethings regarding the first prologue to make sure it has a smooth transition (and to improve some of the dialog as well). Now why did we give them these names? . . . You'll just have to wait and se ^^

We will also be aiming for a 2025-2027 window for the first prologue however this may change later on so we can not make any promises at this time.

In terms of writing, We went back and rewrote some stuff for the prologue, and the cast for area 2 have their designs finalized but won't be fully reveled just yet.

MISC.

Taking inspiration from DELTARUNE and Undertale: KINDRED SPIRITS. We've made Battle Icons for Valor and other party members (Who are yet to be revealed) Here are Valor's! (and before you ask, yes we did get permission from one of the UTKS devs to do something like this)

(Made by the teams amazing new sprite artist mono_chrome!)

Concept Art

Here’s some concept art for the games story and old promotional material! However. . . You get zero context ^^

(Concepts made by @hollowgears )

Anyway, that’s all for now. See you next update!

[randomnameless]

I really don't like the way you say a Laguz is "dead" or not a Laguz anymore if it can't transform. You'd be bothered if somebody said a person died or became less than human if they were paraplegic or severely mentally handicapped, right?

Good thing that people transforming in animals who lose said ability because they got a mixed-race baby don't exist in real life right ?

I'm sure the argument of "you'll be crippled if you get a baby with people X" was used in nauseabond RL circles during darker ages, but I'm sure that's not the kind of comparison you wanted to make anon !

Death is of course a metaphor, Almedha and Lehran are still alive and kicking through FE9 and FE10.

However, through the course of those games, if you played them or watched a lp, players realise that Laguz identity is tied to their ability to use their respective powers, in opposition to beorcs who don't have the same abilities.

A Laguz is thus a human who can transform in a bestial form and use their inherent power. Laguz societies put a lot of emphasis on this ability to transform and the inherent "strength" of their kin that we are told they base some system of government according to it (strongest becomes king).

(don't ask me why Tellius devs decided to tackle the "good savage" trope by having literal animal people, but it sure was a decision)

Now, Almedha and Lehran cannot transform anymore.

They cannot use their powers anymore (Lehran's inability to sing, thus fulfil his part of the promise to the goddess was one of the reasons behind his initial mental breakdown !).

They have, as Tibarn notes it, no scent anymore : I don't think scent here means what kind of perfume they're using, but something more in the lines that their core being changed and he, as a Laguz, cannot recognise it to the point where he's confused and wonders if she's a beorc or, neither beorc nor laguz...

As someone with chronic illness, I do not think I'm less than human because a pair of lungs don't define identity or "humanity", but in the Tellius world, for Laguz, being able to use their various powers define who they are.

Deghinsea is blunt like a hammer, alas he's not wrong : Lehran "lost" his "birthright" and this loss isn't treated like Largo's loss of his arm.

Short story : Laguz who hold hands with Beorcs and get a kid will lose all (but not the ability to use a sending Stone ?) of their powers and while they feel like they are no "true" Laguz anymore, the other Laguz can't recognise them as kin either.

Irl people who deny humanity to people who are, in your own words, "paraplegic or severely mentally handicapped" are pieces of crap and, imo, should be avoided at all costs, but we're not talking about irl, but about the fictional setting of Tellius that I find more and more shitty with the years.

In Tellius, a Laguz who fucks a Beorc, for themselves and for the rest of the world (hell even with their world's mechanics, iirc Sephiran loses the wind weakness bird laguz have ?), stop being Laguz, i.e. as a Laguz, they effectively die.

Laguz who turn feral and have their minds erased can still, thanks to herons, switch between forms (Rajaion).

Almedha cannot.

Laguz who were tortured and lost, due to said torture, the ability to use their wings, still can use their powers and transform (Rafiel).

Lehran cannot.

I'd be very happy, anon, if a future remake tweaked the ending for those characters and pulled some shit like "with the support of his friends and family, and mayhap the help of the goddesses he so faithfully served, Lehran finally managed to hum a galdr" and something similar with Almedha.

It would lessen, somewhat, the main plot sink of that verse that can be, and was, summed up as "Racism bad, but miscgenation bad too :S"

[homestuckreplay]

💙 John Egbert's Glorious Return! 💙

(page 843-847)

JOHN IS BACK!! HI JOHN I MISSED YOU <3

He is not doing so hot though. On top of making the dangerous, precarious decision to fight with an impressively bouncy weapon on a small platform above a bottomless pit, he’s clearly outmatched by these two giant ogres. The infinite loop of this animation is really well done, it genuinely feels like these two teams could stay in this stalemate for a while – until Rose gets back online and turns the tide, perhaps. And I laugh every time the grainy ‘Sassacre’ gets stamped over the otherwise very clean art style.

I’m really looking forward to Rose entering the Medium, so we can find out what’s specific to John’s game and what’s general to Sburb. For example, is it part of the game that a sprite will try to protect their assigned player? Or is it John’s nanna specifically (or the harlequin doll, I guess) who has that instinct? Do all sprites have the same powers (eye beams that destroy imps and heal players) or do the powers vary based on what’s prototyped?

I also want to know more about Jade’s predictions; it’s a fun narrative trick to have the reminder on her finger transition into another character, but has she literally seen a vision of this event in the same way that the Wayward Vagabond might watch this moment through a screen? (If so, is it possible she has these visions via her strange holographic computer?) Or does she have more of a vague understanding of things she shouldn’t, just ‘happening’ to be right as she does with the memory modus and the gadgets she’s created, a general sense of ‘John and his benevolent guide will have a challenging battle’?

I am DELIGHTED by the return of ‘Years in the future…’ followed by GameFAQs, and the fact that different characters have taken over these pages to mark a different act. In Act 2 we eventually learned that WV and Rose were in the same location; in Act 2 we already know that the Peregrine Mendicant and John are in the same place. I barely know the Peregrine Mendicant but I think they are so cool. They met a giant metal worm and got so angry when it ate one of their mailboxes (!) that they immediately reached for their sword, which incidentally is the first cool sword in Homestuck (not sorry, Dave). The cross on top of the sword looks like the cross usually found on the king in a chess set, so this must be a powerful sword from the dark kingdom, while PM is from the light. Could this be a clue to what happened in the battle of light and dark in John’s Sburb game?

Page 845 (incidentally one of my favorite pages in the comic so far) is the first time we’ve seen longform writing from John, and it’s a WHOLE new side to him. His character voice is a little different in this medium, but still recognizably John. And he is SO SO SMART, I apologize for everything I have ever said about John being bad at things and not sticking with them, because it turns out that ‘You like to program computers but you are NOT VERY GOOD AT IT’ (p.4) was just John’s low self worth and dismissal of his own skills, like here when he says ‘wow ok that pretty much looks like shit, but you get the idea’ about his cool ASCII art. Like, the John of page 843 is not in his element, he’s fighting two gigantic deadly foes when before today he’s never seen worse combat than being pied in the face, but the John of page 845 knows his shit, has reverse engineered some pretty complex mechanics from just a few punched cards, and is explaining it in terms easy to understand. And he’s making all these really clever leaps and he does brag about his ‘leet haxxor cred’ and he’s clearly excited about what he’s writing about, but I still feel like he doesn’t have much confidence, as he ends by deferring to Jade’s skills. I love how these two John pages are juxtaposed, and I cannot describe the pride I feel in seeing John really shine at something.

Goth queen Rose Lalonde has gone from cat mausoleum to vast, ominous green science lab full of uranium and/or slime, and I’m happy for pages like 840 and 847 that are primarily atmospheric, something I don’t think we’ve seen much of before. The lab’s logo reads ‘SN’, not the cool S, but one with an atom symbol in the upper curve and a spirograph in the lower – both familiar symbols, as both appear on Jade’s shirt (p.794), the atom appears on some of her inventions such as the wardrobifier (p.793), and the spirograph has appeared regularly as a symbol of Skaia. Could SN be SkaiaNet, developers of Sburb, first mentioned on page 114? If so, could Rose’s mom have something to do with the development of Sburb, potentially explaining why Mom knew to build a tunnel from the mausoleum to the lab if she’s had some visions similar to Jade’s. I think that would suck for Rose, as she’s worked hard to be independent from her mom and have her own interests, and to find out that her mom has been controlling her life in a pretty major way the entire time would probably be really hard to come to terms with.

I have been having loads of fun with this punch card calculator; more great work from Gankra, who has programmed several of the interactive pages including p.253. I would punch so many cards if I had a designix.

> John: Take another look at that rocket pack.

[tu-es-gegg]

i fucking .

i hate that it feels liek, at least in the trailer, no one thought of minecraft earnestly. like they looked at screenshots and gists of the game and went "haha ok we can make this for the kids" like oh my god, playing minecraft survival is such an experience because your are dropped into this uncharted land that is just generated and theres so many thigns to discover, but ultimately the decision on how to play the game, the end goal of it all; thats entirely up to the player.

and early game, its so serene, calm as you explore for resources, whether its the caves or above ground, then nightfall hits and then its a fight for your life out in the wilderness. and its the management of what you have and what can you build witht e blocks you got, and its the horror of the big caves (esp with caves and cliffs) that are filled with goodies but also monsters, its the joy of making something out of the stuff you gathered out of your own efforts, the exhiliration of going through the laundry list of progression from the nether to the end and then comes the fight against the ender dragon. the end poem.. a piece of literature that tell you that the player is everything and anything it desires to be, the player is the universe and the universe says i love you because you are love.

minecraft is so earnest in its gameplay loop of "do whatever you want" and its been that way for years in terms of its main java version. theres no undertone of "needing to cater to a demographic" because minecraft is for everyone and mojang for so long have worked with that.

this minecraft movie trailer just...reeks of corporate. liek it comes from the mind of some business exec that scoffed at teh screenshots and short blurb of the game, and took all the fuckass tiring industry standard of photorealistic and choosing to live action just so they can have physical actors' pretty celeb faces in the marketing and also so they can abuse the vfx/cgi teams in teh middle of animation unions as if world is hard enough...

like anyone who plays minecraft understands this is an unrealistic game, trees fuckign float so why is it live action???, it should be ANIMATED BUT NOOooooo they want better pay i guess we better loophole with vfx teams too

its like worse because its doing an isekai plot and like,. dont understand why, is it just for the actors to do a "why the hell everything a square XD" or for them to laugh at minecraft mechanics being not to real life? is that it you want your "good writing points" for that? you want a gold star for being sooooo clever?

im so unbeleivably upset but it jsut frustrates me that outsider views of minecraft is that its just a "silly blocky kids game for kids" like they think they can make everythign into cubes and think that makes a good minecraft representation, when that is not ever the case, what makes a good minecrat rep is understanding the source material, hell just PLAYING THE GAME IS GOOD ENOUGH and i doubt anyone here has even played the game or at least done so with earnest attempt to understand the game's core values

im sorry im bitching so hard but i lvoe this game, i have played this game for years and watched people play it for even longer, im so sick and tired of people putting minecraft in a box when its so much bigger, its a game of so many possibilies just from vanilla, but people who dont even play the game dont respect it's openess and hoensty in that freedom that is the central part of the game. they jsut see bight coloured squares and think its just for the kids who are dumb and stupid enough to buy anyhting thats a cube.

[wakkoroni]

✨Damian Wayne Headcanons✨

Because it’s his birthday and as a gift I will give him some headcanons but I realized I have a lot so I’ll probably split into parts cause I don’t want it to be this long ass post. There will be 3 parts total soooooo

He self isolates when upset or just on accident sometimes. He can live his life and then remember that people exist and start socializing again. 9 times out of 10 he does this on accident/unaware

Damian uses anger as a defense mechanism. It’s his way to not get hurt. If he is mean/angry/violent enough then nothing can hurt him. Once he gains trust he will be nicer

He doesn’t talk about the league not because he wants to avoid the feelings and emotions and trauma about it. It’s just every time he talks or mentions it everyone grows silent and it always ends with Bruce calling Talia and arguing so loudly Damian can hear them from his room late at night

So he has a journal where he can write down the good memories he had of the league and his mom. He doesn’t want to forget the good times

Whenever it’s his birthday he’s always surprised he made it this far. He is convinced that each year will be his last because of his past that he doesn’t keep track of the days. All he knows is that one day he will die young, he doesn’t even consider the fact he’ll turn 18 or even 21. His family makes plans and tells him “when you turn 21 we can-“ and Damian just nods stays silent. He already died at 10 and got revived, who says he won’t die again?

Damian always keeps his bedroom door open or at the very least cracked (unless he’s hiding an animal) but like anyone can walk into his room cause he doesn’t really care. Also the league never really had privacy so Damian although he’s a private person, his space is open to anyone. Sometimes Tim or Dick will just stroll in just to co-exist with him

Damian is very task oriented so he needs something to do or else he will simply just exist and not do anything and be stuck in wait mode. When he first arrived he would follow Bruce around like a little ducking and Bruce was so confused until he told him to do something and Damian would leave and complete the task and come back. Bruce is like oh so he gives Damian little tasks to keep him occupied and the tasks grow more and more vague like “draw something” or “make something” and yeah Damian slowly regains autonomy

Damian is Robin but he doesn’t stay Robin? Like as he grows older he quits Robin and doesn’t make another identity because honestly he’s tired of fighting. He’s always following orders either his mothers or his fathers and he’s tired. When his father taught him how to make his own decisions he didn’t think that not being Robin would be one of them. When Damian comes to this realization he doesn’t know what to do cause he thinks that if he isn’t Robin then he’ll be disowned or something so he makes this whole plan to buy a place under a fake name in another state to flee when Bruce tells him to get out and has a go-bag ready. When he tells Bruce that he doesn’t want to be Robin, all Bruce does is say okay and asks why in a very calm and understanding tone. This throws Damian for a loop and yeah. They talk it out, no one gets kicked out, and it’s a happy ending

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