#more videos on youtube too! aaa

[benicioscenes]

absolutely loving all the bdt stuff 😍 thank you for your service ❤️🙏

thank you love! there's still more to come, too <3

[mira0000000-blog]

not sure yet and not very sonic but im thinking about itflo

[fiapartridge]

🌊 Luke Hughes is a need. congrats on 600!!!

now that we don't talk | luke hughes

"you part the crowd like the red sea, don't even get me started" - taylor swift, now that we don't talk

luke hughes x fem!reader

summary: growing up, luke was your best friend, but now all he felt like was a stranger.

warning(s): drinking, unrequited love

fia's notes 💌: aaa thank u! i closed my celly last week but i wanna finish all of the requests that i didn't get to before it ended! italics are the past, normal is the present !

You met Luke when you were ten. He had moved in next door and you were elated. You had never seen any kid your age on the street where you lived, so seeing the Hughes family unloading the white moving truck with big brown boxes, you quickly offered to help. 

You met Jack first. He said you were tinier than a peanut and proceeded to pat your head and tussle your hair when Quinn walked over, scolding the younger boy for bothering you in the first place. Quinn felt mature to you, already someone you felt like you could trust with anything. You never had an older brother, or siblings in general, so the two boys felt somewhat like a safe haven. 

But the moment you saw Luke, you swore the wind started blowing harder, his walk was in a time-bending slow-motion, and the blue birds started to sing in their place in the trees. He was perfect and you, as much as you believed that boys were icky and gross (and definitely containing cooties), you were in love. Earth-shattering, mind-numbing, heart-stopping love. 

“Lukey, get over here!” Jack yelled, waving the curly-headed boy over to the moving truck where the three of you stood.

Growing flushed, you watched as Luke ducked under Jack’s arm, avoiding his daily ‘noogie’--- especially now that there was a girl in the vicinity. Scratching the back of his neck, he let out an awkward laugh. “I’m Luke.”

You wanted to ask for his favorite color, music artist, movie, tv show—you wanted to learn everything about him. But for now, you smiled softly, allowing the pink bubbles in your stomach to float up and into your cheeks as you nodded, saying, “I’m Y/N.”

The inside of the house was loud, lights flashing across every wall and red Solo cups trashed the floor. You had hesitated saying yes to your friends’ invite to this party, wanting so badly to just put on a face mask and watch YouTube videos in the safety of your apartment, but after realizing you hadn’t spent a night out in weeks, you agreed. So now, here you were, holding hands with your best friend in a skirt so short you had to pull down the hem every couple of inches as you marched through the party, avoiding crashing into drunken bodies and touchy frat guys.

“Let’s get you drunk, okay?” your friend shouted as she guided you towards the kitchen of the house. 

“Y/N?” you heard your name shouted from across the kitchen island as you looked up, meeting Ethan Edwards brown and piercing eyes. He looked confused, rightfully so. You hadn’t seen him in months without a single reason as to why you vanished. You just…disappeared, like you were a figment of their imaginations. But there you were, alive in the flesh.

You tried to look away, act like you didn’t hear him, but when he called you again, more eyes settling on your small frame, you knew there was no other choice but to throw on a shy smile and say, “Hey, Eth.”

Rounding the island, he pulled you into a tight hug. The moment he touched you, it was like your knees wanted to buckle in and melt into his body. You missed him—especially his hugs. Pulling away, his hands stayed on your shoulders, scared that you would run away if he didn’t. “Where have you been? I feel like I haven’t seen you in years.”

You rolled your eyes. “It’s been a couple months.”

“Still miss you. Luke does too, you know?”

“Eth,” you shook your head, clawing at his grip on your shoulders as his hands tightened. You didn’t want to talk about this. Not here and especially not now.

“He never told me what happened, but whatever he did, he was stupid, okay? And—”

“It’s okay,” you smiled weakly. “I’m over it. I’ve just been…busy,” you shrugged as if anything that came out of your mouth was remotely the truth.

He chose not to push you, knowing that if he did, you would probably be halfway across the house and towards the exit. As much as you were best friends with Luke, you were also best friends with Ethan, Mark, and Dylan. Losing Luke was losing everyone. And as much as it hurt seeing Ethan, it was nothing compared to seeing Luke.

“Luke!” someone shouted from the next room over. Ethan could feel you tense under his hands as you instinctively looked over your shoulder, immediately seeing him. It was like your eyes gravitated towards him no matter where he was. If Luke was in a Where’s Waldo book, you’d finish all the pages in less than 10 seconds. 

He parted the crowd easily as partygoers stepped back upon his large steps and tall stature. He was known at the University of Michigan along with the rest of his family. Girls wanted to be with him, guys wanted to be his friend, professors passed him in every class just so he could play hockey.  You could feel his presence in every room; it was loud and shook the walls like some sort of earthquake. You felt it in your heart and your stomach, in your legs and your chest. Luke just had that effect on people.

And when he entered the room, merely feet from you, it was like you were nothing, unrecognizable, because just as your eyes followed him everywhere, to him, you were nowhere to be found. Well, to be found, he would have to look first. But the thing was, Luke stopped looking. All you were to him was a stranger.

You were teenagers when your feelings for him began to grow more real than you had imagined them to be. You were sitting on a lounge chair in Luke’s backyard, swaddled in a blue beach towel as Luke’s curly wet hair dripped onto your exposed legs. You loved night swims and Luke loved seeing you happy. He didn’t love the cool night air and the frigid pool temperature against his pale skin, but any time spent with you was time well spent.

Your legs were in criss-cross-apple-sauce as Luke mirrored you on the other side of the chair. 

“You know Brad Richards is taking Trisha Thompson to prom?” you asked. You didn’t even know they knew each other. You swore she was still dating Noah Turner, her boyfriend, well, now ex boyfriend, of three years. It made you wonder how people were just okay with going with someone they barely even knew. You went with Luke every year for every dance: homecoming, the winter ball, the spring fling, prom—everything. 

And everytime he asked you, it felt like you two were real. Like he was your boyfriend and you were his girlfriend and everything was right in the world. And for a quick moment, you let yourself believe it. On nights like these, he was yours.

“Didn’t they start talking, like last week?” he responded, playing with the string of your bathing suit bottom.

“Yeah. Insane, right?”

“Super insane.”

You chewed your bottom lip, clawing at the fabric of the towel as you stared at your hands. “Are you going to prom?” He hadn’t asked yet and you were scared that he was going to take someone else; that your tradition of going together was over; that he grew up and got over you.

But he smiled, yelled for Jack and Quinn, and your face lit up. The two came outside with a big white cake with strawberries and blueberries and raspberries sprinkled over the top. There were light pink candles spread over the crown of the cake, and Ellen ran to Luke with a big white poster. Unrolling the paper, he held up a sign, saying, “They should call you sugar, you’re so sweet. But can I call you my date to prom?” 

He dropped the poster as you threw your arms around him, whispering an excited ‘yes’ into his ears. 

“You’ll go with me?” he asked, smiling. He knew you would say yes. You did every time, but he liked making you feel special. You deserved that and more.

“There’s no one else I’d rather go with.”

He walked past you and you swore you would have broken down right there. You felt suffocated, like the walls were closing in on you. You looked around, trying to find your friends but they were nowhere to be found. You were surrounded by Luke, Luke, Luke. Every turn you made, you swore you could see him ignoring you, acting like you were nothing.

But he saw you. You were the first person in that whole entire party that he saw. To be honest, he wasn’t going to even show up. He was ready to do a couple laps on the treadmill, take a shower, eat some dinner, and head to bed, but when he got a text from his teammates, telling him that you were there, he knew he had to go. He knew you weren’t going to talk to him after what he did to you, but you were still his person, and he still had to make sure you were safe.

You were at a New Years Eve party at UMich, one that Luke had invited you to. You were so excited, you thought tonight was the night. You were going to get that New Year's kiss, he was going to be your boyfriend, and you would be his girlfriend, and everything would be right in the world, something you had dreamed of since you were ten years old; since the moment you met him. You put on your best sparkly black dress, threw on some makeup, spritzed yourself with the perfume you knew he liked most, tossed on some very uncomfortable high heels, and found yourself at the party.

He was there the second you opened the door, handing you a beer upon arrival. Mark pulled you into a hug and Dylan begged you to play beer pong with him against Ethan and Luca. You agreed after sending a small smile to Luke, silently asking if it was okay. 

He nodded. “I’ll be right here, okay?” he whispered in your ear as Dylan held your wrist, dragging you to the table. 

You played until you sunk the ball in the last of Ethan’s and Luca’s cups, jumping into Dylan’s arms as you pranced around the table, rubbing it in the losers’ faces. You loved this feeling. With them, you felt loved, you felt excited, and electric. You never wanted that night to end.

And before you knew it, the countdown was beginning.

10…9…Dylan pushed you to the stairs, knowing you were on your way to Luke. Ethan and the rest of the boys sent each other knowing looks as you rolled your eyes, trying not to fall over as you made your way to the stairs of the house.

8…7…You knew the house like the back of your hand. You knew which bathroom to use when the rest were busy, which laundry room was strictly used for barf stains, and most importantly, which room was Luke’s.

6…5…You marched down the hall, seeing Luke’s room only a little ways away. Couples were already cuddled up against the walls, kissing before the countdown had even ended. For some reason, it made you even more excited. You were only 5 seconds away from kissing the love of your life.

4…3…Reaching his door, your hand held the knob as you pushed it open. And you swore you felt your heart plummet to the floor. Luke was there, he was right there, kissing a girl that wasn’t you. And you knew you shouldn’t be mad. He wasn’t yours. But some part of you, some big part of you, really believed he was.

2…1… “Y/N?” Luke pulled away from the girl as you stood at the door, your hand still on the knob. You were frozen. You didn’t know whether to run or cry. Did you even deserve to cry? It’s not like you guys were dating or anything. But sometimes it felt like it. And maybe he was like how everyone said he was. Maybe Luke Hughes was a fuck boy; a player.

“Happy New Year’s!” you heard everyone in the house shout as Luke replaced those words with shouts of your name. You ran. You turned around and ran down the hall, down the stairs, and past the boys. You ran outside, calling an Uber to get you, and take you away from this hell hole. You were embarrassed. You were so embarrassed. Everyone could see that you were in love with him; that you wanted that kiss to be with you. Ethan had rooted for you, Dylan had rooted for you, everyone had. But it didn’t matter if you knew his favorite color, his biggest fears, what he stored on the topshelf of his dresser. It didn’t matter if there was a picture of you on his bedside table, or that you went to every high school dance together, or if you held a Luke Hughes hoodie stash back at your dorm. Because in the end, you still weren’t enough for him.

“Y/N!” you didn’t turn around. You knew who it was based on just the sound of his voice alone. You knew it was Luke, but you were tired of being delusional and embarrassing yourself time and time again. “I didn’t mean to kiss her.”

You watched the unmoving street in front of you as if something extraordinary was going to happen. You couldn’t look at him, because surely you would have broken down the moment you were met with those green eyes. 

“Y/N, please,” his hand landed on your shoulder as you blinked rapidly, trapping your tears within the walls of your eyes. You won’t let them slip. You won’t let him see you cry. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, okay? I’m so sorry.”

You shook your head. “There’s nothing to be sorry for, Luke. It was just a kiss.”

“It upset you—”

“I’m just tired,” you said harshly. “I just want to go home.”

“I’ll walk you, we can talk about this, and- and—”

You finally turned to him. He looked stressed, like he knew he was losing you, and he knew why but he was too afraid to admit it. Or maybe he was embarrassed. He knew you liked him, but the thing was, he didn’t feel that way for you. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how much his friends pushed him to, his parents and siblings. You were his best friend and that’s all you ever were to him.

“I’m not mad. Whatever I felt for you, it’s okay, I think I’m done feeling that way.”

And just when he wanted to ask you what you meant by that, you hopped in the Uber that pulled up to the curb, closed the door, and drove away. You ignored his calls after that. You ignored his texts, his friends’ texts, his brothers’ texts. You were going to get over him, because just as much as it hurt to ice him out, it hurt even more to pretend to just be friends with him.

So he watched you at the party as you downed beers and danced with guys you’ve never spoken to before. He watched you play beer pong with your new friends and kiss people that he so badly wanted to keep you away from.

All he could do was watch, now that you don’t talk.

[canmom]

Hello! I absolutely love your blog, everything from your festival recounts to animation analysis and programming (one of tumblr's recommended posts was the one where you made your own rasteriser, and I liked your attitude in what I've read so much that I'm gonna attempt to conquer my 3-year-long grudge against using opengl during college and do something similar now that I'm a bit older and have no deadlines :D).

But anyway, I have 2 questions (sorry if there's easily accessible answers, tumblr search is not helping): 1. During your animation nights, does the screen stay black while everyone watches their own video while you provide commentary? I haven't caught any yet but maybe someday! And 2. do you have any youtube channels or just one-off video essays that you like that also cover animation/directors? Or, even programming lol.

Sorry for the long ask have a nice day!

hiii! i'm very touched that you like my dorky eclectic blog <3

For the Animation Nights, I just stream the video over Twitch from local sources on my computer, typically by playing the video in mpv and recording it in OBS. This is obviously not ideal from a video quality perspective, but it's the easiest way to watch video in sync without making everyone download files in advance. Then we all chat in the Twitch chat box (in large part to crack stupid jokes, it's not that highbrow lmao). I've gotten away with it so far!

As for youtube channels, I can recommend...

anime production/history (i.e. sakuga fandom)

SteveM is likely the most sakuga-fan affiliated anituber. He makes long, well-researched and in-depth videos on anime history, usually themed around a particular director or studio.

Pyramid Inu might be my fave anituber - very thoughtful analysis of Gundam, obscure mecha anime and oldschool BL and similar topics. tremendously soothing voice too.

The Canipa Effect does excellent deep dives into the production of specific shows, both western and anime. I appreciate the respect he gives to the Korean animators of shows like AtlA in particular!

Sean Bires's 2013 presentation on sakuga is pretty foundational to this whole subcultural niche, and a great place to get an introduction to the major animator names to know and significant points in the history of anime. unfortunately a couple of the segments got slapped down by copyright but the rest holds up!

animation theory (for animators and aspirants)

I'm going to focus here on resources that are relevant to animation in general, and 2D animation. if I was going to list every Blender channel we'd be here all week :p

New Frame Plus is one of the best channels out there for game animation, describing in tightly edited videos how animation principles work in a game context and analysing the animation of various games. highly recommend

Videogame Animation Study is similar, examining the animation of specific games in detail

the 'twelve principles of animation' (defined by Disney's Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas) remain the standard approach to animation pedagogy; there are various videos on them, but Alan Becker (of Animator vs Animation) has quite a popular series. I haven't actually watched these but many people swear by them! Dermot O'Connor expands the list to 21. Note that some of the terminology can be a little inconsistent between different animators - c.f. 'secondary motion'...

Dong Chang is an animator at Studio NUT, who produces a lot of fantastic, succinct videos on standard techniques in the anime industry, timesheet notations, etc. etc. Studio Bulldog, a small anime studio, are a good complement; they focus more on douga than genga and are generally a bit more traditional.

programming

big topic here, I'm going to focus on game dev and tech art since that's my field. but also some general compsci stuff that's neat

SimonDev - graphics programmer with a bunch of AAA experience, fantastic explanations of advanced optimisations and some of the more counterintuitive aspects of rendering

Acerola - graphics programmer who makes very detailed guides to a variety of effects with a very rapid and funny 'guy that has seen monogatari' editing style. When he's good, he's really good. His video on water is probably the best one I've seen (though I can recommend a couple of others).

TodePond - the most charming, musical videos about recursion and cellular automata you've ever seen. less programming tutorial and more art in themselves.

Ben Eater - known for his breadboard computer series, a fantastic demonstration of how to go from logic gates up to the 6502 with actual hardware. worth watching just for how clean he puts the wires on his breadboards like goddamn man

Sebastian Lague, Useless Game Dev - both do 'coding adventure' style videos where they spend a few weeks on some project and then document it on Youtube, resulting in a huge library of videos about all sorts of fascinating techniques. great to dive into

Freya Holmér - creator of the 'shapes' library, makes videos on mathematical programming, with gorgeously animated vector graphics. Her video on splines is a particular treat.

There are definitely many more channels I can recommend on these subjects, but I'll need to dig into my history a bit - unfortunately I need to rush out right now, but hopefully that should be good to be getting going with!

[not-your-bro]

Tell me rfn the kind of video games climbing class stays up until 3am grinding and getting way too invested in

OOH. this is an interesting question bc i think they have fairly different taste in video games.

chris is into games with deep mechanics, so he gravitates to rpgs, including turn-based. likes strategy games, too. as a example of his taste, chris loves pokemon, but he plays it in a way i do not personally understand, in that he's crafting the most optimal team and also not naming his pokemon. all that said, he isn't opposed to turning his brain off with fps games when he just wants to relax. in all games, he is a chronic cutscene skipper (a trait that makes josh grind his teeth). if he picks up an in-game document that he deems too long, he's like "i ain't reading all that. i'm happy for u tho. or sorry that happened."

josh plays fewer games and has narrower taste. obviously, he's into horror in all forms, from AAA down to the smallest of indie titles (tho he prefers indie). i think he wouldn't have pegged himself as a fighting game guy, but he checked out mortal kombat bc of the fatalities and got really into it. he'd be into hideo kojima games. if i can include post-2014 games bc we're just having fun here, this would include death stranding (which chris would not understand the appeal of). josh would also love the weird, wide world of elden ring, in particular how it's stripped of things like quest logs. he would really enjoy making his own physical notes (which, again, would feel like homework to chris).

now, here's what they learned they can't play together.

moody, atmospheric horror that relies more on suspense or dread than fear. josh would love silent hill games (the good ones lmao), but chris would find them unenjoyable to play and narratively confusing & boring. warning for silent hill 2 spoilers here, but i made a joke in a fic about chris getting, like, too deep into sh2 before going, "oh. did this guy do something to his wife?" and i stand by that. i think he's just like whatttt is going on and when will this be over.

competitive games that rely too heavily on luck. obvious examples are mario party & mario kart games. josh gets too fucking moody when he feels he loses unfairly, and it brings the (mario) party down. and every time he suggests them, he's like "i seriously won't care, like it's not a big deal." but it is a big deal. in his heart. if he loses fair and square, he's fine, but he hates feeling robbed by bad luck.

...and here's what they do play together.

freaky asf horror games. like, the kinds of games with moments that are gonna have "streamers react to..." compilations on youtube. ideally, chris is playing and josh is watching, bc josh loves to watch chris react to games like this, especially if he himself has played them before. nothing more enjoyable than sitting next to chris, knowing what horrors await him but not saying anything. josh has a ps4 with p.t. (which he will never, ever delete) and he delighted in making chris play that. he also made chris play doki doki literature club, under the guise of "giving him a well-deserved break from horror." good one, josh.

chris's rpgs are long as hell and he gets very into them, so when he's particularly sucked in but josh still wants to hang, josh is like ok just bring your console over and play here, idc. now, josh knows chris is a cutscene skipper, so josh spends the entire time peppering chris with questions. what's happened so far? what's going on right now? who's this guy - what's his deal? at some point, they start making shit up, spitballing what they think is going on based on context clues, but also throwing in their own wild ideas just to make each other laugh. (after chris finishes the game, they read a plot summary to see how close they were.)

i think chris is a kingdom hearts fan, but again, not the way i'm a kingdom hearts fan. he thinks they're fun as fuck to play, but he has NO clue what's going on. in fact, playing kingdom hearts as a kid is probably what triggered his aversion to cutscenes. he was like that shit goes on FOREVER, and for WHAT? i'm enamored with the idea of chris foisting kingdom hearts on josh - like, "try it, bro, it's really fun. but just skip the cutscenes they're super long and confusing." and josh is like "now, now, christopher. a lot of work went into these cutscenes. we can't just skip them. that would be disrespectful." so josh lets them roll - initially as a bit, but then they both get invested, and next thing you know they're barreling through all 983094 games together.

resident evil 4. periodt. it has stuff that appeals to them both: horror/gore for josh, more action-oriented gameplay for chris, plus short cutscenes they can both find enjoyment in, because they're either freaky or funny or both. they would lament (as did i) that re5 and re6 have co-op but are so much worse, but they'd still play them once. and they'd both love the modern remakes + new re games. josh's favorite of those would be re7, and chris's would be re2 remake.

[tobiasdrake]

UGH. YOUTUBE HAS MADE THEIR SITE TOO COMPLICATED FOR USERS. WHAT WAS WRONG WITH IT BEFORE, BACK IN 2005-2009?

Well, they're owned by Google. So. Y'know. Same thing that was wrong with their search engine.

Which is to say, Google has grown beyond the point of sustainability for a publicly-owned company with growth incentives.

The fundamental flaw of the U.S.'s growth-based economy is that it imagines a world in which an infinitely expanding revenue intake is possible to achieve. This, unfortunately, flies in the face of reality.

The way a growth-based economy works is that if your company made 100% of all money that exists on Earth this year, it would have to then make 104% of all money that exists next year. And then 108% of all money the year after that.

This is a problem that isn't apparent for small up-and-coming businesses. How can I grow my company's market? Easy. Expand my customer base. Sell more products to more people.

But there's a ceiling. A point at which infinite forever-growth ceases to be achievable through simply doing business. You already have as many people buying your product as are ever going to buy your product; There is no reasonable avenue available to turn your 50 million customers into 75 million. You've hit a plateau.

Or worse, they already bought your product last year so they don't need to buy it again this year. Why would I need to buy yearly tractors?

That's a problem, because the demands of investors do not let up just because it's not actually possible to keep growing the business by doing business. The guy who put in $30 million expects to get $45 million back out of it. Your job is to make that happen. Nothing else that the business does actually matters. Go grow the market value and get back to me when it's done.

Once a business grows beyond the point of sustainability, that's when it starts having to get creative. If you can't grow the customer base, then you need to find ways to get them to pay more money for less product. Increase revenues and decrease costs while supplying to the same set of customers you were before.

This is why the film and AAA video game industries have lost their goddamn minds. They've long-since passed the point of sustainability.

This is what CEOs mean when they say it's "Too expensive to make games." They don't mean they can't make profit by making games. They mean they can't hit their profit growth goals unless they come up with yet another new way to get the existing base of gamers to pay them even more money this year than they did last year, without proportionally increasing their costs to achieve it.

They need the line to go up. And they can no longer achieve that by doing the thing that their business exists to do.

This is also where things like planned obsolescence come from. Why would I need to buy yearly tractors? Because the tractors are designed on purpose to fall apart after a year so I have to go to the store and buy a new one. That's a solution to the "Everyone already bought my product" problem. An evil solution a problem created by unsustainable economics.

Google, too, is long past the sustainability ceiling, and it's causing them to shit themselves and reveal their true colors. Because Google's customer has never been their users. The users are the product that they sell to advertisers. Their revenue comes from getting your eyes on an advertiser's products. That's it.

And as they continue beyond the sustainability ceiling with each passing year of infinite forever-growth, they're having to pursue more and more nakedly predatory means of churning their userbase into mass-produced views.

Why is their search engine so shitty? Because if you have to search for something five times, you're gonna see five times as many ads. That's good for Google's growth margins.

YouTube is the same. Their algorithm is designed to feed people into loops. Not to show you content they think you'll like to see, but to show you content that will keep you engaged. That will make you watch the next video and the ads that go with it. It's clickbait in video suggestion form.

And it's just going to keep getting worse and worse and worse until either legislation steps in or the bubble pops. Those are the only two futures possible for a company that's beyond the sustainability ceiling. And they've gotten very good at postponing the popping of the bubble.

This, all of this, is what people are talking about when they use the term "late-stage capitalism".

[cutechickdgaming]

Okay I feel like this PSA has to be made due to the terrible news that has been bestowed upon the Octonauts fandom.

Please do not outwardly promote or link to piracy websites

I'm not a moral busybody, because I'm a believer of media preservation and accessibility. It sucks to have shows, or at least their dubs, be dependent on a streaming service's license (and their expiration) to stream them or a company being too comfortable with removing them at will (looking at you HBO Max). Like have you seen that gaming company (I forgot, probably Ubisoft or an AAA thing) saying something like you should be comfortable not owning the games you buy? It's so nasty

I'm mainly concerned about your accounts here on Tumblr. There's ToS against copyright infringement, so we can't go promoting not-very-legal methods of preservation here on this site, because sites like Tumblr obviously do not want to screw with government.

You guys got to be careful using those methods, like use something to protect you and data like VPNs (I'll be using Mullvard, I don't trust VPNs that go out of their way to sponsor YouTubers). And plus, there's other services that have Octonauts like Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video. Idk how those services work since I don't use them very much but at least you can buy the Octonauts seasons and keep them (about 10 dollars for each season, tho, yikes)?

If you guys know what to do with those services and bought the seasons (or found DVDs), check if it's the US dub, or other dubs not found fully on YouTube since that's what I'm and the majority of the fanbase is mainly worried about.

Tl;Dr piracy gets your tumblr blog nuked, be more careful, there's safer ways to preserve Octonauts US dub

[merakiui]

Ohhhh I love true crime documentaries and psychological analysis of criminals

Do you have any favorite ones?

I really enjoy watching Explore With Us youtube channel! They cover a lot of very interesting cases through an educational and psychological perspective, which is immensely fascinating to me. The Conversations with a Killer series are all very riveting as well. Listening to the interview tapes is always a chilling experience, and hearing from the people whose lives were impacted by these serial killers and what they were doing at the time or how they managed to narrowly escape death and so on is also very interesting.

I enjoyed Don't F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer. It was edited in a way that made me feel so tense,,, like I was on the edge of my seat. But it was so impressive just how many people on the internet were so diligent in their detective work that it managed to help the actual detectives catch the man who likely would have gone on to hurt more people. Worst Roommate Ever was also an interesting documentary series. I highly recommend it.

I like watching Coffeehouse Crime as well!! There are tons of unique and horrifying cases that Adrian covers on there. I like the way Adrian presents the information in each video and goes into details of what the victims' lives were like before tragedy. Sometimes true crime can often focus on the killer(s) or perpetrator(s) and not spend much time on the victim, so it's nice that Adrian is able to shed light on the victim(s) as well as present it in a way that humanizes them and doesn't just reduce them to a corpse. Because before the unthinkable, they were each human beings with their own lives, loved ones, hobbies, interests, goals, etc.

It's been a while since I've watched true crime, but I'd like to watch a documentary soon. :D usually I limit the amount of true crime I consume within a timeframe because if I watch too much it frightens me easily. ;;; aaa but do you have any favorites?

[pixelgrotto]

Monkey Nationalism

For the last month and a half my gaming life has revolved around Black Myth: Wukong. I have covered it extensively in my day job, and I urge everyone to check out our exhaustive walkthroughs, which are darn good if I say so myself. Job aside, playing Black Myth has been something of a thought exercise in how I feel about my Chineseness. This is a big, sexy Soulslike and China's first AAA game to win international acclaim, not just from the niche audiences who know what "wuxia" means, but from white people who probably assumed that this was another Japanese game at first. Put another way, mainstream YouTubers are now making lore videos for Black Myth that are explanations of Journey to the West references, and it's wild seeing them talk about Bodhisattva Lingji and why Nezha needs to be in the DLC.

This phenomenon makes me realize that Black Myth: Wukong is one of those rare products that incites pride in my Chinese heritage, despite the fact that in almost all circumstances, I identify as half-Taiwanese instead of Chinese. That's a choice (and a political one), but in spite of these feelings I still wrote a goofy Steam review of this game after my first few hours, exclaiming that it made me "adopt a Beijing accent, speak in 4-character proverbs and sip tea under chrysanthemum trees while composing poetry about the glory of ZHONGGUO."

I was probably inspired to write this review thanks to the excellent Chinese dub, which is indeed full of Mainland accents. (The English dub, for what it's worth, is also very good and full of British accents, which I prefer over American ones for something like this.) Honestly, I found myself surprised that I was so enamored, as I haven't fully read Journey to the West. My one attempt to consume the Arthur Waley translation as a kid failed, and when I listened to the Julia Lovell version via audiobook a few months ago, I found it a bit lacking. (Turns out audio isn't the best way to consume a 16th-century collection of Monster of the Week tales where the moral often boils down to "Buddhism is the best!")

I'm not alone in this regard, though, as most Chinese folks - especially those in the diaspora - probably also experienced Journey to the West via alternate media. In my case, Dragonball was the big property that brought Wukong into my consciouness (albeit via his Japanese name of Goku), and I will perish upon the hill that the first arc of Akira Toriyama's manga is actually a solid interpretation of the story. I was also oddly obsessed with the PS1 games Monkey Magic and Saiyuki: Journey West, and at one point, I attempted to make a game in Klik & Play where I edited a sprite from Conquest of the Crystal Palace into wannabe Wukong. I never made more than this sprite and a makeshift title screen, but my heart was certainly into it for that brief period.

Frankly, you don't need to be familiar with Journey to the West to enjoy Black Myth: Wukong, though some knowledge of the subject matter does help to comprehend the game's plot, which is communicated in the usual Soulslike way. By the time of the game's release, more players were probably attuned to Black Myth's controversies instead of its inspiration, to be honest. There were the mysognistic comments the devs had made, the report by IGN translating these remarks, the limitations on streamers, and the culture war that resulted when chuds decided that legitimate criticism of this game was too "woke." Amidst all of this was the fact that as one of the few Chinese games to obtain global appeal, Black Myth: Wukong naturally became a cornerstone of nationalism. "This game is China's pride and joy! It wasn't made for Westerners with DEI requirements! Blah blah!"

The discourse was deeply disheartening. Frankly, it made me not want to like Black Myth: Wukong. I'd rather support something that isn't embroiled in woman-disparaging rhetoric or tankie apologism, and when it comes to made-in-China games, I'm more partial to anything made-in-Taiwan, like Detention or any of the other great projects made by Red Candle Games.

But those games don't have the big budget and glitz of Black Myth: Wukong. They don't have a hidden ending where the Destined One transforms into a gigantic Stone Monkey and punches Erlang Shen in the face. And they don't quite have this phenomenon that's motivated consumers into mentioning Chinese mythology and culture in the same sentences where they're namedropping Elden Ring. That's something special that makes my heart shine, and once again, we return to the fact that I normally identify as half-Taiwanese.

To identify as Taiwanese is to forever be in the shadow of Mainland China, a nation that forces the name "Chinese Taipei" upon an island that it says it will claim by force if necessary. To be Taiwanese American, in my case, is to constantly be assaulted by US media harping on about cross-strait relations, and rolling my eyes at "China Watchers" who play wargames where they move pieces around a board to simulate a hostile takeover of Formosa.

Yet, political pain aside, Taiwan does have a connected lineage with its larger neighbor. And Journey to the West is one of those shared mythologies, with Wukong not only capturing the imaginations of the denizens of China and Greater China, but also the mind of just about everyone in East and Southeast Asia. There's something about a Monkey King springing from a rock that makes people temporarily unite, and I admit that at the end of 105 hours, I am one of those persons.

I had to devote a lot of time to Black Myth: Wukong because of work. But even if I hadn't been paid to play it, I'd still consider it very good. It's embroiled in kaka almost as bitter as the vehemence that spans the Taiwan Strait, but it's a fine game, say what you will about separating art from the artist - or in this case, politics from the monkey and his quest to recover Buddhist scriptures. I hope that the discourse doesn't repeat itself in time for the inevitable sequel, and I hope the devs learn from their errors and stop being shits to women.

Nezha can also show up in the DLC too, if they like.

[nullbutler]

Masterpost of Projects

Hi! I'm Null! I make way too much stuff !! Here's a comprehensive list of everything I'm proud enough of to advertise on the front of my blog! It's a lot of kuro stuff!

My COMMISSIONS are OPEN!

BLACK BUTLER : BOOK OF SPIDERS [<- watch here]

A literal season 2 MOVIE. That's right i fucking COMPILED SEASON 2 INTO A FUCKING MOVIE it's a TWO AND A HALF HOUR LONG FUCKING MOVIE. I am in no way an editing professional, but the filler is cut, the gratuitously vile scenes are either done differently or also cut, and Alois and Hannah are portrayed in a kinder light, especially with Alois's backstory being handled a lot more carefully. No original footage is added - it is merely camera tricks and framing.

"You got rid of that Ciel screaming scene and that's like 5 stars for me." -- @warmmilk-n-honey

"Truly proves that less is more." -- @pain-in-the-butler

"An actual digestible version of Season 2." - @mantomhive

2. My Webcomic: The Dead The Damned & The Devil (Read here)

What if Vincent Phantomhive came back from the dead just before his sons were sacrificed? This is a fix-it AU...kind of. Many side characters are integral to this story, like Francis and Madam Red. It's got 8+ chapters, and if you like to watch scared parents protect sad little kids, its a good read. likewise, if you already want to hug vincent, its a good read. likewise, if you want to punch vincnet in the face, it's a good...

VOLUME ONE HAS BEEN COMPLETED!!!

3. My Season 2 Video Essay (black butler season 2 is laughing at you)

watch me scream about the meta of season 2 as an exhausted season 2 fan for about two hours...it's got some original animatics, too!

4. My Youtube + some highlights such as

The Black Butler Actors OVA Abridged

exactly what it says on the tin! a 22 minute long black butler parody following what the hellish production of season 2 was actually like (and also. uh. character trauma??? somehow???)

"Cinder Soul" the angsty End-of-Contract visual novel

Sebastian and Ciel angst hours, in an AU where Ciel has quite literally lost everything. Ominous. Sad.

Season 2 Reanimation project

on indefinite hiatus -- but its still 14 minutes of technically an episode, and the ending is more 'open' than 'cliffhanger.' what if Alois and Ciel got to talk it out when they were trapped in the same body, back in episode 11? Fully originally animated (thsi is probably the largest thing I've ever made hghdfhs)

Collabs w Mel ( @weeb-cheese )

This list will probably get longer but aaa they're so cool!

Pluto video essay!

Drossel video essay!

NOT-KURO VIsual Novel

A light-hearted (?) sapphic visual novel about some ladies who LARP at garden club. On hiatus

5. Ego Te Absolvo

So what if Alois Trancy teamed up with Ash Landers and became an exorcist who killed demons? Would he be happy? Would he be free? This is a really fun fic, i've been co-writing it with @eemoo1o and its aaa!! very cool!! do be warned, it gets...darker...the longer you read it. it is an alois trancy fic after all, even if the initial concept might seem a bit silly

6. RIan Stoker Ask Blog

Don't ask me why i wanted to make this. but he's always open!

I have a number of other smaller projects that you can find by hunting through my youtube and stalking my ao3. I don't mind!! tho some of the older stuff is definitely not as good lmao thanks for reading!!

I also run @blackbutler-heritage-posts and hosted @dadbastianweek2023 !!!

[felassan]

Some more snippets of interest and insight from Mark Darrah PART 1, from a Mark Darrah on Games YouTube video where he is livestreaming playing Dragon Age II [link to Part 2] -

On Dragon Age: Dreadwolf and sort've like, the franchise in general:

A comment in chat asked ''Did you see the new BioWare blogpost about skill trees? Any thoughts on it?'' Mark replied "Yeah, I saw it, nothing particularly world-shattering or controversial there." A comment in chat then said "I wasn't a fan of how that skill tree looked, it seemed too busy" and he explained that "I wouldn't put too much stock in what it looks like, they will definitely do a ton of usability stuff, so I wouldn't be too worried about the actual visual of it".

He observed that none of the things that are presented in the lore as having huge consequences are actually usually shown as such (as having them) in the Dragon Age games. For example, if you're a Grey Warden, the Blight/Taint isn't affecting you very much, and if you're Templar spec, the lyrium isn't affecting you very much - "so it's something that I think legitimately would be good to see a bit more of".

On Flemeth's death in DA:I, chat asked "so it's possible she's still alive after what Solas did to her?" Mark replied "I mean, it's possible, if BioWare wanted her to survive the end of DA:I they could probably do that because they've sort've established the 'she can come back, somehow'" stuff [said in the context of Flemeth's DAII amulet delivery Horcrux scene].

Chat asked "Does Solas consider modern elves his 'people'?" Mark replied "I don't think Solas considers, I think Solas barely considers anyone his people, at this point." A comment in chat then said "I thought he grew a little more fond of the Dalish after DA:I?" and Mark replied "Yeah, I think he is more fond of them [then] but I still don't think he would consider them his people".

A comment in chat said "​I think it would be nice to get a game set in the ancient history of elven empire". Mark said "I don't think we'll ever get something set in a pre-Fade [Veil] world, I mean, I could see something - [cut off by in-game combat]".

Chat asked about griffon mounts in DA:D. Mark replied "What's the present time period in Last Flight in terms of year? Because I don't know how long it takes for griffons to grow to adulthood." When chat advised that Last Flight happens a year or two after DA:I, so about 8 years before DA:D, Mark replied "Oh, so maybe. I don't know how long it takes griffons to grow up".

Someone in chat expressed in surprise, "DA:D is 10 years after DA:I???" Mark explained that "I think the idea is that, I think, the idea is that Dragon Age advances at roughly the same rate as the time between the games. I mean, I guess that's not what we did in DAII, because we have ten years pass in that game, but. They've definitely been releasing new books and stuff and time has been moving forward with that".

"I don't think a silent protagonist is gonna fly for AAA RPGs. Even Bethesda has moved away from it".

Someone in chat asked, "Is it honestly possible to start the DA series with DA:D? I think it's possible to start at any of the first 3 games but DA:I seems very important". Mark replied, "They'll definitely make it so that you can onboard with DA:D. That would be a big huge mistake for them not to do that. You'd be asking a lot to ask someone to start/onboard by playing a game from 2009." He later continued, "I would say that a significant percentage of DA people, not most, but a significant percentage, have only played DA:I. DA:O wasn't an attractive game even when it came out, now it's very aged".

There has been an active decision made for the franchise away to move away from dark fantasy as a genre (like it was in DA:O) for a couple of reasons. One is that it's kind of soul-crushing for the devs to work on stuff like that. Also, that's the sort of genre that The Witcher is. DA:I was moving away and kind of differentiating itself from The Witcher. (Everything in RPG games was dark fantasy in 2009 to 2011, and now we barely have any dark fantasy games at all.)

Relating to this Mark also pointed out that with the question of what dark fantasy is, a lot of this comes down to what you consider that to be. DAII and DA:I both have lots of dark fantasy themes, but if you consider it purely from a visual perspective, he doesn't think that Dragon Age will ever visually be a dark fantasy game/ever visually be a dark fantasy game again because it has slowly been turning the level of magic up. Dark fantasy typically has very low magic, and the goal for DA for a while has been to slowly turn the magic up. "There are still definitely dark fantasy themes in there though and I think there always will be in Dragon Age. I don't think it will ever be high magic like Final Fantasy though, I think it's more just trying to get it away from the very low levels of magic, which is what we had in DA:O especially, to differentiate itself a bit."

[source]

He also talked more generally about DAII and the previous games in general. These bits are collected under a cut due to length:

Chat asked "​so, if you could ideally redo how blood magic looks in DAII, what would you replace the self-impalement with?''. Mark mentioned that he likes the way blood magic is discussed in DA:I where it's like 'these are the actions of an amateur' and you can be much more subtle (given that mind control is considered blood magic). "I think it's a little too much".

Another reason why some of the Dalish changed to Welsh accents in DAII was probably the fact that they had found a voice actor that they liked for Merrill, who happened to be Welsh

In DA:II, the wave-spawning mechanic of enemy mooks was a time saver for asset creation

Why spiders? They're creepy and otherworldly, but also common irl so there's a ton of reference material for devs to go by. They also have a 3D aspect to them without having to have flying implemented, which is good because flying is a huge design problem

Chat asked about the "Awesome Button" marketing for DA:II. Mark explained that "The idea for DAII was to have two-tiered marketing - 'frat house' marketing (it's a cool action game!), and 'tree house' marketing (for the Dragon Age 'core' [fans]). But the way marketing was run was that effectively, none of the 'tree house' stuff was done. I think it would have been fine if it had been backed up with stuff showing the more RPG elements of the game. As a result of it being all on its own all we got was confirmation from the core that this had been dumbed down for consoles, so a lot of the backlash at launch comes from just confirming peoples' fears. The game isn't so different [to DA:O] that there wasn't opportunity to prepare the audience better. And that wasn't done. I'm not necessarily super against the actual 'Button', I mean it was overdone, I'm not against it as a part of the marketing campaign, but it started to be too much of the marketing campaign. The frat house marketing wasn't supposed to push the DA core out, it was supposed to be delivered with something else, but effectively it did that. There were issues for sure"

Mark said that his biggest complaint about DAII is that one of the messages that comes out of it, to his mind, is that 'everything the Templars believe is right, mages are all going to become abominations given half a chance', because at the end of the game all the mages basically flip. "I think that could have been navigated a little more cleanly. It basically says 'better not be casting a spell and get a papercut because otherwise, demon'. It isn't that you can't make it make rational sense, but it is confirming a lot of the anti-mage propaganda"

He observed that DAII storytelling is like 'you're fighting against the sea'. He said that he really enjoyed that but not everyone did, as you lost a lot of agency as a result

A comment in chat said "Apparently, David Gaider has been saying that DA:O should get a remaster in PC Gamer". Mark replied "David Gaider has no way of knowing that, even less than I do"

A question in chat was "How does BioWare decide on the default canon worldstate?" Mark replied "I think it's a combination of, if we have the telemetry, going with the majority, and also 'we really need this person for some reason so let's write into that'. But I do think it typically goes with majority rules if that data is available"

Chat asked "Has Flemeth been weakened by putting a piece of herself in the amulet? Like permanently." Mark said "I think the answer is as dictated/needed by the story"

Regarding the piece of Flemeth and amulet in DA:II, he said "you could look at it through the 'Archdemon, Corypheus' lens and she's body-hopping, just through a more elaborate ritual probably"

A comment in chat said "We get a peek in Trespasser that before the Fall of Arlathan, the Elves were more or less Tevinter where powerful mages enslaved everyone else". Mark replied "Tevinter is basically the old elven empire, it's a photocopy of a photocopy of the old elven empire, for sure".

A comment in chat said "Do you think they write Solas too convincingly? I saw people legitimately saying he was right." Mark replied, "I think that's what you would want from a villain, I think you want a villain that you can say is right. He definitely believes that he is the only person that can fix everything. He would be a terrible manager. He would be micromanaging you to death. I think Solas believes that we are in the best possible universe currently because he did the best possible thing at the best possible moment, even when it didn't go right. He absolutely has Main Character Complex. He's probably the most Main Character cCmplex of every character ever"

A comment in chat said "it just sounds like Solas thinks the only 'real people' are ancient elves". Mark replied "you're not wrong, I think that's basically where Solas sits, maybe not if he thinks about it, but kind've his default is like, ancient elves are people, everyone else is someone who came along later and is kind've in the way"

Qunlat is a very literal languauge

"The Qunari are the youngest race for sure"

We haven't really yet interacted with any "civilian" Qunari much

The games haven't spent much time on the Qun's concept of gender roles, "so it's kind of half-baked as a result and a lot of people just find it very confusing"

The games often inject different pronunciations for place names depending on the characters' accents

In DAII, Act 1 is more like 2 acts together

Players tend to stick most to the companions that they're used to, so people don't use Sebastian very much because you don't recruit him until Act 2

A question in chat was "How come this game [DAII] is so stingy with money? I always feel like I'm barely scraping by." Mark explained "that's the point, is that, this whole beginning part up until Act 2 is about you not having enough, barely scraping by, like it's supposed to be this refugee story. Even then the balance is kind've off, because you can basically still get the 50 sovereigns in Act 1 doing mainly critpath stuff only"

A person in chat quoted lore: "According to dwarven scholars, surface dwarves may soon outnumber their underground-living peers." Mark replied "the 'according to dwarven scholars' is the perfect example of the unreliable narrator, whether that ends up being true or not, that could just be propaganda on the part of Orzammar itself"

On Branka making golems, if she's left to do so in DA:O, he said "I never got a very clear understanding of how many golems there are if she is. I always assumed it was in the hundreds, not tens of thousands. If it was the latter it would change the balance of power in Thedas dramatically"

In the current timeline, present day Tevinter and the Qunari in Par Vollen are presented as being the two strongest nations. "Everything else is kind of in balance, Orlais and Ferelden were fairly strong but then banged at each other and brought themselves down to the level of about Antiva, the Anderfels etc. They're all kind of recovering powers, though Antiva, not so much, it was never a superpower as it has always used assassins to keep people at bay."

"Tevinter was the Ottoman Empire back in the day, 'the rest of Europe worries about them and unites to stop them if necessary'. Honestly, a Tevinter-Qunari battle that was on a large enough scale would probably turn into World War One with people picking sides for political reasons. I could totally see Ferelden taking the side opposite of the one Orlais chooses."

At this point I ran out of characters in this post, Part 2 of this post can be found here. :)

(pls note that in places there is a bit of paraphrasing of the info, the best source is always the primary source with full quotes in their original context)

[source]

[agentbobr]

hey man /gn idk if you're the guy who made all those rottmnt playlists on yt (pretty sure you are) but if you are i appreciate you sm i got so many of those saved and i compiled them into some of my own

you don't gotta answer this ask but i figured i'd just let you know because this is probably the only way i can so tysm for all your hard work 🙏🙏

BROOO THE WAY THIS MADE ME IMMEDIANTLY GRIN AND KICK MY FEET AND DO A LIL DANCE :3333 LIKEE AAA I HONESTLY DIDNT REALLY THIN K ANYONE LISTENED TO EM ANYMORE- especially since i originally made them for myself so i could listen to music without ads bc youtube doesnt give ads on your own videos...

and tbh if u like em, i can always make more playlists, my spotify has like 3-4 other ones already like put together, i just got too lazy to edit it together (primarily the rottmnt casey jones one but thats also bc i couldnt settle on songs i remade it like 20 times-) so jus gimme gimme a shout and i can put em together!! :3

[drawingclementine]

Hii aaa came here to say I really really love your arttt I swear from the linework to the overall composition everything is at perfection!! I'm curious how long you've been doing art—cause seriously I hope to reach a level of art like yours one day 💙

Oooooh thank you, that's such a big compliment to hear 😭💕 (sorry in advance for the huge text)

Well you could say I've always been drawing, when I was younger it was something I used to do A LOT to pass time. I think I've started taking it more seriously around highschool where with social medias you discover a lot of inspiring stuff and wish to be able to accomplish something cool on your own. 🤔 I think visuals from video games and animated movies for sure strengthened my will to get better too.

Now I'm almost 19 and I'm planning to do a living out of my art, that's why i decided to go to an art school to learn the basics (despite despising academic stuff and being fully self-taught not knowing shit about anatomy and just relying on my personal taste if I think it looks good or not) and more for then continue to develop my art...

But tbh you can do perfectly well as a fully self-taught artist, many good tutorials are available on Youtube for free so really art school is not a mandatory thing 👍

You can also just do your own thing ignoring tutorials and "art rules" sometimes that's more freeing that anything and you can gain a lot from that in my opinion ?

Anyway I'm sure you'll get where you want to go with your art and will even end up going further than you first up planned ! ✨️

[autumnbrambleagain]

edit: rant edited to reflect how Snoot Game treats gender identity b/c i hadn't really done more than look at a few convos about it

I'm GBH, Goodbye Volcano High got like, the worst fucking shake

Disclaimer, I haven't played it (there is a very special irony in this that i'll get into in a bit), but I've watched people on youtube play it, and I think it's. Fine? It's fine. But everything surrounding this game, everything that happened to and around it, it's fucking wild. I've never seen a game get such a poor serve-up on the tennis court before.

It gets put up on the big console premier along huge AAA budget games. That's rough. A small intimate-scale VN about the end of the world as a metaphor for growing up and leaving highschool and changing and also a non-metaphor for the world ending as itself a metaphor for the new generation entering into what feels like an absolutely hopeless, pointless future (spoilers: the future is pretty fucking dire (the present is already fucking bad))?

Those are some rough themes! That isn't doomchief and master slayer punching guys! And not to denigrate doomchief! These are some ROUGH themes and the trust that those themes will be handled WELL isn't something you want to give out so readily! Those are themes that are easy to fuck up! Fair! But still. Oof!

To have your relatively small scale game put up as a launch title alongside mass-consumption AAA games. Ouch.

I'll admit: the art style was pretty rough, it's really rough on first look. I made fun of it too.

Then it comes out the MC is enby, that it deals with queer themes, and 4chan-esque folk go nuts over it. Snoot Game comes out which, apparently, seemingly, actually not bad! A lot more ironic but with serious themes handled, apparently earnestly, and it's overall... good!? Even some critical accounts suggest it isn't, at least, bad? Whichever: it comes out faster than GVH does, so it now has a parody-competitor dealing with the same themes, but not just as a JOKE but actually putting effort into it too. Like. That's the thing. Snoot Game DEALS with strong themes of growing up, of becoming a person, it DEALS with the themes GVH is saying it will deal with... and it uses the characters to do it too.

And it does it, by some accounts, WELL.

Ouch!

Granted Snoot Game is from 4chan and apparently I'm now reading one of the themes is Fang accepting they're a woman and they were just being enby to try and be different, and while it seems like it DOES handle it very seriously, and like, the game seems to penalize you for being shitty about their gender, and like, detransitioning IS a thing! I don't want to give TOO much trust to a 4chan-derived game either. I'm literally enby, but I also wasn't always enby, but like. Having a game where the message of "you were only trans because you were pressured into being different", it's, ehhhhhhhh not great no!

TBH without going through Snoot Game I can't really speak about it but Snoot Game overall isn't the main point, the main point is:

Some people are already now primed with associations and expectations, you already have a doppleganger as your competitor. OUCH.

So like.

Pretty rough.

And while Snoot Game, from the compressed summaries of it I've seen, seems to actually have honest heart and love in it in its final form, a lot of people just seem to be along for the hate-ride against GVH at this point because "eww the alphabet rainbow furries."

And then the writer has to step down because they found out she's into child por--wait, it was just 3d animations? That someone else made? That she was watching and criticizing as part of an article on how dumb video game porn is?

Oh. See, there's a difference between "the author is an active pedophile" and "the author watched a Harry Potter porn animation to write an article on the concept of video game porn," but in our modern era there's really never a distinction. Drawing something bad is the same as doing it in real life. Looking at it at all is the same as doing it in real life. If you see a woman's ankle on the street, make sure to head immediately to confession or God will judge you for the rape you have committed in your heart.

We live in such a media-literacy dead-end zone that people are calling the original Lolita book child porn. We live in such a media-literacy dead-end timeline that people are saying the only media that should be permitted to exist is happy comfort fluff where nothing bad ever happens because if you make bad things happen in fiction it means you're an evil villain :3 i'm not an evil villain, though, i don't watch bad media!

So of course it's fine to ruin careers because that's not EVIL. I didn't look at the BAD media so I CAN'T be evil. So you know, we have this modern purity pandemic of people thinking they're heroes for getting people to kill themselves because they drew or wrote "the wrong kind of thing" and are therefore EVIL and we're in a post-DnD world the cultural well got poisoned by DnD's secular take on evangelical protestantism's absolute morality of saved-vs-nonsaved. You're Lawful Good, you know you're Lawful Good. Whatever you to do Chaotic Evil people? That's fine. You can do whatever you want to them. You're Good.

Anyway, then it gets delayed to remove all her influence from the game, because at this point, even admitting you know what sex is online seems to be enough to ruin anything you touch tbh. Humanity's doing great, btw.

Like I can find twitter posts of her apologizing for "hurting people" by having seen harry potter porn. Your species is insane, just btb.

GVH finally comes out quietly and everyone's so fucking. MAD at this game. Hardcore 4chan whateverfolk hate it because there's queers and highschoolers. Other people dislike it because Snoot Game already came out and now GVH feels like fanfiction of THAT to them. They already met these characters, enjoyed them written like they were in Snoot Game, so how they come off in GVH feels worse. And you know, sure! That's a rough fucking shake when a fanfiction comes out before your actual release and it's good! For others it's tainted because a ""sex perver"" had worked on it. For others the art style and that it premiered alongside big name AAA games as a launch title was enough to slot it firmly in the derision zone. For some, because the queer community cannot NOT devour its own tail, it's doing queerness wRONG (Fang's parents MISGENDER and DEADNAME them!!! you can't put that in a game that deals with gender as a theme!!!!)

And then you have people who don't care about ANY of that, who are upset that everyone dies in the end and "your choices didn't matter", despite your choices affecting your relationships with the other characters. Granted? Sure! More actual endings beyond the end-of-the-world concert would be great! But comparing it to Mass Effect 3 where NOTHING mattered because the Reapers destroy everything and you pick one option at the end and their implied consequences before like 4 different changes to the ending came out to retcon "oh yeah everyone in the galaxy is stranded, everyone probably dies anyway, you accomplished nothing everyone's still dead" ? ?

The world's ending. That's the point. It's what you do with the time left that seems to be the point? Yeah? No? I'm not saying it HIT that theme well, and I'm not saying it actually failed at it either. I honestly think it did FINE. The criticism i keep seeing is "everyone died so nothing mattered." Buddy. Buddy. YOU ARE GOING TO DIE. Please do not let that convince you that nothing you ever did mattered.

Among all that it came out buggy, apparently, and the music minigame isn't like. Super. Good. Doesn't matter too much if you do well or not. Not greatly designed? So you know. The game also has just general internal problems too mechanically, so people without a dog in the race just don't enjoy playing it? Like, the art style was all on the creators, like, it's... it's not GREAT I'll be real! It's really weird. It's humans in those latex dolphin masks the memes weren't off base even i was laughing at it and groaning at yet another piece of media whose theme was "leaving highschool is like the world ending"

but like.

GVH isn't like. I dont' think this is some great amazing the best game ever. The art style's grown on me but in the way where you learn to ignore how it looks. But like, I see people complaining it's too whiny--wait, the characters aren't depressed ENOUGH about the world ending--honestly, honestly,

I think I like it? I haven't played it but I've watched it and I think I like it. I'm not like, this is probably the last day in a while I'll ever even think about the game, it isn't going to stick with me for years and years, it didnt' make a big impact on me--but I liked it well enough???

At this point, my default assumption at this point is if someone strongly openly firmly dislikes this game it's not at all for any good reasons--or rather, that it's not on the value of the game in-and-of-itself. This poor game was saddled with all this WEIGHT on top of it. Can you even dig it clear of this external context and examine the game itself for what it is anymore?

I'm writing all these words and like. I haven't PLAYED it i've just watched other people play it. I'm not even BIG into the game it's like... it's okay!

But oh my god I cannot get over what a fucking. BAD serve-up the game had leading to its release and just beyond. Oof. Ouch. God. That's real rough, buddy. I have never seen something get this POOR a serve. What an absolute rough, ravage, unfair birth for a thing into the world!

I think if the game congealed out of the aether (and maybe with a more... better art direction?) it'd be fondly remembered in small quantities?

Instead it's just... the actual game itself is just BURIED under all this mess.

It's fucking fascinating to me, honestly. It's far more fascinating what happened to this game than the game itself at this point, and that, too, isn't very fair to the poor game. I, too, am here not to talk about the game, to care about the game, to have anything to say about the game. I am PART of this problem I'm talking about. Instead of addressing the game I'm talking about the context that was built around it.

I'm here because I remembered the drama, looked into all the drama, then went to watch the game and, after seeing ALL of that, EVERYthing I read through to get to the game itself, actually seeing the game was just... like... for this? All of that, for this?

Huh.

[omniversalobservations]

Video Games (2023)

You probably know Jack Black from his long career as the enthusiastic star of films like School of Rock and Kung Fu Panda, and most recently as the actor who was the perfect amount of excited to voice Bowser for The Super Mario Bros. Movie. While Chris Pratt convinced me that he’s never touched a controller in his life, Black wants you to know that he is a hardcore gamer like the rest of you, something he’s made many delightful YouTube videos about in the past on his channel JablinskiGames. Now he and Kyle Gass, who together are better known as the rock duo Tenacious D, have created a musical tribute to games in their signature style, complete with a video in which a cartoon version of Black cameos in games such as God of War, Fallout 4, Tomb Raider, Street Fighter, Sonic, and Red Dead Redemption 2. This is good, actually. Black starts off singing that “I don’t play video games no more, I never play video games.” As the video goes on, it becomes clear that his cartoon persona is as plugged in as the rest of us. He makes exceptions for AAA and Nintendo games that he considers to be “experiences,” all while reiterating over and over that he doesn’t have time for gaming. At one point, he appears naked while riding the most fucked-up-looking horse I’ve ever seen. True to the experience of gaming, the animations are filled with gratuitous violence, but with a comedic tone. Over and over, he stresses: “That’s not a game. That’s an adult thang.” His song addresses how gaming is stigmatized by people who didn’t grow up with a console, but it’s not woe-is-me about it. Black is so excited to share what he loves about his favorite games, and you should be too. The music was produced by Tenacious D, which, if you’re unaware, is a comedy rock duo formed by Black and Kyle Gass, another actor who also appears in the video (only to die incredibly frequently). Tenacious D has a sizable cult following, but The Super Mario Bros. Movie has reminded mainstream audiences that Black can really sing. His performance of the love ballad “Peaches” blew up the internet, and is eligible for an Oscar nomination. Source: Kotaku

(images via YouTube)

[tianhai03]

Hi! I was curious about your study methods for anatomy/fabric folds? What are some resources you learned from, and other artists you've looked to for inspiration/guidance? Would you be open to doing personal, non-public critiques? I love the composition of your pieces and want to learn more!

hi uhhh i am very sorry to break it to you but i rarely ever do studies that isnt just. character/facial structure studies LMAOOO i used to do anatomy studies but not as much anymore and ive never done fabric fold studies. unless you count "staring at ppl respectfully on the train/video game characters from AAA games for a long time just to figure out how certain things work" as studies i dont actually do a lot of them very often.

^ an example of facial studies ive done awhile ago of my two favorite capcom guys. i took one screenshot of them each and painted them. it helps a lot to get better at drawing them (and faces in general) bc i have to be aware of what makes them look like them; the shapes of their faces, eyes, noses, mouth, eyebrows etc etc. while realism isnt really everyone's cup of tea, it isnt mine's either, but this genuinely helps a lot. it should work with other stuff like anatomy and fabric folds. i recommend trying figure sketching too if that's something you can manage.

as for resources... i dont look at a lot of those if im being honest. i just kinda look at drawing tutorials i see on twitter or here, whenever ppl put them on my tl/dashboard. but i do suggest looking at this person's profile (@/MangaMaterials2 on twitter) if you have the time, they make a lot of anatomy tutorials. i also watch this person's speedpaints (@/remarin on youtube) very often. i actually learned my shading style from watching them, and they're also very good at anatomy.

for non-public critiques, im sorry but i cant help you with that. im very busy myself and during weekdays im not home with my drawing tablet for most of the day, and that makes it very difficult for me to help anyone with critiques. im also not that good at explaining things, especially when it comes to how i draw (because i just. kinda know how to do things subconsciously? i dont actively think abt what im doing when i draw so i dont know how to describe my process). you're better off finding someone who's better at teaching :')

thank you for your kind words!! hopefully these are helpful to you!