#new talksprites

[grapefaygodude69]

TC: WiTh a SpLaSh PinCh oF SPECIAL STARDUST eVeRyThInG's GoOd :o)

day 164

[still-breathing-au-p3r]

The lighthearted feeling that’s sweetened the air over the past 24 hours vanishes with flashpoint speed. The atmosphere is left frozen and scorched all at once. Minato’s mouth is suddenly so dry that he tastes metal and his throat stings like he’s been breathing smoke.

It can’t be the Dark Hour. It’s supposed to be gone. 

Except it’s here, right now. There’s no alternative truth to grapple for. Kirijo-san’s assistants, unlike their boss, apparently don’t have any kind of potential– they’d transmogrified the instant midnight hit. Minato’s never seen the shift from human to coffin happen in real time, and it– 

He doesn’t know how to describe it. It wasn’t gory or torturous. It wasn’t even much of anything at all, but– he really doesn't want to see it ever again, all the same.

Junpei is the first one to shake himself out of their shared stunned paralysis.

They’d had doubts? Sure, the Dark Hour the previous night hadn’t vanished in a puff of smoke alongside the Hanged Man shadow, but Minato had felt the way the atmosphere had changed. He had assumed that it was like the heat leaving a body newly dead– just a matter of time for entropy to do its work.

Even if he’d had any misgivings, they’d been laid to rest when Pharos had visited him this morning, in the light of dawn, to say his tearful goodbyes. If the Dark Hour hadn’t ceased to exist, then why on earth would Pharos?

The silence is cracked open by a metallic boom that Minato can feel in his teeth.

There’s a low register throb in the air, the tell-tale sign of a noise that’s far away but enormously loud. It thunders into the still night again, and a third time, and by the fourth time it sounds Minato recognizes what he’s hearing–

Is there even a tower that could hold a bell huge enough to make this kind of sound in Iwatodai?

…Of course there is. But only during the Dark Hour.

Kirijo-san surges to his feet, stormy and furious. Minato has never seen him look anything but professional– his sudden anger is as jarring as it is intimidating.

Foreboding curdles in Minato’s gut. Did something…happen to them? The Chairman can’t summon a Persona, and if Aigis was still mid-repair when the Dark Hour hit, then who knows if she’d be in any fit state to fight if she needed to. Did they get caught up in whatever’s going on and–

Sanada’s voice breaks him free of his thoughts before they can spiral too far, and Mitsuru seems to snap out of a similar loop. She stands, spine regally straight and fists clenched at her sides.

Apparently Mitsuru’s come to the same conclusion as Minato, and judging from Sanada’s grim nod and Fuuka’s nervous one, they’ve arrived there as well.

The state of relaxation they’d all shared not even five minutes ago has vanished utterly, and no one shows even a trace of sluggishness as they all rise to their feet, ready to grab their battle gear and evokers. Aragaki stands up as well, looking determined.

It doesn’t sound like he’ll be taking no for an answer. He isn’t asking permission to start with, simply stating a fact.

Mitsuru closes her eyes and hisses a long sigh through her teeth.

Aragaki draws a long, deep breath– it’s almost comical how closely his concession of defeat echoes Mitsuru’s. Some of the tension drains from his posture as he lets it gust back out, his shoulders sagging.

Definitely a soft spot for Fuuka. Maybe it’s a cheap shot for Mitsuru to take, but Minato can’t exactly blame her for it.

[seagullcharmer]

too lazy to figure out how the grimdark shadow flames work lol

[satsuha]

happy lunar new year! i can't believe we finally got to see kyle's face again 🥹

[raitrolling]

ma theres a weird fuckin frog outside

[puffins-and-bears]

almost midnight but busting out the drawing tablet for the first time in like 2 months

[fantrollology]

also, lauren, whats your deal with styx? you two have some history or something?

"Sure, we have history. He did a little work for me."

[omegalodon]

I wanna get back into streaming art but idk what to work on hmmmhmhmm

I probably have wips I should finish lmaoo

[asktransakirakurusu]

Something interesting about the Inaba group and how they got their personas, it actually had nothing to do with the will of rebellion. After confronting their Shadows and accepting it, along with the parts of themselves they didn't want to admit, the Shadow would then become the Persona. It's probably not relevant, but something interesting to know

That is pretty interesting. I doubt it'll really come up much, though.

I sometimes wonder what my Shadow would be like. I know I can't have one and be a Persona User, but I sometimes wonder what it'd look like if I had a Palace, what the hell would be wrong with me and all that.

[still-breathing-au-p3r]

When Shinjiro is summoned back down to the lounge by Kirijo, he’s still reeling a little, but his head’s on a bit straighter so he can do a better job at keeping it under wraps. Koromaru had scratched at his door not even five minutes after Aki and Kirijo had left, and with him as a hot water bottle, Shinjiro is pretty sure he got more rest out of that two hour nap than he had in the entire time he’d been in the hospital.

The new coat fits like it’s been his for years instead of just a few hours. Everyone is all smiles over seeing it on him when he comes down the stairs. It’s embarrassing as all hell and he can’t hold eye contact with any of them for very long. 

Takeba in particular looks deeply pleased with herself, hands on her hips and an appraising light in her eye. Shinjiro levels the kind of scowl at her that regularly sends wannabe tough-guy street thugs scurrying like roaches, and she just smiles sunnily back at him. That girl’s got nerves of titanium, he’ll give her that.

She twirls one finger in a little circle– what, is she asking him to spin around for her? He rolls his eyes and beelines for one of the couches, making a point not to show Takeba his back along the way. Koromaru follows close at his heels and plasters himself against Shinjiro’s leg as he sits, resting his chin on Shinjiro’s knee.

Takeba laughs. Shinjiro contemplates melding with the couch. Thankfully for the last few lonesome scraps of his dignity, Junpei is easily and loudly distracted when the covers come off of the trays set on the coffee table. Immediately the air is perfumed with the sticky-sweet tang of vinegar and the clean, faintly salty smell of good, fresh fish.

Junpei makes a pitiful noise like a dog toy being stepped on, and Koromaru’s ears perk up, his head tilting to the side. Before Junpei can make too much of a fool of himself, though, the sound of tires crunching over the street outside catches everyone’s attention. Are Aigis and the Chairman back finally?

Shinjiro is taken by surprise for a second, but honestly he shouldn’t be. Of course Kirijo-san would want to be here to completely close out S.E.E.S. in person. Shinjiro only ever met him once, back in the early days right after S.E.E.S. was officially founded, though according to Aki, everyone else had seen him in Yakushima over the summer.

Kirijo-san strides in, flanked by two aggressively non-descript aides– real serious-looking types that still don’t look even half as serious as their boss. Kirijo-san hasn’t changed at all from how Shinjiro remembers him, except that maybe there are a few more grey hairs threaded along his temples. Everything else– the firm line of his mouth, the sharply upright posture, the even sharper eye– is exactly the same as it had been two years ago.

Everyone stands to go meet him, so with a sigh Shinjiro hauls himself off the couch. He ought to be polite and do the same.

The way his face softens almost undetectably when he looks at his daughter is just the same as Shinjiro remembers, too.

Amada, keeping his voice to a low whisper, asks Junpei who this is. Junpei replies with a grin and a lot less control of his volume– it should be obvious, right? After all, doesn’t Kirijo look exactly like her dad?

Amada blinks and squints like he’s earnestly trying to see what Junpei means. Shinjiro has to smother a laugh. They don’t look a damn thing alike, but Junpei’s still not wrong. They carry themselves the same way, make expressions the same way. Even after meeting him only once, Shinjiro’s already lost count of how many of Kirijo’s familiar habits and mannerisms he’s seen reflected in her father.

Kirijo-san says his piece, thanking them for everything they’ve done, even though they’ll never receive the recognition they deserve. Coming from just about anyone else, the whole speech would ring pathetically hollow.

It sounds completely sincere from Kirijo-san. He’s the kind of person they coined the phrase ‘commands respect’ for, and while Shinjiro can’t say about commanding, the man’s earned it from him at least. He’s the one person in any position of authority over S.E.E.S. who has.

Mostly this came down to him being the only person with authority who actually properly gave a shit about the gravity of asking a bunch of kids to fight this kind of battle. The researchers who had supervised their earliest attempts at exploring Tartarus– back when it had only been him and Aki and Kirijo– hadn’t sent them into the fray completely unprepared, but– they were scientists. They were in it for the science.

Then there’s the Chairman. He took the risk they’d been putting themselves through about as seriously as he took anything else. It had always rubbed Shinjiro the wrong way, how blasé Ikutsuki was about literally everything.

Kirijo-san had never said it in so many words, but it was clear to Shinjiro that if he could’ve summoned a Persona himself, he wouldn’t have let any of them even get close to the front line, much less thrown them at it.

As far as recognition goes, Shinjiro is just fine with going unsung. Even if he’d done enough to have earned it, he wouldn’t have wanted anything like that anyway. It’s just never been his style. 

He knows not everyone feels that way, but there’s nothing to be done about it. It’s just something they’ll have to live with. 

Shinjiro is brought out of his thoughts when Kirijo-san personally addresses and thanks Takeba, of all people. He’s not entirely certain what the story there is– Aki had gotten as far as telling him there was a story there, period, before Shinjiro had stopped him. It wasn’t any of his business. It still isn’t. And it’s not like it matters much anymore anyway. 

And then Kirijo-san steps forward to personally address him next, which is just about the last thing he was expecting. Standing directly in front of him like this, something seems… off, suddenly. He wonders briefly if he’d been wrong at first about Kirijo-san being completely unchanged, until he realizes exactly which detail is throwing him: it’s the angle. It isn’t Kirijo-san that’s different here.

Shinjiro has to look down slightly to meet Kirijo-san’s eye, where back then he’d had to look up, because at some point in the intervening years Shinjiro has outgrown him.

God. If everything else wasn’t proof enough that Kirijo is her father’s daughter, then that shared guilty streak would nuke any lingering doubts for sure.

A laugh barks out of him before Shinjiro can stop himself.

He catches Kirijo’s eye over her father’s shoulder. She shakes her head, her lips folded together into a thin line. Someone else might take the expression as angry, but Shinjiro knows better– he can tell she’s fighting for her life not to smile. 

He can’t say for sure, but for a moment something about the shape of Kirijo-san’s mouth makes Shinjiro think he’s wrestling with amusement, too. He never would’ve noticed it if he hadn’t already seen the same tells a hundred times before in his daughter.

God, this whole thing feels so surreal, but– he can’t find it in him to complain.

[petscopping]

DAVEPETA TALKSPRITES

These were made using screenshots I took from the new Beyond Canon upd8. Took me nearly 3 hours, so reblogs are appreciated!

[INDIVIDUAL SPRITES UNDER THE CUT]

[ghosthoodie]

omg sicily in the story mode REAL??!! my uncle’s aunt’s dog works at nintendo this is real guys

i was inspired by the new sonic game to create some silly talksprites for my captain 3!! transparents + unfinished under the cut….. :)

i may consider finishing the hero shot one…. ‘tis silly :3

[gurlgallade]

Updates on the talksprites. Four has three new friends! Still only two arms between them all, though.

[davebotlovemail]

No one seems to have done it yet so here goes!

An assortment of the new assets!

[Image ID: A rainy view of Midnight City with a heavy purple hue, there's a bright crescent moon in the background.]

Jasprosesprite and Davepetasprite under the cut :3

[Image ID: An assortment of 14 Jasprosesprite^2 and 2 Davepetasprite^2 talksprites. End ID]

[homestuckhiveswap]

New HIVESWAP: ACT 3 screenshots revealed during the first panel of this year's SAHCon. No more details available so far.

Note: the "talksprites" at the sides of the image are not part of the game.

[goosterbold]

Now that Noir Frankie's been revealed, here's the dev process on the Sam and Max streamin' S3 talksprites! I felt like we needed a refresher from our prev S&M talksprites, they were some of the first ones I'd done and had some issues I wasn't very happy with just about four years later (for instance, Bug Max was slightly transparent) so I asked Frankie if, while I was refreshing the bug design, he wanted a new Sam design, and pitched him the more Sam-like Frankie!

Frankie (@friendlyfrankenstein ) then came up with the color design (see pic 4) along with a large variety of tie designs before we settled on the 'big bloom' type tie you see here. I'm very happy with the palette he chose- aren't the colors just so vivid and fun?

I also pitched him on a Noir Sam variation, which Frankie dug! You can see me taking runs at variations on hair bc Frankie was kind enough to send me refs of his pomp unspooled in various ways so we could decide on which would work best for the Noir variation. You might notice the grip on Frankie's magnum here is a bit stubbier, this is bc the end is clipped off by where he is on screen, so I sort of just vauged in past the Sam and Max/Smith and Wesson joke symbol.

Finally, the touched up bug! It's a more subtle design change, so I tossed in an earlier bug for comparison- I tried to make this look closer to Purcell's modern digital art. I really wanted these updated TS to have much more emphasized linework bc so much of the appeal of Purcell's art to me is the lines. You can see me playing with headshapes in the sketch, but unfortunately every variation in action more or less looked like a bobbing dick. This is the danger of a tube based character, unfortunately.

Likewise, for various reasons (mostly it being hot as hell over here and me being fucking wiped bc of it), these sketch alts for the bug never came into fruition, so it goes!