#pillowfort crosspost

[eruscreaminginthedistance]

Finally got around to watching some post-embargo vids and I have some now updated Veilguard thoughts.

Stuff I liked:

Character creator is a standout as always. This has consistently been the strong point of Bioware's games in the last 10 years so no surprises there. The pronoun and other gender-related options are a welcome addition.

Companions all seem great. I'm sad we haven't got more Davrin or Bellara content yet, since those are the two I'm most interested in learning about. Their initial introduction in that terrible cinematic trailer didn't do these guys any favours, but seeing them in gameplay footage gives a much better impression of them. It's also exciting to see more companion-on-companion interactions and relationships.

I was put off by the voice acting in the 10 minute gameplay reveal months ago, but what I've heard so far has been much better.

Main menu looks pretty.

As an ME fan, I'm pro dialogue wheel; it's unfortunate that Inquisition turned that whole mechanic into a massive drip. This is less a thing I notice but something I hope, that this game's dialogue wheel will have a more DA2 or ME1 vibe.

Hngnggn vfjddjgfnbhn oooowowo o cloaks.

Stuff I didn't like:

The art style is not redeeming itself. Wolfheart made a very insightful point that it might be a holdover from when Veilguard was going to be a live service multiplayer game, and it definitely does give that impression. Everything is still incredibly smooth and it's clear there was a lot of effort put into making things "nice" looking. It's giving very "everyone's beautiful but no one is horny" to me. I'm on the haters' side with the Qunari; where are their textures?

On that note, oh my god. The UI and the VFX. This must have also been a result of live service elements. As someone who hates playing late-game mages in Origins because all of the VFX gives me a headache this game looks actively hostile. Does literally every single ability require flashing neon lights? Why does the UI look like a World of Warcraft meme? Why does every single interactive object glow? Wolfheart noted that even after turning everything off, a bunch of VFX elements were still present, which is tremendously disappointing. Bioware can miss me with this cocomelon for adults visual style; I just do not need all of these annoying tricks to try and keep my attention.

Also on the UI - idk man. Remember when fantasy games weren't embarrassed about looking fantasy? Remember when all of Origins menus opened up in a little book with parchment pages? Character selection took place in a little castle? I just don't get this Thing Bioware has had since 2 to make DA's game UI look cool and slick by taking all the fun out of its visual elements. I've heard it before but I've got to agree, Veilguard's UI looks like a mobile game. And again, it's so busy it's 100% gonna give me headaches.

The combat is.... I won't call it "bad". I just hate it. See above for one of the reasons why. I think I could write a whole essay on how discomfiting it is. The very very clear push (likely from EA) to have the game resemble big name titles like Breath of the Wild and God of War has taken the game in the direction of just kind of a generic hack and slash; at least DA2 married its action elements with its party mechanics and has its own unique voice. There's something in particular that sets my teeth on edge tbh. I'm watching gameplay of warriors and rogues in combat and they're pretty much indistinguishable from mages. Teleporting, fire and lightning flying about in basic attacks, just a ton of stuff that makes me cringe to look at. There's a complete lack of class fantasy there for me - why would I want to play a warrior that isn't just a big guy with a big sword? Is this a result of story elements? Why is my low level rogue demolishing entire groups of enemies ala Dynasty Warriors? In a world where the distinction between a magic person and a non-magic person is incredibly important, could cost you your life, watching a rogue shoot lightning out of their knives makes me groan. Are Bioware's efforts to make the player feel like the coolest specialist person that ever lived going to be addressed in-game? We'll have to see.

Lack of control over your own companions ala Mass Effect. I don't wanna talk about it it's too depressing.

I've noted this in the past but obviously the tonal departure from low/dark fantasy to classic high fantasy. The character backgrounds for the Rooks pretty much lock you into playing a good guy, which is a huge shame. Even if you want to pick a faction that is canonically shady or morally neutral AT BEST like the Crows, they make sure to tell you that the other Crows don't like you because you're just that good-hearted. In a faction like the Grey Wardens, notorious for taking in criminals of all stripes, you spend your background saving helpless villagers. What are the options going to be like for people who want to play morally grey or potentially evil Rooks? It's starting to look like Bioware isn't going to give you a much wiggle room to define your character out of what they need you to be.

Lip flap looks like a very mixed bag. Maybe it's just the footage but voices and mouths look out of sync.

Can't make a post without reminding everyone that Bioware isn't our friend; they've fired half the people who worked on this game and greedy producers like EA don't deserve our money.

Update: Only just came across this but phasing out inventory management? Yeah welcome back Mass Effect trilogy :/

Neutral opinions:

Other shit like the Darkspawn and overall mob designs have been a problem since DA2 so I don't see the point in rehashing it here, other than to say that I can't wait for the "DLC with the good Darkspawn designs in it" this time around.

Opening scene gives me huge Mass Effect vibes; the bar fight and the music in that scene felt very "Lair of the Shadow Broker", which I guess is a compliment.

Varric still not dead yet. Kill that old man!

Ultimately, I'm putting in prediction now that Veilguard is going to go the DA2 route of having a decent and well-loved story, but with massive issues regarding its gameplay and aesthetic that players will just have to get over in order to enjoy the game.

I'm not gonna be buying on release - first time that's been the case for a Dragon Age game since Origins; the current plan is to wait until the Christmas sales, which gives plenty of time for the fandom to either assuage my fears or implode cos the game is shit. Either that or the Solavellan content is so crisp and juicy I'll have to learn to pirate.

[elkian]

A couple months ago I was having a conversation with my mother about books and mentioned The Murderbot Diaries, and she was surprised because she doesn't usually hear me talk about reading sci-fi. I'd never thought about it that way but I can kinda see why she said that, and it made me realize something about why I like Murderbot and Martha Wells' writing so much.

I think part of the reason fantasy is my primary genre is because it requires the least amount of prerequisite knowledge to get into. Every 'verse is going to have a different way of doing magic, even if it's similar to another's, and it's impossible to know that going in.

I think I have some experiences with sci-fi that tried too hard to be "realistic" and required the reader to either know, or be willing to read, a lot about physics and rocket science and so on before actually getting into the story. Obviously this isn't a sweeping statement one way or another, but I think it put me off of reading a lot of sci-fi because it sounded like homework, basically. And I think also it tended to be a little dry in an effort to sound 'mature' - this isn't your comic book science, this is REAL SCIENCE for SERIOUS readers.

Murderbot, by contrast, is incredibly accessible to the average reader. This is because Martha Wells understands what's important to the story: TMD doesn't go into the granular mechanics of FTL travel because Murderbot itself has the baseline amount of necessary colloquial knowledge (you go into a wormhole, stuff happens, you absolutely do not want to leave the ship while in the wormhole) and moves on. 

Murderbot having the shittiest, cheapest educational downloads possible isn't just convenient to handwave nitty-gritty worldbuilding, but it is crucial to Murderbot's personality and characterization. Murderbot -all SecUnits, or at least Company SecUnits, according to Murderbot's notably unreliable narration- doesn't know shit because it was made by cheapskates to be rented to cheapskates and potentially trashed during the rental period. And there's good in-universe reason for the Company to avoid granting unnecessary knowledge to its products - just look at what Murderbot accomplished with its bare-minimum education.

(Sidenote: this concept comes up in the IDW Transformers comics, specifically More Than Meets The Eye and Lost Light, with MTOs starting with major education downloads and that slowly transitioning to them getting the bare minimum as the war raged on and they became more and more apparently expendable.)

Anyways, it's refreshing to read when the author understands what kind of knowledge is actually important to the story. If the whole thing was, for instance, from ART's perspective, the knowledge available would be different due to ART's much greater personal library of scholastic knowledge and general know-it-all personality. Murderbot, by contrast, can get away with lines like "it's an anagram (not an anagram, the other thing)" and terms like "feed device" and "fauna", which leaves the world much more ambiguous to the reader -allowing the imagination to play- and highlighting that which is and isn't important. Murderbot is an action hero in the narrative most of the time, and the writing reflects that.

(Thinking of sci-fi I did read and get into and enjoy, it's a lot of stuff like this - Mary Shelley's Frankenstein*, HG Well's Time Machine, and Isaac Asimov's I, Robot come to mind, and most of them handwaved the specific scientific elements in service of actually telling the story; the last kind of used the scientific elements to tell the story, but presented them in a way that was easy to understand and get into. Honorable mentions go to arguably Gideon the Ninth (idk if it's a scifi but it's scifi-adjacent at the least), Iron Widow, and This Is How You Lose The Time War, which all have scifi elements that are easy to absorb one way or another due to the narration.)

*I read this for class and let me tell you, if I could go back in time and beat Percy Shelley to death with a shoe before he suggested all his stupid unabridgements I would do it in a fucking heartbeat, that was the only real problem I had with reading it.

[merrilyderrily]

I'll still be over here until the site's turned to ash and dust, but if that time were to ever come I'd love to know everyone's socials so I can either follow you there or add you to my rss feed if I don't have those particular socials (plus even if it wasn't turned to ash and dust, it's still just nice to know where else I can find mutuals and lotr fans alike)!! Feel free to drop the other socials you use below, if any!

[citrusinicake]

cinematic parallels

[agentwrongcat]

My prediction for the Sims 4 Life & Death pack is that the team will announce that Nervous Subject's "real" name is Ned Specter.

[enbycupcake]

when will the bluetooth voice in my ear be the deep dulcet tones of a lovely man–

[pinkanonwrites]

I'm going to get started crossposting my longform fics on Pillowfort. it is a TREMENDOUSLY long process crossposting all my work but you gotta start sometime, right? If anyone is in need of a Pillowfort key feel free to message me, and current Pillowfort users can find me right here!

[professional-jaywalker]

G. californianus is widely present in mexico and the south of the USA. Today, one of our teacher spoke of his experiences in mexico, specifically in a region where Peyote, a hallucinogenic cacti, grows and is cultivated/used by the Huichol, a native group. 

Some of the descriptions absolutely thrilled me, other less. I knew roadrunners coexisted with zones where cold and snow could be a thing, but it always somewhat bothers me. I suppose that if i had a past life, it was not in one of these zones. I fare much better with warmer winters. It's always interesting, when in my studies, someone mention my specie. It's a strange little secret and i'm always afraid of being almost... arrogant, in seeing myself as an animal while studying them. I see my nature as psychological, a strange neurotype i developed. How could i claim to know enough through my own personal madness to see myself as an animal? Each things i get wrong when talking about my theriotype feels frustrating, because i should know better. I suppose it's just something to let go off, i dislike seeing my therianthropy as mimicry, as much as i find it unrealistic there's something so comforting about the idea of a truth, a spiritual you that you can claim thoroughly. 

It's why i can't fully decide between spiritual and psychological, I think. Just can't let go of the possibility i was more right than i even claim, even when faced with the fractures in the facade. 

[eruscreaminginthedistance]

Seen lots of talk about this going around lately so thought I'd put the sparknotes of this interview here for posterity.

Baldur's Gate-specific questions:

Swen reconfirms they don't plan to make any DLC or sequels to BG3; they made a start but didn't feel like their hearts were in it. They now have two other games they want to make instead.

When asked if they had plans for a Divinity: Original Sin 3, Swen replied: "Yeah, I can't tell you. No, it will have its proper moment. Hopefully nobody's going to leak it for us, but it's different than what you think it is, but it is still familiar enough for you to recognize that it's something that we are making."

Astarion was originally planned to be a Tiefling.

Ketheric Thorm was intended to be a companion.

Locations that got cut included Hell, Vlaakith's Palace, and Candlekeep (Dx).

BG3 characters now belong to Wizards of the Coast, not Larian.

There were apparently 24 different variations of Shadowheart getting the artifact to you (not sure if this refers to development or the release version of the game).

When asked about how Act 1 was very polished and well-received, but Act 3 had issues, he responded "Yeah. I know. Yeah, one day I'll figure that one out.".

They're currently working with Microsoft and Sony to start rolling out curated mods for console versions of the game.

Epilogue content is still being worked on. They plan to give each ending a full cinematic, and are currently working on the evil endings.

Cross-platform play is still in the works, but it's difficult to implement.

Swen's opinions on the current state of the games industry and general development under the cut:

Lots of righteous rage from Swen about the mass firings in the games industry and how they don't contribute to making good games.

"But because the ones that are making those decisions don't play the games, don't understand the ethos, they don't care about it. They don't understand that fundamental truth that that's in there. It's just, oh, well, it's a technical artist, we can get another technical artist, whatever. Also, who fires their technical artists?!"

He believes that AAA games with massive budgets can be sustainable for the industry because the audience is there, and because these types of games can fuel progression and innovation.

Believes the lists of upsides to early access is way longer than the list of downsides; "it is the model of the future. I mean, it's not only for your mechanics and your balancing, but even your story gets better. You see how players resonate, what they're after."

Swen's stance on AI is that it is a tool to speed up certain processes, but that it couldn't replace the creative elements of development. His current approach to speeding up artistic development is to hire more concept artists and writers, rather than using generative AIs. He does believe that it has a place in the future of game development, though: "I don't buy the full NPC being generated, but most likely everything will feel the same. So I buy more that there's going to be something that's crafted, and then you'll have AI that plugs into it to augment it. And it should be done in such a way that it's invisible, so you don't know that it's shifting around."

Remote work doesn't seem to be feasible for a game of BG3's scale. In their period of working from home, Swen noted that it was a much easier time for senior devs than for the juniors, who needed mentoring, and they had communication issues during this time as well.

[elkian]

Hey, all, I'm working on a little project: trying to draw and discuss my OCs by creation timeline. It's ambitious and going to be messy! Here we go.

Glow the Hedgehog is an interesting place to start this project, because Glow, technically, is not my first OC, or even my first Sonic OC. My first OCs are lost to time, crafted during my hours in proabably preschool, kindergarten and first grade and so on. Glow is the first Sonic OC whose name, design, and general deal is memorable enough to touch on.

Around 1996, I was one of many kids who desired a Nintendo 64, and had parents who could not discern the difference between consoles. (My sympathies to the modern kiddo crowd; at least we had wildly different machines by different developers and not three different Xboxes to try to tell apart.) So instead I got a Sega Genesis and handful of Sonic games that Christmas, and despite it not being what I had wanted, I fell in love with the Sonic series pretty instantly.

My earliest OCs were vague critters shoehorned into a series that, at the time, didn't really have much in the way of lore. We didn't have cable TV and I didn't own any of the comics for a good 5+ years onward, so the games and the Sonic Movie (which I copied off of the Blockbuster VHS, I loved it so much) were the bulk of any kind of storyline.

Fast forward to the release of the Sonic Adventure games, and particularly Sonic Adventure 2: Director's Cut. I was absolutely captivated, particularly with Shadow. It's probably for the best that I didn't get my own copy for years; having to borrow the game meant I couldn't play it constantly, just a lot.

Glow was initially designed as an "opposite" to Shadow - inverted color scheme, a girl instead of a boy, and so on. I kind of set her up as a romantic interest to Shadow, but it never really went anywhere; you can sort of see my first real pokings at queerness and gender stuff around this time frame, though it would be years yet before I really Realized anything about myself.

Revisiting Glow for this project made me think about her for the first time in years, and even as I started working on this timeline, I began revising. Design is iterative (a thought that popped up when I incidentally gave Glow that Rudolph nose while sketching for this very post!) and a lot has changed.

In working through my own narrative thoughts and character design, Glow underwent a transformation; Glow, now, has started as someone with a crush on Shadow, which then became a one-sided rivalry, until a good friend finally sat Glow down and explained the concept of gender envy. Glow initially was solely transmasc before becoming more comfortable as bigender, and having more fun with his own experiences. There's something very freeing about playing with one of my oldest character concepts in this way, bringing in experiences and concepts that are relatively new for me and blending them into something nostalgic.

On the more general character design basis, one of my few strong memories of playing around with Glow was with her hanging out in a waterfall, so I've decided she's also an inverse to Sonic's strengths - that is, slow on land but a fast swimmer! This lead to the idea of Rescue Diver Glow - one of the doodles shows him rescuing Sonic, and I think I'm happier leaving Glow out of the main game crowd at this point, if not completely divorced from them. Also, can you imagine helping someone at work and thinking they look like a celebrity only for all of their celebrity friends to turn up and prove you right? Glow is having a time.

'Rival' Glow was pretty wound up, but having a Genderpiphany and working through the resulting conclusions and taking charge of her own experiences more actively has made him chill a lot more. She still feels a little embarrassed about the whole thing, to be honest.

Carmen the Turtle there came up when I tried sketching out Glow's Gender Moment - initially it was Amy Rose, but by the time I started sketching I had vague ideas of Glow's more personal social circle. Most of them are still very vague, but as I worked on this project, Carmen took on a bit of life. I already had an idea for Glow having a (fake) turtle shell backpack, which in retrospect is a bit of a weird affectation for a Mobien; so Carmen not only gives him a pass, but allows for me to double the joke back. In the doodle page, Carmen is wearing a fake cat/hedgehog-ear headband to match Glow's turtle-pack.

(Above: the first piece I did for this project and possibly the first time I've ever drawn Glow. This was roughly "Shadow rant -> Carmen asks Glow if maybe she just has beef with traits she reads as masculine -> Glow tries to respond -> Glow Buffers -> Genderpiphany Moment". Honestly, it's probably funnier without the dialogue.)

I don't have a lot for Glow at the moment; as mentioned, it's been a long while and I haven't put much energy into catching up on the comics, but I had fun working on him and this project, and look forward to the rest.

And as you can see above, Glow is passing the baton to Crystal, but there's one more thing to address... ( Next )

Posted on pillowfort: https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/5856924

Posted on pixiv: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/126577471

[gophergal]

Btw y'all, I have a Bluesky account. It's 18+, and I WILL be checking who's following. Same name as here, one of y'all managed to find it last month even though I hadn't posted anything yet, which is actually pretty impressive! Kudos to you!

[yamnekodrawing]

Watercolor book notes

Recently read two books from the library and took some notes from them. Half of these books were talking through painting practices, which I mostly skimmed as it was trying to give classroom feedback and examples in a book.) They also had a section about color paint, and recommended tube paint and specific colors, but I took 0 notes from those as I prefer pan paints right now and not working on any sort of custom pallet.

These notes are probably going to be rough, but I want to get them written down rather than lost in a notebook I need to take notes for an exam. 

Oh i do want to put this note in for myself: Reminder than different colors will blend differently: ie; different reds will be more warm or cool and make different purples with the same blue - some look better than others. This goes for all mediums, you know this but the books did remind you about it - thought it was important to say it again since your current pallet only really has scarlet, magenta and brick red.

Painting the Impressionist Watercolor - Lee Boynton

it's about expressing the effect of light upon the object

SHADOW = cast shadows + Shadow mass (area on obj where light does not shine on)

LIGHT MASS = directly lit + half tones on obj (not in shadow, but not in direct light)

Exercise 1: B/W painting of: Shadows & Light using only black or a grey scale with few steps

important to distinguish shadow from light mass and see it

don't depend on color wheel for 'truth' of colors - Better to mix colors than use directly from the tube/pure - learn to mix & Make Boynton color chart

((I wish I took a photo of it now or wrote more about it. I thought the internet would help me here lol. There was a watercolor chart where you take each color, and paint it in a square, and then take the other colors, and paint it over the square (2 colors per square, your base color and the overlapping one. I think this is the Boynton color chart here and not a regular color value/tint scale which is talked about later))

Exercise 2: Colored blocks

Be aware of how different light type/sources look on an obj. Light/shadow sharpness, color of the light, light reflection

Exercise 3: Artificial light, Natural Light indoor and Natural Light Outdoor Use the same objects & arrangement looking closely at the color of the light and how its different in each scenario.,

Shadows are often deeper in color, not blacker (color or less water)

exercise 4: value scales in B& W and single color When the values are correct, punch a hole in the middle of them and use it to help pick values of objects

((further elaboration since I didn't write it in my notebook: You make the value scales on paper, and then cut out each square and punch a hole so you can hold up the square and look through it and use it to help color match the object like through a view finder. ))

Context Matters: Value of a light obj in shadow must be lighter than the value of a dark obj in light

Don't confuse "brightness" with light intensity

Color studies (using blocks) is simple & w/o detail to focus on color, shadow and light Focus on separating shadow & light & making values as accurate as possible

Analysis & Drawing - analyze the effect of light -- What kind of light? -- Direction of the light -- how does it affect each object in the scene?

Drawing (he blocks) Use the viewfinder to do a contour drawing of shape & shadows Focus on the relationship between objects

 Shock of Light Paint quickly to cover all the white paper - colors look different in context Paint the largest/main light and then work adjacently

If you get it irreversibly wrong, you can start over ((I like this book talking about the effect of light and relationship of things to each other, than trying to look at the item as a single object or broken down into parts. It's so easy to get wrapped up in trying to do color values right off, it really encourages you to do those black and white shadow vs light exercises before touching color. It talks about getting your light vision and training yourself to see. This book wouldnt be bad to add to a study collection imo))

Building Brilliant Watercolor - Judy Treman ((I didn't care for this book as much. It was not at all the style I want to do, and felt a bit "you're doing it wrong if you're not painting with tube paint". The book very much talked about doing watercolor in this artist style, which is lots of bold color still-lifes that look rather realistic. Which is fine, but none of it got my heart racing for watercolor. There were some exercises in the book which I wrote down))

Color chart

Paint a line of color of each color horizontally. (label them) Let dry Paint a line of each color vertically (let dry) Apply the color with 1 brush stroke This lets you see how they mix ((Kind of like the boynton color chart))

Better Opacity test Use a waterproof black ink. Let dry. Paint over with water color

Also learn which of your paints stain the paper or can be lifted off

dual fisting brushes can help move faster - either with a second color or just water.

[reaja]

ftr im actually not planning on leaving tumblr, they will indeed need to scrape me off their dead servers with a bbq brush when the time comes, but I will no longer be financially supporting them and I will be continuing to contribute to the stress on their servers and the unprofitability of the site until it crumbles under their terrible choices.

[zoekrystall]

Since I remembered I have a pillowfort if this site crashes or you just want to leave thx to continuous changes find me on there. Also under zoekrystall (tbf if you see that username anywhere there is a 99.9% it's me. minus on twt where it's flammelune. so yes if you want to connect on discord or smth it's also this name. would just prefer a heads up). Will likely stay primarily active on here tho until this place is no more.

For now will I also use this to point to other blogs

@savedbylove - my lovecore blog (which I continuously forget to fill the queue of)

@macabredeity - which is for horror stuff n fanart of primarily horror rpg maker games. a blog I spontaneously finally made after watching a lp of the repairing mantis which you should check out

I also got a v personal + more blog but you either stumble across it or off anon ask for it if you want to know

[taniushka12]

truly looking at my ao3 and wondering just How much i like these stories to crosspost em here + in pillowfort 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨

[specialagentartemis]

With the uncertainty about tumblr’s future and people talking about other social media, I really really recommend Pillowfort.

It has long-form text capacity, with a tumblr-like layout and tags. It has image hosting. It has the ability to hyperlink things in text. It has a threaded comments section to talk to both OP and others without getting confusing or jumbled up. It had communities before tumblr did!—and honestly I like Pillowfort’s implementation better. It has post-by-post privacy options. It has no ads, and is funded by users, not the whims of petty CEOs. AI generated content is entirely banned.

It is hands down my favorite social media platform I’ve ever used. I’m active there, and it’s a great community. Crafting, photography, book discussion, and aro and ace discussion are particularly vibrant. As well as furry artists.

I have invitation codes if anyone wants a Pillowfort invite, to check it out and maybe crosspost some of your tumblr posts you like!