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mingtinys · 1 year ago

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what dating seventeen feels like

pairing : seventeen x gn!reader

headcanons , fluff , misc

warnings : none

word count : 1.1 k

requested ? no

a/n: just a small collection of the things i love in life that i associate with seventeen

choi seungcheol

falling asleep on the couch and waking up in bed. chocolate-covered strawberries. the kind of love found in romcoms. expensive dinner dates and champagne.

cologne that lingers on your clothes and bed sheets. tight, bone-crushing, hugs. his hand almost always under the hem of your shirt, skin to skin (it grounds him). him letting you win when you play wrestle. cute aggression victim.

having a rock to hold on to amidst a raging current.

yoon jeonghan

diving under a crashing wave to find calm, gentle, water. rollercoasters with big drops. feathers. lavender fields. leaving the theater and realizing night has fallen.

always saying the same thing at the same time (it scares seokmin). naps on the couch. sending each other pictures of weird-looking animals with the caption "you" or "us." partners in crime. braiding his hair.

having not only a boyfriend but a best friend in jeonghan.

joshua hong

warm blankets, fresh from the dryer. pancakes and orange juice in the morning. raw honey. the scent of freshly baked bread. scented candles and wax melts.

lives up to the gentleman title. opens doors, bides by the sidewalk rule, lends you his jacket, etc. acts! of! service!! fighting over who pays the bill (he's actually ambushed your waiter to pay before you can even see the check). domestic, mundane, slice-of-life type of love.

a honeymoon phase that never ends.

wen junhui

walking down empty streets without a care in the world. morning cartoons. clingy cats. ice cream for dinner. frozen pizza with red wine. airport liminal space hours.

taking pictures of sunsets to send to each other. doodling on his hand. staying up until 3am accidentally. back hugs galore. resting his chin atop your head. him getting as close as possible when showing him something on your phone (i'm talking cheek smooshed up against yours). sleepy jun asking for kisses every morning.

living life in the moment because you know the future can wait for you two.

kwon soonyoung

energetic snow days. sledding, snowball fights, building snowmen. energy drinks and all-nighters. watermelon sugar. summer bonfires. the ambiance of muffled music through club bathrooms.

zoo dates. always wins you the biggest prizes at carnivals. his favorite place to nap is your lap. sweaty post-dance practice hugs. he gets pouty if you start a tv show without him. baking brownies at 3am. talks about you non-stop to anyone who will (or won't) listen.

excitement that isn't momentary or overwhelming. excitement that makes life meaningful.

jeon wonwoo

tulips blooming in the spring. waxing gibbous moons. amethyst. resting after a long, busy day. the scent of old, yellowed books. rhythmic clicking of a keyboard. warm, smooth, riverbank stones.

re-adjusting his glasses for him after every kiss. let's you design his character's outfits in video games. tells you about the book he's reading like it's gossip. he's always taking candid photos of you. quiet mornings. elderly couples who see you two are reminded of how they fell in love.

defining love not by how much it's said, but by how it's felt.

lee jihoon

thunderstorms that lull you to sleep. shiny, red guitars coming to life with smooth melodies. the crackle of a fire. rosemary. empty highways at night. lightning that strikes twice.

morning coffee dates at home. napping on his studio sofa while he works. quality! time! absolutely spoils you every chance he gets. pretends to act all cool when you catch him staring. writing songs for you. his hand routinely finds your knee when he's anxious. he prefers intimate and private acts of affection to the alternative.

cherishing all the little things that make your relationship important.

lee seokmin

wishing on dandelions. blue skies. morning dew on grass. golden hour. that burning sensation you get in your lungs when laughing too hard. iced lattes.

always asking permission to kiss you. so, so attentive. falling asleep on facetime. pillow forts. lots, and lots, and lots of nose kisses. him never wanting to leave you in the morning. "five more minutes" type of guy. his favorite feeling in the world is making you laugh.

finally knowing what it means to love someone so much you'd give the world for them.

kim mingyu

sleeping by a window with the sun warming your skin. hearing your favorite song on the radio. silky white sheets. first date jitters. first love. receiving a bouquet of roses.

admires you so, so, much. talks about you 24/7, much to his members' annoyance. (jk, they love you, they just like to tease him about it). literally a sponge the way he starts picking up your habits and slang. he's physically incapable of rejecting your puppy-dog eyes. likes to lay sprawled out on top of you. he'll often seek you out if he needs a little extra support.

the feeling that comes with knowing you've found "the one."

xu minghao

the autumn leaves changing. winter constellations. a solar eclipse. the quiet of a house before everyone wakes. those cozy granny-square blankets. white wine. laughing at scary movies.

wine and painting nights. him always making two cups of tea. art museum dates. swaying together to music in the kitchen. him secretly being a sucker for your doting. has your mannerisms memorized and prides himself on it. somehow always knows what to say when you're feeling down.

growing, learning, and experiencing life alongside each other.

boo seungkwan

warm, summer air. mystery flavored lollipops that somehow taste like every flavor all at once. rosy red cheeks.

teasing each other and inside jokes. nicknames like loser, stupid-head, idiot etc. (affectionate). hours long gossip sessions. kisses that taste of coffee and tangerine chapstick. stars in his eyes whenever you're doing literally anything. having his undivided attention.

resident happy pill and mood-maker seungkwan knowing he can let his mask fall around you without judgement.

hansol vernon chwe

watching city lights blur past in the passenger seat of a car at night. cereal at 1am. falling asleep while watching tv. poorly handmade, yet meaningful gifts. assorted candies. buying road trip snacks.

communicating with a single look. ice cream dates in the middle of winter. speaking purely in movie and tiktok references. late-night conversations that take a weird turn. (you've once debated if aliens would like pineapple on pizza). pretending not to notice how shy he gets when initiating physical affection.

loving the strange, bad, and hidden parts of each other as much as the good.

lee chan

the comforting buzz and motion of a subway at night. toothy smiles. watching reruns of your favorite childhood show. surprise parties. the first snow of the new year. concert lights.

driving at 2am, singing at the top of your lungs. random dance parties in the living room. getting noise complaints and giggling about it. pillow fights and board games, competitive, yet both trying to let the other win cause it'll make them happy. asking him to open jars. him getting exceptionally giddy to open said jars. (you're completely capable, but know he likes to feel needed).

making each other's inner child feel safe.

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kozachenko · 2 months ago

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Well since I'm alive again I might as well post some of the art I did during my hiatus, and since I was talking about Keiki in my last post I might as well start with this piece here that I did of her. (click for better resolution)

Artist's Notes;

Ok so I remember having the idea for this a while back and wanted to try going for a very monochromatic palette. I also wanted to generally keep the background very minimal, mainly so the lighting and Keiki herself can stand out.

As for Keiki herself, I mainly stayed on-model with her design... minue the glowing hair, which, I'll get to that in a moment, but yeah I mainly just wanted to focus on making the pose readable. As for the flame hair, I mainly did this because I thought the potential lighting scenario it could make would be fun to play around with. I also wanted to try out rendering flame again and I think the lighting around Keiki's face is my favourite part of the piece.

I applied this technique with flame rendering to the human spirits near the bottom of the piece. I used the lighter parts of the flames to represent some vague skeletal structures, and their faces are inspired by a Salvador Dali piece (it was called something like "Flaming Giraffe" idk) but that's where the surrealism inspiration ends.

Don't worry though, I do have some art of Keiki that I did a little after this piece where I make her look weird. This piece was before I made some changes in my stylization, so I consider this the last of an era of my style. This is also before I found a new way to render hair, which you'll see soon, don't worry, I plan on just dumping all of my art I did up until this point and then going into hibernation again.

Speaking of, I might as well set some expectations for my posting schedule right now. Due to life keeping me busy, as well as my mental health and enjoyment of art, I won't be posting every time I finish a new piece. I started to enjoy drawing so much more again during my impromptu hiatus, and I want to keep enjoying that feeling for as long as I can. If I post stuff any sooner or later, it'll probably just be dependent on my mood that day, so expect me to kinda just spawn in out of nowhere every now and then.

Now then, I will once again pray to whoever is up there that Keiki will do something in Touhou 20 because I am still holding out hope she will appear again. Like, she was made as an allegory for AI and robots and considering today's world she would be perfect to bring back for this. Please, Zun, just bring her back and develop her character more, us Keiki fans only have Touhou 17 and that's it, she never appeared again, and you set her up like she may come back so please just let her return or do something at the very least please-

#touhou project #art #fanart #touhou fanart #keiki haniyasushin #touhou 17

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cripplecharacters · 9 months ago

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hello! feel free to ignore me if this is slightly outside the boundaries of this account, but i'm a tabletop roleplaying game (ttrpg) designer looking for opinions on mechanics for disability in games.

my game specifically covers a lot of themes that, while not about disability, would make me feel remiss to not include some explicit mention of how physically/mentally disabled characters fit into the greater picture of the game. it has a specific focus on telling stories of diverse characters, for one, and on fighting the unfair capitalist systems that harm these marginalized groups.

my issue lies in how, exactly, to both treat this topic respectfully and make the characters not feel out of place or unbalanced. i've considered several options, and was curious to hear from a physically disabled perspective how to proceed (i am mentally ill & neurodivergent, but to my knowledge not physically disabled).

option one: mention that disabled characters of all kinds are encouraged, and talk about roleplaying them or provide resources for how to handle them respectfully, but don't apply any specific rules with hard mechanics or numbers to them. this option is least likely to be inadvertently misconstrued or written poorly on my part, but may make disability feel like a "flavour" side note.

option two: provide examples for some common disabilities on the mechanical effects (such as a low vision character rolling less dice on rolls to notice visual details) without any "counteracting" mechanics. this one gives mechanical weight to disability, so it feels less like an afterthought, but may discourage people from playing disabled characters as they would be more likely to fail than other characters.

option three: the above, but with mechanical incentives for roleplaying in a way that acknowledges the character's disability. a "benefit", but less "giving a blind character echolocation" and more "gain XP for showing your characters disability and any aids they use" (similar mechanics exist for following your character's goals/personality traits). this would make disabled characters be more on par mechanically with other characters, but i fear it may come across as... viewing disabled characters as not worth it without some sort of benefit, i suppose?

apologies for the long rambling message, but i'd love to hear which of these options (or another suggestion) you'd be happiest to see in a game written by someone who isn't physically disabled! this is far from the focus of my game, but it's still an important part of the greater theme that i'd love to be able to get right. thanks! (similarly, if there are any groups not covered in the "underrepresented but common disabilities" post from your FAQ that you'd want to see in a game, i'd also be happy to hear those!)

Hello!

First things first, thank you so much for thinking about this! This isn't something that most TTRGs consider and, as a massive nerd who plays DND, Pathfinder, and other tabletop games, this has always been a big pet peeve of mine since making a disabled character is always unnecessarily hard to do with the game mechanics and rarely works out well.

Most of the time, I have to talk to my GM about how to make it work in their game and, unfortunately, I'm often told they won't allow it because it's "too much trouble".

This is all just to say, I really love the idea here and the fact that you're actually thinking about these things and wanting to do well by them is great!

Now, taking a look at the options:

Option One

One of the unfortunate things that I see a lot is people that are too scared to get something wrong with representation (Or social justice on a broader scale) that they don't try to do it at all. With this current era of cancel culture and people's reactions to what they deem 'offensive', it's understandable to be a bit apprehensive but if you're approaching the subject from a place of respect and you're receptive to learning and improving, most people will appreciate the effort.

While this option does sidestep the main issue you've identified, I do think it sidesteps the attempt at making disability part of your game as well. You can encourage people to make disabled characters all you want but without any real content for them in the game, it won't do much.

If you do go with this option, I'd strongly suggest including some information on the culture of your world and how it relates to disability, both to provide more substance to the content and to give players a bit to go off of when making a disabled character.

Option Two

I like this option much more than the first one, though I do agree that it may discourage people from choosing to play a disabled character.

Within the game mechanics, I think it makes a lot of sense to have these kinds of effects but I would encourage you to include more variety with it. Disability isn't 'one size fits all' and two disabled people can have different needs, strengths, and experiences -- even if they have the exact same disability. Instead, I'd suggest going for a slightly different model that includes more choices.

For example, a character with low vision may:

- Roll lower on perception checks involving vision

- Have disadvantage with ranged weapons/attacks

- Have lower rolls/less success in dim lighting

Do you see where I'm going with this?

Having more options for how the character's disability affects them allows players to make a choice for how they want to play the character while also encouraging them to think more about how their character's disability might affect them and impact their life.

The examples given are all reflections of how blindness can affect somebody. Blind spots or blurry vision can make it more difficult to notice certain visual changes, severe nearsightedness can make it difficult to aim/focus on things that are far away, night blindness can make it difficult to see in the dark or in dim lighting, etc. That being said, there are dozens of other ways to go about this (Though I'd advise sticking to five options per disability at most to avoid overwhelming people).

Option Three

Personally, I like this one and the second option the most. Although I understand where your concerns are coming from, it feels less like it's implying that disabled characters have to be 'worth it' and more like it's just balancing it out.

Like with the second option, I'd suggest going for more of a choice model here where the player can pick what 'benefit' (For lack of better word) that their character has -- or even to choose no benefit at all.

Many physically disabled people develop our own skills or tools to compensate for where we struggle, whether this is an intentional decision or just something that happens.

For example, my boyfriend is paralyzed from the waist down and uses a wheelchair full time. As a result, he has kick-ass upper body strength from it.

Similarly, many deaf and hard of hearing people are more observant when it comes to visual cues and many blind people are more sensitive to other senses (Though, of course, the whole 'super senses' thing is a myth).

While this isn't true of all disabilities or all disabled people in general, it is something worth considering.

That being said, if you do decide to implement this option, make sure that the benefit makes sense for the disability or is related in some way and isn't just something random being tacked on -- that would make it seem more like a 'disabled characters need to be worthwhile' thing.

As a few extra notes:

If you go with the second or third option, I'd suggest separating the different stat effects into different types of disabilities. You don't need to go too into specifics with it but something like 'low vision/blindness/vision loss', 'deafness/hearing loss', 'limited mobility', and 'chronic illness' would work. While disabilities are more nuanced than this in real life, setting it up this way would keep it pretty simple and allow players to tweak the mechanics slightly for their own characters.

If you go with the first option, I'd probably avoid discussing how to roleplay disabled characters. Because roleplay and character development is much more open than stats and game mechanics are, showing one or two 'proper' ways to play a disabled character is more likely to reinforce stereotypes, dismiss certain experiences that disabled people have, or just come across as more of a 'lecture' than anything. The same goes for including information on what to avoid. I'd stick to providing information about your world and how disabilities are seen in them instead of giving instructions here.

I'd suggest including ways for players to bypass the mechanics of disability if they'd like to, even if their character is disabled. That would allow for a bit more freedom with how they portray their character and would also ensure that they aren't being 'penalized' (For lack of a better term) with their stats for playing a disabled character. As a bit of an example of what I mean: A character in DND could have been a criminal growing up without necessarily taking the Criminal/Spy background.

In general, I think as long as you're approaching this respectfully (Which you are!) and reaching out to physically disabled people for their input (Which you are!), you don't have to worry too much about misrepresenting it.

Cheers,

~ Mod Icarus

#mod icarus #anonymous

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dr-spectre · 11 days ago

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Splatoon & Me.

A discussion about my personal history with Splatoon.

So... 10 years huh? We did it, 10 whole years of this franchise being a thing. I honestly can't believe it's been this long since it began, i was in primary school when i first laid my eyes on Splatoon and now I'M A GOD DAMN ADULT! That's.... really scary to think about...

Basically, in this blog post I'm going to be talking about where i was during each Splatoon game and it's respective dlcs, this won't be a retrospective review sort of thing where i review each game, but rather I'm just gonna ramble about each game and dlc and just... talk. It is sort of a retrospective but it's more of a personal one.

I highly encourage you guys to chat and just ramble away about your relationship with the franchise.

So, without further ado, let's talk about where it all began...

Splatoon 1.

So, to give some context, i did not own a Wii U during it's run, i only got one in 2025. However, around 2014 to 2015 is when i first started actually following Nintendo news, i was around 10 years old and i had an iPad where i got to see news and updates on different Nintendo things.

I still remember my initial reaction to Splatoon somewhat, even after all of these years, i remember seeing the orange ink and the squid swimming around and my brain immediately went "OH IS THIS SUPER MARIO SUNSHINE 2?!?!?!" And then... She popped out of the ink. And it showed the gameplay and i was very, perplexed yet, curious... I saw some of the E3 footage of people trying out the game and it intrigued me so much. The bright colours, the character designs, it was something i wanted to get my hands on, yet i didn't have a Wii U and i didn't want to explain what a Wii U was to my parents. We already had a Wii so... yeahhh it would have been a mess you know? (Wii 2 was right there Nintendo...)

I looked at Splatoon from the outside, seeing all the content, seeing the idols. I didn't think much of Callie and Marie at first but... Well... In years time that would change, dramatically... I saw all of the ancient memes and people talking about white ink and i barely knew what that even meant at the time. Back then we just barely talked about sex ed so white ink was a weird thing to me LMAO!

I remember watching Etika talk about the game and the apparent rumour that Nintendo invited Playboy bunny girls to play the game early as a promotion, i swear to god that was a thing but i barely remember it. I remember seeing all the creepy shit within the story mode, the friggen screams and odd sounds in the boss rooms.

I talked about Splatoon with my friends at primary school, discussing how it would feel like, what weapons we wanna try out... Man... They were simple times. Snack time and lunch time were just friends and i discussing on a table what we thought about recent gaming stuff.

But now, i have a Wii U and it's basically my Splatoon 1 machine. Sure, i played some Bayonetta 1 and 2, some Wii games, but my Wii U is my Splatoon 1 machine, and let me tell you, Splatoon 1.... It's.... It's PEAK!!!!!

THE STAGE DESIGN? THE BEST OF THE BEST! It feels like you're going around a playground, so many paths, so much verticality, so many little details and things to see. it's really really dense and i love it. I love the way the weapons look in Splatoon 1, they are so cartoony and colourful and... yummy looking? That's the best way i can describe them. Callie and Marie greet you when you boot up the game so it's automatically the best Splatoon game by default /j

The hero mode? Octo Valley? It's really fun and cute. Seeing where the series began is very neat. It's just a simple tutorial with some interesting ideas and bosses. It's actually good and tells it's simple story in the most Nintendo way possible, unlike a certain canyon of the octopus variety....

DJ Octavio is really funny and his boss fight in Splatoon 1 is my favourite boss fight in the entire series. The music across the board be banging, Octo Valley is really cool and a good single player experience. It knows what it tries to be, it has a simple story that's neat, it's just nice, nothing crazy but it's just nice.

Splatoon 1 still holds up in my eyes, if you have a Wii U and you somehow don't have Splatoon 1 then what the fuck are you doing!!! IT'S LIKE 10 BUCKS ON EBAY! YOU CAN PLAY THE GAME ONLINE WITH PRETENDO! GO DO IT!!! IT'S MORE ACTIVE THAN SPLATOON 2! GO! IT'S REALLY FUN!

"B-but i don't wanna mod my console!" YOU'LL BE FINE!!! IT'S OKAY! TRUST ME YOU'LL BE OKAY! Go play Splatoon 1, you'll have a really good time!

Speaking of having a good time... NOT! It's time to talk about... IT. You know the game... The game i give a lot of shit, for legit and... well.. petty reasons but, if we are gonna talk about Splatoon and celebrate it's 10th anniversary, we have to talk about-

Splatoon 2.

Oh Splatoon 2... i have... mixed feelings about you. What you gave me was access to a series i would fall in love with, you gave me these amazing memories and make me look back on a time where i can look fondly on. but you also gave me pain... anger... stress.... sadness... you gave me these sharp stinging pains in my chest when i saw... her. What you did to... her. Cause me genuine chest pains and it would get so bad that i couldn't do things i wanted to, you ruined a holiday break for me because my brain became obsessed with... her. The echoed singing ringing in my head, the stinging, i couldn't handle it, i couldn't even look at... her. Anymore, without getting the stinging and tingles in my chest. I couldn't stop thinking about those awful events that your story mode told me happened, the fucking vile events that are so engrained within the community that it has taken years to get out, yet it's still there... It won't go away... The god damn pain was so strong and i couldn't figure out why it was even happening in the first place. Why, why... her. Why did i feel so strongly about this character that everyone treats poorly? Why...

Your story mode, I will NEVER forgive, I can't do it, i can't sit beside and listen to the loudest voices say things i so strongly disagree with, i can't watch lore videos anymore, i cant....

But i can't hate you anymore man, i just don't have the energy within me to continue to bash you down and treat you poorly. I wanna love, not destroy. So i will, for a brief moment in time, say wonderful things about you.

I remember before i got this game, i got the Nintendo Switch 4 days prior on Christmas, i got the console, Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and... Sonic Forces... Hey i didn't pick the game okay? I wanted Sonic Mania but my dad and i had no idea it was a digital only title.

But even after all that, my dad gave me a question, one simple question. "What would you like for your birthday?"

I only had two choices in my mind, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, or Splatoon 2.

I chose, Splatoon 2, i badly wanted to play Splatoon since it came out and when i finally had that damn case in my hands... Oh i fell in love. It felt like fate... The game so smooth, it was so fast, so fun, it was a shooter the likes of which I've never played before, i loved the way the game looked, the way it felt, the Inklings, just, oh my god it was like everything clicked in my brain. The music, the visuals, it was so gooodddddd.

Splatoon 2 as a multiplayer game is really really good, not AS good as Splatoon 1 but its very close. The stage design is fantastic and continues off of what Splatoon 1 did, the new weapons like the dualies are so bloody good and the weapon is now my main weapon that i use along with the roller. The music in stages is fantastic too, the visuals for a Switch 1 launch title is really really GOOD! I can give the game it's praises because it does have some really great shit in it. It's not all bad.

And how can we forget, Salmon Run, oh my god i LOVEEEE Salmon Run. One of the best things Splatoon ever introduced and it got it's start in Splatoon 2. I love the salmonids, i love some of the maps and i still miss Ruins of Ark Polaris, one of the most interesting stages that has been designed in the series.

And you know what? The story mode has some cool shit, I love the vibe of Octo Canyon and the background music. I love all the decorations Callie put up. Tidal Rush is a banger and anyone who disagrees I'll just look at you funny.

I played the story mode on an airplane ride and then finished off the final area in my hotel. It was a really cool experience... for a time.... I enjoyed it. At the time i didn't make much of Callie and the shades. I just thought they were direct mind control glasses or some shit. Man.... funny how things change...

And speaking of Callie, this is when uh... the Idol obsession began... this is when the seed was first planted.... I want y'all to remember, I was 13 to 14 when Splatoon 2 was a thing... What do you think happened when i saw a bunch of cute girls WHEN I WAS A TEEN BOY!?!? YEAH! YOU CAN FIGURE IT OUT! I wasn't as obsessed with them as i am currently, but i was interested by them, i liked seeing them. Marina captured my heart and definitely uh... influenced me on the type of women that i like... I'm not gonna elaborate on that point...

I so badly wanted the Pearl and Marina amiibo back then but i couldn't get the courage to ask my parents to buy it or ask any EB Games employees if they had stock left.

And this leads me to another thing that i wanna talk about Splatoon 2, this is when i started interacting with other fans online, some of the interactions were fine, but most... i regret... I made a lot of mistakes, did a lot of cringey shit, when i think back to those times, there are little diamonds in the rough but it was mainly a lot of bad shit and i did things i just hate thinking about. I remember being in some call on the bloody NINTENDO SWITCH APP and there was this girl who pretended to be Callie and she would speak in this high pitched voice, and we did uh, roleplaying, i barely remember much but i would rather not talk about it and the other things my brain barely remembers.

I was a teenager, i did stupid teenager things, I'm a better person because I'm not a dumb stupid fucking moron teen anymore and i never wanna think about the shit i did and saw during my teen years.

I think because of that, my thoughts on the game have soured because of the stuff i did as a teenager. Although i can't remember it well, i still remember myself being very cringey.

I don't hate this game, in fact it does a lot of things better than Splatoon 3. But i hate how this game gets praised just to shit on Splatoon 3 because people have rose tinted glasses and forgotten how bad this game can truly be at points. The non story parts of this game are fairly solid, i can admit to that and i wanna celebrate those parts.

Splatoon 2 i fucking LOVE you and HATEEEEE you!!

Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion.

I mean, what is there to talk about that hasn't been talked about already? It's Octo Expansion, the widely beloved single player mode, the number 1 thing Splatoon 2 has over the other two games, the single player mode that everyone has come to agreement is the best in the series, and you know what? I agree too! Shocker i know!

Octo Expansion is fantastic, the atmosphere is brilliant, the ost is probably my favourite in the series, Agent 8 is a cut above the other protagonists because of the memcakes and how much mystery surrounds them. The chat logs which gave Off the Hook so much development it's insane, the difficulty, the final boss, oh my god i LOVE this campaign!

I think the main reason on why this mode is celebrated so much is because it appeals to Splatoon fans the most. It's challenging and doesn't hold back. You WILL die a lot in your first playthrough. But it's not unfair, most of the time, it is challenging but fair... MOST of it.

Like genuinely i will never, EVER forget my first experience playing through the finale of Octo Expansion, the twist of Tartar trying to blend you up and Agent 3 coming in with the SPLATOON 1 MUSIC! THE METAL GEAR SOLID LIKE STEALTH SECTION! NASTY MAJASTY! SHARK BYTES AND USING THE INK JET?!? OH MY GODDDD! It's so fun and hype.

Sanitized Agent 3? The only mind control plot in a piece of Splatoon media that i ACTUALLY LIKE and don't find it incredibly disgusting, vile, stupid, poorly written or wasted potential. The fucked up remix of Splattack, seeing your Splatoon 1 character FIGHT YOU? The first time in the series where the games celebrate the past and try to remix it in a unique spin is so fucking cool.

And... Fly Octo Fly... brother. Oh my god. I listened to that song over and over and over and OVER AND OVER AGAIN! It is probably the best final boss song within the entire series and i don't think I'll never get tired of it.

Octo Expansion is a god damn treasure, it is a miracle that it came out as well as it did. Sure, it is short and it does suck that the really cool development for Off the Hook is pretty much skippable, but i don't care. Octo Expansion is like the dessert that saves a mid meal you just ate. And speaking of saving the best things for last...

Splatoon 2: Final Fest.

I wanna say my final words about Splatoon 2 and briefly talk about the Final Fest because i did play it when it was happening.

I remember the build up to this last Splatfest being really intense considering how the previous final Splatfest influenced things and it brought up a lot of interesting debates within the community. Is a world of chaos truly better than a world of order? A world of order would keep everyone safe, but it would be very strict. A world of chaos would allow anyone to do whatever they want, but it would also have a lot of violence and no rules to govern what is right and wrong.

However... What really influenced me to pick the team that i ended up picking was down to a YouTuber's words about the matter.

"Its kill or BE killed, the strong survive!" And who said that? Well... It was Etika. I fucking loved that man's content, so one of his last streams stating that he was on Team Chaos and his tragic passing made the choice obvious. I still miss that man today, it feels like there is this hole that he left and i don't think it will ever be filled ever.

I joined Team Chaos and i fought HARD to make sure Chaos would win. And seeing MC. Princess Diaries and fucking PEARL COMING IN TO USE HER PRINCESS CANON!! OH MY GOD THAT WAS HYPE AS FUCK!!!!

Ultimately, after all the battling and war... Chaos won, and the dialogue that Pearl and Marina said to each other was just... Oh my god it was so fucking CUTEEEE!!! It was a great end to a game that allowed me to join the fandom.

Although Splatoon 2 gives me a lot of... anger, there's still a lot that i love and cherish about it. Everything to do with Off the Hook, Octo Expansion, the stages, the new weapons, oh my god this game did a lot of good things, and i would rather remember Splatoon 2 that way, over the feelings of distain and pure rage i have over the writing that hero mode provided.

Splatoon 3.

I mean, i don't have to say much about Splatoon 3, i made a whole ass blog post about it in the past just before the Grand Fest happened, but i wanna still wanna talk about it.

Splatoon 3 is my favorite game out of the trilogy and I'm gonna defend it no matter what. It feels like Splatoon at it's most polished gameplay wise, it feels somehow smoother and faster, the new movement options while at first being nothing too crazy, actually transform how you move around the stages and are a MASSIVE game changer. You cannot go back to older Splatoon games after experiencing Squid Roll, it's just so hard.

The new weapons like the Splatana, S-Blast, Stringer, Douser Dualies, etc, are really unique and introduce interesting ways and playstyles. I love the god damn Decavitator dude. What an incredible weapon with a funny concept and brutal name.

Salmon Run gets some massive improvements and it's so so so FUN! I love the King Salmonids so god damn much dude holy hell. And once we got to fight ALL THREE OF THEM AT THE SAME TIME!?!? PEAK! PEAK PEAK PEAK!!!

I remember when i got this game at launch, i had to go get a haircut after school finished for the day and let me tell you, it was fucking unbearable, i knew that my copy of Splatoon 3 was waiting for me at home yet i could not play it. I think the funniest part of that day was explaining to my dad what the fuck a Splatoon is, he never really gave it much thought when he got me Splatoon 2 so he must have forgotten what it was and my brother and i just stared at each other when he asked "what's Splatoon?"

But let me tell you... when i got home... Holy mother of god i grinded out ROTM like no tomorrow dude. I had so much fun and i was completely hooked. Sure i got spoiled that Deep Cut were gonna be boss fights and Mr. Grizz was the true antagonist thanks to leaks running rampant before the game came out, but it was still so cool, plus i was sharing my thoughts with my friends on discord and we were all freaking out and shit.

I really adore The Crater and how it fools you into thinking it's gonna be yet another standard hero mode, but then it drops the back to back surprise of DJ Octavio being the first boss fight and then being dragged into Alterna. You can criticize ROTM for any reason you want, but you can't deny, that intro is fucking awesome and a great way to subvert expectations.

And Alterna as a whole has this really cool vibe and aesthetic to it. The snowy, abandoned yet clean areas and the stages themselves invoke this weird sensation in my brain. The stages reach this... nostalgic part of my brain, it's so odd yet i love it. I don't really like the stage design itself because it feels like Octo Expansion diet lite edition with barely any of the difficulty or replay value of Octo Expansion, aside from some levels.

The boss fights are pretty neat and yes, the Big Man fight is awesome and a cool reference to Super Mario Sunshine, yes i did soyjack at it, we all did, moving onnnnn!!

The finale of Splatoon 3 ROTM is truly special, although i think Octo Expansion is better, ROTM still slaps so hard when it comes to an epic finale. Calamari Inkantation 3mix is a banger, your little buddy that's been helping you throughout the entire campaign becomes a FUCKING KAIJU TO BEAT UP A GIANT BEAR THAT WANTS TO COMMITT MASS GENOCIDE AND TURN EVERYONE INTO FURRIES!!! DJ Octavio redeeming himself and you having to pilot his mech when in the previous games you were fighting against it. It feels like everything has come full circle to give a satisfying finale to the Splatoon saga.

Splatoon 3 did a lot of things right, but it has some issues that i HOPE get addressed in the eventual Splatoon 4. Such as the catalogue system and how long it took to get updates and content additions, 3 months for patches is a death sentence for modern online games, that needs to change. The lack of third kits, the stage design being significantly more watered down compared to the previous games, despite there being new movement tools, the stages feel more restrictive which is such a massive shame.

Splatoon 3 is cool but it for sure suffers the issue of death by a thousand paper cuts, it has all these minor issues that some people can handle while some can't, and that's perfectly fine.

Splatoon 3: Side Order.

Side Order... my baby... Oh i love you, but i also think you could have done better. To me Side Order feels like vanilla ice cream, like sure, vanilla ice cream is good on it's own, but MANNNN i want MORE! There's so much shit to love, yet it still needed way more shit and an actual good post game to keep players interested.

This dlc felt like an experiment, to see how the gameplay of Splatoon can adapt to different game genres and go out of it's comfort zone. I really do hope it gets a proper sequel in terms of gameplay and they go even more in-depth. More enemies, more bosses, more variety within bosses, more missions, more post game content including story content, more variety in the environments, etc. etc.

Side Order nails it's OST and environments and it's the most experimental sounding thing within the series. These songs will make people scratch their heads and go "what the fuck am i listening to?" And i LOVE THAT! They could have done Octo Expansion again but they actually wanted to do something unique and I respect the devs for that.

I now wanna talk about my personal experience with this dlc.

I wanna tell you guys something, Side Order came out during the height of my Splatoon fixation, i monitored it's build up to release like a fucking hawk, i saw so many theories and people going crazy on what could happen. I remember when that poster came out and people were screaming that AGENT 4 WAS THERE! AND HOW IT MIRRORED CALLIE IN THE SPLATOON 2 HERO MODE POSTER! IT WAS SO HYPE!! I remember reacting to early impressions of Side Order and all of the people who talked about it kept mentioning that something happens within the tutorial and i was so insanely curious on what it was... And what they were hiding... Where was Marina? Why is Inkopolis Sqaure bleached? So many questions and i wanted to learn it all...

And bro... When it came out... I hooked up my Switch to the main TV in my house, i got READY! And even then, i wasn't ready dude. I fucking gasped, i screamed, i squealed, i was crying, i was going OFF DUDE! I was stimming like a mother fucker, i was losing my god damn mind every 10 minutes.

The build up to Marina Agitando was so intense for me, i knew what was going to happen when Marina's dialogue got cut off and it turned into something sinister... The flashes of the past were in my brain and i was saying "not again... NOT AGAIN!!!"

And once i got to the 10th floor... And i saw her... I gasped so fucking loud and i was in shock for like a solid minute, time froze in that minute, realizing "oh... oh they did it... they actually did it... they did it again..." Once i beat the boss and i got up to the title card i was literally screaming and freaking out on WHAT THE HELL I JUST WITNESSED!!!

Throughout the entire DLC i was just going insane, seeing the first dev diary literally made me ACTUALLY CRY!!!!!! Parallel Canon made me yell, like, i could go on but I'm just gonna talk about the final boss. The final boss of Side Order dude... I... I won't forgot the finale of Side Order, it was so, emotional for me, and i don't exactly know why. I think the remix of Ebb and Flow with elements from the live version, the focus on embracing the chaos of the present, it just... reached to a deep part of my soul. I was trying to sing along, i was swaying with the music, just, bawling my fucking eyes out.

And... the cherry on top... UNLOCKING INKOPOLIS SQUARE?!?! I FUCKING FELL TO THE FLOOR! MY HOME TOWN! MY TURF! IT CAME BACK!!!

Side Order is something special to me, it came out at the perfect time and it's a experience i will cherish until the end of time. But there is... one more thing that tops Side Order in my eyes... Something that really destroyed me in both good and bad ways.

The Grand Finale.

The Grand Fest... Man, just thinking back to it makes me feel teary eyed. Funny how my biggest worry was taking pictures of the Idols... I ended up taking at least over 2k photos if i wanna make a very rough estimate. Yeah... I uh... i went overboard but, i loved every second of it.

At first it was difficult to pick a team because i do love the Squid Sisters but, i didn't wanna think about my past, when i think about my past, it makes me feel sad, lost, depressed, knowing that those past locations, the people I've seen, the vibes, the feelings, the senses.... i would never get them back... Thinking about the future too just makes me feeling so scared and anxious. Am i gonna be forgotten about? Will i be in the same spot for the rest of my life? Will i find success? Will i get a partner? Will i die tomorrow? Will my family get killed? Ultimately, i realised that i felt my most happy when i was in the present, that is where i think we are truly the most happy. You ever think about a birthday from your childhood you went to? You remember how the most fun you had from that party was the part where you were hanging out with friends, laughing it up, playing games, whatever right? Being in the moment, the present. And you were at your most unhappiest when the party was wrapping up and you were reflecting on the past? Realising that those fun times are over now... Or maybe you were really worried about how the party was gonna be like? You were worried about the future.

Plus, Off the Hook mean a lot to me, i think they taught me a lot of things, they showed me what a happy relationship between two people could look like, they showed me that just because someone is so vastly different from you, it doesn't mean that they don't deserve love, they still do. I yearn for the kind of partnership Pearl and Marina have.... My choice was obvious in that moment and i went with Team Present.

The hub was truly special, it was so big and complex that it would literally tank the performance which is so funny. Seeing DJ Octavio with his boyfriend, right next to the Squid Sisters stand felt like my heart was healing, it felt, good, to see him like this. Seeing him so silly and ridiculous, how he always was before... Well... Splatoon 2.... Ugh...

The plushies, the jellyfish, the lights, the sounds, nearly every single Idol song in one place, BLUSHING TIDE OH MY GOD I WON'T FORGET HEARING THAT FOR THE FIRST TIME! THE SQUID SISTERS DEFENDER NEURONS IN MY BRAIN WERE JUMPING AROUND I TELL YOU THAT! The performances of the past live concerts being fully preserved into a digital form that can be accessed anytime. Like... Oh my god they put in so much fucking effort into this.

I won't lie, i tried to dance along to some of the songs, yes i did try to sing along to the lyrics out loud, yes i did cry over Three Wishes, yes i did literally sob my eyes out really hard when the credits music from all the games played in the hub. I was a literal mess by the time that it ended. My face was so wet and i couldn't stop crying during that final hour, my eyes were actually hurting I'm not even fucking joking. The only other time i really cried hard over a video game were Red Dead Redemption 2, Super Mario Galaxy and Persona 3 Reload. Even thinking back to how i was i get a little teary eyed. In that moment i thought "oh god... Is this it? Is this the last time i will get to see them again? Is this... the end? I don't want it to end! I don't want them to go!!" Man... I was so fucking sad dude. I think it was the first time that Daybreaker Anthem got to me as well, never thought that Deep Cut could make me cry but hey, they did it. It was a really magical experience. It really was.

And that final day man... That fucking final day with Rainbow Color Inkantation was just... OH MY GOD MY HEART WAS POUNDING! I WAS GOING CRAZY! I never felt so much adrenaline hearing those final 10 seconds. It might actually be my favourite Calamari Inkantation I'm not even kidding. 3mix is a banger and Splatoon 1's inkantation is iconic, but Rainbow Color Inkantation feels climatic, it feels like everyone coming together for one last song, and the idols trying to fight for dominance on that song. Rainbow Calamari Inkantation might be a contender for the magnum opus of the Splatoon OST I'm not even kidding.

The Grand Festival was.... everything. It was the best way to end Splatoon 3 and i don't think they could have done it any better.

Conclusion.

I wanna say, thank you for reading, it means a lot to me, truly it does. Like you spent time out of your day to read the personal ramblings of a random ass autistic man who likes squids and octopuses a bit too muchhhh...

This franchise means a lot to me and countless other people too. From the outside it might seem a bit weird or cringe to be so obsessed with a franchise like this, to cry and sob at some of it despite it's silly and girly appearance. But i do not give a shit about the people who find it weird. To be free is to embrace the cringe, to embrace the shit that makes you feel whole inside. We all need that thing that makes us feel whole and happy in life.

What this franchise gave me is something literally irreplicable.

Although, as of me writing this segment, my interest in the series is for sure fading away, and that is to be expected. I can't hold onto the interest forever. It must be put to rest. I have other things i wish to experience, i have other games to play, tv shows to watch, things to write, so much to do.

But Splatoon will always be in my heart, I will always keep my things on display, I will never give up my love for this franchise and throw it all away. I will never do that.

So remember everyone, i want you all to stay fresh, make sure you don't get cooked and that you stay off the hook.

Catch ya later!!!

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fafodill · 28 days ago

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(this is @okeydokeylackey i just can't send asks on a sideblog 😭)

So, I know, "imitation is the highest form of flattery" isn't the full quote, but I really do mean it as flattery. I won't bore with my woes of fandom but I really got disillusioned with it for a while and it really hit my love of Snape hard- which, sucked! Because I love Snape and he was such an important character to me.

But, both the passing of time, and seeing your posts and love for this fandom have honestly helped me heal a lot and I, for the first time in like a year, feel legitimately excited about Snape again. So, thank you for just, being your awesome self.

I hope that my attempt at your art style wasn't awful, I tried to do my own Snape design (and his OC muggle uncle) with it, uhm, yeah! Love your stuff

@okeydokeylackey you are SO SWEET 💚💚💚💚💚

I'm really humbled and honored by your words! You know when I came back to Tumblr not so long ago, I just looked at the fandom from afar and was actually a bit scared of posting and engaging. Somehow I thought that - here too - I wouldn't necessarily find my place or would be considered annoying or that I'd have nothing interesting to contribute?? I dunno.

I haven't been able to engage in a fandom for a long time and for me it's supposed to be fun and friendly?! The whole purpose of it is to gather together as obsessed weirdos, talking about our blorbos and being fans of each other for all the super creative stuff we make about them! And the HP fandom is so rich and full of brainy and talented people of all ages, it's such a treat! Well not all parts of fandom ofc and I'm sorry about your bad experiences.

I'm overjoyed to know that my enthusiasm helped a little bit in fanning your spark back to life! 🕯️✨

I adore your drawing and I'm super honored. They look so CUTE and I want to know more about this OC and he seems to really like Snape and it's super wholesome. and I love Snape's outfit! (and I see you also copied my atrocious super simplistic hands, I'm crying).

So maybe this is a bit cheesy but... welcome back to the fandom! 💚✨ We're super happy to have you!

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thestoryteller-thedreamer · 1 month ago

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The Lack of Lore in Dragons Rising

Warning:

This is a really long essay rant about Dragons Rising. You probably won't agree with all, or even most of what I have to say, and that is totally alright. This is just my take on Dragons Rising so far.

Also, I have not seen any of the new leaks for Season 3 Part 2. All of my issues could be resolved in those episodes for all I know. I do talk about things that happened in Part 1, so if you haven't watched Episodes 1-10 of season 3 and don't want them to be spoiled, maybe don't read this post.

Anyway, I've warned you. What you do next is your own decision.

Dragons Rising has introduced us to all of these interesting concepts in the past fifty episodes. The Forbidden Five, the Source Dragons, the wolf masks, the prismatic blades, shatter spin, rising dragon technique, the missing characters, and the freaking merge itself. All of them feel like they connect in very nuanced and intricate ways with the already established ninjago lore, but we are given none of their history, only the action scenes that utilize them. Which is starting to feel less like a mystery and more like an oversight.

Let’s go back to Season 1 of the entire show. Right off the bat, we are introduced to the Serpentine. The main characters give us a bit of exposition in the form of bickering in the first episode, describing the Serpentine, their role in Ninjago history, and the mystery/ legends surrounding them. We continue to get a glimpse into the various Serpentine tribes, including their abilities, their power structure, their intertribal relations, and their desires within the first few episodes. By the midpoint of the season, Wu has revealed the backstory of the Great Devourer as well. And it doesn’t feel like too much exposition is going on. The season, for all of its other flaws, flows fairly smoothly and is full of action.

In Season 2, we meet the Overlord, and are immediately given his history with the First Spinjitzu Master. In Season 3, though not a lot of new lore is added, returning characters and the new technology of the Digiverse are both explained to some extent. Both seasons 4 and 5 handle the lore excellently, at least in my opinion. We are shown the histories of Garmadon and Wu, respectively, continuing to see glimpses of their troubled pasts as the season goes on, without feeling left in the dark for too long. Similar things can be said of most, if not all, of the other seasons.

However, in Dragons Rising, we are given none of that.

The characters claim to have a backstory (Egalt and Rontu say the Forbidden Five are an evil “unlike anything you’ve ever seen”) but what we are given is so lackluster that it feels forgettable. Part of what made the Forbidden Five so boring in Season 3 is how little we know about them. Most of our information comes from posts by the writers, not the actual show itself. Their powers are barely explained, the relationships between all of them other than Nokt and Rox (the two siblings) aren’t even present, and I have no idea why they want Thunderfang or what they plan to do to the merged lands. Conquer them? Destroy them? Declare the doughnuts must be eaten every third Tuesday of the month? I don’t know! Older villains, like Garmadon, Harumi, Morro, Chen, Aspheera, Kalmar, Unagami, and Nadakhan all had very clear, if also very misguided, goals. I don’t know what these new villains want! Gosh, I can’t even keep their names straight. They have really cool designs, but I get Zarkt and Drix confused all the time.

Not to mention, the Forbidden Five were built up as the greatest evil in all the merged lands, only to be immediately defeated by Thunderfang. Creating an even more powerful villain for our heroes to face would work if the writers actually raised the stakes. As it is, these latest villains don’t feel anywhere near as threatening as those that actually came with a cost- Lloyd having to fight his dad, Zane dying to the Overlord, Nya merging with the sea to defeat Wojira, even all of the cubing that happened while in Prime Empire. Like the entirely evil Oni, they work really well as a background threat, but as soon as they appear in action, they are pretty underwhelming (and both the Oni and Thunderfang were defeated by a fancy Spinjitzu move). I think it would be more beneficial if the villains stopped threatening the entire world, and instead honed in on something more personal, such as hunting down one of the main ninja for revenge or something, or trying to steal their powers so everyone is “equal” (aka, Legends of Korra).

Or the villain isn’t even a real villain, but they are trying to keep the ninja from something they want, like figuring out the secrets of the Merge, finding the truth about Wu, or recovering Jay’s memories. Lowering the world stakes and raising the personal stakes could actually be far more gripping than constantly raising the bar for who is the ultimate evil.

Okay, so what about the Source Dragons? It feels like the writers go back and drastically change everything we already know about the First Spinjitzu Master and Firstborn. It gives me the same whiplash sensation I had finding out that Lloyd was part Oni and part Dragon. In hindsight, Lloyd’s heritage is an interesting concept. And so are the Source Dragons! But right now, it feels like my entire understanding of Ninjago history is falling apart at the seams. Not to mention, we don’t get a dramatic Mystake storytelling moment for the Source Dragons. We are told they exist and are super powerful and supposedly give everyone their elemental powers… but not much else. Where do they live? What makes them so powerful? Why did they decide to give powers to people like Cinder and Zeatrix? Why do the Source Dragons give evil people their elemental powers? How could they refuse to interfere with mortal affairs unless they are being threatened, especially since doling out powers that way could be the cause of some of Ninjago’s problems?

Oh, and will the show ever care to discuss the Wolf Masks? How did Ras get his hands on them while he was busy in Imperium? At this point, it seems like he has a backup plan for a backup plan for a backup plan for a backup plan (Dragon Icons with Arin to make up for Nokt betraying him and using the elemental powers for himself to make up for the blood moon ritual not going as planned to make up for Beatrix not doing what he wanted to make up for his tribe kicking him out.) What is this guy’s deal? And how did he get an entire army of faceless, nameless soldiers to wear his masks and help him take down the world? In Season 4, at least Chen offered his followers the appeal of a snake cult on a tropical island. I’m seeing none of those benefits for Ras’s minions.

And don’t get me started on the Prismatic Blades. What the heck are these things? They are made from “soul energy?” Has someone been harvesting souls to turn them into swords? Why does looking through them allow someone to see invisible demogorgon soul sucking spirits? How did Rapton, not to mention Dorama’s puppet, get his paint spattered pinchers on one of those things? What is up with the sword that shattered during the tournament? If these are the only things that can bust Thunderfang free, why weren’t they hidden better? Or if they were, how were they found? At least in S1, when the ninja were searching for the Fangblades, we were given a bit more explanation. We had a fancy map with their locations, a Clutch Powers bit where he “found” one and turned it into a trophy, a dramatic battle in an erupting volcano… Yes, they fight over the prismatic blades. But the fight locations don’t feel important the way they do in S1 of the original show.

Ooh, and what about the missing characters? Crystallized ended with an absurd number of side characters all teaming up to help the ninja rebuild their monastery. At the start of Dragons Rising, they are not only gone, but forgotten. We’ve had a few beloved side characters make guest appearances- Dareth, Fugidove, some of the elemental masters at the Tournament of Sources… but the others haven’t even been mentioned. I think it would be ridiculous to try to fit everyone into the plot. This ensemble show has a cast swollen way past anything reasonable. But maybe give us a cameo of Harumi living her life, or Skylor running her noodle shop or Benthomar and Vania being the best king and queen one could hope for. Give us Garmadon and Vinny walking through the crossroads, and an angsty teen Unagami addicted to his phone, and Nelson jealously watching Arin fulfill his life dreams. It can take place in a quick fly by, where their relationship to the ninja isn’t explained, but older fans have a moment to freak out and scream at the top of their lungs when they see their babies for a few seconds.

Now for the Merged Lands. Yes, this is a kid’s show. But I feel like after several years (which, btw, why are they so vague about the time span? They are always like, the merge happened “several years ago,” but never give us an exact date, and it drives me crazy!) the different combined realms would have formed some sort of political understanding. We are given no glimpse into how Ninjago decides to interact with Imperium, or the Cloud Kingdom, or the Wyldness. At the very least, I would have expected some reaction to Imperium declaring the ninja as enemies of the state from Ninjago. How dare the foreigners try to capture their beloved heroes?! Only the Ninjago City police and the *new ninja* are allowed to put them in jail! We have no interactions between them, or even reminders that old businesses and characters still exist. (NGTV news, the mayor, that police commissioner with the twitchy eye…) It feels like Ninjago’s culture has been erased, and none of the other merged lands have become prominent enough to replace it. The beautiful city that gets destroyed every other season and feels a little bit like home when I see it on screen isn’t relevant any more.

The show really wants to have new lore. It hints that it is there, it tries to dump it on us in repeated blasts of the same boring exposition. But I honestly can’t see it. Or maybe I just can’t get excited about it because it doesn’t feel personal enough. Unlike the earlier seasons, where villains targeted the ninja specifically because of Wu and Garamdon’s past, or trying to steal their powers, the heroes are so detached from this current wave of baddies that it doesn’t seem to matter. Saving the world for the sake of saving the world is good and all. But you know what is great? Saving the world for the sake of saving your friend. Stopping the villain merely because they kidnapped someone you love or tried to steal your teammates powers or broke your brother’s heart or made your already elderly teacher even more old.

The lore is connected to the world, not the characters. And if it doesn’t matter to the characters, then it really doesn’t matter to the audience.

#ninjago #dragons rising #ninjago dragons rising #lego ninjago #ninjago rant #dragons rising rant #ninjago forbidden five #ninjago merge #ninjago source dragons #ninjago villains #ninjago thunderfang

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trainsinanime · 4 months ago

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Trains in Miraculous Ladybug - The Season 6 Tram

Part 1: The Metro Train

Part 2: The Metro Station

Part 3: Startrain

Part 4: The Gare du Nord

Part 5: The Bus

It's a new season, and we got a new art style, new trains, buses, cars, villains and anxieties in the world of Miraculous Ladybug! Mostly trains, of course!

At the end of season 6, the right person got elected mayor, which immediately transformed Paris into a wonderland of walkable urbanity and plentiful urban transit, even more so than before. That's literally canon. As part of that, the city has gotten trams. A lot of them. And they're weird. Time to restart this series of posts that I thought I'd finished long ago!

This will only focus on the trams we see, because there's just one episode out yet, "The Illustrhator". This will contain spoilers for what happens to the trams there. There is also a new bus that we see very briefly, but I'm hoping other episodes will tell us more about that.

The Vehicle

The trams we see are single four-axle vehicles. Yes, four axles, we do get to count them.

The design looks like they're individual small wheels rather than connected axles, which is a common design that has its advantages and its drawbacks. The floor tram is entirely at one level, seemingly about 30-40 cm above rail height.

We do get to see its interior as well. Nice big windows, different seating layouts, a big wheelchair area, and readers for Navigo RFID tickets at all doors. And, interestingly, fold-down seats, which are a feature on older Paris metro rolling stock.

We get a tiny hint of the inside of the cab as well. According to the display, we're going forward, and we're on line T3A towards Porte De Vincennes. And we're going 70 km/h.

There is actually a real-life Paris line T3A that does terminate at Porte De Vincennes (where you can change for the T3B), and I want to talk more about that, but before we can go there I need to talk about the rear of the train first. It has an open platform!

The rear platform

Don't worry about it being raised in the air here, that's just because the tram is currently falling down because the bridge is collapsing.

But don't worry, that is not a supervillain thing, the bridge just did that on its own, that's perfectly fine…

…right? The characters treat it like it's perfectly fine that this bridge just partially collapses without any supernatural interference, but, uhm, I have concerns. Questions even. Frankly I'm far more worried about that than about any supervillains. Alya and Nino later interview the mayor, and they completely ignore that a city bridge collapsed while a tram was going over it.

Sorry, I keep getting distracted. The rear of the tram has an open platform, which looks silly, is silly, is completely unrealistic, and I love it! See, while I am not aware of any trams like that, unless you count partially open ones like the San Francisco Cable Cars, but those are not quite the same.

However, there is a precedent for this platform, because Paris has a long history of city buses with such platforms. A good example is the Renault TN series

Picture from Wikimedia Commons, taken in 1950 by Sven Goliath, published by the Stockholm Transport Museum Commons

These were mostly a thing in the 1930s, but then got brought back in limited numbers in the 1960s after a Saviem SC10 had an accident that destroyed most of its rear, and RATP decided to be funny while rebuilding it. Later Saviem built these busses in series.

Picture from Wikimedia Commons, Tumblr won't let me link to the actual page there but it's on the Wikipedia article, taken by Sauvabus (bus historical association), published under CC-BY 4.0 international

All buses since then have put their engine at the rear, which has a lot of benefits, but also means it's right where this platform would go, so this has fallen out of fashion. Today you can only experience it when the one private transport museum near Paris has its monthly opening day, which is something I really need to visit one of these days. Here's a video showing the experience:

youtube

So there is precedent for this rear platform. Does it serve any purpose? Not really. Is it fun? Absolutely! And that's all it was on the Saviem SC10 as well, really. I love this platform. It's historic, it's quirky, it's fun, it's great.

The show definitely aims for a retro-futurist vibe now, seen e.g. in cars, like this modern take on the Citroën DS:

This modern take on this 60s and 70s legendary classic is what the modern DS brand should do, instead of their array of generic boring SUVs. Anyway, I'm not going to go too far into that, if I start talking about the cars in Miraculous Ladybug I'll never stop (yo is that a modern Peugeot 504? They literally modernised Aphrodite from Only Murders in the Building!). But I will say that this detail matches nicely.

The Infrastructure

Look at that station! Gorgeous! The designers of this show have created a tram stop in the style of the famous Guimard metro entrances, with their beautiful Art Nouveau design. That's amazing. I wish real tram stops in Paris look like that.

As for the tram stop itself, it's a low floor island platform with walkways to the sides, which matches modern standards for new tram stops worldwide. The track has gras planted on it, which is also common and popular, as it helps absorb noise, water, heat and pollution and it just looks nice. Yes, side platforms are more common, but this is still what a modern urban light rail network can and should look like. The only thing unrealistic about it is how pretty it is.

It should be noted that there's no overhead lines here, so the trains are powered by batteries, probably. That, or hydrogen, but a hydrogen tram would be a supremely bad idea, nobody would ever build something like that…

…except for Hyundai for some reason.

God that thing annoys me by its very existence. Hydrogen is expensive and will remain expensive for the next few decades, and this is what you're spending it on? A tram!? Trams should run with overhead wires. That's the good thing about a tram, you know where it's going to be, so you can put a wire there to give it power, and then you don't have to worry about batteries or hydrogen storage or whatever…

Sorry, I got distracted. Anyway, no overhead lines is realistic, and if they ever say, "it's a hydrogen tram" in future episodes, that'll be realistic too, even if it shouldn't be.

Instead let's look at this!

Closer…

Yeah! They finally fixed the metro map! The old one was an unholy mess of lines that didn't match anything (which I complained about before), but this one clearly has the Seine flowing through Paris as it should, with the island in the middle. The transport lines on it don't seem to match anything I can recognise, neither Metro nor RER, but let's just assume they are the new tram lines that happen to go this way.

Compared to the real thing

Real-life Paris abandoned trams in the 1930s already, being a negative trend-setter there. It didn't help that trams were limited to lower top speeds than buses were at the time. However, since the 1990s, trams have made a huge comeback in the Paris region.

(Aside: Note that I say the Paris region. There's only really one tram line in Paris itself (plus a few stops from the other ones). Where Berlin or London absorbed most of their suburbs at some point in the 20th century, Paris didn't, so the actual Paris part of the Paris region is surprisingly small. That's why Paris has both far fewer and way more inhabitants than e.g. Berlin, depending on what you count.)

Anyway, the tram lines in Paris mostly serve the suburbs, providing tangential connections from one suburb to the next so you don't have to take the metro or RER into the city centre, change at fucking Châtelet-Les Halles, and ride back out again. A unique feature of the the tram network is that each line is separate, with its own tracks and maintenance facilities, and at times very different technologies used. Most of the tram lines don't connect to other tram lines at all, each line is just out there doing its own thing. And since they're out in the suburbs, as a tourist you're unlikely to ever see one if you don't go looking for it.

The exception to that is the T3, divided into T3A and T3B, which runs in a 3/4 circle around Paris along the outer boulevards. The final quarter is where rich NIMBYs live, so it'll be a while until the circle gets closed, I fear.

This actual T3 is run with long bi-directional vehicles with no open platform anywhere in sight, and pleasant but considerably more boring stations. It does have green track (meaning with grass) in many places, though, and it has overhead wires.

In Paris, the trams are used as very long buses (with some overlap with really tiny metros) in underserved areas. Serving areas outside the city core is really the main thrust of Paris transit development at the moment, with a 200 km metro extension, the Grand Paris Express, being built exclusively to better connect the suburbs. This mega project is one of the coolest things happening in public transport anywhere in the world at the moment. The trams augment this.

I do actually think that some trams in Paris's city centre could make sense, to replace the busier bus routes. And there are definitely thoughts about that, but with all the money going towards doubling the size of the Metro, I don't think we'll see that very soon.

The verdict

I like that tram. I don't think it's what Paris would actually have, a longer articulated bidirectional model without a rear platform would make more sense, but I love the quirkiness of it. This season is off to a good start.

#miraculous ladybug #ml s6 #ml spoilers #ml season 6 #ml s6 spoilers #ml season 6 spoilers #ml illustrhater spoilers #ml illustrhater #illustrhater spoilers #trains in anime #Youtube

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makerofmadness · 5 months ago

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ok so: Beast-Ancients Swap AU but actually the Beasts messed up the timeline and made it one

(I will explain I swear-) The following sprite edits and designs were a collaborative effort of me and @driftwoodmfb

(Lily's design and edit is not finished yet, and Ssalt isn't getting one until that character is released-)

general shoutouts to Driftwood for collaborating with me on this in a lot of aspects btw she's the mvp of this whole project

I am Very bad at concise descriptions but basically: "5v5 climactic final showdown occurs but the bad guys win and then the group consensus on what to all do together to compromise thanks to slightly different priorities is 'Hey we all really hate the ancients now so let's just like. Screw them over' so they basically used their combined virtues' powers or something (look all of this I came up with just to justify the AU's actual concept) to like reset and alter the timeline to swap their places with the ancients basically. and then they kinda accidentally get redemption arc'd in the process. Meanwhile the og ancients... are not happy"

I'm def gonna post more about these guys in the future (and also I like. Encourage people to send asks because I need enrichment dndndnmd! I have a ton of stuff sitting around about them and I love talking about them- so. Here's my attempt at an overview (I. Suck at being concise this took all day to not make way too long dndndndm):

Shadow Milk Cookie - Calls himself the Dark Moon Magician. He's quite braggadocious and more than a little mischievous, quite the show-off too, but he has a good heart down there (nowadays). Though he has often had to be badgered by the Light of Truth into actually telling the truth on things...

Eternal Sugar Cookie - You'll meet them someday. Just not now.

Mystic Flour Cookie - Her face and voice do not do much to express how much she despises the Cookie she used to be, and the Cookie she still sees whenever she looks in the mirror. She is the most eager to come clean to her Cookies, but something is holding her back... she decides to save it for when she has finally repented enough by her standards, to earn her position as queen. It's never enough.

Burning Spice Cookie - For the kingdom he rules, you may (or may not) be surprised seeing how little he cares for material riches. To him, lived experiences are the most precious things- hence why he's always looking for a good fight. Or to just have fun with those close to him- which is not many as he has had a history of issues- after all, transient things fall to time, but the impressions they leave can last up to forever...

Silent Salt Cookie - The fallen hero. It wasn't supposed to happen again. They all knew it could happen, they agreed to prevent it. Why did they make the same mistake...?

Pure Vanilla Cookie - The embodiment of the most common lie. He can string Cookies up to make them move and speak against their wills. He does this to himself often, when he grows tired. He is very ashamed of what he has become, but no matter, he will be fine once he regains the light of Truth, and exposes the truth of this world to all Cookiekind...

Hollyberry Cookie - Berry juice is a comfort to her, such is why she had wished so badly to drown her mind and all her pain in it. She is... frankly, harmless the way she is now. She doesn't have the power, pride or energy to fight. Her heart is just as full of love as it's always been, even if her mind's gone fluffy as frosting. So much that even being in a permanent stupor won't stop her from missing her family, still...

Dark Cacao Cookie - As he describes himself fully, an empty vessel without a will of his own, whose only goal is to carry out the will of fate. He will play his part in this story, for he knows there is no other way. After all, they'd tried to resist already, and it was all in vain. He is cold, empty, such was his resolve: to be unburdened by feeling, so that he would feel no pain...

Golden Cheese Cookie - Calls herself the Demonic Goddess. When she gets upset, she tends to fly into fits of destruction- which she has become very, very good at causing. She laughs it off, she laughs a lot in general, but she really does not like what she's become. However, she is still the same greedy Cookie as she always was, and still wants nothing more than to annihilate the ones who had displaced her and her friends and take back what is rightfully hers...

White Lily Cookie - Founder of the Lily Kingdom. She is a stern, serious figure who tries to keep everything under her control. She quickly silences those who tell her what she does not wish to hear untrue, unkind, or unnecessary things. She does not get very openly emotional often, and tends to address everyone with the same attitude even if it's her friends. (They can generally tell when she means well). She plans to silence all lies from Cookies' mouths, especially regarding who the "Heroes" and "Beasts" are...

(i. Never mentioned the name of the AU itself the whole time in this post did I? Ok uh that's Immemorial Interchange btw if I ever say that or II then I'm talking about this thing for future reference XD)

Edit: I have a tag on my blog for the au and I just kinda post whatever I feel like. Hope y'all can enjoy this I'm probably gonna be dumping a lot of stuff I've held on to. And I would love it if people send asks X3

#cookie run #cookie run au #crk au #cookie run kingdom #shadow milk cookie #pure vanilla cookie #eternal sugar cookie #hollyberry cookie #mystic flour cookie #dark cacao cookie #burning spice cookie #golden cheese cookie #silent salt cookie #white lily cookie #I see there's a tag for “beast ancients au” but it appears that's mostly for a specific au by someone #I think I see some other people use it so idk but I don't wanna risk uh. Infringing /silly so I won't use it X3 #Immemorial Interchange AU #<- hey. Hey driftwood look I did it I posted it it's live it's Born at last X3

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sugar-grigri · 1 year ago

Note

I think I remember you making references to Fire Punch in a few analysis post so I assume you've read that one, but have you read Goodbye Eri, and if so do you have any particular thoughts you want to share on it? It might be my favorite, although it's hard to rank Fujimoto's works because there's something different I like about all of them.

Hi Yuta! or is it Fujimoto?

2022, Goodbye Eri is released and I'm in for a huge slap in the face! I've finally got the chance to talk about it, so thank you!

It's hard to come after the war after this one-shot has been the subject of so much analysis, interpretation and criticism. But I think it's a work that's deliberately designed to be a trap, and the first mistake would be to try absolutely hard to determine whether Goodbye Eri is true or false.

Trying to detect the true and the false is futile, not that it's really impossible, but arguments could be several pages long and the theories put forward would remain mere hypotheses because no explicit confirmation is given. Quite simply because this is not the aim of the work, nor a satisfactory way of reading it.

For example, when Yuta's father seems to be getting angry with Eri, we understand from Eri's "And Cut!!!" that it was all a set-up. So, as a good reader, we can only assume that what follows is pure reality. However, the father, now an actor, if he should play his line differently.

As another illustration, when Eri is close to death and Yuta are talking, there are a few hints that they might have a relationship, but this is denied by Yuta himself, in a discussion with Eri's friend.

The film plays with this to such an extent that all sorts of theories are possible. It could just as easily be interpreted as there being only two films (on Yuta's mother and then on Eri's death), two films but in different ways: one about Yuta's mother and a second film about Eri, as a vampire, with the end scene played by Yuta's father and by Eri before her death.

This explains why, even after Eri's death, Yuta continues to film because the film isn't actually finished yet, the editing being there to reverse the scenes played chronologically, to make it look as if Eri was still alive, and so on. ..

As you can see, it all makes sense, and our preference is purely personal because they all work. But I'm not going to play that game, because it only shows me one thing, and that's that the plot surrounding Eri is deliberately obscure.

I've seen a lot of people describe Goodbye Eri as a work about dealing with death - the way we want to remember those we've lost, etc... It's about mourning, symbolically saying goodbye, hence the title. Which is true! But it goes further than that.

Eri's plot is deliberately obscure because the right way to appropriate the work is not through her. She's the character we know least about. Physically alone, we learn that she wore glasses and braces. Mentally, she was more annoying than she seemed in the movie. Eri is a mirage in which we won't find answers, so we have to learn to say goodbye.

The only reliable information given in this OS is that everything is filmed by Yuta's phone. And in reality, you know Yuta better than Eri, so it's him you should turn to...

Hi Yuta!

Yuta is almost never shown in this OS, as he is always filming. And when he is shown accurately, it's when he's inspired by other films by watching them with Eri, in other words, he's continuing to work on his own film by watching others.

Yuta's first film began as a result of his mother's narcissistic desire, as he was celebrating his birthday, discovering his gift, a smartphone, all of which was directly taken over by his mother, who asked him to film her until she died.

By keeping only the good sides of his mother, ignoring all the abusive parts of her, Yuta does not follow his parent's wishes, he does it for himself, showing what he himself wants to retain from his childhood, his story, in order to move forward properly.

But as everything is filmed, it gives the impression that the videos have been passively lined up without any sorting, without any choice. Yuta takes his revenge because he refuses to film his mother until the day she dies, stopping before then, preferring an explosion to conclude his film. It's brutal because it's as if Yuta's tastes, his little touch of fantasy, are suddenly surfacing, while the rest of the film is just as personal, just as him. So when his film is mocked, it's a work so personal that Yuta wants to die.

It's not insignificant that it's Eri who intervenes, whose only certainty was that she loved not only the films but also Yuta's, simply because she saw not only Yuta's mother in this film but also him, whom she considered to be the best character. She wasn't revolted by the ending, because she was aware of Yuta's touch throughout the film. The same ambiguity then resurfaces, we don't know if Eri is in love with Yuta, she corrects him to say that it's these films, the two are so linked, that liking Yuta's films is tantamount to liking the teenager.

Yuta follows Eri's desire to produce a film that is above all personal to him, to the point that when Eri sees her last moments narrated by him, she sees Yuta more than herself, because she is seen through someone else's eyes.

For me, there aren't two or three films, but just one from start to finish. Because you see, we've said goodbye to Eri, we've got out of her tricky story to reflect on Yuta, but we still haven't stepped back enough. Because you know who made the film, and it's not Yuta, it's Fujimoto. So, third stage :

let's salute Fujimoto.

The film we've just seen in this OS deals with a number of overlapping themes, the way in which a loved one is portrayed, the relationship with others, death, creation, but above all, the extent to which a work is personal. Goodbye Eri is a pretext for Fujimoto to show us the extent to which even the cutting is the fruit of reflection, is already a message.

In this OS, all the boxes are in the video format of a smartphone, each moving, static shot depends on Yuta, just as each shot is in the third row, drawn by someone.

People make the mistake, like the first audience of Yuta's film about his mother, of relating to works as linear stories to be trusted, even if they film his mother every day, Yuta's editing is his way of counting a story, it is certainly not the truth in all its neutrality. It's only at the moment of the explosion, which expresses the most of Yuta's personality, that people get upset.

This offbeat, absurd explosion is something that Fujimoto punctuates in his works, yet they are both thought out and personal to him. But they are often mocked as a way of poking fun at his work. What Fujimoto is saying is that the work doesn't become brutally personal for the controversial, offbeat moments, just the way he depicts a scene from life is personal.

People believed this version of the author's mother, otherwise they wouldn't be outraged by this disgraceful way of portraying this nice woman at the end, so in itself, Yuta's film worked. But all this is just a pretext for Fujimoto to point out that he is the author of all his other works, CSM, Fire Punch, Look Back, Just Listen to the Song... They are just like another film made in response to the positive or negative reactions of the others.

Fujimoto likes to trace the common ground between these works, which respond to each other. Each one, placed side by side, is an attempt by Fujimoto to upset his audience a little more, a second or third try.

The mistake is to separate the author's touch from his work, just as we are tempted to focus more on Eri than Yuta. Just as Fujimoto reminds us through this OS, who writes, draws Goodbye Eri. The first part of CSM was turned upside down by the fact that Makima was a demon from the start, abusive to the point of being the antagonist.

A violent and abusive maternal relationship. The design of the mother is also a bit similar. Mentions of the breasts, something that also went down quite a bit and left its mark on a lot of readers because it was so out of sync. The emphasis on cats... A rejected boy. A work focused on female characters.

Goodbye Eri is a work in which Fujimoto makes fun of himself, his works and the things that bring them together. Yes, there will be an explosion if the author so decides. Yes, Eri can live again, be a vampire, if the author so decides, but what's to stop him making his characters die, and then bringing them back to life a few pages later?

The characters' plots are the authors' playgrounds, whether you like it or not. You can't detach works from their authors, or read works as unrelated things because they were written by the same person. Talking about death, life, mourning, love, with a touch of fantasy is what Fujimoto does in each of them.

So if you're lost, remember that what you're reading isn't in the title but in the author.

#goodbye eri #sayonara eri #fujimoto tatsuki #eri #yuta #makima #csm #chainsaw man #fire punch #look back #one shot #analysis #my thoughts #credit to Reddit for the last image @/blackfish171

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solar4seekstron · 6 months ago

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Character Introduction - Reader in the Bayverse. (If anyone has a good name for reader please let me know)

Hello! Hello! Your dear Solar is here! Guess what? I’m rewriting the Bayverse movies (Kinda)!!! And add ing in reader because I mean who hasn’t imagined theirself as a Cybertronian fighting alongside OP and Bee, right?

In the 5 Movies there is………………………………a lot. Going on-

As some of you have guess these chapter will be pretty long and although it’s a rewrite. Not too much will be changed and like with my other stories like Before and So Forth and Transformers One Awakening series. Yes, the reader will be Gender Nuatral so They/Them will be used. As always you guys can just imagine it’s saying he or she if you are that gender. While yes it’s a self instert in the story it’s also a story of an added character of my creation. I’ve been wanting to write this since I realized I enjoyed writing when I was barely an adult.

Just wanted to wait till I had more of an audience. Even if all of my followers don’t always like my posts >:(!

Jk. Jk. I know SOME people like my works. I’ve always wanted to create a character for the series just because I love that crap. If reader inserts and x reader stuff isn’t your cup of tea. DNI then. This is for people who do to enjoy and just have fun talking to other fans. I only wish for people to enjoy my work while self instering time to time.

Overall this post is to give a deeper look of what I have planned for you all and the series of the bay films. This introduction under the cut will tell you what you need to know about the character and what to expect. Hopefully as I write the series I can continue to make thier personality shine.

This is a true passsion project of mine. So the first chapter wont be released until Christmas. And then will be released every Sunday.

Seeing that there are some sexual scenes at times I don’t see why the robots can’t? (In my own opinion I feel that it makes sense that because the robots are sentient and now we have a nonbinary robot! Along with when you look at wheelie and the twins from the second film. So I’ll try my best to add in the humor when it feels right for the situation.

In the movies it’s always Optimus Prime, Megatron, and Bumblebee but now here it’ll be with the reader add in all the movies.

Since the story is x reader in a way the characters are semi soft yandere. But not all the time.That’ll be explained and explored later. I did change up the lore a bit so please bear with me please I did as much research as I can but had to keep remembering that I’m also doing this to have fun. So you know if there are things in here that you weren’t expecting or you didn’t see what you wanted in part of their lore. Sorry my writing isn't always for everyone.

Notes: Wheeljack in the third film will be rewritten. I’m sure some people like his design and character. But I hate it- My boy deserves more respect and love then this!!! So like I’ll do in the Knightvers with ROTB I’m going to rewrite him like how he is in Prime. He’ll still die because I know I can make that an interesting plot point like with every other character.

Not just Optimus Prime ok. As for in between movies I’ll do the best research I can since I know there are comics for them. And if anyone has a link to them online or overall plot points for the movies and in the comics. Let me know!

Reader will have their large part in the story like how I’ll write for the others. I hope you guys enjoy this series and yeah knowing that the movies have a lot going on it might take me a little over half a year to finish.

And not to worry I won't grow bored of this series. I have been thinking about and planning on working on this series along with the knightverse movies for a long while and I don’t wish to disappoint!!

Anyway, here’s the reader and their character! I hope you guys like them!!!!!

———————————————————————————

Character.

Basics:

Besides Optimus, Ratchet and Senitnel and a few other Decepticons. They can speak Cybertronian. In a way a former Knight like Optimus. Worrior under Sentinel during the war before Optimus became leader.

Uses They/Them Pronouns.

B - Info:

Lives throughout the movies and is always there. Being the Ride or Die of Optimus like Bumblebee. The fighter in every battle. There to help guide but also learn. One to believe in signs and path. Goes through their own growth along side the many around them. Struggles for their fallen friends.

Is one of the strongest characters in series.

Team Prime:

Scout/Warrior/Soldier (Former Knight). Voice of Reason. Cool older sibling.

Age:

Around the same age as Optimus Prime and Sentinel. The other Knights being a bit older. (I imagine they’re all around the same age. But in the story the reader is a little older then OPtimus Prime.)

Note: After some research for the story, the google search told me Hound is 60 millions years old??? And Optimus is still referred to be 9 million years old. I know they’re all supper old but for Hound to be 60 million is a bit strange to me. So I’m changing the age for them a bit.

Hound will be 29 million years old and while OP and Y/N are around 15 million years old. And the knights being only 19 million years older.

And so in the equivalent of human years OP and Y/N would be in their early 40’s.

The Knight in their mid 40’s. And Hound in his early 70’s.

Appearance:

Y/N is a pretty tall bot. Being 4 feet smaller then Optimus in robot form. So the 2nd tallest compared to the others. Their vehicle mode being a 2003 Porsche Cayenne.

(Don’t ask I think its a nice care. But do feel free to educate me in the comments I don’t know cars that well.

Y/Ns colors are black with tinted red on their paint. Y/Ns robot mode being almost like a knights but modern (Much like Sentinel Primes armor in tf5) but to match more with their own alt mode. Only looking slimmer then Sentinel because of how small they are.

Their head armor looking a lot like Rodimus helmet in Transformers Animated (But if it was styled in the berverse. Think like Nightshades armor peice and how it covers a bit of their optics.)

Their optics yellow and faceplate grey like the others. Having optics that are mostly dim but brighten when feeling certain emotions. Their optics piercing in yellow that helps with their thousand yard stare. Though they aren’t always glaring at someone when they turn their attention to someone. That’s just something that happens when really they’re just- staring.

Having a few Cybertronian writings on their helm. Both back, top, and side. A it on their shoulders and arms and different parts of their body.

Always seen with a smile on their dermas even in the toughest situations under their mask and even when they take their mouth guard off. Their visors being the color blue and their mouth guard being a grey is red.

Weapons:

A thing most noticed about them is they have two swords on both side of their hips in sword handles. Their swords being long like Sentinels but not as wide. The handles in more of a dark red with a tint of black on them. But the handles being completely black. Something others might not notice too is their somewhat small gun held at their lower back. With a Y initial on the side of it. Their arms also turning into blasters.

Though they rarely use them.

Appearence Traits:

At times throughout the movies can be seen always keeping their visors on but will take their mouth guard off even when they don’t speak. They only take both their visors and mouth guard for only important moments and if they are having strong emotions. That’s when their optics really brighten.

Usually when not fighting. They can be seen either standing with one arm down and the other will be bent. Always having at least one cervo on a sword handle being on guard. Or can be seen cleaning their swords and loading their gun after each battle. It being big or small. Or training with the others, or talking to them, or just standing there listening and waiting for orders.

They rarely cross their arms.

Fighting:

They work mostly in hand in hand combat. Only using their swords to help out in fights as more then just a weapon to slash someone with. At times using different parts of their sword when they don’t wish to kill someone.

If they are really mad. Their fighting combat becomes almost like a wrestler, which is something not seen much in battle. It’s just them showing why they don’t punch as much as they do in battle.

Note: For an example of how they fight with their swords watch “The Elder Scrolls Online: High Isle Cinematic” The way the knight fights against the three characters is basically how they fight.

Traits (Sort of):

While they usually have their mouth guard down if they’re not in battle. They will at times also move their visors off as well. Mostly if its during certain situations like they’re really surprised or confused. (Plan on doing that a few times throughout.) At times they will speak but only when they’re needed to.

At times they can be seen cleaning their swords. Either it be because they have to or they’re worried and got something on their mind.

If they are really mad or just wishes to speak to the other privately. They will speak in Cybertronian. So while the others choose to speak in. They will speak in their more native language when it’s something important.

I was thinking about doing a relationship with the others part but I don’t think people will care that much and just wait to read the first chapter since that’ll show to establish their relationship when it comes to the first movie. Same thing for their backstory.

But I tell you what.

If there are people who do wish to read on their backstory and/or future relationships like a special early preview. Then let this introduction post reach at least 500 likes and I’ll give y’all a treat to help you figure out what to expect for future events!!!

Hows that? Lol.

Anyway I hope you guys enjoyed this and I cant wait for you guys to see the first chapter when it releases. If any of you wish to be tagged in the first chapter to know when I’ll post on Christmas just let me know.

I cant wait for you guys to read it!!! And if you wanna talk about it just leave a comment! LETS TALK!

I hope you all are having a good rest of your day and I’ll see you guys in the next chapter!

How I imagine readers hips with swords look like. (If you know the artist type in their name on here or twitter in the comments so I can add it here please I tried looking but wasn’t lucky)

#x reader #transformers #transformers x reader #bayverse idw #bayverse optimus prime #transformers bayverse #transformers movies #solarseeks

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genoskissors · 3 months ago

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The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy - Demo Thoughts

Some more of my thoughts on this game now that I have completed the demo. I'm sure a good review would talk about multiple aspects of the game, but I like characters so this will be 1% story, 1% gameplay, and 98% characters. This is not as long as my other post. When the full game releases, I'll be having a yap session.

Story A lot of mysteries are thrown at the player at once, so I'm a little worried that, with all the routes, some won't always get answered. I am staying optimistic though, and I did enjoy what the demo had.

Gameplay I'm playing on my computer but I plan to play the final version on my switch, so my thoughts on controls might change. I don't have much to say here, I like fighting games so the battles are pretty fun. Hiruko's my favorite to fight with.

Okay now for the fun part, characters!! If you really like a character I didn't like, just know I'm very open to change.

D Tier

Takemaru Yakushiji I was hoping he's grow on me but he really didn't. I'm sure he eventually will, after 100 endings I'll find something to like about him, but right now I'm iffy. Maybe I just miss Mondo.

Shouma Ginzaki As a thought, I was not amused by his self-deprecating gig. Shouma feels like a background character. No more thoughts.

C Tier

Gaku Maruko Like I said with my thoughts before playing, I didn't really find him to serve the purpose he is meant to. However, out of everyone here, I think he is the most likely to move up a tier. He reminds me of Kazuichi.

B Tier

Ima & Kako Tsukumo These two didn't really stick out to me but I like them a bit. Ima is a weirdo but I expect something big from him. Kako on the other hand, I find endearing for how easily she's amazed. No hate towards the voice actors but I didn't really like either of their English voices.

A Tier

Hiruko Shizuhara I liked her a lot more than I thought I would! In real life, I tend to be blunt, so I find that trait in characters to be refreshing. She's also super fun to use in battle.

Tsubasa Kawana Her design is a big reason why I like her so much, I think she's beautiful. Regarding her personality, it's nothing extravagant but I think every cast needs someone more down to earth.

Takumi Sumino I really liked him and I always like Danganronpa protagonists. Only one issue with his voice, sometimes his tone or volume doesn't match the conversation. For example, when meeting Eito for the first time, he sounds like he's yelling in some bits.

S Tier

Eito Aotsuki I enjoy his different approach to bluntness. Instead of it being perceived as rude, it's just being sappy. He says what he feels and that is a trait I really enjoy in characters. I don't know if he'll stay in S forever, but for now he will be.

Darumi Amemiya Without a doubt my favorite so far. I was unsure of how I would feel about her because, while she was very energetic, it seemed like she was going to be a bit too childish. After playing, I like her a lot. Her "death" was a moment that really got me hooked. I like both her Japanese and English voices. Overall, just a very fun character.

BONUS: S Tier purely based on design

#the hundred line last defense academy #last defense academy #the hundred line #takumi sumino #darumi amemiya #hiruko shizuhara #eito aotsuki #takemaru yakushiji #tsubasa kawana #ima tsukumo #kako tsukumo #gaku maruko #shouma ginzaki

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hetalian-veteran · 7 months ago

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Art Styles I Personally Think the Hetalia Characters Looked Their Best In (and Why) Part 2

Link to Part 1, Link to Part 3

Please note that I am referring to the show and not the webcomic. This is primarily because I didn't always have access to the webcomic and thus the show is what I've always been most familiar with. I will also refrain from talking about characters that have only appeared in one season.

Also, please keep in mind that these are just my opinions. And if you have any different ideas of what designs looked better, that's totally okay. At the end of the day, I'm just here to have fun.

America: Seasons 1-4

It was kind of hard to choose which design was best for America, seeing as they are all very similar to one another while also having different qualities that I liked. But I ultimately settled on the one from the first four seasons. I adore the WWII bomber jacket, as well as how the character in general was animated back then. Not to mention that the older art style just fits him so well. A lot of Americans have an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" attitude about things, so I find it fitting that, at least in my opinion, this also works for aph America. He looks great everywhere else, but I won't deny I have a nostalgia for the original. This was an exceptionally close tie with his design for season 5. Not to mention I once drew aph America fanart for an art project in middle school and got an A on it.

England: Season 5

Okay, I'm gonna be real here. This all came down to the eyebrows. Well, not entirely, but it definitely played a large part. I never had a problem with England's design in seasons 1-4, but those eyebrows though. They were so distracting. I understand wanting to give characters a prominent feature that makes you go, "Yep this is (insert character here)." But I think England's eyebrows were too overdone in the previous seasons. However, I also believe they were far too thin and lightened up in seasons 6-7. Season 5 had a good balance. Not too thick but not too thin. Also, I feel like his facial structure and design made him look kinda weird in season 7.

China: Season 5

So... I'm gonna be honest here. All of the other designs for China make him look like a young girl to me. Yes, he still looks sorta feminine in season 5, but not like he appears in seasons 1-4 and 6-7. In season 5 he actually looks more like an adult man to me. Not to mention his hair. Because holy crap that is some of the most beautiful hair I have ever seen put to animation

Russia: Season 6

This was a close tie between all his designs, but it ultimately came down the hair. Yes, I know, I talk about the characters hair a lot. But that really was the deciding factor for Russia. All his designs look great in that the long coat and vertical lines throughout give me the impression of a Russian nesting doll. Now, whether that was intentional on Hima's part or not, I cannot say. But it's a cool detail that I always notice whenever I see him. When it comes to his season 6 design, I like not only how innocent he looks (which is an important part of the design Hima intended from the beginning), but that his hair has some more fun detail too it. It looks so soft and fluffy, not like the previous designs that made it look like he had water dumped on his head.

France: Season 5

What can I say about this design that hasn't been said already? The only other character who had a bigger glow-up than France was Spain (who you can see my opinions on in a previous post). Literally everything here is an upgrade from his design through seasons 1-4. His hair looks so silky and soft, not like that yellow plastic we had earlier. Also, the hair ribbon tying it back looks so elegant and refined, fitting perfectly with the character. I also love the small detail of the ribbon being the same color of his eyes. It's a nice touch. His outfits this season are great as well. They are very simple, but still elegant, with soft, curved lines and balancing both warm and cool colors. Especially in his outfit during the Joan of Arc episode.

Canada: Season 5

I think I'm starting to have a favorite season in terms of character designs here. Canada just looks his cutest here, primarily because of his outfits. He has one of the most adorable and cozy wardrobes this season, and I want to raid this man's entire closet. I love the flannels and cozy jackets and hoodies that he has. As someone who grew up most of her life in northwest Montana (which, if you ask the rest of the US, is basically just lower Canada), I think I have to be a little biased here. Canada's design gives me the feeling of home in a way, and this is definitely a wardrobe that I embrace for a time growing up.

Austria: Seasons 1-4

The hair curl in his cowlick hits harder here, just getting that out of the way. There's more of a curl to it, which is more reflective of Himaruya's art style. And even though his wardrobe in the latter seasons is great, this one all around looks better to me. I like the royal blue lined with the deep red. And the cravat is just a fabulous detail that I love. Now that I think about it, everything about this design just feels very Himaruya. Like, this is one of his best character designs. There's also the placement of the mole on the bottom right-hand side of his face. In other designs, it's not as prominent. But here it's easier to see. I feel like it makes the design all the more unique.

Hungary: Seasons 1-4

THIS. This design for aph Hungary is top tier, and nobody can convince me otherwise. Something that has always intrigued me about Hungary is that she was raised primarily around men. So much so to the point where she saw herself as one growing up. But when she got older and realized she was actually a woman, she ended up adopting more feminine clothing and characteristics. Aph Hungary is a female character who balances both feminine and masculine traits. And her design from seasons 1-4 emulate this balance perfectly. Her long hair is a pale brown color, and her eyes a dark green. Unlike later seasons where she's given long, shiny, elegant hair and sparkling eyes. She's often found wearing either military uniforms or pretty dresses. We even see the evolution of her fashion from child to adult, where she goes from wearing her hair shorter to wearing it longer and with a flower. Her design encapsulates the idea that, yes, she is a woman. Yes, she is feminine. But at the same time, this is someone who has seen war and battle. (I might have to do a separate post about Hungary, because her design and character are honestly fascinating).

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minecraftorangesheepjpg · 7 months ago

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You! Do you want more minecraft shows? Do you like watching beautiful, intriguing murder mysteries for free on youtube? Do you know about Whitepine?

i rewatched all 3 episodes of whitepine, and i wanted to write a somewhat-cohesive opinion on it, because clearly not enough people are talking about it. i mean, episode 3 has been out for 4 days, and it still only has 123k views. which is an atrociously small number for a show this good.

so, whitepine is a kind of series that you will watch without your phone. the visuals are both captivatingly beautiful and important to the narrative. the pacing is unhurried and calm, letting you savor every shot. however, i wouldn't call it slow or boring. i was afraid that it would be too serious or melancholic for me, or that it is a horror story, but that wasn't the case at all. it's a murder mystery set in the early XX century. the story is centered around a household of the wealthy Hemlocke family, where the main character, Ivory, is a newly-hired maid. Ivory is quiet, shy and agreeable - not exactly a typical main character for a minecraft production. Ivory's progression through the story is genuinely interesting to watch, and i find her actions and words very realistic. actually, all dialogue sounds natural, which is.. pretty hard to achieve.

voice acting is surprisingly good. don't get me wrong, i love minecraft roleplay with its amature acting, but it doesn't mean that i don't notice the flaws. whitepine, however, sounds almost professional, which is a result of actors' amazing work and Ivorycello masterfully matching the actors to the roles. speaking of sounds, whitepine has incredible sound design! not only is there music that Ivorycello composed (and played, i think) herself, there are also actual sound effects - rustling of bedsheets, bird songs, clatter of plates - everything! - that help to interpret actions and scenes that are hard to show within minecraft.

speaking of minecraft - this show is not minecrafty at all. game mechanics have no bearings on the story and are not referenced at all. this is neither a praise nor critique from me, just a fact about the show.

i highly recommend turning subtitles on, at least for the scenes with muffled speech or a lot of characters talking. ah, yes, whitepine has great, human made subtitles in english and... wait.. how many languages?

the only con to watching whitepine is that you will want to watch more whitepine, and it is an on-going show. but it is so worth the wait, i promise you.

okay, last part of the post. whitepine = good. whitepine = intriguing. whitepine = beautiful. i love whitepine. you will likely love whitepine too. and i won't even tell you to go search for it, i'll just give you the link right here. here, take it. click that link. ep1 is 30 minutes long. and if you like the piano soundtrack, here it is. you don't even have to look it up.

youtube

#whitepine #minecraft roleplay #mcytblr #mcyt #ivorycello #Youtube

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quiet-cabin · 1 month ago

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Omamori PostMortem!

Here it is folks! The final Omamori devlog 🥹. In it we'll be taking a look at how everything began, some of the ups and downs we had along the way, including some looks at behind the scenes work, and finally, what's next for the studio!

I'm going to try something a little different here. Normally I link back to the devlog on itch so you can read it there, but I'm wondering if people might be more inclined to read the full thing if they don't have to leave to another tab lol (Although I also worry that tumblr just isn't really great for really long post reading..) But! I shall put the choice in your hands. Here's the link to it on itch.io! Or you can click the read more below to see it here!

I'd be really interested to know what Y'ALL are interested in seeing next 👀

Hello everyone!!

It’s been one month since Omamori released which sounds incredibly fake but here we are! As of posting this, Omamori is sitting at 454 downloads!! Which is really, REALLY exciting and so much more than I ever thought to hope for. Thank you so much!

Today we’re going to be talking a little bit about the process, how things went, what we learned, and what’s next! This is going to be a bit of a longer post but some of you have been with us since the very beginning, and it might be nice to look back, and some of you are new, and have no idea how it all went!

HOW IT STARTED

(The original mock up I made to help Rob visualize what I was thinking for the main menu screen.)

In the beginning of April 2023 I started telling Rob about a 'totally not real' idea I had for a serirei dating sim. It was very much in the 'haha jk wouldn't that be fun, but it'll totally never happen' category. Then I thought, since it won't ever happen, it could be fun to do a little mock-up. Just a fake screenshot of a character and some dialogue. Then I thought, maybe I could try to animate it to show some additional dialogue. THEN I thought, well if I'm going to do all of that, I might as well just put together a slice in a game engine and just do a screen recording.

So I sat down and installed an entire game engine, learned how to navigate its interface and how to use its visual scripting language, how to create & use variables so that you could enter your character name, how to put in a dialogue choice screen, even made a tiny pixel art takoyaki... all to create a 20 second screen recording of a game that was totally not going to exist.

Totally.

I even shared it on Tumblr! It uh, as of typing this, still only has 3 notes lol. You can see the original post here, but here's a screenshot of it.

I won't lie, it was actually really disheartening to see basically no engagement with it. I know there wasn't much info on the concept itself, since the game wasn't going to be real (I thought), and maybe that would have helped, but it definitely did a blow to the ol' self esteem. (Although I can say, looking at it now, I really like this! I'm really insecure about my visual art and style, but y'know what, this is pretty cool! )

I didn't let that deter me though. I was really excited about this game and the story, and at the end of the day, it was a silly little project with my silly little blorbos. So I kept thinking about it and poking the idea and pretty soon the fixation was churning full blast. I was developing the plot, I had snippets of dialogue in mind, I was thinking about GUI elements. And all the while I was yelling all of this at Rob. Eventually I worked up the courage to ask him if he wanted to do the art, only to discover he was working up the nerve to ask if he could help out! After that, it was just a lot of excited yelling about this project.

Looking back at this original mock-up, I think it's really great to see how Rob took my original concepts for layout and design and breathed some actual life into them. At some point I'd done some additional iterations on the dialogue boxes:

And from there we got:

Which ultimately gave us:

HOW IT WENT

There were definitely some ups and down on this, for sure. Getting the demo out was a huge accomplishment and we were both eager to just keep working on it. In fact, the original plan, after releasing the demo October 2023, had been to release the full game by the coming March, for Serizawa's birthday. Ambitious? Without a doubt lol. Obviously that didn't happen, and our next hope was to release it for Reigen's birthday 2024. This way it'd be full circle. Then we hoped to release it for Valentine's day maybe. (This is why we didn't announce a release date until it was well and truly DONE.)

Some of you may remember that Rob injured his hand in early 2024 and so we took quite a bit of time off to let him heal. We're not about that crunch life. Even if this wasn't entirely a passion project, there's absolutely no reason to crunch. So we took a step back so he could heal up. While that was happening.. we had the Great Engine Switch.

The demo for Omamori was originally made in GDevelop. An open-source, no-code engine. And it worked great for the demo! But once I started adding in features that people would come to expect in a visual novel, like saving and loading, or a history of the text, things got a little more complicated. It reached a point where I was essentially building a visual novel engine within the Gdevelop engine. Which, while incredibly fascinating and a great mental challenge, wasn't exactly the best use of my time. Not when there are engines specifically made for creating visual novels, like Ren'py. Which has things like saving & loading, dialogue history, text size options and dyslexic font options, all ready to go out of the box. So, I changed engines.

Changing engines was a long process, partly because it took me some time to finally come to terms with the fact that I just needed to do it, and partly because while some things did come out of the box, I did still have to re-do other things all over again, like entering all of the dialogue and choice options for the prologue and part of chapter one that was used for the demo. I was also learning a whole new engine, which isn't no-code (although it IS really streamlined), and I had to find my way around.

We had a lot of plans for some things that ultimately had to get cut. Early on we planned to have more splash screen images for pivotal moments, which would also be accessible from a Gallery page on the main menu. We even toyed with the idea of reaching out to other artists in the community to see if they would be interested in doing guest art to be featured in the gallery! But as we made progress we had to decide what was essential to the game, to telling the story, and what was a Nice To Have. Learning how to nip that scope creep early is an essential skill in gamedev!

Still, all things considered, as a team of two people we made an entire game in only two years, even with the obstacles we faced. And I think that's pretty damn impressive.

Q&A

What was your favorite part?

ROB:

Getting to work on a passion project with Jace! Getting to see this through to the end with them was very rewarding. Like, did you know you can just make cool things with your friends?? It's awesome and makes for a unique blend of cheerleading, flexing, and teamwork. Definitely recommended.

For the art, I got a kick out of trying to develop a visual identity that was as much our own game as it was a Mob Psycho fangame. The first season opening sequence was my main touchpoint. This poster was a source of inspiration too, notably for the paper cut out look for the sprites. It was fun and a nice way to appreciate the series from a different perspective.

JACE:

This is actually a tough one lol! Part of what I love about being an indie dev are all the different roles you play. Jumping from writing to programming to creating mockups to resource sourcing for background music or sound effects, I think that's the part I enjoy most. It's hard to get bored when you're wearing so many hats and that really appeals to me.

If I had to pick a favorite part, I would say sharing the original drafts of the script with Rob and getting to see his reactions to Reigen's impressive levels of fumbling was a lot of fun. Also, figuring out a piece of code that had me stumped for days is nothing short of euphoric.

What was the most challenging?

ROB:

Mostly mental hurdles. Like, accepting that “good enough” IS actually good enough was sometimes a challenge. On top of wanting to tweak old sprites (we started this two years ago after all!) I had wanted to make more splash art and character poses, and add silly details like giving the face on Reigen’s pj outfit different expressions. But as it turns out, if you want to finish something then at some point you have to stop working on it. Great lessons for battling perfectionism.

JACE:

Changing engines and learning an entire new one was definitely a challenge. I'd dabbled with Ren'py before so I wasn't completely in the dark, but I hadn't done more than dialogue and some choices. With this I had to learn how to navigate Ren'py's screen language so I could build my own screens, I had to learn how to create and manipulate variables in the engine, I watched a LOT of youtube tutorials and got real familiar with the Ren'py subreddit lol.

Something that was really, really challenging for me was learning, and re-learning, how to start. I would work on the game for weeks and be doing great, really have a nice groove, and then Life would happen and I wouldn't touch it for a little while and suddenly the thought of opening up the code was terrifying. I was convinced I couldn't do it, I had no idea what I was doing, and that I was going to get stuck. And it got harder and harder to just start. Even when all signs pointed to that I maybe DO know what I'm doing!

What helped a lot was that I kept a mini-devlog. Every day that I did gamedev work I journaled about what I worked on, how long I spent on it, and what my next steps were. This helped in SO many ways. For one, it was just really nice to see a calendar view of my productivity. Time is fake and its easy for me to think I haven't been productive "enough". Then I look at my calendar and see this:

Not every month looked like this of course. There's a couple where it's pretty damn barren. But that's where the other data points came to help. It was really helpful to see how long I worked on something as well. For example:

It took me literally twenty minutes to create all of the idle and hover images for the icons on the corkboard. I remember I did this quickly before running out to work. And this became a point of constant reference for me. Every time I felt myself getting caught in the swirl of, I can't do this, opening the engine feels scary and overwhelming, or I only have .. two hours... three hours... before I have to go to work or go to an appointment or go to bed, what could I get done in that time, I would think of how much I got done in just twenty minutes. Because ultimately, any time spent on the project is productive! But having these little reminders helped a lot. And each mini devlog also had a section for my reflections and what I hoped to work on next. So if it was a few days, or a month or two, before I was able to get back to it, I could reread the most recent devlog to see what Past Me was planning to do!

What might you do differently?

ROB:

Oh man. Organization. I frequently moved the working files between tablet and desktop and ended up with duplicates all over the place. It was a pain after we came back from that long break for my hand injury because I had different expressions and sprites spread over a mess of nearly identical files.

The worst part is this was not the first or last time this happened. Why? Don't live like me.

JACE:

Well, if we're talking about Omamori specifically, knowing what I know now, I'd of course just start working in Ren'py from the start. I'd had the thought that I could learn one engine (to rule them all). Because I have ideas and plans for other games, and had hoped to find one engine that could do everything, and I wouldn't have to jump around, potentially learning a bunch of different coding languages. But, there's something to be said for using the right tool for the job, and in this case it was definitely Ren'py.

If we're talking about future projects and what I might do differently, that's a toughie. I think every project is going to require different set up and preparation. If I were to do another visual novel, I think I'd start tackling any special screens or gameplay mechanics as early as possible. Writing is one of my strengths and I know I can do that. And I'm familiar enough with the engine that I know entering in my writing and dialogue is pretty straightforward. But making those custom screens and troubleshooting them always takes much longer than I think it will.

In terms of organization, I have a Notion template I created for my game projects, and Omamori largely served as the trial run for what I would and wouldn't need. The mini devlog calendar is absolutely a keeper. But the way I organized the programming vs writing task lists definitely got reworked in the final month of Omamori, and I've already started updating my template and other already existing projects to reflect the new workflow!

I think with every new project I'm going to do things a little differently and, for me, that's part of the fun!

Do you think you'd work on a game again?

ROB:

Yes! I'm currently taking time off from commission work, but I really enjoy creative collaboration in general, so I would definitely work on a game again in the future.

JACE:

Oh honey, I already am 😏.

What's next for you?

ROB:

I’m looking forward to diving in to some original work this summer. Not sure where it will take me yet, but I've been itching to get back into making comics, so that might be next! If you'd like to keep up with my work, I update my Tumblr most frequently.

JACE:

I'm so glad you asked! While Rob moves toward exploring comics, Quiet Cabin is also going to shift gears. I'm going to focus on games with original characters and stories. I don't have any plans to make another fangame but I do have a LOT of other ideas! (Some of which were hinted at in Omamori 👀 .)

So what can you expect? Stylistically, I've always had a love for pixel art so there will be some of that going forward. Depending on the project I might seek out another artist to collaborate with for things like backgrounds or character sprites, especially if I do another visual novel. So if you're an artist and have read this far and would be interested in collaborating on a future project, definitely reach out! I have a lot of ideas, a lot of different vibes and genres, so don't worry if your style is different from what you see in Omamori! And who knows, I'm finally reaching a point where I'm happier with my artistic abilities so maybe for one of these projects I'll attempt the art myself!

As far as genres go, I've got more romance, some horror, some fantasy, maybe some monsters you can date.. 👀

I know we all came here for the blorbos but I truly hope you'll stick around for my next projects, I've already started writing one of them and I'm really excited about it!

Up-Coming Projects include (in no particular order):

Garage Sale Skull: A short, in-browser text game where you find a weird skull at a garage sale. It’s fine, it’s not real, it’s just some weird art project. …right? (Romance with a sprinkle of horror.)

Untitled Dating Sim(?): A visual novel dating sim. Maybe. The dating part is up in the air. It's VERY fresh conceptually and I'm still ironing things out so I don't want to say too much but I will say: time loops. Sorry. Wait. Maybe you didn't hear me. Time 👏🏾 Loop 👏🏾 Visual Novel👏🏾

Apartment 102 : There is something wrong with your apartment.. A very short top-down pixel horror game.

Reyna's Remedies: As a young potion and remedy maker, you open up a new shop on the side of a busy road in the kingdom. There's a lot going on, there's a monster in the Deep Woods, a monster the Princess went missing trying to hunt, there's a constant flow of adventurers in need of healing potions and everyday townspeople with mundane needs. With the help of your animal assistant, you have one month to raise enough money to secure another month of rent, to prove you can do this, and in the process help the different people that knock on your door. (A time & resource management game with an overarching plot. Queer romance with a bit of horror.)

My hope is to release Garage Sale Skull this summer. Untitled Dating Sim(?) is new and uncooked, but rattling around my head pretty loudly. Meanwhile Reyna's Remedies and Apt 102 are games I've been brainstorming on for literally years.. Either way, there are two more steam next fests this year and I'd really love to submit a demo for ✨ something ✨for at least one of them. We'll see!

Once a new project launches I will of course be posting devlogs here on its project page. I'll also be sharing quick updates & general gamedev thoughts on ko-fi, bsky, and tumblr. At the end of the day I'm still just one person, and I may forget to crosspost to a platform, but itch.io will always be the first place to get updates. I'm also considering making video devlogs in the future that will showcase more art and gameplay, especially as I shift toward games that have more action, so you can also follow the YouTube channel!

Again, I cannot thank everyone enough for their continued support and enthusiasm!! I'm really grateful to Rob for jumping into the abyss with me on this one. The game wouldn't be what it is without his help! All the cheerleading from followers as we worked on it and now, all of the comments about how the game has touched or inspired folks has been so, so amazing to hear. Thank you everyone!!

Finally, one last Ekubo for the road.

Thank you everyone, see you next time!

#mp100 #omamori #gamedev #game development #devlog #postmortem

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