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tapewormslurper · 4 years ago

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CSP Brushes that I commonly use:

I forgot I had a curiouscat for my main twitter account (tsuki3458) and I forgot to answer people’s questions on the brushes I use ;;w;; I’m so sorry for the extreme delay.

Here are all the links of the brushes that I use most of the time! Divided into categories that I use them for <3 JESUS CHRIST THIS TOOK A LONG TIME TO MAKE LMAO. DISCLAIMER: I’ve used CSP PRO since November 2018 and some/a lot of the brushes that I use have been deleted/unpublished meaning I cannot share or redistribute them. ALSO, I’m only linking the ones that are in the CSP community site and not from individual artists. I’ve also only linked the ones that I’ve downloaded and constantly use to an extent. I’ve downloaded over 250 Materials/Assets so yeah... Hopefully this was informational!!! Have fun using any brushes you’ve downloaded :) --- One of, if not, THE best publisher of various assets from brushes, gradients, auto-actions, textures, ETC: https://profile.clip-studio.com/en-us/profile/3akwnmm-0c Most of their assets are free!!! AND ARE REAAAAAAALLY GOOD <3 Independent Artists Brushes I use sometimes: > Viorie/Vioriie: https://cubebrush.co/viorie/products/kwynq-ZBT_/brushes-for-procreate-sai-photoshop-2020 > Chlorotype/Caebbage/Birdie: https://gumroad.com/caebbage --- Multi Use Brushes: > https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1753435 Write Borupen (I use for sketching and lineart. For lineart, I use a harder/thicker brush like Artemus Hard to sketch with instead. Color I mostly use it with is black and green). > https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1758182 Artemus Pencil (I use for sketching and coloring. Great for texture). > https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1688293 Graffiti Mili Pen (I use for sketching and lineart. For sketching, I make the brush size really big so it doesn’t look like lineart. This was my first ever brush to download in CSP because I watched a korean artist use this brush and it’s actually what made me buy CSP LOL). > https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1715342 DOT! Dot (Great for sketching freely like in mspaint or for lineart. It’s really cute I like it a lot, also from one of my favorite artists hehe <3). > https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1778145 SOL pen (I haven’t used it a lot but it’s good for sketching, coloring, and lineart! Especially coloring if you’re someone who doesn’t like wet brushes and prefer to hard color everything hehe). > https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1730578 MK_Tilt Pencil PRO (One of the first ever few sketch brushes I’ve used! Good for sketching and even lineart if you’re up for it! Ever since downloading Artemus brush set I haven’t used this one though :( --- PAINTING/COLORING (Wet brushes): > https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1762852 Smeared Paintbrush ( THIS IS SUCH A SEXY BRUSH OMG... SO GOOD... WROW...) > https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1745112 벰펜 (VERY SOFT !!! I use it whenever I want to make soft coloring hehe :3c). > https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1717302 SAI Pen (It’s a basic round brush but with a super soft edge! It’s what I use to fill in my base colors <3). > https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1728875 꾸덕 (I use this brush whenever I want to paint something but still leaving hard strokes/marks! It’s not textured and easily mixes color while keeping the chosen color’s opacity very high until you mix it a lot... if that makes sense >,> I like it :3c). > https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1692034 T-Marker Wind Brush Set (O MY GOOD NESS... it’s basically like IRL markers like copic, wisconsin, etc, and I use it whenever I want to color a greyscale/monotone sketch! Great for people who want a realistic coloring style :3c). > https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1776520 Horse Oil REMAKE (I had the original brush which is deleted and I highly prefer that one because it’s not as wet as the new one but!!! Still good. Haven’t used it much though :( PLEASE CHECK OUT MORE OF THE BRUSHES FROM THE PUBLISHER THOUGH!!! THEY ARE REALLY GOOD) --- LINEART (Hard/No opacity change, textured, etc): > https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1761353

SU-Cream Pencil ( I personally haven’t used this brush a lot BUT it’s very good if you want some texture while still having your piece look soft!) > Real G-Pen > Real Pencil (Modified) > Darker Pencil > Crayon (Modified) > G-Pen (This one lacks texture compared to Real G-Pen. I’ve been using this brush to simulate fake anime screenshots). --- MISCELLANEOUS BRUSHES (Effects, cute, etc): > https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1722368 Neon Pen ( I always use this whenever I want to add in something cute!) > https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1699459 Suisai (I use this for sketching whenever I want to sketch using a soft brush! You can use it for coloring too but I mainly use it to sketch :3c). --- ASSETS (Gradient Maps, Textures, etc): > https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1723549 Sky Color Gradient Set (I use this if I want my drawings to look soft. I actually haven’t used it for actual sky backgrounds yet LOL). > https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1736766 Color Noise Patterns/Texture (This is what I use for adding the noise effect on my drawings! I import it in my canvas and set the layer mode usually to Color Burn <3. The only one I use though/so far is the lightest one or ptw25). > https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1774233 World of Humility Gradient Set (I use this if I want to add more saturation to my colors. It’s very good! I’ve used it quite a lot hehe). > https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1721414 Yunywave Gradient Set (The one I use the most! Helps with adding contrast to my art. Highly recommend if you want an aesthetic look <3). > https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1754836 OBongBong’s Filter Set #2 (THIS IS AMAZING OMG WOWS... REALLY SEXY GRADIENTS. Highly recommend if you want different color palettes for different moods/aesthetics). > https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1437655 Basic Pattern Material Collection (Ever since downloading this I’ve used it whenever I needed a cute background for a portrait. It’s so good!!!)

#csp #brushes #clip studio paint brushes #clip studio paint #clip studio paint pro #csppro #digital art #digital art brushes

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myelocin · 4 years ago

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love, sicily | kozume kenma

Synopsis: Perhaps it’s through serendipity that you’ll begin to look at the world past the rose colored lenses and finally see the kaleidoscope of gold that it brings.

Characters: Kozume Kenma, Sugawara Koushi

Genre: Fluff, Travel, Eventual Romance, (Mutual) Pining | WC: 4000+

Playlist | Pinterest Board

A/N: This is a commission from @haiikyuuns ! I had a lot of fun with this one so thank you for trusting me miss maam ;A;

commissions

Track 1: Paris in The Rain | “I look at you now and I want this forever; I might not deserve it but there’s nothing better.”

Sugawara Koushi is what comes with Paris.

He’s the first, the only, and the current. It’s through summer nights under city lights, where you first are introduced to what love could be.

Where it could be this. Only this.

The summer of ’13 looking like living in an okay city that doesn’t really have much to offer in the rural side of southern Japan. One convenience store by the train station, and a teashop that most teenagers wouldn’t exactly prefer to frequent. Sunsets by the shore are nice, because your world had always just been nice.

It was okay.

Watermelon and ice drops in June, falling leaves in September, snowy paths you had to shovel every weekend in December, and the Sakura blossoms in March. Routine was okay, so you settled that you were too.

Koushi was who looked like what love could be to you. The word “eventually,” fitting. To be in a constant state of pondering if the word love could ever be redefined.

And in a way, it does. He doesn’t exactly become love, the more you think about it, but rather he just remains as is. Your constant; a day one of some sorts. Serendipity as a thing reserved for what could only be thought of as fiction, because reality had never been an ugly place for you.

So looking through rose colored lenses it was.

From your place you settled the most comfortable in—in the sidelines—you sat and watched Koushi bloom. Where for years it stayed okay. As is. Still a routine that frankly neither of you wanted to break.

Where eventually, the first crack of that well maintained schedule looked like a roundtrip ticket from Tokyo to the city of Paris, a suitcase, backpack, and a map of a city unknown to you.

The sight of Paris and Sugawara Koushi. Silver hair and hazel eyes. Every color that’s linked to what you’ve always known as home found in him. The pastel pink of his lips like the rose petals from outside his home, the silver of his hair as the clouds in the sky because for some reason rain always triumphed over sunshine.

And Paris, in the rain, with what you think as love, in front of you. Seen through your eyes as what you tell yourself is it—the greatest that love could ever become, because all you’ve known are shades of pastels with just a hint of silver.

Just one, perfect, palette that seemed to be enough for you.

(Until it wasn’t for him.) (It never occurred to you that just a few shades and a set of familiar streets would never be enough for him.)

“Paris is great, isn’t it?” Koushi turns to you and says, where he holds his hands out and past the balcony to catch a few drops of rain.

He looks beautiful. (Always has, you think.)

You nod your head.

“I’m coming back here next month because I got the job, actually,” he smiles, looking wistful.

You pause.

Rain still pours, and there’s a little bit of thunder. You think to yourself that if he chose to say any other set of words other than a watered down version of “I’m-leaving-you-and-that-good-for-nothing-town-forever,” you’d already be pulling him down into the streets and kiss him under the rain.

“Like,” you say, trying to sound out your thoughts; your throat feels dry. “—like forever?”

Koushi looks far away, and when he leans further to catch more raindrops, he feels far away. Further away, you think. Has he always been this far away?

“I hope forever,” he laughs, then turns to you. He’s smiling like you share his happiness with him. Are you happy along with him?

Silver hair kind of white against the backdrop of Paris in the rain, and hazel eyes that still look like all the shades of home stare at you. Your palms feel clammy, but you smile.

He turns away, and the rose colored lenses you’ve always seen the world with suddenly crack.

(When you sleep that night, Paris in the rain just becomes a city caught in a thunderstorm.)

Track 2: Paris | “if we go down, then we go down together.”

Kozume Kenma’s always hated looking at a city caught in a downpour.

He was never much for traveling, but he knew a city like this was meant to be explored.

He sighs, suitcase in tow as he opens the door to his hotel room and face plant into the bed. The skies above a city meant to live in sunshine continue to weep, so he turns on his side, facing the window to ponder. Not necessarily about much, because his thoughts have always been quite linear.

Kenma liked schedule. Predictability.

Booking a ticket to Paris three days after Tetsurou’s drunk speech was not predictable.

And because he spoke of the devil, his phone rings, flashing Tetsurou’s name in big, bold letters.

“You know,” Tetsurou’s voice drawls. “I don’t know what on God’s green earth even possessed you to jump on the first flight out of here to fucking—“ he pauses to inhale, before continuing, “—Paris out of every other city, but you did, and everyone’s confused as fuck.”

Kenma shifts in place, frankly wondering the same thing, but of course he’d never tell him that. There’s an ache that comes when he cracks his neck, but it’s a familiar one. He supposes that he’s used to a lot of things. The ache in his neck; the black roots that always grows faster than he can retouch them; Tetsurou’s voice that still sounds worse than his mother’s nagging.

“Why are you even there?” his voice comes again over the phone.

“You told me that I needed to do more,” Kenma replies.

The city still weeps. He wonders if someone’s out there trying to catch raindrops, or perhaps dance and kiss in the rain.

After all, it’s Paris, he thinks. A lot happens in a city people shroud with love.

“Do more,” Tetsurou parrots, confused.

Kenma nods, blinking with the tap, tap, tap that comes from the rain against his window.

The gears don’t turn in Tetsurou’s head until after a few more moments pass, his eyes eventually widening at the memory from three nights ago. It’s always been known that Kenma’s been more of a reserved person when it came to most things in life. Ever the calculated, side character type of person. For the most part it was okay, but he supposes that even the most silent could still have moments where they want to peek a little outside the view from inside the box.

Over the phone, Tetsurou smiles, nodding his head.

“You gotta live a little more, Ken, “ he remembers himself telling the younger man. Given that he was a little past tipsy when he made that impromptu speech, there was never an intention to say it as something to be understood as more than just a passing comment.

“See the world,” he said.

Kenma booked a ticket that night, and three days later he finds himself looking at Paris in the rain, with not much of a plan in mind.

“Do more,” he remembers.

And Tetsurou thinks that this counts.

“You trying to prove something to someone?” he asks Kenma, voice suddenly honest.

Kenma sighs, closing his eyes and thinking of the little world he lives within the big wide universe. He’s never really felt small, but sometimes even Tokyo gets lonely.

“Something like that,” he answers.

“—let’s show them we are better.”

The funny thing about serendipity is that it looks nothing like how it’s supposed to look like.

All your life, when you thought of happy moments in regards to love it was always an image that you thought was set in stone from day one.

Instead, it looks like this:

Wet concrete, a cup of coffee, and the rooftop with the view of the city that’s done nothing but weep since the day you arrived. The rain smelled nice, at least. There was always something about the way it lingered that reminded you of home.

—Of silver, and hazel, and pastel colors, and a goodbye that was said like a hello.

You sigh because you just know Sugawara Koushi��s the kind of person that means to linger after the exit.

But like the nature of serendipity, it’s three minutes later where things take a turn.

It turns into looking like a stranger with golden stars for eyes, a question always looking like it’s wanting to break past the barrier.

He shuffles awkwardly in place, looking like a deer caught in the headlights when you turn your face to look at him. You squint, having half the mind to greet him with a broken bonjour before he’s eventually bowing his head profusely and explaining that he’s sorry with an accent familiar to you.

Classic Tokyo boy, you snort.

“Rain kinda ruined the skyline, huh?” you prompt, breaking the silence.

He shrugs. “Not really here to see the city.”

You blink, not exactly phased. You came here following Koushi, so you were practically in the same boat.

“To do more,” he answers. Vague, you think.

Maybe not the same boat. The same ocean, riding the same current maybe, but not the same boat.

“Do more,” you repeat. “So like, are you soul searching?”

“This is beginning to sound like a bad fanfiction,” he mutters, shaking his head, then sighing. “I guess I’m trying to look outside my comfort zone.”

“Ah,” you nod your head. “So kinda like soul searching, but not really; I get it.”

Beside you, he straightens his back. “You do?”

You shrug. “Everybody’s always seeking for something aren’t they?”

He exhales a sigh that sounds more like a laugh so you laugh along with him.

“Mandy,” you say, giving him your name.

“Kenma,” he says, giving you his in return. “So what’s your story?”

You sigh, thinking about it and realizing that you’ve been feeling a little more lost than found lately.

“You really wanna dive straight into that?”

Kenma thinks of what do more exactly means, and settles that maybe this could be count as something to find the meaning to that.

He shrugs. “I’ll dive in if you do,” he answers, and just like that, the man besides you turns from just a rooftop stranger into a stranger with a name who knew just a little bit more about you than the usual you would think is okay.

(Maybe it’s Paris, or maybe it’s just the way your world has kind of tilted, but as you sound out your tale it feels kind of okay.)

Track 3: Roses | “Get drunk on the good life, I'll take you to paradise.”

“You’re going where?” Koushi asks you, eyes wide.

“Italy.”

Serendipity looks like this too. Wide eyes, and an unconvinced tilt to the head. It sounds like Koushi pacing back and forth in a room, his suitcase packed and ready to go, as is yours, but the destination on your respective tickets going somewhere different.

“Shit,” he says. You pause; he never was the type to curse much. “Do you need me to go with you?”

“I’m going with someone actually,” you decline, voice quiet. Mentally, you curse yourself. Why is your voice even quiet? Looking at it from an objective point of view, you’re an adult. You’re in control of your own salary, and sometimes impulsive decisions are granted because in the long run they’re good for the soul.

“You’re going with a stranger,” he deadpans.

You open your mouth, but no words come out. He had a point.

“Are you okay?”

The words he says sound familiar, and a part of you sighs to itself because in a way you’ve missed the familiar. Paris wasn’t familiar, and neither was the idea of Koushi telling you the forever kind of goodbye. Truth is, he could romanticize the see you later parting all he wanted, but that was kind of it. See you later becomes a couple photos you’ll stare at on social media then scroll past, then eventually into just greeting during the holidays before it dwindles into silence.

Just a box of photos of you and him from the coastal side rural city of your hometown, kept in a box, stored in an attic.

“I’m okay.”

You’re not. Sugawara Koushi and the little world back home is all you’ve known, and even if Paris in the rain became just a city caught in a thunderstorm to you, this wasn’t height of what the rest of the world had to offer.

So you smile. “I just wanna do something a little different for a change. I’m okay, I promise. A change is good right?”

The smile he gives you has you feeling terrified.

“—we could be beautiful.” | Italy

And the truth is, a lot of things really could be just that.

Kenma reminds himself that there’s a lot more to Italy than just the deeper saturated colors in the sky, and wider bloom of the roses, but sometimes his eyes wander. Doing more, rings in his head—again and again kind of like as if it’s a broken record.

So “doing more,” begins with thoughts.

He looks at you. A stranger he met by coincidence at a rooftop of a weeping Paris two weeks ago and now he’s suddenly walking along the coast of Italy with you beside him. He knows your name, a little bit of your story, and the fact that you have EDM music plus a couple of sad boy hour songs in your playlist.

He watches you smile when you lean down to smell the flowers, then wonders why you seem to look happier against the pink roses instead of the classic red.

All it takes is for you to smile at him, once, starry eyed and looking like all you know is the sun, and his thoughts stop for just a second before it spirals.

It fucking spirals. How does it fucking spiral?

The first thought that rings true and crystal fucking clear to him is that he’s certain that he wants to know than more than what he already does.

Why do you look happier next to pink instead of red? Why did it look like you wept with Paris? Why are you in Italy with a stranger you barely even know?

“—hideaway.”

Truth is, you think that Italy’s just a hideaway. One extra week away from home, so that goodbye isn’t goodbye yet.

When you look at Kenma whose eyes look distant when he stares at the distance, you wonder if he’s keeping his eyes on the horizon or trying to look past it.

Maybe Italy’s a hideaway for him too.

“Say you’ll never let me go.”

You fall asleep each night trying to tell yourself that he belongs with the city that cries, while the pastel colors of home would always be there for yours to cherish.

You don’t know what exactly you want to let go of just yet.

Serendipity has you looking at the world like it exists for you to conquer it, and perhaps for some it does. For you, you think you just want something to call yours, and for someone to call you theirs.

Track 4: All We Know | “Maybe we should let this go.”

Kenma’s the first to tell you about letting go.

You have half the mind to ask him of what exactly there even is to let go of, but it’s this one night in Italy where Sicily pours all over again.

“I didn’t know Europe liked to cry,” you laugh, staring at the streets outside.

“Maybe it’s just crying for us,” he offers as a response. To be fair, his words did work as if it’s consolation, so you give him credit for at least that and laugh with him.

Kenma’s nice.

He’s a stranger, but he’s nice.

It’s in Italy where you learned that he liked computer screens over window panes, and the buzz of Tokyo over the silence in Miyagi. He’s young, but he’s settled. There’s a house he’s trying to call home, and a kotatsu that serves him well during the winters.

He was a setter for a team, and has a friend that nags even more than his own mother.

Kenma likes apple pie, and despite the initial impression, he’s pretty good when it comes to conversation. He blushes when you look at him in the eye and smile, but eventually he stopped trying to avoid your gaze whenever you did do that.

You can feel him looking at you again, so you tug on your coat and walk towards where the awning of your impromptu shelter ends, palms stretched out to catch the rain.

(You think of Paris.)

“Wanna make a run for it?” Kenma suggests, hands shrugged in his pocket, and eyes looking like two pools of the most beautiful gold in front of you.

(—then you don’t.)

“Kozume Kenma’s getting kinda bold now,” you snicker, walking closer towards him then to the edge as the rain falls harder.

He puffs his cheeks, turning away from you to face the side, and shrugs off his coat to hold it above his head and your own.

And it’s true, you think; there’s something about gold eyes against dark streets and the bokeh of city lights that just fit. You think to yourself that you know his name, and a little slice of his life, but you want to ask him more.

You’re in Sicily with a familiar stranger, and it’s in this fleeting, little, perfect moment where you think that Paris has always just been a city. Never a chapter in a romance book or the postcard that you dreamed of standing in.

Italy looks like rain and now, and gold, and familiar strangers.

You’re not in love, but maybe you should let some things go.

A car drives past, and the streets clear. There’s more than just a few puddles on the ground, but Kenma’s eyes look like a prettier shade of the moon when it turns gold. He’s chuckling, in the way you think only you’ve heard among all the people in the world, and he feels close.

“—we’ve passed the end so we chase forever.”

So close that he could kiss you.

Is this what doing more means?

Maybe, he thinks; there’s a lot of maybes that comes with serendipity. With a sharp breath, you look at each other, then break out into a run.

“—this is all we know.”

You’re drenched in the rain and you’re laughing. Kenma’s long past given up trying to squeeze out rainwater from his jacket and instead just leans against the wall to look at you.

He likes to think that he’s part of the reason as to why you’ve smiled so much today.

“You good?” he hears you ask, and he nods.

“All good.”

He means it.

Track 5: Right Here | “Can we just talk it out like friends?”

“Are you running away because of someone?” Kenma asks.

You let his question sit for a few moments to think it through. Are you?

You don’t know, so you sigh, then look at him. “What does love look like to you?”

Kenma shrugs, but doesn’t ask about your question. Instead, he looks forward, twiddles with the frayed string of his sweater and gives you his truth. “It looks like a lot of things.”

He takes your silence as a response, so he continues.

“I love grocery stores at midnight,” he shrugs. “No lines.”

You nod your head, accepting his answer; you suppose that love could be that too. “I love League of Legends,” you try. “Even if some players can get toxic.”

“We should game then,” he mutters.

“Bet.”

You snicker, looking to the side and pretending like you didn’t see the faint dust of red on his cheeks. If he asks, you’ll just say that it’s because of the red in the sky and leave it at that.

He doesn’t, but he does ask for more slices of you. “What else?”

“I love how sunsets look in my city,” you say. “Cosplaying. The stars. My immaculate playlist. Pink roses over red. Purple hair.”

He nods, happy with the fact that he’s piecing together little bits and pieces of you.

“You love someone too,” he says, but the lilt in his voice gives away that he’s asking rather than just stating it.

You think about what he says. When you thought of love it’s always looked like all the shades of silver and maybe a couple palettes with just pastel. It looked like the beige of Paris and the cotton candy skies from home.

Then in comes the rain, the world drenched, and past the rose colored lenses you finally begin to see the first hues of every other color.

Italy, with this vibrant, beautiful kaleidoscope, and Kenma, who stands in the center of it.

You see gold, gold, gold.

“You love someone,” he says, and when the world love registers in your ear you think about how much you loved getting caught in the downpour from last night.

“I do love someone,” you tell him, because a part of you would always call that love. It’s in Italy, next to a stranger, where you learn that love doesn’t always have to be this or that. In reality, it’s actually as simple as being this and that.

The waves off the coast, and the sunny city from the postcards drenched in front of your eyes. The calm before the storm, then the beauty of how the rain falls and wind howls right after. You come to love running from point A to point B in a downpour, with a stranger who held his jacket over you and him as an attempt to keep you dry.

Love can be Koushi, still, and always.

As you calling him later that night and telling him about the adventure that serendipity took you in. He tells you a little bit about Paris, and how he’s always going to be right there, when you need it.

You nod to yourself as he says those words, because you’re fine with the fact that even if he won’t, you can always tell yourself that you’re right here for you.

Track 6: Nobody Compares To You | “Nobody, nobody, nobody compares to you.”

To Kenma, you are what comes with both Paris and Italy and the serendipity found after trying to find a face to correlate with “doing more.”

You’re sitting beside him, on the window seat of a plane headed home, and he spends the duration of the flight above seas thinking that he doesn’t want to approach a goodbye.

At the end of the day, he realizes that he’s just a stranger. And maybe to you he’s just going to be a photograph in an old SD card you’d look at once every couple of years before forgetting about it in an attic, or losing in some corner of a house that would you see you for the rest of this lifetime.

He’s never looked at unpredictability in the face. His whole life he’s sneered at the sight of a break in routine, and what’s unfamiliar, because not everything is laid out for him to acclimate to.

He thinks to himself that maybe Italy would be enough, and the downpour of Europe are wild enough of a memory to catapult him into seeing a little more.

Because he saw so much.

“Do more,” he hears Tetsurou say.

Was booking the first flight out of the country without a plan enough?

Kenma shakes his head no. It was a step, but it wasn’t enough.

Telling himself that he’s always going to have Sicily isn’t enough. Leaning in close, almost kissing you once, and watching the hues of the world burst like fireworks and settle into paintings against the depths of your eyes just once isn’t enough. Knowing that you love to play league but not know who your favorite champions are don’t even come close to being enough either.

He wants this, and wants to know you.

He’s certain that Mandy is a name he’s always going to remember despite the age, but he wants to ask you so much more.

Kenma acknowledges the thought that he wants more photographs on his phone and nights where he’d have no choice but to run across the street in a downpour. The truth that he finds in Italy is that there’s nobody like you, because you are who comes with the colors that he never thought he’d discover outside of Tokyo.

Suddenly the routine he’s bound to come home to isn’t enough anymore.

You’re both skies above Japan, and he wants to look at you watch the sunset and talk about all the things you love again. Whether it be in Italy or Paris. Japan or the rest of the world. Under the shelter of sunlight or in the eye of the storm.

He wants to ask you why you love pink roses more than red.

This isn’t love—not just yet, but it could be.

Track 7: Something Just Like This | “How much you wanna risk?”

All you’ve known is silver, but perhaps gold works too.

Kenma stands beside you, luggage in hand, and the exit a few steps away. How much does he want to risk exactly?

Not a whole lot.

The routine that used to be enough was never a whole lot.

He shifts his weight back and forth between each foot as he wracks his brain with thoughts of what he could say.

On the other hand, you don’t want to say goodbye.

Something just like what you have now is nice. The company of a stranger you saw the world be doused in colors in with is nice. Parting then potentially forgetting isn’t nice.

You think to yourself that maybe all you’ll be to him is a face to match a name, and a stranger meant to remain in only photographs of this slice of his life.

As you close your eyes, the colors of pastel and silver flashes behind your eyelids, but they aren’t blinding. You know it’s not because of just Italy and that rooftop in Paris that gives an answer as to why you’re suddenly seeking gold.

How much do you wanna risk? What exactly is there to risk?

Kenma’s the first to break the silence. “Do we say goodbye here or are we going to do something dumb like book another ticket to another country?”

You bite back a laugh, peeking at him through the curtain of your bangs. He doesn’t look away this time, so you offer him a smile when he meets you halfway.

Now that you think about it, Kenma’s always sort of met you halfway.

(It’s nice.)

“I don’t think my bank account would appreciate me booking another ticket on impulse right now,” you laugh.

Kenma’s eyes glimmer, and you think, gold.

“So you’re saying you’d still go with me?” he asks.

“Not everybody is a CEO to their own company, so maybe next time,” you chuckle, amused at the way he seems to deflate ever so slightly at your words.

“Next time,” he mutters, nodding to himself. “We’ll see each other next time?”

You shrug. “I mean, I’d run in the rain with you again.”

He laughs, shoulders shaking a little, eyes crinkling along with his smile. “See you in the next time?”

The way you smile at him has Kenma thinking about the boundaries evident between saying that he wants to do more than actually doing more. So it’s when you’ve turned your back, a few meters already away from him where he exhales a sigh and calls out your name.

You turn around before he even finishes.

What you see is gold. Gold, gold, beautiful gold; as the center of the kaleidoscope of colors.

“If I kiss you the next time, would you kiss me back?”

Kenma’s still as he sounds out his words, the taste of it foreign in his tongue. But he welcomes it this time. You’re looking at him like he gave you the sun, and he holds his breath.

“Earlier in the trip, back in Paris you said you were looking for something,” you tell him first. “Did you find it?”

A pause, then a smile. “Answer my question first.”

You think about what you’d have to risk if you answer yes, but the only thing that comes to mind are colors you know you’re starting to grow out of, so you roll your eyes, laughing. “Then I’ll look forward to that next time.”

He exhales, shoulders feeling light. “Good to know because I think I found what I was looking for too.”

You prolong the see you later. “Was it yourself or something else?”

The answer comes to him naturally, and he grins. “A little bit of both, actually.”

#nc.commissions #haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu imagines #kozume kenma #kozume kenma x reader #kozume kenma scenarios #kozume kenma imagines #kenma x reader #kenma #kenma scenarios #kenma imagines #kenma fluff #sugawara koushi x reader #sugawara koushi imagines #haikyuu fluff #hq!!#hq!! x reader

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paperwick · 5 years ago

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Dragon Age Tarot Style Guide: Part Two

The second of my at least three part set of tarot tutorials. This sentence will link to the first one on composition if you haven’t seen it. It’s been a four year gap between these, and I apologize for that. To all you who messaged me and reminded me of this project, thank you. You kept me from forgetting and I’m glad. <3

It won’t be another four years until I post the next segment, which will be pattern and texture focused. It’ll hopefully be in the next month or two.

This is going to be a long post, so I’m putting it under the cut. Apologies to the mobile users!

As a general disclaimer, this is an unofficial guide, I’ve never worked with Bioware. All of this is based on how I approach tarot design, my inspiration being heavily rooted in Dragon Age Inquisition’s companion card designs.

Secondly, I know nothing about tarot. I tend to use http://www.ata-tarot.com/resource/cards/ heavily as a resource for my understanding of the cards and their meanings.You don’t need to know anything about tarot to do illustrations, just have as much fun as you can. <3

So I typically work with a color composition in mind, but for those who are struggling to imagine a color scheme, my best advice for coming up with a palette is to just throw down some colors in this sort of an arrangement.

Your Main is going to be whats forming the base of the card, or it’ll be the most widely used color. Backgrounds usually make up the main, but sometimes it’s a foreground element or the character’s clothing.

Your Cores are going to be colors that accent the base. You can make these pretty wild to be honest, but complementary colors and triads tend to work best for a balanced color composition. That’s what you’re trying to achieve with these--balance. Think about what’s drawing the most attention. The red in this example I did with the Iron Bull is very strong, and the teal I chose is fighting with it so my last color is something a bit more desaturated that accents the teal instead of picking another aggressive color, like a saturated yellow.

The Accent or HL color is whatever you’re going to use to add the final focus notes. It will typically be your brightest or your most saturated color, though not always. Sometimes your HL color might be the darkest of the composition because your main and core colors are naturally bright. It should be used sparingly, or if you’re using a lot of it, focused in one area.

You can use more colors than this! For my example card with Bull, you can see I made his pants a sort of subdued yellow and added accents to the background and lit parts of his body in in different colors, But you’ll want to keep your major colors limited to keep it cohesive. If you start losing cohesion, I recommend using a gradient map over your picture set to multiply or soft light (not at 100%) to tone down your most divergent colors, and you can mask out areas where appropriate.

This Bull card is one I made by picking my colors first then deciding on the content and composition. Color picking can be done first, or second as I’ve done with the rest of my examples.

Card #1: Rayne Amell [ @dracoangel ]

The Queen of Cups

This card went though several iterations with color, and the end product is less about story and more about atmosphere. The drawn composition reflects more of the story: she conceals her thoughts and feelings, but the world bends around her like water. I wanted to add more purple to this card, considering the character’s preference for it, so I skewed the color scheme in the final to be more purple. The first version probably makes for a more cohesive palette, but it lacks the same depth and drama as the one with purple. I added another core color to the second palette, which is totally okay to do. Sometimes the core palette might be 7 colors, sometimes it’s 2. The idea is to strike a balance. Colors that are super eye catching like the red in the scarf might better serve the composition as a lesser accent, whereas the purple core is a great fill because it’s fairly desaturated and doesn’t demand as much attention.

The HL color takes up a fair amount of this composition, but note that it’s strongest in the top two thirds, and is centered in the top third. The foreground water also cradles it against one of the darkest purples of the card, which helps center focus up top.

Card #2: Valora Lavellan [ @kylorensprettymuchanasshole ]

The Devil

This was the most difficult of the palettes, I’m working with two separate light sources in two wildly different locations. On the one side you’re at an ancient elvhen temple, on the other, in a burning chantry. It only made sense to have two different palettes for this composition. Where I really failed here was in not having a color that bridged the two sides. If you can engineer a color to be in between two differing palettes, you’re in a good place.

With that in mind, I revisited the thumbnail.

The execution is a little weak, but the idea works. The bridge color could work in either of the palettes and is a midway point between the two most similar values of the core colors. It’s used primarily where the separate palettes meet each other smoothing that transition. In this instance, it also helps to define the figure and double down on where the focus is, since before it was fighting between the top left and bottom right corners. Now the focus works as a diagonal from one corner to the other.

Double palettes are hard, but can make for some truly dynamic color compositions.

Card #3: Iothari Mahariel [ @theuselesspotoo ]

Six of Swords

This card was a struggle for completely different reasons. The palette is pretty homogeneous, primarily purple, with a hint of green. This one could use far more variation, and the challenge is in driving interest with such a limited palette. This is where your values are going to be super important. Your darks vs lights are always hugely apart of composition, but in limited palettes they do the most work in driving interest. Make sure to break up some of your larger and more prominent shapes with value differences, the snow vs the dark stone beneath it.

If that isn’t enough though, there’s a few tricks that can help push focus where you want it without heavily changing the color scheme.

We have three very distinct planes in this; the sky, the distant mountains and skyhold, and the cliff the figure is standing on. We can push the far mountain plane back by reducing the brightness of it, and we can pull the nearby plane closer by adding stronger highlights to the lit areas. I also brightened up the figure since they were getting lost in the sky a bit.

In addition, I popped the foreground colors with just a bit more red, to separate that plane from the more bluish purple mountain plane.

Just those small changes really sharpened up the focus of the composition, and we were able to keep the palette fairly limited.

Card #4: Tighe Lavellan [ @queen-scribbles ]

Nine of Wands

This palette was a breeze compared to the others. We’re working with complementary colors, reds versus greens, and very little divergence in either direction. The bottom half is primarily reds, the top greens, and they meet in the middle with a soft orange and harsh yellow. Palettes with complementary colors are the easiest to work with, the important part is making sure their balance works with your drawn composition because they like to fight. All of my reds are limited and desaturated because the greens and yellows, by the nature of the composition, are the most demanding elements.

Card #5: Lathari Lavellan [ @jisabeau ]

The Chariot

I knew what I wanted for this one immediately when I started it. I really wanted the character to be falling into a void, to mirror their emotional crisis when dealing with the deadly white bear of their past. But though this works fairly well as a base palette, it’s really missing the intense horror I wanted when I started.

So in my edits I pulled them further apart, and pushed the darks even further. The challenge here is having a dual focus, since I don’t really know if either stand out enough from one another at this phase. I have to pick a focus, either the bright whites of the bear or the strong orange/green tones of the character.

This is probably the strongest focus-wise.

But I enjoy the color notes of this one far more.

The point here is, sometimes things aren’t perfect, and that’s also okay. Pick your favorite, or at least pick one, and take that to completion. It’ll occur to you while finishing it what I needs. Which brings us to the final point, similar to that of tutorial part one:

Final Note: Don’t spend overlong on one thumbnail. I’ve spent days in the thumbnailing stage, that’s fine, but don’t spend more than 1 hour on any one color thumbnail drawing; it’s not worth it. If an idea is good but not great, just start a new thumbnail of something similar, and you’ll stumble onto the right composition.

Remember to explore your own color intuition. My way of doing this might be helpful, but if it’s not, don’t feel compelled to follow it. Everyone has a unique vision, and we’ve got to feel out our own paths.

If you have any questions, send them to paperwick [at] gmail [dot] com under the heading “Color Tutorial: Questions”, OR comment on this post (I might not see them on a reblog) and I’ll pool them into one area and answer as many as I can in a separate post.

Finally, I’d like to give another shout out to everyone who sent their character breakdowns to me for this. I wish I had time to get to all of them, and I really appreciate you taking the time to put them together! Thank you all so much!

Not making promises on when Part Three will come out, but it WILL be coming out. Thanks for reading through all this, I hope it’s been helpful.

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foteinahq · 5 years ago

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random hcs about brella and their baby, part one of ??:

they're 26 and starting to talk about the possibility of kids in the near future, but end up with baby #1 instead. totally unplanned but loved to pieces. they are the first in the group to become parents, not that anybody would expect differently after all - stella's end goal had always been to have a family of her own to go with her design career.

she spills the beans after a mission. she's still wearing her blue and orange tac suit and is tired as fuck, but brandon thinks it's the right moment to talk about what's going on in her head, so she just tells him there might be a chance their life plan will speed a little. they end up buying a bunch of tests on the way to their apartment, and as her suspicion is confirmed, she wonders how long it will take for the tac suit to be too small.

she ends up taking a break from field operations, deciding to help tecna and timmy with tracing maps for a while. she gets bored to death sometimes, but she also gets to do some astronomy work when T2 let her take more responsibilities, so it's cool.

brandon wants to know if it's a boy or a girl, stella doesn't care. by doesn't care she means that beside her grandmother all solaris women had girls and so will she. on week 18 brandon doesn't have the heart to tell her the paper say it's a boy, but when he does tell her, she just starts rescheduling every single project baby related because this changes everything.

on week 24 they end up fighting over color palettes for baby's nursery: stella wants it yellow, brandon wants it mint. on the third day of discussion about it radius barges in and decides that baby needs to know what the colors of his family house are, so he commissions a painter to turn the walls into a sky - there's the sun, clouds, doves, everything screams solaria.

they're on a name hunt, and at some point stella dreams that she's out in the garden and it's time to go to sleep, so in all her infamous graciousness she calls out for the name sebastian. when the little boy jumps out of the bush he was hiding, she wakes up, and just knows that's the name. brandon suggested calling him skandar, in honor of sky, but stella warns him that he can't be godfather and also namesake, so they settle for sebastian. skandar makes it as middle name tho, and sky cries his eyes out for twenty minutes.

stella hears from marion that before domino was destroyed, luna and radius had appointed her and oritel as godparents in sign of their life long friendship. stella thought it was funny all things considered, because her son would have had bloom as godmother so they just subconsciously kept doing their bff thing. the fact that sky was he godfather made it all even more funny for some reason.

sebastian's got his dad's hair and her mom's eyes, in the sense that they're golden but also that he needs glasses before he even learns to read. being stella and brandon's child is a blessing and curse, especially when everybody crowds them to see the baby while they're trying to do their grocery.

when he's got the age for kindergarten, sebastian becomes bas, his hair are styled like his daddy's and dresses just as posh as his name is. he loves sports, which makes auntie aisha proud, but he also likes to randomly smash bottons on his keytar and pretend he's the star of a rock show, which prompts to fake entire concerts with auntie musa in the living room.

there is no "bad cop" parent between stella and brandon, but he tends to be more permissive, which means that at times bas throws tantrums at stella for picking his side like daddy does, and while she thinks it's ironic, she ends up having to teach bas that he can't always have it his way. the spoiled brat attitude comes with the role of being crown prince, and while stella appreciates the fact that brandon is willing to let their kid make his decisions and learn from his mistakes, she can't help but clash with him about how the kid needs to take it down a notch like she did. it gets better with years.

they raise sebastian as bilingual, but he picks up on spanglish a lot quicker because it's more common around his peers. when he gets older he tries to learn more greek to make his mom proud, because in case you were wondering, this kid is a momma's boy through and through despite everything.

stella resumes her work fairly soon after bas started kindergarten. brandon took his time to get back in routine, and he suffered from the change the most. as bas grew up brandon kept on checking on him all the time and be vocal about stuff, because with him nobody ever really took the time and he grew all serious and broody, and he doesn't want his kid to think he's got to keep it all for himself. they talk a lot, break a lot of toxic masculinity traits that bas picks up from hanging with his peers. bas turns out to become way more well adjusted than his parents and they're thankful for that.

at fourteen he asks uncle riven to teach him how to style his hair all spiky and stella nearly has an heart attack when she comes back home, brandon behind their kid mouthing to tell their son that he looks great. after that, by the time he graduate high school, bas had straight up copied all of his uncles hairstyles and looked awesome in all of them. brandon bragged about it with the boys for days.

baby #2 is put on hold when stella's career skyrockets even more, so for sebastian's sixth birthday they decide that auntie roxy can gift him a dog. there's a picture on the fridge with 7yo bas and 1yo oreo, posing for the camera as their respective empty breakfast bowls laying on their heads.

while most of his male friends-cousins go to red fountain, bas decides he's cool enough to drop the bomb and tell his parents he would rather study magic at oskuria college. he makes a point that he'd be close to home and that's all that takes for stella and brandon to be on board. he doesn't tell them that he wants to be a wizard because uncle nabu makes it look so awesome.

#headcanon.#ok to reblog

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operationrainfall · 5 years ago

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Title Woven Developer Alterego Games Publisher Alterego Games Release Date November 15th, 2019 Genre Adventure, Puzzle Platform PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One Age Rating E for Everyone 10+ – Fantasy Violence Official Website

I really wanted to love Woven. After all, I was one of the original backers of the unsuccessful Kickstarter project, and was duly impressed by Alterego Games’ decision to self publish the project afterwards. The premise of Woven was really compelling and different, taking place in a soft world of woolen yarn and fabric that is being invaded by strange mechanical insects. Our hero is a goofy elephant named Stuffy, and he quickly comes across a new friend, a firefly-shaped robot named Glitch. Together, they set out to discover the truth and explore this world, transforming and reweaving Stuffy to scale various obstacles along the way. If only the adventure had lived up to that fantastic premise.

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Woven is the sort of game that would have made my childhood self smile. It plays out like a live action Winnie the Pooh, in a calm and mellow land where all that matters is relaxation and finding flowers. At least at first. Stuffy is a very amicable protagonist, but not the brightest bulb. A fact that is repeatedly referenced by the game’s narrator. The narrator’s tenor sounds very British, and at first I enjoyed how his paired sentences usually rhymed. It does grow old rather quickly though, especially when you realize that the narrator is not gonna help you much with direction. If you get lost at all, he’ll start reminiscing like a grandfather with dementia, talking about the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea. None of which is helpful. Which wouldn’t be a problem, except for the fact that getting lost is a regular occurrence in Woven. Or at least it was for me. I managed to get stuck about 5 minutes into the game, in what would be considered the tutorial area. That’s because the game doesn’t hold your hand much, and trusts you’re clever enough to pick up on the clues in your environment. Sadly, what Woven thinks is plainly evident very rarely is. Case in point, the very first blueprint machine I came across gave no guidance how to operate it. I eventually figured it out, but it was a sign of things to come.

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There’s dozens of blueprint machines spread across Woven’s 5 regions, including meadows, deserts and jungles, and each blueprint gives Stuffy new transformation options. To unlock the blueprint, you play a little musical mini-game by operating mechanical levers to select notes. Though this was confusing initially, I grew to enjoy the mini-game. At first I assumed that each animal form would have set limbs, but you can mix and match after you acquire several, creating bizarre chimeras. Case in point, you can pair Pig legs with Lion arms and a Rhino head. You can even have two different arms or legs simultaneously. Each body part has different capabilities that allow various actions. You’ll need these to solve puzzles and make your way through the game. Though Woven is nominally a linear experience, the world is so wide open it’s easy to not immediately know where to head next. A good example was when I came across a short hilltop ringed with mountains, with a circular passage full of cranky yak creatures. I could stomp my foot to force the Yaks to move, but after moving in a complete circle, I wasn’t sure what to do. I eventually found the solution online in a very helpful playthrough, but it was frustrating being on the cusp of a solution and having no idea where to go next. This was due to the fact many of the puzzles in Woven are time based, but they don’t tell you they are. If a clock had showed up indicating I had a certain amount of time, I would have known to hurry up. And the farther I got in the game, the more complex and active the puzzles got. I much preferred the puzzles that required thinking but not fast reflexes.

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While it’s clearer why you would want to transform Stuffy to progress, it’s less clear how to use color palettes called patterns. You’ll find tons of flowers as you wander about, and by stomping your foot, they’ll open up and allow Glitch to scan them. You can also scan some animals for these, but they rarely sit still, so you’ll either need to be quick or find a way to distract or incapacitate them. Lastly, there’s patches you’ll randomly find on the map to unlock patterns. Patterns do a couple of things. On the one hand, they let you decorate Stuffy at the knitting machines, making him look as fancy or hideous as you please. You might be more surprised to realize you need some for puzzles. An example are giant snakes that block your progress unless you match their pattern. There’s another cool segment where a mechanical spider will pounce on you unless you blend in with the background. I don’t mind using patterns strategically, but it’s very easy to not scan the right one, and then be forced to backtrack until you find it. Some sort or an indicator of where key items resided would have helped, but there’s no such thing. And given the wide open format of Woven, it’s rather easy to get lost and miss the proper patterns. Oh and did I mention there’s more than 100 of them spread across the entire game? Which makes it even more daunting when you manage to pass one without realizing it.

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You may be wondering what Glitch does, and the simple answer is he operates every mechanical device you interact with. He turns on the blueprint machines and knitters, scans items and can also use his light to illuminate dark caves. The little firefly is pretty helpful, and his backstory ties directly into the plot of Woven. You’ll find lots of nodes that reveal bits and pieces of his lost memory as you go. I won’t spoil it, but suffice to say there’s a reason Glitch feels so strongly pulled by the planet’s moon. I wish I could say Stuffy’s backstory was as interesting, but he’s almost an incidental character. He could literally be anything or anybody else, and it wouldn’t change the course of the game. I never knew much about the elephant, other than he was apparently simple, cowardly and loved flowers. It’s not clear how long he’s been around, what he did before Glitch or anything really. He’s just there to progress the story, and that’s a shame, especially since he’s nominally the main character.

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Not everything in the game works poorly. I did find it handy how the different Joy-Con controlled Stuffy and Glitch, respectively. And I appreciated visual prompts indicating what abilities I needed to get past obstacles, and found the camera easy to operate. The problem was primarily with the game’s physics. Woven is a wide open 3D world, but often what seems a clear path forward ends up tripping you up with invisible stage geometry. Bushes often kept me from moving forward, which was awkward. As a fan of platformers, I found this made Woven a lot harder to enjoy, since I was never clear if I could progress or not. Sometimes you do actually need different abilities tied to animal parts, such as jumping or pushing, but you never know in advance. So if I came to an area with a puzzle and had the wrong parts, I would have to backtrack all the way to the nearest knitting machine and reweave my elephant friend. I really think it would have been much easier if Stuffy could fast travel to these, since they’re spaced rather far apart and it’s not very fun walking about. Failing that, I would have loved a mini-map, since that would have cut down how often I got lost in Woven dramatically.

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Visually, Woven has a cute storybook aesthetic. There’s lots of bright colors and soft details. While I have no problem with that, I do have a problem with the graphical fidelity. I will mention I played the Switch version of the game, and from what little research I’ve done, it runs far better on other consoles. I normally don’t complain about things like framerate or the like, and usually find most games I play on Switch run great, but oftentimes the graphics here were muddy and fuzzy. Simply put, this game suffers from Bloodstained syndrome, meaning every other iteration of the game plays better than the one on Nintendo consoles. Which is truly a shame, since this is the perfect sort of all ages game that would otherwise appeal to a lot of Nintendo gamers. Musically the game is frankly dull, and quite muted musically. Sound effects lack punch, and actions often don’t have the proper impact as a result. When Stuffy punches a box out of his way, it just slides quietly out of place. Much like the rest of the game, aesthetically Woven is a very mixed bag.

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While I hate to add onto my other complaints, I have a few more. For one thing, I find it completely awkward how Stuffy always looks at Glitch as he runs forward, contorting his head to follow the firefly everywhere. That’s minor, but a more significant issue relates to the linearity of the game. If you miss any collectibles or achievements, you can’t get them until the next time you play through the game from the beginning. Once you reach a new area, there’s no backtracking, and the game auto saves. So if you’re one of those people that loves to platinum games, best of luck. And finally, while I don’t mind the general lack of combat in the game, it makes it that much more challenging when you have to contend with the final boss.

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Much as I wanted to love Woven, I left the experience quite disappointed. There was promise here, but for whatever reason it wasn’t met. If you don’t mind clumsy physics and very complex and vague puzzles, you might enjoy what’s here. Even then, it’s a hard pill to swallow at $19.99. Though you can beat the game in less than 5 hours, it took me around 9 due to getting lost repeatedly. So at least you’ll get some bang for your buck. This is one of those games I recommend you pick up on a sale. Hopefully Alterego Games has more ideas they can breathe life into in the future, cause I’d honestly like to see them succeed. In the meantime, I’ll lament this tale of an elephant and his firefly buddy.

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[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”1.5″]

Review Copy Provided By Publisher

REVIEW: Woven Title Woven

#Adventure #Alterego Games #Glitch #puzzle #StickyLock Games #Stuffy #Woven

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vanitysruin · 5 years ago

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11. These vain reflections.

All was still in the deep, deep darkness that arrested her.

Delial was not unconscious, a realization that took precious time to make. The chill on her skin, the stillness in her chest, the sensation of being suspended in water without water crept back into her senses one by one. That her flesh did not glow for the first time in a dozen suns or more was eerie enough to make her consider the possibility that she was indeed in some manner of dream, but then the dark swept away just a little, like great wings peeling back in preparation of flight, and ugly veins of unearthly light crept beneath her skin once more.

It was a vast and grey place and she was alone. No, not alone, never alone. The Ascian's presence was unmistakable, the shadow that grounded her in the light-less gulf of nothing. She imagined, for a moment, that his silence was a courtesy: that he was letting her acclimate whatever trial it was meant to be. It was many moments more before he spoke.

"Focus."

His voice echoed off nothing and into nothing, and he sounded both near and distant. "Not even I can teach you what you already know. Focus. It has always existed in you, even if you've so shamefully forgotten. All it takes is but a nudge." He continued, disembodied and stern. "I have told you my story. Tell me of yours. Let us see who you are."

"But I--"

"Focus. Your Mother crystal has given you such commands before, as she not? Hear... Think... Feel." The contempt in his voice was palpable, and Delial imagined it took a great deal of will to keep his tone cool. Even so, it became edged and taciturn. "If it aids you, then do it. If you cannot, then--"

"I will. I will. A moment, please. I..."

Remember. Remember. Who am I?

Who am I?

She closed her eyes. She took a breath. She reached out for the memories packed away, before they called her hero.

I am.... I...

Something whisked past her, slid under her arms like wind. If she thought hard enough, she could almost feel... almost feel...

... the stone tile floors of home. Warm stone walls the color of faded terracotta. The city outside is grand beyond measure, incomprehensible. I have never been so safe as I was here, all those years ago. I take comfort in the little things that shaped my world. The mosaic in blue and white and gold on the wall on the floor beneath the hearth. The only portrait in the house of us, the five of us, forced together into one gaudy frame.

The suggestion of a query brushed past her then. Her toes touched upon something cool and solid. The grey broke into the warmer palette of her youth. No longer suspended, she found her footing in the center of a room that grew out around her, blooming into the shapes she can remember from a life so far away. It was Emet-Selch's doing, she knew, but there was still a tingle of pride in her heart. The nostalgia grew bolder as she remembered, remembered--

Down the hall, my father's study with its broad double doors left wide open. Stacked wall to wall with shelves and books and maps and nonsense. It spilled out into the parlor, my mother's domain, infesting the heart of our house with his scholarly obsessions. A pair of antlers, aldgoat maybe, mounted, purchased. Father was not a hunter, but mother loved it so. Said it reminded her of home. That was all the reason he needed. A thick woven rug, sofas that never sat right, left crooked because they would just get bumped out of order anyway. They were ugly things inherited through the passing of an uncle and father would hear no word of replacing them. They smelled of smoke and old wood and feathers. His favorite armchair, too, a hideous leather affair that looked as though it had survived calamities. Maybe it had.

The floor solidified first, and then the walls, and then it arched and curved overhead to seal the ceiling. Shorter than she remembered but she, too, was a shorter thing in those days long gone. Growing bold, she chanced a step, and then another. It did not surprise her to find that her feet were bare and she was no longer wearing the grim black robes that had become her working uniform. In its stead she wore a pale yellow sundress patterned with small embroidered wildflowers. And as the rest of the room filled in, populated by vague shapes that resolved themselves into drapes and books and laundry long forgotten, so too did Emet-Selch, occupying a place behind her father's armchair. He ran a gloved finger over it as if checking for dust. He did not seem impressed.

"Quaint," he said. The echoing was gone, his voice constrained by this semblance of body, of place.

Her fondness for the scene was nearly dispelled right then and there. Her father would have nearly lost his mind with rage if he had ever played host the eminent Solus Zos Galvus. She wasn't so sure about her mother: at the least, she would be deeply amused to offer him a seat on those hideous green sofas. Arms nested at the small of his back and he stood without his usual slouch, stately and severe, much more akin to the image she was familiar with as a child. Imperious, through and through, though thoroughly indifferent to all he surveyed.

"And what of it?," Delial said, perhaps a little more defensively than she intended. "I loved it here." All the trappings of home in a darkened room sitting an eternity away, back upon the Source. Not once had she revisited it person, not even after the city had been liberated. Surely it belonged to someone else, abandoned was. It was her own personal Amaurot, empty of the people she loved. There was nothing left for her there.

"I'm sure you did." Emet-Selch prowled, scrutinizing the little things that cluttered the place: a bowl of tarnished silver filled with crumbling potpourri, the heft of a stray book, the fraying corners of her father's armchair. He had the audacity to seat himself, first smoothing out the tail of his coat before plopping down with all the nobility he typically elected to ignore, save but for the shite-eating grin he pointed squarely her way. "Not bad. Not good, but not... terrible. I confess, I prefer my seats a little more gaudy and, shall we say, Imperial. But to each their own."

An ass is still an ass. He snickered as if she'd said it aloud.

"This is where we begin, then. The furthest you can go?"

"What do you mean?"

"Never mind. Who were you, here?" He waggled his fingers, gesturing about the room.

Delial's hands brushed down the front of her dress. It was her favorite when she was little. One size too large, just as she remembered. Who was I? "I am Delial Blackstone. Daughter of Lyra and Garren, sister of Westor and Harvard, and I am a child of Ala Mhigo."

"And this is before you met your Scions of the Seventh Dawn?"

Delial blinked at him. His hands steepled, fingertips meshing together, and his golden eyes stared through them expectantly.

"Of course it is. I was-- I was a child. I didn't leave here, until..."

"... Until..."

"Until after the Calamity."

"And before? Who were you then?"

Smoke and gunfire. They'd become more and more prevalent in the days after the occupation, and would rile up again and again and again. The streets were safe if you complied. If you did not, then perhaps the Kinslayer would find you. There were so many of us then, nameless terrors that struck in the night, we who fought against a divided Ala Mhigo. They made us this way. We were their weapons, and we served proudly. It was for the betterment of our country. It was for the sake of our people. We knew these things. We believed it all.

Something pinched behind Delial's eyes. It did not take her by surprise: a familiar sensation, when she tried to reach back into those earlier years. Some things stood out to her clear as daylight: the marches, the bodies, the razing of the temples, the fall of the Mad King. Others yet remained vague and fuzzy, and it was not until much later in life that she realized that that may have been by design. The Imperials had their ways and Delial had not been so immune to them as she'd been led to believe. She thought herself chosen, favored, stronger than the things that bent her weak-minded countrymen.

"Well?" Emet-Selch's voice was impatient, his gaze much too sharp. She turned away from him to pad towards the window and with a sweep of her arms she drew open the curtains. Outside, the sky was a sea of oranges, reds, violets, and hanging high above it all was the red moon, a smoldering wound yet to inflict itself upon the world. The street before her home was quiet and empty, dark but for the occasional ring of bone white light. Even without the oppressive presence of the moon, many found a simpler and safer option in retreating to their homes once the sun was near enough to setting. Imperial patrols and ruffians, traitors and ne'er-do-wells, often prowled and clashed in the night. Smoke and gunfire, the crackle of magitek energy, the pale yellow searchlights peppered throughout the ward: such was the cost of a better, stronger Ala Mhigo.

"I was an agent," Delial said. "I sought out enemies of the Legatus and of the Empire within the city. Grimsong." The name brought about a reflexive smirk. "I called myself Grimsong. I was feared. The resistance knew me and they trembled. And then, one day, they caught me. It was not until much later - until Lyse, and the Griffin, and the rebellion - that I ever dared go back."

Movement drew her eye a little ways down the street. Shadowed figures paced by with their faces low, eyes darkened. Their lips moved but she could not hear them. As they passed nearer, she imagined she recognized the dark plum hair of the shorter figure. Perhaps she even caught their eye when they seemed to take particular interest in her house, staring as they and their companion stalked by. Soon enough they were gone, and the street was still once again. As an imaginary sun slowly set, the sky turned from firey to cool, and the burning red wound that was Dalamud became the lesser blue tomb from which another dragon would rise.

"How curious. Captured by the very rebels you had tormented for so long, and yet you live?"

"I know not how to explain it."

"Naturally." Emet-Selch tapped his fingers together, and rose from his seat. She imagined it was by some courtesy that he made some semblance of moving as a mortal might. In this place, she was certain he could snap his fingers and move mountains if he wished. Instead, he paced and took a place beside her at the window. "I believe I'm more or less familiar with all that rubbish between points B and C. C being here, of course. Or rather, I can take a guess." He cleared his throat and gestured with his hand as he spoke. "By some miracle you encounter the Scions, who somehow manage to recruit you to their cause: to become their Warrior of Light, and fight back against the Garlean and Primal threat. And so on, and so on, a few twists and turns later, you arrive here upon the First. Does that sound about right to you?"

"T'was a bit more involved than that, I assure you," Delial grumbled in response. It was pointless to be annoyed with him: an immortal thing, an Ascian, who expected the impossible and thus was forever disappointed. At times she had foolishly thought he wasn't entirely dismissive of her existence, fractured or not. And then there were times, as he did then, where he looked at her as if she were little more than a stain upon his coat.

"I'm certain it was. How very trying and difficult it must have been for you, hero, you have my greatest sympathies." Emet-Selch turned to her, all the better for him to stare down his nose at her. "You may not trust me, and though it wounds me I can live with it just fine. 'Tis to be my lot in life, ever the shady villain for you small-minded things. You know the feeling, don't you?" A cruel smile, a single chuckle, aimed perfectly to hurt. "Ah, but I distract myself. Let me ask you this, then, since your brain has been so conveniently muddled: do you believe me? That as I am His champion, you, then, are Hers?"

"If we are tempered, then how do we act as we do? As if we yet retain will and thought? I have seen--"

"What you have seen," he cut her off, "Are but pale imitations of a greater art. The principles may be the same, more or less, and we share them as best we can. To their credit, sometimes they come close, but sometimes..." Emet-Selch shook his head, a show of dismay that could not hide the cold twist of his lips. "What we achieved was perfection, and thus it follows that the will of our gods be manifested perfectly in us. Do you think any of this would have been possible were we reduced to mindless, drooling creatures?"

The Paragons warned of thine abhorrent kind. The echo of a boiling, raspy voice brought with it the vague shape of a god. Ifrit, or a vague semblance of Ifrit, descended upon the street. A crown of horns aglow, magma-hot, a maw eager to breathe his blessed flame: he stared at her balefully, accusatory. His lean and lanky shape flared bright but not bright enough, and soon enough his limbs and body crumbled like so much ash, leaving his fury to writhe like the smoke of an inferno long starved for kindling..

Beside him, a massive shape rumbled to life: Titan, towering above his beastial kin, glowered from beneath a heavy stone brow. Godless overdweller! Thy myriad heresies shall not go unpunished! He beat his fists together with a great boom of boulders colliding, and in doing so his body cracked and crumbled, the mountain broken before the warrior that was his doom.

Last came the gale, Garuda, a wreath of wings and talons and vicious hunger. Amid the whirl of claw and feather she could see Garuda's maddened stare, the fury born from disbelief. What are you? What have you done to me?! No mortal should possess such power! The winds stilled around her as she shrieked rage and agony. Feathers wilted and fell away from a single point of light: a crystal, torn from her breast, gleaming like a knife's edge. Impossible! Impossible!

Their trinity, bested years ago and a world away, collapsed and faded into ash. It was Ifrit's eyes that remained upon her to the last before they too scattered, grey and lifeless. Thou art of the godless blessed's number. Thine existence is not to be suffered.

"And so you trounced all that was set before you, god and man alike. Thus you embraced this mantle of yours: Warrior of Light, the Champion of Hydaelyn. She never even tried to hide it from you, did she? You knew no better. Those around you knew no better." Emet-Selch turned to lean a shoulder against the edge of the window and fixed her with a pitying smile. "All it took was a glimpse of a world consumed by her accursed Light, and even then..."

“I don’t want to talk about Her,” she said. A fresh, new ache clawed at her mind. Even knowing the story between Light and Dark, the casual hatred that simmered beneath Emet-Selch’s words felt appalling, wrong. Heed not the Dark One’s words. Was it command or memory that brought Her voice, so long absent, back to light?

“Ah, but we should!” He sensed her pain, surely he did, and he was ever ready to sink his fangs right in. Emet-Selch rounded in on her, forced himself into her place by the window, set gloved hands upon her shoulders to hold her there. “We must. Long have I known of her treachery, but I hadn’t realized the depths of her depravity until now. Oh, now it’s all too clear.”

Outside, the blue false moon strained and cracked, ready to burst. What emerged, shattering its constraints like glass, was no dragon but instead it was the very image of Her. Hydaelyn’s crystalline avatar loomed over the city, glimmering and pulsating with a light that no longer seemed as calm as serene as She once did. Warrior of Light, She seemed to call. Beloved daughter.

“It was only natural, I suppose: once tempered, forever tempered.” Delial could not tell if it was rage or light that flared up again inside her. His hands could have been a comfort were they not so cold and unfamiliar. Low he bowed himself that he could meet her eyes, that she could not escape his so easily. “But to take everything from you, after all you did in Her name. That is a cruelty even I cannot abide, not even for you.”

Remember. Remember. The fury of the light renewed itself, reaffirmed its presence with every beat of her heart. “These riddles again!” Delial wanted to beat it out of him, pummel the grim smug look clear off his face, but she could scarcely even focus on him. Again the light clouded her eyes, drowning out the Ascian and her reconstructed home. Above the city, the crystal glistened brighter and brighter still: an omen, a warning. From sparkling mote shall I swell to glorious sun...

“Hear! Think! Feel!” Her mantra was spat at her and Emet-Selch loomed closer still, defiant of the light that tried to blind her. “The empty places in your life, the impressions of people you loved but never knew! All these falsehoods made to shutter your eyes, to deny you your own truth!”

The crystal burned and with it the sky, brightening again in yellows and reds. In the distance, beyond the silence of this false home and the sound of Emet-Selch’s voice, came a steady, rising roar.

… and all the world shall bask in my warmth.

“Defy her. Defy her and remember. Remember who you are! Remember us! Remember--”

It came upon them, a flood of wretched, angry light. The memory of Ala Mhigo crumbled before it, even the highest walls unable to withstand the crystal’s wrath. The great griffon perched atop the gate, the palace, the menagerie, all fell in an instant, obliterated without a chance to resist. It was upon the street outside in an instant, and then it filled the window with its malice, blinding and deafening and complete in its destruction. Delial felt herself violently jostled, and she was certain that she would be obliterated too, dashed against the walls of a place that did not truly exist.

Remember us.

She could not hear but for the roaring in her ears. She could not think but for the absence of everything, of self, in the heart of absolute light. She could not feel but for the fire upon her skin.

Remember.

Time passed. How many moments she could not tell; how many breaths she did not count. She became aware, just as she did when first Emet-Selch brought her into that grey oblivion, of numbness in her limbs and a new pain in her heart. When she opened her eyes, the light was gone but for motes that hung around her like tiny fading stars.

She was not alone.

An Ascian stood opposite her. They stared at her expectantly, unmoving, silent. Delial frowned, overcome by a most peculiar sense of deja vu. She had seen this before.

Ware thee the bearer of the Crimson Brand, a voice nudged into her heart. She ignored it. She waited, watching. Any moment now, the Ascian would bare their teeth like a beast, splay their clawed hands, and charge.

She waited. They waited. The stars around them fell and rose in slow, artificial orbit.

Ware thee, for he is an Avatar of Shadow, that voice urged her, Whom death attendeth always. But there was no strength left behind it, no force of will to veil her mind.

This was where it began, was it not?

They are different somehow, this Ascian, different in a way that did not occur to her to notice before. Their robe was black and long and adorned with the markings of Zodiark’s devout. But their mask was not the deep crimson of their peers, but rather a pitch black, and in place of the speaker’s fangs or the emissary’s hooked beak, they were adorned with an extra set of narrowed, scrutinizing eyes.

Typical of him, she thought, wondering how she could have ever forgotten.When did he stop being so familiar?

The first time such a vision was placed before her, Delial too wore robes of black. They were different then, motley and crude, better suited to an aspiring adventurer. Now, they were longer and simple, a modest echo of her silent companion’s attire. Such decoration was not meant for her. But him… he was His most earnest champion, His most favored and rightly so.

Remember us.

She raised her head.

“Hades.”

Her voice rang out with a clarity that sounded alien in her own ears, and in that place it echoed out for an eternity. It struck him like a bolt of lightning, and his body flinched and straightened from its habitual slouch. He stopped himself from approaching, as if thinking better of it, hesitating. Time meant little enough to the immortal but millennia were still millennia and it had torn a gulf between them all the same. At last he brought himself to speak and his voice, too, took a timbre that did not suit his lesser, mortal shape. Deep and rich, it filled her heart like a song long forgotten.

“You’re a little late,” he said. There was a tremor in his voice, hidden deep beneath his brusque tone, beneath his sardonic nature. Ala Mhigo was gone, the cluttered parlor with its people-shaped holes was gone, but in those four words, Delial thought she felt the barest trace of home.

#writing #these vain reflections #wol!delial #what am i even doing?? i have no idea

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cosmiciaria · 6 years ago

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Dragon Age Origins review! (spoiler free - long post)

Dragon Age 2 review

Dragon Age Inquisition review

So at last I closed this cycle and finished Dragon Age: Origins. I'm still playing Awakening and will probably comment on it but it won't be a proper review.

I left Origins for last because I had a few mishaps in the way here. My first Dragon Age ever was Inquisition, so I'm so so sorry for having started this story by the third installment. However, you may be very happy because thanks to that awesome game I plunged myself into the world of Thedas and now I'm stuck in that dark pit of hell forever.

After I was done with Inquisition (for like… eight times), I said to myself, hey, I should play Origins. I don't own a ps3 so it kinda discouraged me quite a bit, because I am a trophy hunter after all, but the PC version had to be enough for me (the same with DA2). I booted the game, created a female mage warden, played through her origin story, met Alistair, fell for him, recruited Leliana, Morrigan and Sten and… arrived at the Broken Circle main quest. Boy was I put off by it! I had a ragequit when I reached the Fade mission and left the game for dead.

But lately I've been hearing things about a possible DA4… and fangirled about Inquisition with a friend and… Well I wanted to play Inquisition again, but the thing is I know that game by heart now and I wanted something new. My friend insisted that I should fall for Fenris, Fenris this, Fenris that, and so I obeyed her and played DA2 only to fall for Anders (sorry my fren!). And once I was done with this? Alright, I went back to Origins. But I discovered my save files had been eradicated from earth! I almost quit but gathered courage and said to myself that I hadn't lost much gameplay hours. I restarted the whole thing, a new mage again.

And this time, I used mods!

And this time, I finished the game!

It was SUCH an experience. I'm really put off by the graphics of this game. Let's face it: it doesn't push the ps3 hardware to the limit, not at all, on the contrary I might add, and sometimes it may very well be a ps2 quality game. Textures are all dull, brown, grey. The color palette isn't very broad, character creation is quite limited (thank god for the mods) and animations are rigid and repetitive. So much so that I noticed (and I think everyone noticed it too) that animations are the same across the three games. DA2 added a few more, specially for mages, but they reuse the same five or six animations all over again. Faces all look the same, except for some important characters; gameplay is slow, ordinary fights take up too much time and playing as a mage in this first installment is a nightmare (whereas in the other two games it was greatly improved and accelerated).

I can understand if the game had low budget. Great things can be achieved with low budget. Just look at The Witcher! Just beware: if you really care about graphics, you're going to suffer through this game, because some scenes look cringy and terribly animated.

Some quests and dungeons drag on forever. You know of what I'm talking about. The Fade side mission inside the Broken Circle main quest (which is recommended to be done early in the game) it's such a huge warning for players, because it's even longer than main one. It can greatly discourage people to keep playing, as it is long, it doesn't add much to the actual plot that we care about, and it feels like a filler for the sake of adding more hours to the story. The other "oh god please end me right now" main quest that lasts forever, is the I STILL DON'T KNOW WHY mandatory Deep Roads level. I just, I just really hate the Deep Roads, guys. For those of you who don't know, the Deep Roads are the underground labyrinth built by dwarves. After playing The Descent expansion pack of Inquisition, I began to feel dread whenever I entered a dwarven architecture, I felt claustrophobic. The experience was such of running around with no goal whatsoever in these endless halls that I can't bring myself to enjoy it. So when there's a Deep Roads quest, I always have a bad time.

But… does all this make it a bad game? Not at all.

So you play as the Warden, a main character you create. You can be a human, an elf or a dwarf. Depending on the class you choose (warrior, mage or rogue) you are going to have a different origin story. For instance, a rogue or warrior elf can be both a city elf or a dalish elf (you choose), but if you make them a mage, then you're forced to play the magi origin. Also, not all classes are available for everyone, as dwarves cannot be mages. So on and so on.

The interesting thing about these origins (it happens the same in Inquistion) is that all the possibilities that you can have at the beginning, actually happen. It's just that it's the character you create the one who is chosen to be a Warden. I mean: if you choose a human mage, all the other characters you didn't choose (human noble, city elf, dalish elf, dwarf commoner, dwarf noble, mage elf) they all happen and go through their origin stories as well, it's just that they aren't lucky (or unlucky?) enough to become a Warden. Proof of this is that Hawke (our main oc in DA2) is linked through their mother to the Amell human mage, whether this one was the Hero of Ferelden or just another ordinary mage with no heroic career in the Circle. You encounter the secondary characters of each origin story across the story of the main quests, just as it happens with Jowan, a mage you meet in your magi origin, but if you're not a mage, he still appears in the Redcliffe main quest. This is confirmed by the wikia, and it's pretty interesting! You, as the player, have the power to manipulate these threads that intertwine: you are the one who decides whose fate will be heroic.

Depending on your origin, your initial story varies. But at one point or another, you're going to come across Duncan, a Grey Warden who is recruiting lads and lasses to the Joining. Duncan offers you to accompany him to Ostagar, and you must accept.

And what the nugs are Grey Wardens? Grey Wardens are an "elite" army who fight the darkspawn, and they are the only ones who can fight them. Darkspawn are their own version of zombies let's say: they live underground, in the Deep Roads. They're not intelligent but crave for surviving, so they're dangerous and a plague. Every now and then, a Blight occurs: a creature called Old God – a dragon – transforms itself into an Archdemon and commands these armies of darkspawn, giving orders and destroying everything in their stride. Wardens exist to fight the Blight, as it is the moment the world is in more peril.

And why so much secrecy? Why not an ordinary army? Grey Wardens are different from an ordinary soldier since, to become one, you must drink darkspawn blood. From now on, you'll sense the darkspawn, you'll hear their whispers in your head, and your lifespan is heavily reduced. This is the price Grey Wardens pay: many see it as an honor, others as a punishment.

You've joined the Grey Wardens: alongside the other junior Warden, Alistair, you're going to take part in the next battle in Ostagar. People are still arguing if this is a Blight or not, because there had been no signs of an Archdemon, but everything changes when the armies strike, and a huge, blood-red dragon pierces the sky with its shrieking howl.

King Cailan has come to your aid and he fights valiantly with Duncan on the field. Meanwhile, you and Alistair must head to the tower to light the beacon for the reinforcements led by Ser Loghain Mac Tir know they must come to the rescue. You are overrun by darkspawn, your Wardens can't take it anymore, you manage to reach the top of the tower, you light the beacon – you can make it, you can…!

…Only to watch Loghain command the order to his armies to retreat.

And they do.

And everything turns black when an arrow pierces your chest.

You wake up fresh and recovered in an old hut, where Morrigan and her mother Flemeth live. Flemeth has saved your life with her obscure powers – she remains a calm force, albeit a mysterious one. Alistair is safe and sound as well and as the only two Wardens left alive in Ferelden, you must regroup with those in Orlais and recruit as many possible allies as you can. The world opens up for you: you have the power to reach each corner of the map to make use of your title. Morrigan joins your team, forced by her mother, with a somehow vague motive, and soon you're sent to your main quests to gain allies.

And from here on out, the game will take the route you, the player, desire. In each of the main quests you'll end up having to make a huge decision that will undoubtedly change the future of the plot. Then again, you feel like the god of this game, choosing what to do, who to save, who to side with. It's all up to you! And since this is really dependent on the player and spoilers, I won't delve into it. Just know that there are multiple endings, and that there are characters you can save (or not). My piece of advice: trust in your team members!

And since we're on that topic, let's talk about companions! As it is a staple of these games, you can recruit not only allies for the war but also companions for your team. Your first party member will be Alistair, that I have mentioned a few times before. He's a junior Warden as well and the golden boy with a golden heart. His past is soon presented to you: he's the bastard son of late King Maric, and half-brother to King Cailan, now dead as well. This changes your whole view on him, now that the throne is being disputed for. He was training to become a templar when Ser Duncan recruited him. He highly respects Duncan, who took him in, and the Arl Eamon, the man who raised him. He's awkward, has some funny interactions with Morrigan and is easily teased because he's just too good. And I don't know what are you doing with your life if you don't romance him.

Morrigan is the mysterious daughter of Flemeth, the Witch of the Wilds. She'd lived secluded in a hut in the Korkari Wilds with her mother, learning black magic and how to shapeshift. She's witty, and her greatest weapon is her tongue, for she can be cruel and deceitful with just a few words. But if you open up to her and she starts to trust in you, behind that veil of "I don't care" you'll find a great friend who speaks her mind. Personally, towards the epilogue, I felt so much joy in having befriended her, because she truly shows her caring side.

Leliana is a sister of the chantry who happens to know how to fight (convenient! Or suspicious!). She joins your team because she had "a vision" that told her to do it, and so following the light she reaches you. She used to be a bard in Orlais, but now she has renounced her freedom to the Maker, their god. But if you dig deeper in her life… you'll find some interesting things and a very protective and supportive friend. She seems naïve, always wishing for a peaceful approach, although when she readies her arrows she's as deadly as Morrigan with her words.

Zevran is an assassin elf who was hired by Loghain to kill you, but he soon realizes he's outmatched by you. You can spare his life or not, but if you, you'll gain a very handsome and funny ally. He comes from the Antivan Crows, a guild of mercenaries who kill for the best bidder. He wants to leave that life behind, but he also wants to be free from a past who is (literally) hunting him. It's up to you to help this poor precious man or not!

Sten is a qunari whom you can free quite early on. Qunari are a race of big guys with horns that come from across the seas to conquer these lands, so they're mostly seen as criminals and scum. Sten is actually not a name but a title: he won't tell his real name though. He's very hard to talk to at the beginning, since qunari take everything a little bit too literal, and his culture differs greatly from what we're used to. But once he starts talking about his past and you learn about his principles, he becomes an easy man to deal with.

Wynne is a potential companion if you decided not to slaughter all the mages in the Broken Circle main quest and I advise you to do so, because she'll be your best healer, for at least the early part of the game. Wynne is an old woman who's seen her fair share of things in life, from tortured mage apprentices to demons taking over bodies. She holds a secret she kinda is ashamed of, and despite her full life, still has a few regrets here and there. She's kind and wise, but she may sound a bit nosy when she wants to interrogate you about your personal life. Still, she does everything with the outmost love and devotion, so she deserveS the WORLD ALRIGHT DON'T HURT MY MOTHER!!! AND SIDE WITH THE MAGES DAMMITTT

I should mention Shale, although I was too stupid not to recruit her. I thought I didn't have the dlc needed for her, as she isn't one of the vanilla party members. Shale is a golem brought to life with dwarven magic. I can't say much about her but people seem to love her a lot, as she brings a new fresh perspective into this too much humanly story. Many of the main quests may change her fate, so be careful when you act in her presence!

And last but not least, how could I forget about best boi in town, Dog. Yes, you have a dog as a party member. Yes, it's almost as good as Persona 3 where you have a dog who can summon other bigger and badasser dog to fight, almost as good. Dog plays out as any other warrior in the game, you can play as him as you can play as Alistair, and he's got his own ability tree and his own set of armor. And you can also interact with him as well! He loves you so much that you start the game at 100 love with him and that number will never diminish. He's always present at party camps, and sometimes you can trigger cutscenes of him with the other companions for the comic relief section of the game.

With these guys you up against the world, yay!

Decisions play a huge role in this game. Each playthrough can differ immensely from another one from the very beginning. Since it's a lot to cover, I'll leave all the discoveries to you. But don't be afraid to choose! Although, like I said before, trust in your comrades. The rest comes and goes.

So, is this a good game? It definitely is. The amount of possibilities, the countless sidequests, the ability to shape the story as it unfolds – it has the perfect recipe for a good plot. Do I think it's the best out of the three? Well, that's personal. I do think this game lacks in a lot of aspects that DA2 and Inquisition have mended and even improved upon, but that's because this one was the first attempt at something like this. You can't blame it for trying! In the story department, it is a good story, don't get me wrong, but maybe a bit too Young Adultish – in the sense of that you're the chosen one, you become the hero, you're a special snowflake and you can romance Alistair who's taken straight out of a love story for teenagers (I'm not complaining though!). It's a bit like all the other stories we've been seeing, watching, reading, playing for a while. If you're an avid reader of fantasy books (like me) then this game won't bring any new concepts to the table, except perhaps for the Grey Wardens and the fact that you can choose your adventure your story. Gameplay was sluggish and many a time I felt like I was playing World of Warcraft, specially when my mage had to cast a huge spell. Luckily, mods exist and they make everything easier, smoother and faster.

I would've loved to have played this game in a console, but alas, I'm stuck with my non-trophy-hunter pc version. I encourage everyone who's new to the series, to give this one a try. And if you don't dig the graphics or the long ass quests that never end, don't stop here, try the others! You might be like me, who played them in complete disorder, and still managed to love them all.

I'm in love with Thedas, with its lore, its characters and its endless possibilities for future titles. I just hope that someday, somehow, Dragon Age 4 can see the light.

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houseofvans · 7 years ago

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ART SCHOOL | RACHEL KATSTALLER

Inspired by traveling, architecture, seasonal fashion, and Nature, Austrian Alps based artist Rachel Katstaller's illustrations center around strong female figures and playful bold colors. With upcoming various book projects, including her first children’s book, Rachel balances her work and life with skateboarding, travel, as well as volunteering at her local animal shelter. We find out more about Rachel’s artistic process, her art school tip, and about some of her upcoming projects in 2018 – including her first board graphic!

Make the Leap!

Photographs by Florian Trattner

Introduce yourself? Hi there! My name is Rachel Katstaller, and I’m an illustrator from a teeny tiny country in the Central American tropics. Two years ago I moved to the Austrian Alps with my Salvadorian street cat Hemingway, who terribly misses the palm trees and warm tropical weather back home.

Tell us a little about your illustrations. How would you describe your work to someone who is just coming across it? My work centers around strong female figures and playful color palettes. These are deeply inspired by the vivid color combinations you can find when traveling in the tropics.

When did you first get into drawing? Who were some of your early artistic influences? What artists inspire you these days? Ever since I picked up a pencil as a kid I’ve never stopped drawing, but I honestly never expected to be able to turn it into a career. I graduated and worked as a designer for a while, but it never really fulfilled me. Four years ago I decided to take the leap and pursue my real dream of becoming an illustrator. It’s been quite a ride with lots of ups and very low downs, but I’d never turn back!

My very earliest influences where definitely my grandparents, both architects who loved to make beautiful sketches of cities or oil paintings of Salvadorian market days. Also the gorgeous use of space and color by Miró counts as one of my earliest inspirations. Nowadays I find myself always checking out work by other wonderful illustrators and artists such as Carson Ellis, Tuesday Bassen and Cleon Peterson to name a few.

Take us through your artistic process? What’s a typical day in the studio like? Inspiration strikes at very strange times sometimes, so whenever I have an idea for a new illustration, I start working it through in my head, imagining shapes and colors. Once I get to the studio I most of the times just lay out the colors I want for the piece, sketch it and then get to work on the final art. It all sounds super easy and fast, but sometimes these ideas shape themselves through several days in my head until I finally see them clearly enough to put them to paper. Sometimes it feels like it takes forever! I’m a creature of habit and that’s why I try to have very regular office hours during the week. I’m the most motivated and creative in the mornings, or in the late afternoon so those hours are mainly reserved to paint and draw and dedicate myself to being creative. Afternoons I spend writing e-mails and planning out ideas, working on my online shop and mapping out personal projects. Before leaving I always make sure my workspace is clean and organized so that I have a blank slate to begin with the next day!

What are your essential art tools and materials? I love jumping from one medium to the other, it all depends on the project and client, as well as what feeling I wish to convey through my pieces. Of late I have loved combining gouache with colored pencil textures, as well as graphite. But I also love working digitally in Photoshop with my Wacom tablet, since this allows for mistakes to be easily corrected.

It’s mentioned that you’re currently living in the Alps. How has this environment or that city influenced the work you create? What’s your favorite thing about residing there? Yes, I’ve been here for a bit now and I absolutely love it! Back in Central America we only have two seasons (rainy and dry), so actually being able to have four different seasons has been quite the experience. I love how the colors change over the course of the year, not only in nature but also in how people dress, it definitely influences my work. I also draw inspiration from architecture, which is so very different in every place I’ve visited. It’s a constant source of ideas. But what I think has been my favorite thing about living here has to be having taken up skateboarding. I’m a terrible skateboarder, almost deeply embarrassing so, but I try to get as much practice as I can. It’s led me to a wonderfully supportive group of girl skaters with whom I enjoy spending time with. They not only inspire my art but also motivate me to keep practicing and keep challenging myself to become better!

What was your last adventure that showed up in one of your illustrations, thematically or just visually? Maybe not my last but my favorite adventure was last year, when I went to Tromsø, Norway for the first time to see the northern lights. The whole 10 days I was there the sky was cloudy plus the full moon didn’t allow us to see anything! I was super disappointed about leaving without really having seen them. On our very last night there, my friends went to a party but I decided to stay home and go to bed early. I took a walk outside of the house and saw the northern lights just above me. It was such a magical experience and one that I will definitely never forget!

What advice would you give someone who wants to follow in your footsteps and pursue art? It is hard to give advice to others as I pretty much still feel really small and insignificant in the art and illustration world! It is easy to feel lost and as if what you do doesn’t really matter. What I’ve found has helped me to keep moving forward is to stay as true as I can to myself and my own journey as an artist. The work we do is a reflection of our inner selves, so as we grow, so does our art. Try to not look at others and compare yourself to them. Even if it sounds impossible at times, believe in yourself!

What’s your best Art School tip that you want to share with folks? I will have to second Martin Ontiveros and say that copying is not always the proper way to praise another artist’s work. Finding your voice as an artist is a long process and there are no shortcuts to get there. It’s totally ok to get inspired by other artists, but you are unique and your work should be too.

What’s been your biggest challenge career wise and how have you overcome it or how do you continue to persevere against these challenges? My biggest challenge as an illustrator so far has been keeping constantly inspired and motivated to create new work. Last year, after working really hard on some big projects, I found myself feeling completely empty of any good new ideas. Instead of taking a break, I just continued to push myself harder and getting more and more frustrated at myself for not delivering. This brought me close to burnout and it ended up becoming a vicious cycle of sorts. I’m slowly learning to listen to myself and understand that it’s ok to need breaks from work. I’ve realized how important time off is, how traveling helps me find new ideas and refreshing ways to see the world.

What are your favorite style of VANS? Definitely the Old Skool Pro, they combine comfiness with great style!

How are you not just ONE thing? Illustration is a very lonely job, I spend hours cooped up in the studio working and concentrating on my things. That’s why I’m extremely grateful for skateboarding. It’s as much a relieve from work as it is a downtime to connect with others. Nothing compares to hanging out with my friends and challenging myself to try out new things. I’ve also found purpose in what I do when I find that my art connects or resonates with others, even when they’re hundreds of miles away. Central America still is going through major issues regarding women’s rights and it’s something that I like voicing through my work, in the hopes it reaches the right hearts and minds. I recently collaborated with the “No Estamos Todas” project in Mexico, illustrating a victim of femicide. It’s a horrible side of our reality back home, but one that needs to be talked about and put at the center of our attention. I’m also a cat mother and do volunteer work for the shelter where my cat comes from. I try to help out as much as I can through my work and give back to the community.

What’s coming up for you the rest of 2018? I’m as much excited as I am anxious about this year to be honest. I have some big book projects coming up, one of them being the first children’s book I also do the writing for! I’m also launching some skate related merch mid year, which will include my very first board graphic (keep checking my Insta for updates! :)). I can’t even explain how excited I am!

In between projects I hope to have some time to dedicate to myself and develop my art practice further, working on personal projects and just enjoying the process of creating! Thank you so much for interviewing me!

Follow Rachel | Website | Instagram | Shop | Las Furias

#Art #Vans #Vans Art #Vans Girls #Art School #Rachel Katstaller #Illustration #Interview

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photograpia · 7 years ago

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Travel Thursday: (US 2017) The J Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

I was in the United States for almost a month this year getting some clinical experience by shadowing physicians in psychiatry and internal medicine. It was a working trip for the most part- but I was blessed to have family and friends who made the most of the downtime when not in the clinics by exploring art and food with me.

A day after I had landed at LAX, my godmother (whom I hadn’t spent time with since a trip to Universal Studios in 1996) called and asked if I was willing to go on a spontaneous two-day adventure. She had planned for us to relive the Universal Studios trip 21 years prior on the second day (and we did, though we were sorely disappointed that the ET ride was no longer around) and told me to choose whatever I wanted to do for the first day. Without a second thought I picked what had always been on my art bucketlist: A trip to The J. Paul Getty Museum.

The J Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center in Los Angeles houses some of the best European art in the US. Jean Paul Getty was an American industrialist, making his fortune in oil. He was an avid collector of art and antiquities, and at his death left the J Paul Getty Trust foundation as the wealthiest art institution in the world. The museum is in the Brentwood neighborhood in LA, an affluent area with homes with beautiful architecture peppered across the hills. A trip to the Getty begins with a tram ride that stretches uphill, showcasing just how lovely the area is.

Then when you emerge at the top, this is what greets you. It was a perfect day- not a cloud in the sky, sun up, a gentle breeze blowing- and for a moment I completely forgot how jetlagged I was.

Note that the Getty Center is HUGE. (Map for reference below). So before doing any exploring, we decided to fuel up at the Cafe.

It needs to be said that the Cafe selection at the Getty is pretty great. It’s cafeteria style with multiple stations- deli, kitchen (full, farm-fresh, from scratch entrees), fiesta (it’s in LA), grill, oven, and a HUGE salad bar (again, in LA).

I had my first bottle of kombucha since landing in LAX. It was a blueberry bottle from local LA-based brewery Kombuchadog- all the dogs featured on the labels are rescue pups, which is a touch I love! Yes, I am a regular kombucha drinker even if I realize it tends to smell like dank feet. I also do so carefully, because as a medical student I am aware that in excess it may lead to lactic acidosis. Kombucha carefully.

For lunch I had a grilled chicken sandwich with air-fried fries. In this moment I was reminded about how enormous US serving sizes are compared to the tiny Asian plates I grew up with as reference. But I digress. That was a pretty good (and freshly-made!) meal, giving us sufficient energy to explore the grounds.

We didn’t have all day at the museum, so we began with the sculptures in the East Pavillion. These three were my favorite:

Bust of Juliette Recamier, Joseph Chinard

The Family of General Philippe Guillame Duhesme, Joseph Chinard

Dancer, Paulo Troubetzky (I repeatedly turn to this image during tough parts of the semester, reminding myself to carry on with grace.)

I have always always loved museums, but have learned through the years that the people visiting them always also play such a big role in the experience.

It is fascinating how one piece can be understood in so many ways and invoke different emotions. Sometimes it’s passion. Sometimes it’s awe.

There were so many beautiful paintings that I stood before for such a long time in the South and West pavilions. These are some of them and the history behind them.

Study of Clouds with a Sunset near Rome, Simon Denis, 1801

I know I sound like a broken record saying this, but my all-time favorite Philippine national artist is Fernando Amorsolo. His mastery of the use of light and the integration into local landscape scenes is unparalleled- and I often find myself looking for work similar to his when I travel.

Denis painted this in Rome, and the weather an impending storm. It isn’t hard to see that in the oil painting, but his technique is seen in precisely how easy it is to see that from the use of light and textures. There is light contrasting with darkness to show the stark contrast in the change in weather. The strokes are done in a manner that you can see how fluffy the clouds are- but also how moist and heavy they must be, full of rain. Denis has a whole series of cloud paintings to hone this skill set (this is the 78th one), and it is a testament to how practice makes perfect.

Spring, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1894

It was the detail in this painting that really caught my attention. It’s a huge painting- almost as tall as the wall from which it hung- but a closer look shows such vibrant colors and such attention to detail. Lawrence Alma-Tadema was a Dutch painter who specialized in Merovingian and Egyptian scenes but after a trip to Rome began painting what he envisioned as lively scenes from Pompeii, as is depicted here. The women and children carrying flowers in this procession are a reference of the Victorian custom of May Day, but juxtaposed against ancient Roman architecture. Almost half a decade after Spring was painted, it inspired certain imagery used in the iconic Cecille Demille film Cleopatra.

Portrait of Maria Frederike van Reede-Athlone at Seven Years of Age, Jean Etienne Liotard, 1756

I’m not even going to pretend to have a deep reason for liking this painting- I saw it and loved it because it was about a girl and her dog. I liked it so much I ended up buying the magnet at the museum gift shop and it is currently on my refrigerator, holding up the Rustans sticker sheet for the Goodness Gang vegetable plushie I have yet to claim.

Historically though, this portrait is a good example of changing attitudes toward children in the late 18th century Europe, and how commissions for children began then. Liotard used pastels for this portrait- as he often did for portraits of children because it was easy to manipulate quickly in case of interruptions- and let’s be real- with kids there’s bound to be a number. Also need to point out that while Maria is seen here as shy, her dog appears unabashedly curious and is looking straight out to the artist AND SMILING.

Pepilla the Gypsy and Her Daughter, Joaquin Sorolla, 1910

It was my boyfriend who introduced me to Joaquin Sorolla’s work on his last trip to Spain. Sorolla’s work is mostly impressionist and he’s best known for his beach scenes (an example below). I loved this because of the warm Mediterranean colors and the tenderness that it shows. This made me miss my mom.

La Promenade, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1870

You remember that scene in Frozen where Anna and Elsa are preparing for the ball, and Anna jumps by the giant portrait of a girl on a swing in her excitement? No disrespect to any one who hates Frozen, but that delight pretty much encapsulates what I feel each time I stand before a Renoir. And I personally really love Frozen as a film, so this is a compliment more than anything.

Promenade (not the name the painter gave this piece) is a homage to the artists he was working with. The light and luminous palette with the feathery brushwork is akin to Claude Monet. You see the greens and browns of Gustave Courbet. The subject- a jaunt through the garden, is inspired by the work of Jean-Antoine Watteau and Jean-Honoré Fragonard that Renoir studied at the Lourve. The couple gazes at each other- to convey a sort of intimacy and depth.

Jeanne (Spring), Edouard Manet, 1881

Jeanne in this portrait is Jeanne Demarsay, a popular Parisian actress from the 1880s. She’s best remembered for having sat for portraits for both Manet and Renoir (Portrait of Mlle de Marsy).

Spring was one of Manet’s last works, and is one where you can clearly see his mastery of the art form. It is a dance of the modern (seen in the fashion, that Manet pieced together himself) and the traditional (the painting style, that early Italian Renaissance profile). It is such a sensual and bright portrait.

Portrait of Leonilla, Princess of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1843

It needs to be said that if Leonilla were not a princess, this pose would have never been allowed for a portrait of its time. Reclining on a low Turkish sofa at a veranda, this scene was often in reference to harems and odalisques. That this was made at Leonilla’s insistence says so much about her strength and tenacity as well. Known for her great beauty and intellect, she sits confidently in ivory silk, casually reaching for the pearls on her neck while holding a steady, strong gaze.

Irises, Vincent Van Gogh

Two weeks ago I saw the film Loving Vincent, which is art in itself (the first fully painted animated feature film) and looks back on the circumstances surrounding Van Gogh’s death. I also found it to be a subconscious treastise on mental health, which I think is of value to consider when one looks at Van Gogh’s art.

Irises was one of the first paintings Vincent Van Gogh made after he checked himself into the asylum n Saint-Rémy, France. He had been going through bouts of depression and self-mutilation prior to this and his art became part of his healing at the asylum. It was inspired by Japanese woodblock prints and is notable for the curves and waves of the irises- people remark that it is as though he fully understood what it meant for flowers to move. I love this painting more so after realizing the context- that despite the circumstances and the darkness he evidently felt at the time, he managed to create art that showed such air and life.

My jetlagged but thrilled self at the gardens, heart full after being surrounded by such art. If you find yourself in LA and haven’t gone yet, you must must must go visit the Getty!

#travel #art #arthistory #monet #renoir #getty #travelthursdays

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mychaosgames · 5 years ago

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#1800001 - #1800003

Date: 2018 Completed: Solo Time: 17h

Congratulations to the creators for creating something incredible. I can not believe this was done with RpgMaker software. As soon as I saw the announcement of the game in steam I fell in love soon, I’m crazy about this kind of genre.

It is undoubtedly a simulator of real life, each choice has consequences, good or bad. If you like love story this is definitely worth playing.

Date: 2018 Completed: Solo Time: 10h

I must say this game was how I met the Corrosion projects.

The Japanese theme is something that always interested and the fact that you can be the leader of a rebellion, create my own character led me to buy this game.

The game is an open world in which it gives the player a main objective, but not only, as long as the player will explore the map world other places will be unlocked, having side quests, recruit companions, etc.

With this the player will gain fame and resources in which he will have to make decisions for the most part based on his leadership of an army being able to transmit command of policies and constructions of commissions.

The battle system in my opinion is well balanced (but not for all tastes) can be a bit frustrating at first but with the right choice of various skills the frustrating will ends up soon.

The weapons and armor are quite decent, being some better than others, bearing in mind that some weapons and armor is necessary to unlock the Skill to be able to use. The weapons and armor have durability so it is necessary to repair from time to time.

The soundtrack of the game has a touch of Japanese music which I loved.

What I missed in this game was a more elaborate plot. But apart from that I think the game is pretty polished, given that it uses rpg maker software.

Date: 2018 Completed: Solo Time: 8h

A game that explores the depths of human emotion and raw relationships as the player paves the way through the unimaginable horrors hidden in a seemingly tranquil hotel.

The player wears the skin of Joe Davis who as a child knows ivy already had feeding problems, being marked by a terrible event with his brother.

It has been several years since this event. Joe finds ivy, falls in love and gets married. But over time their relationship gradually gets cold and Joe wants to save his marriage.

One of the things the player can look at is the monochromatic color palette that Dev used to create his characters and game scenarios, combining the ambient sound with the lighting and soundtrack making a great combination. Given that certain vivid colors like red from a bow or jewel, sky blue reminds you that the palette is not just black and white.

There are times when the player will notice the lights turn off, there are whispers, scratches or suspenseful scenes such as the ax man approaching slowly, leaving a brief tension in the player.

As you progress through the game, you may see some slightly disturbing images, such as open wounds, dismembered body parts, etc. that may not be in everyone's stomach.

The various lighting levels that exist in the game can somewhat change the mood of the player. Like going through a corridor with several windows where rays of light illuminate the entire room around the player, for example.

Much of the horror of the game can be seen through the various conversations with the hotel characters. The various options that exist in the game as the player progresses in the game begin to become a difficult choice of how Joe should express himself. Through various dialogues the player may or may not realize Joe's level of mental health.

You should explore a relationship that is about to end, where each party knows exactly how to hurt each other by saying painful things or treating silence.

There is a hint of black humor in some of Joe's conversations, such as in a place where death is on the line and each participant adds some humor and underlying threat.

Each choice you made will affect the end of the game. These decisions the player may notice a small light, like a flash on the screen.

All the choices I made were all based on the good side of Joe and the ones that made the most sense in that field. Even though Ivy always upset. In the end I missed only 2 skulls to have 100% in the game.

The voices of the characters are not all bad in my opinion, like that of Agnes who conveys relaxation and positivism, Joe himself who conveys love, anger, frustration and sadness in his voice and Ivy with her voice always sad and tired.

There are several characters the player will meet at the hotel like the 4 Sophie, the idiot of Harrison, the doctor z experimenting with crazy socks, The Queen of Maggots (who also appears in the cat lady) with her terrifying voice and susen of the cat lady game.

There are several puzzles to make throughout the game to keep up with the story, but nothing too complicated.

For those who like this type of games, I recommend to try.

#2018 #completed #yep

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faucetdouble51-blog · 6 years ago

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72 Hours in Seattle

Hi, it’s Abby. My mom asked me to write an introduction for this post about our last-minute trip to Seattle a few weeks ago. I was invited to play in a soccer tournament there and this one was different than most because there was only one game a day, which means there was plenty of down time to explore a city. (That is how I convinced my mom to go.) We flew out the morning after my last final and stayed with her college roommate, Jenn for three nights and three days. Mom already told you that the culinary highlight of our trip was eating a Dutch Baby with backyard raspberries in Jenn’s kitchen nook, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t pound some pavement in search of great food around town. Here, Mom and I take turns giving you a run-down of our packed 72 hours.

DAY 1: THURSDAY

1:00 [Jenny] I am forever in search of counter-service spots when I travel, especially for lunch, when you don’t want to spend an hour-plus lounging around while the sun shines on a brand new city that is calling for you. That’s why we dropped our bags at my friend Jenn’s house (in Ballard) at 12:45, then headed straight to The Fat Hen, a sweet, bright fast-casual spot that served avocado toasts, ricotta toasts, freshly squeezed juices, and good coffee. It killed us to forgo Frankie & Jo’s, the vegan ice cream shop sensation right across the street (they have multiple locations around the city) but we were saving room for dinner. FYI: Delancey — remember Delancey? — was right there, too. [Photo credit: Seattle Magazine]

2:30 [Abby] We walked from Fat Hen down 15th Street to Ballard Avenue, the main drag in Ballard, a neighborhood that reminded me of Brooklyn. There was a ton of stuff to do and a lot of fun shopping including a cool second-hand furniture store called Ballard Consignment, an aesthetically pleasing succulent store (I can’t remember the name, can someone help me?), and a trendy clothing place called Prism where my mom tried on a thousand dresses but ended up just buying my sister an iron-on patch for her jean jacket that said “Stay Wild Child.”

4:00 [Abby] We met up with my mom’s friend Jenn, who got out of work early for us, and headed to Golden Gardens Park for a walk. It was so beautiful! I got a virgin pina colada at Miri’s, a new cafe right on the beach. Also, even though everyone says Seattle weather is not so great, look at our sky! It was like that for most of the time we were there. (Here’s a tip to future travelers: Go there in late June, early July.)

5:30 [Jenny] I think the only reason why I agreed to take Abby to Seattle was so I could try to snag a table at The Walrus and the Carpenter, the original Renee Erickson French-style raw bar in Ballard that opened almost ten years ago and that I tried to get into during my last visit, only to be turned away by the long wait every time. This time I wasn’t messing around. At the very un-glamourous hour of 5:30, I dragged Abby, Jenn, and Jenn’s 15-year-old daughter Stella to dine on fried oysters and small plates in their bright happy space. FYI: Erickson has opened a bunch of other places in Capitol Hill, including a steakhouse Bateau, another oyster bar with the greatest electric mint color scheme (Bar Melusine), and stuffed doughnut mecca General Porpoise, which, for Abby, might’ve been more of a reason to go to Seattle than her soccer tournament. (More on that below.)

7:30 After dinner, we walked back up Ballard Avenue to get ice cream at Salt & Straw, the Portland-based makers who have won over legions of fans with their artisanal concoctions…think Fresh Sheep’s Cheese and Strawberries or Oregon Wasabi and Raspberry Sorbet. But the line was too long, and even though it was still early, we were on East Coast time, so we headed home to bed. (For those of you interested, here’s an interview with Salt & Straw founder Tyler Malek on the always awesome Bon Appetit’s Foodcast.)

DAY 2: FRIDAY

10:00 [Abby] I had a soccer game in Redmond (we won 4-0!) where the most exciting food moment of the morning was a pretzel that came with that fakey nacho cheese that is so delicious. We didn’t get to start exploring again until lunchtime and decided we wanted to spend the afternoon checking out Capitol Hill. First stop…

12:30…Rocket Taco for lunch, where we ate some of the best carnitas tacos I can remember.

1:45 It was Pride Month! We loved the rainbow crosswalks which made for especially good instagram posts. (That’s me with our friend Maylie. And this was at the intersection of East Pine and 10th Ave.)

2:30 [Abby] And of course, we had to hit Elliott Bay Books. My mom bought me a paperback copy of The Handmaid’s Tale — I’ve been watching the TV show and it’s very disturbing, but she said I’d like the book. (She wants me to tell you that for school I also had to read Hiroshima and Take the Cannoli)

3:01 [Abby] Then the funniest thing happened. I had been looking forward to going to the iconic General Porpoise Doughnuts from the moment we booked our flights — we practically planned our entire Capitol Hill outing around it — but when we got there at 3:01, we tried to open the door and it was locked. It closed at 3:00! For about ten seconds we were all super disappointed but then, out of nowhere, an employee walks outside and asked “Does anyone want a dozen free doughnuts?” I guess they like everything to be fresh, so at the end of the day, they give away what hasn’t sold instead of selling them the next day. That might’ve been the highlight of the trip. And those doughnuts were some of the best I’ve ever had– the vanilla stuffed ones especially!!

4:00 [Jenny] We hadn’t planned on it, but we decided to hit Pike Place Market (because: of course!) on our way home to Ballard from Capitol Hill. We bought fruit and a lovely flower arrangement for our lovely hosts, but for the most part we just walked up and down the long hallways and gaped at the offerings. Maybe the most amazing part was that I got a parking spot on Pike Place right in the middle of everything (across from the flagship Starbucks.) I kept looking at the spot and looking at the sign saying This is too good to be true (once a New Yorker always a New Yorker, I guess) but it was actually true. Over a month later, I’m still on a high from it.

6:30 [Jenny] I know this is hard to believe, but we still had more to eat. I’ve written about this before, but the way Abby and I go about planning where we want to eat in a new city is completely different. I go to tried-and-true sources like Bon Appetit City Guides or Eater’s Heat Maps. She goes right to instagram, searches by locations, then studies the grid until a particularly inspiring pastry or bowl of ramen shows up. That is how she landed on Fremont Bowl where we went with Jenn’s family. Abby’s review: “Crazy good Japanese bowls, with fish, chicken teriyaki, and so much more. I’m not really a tofu fan, but according to my mom she had the best tofu she’d ever had in her life at this place. Fremont’s a fun area to walk around, too.” She’s totally right, the fried house-made tofu that our friend Maylie ordered was off-the-hook delicious. I was psyched because right next door was Book Larder, a store that specializes in cookbooks and community culinary events, but sadly they were closed for a private event. I guess that’s as good an excuse as any to return to Seattle in the very near future.

DAY 3: SATURDAY 9:00 [Abby] Mom, Jenn, and Jenn’s husband, Ben went for an early run around Green Lake Park (about a 3-mile loop she says) then we all gorged on Jenn’s now legendary Dutch Babies and plotted the day. Ben pointed us in the direction of the giant Asian Market Uwajimaya which was awesome (Oh, before that, Mom stopped for another cup of coffee at Anchored Ship in Ballard) but we ended up eating around the corner at at Dough Zone due to some intense soup dumpling cravings, aka the best food in the world. It’s a good thing my next soccer game wasn’t until 4:00 that afternoon. We pretty much rolled out of there. Those dumplings were amazing.

6:00 [Abby] After my soccer game (lost 2-1) we drove to Mulkiteo and caught a ferry to Whidbey Island, about 25 miles north of Seattle across the Puget Sound, where Jenn and Ben have the sweetest cabin. The ferry was only about 25 minutes, but involved spectacular views of islands and huge mountains in the distance.

7:30 We only had about 12 hours to hang on Whidbey, but we got a good taste of it, snacking on their porch (above), chilling out by the campfire for an epic sunset; Ben grilled some local salmon and hot dogs for dinner. The house only had two bedrooms so my mom and I got to sleep in a tent listening to the crackling campfire.

. Side Note [Jenny] Those of you who follow me on instagram might remember this photo. Jenn and Ben were torturing themselves trying to decide what color to paint the cabin — they were going for a dark Scandinavian cottage look — so I conducted an insta poll asking which combo you all liked. Most of you were in favor of the navy/white palette, the third one down. Last week, she sent me this pic:

How beautiful is that?!?!?! They went with Sherwin Williams Inkwell for the house and Benjamin Moore Oxford White for the trim.

DAY 4 SUNDAY

8:30 [Abby] We had an early afternoon plane to catch, so didn’t have a ton of time to explore, but we did manage to squeeze in a walk on the beach and a quick trip to Langley, where we ate eggs and cinnamon rolls at Useless Bay Coffee, then took a walk to a dramatic sandbar called Seawall Park. The town was so charming! From there was a convenient shuttle from Whidbey to the Seattle Airport, and we were on our way home.

Boy you fed us well, Seattle. We miss you so much!

Related: 36 Hours in Austin; 36 Hours in Portland, Maine; 48 Hours in Montreal.

Source: http://www.dinneralovestory.com/72-hours-in-seattle/

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moonlightreal · 5 years ago

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Winx Club season 8/8

In which we find new things and old things, and I find far too many non-Winx things to reference.

8 Into the Depths of Andros

Ocean! Fishies! An underwater castle glowing with light! Merlumens! They’re all pink, with blonde hair and shell headbands. Valtor voiceovers that this is the “Paradise of Andros, so strong, so filled with light, thanks to the suboceanic star, Gorgo.”

Ok. First, what IS a star in the magic dimension? I suppose “star” has two meanings, one being the traditional mass of incandescent gas around which planets orbit, the other being… uh, any place that lumens have a star core. So stars can be planets, or ON a planet like this star is, or on a moving ship. I wish we had some more specific terminology instead of using the same name for all these different situations! Ok, so star=where there’s lumens. Gorgo doesn’t even provide light in space, since it’s at the bottom of the ocean.

I can’t help thinking of Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer. That movie was about Spectra the diamond star, a diamond through which all the universe’s light passed. An evil space princess was trying to steal it because diamonds are a girl’s best friend, and the fading of the light made everybody stop caring about things. Obviously this movie made a big impression and I so want to work it in to Mirta’s season 8 story, somehow...

My other question: Merlumens and selkies. Are they related? Do they get along?

Anyway, the merlumens are hangin’ out playing with their fish friends and being cute while Valtor watches from his asteroid, plotting their doom! He gloats that his power has grown, and it seems it has; he created a big all-over image of the lumens instead of the little magic-TV he was using before. But he wants a fish friend too! He conjures a hammerhead shark and morphs it into a big monster shark I’m gonna call a sharkee because maybe someone somewhere will get that reference.

Valtor is interrupted mid-gloat by Obscuro popping out of a portal behind him and hitting him in the back of the head. The little guy is wearing fins and a swim floaty because of course he is.

Valtor regrets his choice of minions and Obscuro complains that he’s bad at swimming.

On Andros, Aisha is practicing a speech while Stella adjusts her dress. It is a gorgeous dress, seafoam green with taffeta and cool chokers and flowers in her hair. She’s going to present this speech at the anniversary of the founding of Andros, but she’s having trouble getting it perfect. The girls are helping her practice.

Nex calls with cheering-you-on emojis and Aisha says, “He’s trying to support me every way he can.”

Aisha continues trying to practice but Nex texts again, then Stella interrupts to say the dress needs flowers, then Nex calls and Aisha tosses the phone ‘cause she’s gotta practice. She leaves her room… and finds Nex in the corridor with flowers and more support, but poor Aisha just needs some quiet!

Nex’s outfit is pretty great too. Moss-green jacket with gold details and a gold cord around the waist. It looks military, or princely. But Nex doesn’t seem to be a prince. We don’t acutally know anything about where he’s from, do we? Just that he was a “paladin” whatever that means in this context, he wasn’t a student at Red Fountain with the others but the season 8 timeshift put him as one of the Specialists on Sky’s team. We can assume Nex and Thoren attended a different school for heroes since they know magical combat but that’s about it.

Aisha brushes past Nex, focused on her speech, and he looks sad but doesn’t go after her.

Meanwhile at Gorgo, staryums attack the underwater star core! Merlumens see them and swim away. Obscurum gloats.

Back at the palace, nobles arrive for the celebration! There’s a pavilion set up outside the palace proper, over what must be a lagoon. Inside is a land platform for the humans and half lake for the mermaids. Queen Ligeia is there in a cool floating shell throne, with a dozen cute mermaids and mermen. Tressa and Nereus do not appear. Maybe they’re on a diplomatic mission somewhere else.

Nervous Aisha approaches the podium where her parents wait. Nobles applaud. Nex and the Winx give her thumbs-up. Aisha begins her speech, and namechecks her parents and Queen Ligeia—and “Dorana, Queen of the Stars.” And there’s little Dorana, floating along.

(Maybe Dorana is to the lumens what Omnia was to the selkies? Some kind of higher form or guiding spirit or something.)

Aisha begins her speech. “I’ve been to space, I’ve seen the stars. But here, on Andros… um...” sigh. She flubs it. King Teredor looks SUPER disappointed. Niobe steps in to help her daughter along, and they get the speech done. Then we find out what else is up: Ligeia’s ocean magic and Dorana’s star magic together can protect Andros from the threat of Valtor. Bloom says he has no chance against the combined magic.

Dorana; “When Valtor showed up my brother Argen suddenly disappeared.”

Hmm! I wonder what could have happened to him!

This is a surprise to the Winx-- it’s news to me too, but since I’m not genre-blind I’m pretty sure I know where Argen went.

Dorana doesn’t want anyone else to suffer the pain of losing someone, so she wants to help. She creates an illusion of, “Gorgo, Star of Andros, a unique star that lights up the ocean. Valtor won’t be able to resist the temptation to steal its light.”

Got that right, Dorana!

The two queens do a cool spell, they spread their arms and both sing a note together, creating a barrier around the star.

But what’s this? Tecna’s got an image of the star on her device and something’s wrong with the barrier! Bloom realizes, “...too late.” Dorana and Ligeia realize their barrier has failed. Twinkle uses her star map to confirm that the barrier is no good since the staryums are already inside!

Aisha: “If Gorgo falls, Andros will plunge into darkness.” But what about the normal sun, in the sky?! How does this wooooork? T_T

Bloom: “That’s not going to happen. We’ll save Gorgo!”

The nobles cheer. :-)

The Winx go outside to a balcony-ish place, giving us a good look at their dresses. they’re all dressed in the same style as Aisha’s, pastels and tulle and flowers, a look that owes something to Onyrix, I think. They’re really good dresses, and as usual I like Aisha and Tecna best because they’re in my favorite colors.

Bloom: “Everyone ready?”

But where’s Twinkle? She’s sitting being sad. She can’t swim! She can’t come along! Flora: “But you do have an important role here, Twinkle. If you came with us, who would stay here and comfort the people of Andros?”

Twinkle: “Me?”

Bloom: “That’s right, you’re the only one who can cheer them up.”

Twinkle flies spirals of joy.

Ok, I really liked this.

Then Nex shows up for some predictable couples drama! He wants to come along underwater but Aisha says she can take care of herself. Nex, to his credit, says, ‘I know that. I want to stay by your side anyway.” and sounds like he means it. Nex transforms his suit with flippers and a facemask and dives in, ending the conversation.

Bloom: “All right girls, there’s only one way down there. Winx, Sirenix!”

I feel the power of the ocean…

More than any other music in Winx, this song goes right through my heart.

Only way to make it better? Make it Italian.

So here’s… shall we call it new sirenix? Or sequin sirenix, since the dolls have sequins? I like that. Sequin sirenix is shall be, since I don’t know what the rest of the fandom is calling it.

I like it. The colors are a little less… whatever made the other sirenix Just A Little Much. But while the shades are nicer, I think the animators were a bit lazy when assigning colors to the girls Aisha has the best palette, turquoise, blue and purple. Poor Stella is stuck in shades of pink and blue, like the designers just gave up on her orange-based color palette, and Bloom shares about the same colors. Tecna and Flora are in the same shades of blue and green while Musa at least gets her traditional magenta and raspberry. But even so, I just like these designs. I also feel like the animators took more care to make it looks like the girls are swimming, rather than just using the same animations for flying but putting them underwater which I felt like they did in season 5. Their HAIR still isn’t animated like it would be moving underwater, but I think that would be really hard to do.

I have feelings about underwater, because it comes close to a show that tangles my heart up even more than Winx, and Winx has been a fandom of sixteen years.

There was no discussion of sirenix being a power they used before and still have, they just go for it. It’s not surprising that they’d still be able to access old powers; it makes sense but it does lay down that bit of worldbuilding. Previously gained powers are not necessarily lost. But do they automatically keep ALL forms or just some? I assume they no longer have Tynix because the fairy animals have moved on, and still having Harmonix would be unnecessary once they have Sirenix. But what about bloomix? Did the Winx return their bits of the Dragonfire when they got Butterflix, or do they still have it?

Also no mention that sirenix now looks different. Maybe they just don’t think it’s worth commenting on while a baddie’s attacking, or maybe the season 8 timeslide means sirenix ALWAYS looked like this.

Anyway. The girls and Nex swim through the lovely violet ocean of Andros, doing the Winx giggle. Then Nex catches aisha for some relationship drama. He asks her what’s wrong and she says it’s nothing. Then aisha says she wanted to get the speech right to impress her parents, but she flubbed it. Next says everyone understands and, “Next time let the others help.”

Wasn’t this Aisha’s Nemesis theme from Wow? Aisha being too self-reliant? At least it’s consistent characterization, I guess.

More swimming, and the sharkee is stalking them! Its shadow falls over the gang swimming in a canyon. That thing’s big! But it’s gone before they can get a good look.

They reach the star, which Flora says is wonderful, and I realize looks just like Castle Elemyn from Bella Sara. But it’s under attack! Winx into action!

But here comes the sharkee! Battle is joined!

Aisha says it’s a creature of darkness so their sirenix powers have no effect. The battle isn’t going well! The girls regroup—and realize Nex is missing.

He’s in some caves full of pink underwater flowers—no, he’s at the star core. How’d he get all that way? But he’s there, watching Obscurum and the staryums chow down on the star core.

Nex: “Hey you! Call off your creatures!”

Dude, you have no backup…

Nex vs Obscurum! Nex pops out his two phantoblade lightsabers and attacks!

Cut to the girls fleeing the sharkee. They zap it with various things but aren’t having much luck. Aisha’s morfix can grab it but nothing else does any good.

Back to Nex and Obscurum! Obscurum of course hops through portals to dodge. Nex calls him a coward. Obscurum zaps Nex from every which way, but… ‘I’ll never give up! Aisha needs me!”

Back with Aisha, she realizes the sharkee is full of dark magic—but they can’t free it from Valtor’s control without their Cosmix powers, which won’t work in water. Aisha gets the idea to lure it into a convenient cave. She’s badass. The other Winx blast the cave mouth, sealing it except for a little hole Aisha swims out through. Success! The shark monster is trapped!

The girls arrive at the core and find Nex getting his butt handed to him. Aisha leaps to protect him with a morfix shield.

Nex: “See, teamwork never fails.”

Aisha: “Sorry I pushed you away before. I know you wanted to help but I was too focused on not disappointing my parents and my people. So… power couple teamup?”

Nex: “I thought you’d never ask.”

These two are cute together. They’re one of the couples I give the thumbs up to.

They lay some hurt on Obscurum and the rest of the Winx blast staryums off the core.

Then Obscurum blasts the ceiling and the cave collapses on Nex! Cliffhanger ending!

#winx season 8 #winx club

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coffeelevel8-blog · 5 years ago

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72 Hours in Seattle

DAY 1: THURSDAY

DAY 2: FRIDAY

12:30…Rocket Taco for lunch, where we ate some of the best carnitas tacos I can remember.

How beautiful is that?!?!?! They went with Sherwin Williams Inkwell for the house and Benjamin Moore Oxford White for the trim.

DAY 4 SUNDAY

Boy you fed us well, Seattle. We miss you so much!

Related: 36 Hours in Austin; 36 Hours in Portland, Maine; 48 Hours in Montreal.

Source: http://www.dinneralovestory.com/72-hours-in-seattle/

#read more #see more #check it out #interesting #learn more

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ddrkirbyisq · 7 years ago

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Time for another update... I went camping for the first time over Labor Day weekend! We went down south somewhere in the middle of nowhere, it was...sort of intense. I did about as well as could be expected, with the number 1 nuisance being the flying buzzies that bothered me constantly. I had my earbuds in for most of the day, otherwise I probably would have gone insane...past that, it was stifling hot so we spent a good deal of time in the creek. We had a nice night hike and glowsticking session, which was fun! The clouds were actually covering most of the sky, so we didn't see any stars, or hardly even the moon (which was super bright when it was visible), which was a bit disappointing, but I actually didn't mind much -- to be honest, I thought it was actually really cool being out in the middle of nowhere with not even the stars out, especially since it was so quiet in terms of ambient noise. (And the buzzies were asleep, YAY) It was a special kind of quiet, I think. Anyways, overall a fun trip, though not something I'd be looking to do again, haha. I was pretty drained after coming back home -- it has been a while since I have felt so socially depleted; I remember I really just didn't want to interact with any human beings. Before that I also went to Crunchyroll Expo! It was fun overall, and very convenient and close to get to -- very laid back, very easy. I'd definitely go again! It's smaller than an event like Fanime, but surprisingly large despite it being only its first year. I brought my Journey cosplay, as I always do nowadays. Here's a photo of me along with this super cool Hyper Light Drifter (!) cosplayer!

By far the highlight was getting to meet the OneShot devs (!!!) who apparently were holding a table at the artist alley!

Official merch omg!!! I fangirled for a while here, looked at all of Nightmargin's cool art, picked out a ton of stuff I wanted to buy from them, and traded contact info (I had one of my spiffy business cards with me, aw yeah!). So cool, I never thought I'd get to meet the devs in person, like they are real people sitting right there on the other side of that table and they made one of my favorite games wahh @_@

This week I'm actually taking the week off from work! Taking some time off after working hard for our PAX demo, which seems to have gone down pretty well! As you might guess, I'll be trying to spend the week focusing on more development for Rhythm Quest, music production, hopefully some art, and overall just catching up on things in my life. It's been going pretty ok so far! I've made some good progress on Rhythm Quest and pushed out a new song as well. My current big focus area for Rhythm Quest is adding a whole new part to the game -- overworld maps! Up until the beginning of the week, the level selection UI (which, admittedly, was placeholder) for Rhythm Quest looked like this:

Pretty boring, right? (though a lot more exciting than before when it didn't even have stage names) But it works just fine, and is even optimized for touch controls (Rhythm Quest is designed for mobile!) and if you look at my other rhythm games, you'll see that it's the same basic menu template as before. Here's Ripple Runner Deluxe:

...and here's Melody Muncher, which adds a little more detail with level info and high scores:

But I really wanted to have more of a sense of progression for Rhythm Quest, especially since, unlike Melody Muncher, there aren't going to be high scores or anything, just a pass/fail, with a special bonus if you clear the stage without dying at all (just like Ripple Runner). I actually think that was one of the strengths of Ripple Runner's design when compared with Melody Muncher -- even though Melody Muncher was a much "deeper" game mechanically, there is a certain simplicity of "have to get this section right" and "one more try!" that I think keeps players engaged, as opposed to the more DDR/Guitar Hero-like mechanism that Melody Muncher uses. Of course you need to be a little more cautious with the difficulty because now you either pass or fail (and failing means not progressing!), but I think there's also a better and more concrete sense of accomplishment after doing a section well. Anyhow, I wanted to have more of a sense of progression and was throwing around ideas about how I should handle level/world selection (I knew for sure that I wanted to divide the stages up into "worlds" with different themes). I couldn't really come up with any simple menu/ui-based schemes that really felt compelling, so I started thinking about map screens -- and more specifically, ideas that would meet the criteria that: - They make sense with touch controls (but could work on PC builds as well) - They provide a clear sense of progression - And most importantly, they are doable in terms of my artistic abilities That third point is always the limiting factor for me, as that's certainly my weakest and most time-consuming point in my trio of skills between coding, audio, and graphics/animation. I knew that doing some sort of map system would be testing those skills, but maybe it would be an opportunity for growth! I've actually already gotten WAY better at pixeling over the years than I used to be, after all. So I started thinking about map screens that would make sense, including some sort of Kirby's Adventure-style platformer-based level selection with doors and a level layout -- which seemed doable in terms of art assets (platformer tiles!) but didn't make too much sense with the rest of the game, and made zero sense to do with touch controls. So I settled upon some sort of overworld map system, with dots or circles that you would tap on in order to select a level. I ended up pulling very heavy inspiration from the Super Mario World overworld map style, which looks like this:

I thought this would be a great fit, as it was roughly tile-based (good -- limiting myself to working with a grid makes things much more structured and easier for me) and the graphics themselves were relatively simple. I could even use the "roads" to mark progression, as SMW did, which would be great! I had a few false starts, and went back and forth on what to do with my color palette -- Rhythm Quest has an interesting facet of its design where the level tileset is drawn using a 4-color palette, but hue shifts to different colors at different points in the song. This is the same technique I used in both Ripple Runner and Melody Muncher, to great effect -- 4-color monochromatic palettes are an absolute joy to work with for me, as they simplify everything a lot and allow me to really concentrate on values rather than worrying about coloring. It's worth noting though, that as with other aspects of 8-bit style, Rhythm Quest breaks this rule in other areas -- the character and enemies and obstacles and UI, for instance, don't actually fall into the same palette, which makes sense because it's important to be able to still recognize red enemies vs orange enemies, etc. and neither spikes nor the character wouldn't be able to stand out as much if they adhered to the same palette. So it's an interesting mix. Anyhow, I was really having trouble drawing out a good "Grass Land" map using my 4-color palette that featured a nice green-ish ground color but also had tree tiles and such, as well as a lighter color for the road. I also knew I wanted a lake or river so that level 1-3 could take place over the water. At one point, I decided to throw the 4-color palette to the wind and started drawing up a more expansive color palette, with blues for the water, greens for the grass and ground, and some yellow colors for the road and dirt. I started to try pixeling some trees and such using that palette, and it was going pretty decently well! But then after that I realized that with a few replacements and adjustments, it actually worked just as well (if not better) with the original 4-color palette after all! Here's what I ended up with:

Again, the blue circles (which are the actual interactable buttons) don't obey the 4-color palette. It's inconsistent, but in a consistent way I guess! Anyhow, I'm really happy with how it turned out so far, and it was a bit of a relief to be honest that I managed to get something workable. With that body of work out of the way, my next task is to actually hook up all the buttons and dialogs (partly done already), and then do a bunch more coding work to get it so that your level progress is saved, and so that the roads actually fill in dynamically like they do in Super Mario World -- that should be really cool once I get it all working!

#Blogger

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