#surprisingly sonic was actually easy to draw in this | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

cutegirlmayra · 4 years ago

Note

Hello Mayra! Hope you're doing well, perhaps a prompt to make you feel better? This is canon adjacent but also kind of AUish. Weresonamy but it takes place in the Storybook world (you knows those games). Sonic is now the big bad wolf and Amy is little red riding hood. At first she's afraid of him which hurts Sonic but there's a bigger threat and he jumps into action protecting little red. So the werehog saves the day and earns little reds trust and he realizes how much important Amy's support is

<3 I could always feel better lol But I’m doing great, thanks for asking! :Db

Also, still not sure if Canon Adjacent means Semi-Canon..? Eh? -help please I’m old and I don’t read fanfiction anymore lolol-

PROMPTS ARE ON SHUTDOWN. You know the drill, don’t send any more prompts until they’re announced to be reopen again! :Db

My response and first impression of this prompt: Pajama Blogs - Prompt Requests Ep. 1 (x - 41:05)

Prompt:

I was told to immediately head to Miss Vanilla’s house with Cream and I’s cookies. I was holding her hand as the path grew dark and strange noises kept crushing the leaves that blew in the full moon night.

I heard grunting at different intervals, and as Cream clung close to me, I stroked her head but couldn’t find the strength inside myself to open my mouth and give her encouragement. Comfort... I greatly needed that too.

“M-Miss Riding Amy?”

She was a kind girl, Cream. A small rabbit, that any predator would make a gruesome snack out of. I was a traveling adventurer who just happened to be fortune telling when she asked me for this favor.

Her mother lived so far out into the enchanted woods... doesn’t she know the stories and rumors? Even in all my travels... I’ve never heard of a forest this dense with evil magic!

“What is it, Little Cream?” I asked, moving the basket from her arm and switching it to my other side, cradling her once burdened arm now tightly within my own.

Escorting was the easy part, but monsters were at the forefront of my worries.

“D-do you think mother is safe living so far from town?” She asked me.

‘How the heck would I know, kid?’ I made a sour face, but kept my slurring suspicions to myself. “She’s your mother, Cream.” I finished my thought out loud, even with the tone of my voice being rather foul. “Which means she’s got to be twice as strong and brave as you! Right?” I bounced her arm in mine, smiling down to her from my red hood with a white rim that coupled nicely with my dress. It was tied tightly around my neck and even looked good with my corset, something I had picked up along my travels. “Now then, stay close, and everything will be alright, okay?” I manipulated my voice to sound assured, the only comfort I had waited for my lips to speak seemed more for myself than anything else.

Still,... I wasn’t going to leave a helpless little bunny to the hands of these deadly forest.

I glared at them, as though warning them that at any wrong move, I’d hammer them!

We continued down the dark path before I couldn’t tell dirt from moss anymore, and the colors dulled into deep blues and blacks, the moonlight no longer helping from the shadow of the trees above...

“Hmm...” I frowned, trying to gauge by the wind if a storm was coming... I squinted my eyes through the cold and thought I saw a shadow turn and inch closer to a tree.

I took Cream’s hand tighter, “Let’s keep moving...” and continued my brisk steps towards where the compass pointed us too.

I didn’t see it till later... but scratch marks revealed the sign had been tampered with, and with the compass pointing north, but the sign saying that her Mother’s cabin was another way... I took the other path.

I shook the compass when it was clear we were walking on grass, with no more trodden down carriage routes, and then...

We heard the howl.

“Miss Riding Amy!” Cream jumped into an embrace at my waist, as I put an arm protectively to her back and looked around. I could hear soft, misty voices as creatures that looked like chameleons began to materialize as though invisible this whole time! Tracking us?! They crawled down the trees with hooks for feet, sharp bluish and purple bodies with horns, and their tongues flung out and wiggled themselves in front of us before they jumped to attack.

I summoned my hammer and threw Cream back behind me, and as my first powerful swing locked onto one of the nightly creatures, my hoodie flung off.

I also didn’t know... that a beast within the forest’s eyes dilated at seeing my face, who had secretly followed us in the hopes of guiding us back on the correct path... hidden this whole time as well, when he saw my face, he immediately disregarded his own reservations at staying out of sight, and used the cover of darkness to swing his massive fists, stretching far and wide, to make it look like my hammer throws were hitting them all.

I didn’t see through his illusion, instead, I thought I was whipping my hammer around so fast that the monsters couldn’t keep up, till one ducked and dodged both our tactics and walloped me right in the chin. I was flung back, with poor Cream’s basket getting thrown in the impact and landed with her cookies that we had spent so long making.

This quest was harder than I thought.

I scooted back on the ground as Cream cried out to me, but the monster tried to ready his tongue to lasso Cream, when an even larger beast finally sprung out into our sights, and began to throw a gorilla-like tantrum with his arms, banging the ground and causing it to shake.

He roared fiercely and grabbed the chameleon by it’s ankles, swinging him wildly as it looked like an unwanted carnival ride, round and round.

His fur shuffled in the wind as he finally released the foul terror and it slammed against a tree, twitching... before it’s misty hide disintegrated back into the forest’s magic power...

I quickly pulled myself up and gripped Cream in fright, but held my hammer out with harsh pants, still not fully quitting without a good struggle first.

The beast relaxed it’s shoulders... then slightly turned its head to us.

I continued to hold my hammer out, before shifting it behind my shoulder, ready to swing at any given notice.

He slowly reached his hand out, letting its true length be known and lifted it above my hammer as I swung to defend ourselves, but we were both surprised when he picked up the basket.

He then swiftly gathered up the cookies with precision in his claws and lengthy fingers, before withdrawing his arm back to it’s normal, monstrous-still size and presented it at our feet.

We were still both laying upon the ground, except my torso raised slightly, before he nodded and was about to walk away when we heard a woman’s voice shriek out in fright.

“Mother!” Cream called, looking behind me and taking off.

“Cream! Wait!” I didn’t even think about the basket, and took off after her. Dust in our wake, I suddenly looked back to see the blue, hairy monster carrying the basket in his mouth, and lowering his head, scooped me up and onto his back. “W-wo-AHH!!” I gripped his back like a baby monkey, just trying to not get jostled off as he raced on all fours with such velocity.

‘He doesn’t look to be hunting Cream.’ I surmised, and then for a moment, actually thought riding this beast was my calling... it was fun, it felt like I was meant to trust him... I only had this feeling when drawing tarot cards, and seeing the fortune of ‘Destined Love’ written upon it...

“I don’t know who you are-!” I immediately shouted out, positioning myself more comfortably upon his back as he dipped his head and was about to scoop up Cream to his back as well, “But let’s save this family!” before another even more frightening beast that looked like a phoenix swooped down and clamped its claws to her. “Ah!” I cried out in shock, it happening so fast.

“Oh no!” The burly voice of the monster had thrown the basket back up to me and I caught it instinctively, before seeing him reach out his hand to extend it again beyond normal means, and grab a branch.

Like a springboard, we were slingshotted to that branch as I let out another yelp of shock.

This... was surprisingly fun! If it didn’t mean my little friend and her mother were in danger.

“Can you go faster!?” I encouraged, and suddenly, the beast seemed to take offense to that.

“Hold on!” he called out, a harsh grumble in his voice he may have not meant to make, and immediately we began swinging and launching ourselves closer and closer to the flying bird creature, when I noticed another--adult--rabbit in it’s other talon.

“It’s got her mother!” I cried out, and his eyes seemed to bleed with the necessity to save them as well.

“Do you trust a monster?” He asked, dropping to the ground after each failed jumped couldn’t get us close enough to reach them.

I held my hammer at the ready, looking to the strange beasts as though the term ‘monster’ didn’t suit how heroic he was being in trying to help us.

“N-no.” I stated, and he looked down a moment, as though disappointed. “I trust you.” I stated, boldly and point-blankly. “You’re willing to risk life and limb just for a couple of girls... I wouldn’t know a monster that noble, but I do know heroes that stalwart and true.”

His head rose and for the first time, I could see his full face. He looked touched by my words... before nodding with a narrowing of his eyes. “Alright then, Miss Rose Rider. Prepare to ride to wind!”

“W-what?”

He shot his arms out and pulled himself back, just like a slingshot position!

“Ho, boy!” I bit on my hammer and kept it between my teeth, realizing I needed to hold onto this ride with both hands....

He strained, before finally whiplashing us both into the air.

“Now, go!” He reached back to grip me, as best he could without injuring me with his brute strength, and threw me like an arrow across the night sky to the belly of the beast.

“HHHAAAAA!!!!” I slammed my hammer into it’s gut and had it coughing up a storm, dropping it’s prey as the woman and her child screamed upon their descent.

“Hero!” I called out, deciding never to use the term ‘beast’ or ‘monster’ again for such a kind soul.

The Hero seemed to understand I was addressing him, and threw out his arms to grab the girls and tucked them into his chest... falling down... Oh no...

“NOO!!” He was taking the plunge for them!

I wasn’t able to think about it long though, as the dark phoenix cried out and came for me, but I whammed it’s beak away from devouring me and grabbed a talon, using its body to take the hit for me on the ground while I remained safe at the underbelly of it’s feathers.

Spitting out said feathers, I then frantically backed tracked further into the forest, before seeing Vanilla and her daughter crouched over the Hero, tears of regret in their eyes.

“He... He took the fall for us. All of it.” Vanilla admitted, seeing that I was the one with Cream.

“Oh, Miss Riding Amy...” Cream wiped her tears, holding her mother’s hand and pulling themselves away from him. “He was the bravest, nicest wolf I’ve ever known!” She then pulled me into that said hug, but my eyes never left the body of the Hero.

His fur swiveled in the breeze... and the forest moaned as if losing something precious.

“N-...No...” My cards never predicted this... I moved the grieving girl and mother apart from me,... crawling to the Hero’s fallen form. “Please... I still want to... I still want to know you... I want to thank you...” My voice began to break, gripping his fur in my white gloves. “I didn’t even know your name...” I sobbed more than I ever thought I could have...

“I... I love you... Mr. Wolf, sir.” Cream began, “Thank you... for saving both me, my mother... and my friend.”

I shook my head, “You and I... we fought like a supersonic comet... that bird didn’t know what hit’em.”

Then...

While the sun began to rise... his form twitched and rumbled as though something was happening.

I pulled away only when a bright light flashed and yellow streams of golden ribbons flew around him.

He was lifted into the air and the golden streams wrapped around him before revealing a handsome--more beautiful hedgehog man than I’ve ever seen in all my life--slowly floating down to the ground before blinking his eyes open.

“Who...” he began, rubbing his head and shaking it as he got upright, spooking us all as we were jaw struck. “Who said my name..? And that they... could love a beast?”

We had a big party that night at Vanilla and Cream’s home. Cream explained her mother didn’t like her walking the path at night, due to the trickery of the forest dwelling monsters, but that she always knew a kind, mysterious figure protected her and her daughter every time they crossed.

On this particular day, Cream was attending the Chao Kindergarten in the village and had played so long with the Chao, had forgotten the time. Vanilla was so worried she went in search of Cream, finding the wolf and asking if he was the one that kept them safe all those many years they lived there.

He agreed to go on ahead before finding Riding Amy with Cream, and stalked them to make sure they got to safety, but was too afraid to reveal his cursed form.

The curse could only be broken by someone speaking his name after a declaration of admiration and love.

“That’s... amazing.” I was still in awe at how handsome the young hedgehog man looked. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him, but when he looked at me, my heart raced and I had to look away, pulling up my hood so he couldn’t see my blushing cheeks. “You should-! Ehem.” I was getting too excited... “You should come with me on my travels. I’m sure you could do a lot of good now that you’re not so afraid of what others may think of you.” I explained.

Though, in my heart, no matter what box this beautiful man came in... he was still a hero... just... more dashing in this form!

He smiled to me, and I felt my soul withdraw into his arms at such a sunny-disposition.

“I’ve always wanted to see the world, so that sounds great! But...” He looked to Vanilla.

“We’ll be fine.” She patted his arm. “You’ve been watching over us all in the village for far too long, time we took precautions for ourselves!”

We both didn’t realize that the Chao were formidable fighters... and ended up joining with each villager to protect them come night time, where their little forms could judo slam any monster that tried to trick in the night!

Sonic and I... We... hehe!

Well... The cards are never wrong.

I was destined to ride alongside the spirit of the wind!

#sonamy #sonamy prompt #weresonamy #sonic au #sonic au prompt #weresonamy prompt #weresonamy au #weresonamy au prompt #cutegirlmayra

58 notes · View notes

passionate-reply · 4 years ago

Video

youtube

ABC are known for their high-brow sophisti-pop, but did you know they started out as something closer to an industrial band? Find out all about The Lexicon of Love, on this week’s Great Albums. Transcript below the break!

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! Today’s album is one of the more unique triumphs of early 80s synth-pop: ABC’s The Lexicon of Love. The Lexicon of Love would be the first album released under the ABC name, but prior to their metamorphosis into ABC, the band had been known as Vice Versa. They also had a very different sound than the one they’d later become known for.

Music: “Riot Squad”

Vice Versa had been a heavily electronic, experimental outfit, more in line with fellow members of the Sheffield music scene like Cabaret Voltaire and the early Human League. As ABC, they would pivot dramatically towards lushly arranged sophisti-pop, and produce some of the most iconic hits of the early 80s, like “The Look of Love.”

Music: “The Look of Love”

Between the minimal synth lashings of Vice Versa’s EP Music 4 and The Lexicon of Love, the band that would now be known as ABC saw a major addition to their lineup, in frontman Martin Fry. Fry had been a member of the Sheffield music scene prior, as the author of an underground fanzine, but was recruited to become the new lead vocalist of Vice Versa after interviewing them. Fry’s crooning is certainly one thing that makes the album sound different, but I’d also be remiss not to mention the influence of its producer: Trevor Horn.

By this point in his career, Horn was mainly known as a member of The Buggles, of “Video Killed the Radio Star” fame, and the progressive rock group Yes. He also brought along two of his more consistent collaborators, with whom he would go on to form The Art of Noise: J. J. Jeczalik, programming digital synthesisers, and Anne Dudley, arranging and orchestrating electronics and strings. The Lexicon of Love was one of Horn’s first major forays into production, something he would go on to prioritize in his career. Still, I think tracks like “The Look of Love” demonstrate Horn’s signature style of rich, bombastic, borderline campy pop in full force, as much as his later work with artists like Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Seal. Horn is certainly known for his complex and painstaking orchestral arrangements, which are something you’ll hear a lot of on The Lexicon of Love. The lone instrumental it features, “The Look of Love (Part Four),” makes that particularly easy.

Music: “The Look of Love (Part Four)”

While the album’s famous single is often referred to as simply “The Look of Love,” its full title is actually “The Look of Love (Part One).” Before you ask, yes, there are second and third “parts” of this suite, which were all released together on their own EP, or perhaps extended single. In the context of the album, though, parts one and four bookend the second side of the LP, with part four arguably serving as a sort of reprise of that unforgettable hit single. Speaking of singles, “The Look of Love”’s success in the charts was actually preceded by that of another entry in the top ten: “Poison Arrow.”

Music: “Poison Arrow”

As the title implies, “Poison Arrow” is focused more on the darker side of love, when things don’t go one’s way. The Lexicon of Love is a sort of loose concept album, which deals mainly with romantic love, and the trials and tribulations of those who seek it. Perennial subject matter for pop, of course, but it is executed with a lot of style. While “Poison Arrow” certainly has synthesisers, they’re hardly the first thing you notice in its dense arrangements.

Ultimately, The Lexicon of Love is a very backward-looking kind of album, particularly in the context of synth-pop. Where so many of their contemporaries were looking to the future, ABC were committed to capturing this suave, traditional pop glamour, somewhere between Motown and Sinatra. Despite all the efforts being made to embody this classic sense of cool, there’s still an undeniably 1980s sensibility about the album that I think shines through in the end. But I don’t think of that as an indictment of the material, simply a neutral feature of it. I don’t really believe music can truly be “timeless” or “dated”--those terms get thrown around by people trying to ground their taste in objectivity, but at the end of the day, we all like what we like. I think The Lexicon of Love sounds like it was made when it was made, but also holds up, insofar as it’s still enjoyable to listen to.

One of the most endearing features it does have is Fry’s witty, clever lyricism, full of unique rhymes and lofty allusions. He had studied English at Sheffield University before entering the band, and that literary flourish really sets him apart. While Vice Versa certainly had some indignant numbers, Fry sells us on a much more posh kind of anger on tracks like “Valentine’s Day.”

Music: “Valentine’s Day”

The cover of The Lexicon of Love is nearly as busy and complex as the album’s arrangements. It shows a scene from a theatrical narrative of some sort, in which Martin Fry catches a woman falling backwards, seemingly fainting with fright. With determination, he points a gun at some unseen, off-stage antagonist. The bright red of the curtain, at stage left, draws our attention to that suspenseful absence, and gets us to wonder what’s happening here. Adding to that sense of the incomplete or not fully known is the way the action is boxed in, almost claustrophobically, by the eye-catching, high-contrast text showing the album title and band name. In the lower left-hand corner, you’ll find a surprisingly large block of text--I think this album has a higher word count on its cover than anything else in my collection! That text consists of an amalgamation of lines from several different songs on the album. Both the inclusion of this lyrics box and the title “The Lexicon of Love” put emphasis on the concept of language, and, perhaps, the difficulties of putting the most powerful of human feelings into communicable words. Given that Fry’s lyrics are such a standout, I think that angle benefits the album a lot.

Over the next fifteen years or so, ABC would see several further lineup changes, and add infusions from house and early hip-hop to their take on synth-pop. They continued to see modest chart success up through the late 80s, though they would never crack the UK top ten again, after The Lexicon of Love. In more recent years, Martin Fry has revived the ABC name and released some new material, including, most notably, an album called The Lexicon of Love II, intended as a proper sequel to his magnum opus. As ambitious as that is, I think it really works, but you can listen for yourself and decide.

Music: “Viva Love”

My favourite track from The Lexicon of Love is, without a doubt, “4 Ever 2 Gether.” The average song in my music collection sounds a lot more like Vice Versa’s efforts than it does this album--I like a lot of harsh, synth-forward stuff. “4 Ever 2 Gether” is closer to that sound than anything else on the album, with a chilling vocoder part that really stands out against the rest of the album’s sonic footprint. It’s also got some of Fry’s most striking lyrics--deeply abstract, but still bitingly bitter. That’s all I’ve got for today--thanks for listening!

Outro: “4 Ever 2 Gether”

#music #album review #album reviews #great album #abc

9 notes · View notes

archiesoniconline · 5 years ago

Text

Knuckles Endangered Species #1 Behind the Scenes!

It’s been a while, but it’s finally time for another behind-the-scenes look at one of our stories! This time we’ll be covering our latest release, as well as the story that had been visualized and started the earliest in our project: Part 1 of the Endangered Species rewrite.

As usual, let’s start with the cover. Our ex-admin in charge of the entire rewrite, The Shadow Imperator, took inspiration from the covers for Sonic the Hedgehog #211 and 245, as well as an advertisement for Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. Pencils, inks and colors were all done by @drawloverlala, who managed to brilliantly blend all the designs together into something new and exciting.

The story begins immediately where the official #243 left off, with Sonic getting KO’ed by Metal Knuckles. The robot doppelganger is quick to remind Lien-Da of his mission to monitor her and keep her in line, which is a nod to Sonic Universe #37, where Eggman told his Grandmasters that the Metal Series will be doing just that.

Since Lien-Da is the Grandmaster of her branch of the Dark Egg Legion, we decided her Kommissar should be Gae-Na, her old confidant that hadn’t been seen since StH #118. She was given a heavy redesign by CrimDa, sporting a more realistic cybernetic eye as well as electric batons similar to Lien-Da’s electric whips. Her absence up until this point was due to maternity leave, having only recently given birth to her daughter Demi-Na but was left to raise the girl alone after losing her husband Kanewisher to the Egg Grapes.

You may have noticed that when Gae-Na knocks out Amy, she doesn’t seem particularly pleased about it. As a mother, she doesn’t relish the idea of fighting children, but will do what it takes to ensure that her daughter can grow up in a stable echidna society, even if it’s a society ruled by Eggman.

For a much more minor echidna cameo, we see the return of Syntar, who hasn’t appeared since being unceremoniously knocked out by a time-traveling Lara-Su in StH #109. Now a sergeant in Lien-Da’s army, he’s seen leading the Albion prisoners to be legionized... only to be unceremoniously knocked out yet again by Knuckles. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I guess.

We also see Komi-Ko comforting Bimmy Jr., a young echidna orphan whose father and namesake was tragically killed in the Egg Grapes. Back in 243 he was only referred to as “young man”, since the legal issues at the time forbade his real name from being mentioned.

Another echidna character given a redesign by CrimDa is Crystal-La, the wife of Athair and Knuckles’ great-grandmother. We decided to re-purpose her as the Mitre of the Albion Aurorium, in order to bring back of a glimpse of the religious aspects of echidna society that were largely ignored during Ian Flynn’s run of the comic. Our initial redesign failed to take her significant age into account, so we made her look older in the final story. Considering the fact that she considers her own great-grandson to be some sort of messiah, it’s easy to see that she’s gone a little kooky in her old age.

You may have noticed that Saffron Bee was also given a new wardrobe, which were actually based off of notes left by Aleah Baker for a redesign of her that was planned in the official comic ShadImp felt strongly about giving her as big of a role in the rewrite as possible, as was the original intention.

Knuckles using his Warp Ring to attack Syntar was an idea from ShadImp’s co-writer for the remake, TuxKnux. It was meant to demonstrate how Knuckles has had more practice controlling Chaos Energy, another example of which we’ll see later.

In order to calm down a terrified Bimmy Jr., Saffron gives him her Nightopian Doll, which hasn’t been seen since all the way back in the Return to Angel Island arc. Unfortunately, this ended up triggering her PTSD of the destruction of the Golden Hive Colony, as well as Charmy’s brain damage.

This can easily be missed on a first read, but here is when we first see Julie-Su taking a cloak from a defeated Legionnaire, which ends up being important later.

The cuffs binding Team Fighters and Remington were surprisingly difficult to draw, since we needed something that could hold them in place, but also free all of them instantly when deactivated. In the end, electric shackles powered by a nearby generator seemed like the best solution.

The mural behind Lien-Da, meant to reference the Forgotten Wars, originally had a different design that was scrapped because it didn’t make sense for such a picture to be in Albion. It was also based off of a cutscene in Sonic Chronicles, during Imperator Ix’s final speech to Knuckles. Eventually, the original mural design was re-purposed for Emerl’s data file in StHO #249.

This is the first time that Remington and Lien-Da have met since Enerjak’s rampage, so it was important to have the interactions between them be meaningful. Remington may have suffered greatly during and after his time being the brainwashed Grandmaster of the Frost Legion, as well as being the son of Lien-Da’s hated brother Kragok, but he hasn’t allowed the trauma to diminish his strong sense of justice and has grown as a person because of it.

Although hostages causing a panic among their captors is generally not considered a good idea, Tails dropping the bombshell (no pun intended) that Eggman could blow up the legionnaires at any moment does help upset Lien-Da’s control of the situation, proving instrumental to her defeat later.

At this point in the story, Thrash hasn’t directly made his move yet, but the wheels are clearly in motion. Originally ShadImp was going to have Thrash’s plan be identical to the official Endangered Species, sending all the echidnas away in a super-charged Warp Ring. It took him a while to come up with a different plan, one that requires a sample of echidna DNA. Incidentally, this is also Gae-Na’s only other appearance in the issue, as she was put on patrol duty after the initial battle with Team Fighters.

The showdown between Knuckles and Metal Knuckles may be seen as disappointingly short, but ShadImp made clear that he prioritized meaningful storytelling over elongated fight scenes. Plus, Knuckles serving only as the distraction while Saffron destroys the robot with a hijacked turret and Julie-Su sneaks off incognito does a good job showcasing that the Chaotix came into the fight much better prepared than Team Fighters.

Also worthy of note is the legionnaire’s dismissive attitude towards Komi-Ko and the other Albionites. Since about half of the Legion gave up on fighting and accepted Enerjak’s offer to migrate to Albion, it stands to reason that the ones who chose to stay are the most fanatical and loyal to the Legion’s cause.

Another minor echidna cameo is a younger Cobar, who was originally only seen in the 25 Years Later storyline. At this point in time he’s still a member of the Legion, although his timid nature appears to be unchanged.

As well as demonstrating Remington’s character development, this scene does a good job showing that even the most loyal legionnaires are sick of the pointless wars they’ve fought in. Lien-Da is the only truly evil person among all of them, and her grasp on them is crumbling rapidly.

As was mentioned earlier, having the disguised Julie-Su destroy the generator powering the shackles was a quick and easy way to get Team Fighters back into the action, as well as converge the two plots occurring simultaneously in this issue.

Having Wynmacher deal the final blow against Lien-Da was both an opportunity to give the non-combatant echidnas a chance to shine, as well as a callback to his very first appearance in Knuckles the Echidna #6, where he performed a similar tackle and mentioned his varsity days.

When Riggo first penciled this panel, he had drawn Kneecaps as more the size of a toddler than an infant, which was corrected in the final story.

This panel was originally going to feature some good old Sonic & Knuckles action, but ended up being only Knuckles using Thunder Arrow. This is the other example of his improved mastery of Chaos Energy, as unlike the previous Guardians he doesn’t need to be within short range of the Master Emerald to use it. It’s still not perfect though, as just using it once is shown to tire him out quite a bit.

Finally, we have Thrash making his grand entrance. He was originally drawn with an entire pack of Devil Dogs around him, but it’s actually an important plot point that he only has two with him at the moment, so this was changed in the final version.

That’s it for this post, but unlike the other stories, this one was a revision of an even earlier rewrite, one that was started on and scrapped before ASO was even a thing. Next time, we’ll be going BEHIND behind the scenes at ShadImp’s original Endangered Species remake!

193 notes · View notes

thelucidgamer · 5 years ago

Text

Back on my Sonic bullshit after 9 and a half years.

~~~

The first three were some quick draws I made a week ago to see if I still knew how to draw these characters (First time drawing Shadow, like... ever actually. So that’s a new one for me I guess).

The other 5, however, are some mockups I decided to do for “character redesigns”/timeskip stuff (that I may or may not do anything with):

- First is Amy, who has the most dramatic design change of the group. Growing up with the Adventure games, I always liked Amy’s character potential. Her first playable outing, while not the strongest in terms of story, had a clear development path for her character that was unfortunately never followed up on. So I decided to base the design around that path, where her independance and adventurous spirit grows, eventually leading her to take more of Sonic’s persona. Less as a crush, but more as an idol: a symbol she looks up to and hopes to one daystand beside as an equal. The overall design is a mesh between her classic design and some cues from her Fleetway Comic designs, with a pair of custom running boots.

- Sonic is Sonic, I’m sorry but my boy is perfect and needs no alterations.

- Tails was a pretty easy design to think up. I figure one day, on Miles birthday maybe, Sonic hands him this big boofy present that’s just barely holding its wrapping together. He figured that since the kid is already piloting his plane, as well as others Tails has built over the years, he might as well make him his official “Fly Boy”. So, he calls up his old friend (possibly Honey???), and has this made for him: A custom flight jacket, with a Sonic patch just below the collar, two gold tails on the back, and a name tag that reads “Miles” on the front. Short and to the point, it’s an awesome gift that Tails cherishes about as much as the plane.

- So Cream the Rabbit is pretty freaking cool. She’s not only a great kid, but she’s surprisingly wicked strong, and a tough one to boot. Of course, once she gets old enough, it’s only natural she starts adventuring more with Sonic, Amy, and the rest of the crew. Right now though, she’s a school kid who does her homework on the road, and busts up badniks before bedtime.

- This echidna is a real doozy for me to talk about. Save for the utter bastardization of his character over the last 10 years fact that he’s a pretty rough guy when you get under his skin, I always loved how chill Knuckles could be. If you don’t screw with him or the Master Emerald, he is usually pretty indifferent, or relaxed. That with his open-handed demeanor, while naive, it makes him a really likable character. Also, remember how this guy was apparently a treasure hunter before being the Emerald’s guardian? Yeah, when are we gonna get a story about that? I’d love to see what this guy was like before he took on the destiny of the Guardian. Until then, I look forward to the day he can pass down the title of the Emerald’s Guardian to someone else, so he can return to his Treasure Hunting roots; Globetrot the world with Rouge and find the next lost treasure. Maybe have him give the job to Shade, if Sega ever remembers she exists. I figure I’d draw from his OVA counterpart with the hat, because this hat is amazing and needs to be canon.

#sonic the hedgehog #sega #sonic #shadow the hedgehog #amy rose #miles tails prower #cream the rabbit #knuckles the echidna #metal sonic #redesign #handdrawn #art #my art #fan art

53 notes · View notes

silenthillmutual · 5 years ago

Text

One Punch Man, thus far

all Genos/Saitama, unless otherwise specified (i still have a few on my ‘marked to read later’)

Top 10:

Colourless Saitama and his Years of Training by rironomind, M (fluff, humor, angst, hurt/comfort, adventure, romance, drama) A lonely eggman living in the 21st century finds a cyborg who endeavours to keep him.

Connect Your Heart to Mine by Notsohappycamper, T (fluff) When Genos is left in critical condition and must stay at Dr. Kuseno’s for much longer than he’d like, Saitama is more than happy to stay connected to him.

everybody’s looking for darjeeling by Batman, G (AU) In which Genos takes up a part time job, Saitama is upset by purple aprons with sunflowers on them, and Sonic is a very tired supervillain. (Or, that one coffee shop AU now with 76% more cyborg baristas.)

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH DEMON CYBORG by nicolet, T (humor) Today we will be interviewing Demon Cyborg, 19 year old Hero Genos LIVE! Stay tuned for more!

From, Anonymous: Be my friend? by One_Punch_Chan, T Saitama wants to connect with his younger roommate as if he were any other human the only way he knows how: The power of the anonymous internet.

It’s always the internal stuff by fabulousreaper, T Here he was, the strongest man in the world, brought to his knees by a fucking cramp.

Knock Knock, I’m Back From Space by Notsohappycamper, T In which Boros lives, learns to find peace with his human rival, and comes over for tea every so often. I.e., in which Boros visits Saitama while Genos is away.

Missed Connections by batneko, T If the person you like doesn’t like you back, the healthy thing to do is move on, right? All Saitama wants to do is help Genos get over that mystery jerk who doesn’t appreciate what he could have had. And all Genos wants to do is get over Saitama, but how can he when he has to see him every day?

One Hundred Contest Entries by batneko, G Genos gets roped into an embarrassing publicity stunt, and no one is happy about it.

You’ll find me where the monsters are by supercrunch, T Genos stares. For a very long time, because he’s standing in the street with one shoe on, fighting a half-naked man who’s threatening to eat his other shoe, and now there’s an actual naked bald man with one raised eyebrow like he can’t even tell Genos is on his way to short-circuiting. “Oh.” (Either this ‘Saitama’ guy has very bad luck, or he genuinely enjoys getting attacked by monsters every week. Genos, for the life of him, can’t tell which.)

the rest!

Action and Reaction by Astarea (fluff) Saitama has come to terms that he can never confess, but it still hurts.

All The Makeup That MAC Can Make by Sacramental_Wine (hurt/comfort, fluff) “Did he have freckles once? Was he always smoother looking? Did his face always seem to have that plasticine finish? What would Saitama think when he came home to Genos looking…alive for a change?”

Black Is Your Brightest Color by daughterofMyou (fluff, angst) -A Valentine’s Day fanfiction; Saitama and Genos go for a walk in the park, then attempt to cook each other their favourite desserts. Not everything goes as planned.

Brand Loyalty by batneko (AU) Genos encounters a man who looks exactly like Saitama… but with hair.

First Crush by batneko A conversation over dinner about crushes and fandoms.

First-Name Basis by batneko (AU) Genos gave up on finding his soulmate when he gave up his skin. Saitama just isn’t looking.

Gray Matter by batneko (fluff) Some parts aren’t so easy to replace. And the injuries you can’t see can be the most dangerous.

Hands by Bloodsbane Genos asks to use Saitama’s hand as a drawing reference.

Hollow Spaces by twisting_vine_x Saitama hadn’t realized how alone he was until Genos came into his life.

“I’m his husband.” by batneko The obligatory accidental marriage fic.

It’s Cold Without You by your_tomodachi (fluff) Genos is invited to a party organised by the Hero Association on Christmas Eve. He decides to take Saitama along and everyone thinks they’ve come together as a couple. Really, Saitama only came because he heard there’s free food.

Love Bite by batneko (fluff, angst) “Maybe we should stop fooling around.”

Marks on Metal, Dents on Flesh by notsohappycamper (fluff) The boys explore the imperfections of each other’s bodies.

Masks by batneko Superheroes wear masks. Everyone knows that.

Morning Routine by rironomind (fluff) Waking up next to someone who loves you

Mr. Right by OldBeginningNewEnding Flowers in hand, Saitama takes a trip with Genos for a long-overdue introduction. And maybe a request as well.

my love has come along by lowsywriter (fluff, angst, AU) Genos knows himself too well to not notice that his feelings for Saitama are more than friendship, and with graduation looming he is gonna miss his chance to make a move.

never change by determination Saitama doesn’t know how to handle Valentine’s day or his feelings. But he’s learning, and maybe a romantic holiday is all he needed to nudge him in the right direction.

Obliviously by batneko Everyone can see how much Genos cares for Saitama, but can Genos? (No, no he can’t.)

Our Two Dads by aactionjohnny (fluff) A day in the lives of the robo babies.

The Pocket Trials by 8ball (friendship, fluff) Genos apologized at the end of the fight, like he always did when Saitama had to help him stand or gather his parts or just flat out carry what was left of him. But it bothered Saitama that Genos was apologizing for failing to defeat the monster, rather than failing to keep himself unharmed.

R.A.M Sleep by CAPSING “Genos,” Saitama finally speaks, with an uncharacteristic hint of urgency in his voice. “Yes, Sensei?” Genos straightens his back slightly, attentive; he sets his chopsticks down. “This morning, on patrol…” Saitama is clearly struggling. “I –“ There’s a pause.“I wondered what we’d have for dinner.”

Robot Parenting 101 by batneko (fluff) Dr. Kuseno’s latest project is useful, but unconventional.

Soap by 54starr Genos accidentally confessiones his love to Saitama. Now he’s gotta wash his mouth out with soap.

Uncharacteristically nervous by oiltears (fluff) Genos and Saitama go on their first “real” date and Saitama is a small bundle of nerves

unwind by bluestrawberryiii (fluff) Saitama’s had a rough day.

Warm Like the Sun’s Rays by oodlenoodle (hurt/comfort, fluff) Genos and Saitama enjoy a sunset together and share memories from the past while creating a new memory of their own.

Yellow by transtrees “The person I love is so strong it worries me, So show your weakness to me alone! I’ll find you before the stars do, So please come straight home!”

Blending and Processing by aactionjohnny It’s just a blender.

Blush by SomeplaceToStay Genos can’t blush and Saitama doesn’t know if he’s upset by that.

Breaking the Fourth Wall by nicolet (fluff, crack, humor) Genos reads fanfic. That’s all there is to it.

Breathing Fish to Life by Magisey (fluff, angst, hurt/comfort) A fluffy hurt/comfort fic of getting together, love, and fishies

Condition of Learned Helplessness by Sheepnamedpig (drama, romance, angst, friendship) Genos fights, learns, launders, and loves.

Confessions by AlaianaPotter (fluff) He had not meant to send it. He had not meant to even write it, but sitting there in the morning as Sensei slumbered, it had just been far too tempting

Fraternization by batneko Saitama and Genos learn about a very inconvenient Hero Association rule.

Frustration by icarusforgotten (angst) It’s something so fundamentally human, so unbearably real, that it almost hurts to acknowledge it.

Greed by Sheepnamedpig I get a little bit Genghis Khan./ I don’t want you to get it on/ With nobody else but me.

Hands by Bloodsbane Genos asks to use Saitama’s hand as a drawing reference.

I Didn’t Know What I Needed to Know by The_Button_Harlequin (fluff, angst) Saigenos Week Prompt: Won’t you come home soon?

I Love You by nicolet (fluff) Just a touch, the briefest touch, and yet within it, a world of importance.

Kisses For Me by nicolet (fluff, crack) Genos keeps kissing other Heroes (accidentally), and Saitama is annoyed.

Lazy Day by Notsohappycamper (fluff) Relaxing on the balcony, doing laundry together, eating ice cream, and being in love.

Love doesn’t HAVE to be a many splendored thing, does it? by Ginncide Saitama’s never been an emotional guy, so he figured he wasn’t cut out for romance. He starts to wonder what being in love really is.

Mind Over Matter by yesterday “You want me to teach you how to what?” Saitama asks as they’re clearing up the dishes from tonight’s meal. Genos washes; Saitama gathers up the garbage. Tomorrow is burnable garbage day. Each pot and plate and dish is scoured to sparkling perfection before it goes into the drying rack. “Relax,” Genos says. “Sensei appears to have a lot of experience in the art of doing nothing, and recently Doctor Kuseno suggested that it would be beneficial for me to do the same.” “Doesn’t that guy make robots? They’re not exactly like humans, you know,” Saitama says. “And it’s not like I spend all day lying around the house. I’m a hero, a hero.”

Not Today by Sheepnamedpig (action, drama, romance) There is only one thing we say to death–

One Day (Love and Loss) by SugaSugar (AU, angst) By the time he’s twenty five, Saitama starts to wonder if Genos died before they could meet.

Paper Stars by Variastrix (angst) Saitama folds paper stars as a coping mechanism.

Phantom Warmth by KNACC (fluff) Genos is feeling odd reactions in his barely functional core as Saitama carries his wrecked body away from the Sea King fight.

Practice Makes Perfect by Humanitys_Shortest_Soldier (fluff, angst) Genos takes a lesson from Saitama a little too seriously, and Saitama is surprisingly okay with the whole thing.

Regret by Lazzuli (fluff, angst) Everyone has discussions, everyone fights. Even teachers and disciples.

Search Your Feelings by Chokopoppo (fluff) Saitama can’t believe Genos hasn’t ever seen Star Wars. Genos can’t believe Saitama thinks R2-D2 is the best robot.

Separation Anxiety by NanakiBH (drama, angst) Everything can be broken; something the strong forget.

Shift by Duskglass They’re both pretty bad at dealing with change, and Saitama just wants to avoid trouble. It sort of backfires.

Simplicity by rubyfiamma (fluff) Genos kisses Saitama, Saitama wonders what in the fuck

Sleeping Cycles by LennyFace (fluff, friendship) Genos can’t help but notice many details about his master, small things he observes from their routine and includes in his housework to facilitate his life.

So much time to waste by seiji Two heroes walk into a bar. The waitstaff survive, mostly.

synthetic by cyaneyed He tastes faintly of metal.

Twelve to Four by lightning027 (fluff) [[Or a story where Saitama makes a list, Genos buys a throw pillow, and they both sort of overheat]]

why isn’t he getting paid for all the merchandise though? There was a line between admiration and obsession and Saitama was pretty sure Genos was starting to cross it.

you’re digging graves into your skin (mark the headstones with my name) by rironomind (romance) Genos is self-destructive, Saitama is insensitive and Dr Kuseno is long-suffering.

All I Have to Give by needchocolatenow (fluff) Genos is in love with Saitama.

And so the Universe Cackled in Glee by I_dont_know_man (humor) Inspired by bleepbloop6969’s Ecchi AU: “Where everything is the same, except Genos keeps getting thrown into perverted positions with Saitama.”

First Aid by Zemmiphobia (fluff) Watching Genos prep for repairs gives Saitama a sudden realization, sparking Genos’ own revelation.

Friction by Usuishi (PWP) There were far too many times where they ended up in situations in that Saitama really couldn’t find the source of. They always ended up in erotic circumstances somehow, whether it was Genos or himself that initiated them. It didn’t matter where they were by this point. It didn’t matter one bit.

A Happy Accident by paperficwriter Genos discovers that Saitama is very, very sensitive to certain touches, and he decides to experiment.

A Hot Bath and a Hot Pot by aactionjohnny (fluff, smut) Or, “what the OVA didn’t show us.”

I Want You To Want Me by One_Punch_Chan Genos gets a super obsessive fan who keeps harassing him for dates etc. and the only way to get them to leave him alone is for Saitama to fake being his boyfriend.

Jupiter Has Seven Moons by Chokopoppo (PWP) Nothing like a cool robot boyfriend with weird sexual modules to make you appreciate the modern age of technology, and no time like the present to figure out how to use that.

Nightmare by batneko Saitama has a dream that shakes him, and some reassurance is in order.

Nobody Got Me Feeling This Way by Sacramental_Wine “Normally, he felt hard around the edges, something immobile and sturdy. But the music hollowed him out, making him fluid, floating, dancing along with a general ease that came from not seeing himself.” Genos discovers what it is to love the body he’s been given.

Repairs by shaunhastings2012 Genos needs to fix some of his wiring after a battle. It should’ve been a simple repair, but it wasn’t going quite the way he’d expected. However, Genos didn’t exactly mind what happened.

Self-Indulgence by EmpanadaDrabblez The alarm clock across the room shone red like those beautiful crimson irises. The blue moonlight through the sheer curtains glowed like the white cables of Genos’ neck when they were kissed. The small fan at his feet droned quietly like the overworked hum of Genos’ cooling system.

Sensory by Duskglass Genos needs some minor repairs after a fight, and is positive he can handle them on his own. It’s a little harder than he anticipated.

So Very Loved by lilith_swbf Saitama made him feel like he was his most precious treasure.

Untitled. by DesInDisguise (fluff) Gentle lovemaking was all that he could ask for. To be shown adoration, love. To be pulled away from their lives for only a moment, no remembrance of how he was a machine made for death. How nice it was to forget, or pretend that he was human for those moments. To be loved and cherished much like anyone else, for Saitama to kiss him without hesitation, giving him no time to apologise for being too stiff, too awkward, too fake.

Add-On by NyxMidnight Genos is a cyborg. Adding a bodypart is nothing to him.

Apartment-warming by Akumeoi (smut, romance) Saitama finally moves out of the Hero Association HQ and goes back to Z-City with Genos. They do some housewarming. (Translation: 2K smut)

Appreciation by EmpanadaDrabblez (AU, PWP) “You know I appreciate you, don’t you?” The question was easier to let out than Saitama expected, but it was the silence that answered him which made him anxious.

The Apron by Bloodsbane (angst, fluff) Shit. The word buzzed around Saitama’s skull like a mosquito, one he truly had no chance of squashing between his fingers. Shit, he thought, observing his disciple/roommate/best friend as he scrubbed furiously at a spot on the floor with a rag. He was on his knees, bent forward slightly, putting all his weight into removing an ugly soy sauce stain. The straps of the apron fell as if to purposefully frame his ass. Fucking shit.

Bathtime Bubbles Baby by Darke_Eco_Freak Saitama would really hate to burst them.

Beta Testing by Croik Taken from an anon prompt on tumblr: “Masochistic Genos who knows Saitama is going too far w/o realizing it while they’re banging.”

Blackout by Lindserton (fluff, smut) A storm is approaching and Saitama doesn’t seem concerned about it one bit.

Blooming Season by oodlenoodle It’s springtime and Saitama decides to visit Genos.

Break Me Open by spunlikesugar Genos ends up with his fair share of dents the first time he has sex with Saitama…and the second time. And many times after that.

Crime and Punishment by spunlikesugar (humor, smut) Genos uses a new tactic to get Saitama to attend a wedding with him. It backfires. Or not. Depends on how you look at it.

Egging Him On by banana-babies Genos and Saitama end up at King’s house with some sake and a lot of sexual tension. King ends up having a very bad time.

Evening Interlude by SweetAvidyaJones (angst) I have been thinking a lot lately about Genos fucking Saitama and I couldn’t stop so I wrote this.

Eyes (Only For You) by 8bitcyborg (smut) «That’s when he decided that it didn’t really matter. His heart told him it didn’t matter. Genos wanted him, and he wanted Genos. The reckless but still so perfect and loving cyborg, who could have anyone in the world, possibly the universe, but only had eyes for him.»

Full Color by NanakiBH Ever since Genos appeared, something began to change.

From a Cyborg’s Mouth by Emery (fluff, smut) Genos is much, much too polite, and Saitama decides that he’s had enough of it–especially when he knows that the cyborg talking dirty will get him off.

Frozen Sunlight by Aetherdrive Humanity is the best gift you can give to someone that has transcended it.

Hard Edges by Ixxen (smut) For the rest of the day there’s a peaceful lilt in Genos’ step that Saitama hasn’t seen for longer than he liked to think, and makes sure to let the blond catch him staring. Each time is a discovery, and the specimen is a smile outlined in vivid red; perfect, entrancing, and capable of skipping a step in Saitama’s otherwise perfect heartbeat. After that, he pays attention.

Phantom Limb by batneko Genos doesn’t have a penis, but accidentally discovers his brain can make do.

Pointless by CheekyKichi (PWP) Genos is very cheeky and Saitama doesn’t let him get away with it, even if they’re at a very important wedding.

The Quality of Being Hard by NyxMidnight A misunderstanding leads to good time, or “You just had to say so, Master”.

Reconsider by SpringTide “So, uh, Genos. Do you…have a thing for me?” Time stood still in the room. This was the absolute worst case scenario. Genos weighed his options while carefully maintaining a poker face. Saitama just kept staring at him with a blank, unreadable expression. “That’s. An abrupt question, sensei.” It wasn’t abrupt. Genos had lived there for months and fallen hard and fast. It was shocking it took this long for something to come up.

Stamina by toastycyborg (PWP) A drabble for Tumblr user sai-pop, based on an anonymous ask: “OVERSTIMULATED GENOS AND A SAI THAT CANT STOP BC HE HAS A SCARY AMOUNT OF STAMINA”

Through Different Eyes by NanakiBH (drama, hurt/comfort) For the first time, he wanted to know more.

Yellow by aactionjohnny Genos buys Saitama a gift. Well, really, it’s for both of them.

Yes, Master by Astarea Genos is very upset and Saitama is having none of that.

Always Gold by OldeShoestring (AU, fluff, humor) Genos lost a bet and the result isn’t as quite as he expects it to be.

Good Boy by doobler (PWP) Saitama wants Genos to want him to want to be praised. Right?

Head Full Of Nothing by hopelesswanderlust (angst) Sweet Mask makes him write a list about what it means to be human.

His Biggest Fan by Orihander (fluff) Genos just wants his sensei to be happy

I Know Your Face by paperficwriter Sonic finds Saitama, but something about him keeps him at an uncharacteristic distance.

Lazy Mornings (PWP) Saitama appreciates staying in bed longer than necessary a lot more than he should. Especially if there is someone else with him. Someone who doesn’t mind being ground against.

The Meaning of Flowers by paperficwriter (+ Metal Bat/Garou; fluff) A collection of drabbles based around flowers and their many meanings.

So Many Colors by OldeShoestring (fluff) Genos deals, listens and loves. Not necessarily in that order but he does all of them anyway.

#fic recs #one punch man #saigenos #genosai #opm #nori talks #ok to rb #long post #popular

167 notes · View notes

lookwhataylormademedo-blog · 5 years ago

Photo

How to get rid of pigeons on your roof

Pigeon Removal Near Me

Table of ContentsWhy you should Commercial Pigeon ControlTop companies that Bird Nest RemovalThe best ways to Commercial Pigeon ControlTop companies that Bird Nest RemovalLocal ways to Remove A Birds NestProfessional that Netting For Pigeon ControlSteps to Netting For Pigeon Control with a 5 star rated company

Pigeons can be entertaining to view, but their droppings can cause damage to buildings and spread diseases to people and other animals. You can prevent this from happening, particularly through deterrents and gentle population control. Prior to you take any measures, examine your nationwide and local laws concerning their security status and which manage techniques you might use.

Safe and Effective contractors that Bird Control Solutions

Disclosure: This post might consist of affiliate links. This means that at no charge to you, we may make a little commission for certifying purchases. Couple of things are more frustrating than strolling down the street only for a pigeon to poop on you from overhead. Even worse, that poop can cover your cars and truck or home in a nasty, slimy goo.

However fear not, we're here to tell you how to eliminate pigeons and keep these critters away from your house. from leading bug control business in your area - how to get rid of birds in roof. While they have actually constantly had something of a bad credibility, pigeons have a more noble location in our history than you might anticipate.

Top companies that Netting For Pigeon Control

Pigeons consist of the 310-species Columbidae household. These birds are technically doves, with the rock dove and turtledove being the two most significant types. Just what separates a pigeon from a dove is practically completely visual, with scientists generally going by size (doves being smaller sized), while secular and religious circles consider any dove that's not totally white to be a pigeon.

They're also simple to domesticate, having actually been the first recognized bird to be made into animals. City-based pigeons have actually become scavengers, quiting their typical diet plan for any scraps they can discover, but usually choose fruit and seeds. Many types have adapted to consume worms and bugs, with at least one types preferring them.

Nevertheless, something they all have in typical is a routine of building rather flimsy nests out of twigs in which they'll lay one to 2 eggs at a time. These nests are usually kept in the same location the species prefers to roam, with species such as the rock dove choosing high ledges and rooftops when in a city setting due to the lack of trees.

Experts that Pigeon Removal

Top companies that Remove A Birds Nest

Some species tend to be confined to small locations, while others have spread out alongside humans. The single most prevalent species is the rock dove, which can be discovered throughout the world in great deals. Pigeons are incredibly resourceful and surprisingly smart. As an outcome, they have actually discovered to deal with human growth and adapt to urban settings easily.

Healthy pigeon poop has no smell, but urban pigeons are scavengers and typically victim to illness and birth problems. Their poop can get extremely runny and include high acidity, wreaking havok on your clean vehicle, windows, walls, and pathways. The level of acidity can even deteriorate stone, concrete, and other products in time.

They'll congregate anywhere food is offered, making it more hard to draw in songbirds. They can be noisy, messy, and pursue that pie you just remained to cool. To put it simply, pigeons, like loved ones, are frequently best liked at a distance. Getting rid of pigeons is a lot easier than it may initially appear, although it can take a little time to get rid of bigger infestations.

Unknown but effective contractors that Prevent Birds

youtube

A pigeon trap works the same method as other gentle critter traps. Just set it up, add some appealing food (fruits, veggies, and split corn are some tasty choices) for bait, and then wait. A lot of these traps, such as the Tomahawk Pigeon Trap, have entryways on opposite sides, allowing you to catch a pigeon per door before having to empty the trap.

Another popular trap is a trigger type trap which catches them in a web. It's a little more difficult to set up however you can get the very same outcomes at a fraction of the expense. from leading insect control business in your location. You can use a slinky or insulation wire on the railing to assist keep pigeons from perching there.

You can then use duct tape to attach it to the railing at 2/3 inch periods. While an easy tactic, pigeons find it rather uncomfortable to land on. Make sure there's no attractive food source present, and you'll easily be able to keep pigeons off the balcony. It's actually easy to keep a pigeon from roosting on your roof.

Experts that Bird Control Solutions

These spikes aren't sharp, however they make it challenging for the pigeon to land. You might hear people recommending easy methods to eliminate pigeons, but these methods are not just vicious in intent, they can sometimes impact other types you might not wish to kill. Here are three of the most popular recommendations for eliminating pigeons and why you shouldn't utilize them: In spite of their old motto, Alka Seltzer will not rescue you from pigeons.

In reality, however, they can simply throw up the foamy mess using the very same methods they utilize for feeding their young. Toxin is a big no-no. Even if you're trying to feed the target pigeon by hand, it's a simple matter for a sparrow or other bird to swoop in and take the poisoned food.

This is an extremely popular old better halves' tale. Rice won't eliminate a bird and is actually part of lots of types' diet plans. Regardless of what popular takes claim, uncooked rice takes a long period of time to absorb liquids. By the time it might possibly become a danger to the bird, they'll have either absorbed or passed the grains.

Why you should Pigeon Removal

Just getting rid of pigeons isn't enough, as they have a habit of returning no matter how lots of times you kick them out. Using visual deterrents and chemical or natural repellents will assist keep these pesky animals from turning your house into an event area. It can likewise assist to make your residential or commercial property as uninviting as possible by getting rid of those things which can bring in pigeons in the first location.

Attempt placing a ceramic owl or fake snake in places they're vulnerable to gather. Just like other insects, it's a good concept to move these decoys around occasionally so the birds do not believe they're just design. A kite with a hawk shape can also be utilized to frighten pigeons away, as they look like a predator in flight.

More options can also work versus other animals, such as setting up a motion-sensitive water sprinkler. These are great due to the fact that it suggests it waters your yard or garden at the very same time it terrifies away pests. Sonic deterrents do a great task, but can aggravate any four-legged relative, so they're not for everybody.

Remove A Birds Nest Near Me

These items are either concentrated urine or chemical replications of urine. Pigeons and other insects will smell and think a hunter is on the loose. However, these items don't always work and can rinse when it rains. A with a fantastic track record can be rather easy to make and works well against a range of other pests.

Shake well and location in direct sunshine to ferment for 5 days. Lastly, add 1/4 cup of vinegar to the mix and shake once again, then spray your plants or surface areas with it (how to get rid of birds in roof). The capsicum will irritate a pigeon's (or other critter's) feet and prevent them from returning to that area.

Total Bird Control Birmingham

TBC Nationwide Office, Highfield Farm, Middle Ln, King's Norton, Birmingham B38 0DX, United Kingdom

youtube

#how to get rid of pigeons on your roof #how to get rid of birds in roof #pigeon control #how to stop birds nesting under roof tiles #pigeon net for balcony #pigeon removal #united kingdom

1 note · View note

kevindurkiin · 5 years ago

Text

Your EDM Premiere: Here Come Mob Tactics With A ‘Bulldozer’ to Start 2020 [RAM]

We should have known the high-energy duo that is Mob Tactics were not going to take is easy on us in the banger department this year. As the collective bass music world wakes up from the hangover of 2019, however, Eject, their new offering on RAM Records rolls from one pumped up dancefloor stinker to the next like – well, like a “Bulldozer.”

As is often the case with Mob Tactics, fans shouldn’t just expect fast, twitchy bangers with Eject. There’s almost always much more than meets the ear with an MT track and each one on this EP has some sort of twist, complex sound design or just a wildly difficult synth that draws in the ear to take a closer listen. Rene LaVice debuted the first track on the EP, “Thumper,” on Tuesday and there’s definitely a lot of extra twists there with a jumpy, surprisingly minimal beat and tons of tweeky flourishes so that gives a good preview of where this EP is going to be hitting when it releases tomorrow, January 17.

For our money, today’s Your EDM premiere “Bulldozer” may be the most complex yet also danceable of all the tracks on Eject. Opening with a sort of tribal beat and a ravey over-synth, “Bulldozer” moves so fast that audiences may think its actually quite a bit faster than 174 but that’s thanks for the most part to the snares. Fast and relentless, they pull the beat – which is actually a backwards syncopated roller throwback – into a sort of spinning whirlwind of bass. The only reprieve listeners get is an amen break every other phrase but that too is folded into these lightning-speed snares and hardly feels like a break at all.

Synth-wise, the main sound is actually quite a bit more sparse than it seems but that’s because it’s backed by a really interesting harmonizing sub bass synth and then the rest of the space in each phrase is taken up by seemingly random buzz noises that sometimes sound like mini-breaks themselves, but they won’t feel that way.

The initial melodic, ravey synth of the intro comes in every other bar or so but it can’t be called a main synth by any standard. It’s nonetheless important, however, because for any punter who’s been to a big tunnel, hangar or tent rave, it will instantly transport back to those cherished scenes. That synth is the sonic equivalent of rave bliss.

youtube

“Bulldozer” is a rare Mob Tactics track where the duo actually show how its complexity and how much is actually going on; it’s all out there for us to hear and feel (and even visualize). Displaying its complexity isn’t the point, however; as champions of the dance, Mob Tactics have made “Bulldozer” fast, furious and ravey so that the ravers can rave. It’s a fun work to analyze just like all of Mob Tactics’ stuff but with a tune this punchy, wouldn’t you rather put on a bassface and bounce your tits off?

Eject is out tomorrow, January 17 on RAM Records. Check Beatport and Spotify to grab it as soon as it drops.

This article was first published on Your EDM. Source: Your EDM Premiere: Here Come Mob Tactics With A ‘Bulldozer’ to Start 2020 [RAM]

Your EDM Premiere: Here Come Mob Tactics With A ‘Bulldozer’ to Start 2020 [RAM] published first on https://soundwizreview.tumblr.com/

0 notes

bluebuzzmusic · 5 years ago

Text

Your EDM Premiere: Here Come Mob Tactics With A ‘Bulldozer’ to Start 2020 [RAM]

youtube

Eject is out tomorrow, January 17 on RAM Records. Check Beatport and Spotify to grab it as soon as it drops.

This article was first published on Your EDM. Source: Your EDM Premiere: Here Come Mob Tactics With A ‘Bulldozer’ to Start 2020 [RAM]

source https://www.youredm.com/2020/01/16/your-edm-premiere-here-come-mob-tactics-with-a-bulldozer-to-start-2020-ram/

#edm #music #music production #music news #edm news

0 notes

dukeofriven · 8 years ago

Text

Frisk on the Road to Damascus: A Pseudo-Essay on Converting to Undertale

So 664 days after it was released, and 382 days after I purchased it, I finally, finally, finally beat Undertale.

And... I loved it. Controversial opinion: it’s really good.

But it took me a while to love it. Let me explain, because I’m sure y’all are super interested in me doing so.

I had about five false starts playing Undertale, and all five of those false starts was how fucking irritating I found the sound of Flowey and Toriel’s dialogue. I have a hypersensitivity to sound, especially frequencies, and the sound of Flowey and Toriel’s dialogue is... not pleasant, especially at first aural blush. I got used to it when it when I finally powered through it, but if there were any major changes I would make to Undertale it would be better sound controls - being able to cut the audio down on the dialogue by even 25% would make a big difference to it on an accessibility ability level* ** It was Undertale that first ‘inspired’ me to get Tumblr Saviour - first because I didn’t want to be spoiled by a game I heard was good and wanted to play relatively unspoiled, and later because I didn’t want to be reminded of the game I was having so much trouble with.

What was it that made me pick up Undertale long enough to get through it? As usual, it was podcasts (there’s a small paper to be written on how podcasts got me interested in pro wrestling, but that’s a whole other story.) The superlatively good Let Me Tell You About Homestuck podcast relaunched a little over a year back (shoutout to excellent co-hosts @yuri-librarian and @betgirl ), and when I found out I dived back in, and in the process rediscovered my love of Homestuck. Homestuck and I had a falling out during the gigapause and Homosuck - at the time it felt like the webcomic’s author was pissed at his own comic and actively self-sabotaging it, and even though I caught up with the comic before the ending I was still disgruntled with it and not willing to engage with it much.

But listening to LMTYAH re-ignited fandom joy within me - a euphoric Road-To-Damascus re-conversion I can only describe as ‘George Bailey coming back to existence at the end of It’s A Wonderful Life.' I gleefully snatched-up the pesterlogs and clutched them to my chest. I waved cheerfully at [S] Descend and [S] Cascade. “Merry Christmas you old mspaintadventures!” I shouted at the top of my lungs as I pelted through the snow to hug my beloved Beta Kid family again.***

You can’t discuss Homestuck anymore without discussing Undertale, which was so clearly fed by Homestuck, which was in turn fed by Undertale, because media is an incestuous slurry. Part of the issues with coming back to the Homestuck dialectic table is that you can’t ignore that big ol’ bowl of Undertale sitting between the roasted trans-media experiments and the mashed potatoes. If, every time that bowl gets passed around, you put your hands over your ears and and scram ‘LA LA LA LA LA I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT’ then the other guests are going to look at you funny and your nearest neighbour is going to conclude that they’d rather sit through that pompous lecture by the vegan on the other side of them after all.

It’s not a great dining experience, is what I am trying to explain with this increasingly overcooked analogy. I wanted to eat with the rest of the guests - I wanted to watch @revolutionaryduelist’s video on Undertale themes and Homesick themes. I want to suck it up, be an adult, and eat like a goddamn grown-up.

So I grit my teeth, grabbed the bowl, and started shovelling large spoonfuls down my throat. I think this is how grown-ups eat right?

I didn’t like the taste at first. What brought me to Undertax more than anything was the idea of the pacifist run. The games that have this as a legit option are few and far between, and some of them (e.g. Dishonoured) get downright nasty about it. Undertake wasn’t nasty about being helpful, but it didn’t make it easy, either.

Some of you may feel the need to note that ‘the pacifist route isn’t supposed to be easy,’ to which my response would be ‘shove it up your bum you git-gud wankeroos.’ There are two types of ‘hard’ in video games - one of challenge, and one of ability. The excellent puzzle game The Witness doesn’t greatly challenge ability (for sighted people, at least) - by and large almost all of its puzzles just involve drawing a line. The Witness is hard because the puzzle are so tortuously, mind-bindingly challenging. By contrast, a platform like VVVVVV doesn’t preset much mental challenge - it barely has anything like a puzzle that I can remember, but in terms of ability it requires lightening-fast reflexes and great timing (Somehow I beat that game -I still don’t know how).

Undertale is not a hard-challenge game, it is a hard-ability game, and I flat-out suck at its bullet hell mechanics. All my frustrations with the game were met at the bullet board - if I could make one other major change to the game it would be slightly improving the speed of the heart cursor. Time and time again I violently cursed because I had just missed getting out of the way of something with a cursor I found sluggish and unresponsive, as though my keyboard was laggy. A poor skill level coupled with what felt like hardware problems made for an increasingly difficult experience, one in which I felt like the game was almost taunting me: “oh, you want to be a good person, huh? Too bad - you lack the skills to be a good person. You’re not going to get through this without resorting to killing, you intrinsically violent, terrible person."

Staying alive through the confrontation with Undyne drained me, and by the time I was on my second iteration of Mettaton being a shitheel I just felt burned-out. The story still felt pretty flat, and wasn’t really drawing me in. The hardest decision I had had to make was at the very beginning of the game - Toriel’s home, and Toriel herself, were so lovely and sweet that I still resented the game for making me have to break her heart. I didn’t want to leave her house, I just wanted to stay and live a nice life with her in the Underground. But no - the game wanted me to have heroic destiny and shit so fine, guess i’ll go back to the surface I don’t have much interest in seeing. Since leaving Toriel’s house all I had wanted to do was return to that tranquility and warmth, and instead I just got more monsters trying to kill me. The stuff with Papyrus had been very funny, but the game still wasn’t sinking its claws into me - it was a quirky but light RPG, funny, but not funny or deep enough for me to understand why a big bowl of it was sitting at the Homestuck dialectic table other that Toby Fox had worked on both things - which seemed like a weak reason to include it. (Remember the Homestuck dialectic table? That didn’t stop being a thing or anything)

So I walked away again and did other things over several weeks, possibly months. I finally came to terms with the fact that my vision is permanently damaged and got myself a Kindle so I could read again. I read a book on the Apollo programme and took another crack at Bleak House. I watched an episode or two of Lucha Underground, got caught up on The Adventure Zone, and went through every post ever posted on @revolutionaryduelist’s Tumblr. I fantasized about buying a new computer. I told myself to watch the Little Witch Academia TV series and forgot every single time - and so on.

And then I watched Car Boys.

Car Boys is one hell of a ride, no pun intended, a strange mishmash of video game fault testing and emergent meta narrative that ends up surprisingly emotional and affecting - and as the credits rolled I made the always unwise decision to wander down into the Youtube comments, where I discovered the fun ‘Car Boys is just like Homestuck’ argument which, natch, led me back to thinking about Homesick and Video Games - and, ultimately, Undertale.

“Fine,” I told myself, “I guess I’ll beat it, at least to finally have one thing in my over-glutted Steam Library I have actually seen-through to completion.”

So last night I booted up my Steam, made the conscious decision to stop trying to get my just-bought 360 controller to work with Sonic Adventures DX via wine (it keeps crashing), and booted up Undertale.

For a while it was just fine again. I don’t like Alphys, even after beating the game: she reminds me of a lot of shitty people I’ve known in my life, and the story uses her lack of self-confidence as sort of a moé defence - ah, look at how cute she is, isn’t that adorable, she feels bad about what she’s done - without ever actually examining that behaviour in any critical detail. Alphys being an adorkable anime fan and her relationship with Undyne are all great character traits - but it doesn’t make her a good person, and the game never truly calls her to the mat in much the same way that it sort of glosses over Asgore having condoned the murder of six other humans (but he comes into the story so late I find him less of a character and more of a symbol.) Alphys gets a whole ‘trip to the dump/romance role-play’ subplot after being revealed to have deliberately ordered a bunch of monsters to at least make a pretence of killing you in order to make herself look like a hero - and that's before you get to go into her basement and learn the really shitty shit she did with dying monsters' souls. I mean Jesus Christ Alphys how come nobody calls you on this!

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I helped Mettaton’s ratings, left him to be patched upped by Alphys, and made my way to the castle walls - and the writing started to get really good. I loved meeting with Sans and his talk about the true nature of EXP and LOVE, loved walking into the throne room for the first time, loved the moment when I realized Toriel was the Queen-in-Exile - coming upon the New House was genuinely moving… but then I reached Ashore, and it wouldn’t let me TALK to him, and I didn’t like having to fight him after a full pacifist run, and also he was really hard.

So I swallowed my pride a little and googled vague hints for ways to make the fight easier. I learned that yeah, I absolutely had to fight him, and then I went and ground Cloud Glasses back and forth to the Temmie Store to unlock the Temmie Armor and earn the cash to stock-up on my beloved Bisicles. So equipped, I went and fought Asgore for the final time, thus beating this game that everyone raved about for reasons I could not understand.

Then the game ended and suddenly started to get really, really, really good. Much like Homestuck in Act 6, Undertale’s starts pushing the boundaries of games themselves, using save files against you and deliberately crashing the game. Omega Flowey is a goddamn nightmare, a visual headache who rails against you and the concept of friendship, and while he was a frustrating fight for the first time I felt like this was less a reflection of my shitty skills and more a deliberate choice of the part of the game to show what monstrous power he wielded.

As I was sent back into the world, I was eager to go find Undyne. I had to look-up where she lived because I had totally forgotten that her house existed - in fact, I had forgotten Papyrus had ever said anything about meeting up at Undyne’s house, so I never befriended her in my original run. The moment Undertale moved from a game I was starting to enjoy to one I knew I loved was the moment Papyrus leapt out Undyne’s window - late in the process to fall in love with a game? Perhaps, but so it was.

Missing Undone the first time through felt so narratively satisfying to me that it wasn’t until writing this that it occurred to me that it was something that didn’t have to have been missed - the run-in with Undone hardly ends on a high-note: after a miserable shield-fight and a whole lot of fleeing you give her a cup of water and she slinks-off into the night. It wasn’t something that exactly screamed ‘She’s Ready For A Friendship Lesson.’ I kept expecting her to show back up somewhere in New Home Castle for Round 2: Redemption Boogaloo, but it never happened. Then Sans got Anubis on my ass, the King of All Monsters got murdered by a flower and my game crashed on purpose - sort of forgot about her no-show appearance.

So there we were: breaking windows, sipping tea, making the worst goddamn spaghetti it’s ever been my misfortune to make**** and having a wonderful time. Other than my general misgivings about Alphys being let-off way too lightly by the narrative*****, after that first reset Undertale was practically a perfect game for me. The ending made me feel mushy and sappy, the epilogue where you get to pace around and talk to just about everyone felt so unbelievably RIGHT - if you want to head out and make one last personal connection with everyone you’ve ever met, you can pretty-much do that. Ben Croshaw wrote quite elegantly that Undertale represents “the triumph of kindness, reminding people of who they were before tragedy twisted them.”****** That kindness is what makes the game so compelling - what makes reading-up on the Genocide route feel so legitimately horrific and transgressive. It’s going to stick in the back of my mind every time I am needlessly rude to someone, overly sarcastic, or just my usual ‘less kind than I wish I was’ self. Homestuck wallets just went on sale today and I immediately bought one and then felt bad for all the Tumblr posts I saw for worthy causes - I SHOULD GIVE UP ALL MY WORLDLY POSSESSIONS TO THE POOR AND GO PREACH THE GOSPEL OF ACTING WITH MERCY as Undertale teaches.

It’s the kindness that will stick with me - and dear God, reading about the Genocide routes makes me nauseated. I’m the guy who claims that this time his Mass Effect play through will be Renegade and then goes 100% paragon again except for being rude to Anderson (because screw that dill weed - oh, geeze, I have failed Undertale again.)

Anyways, long, convoluted, not-very-coherent opinion: Undertale is a good game. Sorry it took me so long to learn that.

*but if we’re going to talk about accessibility in video games we’ll be here all year: an especially big fuck you to all those games who don’t let you change the font size for all of us with really poor eyesight (which is to say essentially all games).

** And what is it with games being embarrassed to have their text dialogue scroll past without some kind of irritating sounds? Undertale at least uses the noise as a form of expanding character identity, but the world is littered with sprite JRPGs who think dialogue is best accompanied by a garbled, repeating beep.

*** Re-experiencing the comic multiple times gave me so many more insights I never used to have. Revisiting Act Six and Homosuck, especially through @betgirl‘s eyes, I found so much to love. Which there is some serious problems in it (The Dancestors and Abuser Gamzee), there’s so much more joy, depth, and thought then I remember. I don’t know if, at the time, with the broken pacing, it was possible to see the shape of the narrative arc that Andrew Hussie was trying to tell - the deconstruction of the nature of storytelling, video games, and the ‘Problem of Mario.’ It’s really good, you guys, and you do yourself a disservice if you have never read it.

**** Undyne is right, by the way: homemade pasta is unquestionably the best and super easy; its only major flaw is that it’s just time-consuming, especially if you’ve got to hand-crank an antique pasta machine to roll it out. KitchenAid sells a pasta roller attachment for their mixer for an amount that justifies a class uprising all on its own.

***** I’m not some weirdo going ALPHYS MUST BE PUNISHED but Alphys should really, you know, actually apologize for the shit she pulled. Yeah, she says ‘I got scared of my amagalgamtions and cowardly didn’t tell their families about it,’ but not being honest about it is the most insignificant issue here. Much more pressing and things like Experimenting On A Human Soul, Actually Making the Amalgams In The First Place, Setting Up A Bunch Of Death Traps So She Could Insert Herself Into Your Life As A Hero. I can forgive Alphys - I think she is a genuinely good person who made misguided and out-right foolish mistakes and should never have had the job she had (I hear Toriel fires her in one ending which fuck yeah Toriel, only one with sense.) Undertake doesn’t need to re-write a damn thing about Alphys - I would just like one more scene in which Alphys admits culpability for the original problem rather than just an aspect of the fallout.

****** And it should be stressed: Alphys deserves kindness (and a good therapist). I don’t want a kangaroo court or anything like that - my issue is with the narrative, not Alphys personally.

Asgore, though… dude kinda murdered six children? Do people talk about that, because they ought to.

#Undertale #Homestuck #Alphys #Asgore #Homosuck #Car Boys #lucha underground #Flowey #Toriel #it's a wonderful life #Let Me Tell You About Homestuck #LMTYAH #The Witness #vvvvvv #long post #homestuck analysis

9 notes · View notes

chaymino · 8 years ago

Text

The Comfort Zone Act 9 “Waterworks”

We walked into the garden, and honestly, it looked different than I imagined, which is something I’ve said a lot today. Maybe I should stop imagining what things will look like and just roll with it. There was a large fountain, bigger than the ones inside by the pedestal room. There were flowers, hedges, and a pond with a bench. By the fountain, I saw Soma using some sort of magic to dry up weeds, and Mesa ripping them up and tossing them into a bucket. Soma noticed me and smiled.

“Oh, hello! How was your talk with Mistress Lori? Isn’t she wonderful?” She greeted me, leaving her post much to her friends annoyance. He was quiet, kind of like someone else I knew.

“Yeah, she was real nice. You’re Soma right? I’m Sonic!” I extended a hand to her. She shook it and her smile grew. She seemed really friendly.

“Hi Sonic, it’s very nice to meet you. That’s Mesa over there, He’s a bit shy, but he’s nice too, I promise!” Her voice was very light and she laughed at the mention of Mesa, I could see him back by the fountain looking away from her and blushing as she called him shy.

“Soma please, we have work to do.” He mumbled to her. She sighed.

“He’s right. I hope I can talk to you again sometime!” Soma waved goodbye and she walked back towards Mesa and continued to zap weeds. I heard Palyma clear her throat.

“What did I just say about focusing? We’re burning daylight here!” Rolling my eyes at her, I started walking forward.

“Where we going? Beach over there or pond over here?”

“The beach. It’s bigger.”

When I got to the beach Palyma started explaining how the Ostiums powers differed from normal Meropian magic like Soma’s, and how actual Hydrokinesis was extremely rare and limited in power compared to what the gate can grant. I didn’t see how it was that important to know all that to use it but I listened to her as she rambled on for what I can assume was 30 minutes. It really felt longer but that’s just because I’m not used to paying attention for that long.

“Do you understand all that?” She asked once she finally finished.

“Yeah. Can we get on with it already? I’m getting kinda bored.”

“Sounds like you.” Shadow chimed in. If it weren’t for his smart remark I would have assumed he was sleeping. He probably wouldn’t admit it but I’m sure he was bored too.

“Alright Sonic, pay attention and no complaints at any point. In order for this to work, you need to move your eyes along the path the water travels. For example, If you want to lift some water up, hold out your hand, watch the water, and as you lift your hand, move your glance up as well. As you improve, you may not have to focus as much but for now it’s the only way you’ll be able to do it.” Sounds easy enough. I have done this before after all, so why should it be hard to do a second time? I reached my hand out toward the water and focused my attention on one specific area. As I tried moving it I found that it wasn’t as simple as I guessed. For some reason instead of moving the water upwards all that happened was a notion in the water similar to someone moving their hand through it. For 5 minutes I kept trying, but no matter what I did I couldn’t lift the water, all I could do was swoosh it around. How come it worked when I wasn’t even trying but now I couldn’t do it at all? I didn’t even just lift it last time either, I flat out made a tower out of it! I stopped and flopped to the ground in frustration.

“Well, you’re good at moving it, that’s a start!”

“But I can do better! I have done better! Why isn’t it working when I want it too?!”

“It takes practice, that’s why. You need to stop being so impatient.”

I huffed and sat there a while.

“So if there’s someone after that thing, wouldn’t this be one of the first places they look for it?” I looked over at Shadow when he spoke. He had a point. Wouldn’t Ketea assume the Ostium was in the Shrine?

“Perhaps. But some abilities you can only obtain after seeing certain areas of the Shrine. As a matter of fact, the only two that you don’t have to see the shrine for are simple water movements and constructs.”

“Oh, I see. I suppose that’s fair then.”

I kept trying to lift water for another 20 minutes and the most I managed to do is lift it maybe 4 inches in a wobbly, unstable mess that I couldn’t hold longer than a couple seconds. I was frustrated, I just wanted to do my own thing. I started to walk away.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going? You’ve only been here for like, half an hour! We didn’t come all the way over here for that!”

“I know! I know, I just need to take a break.” I kept walking until I reached the fountain and I sat on the side, Shadow was still by the beach looking out at the water. He doesn’t usually spend a lot of time around other people, so I guess he wants a break too.

“I can’t stop feeling like I shouldn’t be the one to do this. It just doesn’t seem right for me.” I admitted. There was a moment of silence that felt like it lasted forever.

“But you can’t give up now, I need you!”

“I don’t think I can do it though, can’t I just help you find someone else to do it or something?”

There was more silence. I expected her to get mad and nag at me again, but when she finally spoke again, her voice was calm, and soft.

“Sonic. You know, you remind me a lot of myself, as hard as it may be for you to believe, we’re quite similar.” I looked up at her, she had a sad expression. She acts nothing like me, how could we be similar?

“What do you mean?”

“Do you realize how old I am? Not counting the thousand years I spent inside the Ostium.”

“Like… 25 maybe?”

“No. I’m… I’m only 16. A teenager, just like you. I spent my time roaming around, doing whatever I wanted with friends and living my life to it’s fullest. I knew it would come to an end sometime and I wanted to make every second last. All the things you do, I did too. I saw myself as a hero, yet I never thought about what may come for me next. When I became a guardian, I didn’t feel like I could handle it, even though I had been training all my life I just couldn’t have been ready for it. I’m trying my best, I wanted to make everyone happy, but in the end I never did. I vanished and took the Meropians most prized possession away from

Them. And now?? Now what can I do?” her voice was starting to choke up, and she started to cry, I hate crying. I felt bad about what I’d said now.

“Just imagine, living your life as you know it. The way you like it, when all of a sudden you need to choose between the world, or your freedom? Imagine getting trapped in a room for a thousand years with nothing to do but count all the time that passes? Then when you get out, the only thing you can rely on is some… some stubborn… land-walking tit?! How would you feel??” She was a mess, angrily shouting at me with tears streaming down her transparent face. I didn’t know what to do, how to respond. I waited too long to answer her.

“Ugh, nevermind… just… just forget about it I don’t care anymore…” She cried before disappearing back into the Ostium.

“Wait, Palyma no, come back!” No response.

“I know you can hear me in there.” Still nothing. I wanted to help, I really did, it’s all just so frustrating, and after the way these people seemed to be afraid of Palyma, and her pretending not to notice, avoiding the subject of the drawing that looked like her on the wall… it felt weird. Yet she always seemed so sincere when she talks about how much keeping the Ostium safe meant to her. It’s stupid to believe she’s hiding something… I need to keep trying. I don’t feel like I’d make any more improvements today with the magic stuff though… so what do I do? Nothing I guess. I got up and walked back over to where Shadow was. He was resting his eyes and opened them slightly as I sat down next to him.

“Run into some trouble? All I heard was Palyma call you a tit. I assume you’ve upset her.”

“You assumed right. I really need to step up my game. If only it wasn’t so tiring.”

“You? Tired? No way.”

“When it comes to running around fighting robots yeah, I don’t really get tired, but this is so much different. I have to deal with all the things I never bothered with before like y’know, water ‘n stuff. Not to mention Palyma is sad and I don’t do too well with dealing with sadness. I can cheer people up but… sometimes that isn’t what they need.” Shadow nodded his head slowly, thinking about what to say next. Now that I think about it, he must understand all that better than anyone. He didn’t need to be cheered up, he just needed to cope. He’s still distant but he isn’t nearly as aggressive anymore. He’s getting better, and maybe that’s what Palyma needed. I had to make it up to her. Not to forcefully cheer her up, just to help her deal with all the stuff she’s gone through. Surprisingly, I had an idea, but it had to wait. Nothing will work until she agrees to come back out again.

“If you’re that tired, why not just sleep?” Shadow suggested moving away from the subject.

“What, now? Dude it’s like 4 in the afternoon!” He smiled at me.

“Yes, but how much sleep have you gotten while staying up all night with me?”

I though for a moment, but it really did seem like a good idea.

“Hmm, fair point.” I layed down and tried to sleep for a while, but knowing Shadow was right next to me made me feel a bit weird. Regardless, I was tired, and ended up falling asleep anyways.

What caught me off guard was the sudden lack of breath. I guess I had to face this again eventually. I opened my eyes expecting to see nothing but blue, but I saw something else too. Far down, I could just make out Palyma’s fluorescent orange scales. She really wasn’t kidding when she said this was the inside of the Ostium. Curious, I looked around and after a moment I noticed what I figured was the window. Dark blue and faceted, though it wasn’t attached to any wall, it just hung there. The one thing that got me curious, was the gate. Was it in here too? I didn’t see it now, and I didn’t see anything at all the last time either. Was the gate just what lies in between here and the outside world? I didn’t matter now, I was out of time. A feeling of pain came and I wanted to panic, but I was distracted by something move. I looked up to see Palyma, she had taken notice of me. I wanted to reach out for her help but I remembered her tell me that it would have bad results. I just looked at her. Her body wasn’t transparent like it usually was, but she still lacked her lower half. Even through my blurry vision, seeing her in full was so much different. I could see the full extent of her pain through her brown eyes as they stared at me, it almost felt worse than the sting of water getting in my nose. How do I get out of here? I remembered last time, and tried to ignore Palyma, shutting my eyes tight. I didn’t move, as the pain got worse and worse, and then I felt something pricking my back, like grass, it probably was grass actually. I still couldn’t breathe but that changed when I opened my eyes to see Shadow peacefully curled up next to me. We weren’t really close or anything, but just him facing me made my cheeks turn red. I got up and stretched quickly, time passed really quickly in there, like a dream. Maybe it worked the same for Palyma? No, there’s no way. I looked around, it was dark out. The sky was clear and there were dozens of lights surrounding the garden, filling it with dim blue light. I walked around a bit, looking at the different flowers and plants that decorated the ground. Eventually, I came to the pond, and decided to sit on the bench near it. I heard footsteps and at first I thought Shadow woke up, but when I looked up I saw Soma instead.

“Do you have a favourite here? I like the water lilies most.” She sat down next to me and looked at the pond, there were a fair share of water lilies there, I guess that’s because of her then.

“They’re okay, I’m not too big on that kinda stuff, but I like seeing flowers sometimes.” I looked at Soma, she looked really light, like… transparent kind of, I wonder why? It’s probably because of how pastel her body was, sky blue and soft yellows. Now that I look at her tall horns, round wings and long tail, I couldn’t actually tell what she was, what kind of Meropian has wings? I wanted to ask her, but I was afraid to offend her so I stayed quiet about it.

“I see. What do you like then?” She asked me with her soft smile.

“Well, I really like to run, and go on adventures around the world… I also like to fight robots. Kinda weird I know but yeah.” Soma’s face changed a bit, but her smile didn’t go away.

“Really? How interesting. I would have thought the one to open the gate would be someone who likes the ocean, especially if they weren’t meropian.” I looked away. I guess I should have expected her to say something like that.

“Heh… yeah well I’m not too big on water at all. I can’t really swim. It’s kinda bad. I’ve been feeling pretty ashamed of it ever since I found the Ostium…” Soma giggled, was she laughing at me?

“Aww, you shouldn’t be ashamed!” She looked to the side and even though she was still smiling, it shrank in size, what got her sad all of a sudden?

“You know… if either of us should be ashamed of themself, it’s me.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“Well, even though I’m a Meropian and all… I’m a terrible swimmer. That’s why I’m so drawn to this place I guess, what with it being on the surface.”

I was shocked. I never imagined a Meropian could be bad at swimming.

“But Soma, how? Don’t you live underwater?” She looked at me and shrugged.

“I used to before me and Mesa met Lori. We started living in the upper levels of the shrine. Lori stays down in the lowest, she offered me a room down with her but I turned it down in favour of staying dry. I still enjoy water, but not as much as I probably should.” Her bright yellow eyes fell back towards the white flowers sitting on the surface of the pond water.

“I think that’s why I like water lilies so much, they have water in their name but why? They look just like any other flower if you put them in water. They just sit on top and look pretty. The only difference is that a water lily can be grown in it and live longer in it. As a sea angel, I can breathe underwater. Never drowning, but I personally can’t really do much but float around, I’m just not strong enough for it. All of my kind are fragile, but I’ve always felt weaker than even them.” A sea angel huh? I guess that answers my question. Soma’s smile was gone. What’s with people and sadness today? She didn’t seem really upset, but still.

“I guess I like them because they remind me of myself. Enough about me though, you seem like a strong person. I’m sure if you try, you can learn how to be great swimmer. It might even help you improve with the Ostiums powers!”

“Hey yeah, maybe it would… I may try that at some point. Thanks Soma!” I don’t think I can try that, can I? It’s not like Palyma can teach me, she can’t even touch me! Although there may be someone who could…

“No problem!” Soma got up off the bench and yawned as she stretched.

“I think I’m going to bed now, It’s getting kinda late. Goodnight!” She waved goodbye as she walked back toward the door to the shrine.

“Night.”

I started walking back to where Shadow was sleeping. Looking down at the Ostium, I wondered if Palyma heard any of that. I didn’t get that feeling of being watched when I looked at the gem window, so she probably wasn’t watching. That Soma… she’s actually really cool! I layed back down near Shadow and looked at him for a moment. He looked peaceful asleep. I started to feel weird again so I turned to face the sky and after a minute or so, I fell back asleep. No bad dreams this time.

#the comfort zone #sonic the hedgehog #Palyma the Lionfish #Soma the sea angel #mesa the axolotl #shadow the hedgehog #sonadow #sonadow fanfic #sonic fan character #sonic fanfiction

3 notes · View notes

sonicpositive · 8 years ago

Text

Sonic Character Analysis: Dr. “Eggman” Robotnik

A hero is nothing without a villain, and the longest-standing villain in this particular story is the genius Dr. Eggman. Over the years our favorite supersonic hedgehog has butt heads with the good Doctor over and over again, and seen him characterized many different ways. From a laughing stock to a remorseless killer, and everything in-between. In the interest of being somewhat brief, each of these portrayals will be analyzed one at a time. Let’s get to it!

Requested by: In Honor of Eggman Day!

Non-Sonic references:

Sonic News Network: Doctor Eggman (Pre-Super Genesis Wave)

Thomas “Eyokir” and Evan Stanley: Sonic Adventure DX Commentary

Other content warnings: GIF images (1)

The Comic Relief Opponent

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog

The version of the doctor most known for painting him as nothing but a bumbling idiot is the old show, Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. He throws temper tantrums like a child when things don’t go his way, which is very often. Despite his smarts he can’t outsmart a teenager and his five year old sidekick. Not to mention, he’s extremely unattractive.

The thing is, all of these were intentional. The show was going for a slapstick cartoon feel, and in order to do that they had to very deliberately make Robotnik someone we wanted to laugh at. An old animation guide for the man shows some insight that went into his design:

(Source: pr0jectneedlemouse

Remember: Robotnik is not a straight villain. He is an object of ridicule. When drawing him, keep that fat adult you hated when you were a child in mind. Or your least favorite politician.

Big, huge, fat and repulsive.

It’s clear this man is never meant to win. Yet, despite that, there were times in the show where he did come close. For example, take the episode “Over the Hill Hero, where he actually captured Sonic in a small force-field.

Sonic is rendered completely helpless for the second half of the episode, unable to escape or to help the people of Mobius. Attempts to saw through the field with his spin-dash only result in the Doctor manipulating it to trip up his stride and make him fall flat on his face. The only reason he escaped was because of the help of an older hero Robotnik had decided was incompetent. Otherwise, it would have been game-over.

Despite having him be a comical villain very deliberately, his plans are just clever enough that we worry they might succeed. But he doesn’t, because if he ever did he wouldn’t be funny anymore.

Sonic Underground

Another, similar portrayal of Eggman when he was still using the “Robotnik” handle is Sonic Underground... which is decidedly ironic, since it was based off of the Saturday morning cartoon.

He certainly doesn’t look as comical, and his tactics are shown to be as ruthless as those in SatAM. But actually re-watching the show, I was surprised to realize he wasn’t nearly as dark as I had thought when I first saw the series.

And I also realize a way to tell; how competent his help is sets the tone for the Doctor himself.

Sleet and Dingo are constantly bumbling their way through their attempts to capture Sonic, Sonia and Manic. They get some good breaks, and Sleet is actually rather clever, but they’re never exactly threatening.

Because of this, most of our exposure to Robotnik himself is paired with these two, and the fact he even entertains their company magnifies the silliness factor of what he’s doing. Even during the final episode of the Chaos Emerald Crisis arc, one of the most serious points in the show, he falls victim to easy tricks and slapstick comedy, despite otherwise being portrayed as competent and dangerous.

So, as oppose to Adventures Of where he is funny but his plans are potentially dangerous, we laugh at Robotnik here because he might be dangerous, but his plans will never work. Any threat he might have is undercut by the fact he truly believes nothing could go wrong.

Sonic Boom

“But these are old cartoons!” I hear you saying. “They hadn’t established his character yet!” This is true. But what’s also true is that in the Sonic Boom TV show, he’s been given the exact same tone.

By now, Eggmans character has been several years in the making, solidified and polished to something consistent. But Sonic Boom, besides being an alternate universe, doesn’t benefit from this tone. The show is meant to be silly and mostly lighthearted, with the Doctor being an episodic nuisance.

However, this portrayal does differ from the other comedic roles in one important way; he’s shown in many ways to be a secondary protagonist as oppose to an antagonist. Episodes center around him, and he has a somewhat friendly, albeit very complicated, relationship with the heroes. In many ways, he’s more similar to a rival than an outright villain. He helps them if it benefits him, but more importantly, they help him as well.

The episode “New Year’s Retribution” is a good showing of this; with his self-esteem in the gutter, the Doctor desperately tries to best Sonic before the year is over at ANYTHING. And when Sonic realizes this, he challenges him to a dance-off and intentionally loses. Despite the fact that time and time again he tries to ruin their day, when he’s truly distraught the heroes let him win.

The reason Eggman is funny here isn’t because he fails at his plans. Instead, it’s because we as the viewers end up seeing him in some ways as a hero, not a villain. He’s just really bad at being bad.

The Merciless Dictator

Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM)

On the completely opposite end of the spectrum, the doctor has been portrayed as the epitome of evil nearly as frequently as he has been a joke of an adversary. The one most fondly remembered for this is likely SatAM.

Considering SatAM was in production at the same time as Adventures Of, you can see the stark contrast. His design is much harsher, even including a robotic arm (not shown in the gif above). His personality and how he handles roadblocks is also much different; he’s a cold, calculating enemy who still gets angry, but in a much more dangerous way. Snively is actually afraid of him, whereas many times in other shows his underlings actually are not.

He’s a threat, certainly. But he’s also... flat. We don’t love him, we don’t even love to hate him. He’s just “Sonic’s enemy.” He hardly even seems human. He shows fear in one episode, and only towards Naugus. The only reason we get on-screen for him hating Sonic is that the hedgehog ruined his plans and inadvertently roboticized his arm. He’s barely a character; more often than not, he’s simply a walking “big bad” trope.

Sonic the Comic

I know, not one we talk about often, right? But the Sonic the Comic iteration of the Doctor is actually interesting in many different ways, and balances having a stock “evil villain” character with a realistic, compelling backstory.

Uniquely, in this version of canon Robotnik did not simply start out as a mad scientist in search of power. His intent was to make Mobius completely perfect by taking away all the negative Chaos energy in it. He even functions as Sonic’s origin story, giving him his shoes that provided super speed.

But, the best laid plans never seem to work; his experiments backfired on him and sent everything he was trying to destroy into him, transforming him into the same cruel villain SatAM shows. He terrorizes the world just because he can, and if he can’t have the planet then he’ll destroy it and make sure no one can.

While possessing more depth than other Dictator Doctors, it feels in some ways cheap. It almost seems that he is not the curator of these actions, but rather negative Chaos energy itself. It’s kind of pathetic, oddly. As if his body is just a host for some parasite that wants to suck the whole world dry.

Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics, Pre-Super Genesis Wave)

Somewhere between “to much backstory” and “not enough,” the early Archie Comics issues of Sonic the Hedgehog found a midpoint that worked pretty well. I will admit that I didn’t start the series until after the Super Genesis Wave, and going back to read all the issues prior to that requires time I simply do not have, so I will be directly citing the Sonic Wikia.

The Archie Comics were in the unique position of needing to adapt their version of Eggman as new media was put out to keep it current. They started from the SatAM version of Robotnik, and had to melt game-canon Eggman into more or less the same character. For how difficult a task it was, they did surprisingly well.

Being stated on several occasions as being many times more nasty and evil than the original Robotnik ever was, Eggman has shown himself to be far more prone to toying with his opponents than his Mobius Prime counterpart on numerous occasions. As opposed to simply wiping out Knothole from the get-go, Eggman decided to "have fun" with his Mobian enemies and take the time and resources to engage in "war-games". [...]

Like Robotnik, Eggman is also arrogant, and egotistical, both of which may be his greatest weaknesses. He has a habit of frequently putting "Egg" into the names of numerous inventions and places [...].

Despite his genius, Eggman has the annoying habit of thinking that his plans are foolproof, even when the flaws are quite obvious [...], and not realizing that there may be a problem until it is too late [...].

(Source: Personality section of Wikia page)

The biggest issue with this portrayal of the Doctor is... There’s just. So. Much. His personality grew and changed drastically over the course of the never-ending story in ways that don’t always make sense. Some of his arcs seemed to be the end of him, but you can’t get rid of the main villain, so he came back despite there being no logically believable reason to. Robotic body literally exploded? Built it back. Complete mental breakdown? He reasoned himself back to reality. His character has possessed so many different traits at different points that the question becomes... is he really one character?

The Mad Scientist

Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics, Post-Super Genesis Wave)

Clearly, neither of the two extremes worked well for a children’s video game series. We need to be able to take the Doctor seriously, but not simply see him as the featureless face of evil either. And so, somewhere in the middle, a balance was found that turned Eggman into the character we know him as today.

As previously mentioned, the Archie Comics needed to adhere to new media as it was created, so surprisingly the good Doctor didn’t change that much. Mostly his past was simplified from a giant drama to a set of specific successes and failures, which served his character much better. He still ruled the world, and he still kept getting beaten by Sonic.

The most interesting change this brought was that instead of dealing with robots and robians, much of the Doctor’s regime centered around mobians with free will working under his watch. He no longer works in a bubble of just his own thoughts and plans; he occasionally actually receives advice from the mobians that are loyal to him.

However, this doesn’t stop him from making it absolutely clear that he is the one in charge. He might be goofy enough that they occasionally speak up and offer a different view of a situation, but he’s still utterly frighting in other respects. All of the mobians shown to work for him have cyberkinetics somewhere in their body. If they betray him, they can say goodbye to their mobility. No one would dare say he’s not a threat to them.

Sonic X

I will mention I’m going by the original Japanese for this up-front, because honestly 4kids didn’t localize the series well at all from a story/character perspective. I re-watched the first several episodes of Sonic X in the past few years for a personal project, looking specifically at characterization of Eggman. Going into it, I thought he’d be a comical villain. He can’t be that dangerous, right? He has them gamble the Chaos Emerald on a round of baseball, like it’s a can of soda or something. Clearly he’s a joke.

But then...

Y e a h.

Eggman here is actually deceptively intimidating. In spite of his odd ways of going about things, he thinks his plans through pretty thoroughly no matter what they are. And most importantly, we get to see that on-screen. It doesn’t matter how wonky the plan is, we see his train of thought and realize it might actually work.

But while I was almost always anxious about Eggman’s plans, I never found him frightening. He’s incredibly expressive, often silly looking or sounding. Ironically, I think a lot of the time he uses that to his advantage. “Go ahead, underestimate me; it’ll make defeating you a cakewalk!” He played Knuckles this way, and he played a few of the human characters too.

He’s a funny villain, very cartoonish in looks and behavior. But he’s a smart and capable one, with several plans having victory slip just barely through his fingers.

Game Canon

Of course, none of these modern Eggmans would ever exist without the games. No matter how far back you go, the Doctor was never at one extreme or the other. Even, you might be surprised, in the games without story at the forefront.

You can show characterization through more things than dialogue. In fact, old video games relied on this sort of characterization because of not being able to have voice-acted characters. Large blocks of text on screen were tedious and cumbersome, so the bad guys had to match whatever tone they were going for.

And we got these guys. Not the harshly mechanical designs of the SWATbots in SatAM, not the mildly-grotesque designs of some Pokemon or Koopa Troopers, not even the round but metal designs of the later Egg-pawns. Brightly colored robotic animals. And even at that, the boss fights were entirely different. These were the roadblocks he threw at Sonic to slow him down and hope to get lucky. The boss fights were him getting serious.

This trend was carried over once the games started getting spoken dialogue as part of the story and experience. Archie Sonic artist Evan Stanley and Sonic the Continuation writer/artist Thomas (...I don’t have a last name for him I’m sorry) briefly discussed Eggman in one video of their Sonic Adventure DX Commentary, and the statement has stuck with me ever since.

Thomas: You know what, I want Eggman to be a serious villain, and then even in the “Adventure” games [...] They had this stuff [the Egg Carrier rooms].

Evan: He’s never been serious in the games. He’s had... the promise of threat, but he’s not serious.

This is the differentiation between all other portrayals of the good Doctor, and why we most remember him. He is believably dangerous, his plans have weight, but he's equally ridiculous and quirky in a way that makes him bizarrely lovable.

We want to see him succeed. Just not for too long.

#Eggman #Dr. Eggman #Robotnik #Dr. Robotnik #Eggman Day #Character Analysis #Bucket List Mod #Bucket List Note: I tried to be brief but I analyzed nine different iterations of the Doctor #so it's still REALLY DANG LONG

27 notes · View notes

ciathyzareposts · 6 years ago

Text

Batman Returns – World’s Greatest TV Watcher

Written by Joe Pranevich

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na Batman! I hope you got your score votes in because it’s time to play Batman Returns. Given how excited Bill Kunkel was to create a Batman game, I am secretly rooting for this one to be better than its reputation, even if he was ultimately dissatisfied with the result. By the time the rating comes, I am certain that I can grade it without bias.

The game opens at twilight on a December night in Gotham City. The skyline is oddly muted; the incandescent bulbs in the towering offices are barely able to pierce the gloom. Danny Elfman’s iconic Batman score rises up through our computer speakers. Suddenly, the Bat-Signal appears in the clouds. Once again, the Gotham City Police has called upon the aid of their secret benefactor-in-the-shadows, Batman. We zoom in to the Batcave where the Caped Crusader is dressed and ready for action. The bat-cursor appears. What should we do first?

You have to admit that this is a pretty nice workspace.

I’m going to start by using my amazing powers of deduction to turn on Batman’s TV and listen to the local newscast. We learn that “hooligans” dressed like clowns are attacking the tree-lighting ceremony downtown. I have no objection to Batman learning about stuff by watching TV, but a mob of attacking clowns might have been something he should have been aware of. Even the 1960s series had a Bat-Phone so Commissioner Gordon could explain to him what the problem of the week was; this version of Batman just sees the signal and tries to figure it out by watching TV.

I can mouse over different panels in the Bat-Computer to use other aspects of the system. The evidence computer and the video player appear important, but I can’t use them as I have found neither evidence nor videos. It seems that my only choice is to head to the armoury to stock up on gadgets or head out in the Batmobile. I’ll start with the former since I’d hate to arrive unarmed to a riot.

Questions about whether or not Batman is “in the closet” have been around since the 1950s.

The armory or “Bat-Closet” consists of two other suits and a utility belt computer. Those suits are both at 100% offensive and defensive capabilities and I assume the one I am wearing is as well. I suppose that as we get into scrapes throughout the game, we’ll have to keep tabs on this. I’d hate to have to start over if I get into a battle at the end that I cannot win for lack of available healthy suits.

The computer on the right allows me to load up my utility belt. We start out with eight slots, all empty. Annoyingly, there are nine separate gadgets, plus I can take more than one of each, so I have to choose carefully. Will I need two batarangs? Two smoke bombs? That seems possible. I hope that I will not have to restore frequently to replay sections with the correct gadgets. Since I have no idea, I add one of everything except the sonic batarang. Each of the devices has a nice illustration and a different little icon on the belt. Some of the icons are easier to discern than others, but there’s a guide in the manual. It’s not the worst icon interface we’ve seen.

A “scanner” is a portable document scanner. These days, he probably uses his Bat-iPhone.

The items themselves fall into one of three categories:

The grapple, gauntlet, rope, and lock pick are presumably used to get around Gotham City, to reach high or locked places. The manual says that these items are not consumed as we use them.

The batarang, bolo batarang, sonic batarang, smoke bombs, and knockout gas are all offensive weapons. I expect they will only be useful in combat, but I could be wrong. The manual says that each one is single-use. I have no idea what the real differences are.

The scanner is used to take pictures of evidence that we find along the way.

Once I am loaded up, I head to the Batmobile garage. Let’s go and see what these “hoodlums” are up to!

Nice animated sequence of Batman jumping in.

Chicks dig the car?

Map of Gotham city with three “hot spots”.

There’s a brief animated scene of Batman jumping into the Batmobile before we get a view of him behind the wheel. The car is a mini-command center of its own with a TV monitor playing the news as well as a map of the city. There’s an ejector seat button there that likely will get used during some sequence down the road. The GPS screen and city map is prescient; while we don’t quite have self-driving cars that are as smart as the Batmobile yet, we do have plenty of cars with map-screens that look just like that one. The map is basic and a few of the buildings look like they could have been cribbed from SimCity (1989), but they can be forgiven for stealing from a classic.

The map shows four areas highlighted in red: Wayne Manor, Gotham Plaza, the mayor’s office, and downtown. The game probably wants us to start with the rioting at Gotham Plaza so let’s not get too creative yet.

This is a very nicely composed scene.

The scene changes to Batman on a rooftop ledge overlooking a plaza and Shreck’s department store. This at least is in character; he’s not the type of superhero to just waltz into a situation, rather he’ll want to take the lay of the land first. We can see the Christmas tree on the left and a panicked crowd below, although I was certain they were ice skaters at first and was very confused why they were having fun while the plaza was under attack. The department store in the movie is central to Catwoman’s story as it is owned by Max Shreck, the business mogul who she worked for until she discovered his fiendish scheme and tried to kill her. She’ll blow it up later in the film (and the game?) as part of her revenge plot.

This is the first screen where we can see how the game actually plays and it’s not that deep. We have no verbs so all we can do is move the mouse around the screen to places where the cursor changes, indicating that we can do an action. That action is almost always “go” and there’s no way to examine anything closer, use any items, or even move around. We’ve seen this style before in games like Willy Beamish: the transition animations are fantastic (look at the Batman’s boots in the snow!), but we have no free movement. Unfortunately, I do not realize all of this at first and click on the people running around below which causes Batman to jump off the ledge, slowing his descent using his cape. I guess we’re going to be in the thick of it!

Oh crap. An 80-pound acrobat against an armored crime fighter.

Landing in the plaza, an acrobat attacks immediately. This changes the interface into “combat” mode and Batman automatically starts to battle his assailant, although she flips and tumbles around the screen and dodges him pretty easily. The bat-suit in these first several films did not permit Bruce to do much agile fighting; he was visualized more like a tank than a ninja and this game seems true to that depiction. The animation here is good– almost too good. Batman and the acrobat each have a variety of attacks which they perform automatically and each are well animated. There are punches, kicks, blocks, flips, and overall a pretty well-done system. The AI is good for both also, as both characters sometimes advance and sometimes retreat. The acrobat seems (surprisingly!) to have the upper hand. It feels like we should be able to control the fight, maybe even that this battle-mode was partly finished, but I have no evidence of that. I should capture some videos of combat before I reach the end of the game.

My control options are limited: I can select how hard to fight (“easy”, “normal”, or “fierce”), but I don’t see any immediate differences. My guess is that it will adjust how much damage Batman deals out or receives with “fierce” potentially meaning that he takes more risks to score bigger rewards. I can also use some weapons, but before I do the acrobat just walks away. Did I win? Or did I lose? Draw? I have no idea.

The devil you know?

I cannot explore the plaza yet because I have another bad guy to defeat: a devil-man that wields a pitchfork and breathes fire. Also, I should note: not a clown. I want to experiment with my items so I toss a smoke grenade at him, but he dissipates it with his fire breath. With this guy, I can see some semblance of strategy forming. Unlike the gymnast who moved in and out quickly, landing a few blows then retreating, the devil-guy is slower but with a distance weapon. I can never get close enough to hit him and he roasts me over and over again. Since I cannot get close, I toss the bolo batarang at him. That snares his legs and gives me the option of interrogating him.

Where did you get that mustache?

Name? Job?

No thanks. Bats only eat insects.

The interrogation is simple with only three options: “explanation”, “leader”, and “identification”. The manual says that there will be other options later. The text is sparse and I wish they had gone with something like “What are you doing?”, “Who do you work for?”, and “Who are you?” I select “explanation” and he gives me a nothing answer, just a joke about cooking some fish with his fire-breath. Ha, ha. Worse, I can’t ask him anything else because he either gets loose or Batman frees him after one question. If I want to be comprehensive, I’ll have to reload and fight each guy at least three times.

Finally, a clown!

That’s why I blog about video games.

After he gets away, I am greeted by yet another attacker and he is– finally!– a clown. How many of these will I need to do? There is no pause in between battles, although Batman apparently had a moment to pick up his bolo after the interrogation because I have it back in my inventory. I use it again and the clown goes down right away. His answer isn’t any more helpful than the previous, although I do like the art. I didn’t even fight him long enough to see his combat style.

After that, the acrobat comes back and I try the bolo again but she dodges it easily. She also dodges my regular batarang and is unfazed by the smoke bomb. The fight drags on and on. She hits, she runs, I hit her, but she kicks me. I should have run away at some point, but Batman is a superhero. Before long, my utility belt blinks and I am whisked back to the Batcave, too injured to proceed. It is my first “Game Over”!

Yeah. That gymnast (and her fire-breathing friend) did a lot of damage!

Insert coin to continue.

I theorize that each of the foes has some gadget that they are weakest against. I will need to be careful to find the item that can defeat each attacker and load my utility belt in advance with the right stuff to win. I am also not sure whether I will always be given the option to interrogate, or if that is just the side-effect of using the bolo. Do other weapons have side-effects I need to discover? On my next run through, I’ll ask different questions and see what happens.

I play again, this time taking fewer support items and more weapons. I defeat both acrobats with knockout gas, although that does not let me interrogate them. Anything else I try is either dodged or ignored. I bolo both the clown and the devil-guy for an interrogation round. I grill them about their leader but they are no more helpful than before. Once I defeat them, I can explore but it is a fruitless effort. There is nothing to do here except to cross the plaza and fight some more.

Same thugs, different view.

I’m surprised so far by just how non-interactive these scenes are. With no verbs and no hotspots, we have Batman standing around blank spaces. We cannot open the door, look at anything, walk to that interesting looking statue, or anything else. It’s just… empty. I did not notice at the time that I could have pressed the “grapple gun” icon or the “roof” button to scale the department store and emerge on the roof, but since there’s nothing up there either I did not miss much.

I return to the Batmobile to discover a new news report to watch. The newscaster reveals that rioting has spread downtown. I drive there to discover absolutely nothing. No combat. No rioting. Do I need to wait? Did I spend too much time exploring? At this point, I’m frustrated and take a break for the evening. I start over the next day with a new playthrough.

Nice Batgirl reference, two movies too soon.

On my third attempt, I discover that I missed the person database in the Batcave. This is the first thing that I am truly impressed about with this game. The database has a large selection of city officials, random criminals, and “persons of interest” that you can browse through. Each entry has a biography and some of them are illustrated by stills from the movie, while others appear to be photographs of production staff. I searched to see if Bill Kunkel is there somewhere, but I did not see him. The text is well-written and makes Gotham feel more like a real place, even though I doubt I needed to search through them all on the first day. While I had hoped there would be comic references in there, I only spotted one: Barbara Gordon. She is mentioned in the database but never appeared (or was mentioned) in the movie itself. We know that she became Batgirl in the comics and the fourth movie, but I can find no other non-movie references. This strikes me as a lost opportunity for some fannish fun, but I respect the desire to keep the game focused on the film.

Nicely animated scene of Batman walking across a beam between two buildings. He’ll only cross the street from up here.

The other important thing I realize on this next pass is how important the support gear is. You really need to take the rope, grapple, gauntlet, and (presumably) lockpick around with you at all times. Without those, you can’t explore many areas of the game. Those areas are pretty empty as well, but what I thought was a single boring screen downtown turned out to be six boring screens once I could maneuver around. Batman will nearly never go from place to place on the ground. If you want to so much as cross the street, he needs to jump up to the roof, grapple over to the next building, and then climb down. He needs to be mysterious.

Downtown consists of:

A jewelry store and the roof above. The roof has a tight beam that Batman can walk across to get to another rooftop.

That rooftop is equally boring although we can climb down to discover the outside of a bank.

From that roof, we can use the batarang and rope to swing over to a third rooftop. This one has some nifty windows, but the only thing we can do is jump down to the liquor store.

That makes six total screens downtown, plus four at Gotham Plaza where I was earlier that I can explore with the correct grapple guns. None of these locations have any clues or anything to click on at all. I probably should map which screens require which bat-gadget to access them, but with so few screens there doesn’t seem to be a reason to bother.

Time for some knockout gas!

On this third attempt, I ask for “identification” from everyone I can interrogate. For whatever reason, there are enemies downtown this time when I am notified of the riot moving there, but they are the same ones as before and I defeat them as before. Once we know what gadgets to use on each, the combats pass quickly. I’ll spend more time experimenting with combat for a better write-up later.

Were those enemies the “riot” or did I miss something? I am not sure. Eventually, I give up and explore the final section on our map: the mayor’s office.

Snooping around and having a good time.

What kind of tape is that? It doesn’t look like VHS.

Finally… finally… I have some sleuthing to do! Inside the mayor’s office, we find a tape of some sort on a side table. We also get a “hot spot” that zooms in on the mayor’s desk, but there’s nothing there right now. I have no idea what is on the tape or why I want it, but I grab it anyway. It might be evidence! Or it might just be Batman robbing an elected official. Isn’t he a great role model?

We cannot play the video in the car, but we can take it back to the Batcave with us. I am momentarily confused because we have to check it in as evidence (in the evidence computer) before we can view it. Once it is there, it shows up on the list of videos. We can either “play” or “transmit”, but let’s just see what it is for now.

That’s nice!

The “video” (presented as a sequence of still images) is an awards ceremony for Commissioner Gordon. He received a commendation from the mayor for his great work. The video does not appear to be related to our case at all.

I search the city again, every nook and cranny in every room, but that’s all I can find. I do stumble on a few more thugs and have a few more brief fights, but nothing else new. With nothing else to do, that is the end of Day 1. I send Batman to bed by returning to Wayne Manor. I’m sure Alfred will tuck him in and read him a bedtime story. As for me, I’m going to hold my tongue for now. Exploring is fun, but the game feels empty and the combat pointless. I may feel differently after I get a bit farther in and understand the game more. Then again, maybe not.

Time played: 1 hr 50 min

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/batman-returns-worlds-greatest-tv-watcher/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

0 notes

djgamereviews-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Cuphead (2017)

What a truly fantastic game Cuphead is. From the old-timey graphics to the complex animation and boss fights, this game is everything that I have ever wanted. Since the game came out, I have been playing it pretty much every time I get the chance. To first load up the game, and hear that music and the animation style, I felt like I wouldn’t enjoy the game, since I’m more of a modern guy, but boy was I wrong. Let’s get right into the review.

The Plot - In the game ‘Cuphead” you play as Cuphead and his pal, Mugman. They lived safely at their home in Inkwell, and the Elder Kettle would watch over them as they played outside. One day, they wondered a bit too far from their home, and came upon the Devil’s casino. The Elder Kettle had warned them, but they couldn’t resist. They went on a winning streak at the Craps table, and the manager of the casino, King Dice, couldn’t believe his eyes. He called over his boss, the Devil. The Devil suggested they raise the steaks. He claimed that if they won one more hand, he would hand everything in the casino over to them, but if they lost, he would take their souls. Cuphead, without even thinking, agreed to this deal. Mugman knew otherwise, but it was too late before he could stop him. Cuphead rolled snake eyes and lost the bet. The Devil was quick to want to claim their souls, but they begged to work something out. The Devil agreed, and made another deal with them. If they did his dirty work of cleaning up those who owed him, he would let them live. With no other choice, they agreed, and went on their way. Now tasked with a seemingly impossible goal, they went to the Elder Kettle for help. He told them that they had to play along. So they did.

How does it feel? Awesome. In a game where movement is your only way to defend against many attacks, the player needs to be able to handle the character well. Cuphead goes far beyond just success in this aspect. It doesn’t feel like you are trying to move on ice or in quicksand, which is the worst possible thing for a 2D platforming game. The jumping just feels right and I don’t really know why. I truly can’t explain it. And the last main aspect of every fight is the offense, your finger gun. With 6 different shots, you can find the right one for you and play the way that you feel. There is the Peashooter, the default shot. It’s surprisingly useful even later in the game. The Shotgun, it shoots 4(?) streams of bullets in one direction, but the range is rather short. If you can get very close to a boss, this is the shot you want to use. Next is the Chaser, it shoots green bullets that will chase down the closest enemy to your player. This is best used when in boss fights where you are jumping around a lot, and can’t shoot your target often, or if there are a lot of low health enemies, as it doesn’t do a lot of damage. Number 4, the Roundabout. I call it the Boomerang, because that is pretty much what it shoots, boomerangs. It shoots at a moderate speed, and as the name implies the bullets will stop at a certain distance, turn around, and come back at you. They don’t hurt you though. On the way back, they do more damage. 5th, the Lobber. You launch balls, rather than bullets with this shot, and the balls fall to the ground and bounce a little bit before disappearing. They shot pretty slowly, but deal a good amount of damage. Finally, the Charge shot. This is the shot I find the most useful, I regret not buying it sooner in my run. It’s very simple, you charge it, then release to deal massive damage. It does not deal more damage the longer you hold it down. The final aspect of ground combat is the parry, parrying is essentially when you double jump on an object that is glowing pink. It builds your ultimate meter, and throws you into the air. This mechanic feels a little bit clunky in my opinion. Sometimes when I press the jump button on a pink object, it fails to parry and I end up getting hit. I might just need to git gud though.

But platforming isn’t the only style of play in this game, there are a few fights that have air battles. I’m not a huge fan of the mechanics in the air, though. The plane feels odd to control and this occasionally leads to you getting hit, when you swear you dodged it. Because of this, there is a shrink ability that makes your plane small and fast as long as you hold the button, and makes it infinitely easier to dodge the bosses attacks.

In conclusion to the feel, I don’t think it needs any changes. It is fine as it is and is extremely satisfying to control your character. (9/10)

How does it look? Simple. It looks very simple, and that’s a good thing. The animation and drawing style is very reminiscent of 30s cartoons. In fact, some of the animations are direct references to old cartoons. Even the island name, “Inkwell” is an obvious nod to Inkwell Studios. While the animation, colors, and lines are much more detailed than old cartoons, it feels like a remaster of old animation. And it’s a new style than what we have been getting recently. Most hyped up new games these days are FPS games *cough* PUBG *cough*, so having a new style of game is very refreshing.

Little animation errors. Done very well, and while it’s an old style, it feels brand new. Easy (10/10)

How does it taste? As in, what do you think of the game as you are playing it. This part is mostly just for the individual to decide, everyone is going to feel different. For me, it’s sour. Not a bad sour though, like a Warhead candy, it’s rough to get through, but after you finish it you just want more. At times I got pretty upset at the game. (Inb4 “git gud”) But after finally finishing that one boss that I’ve been stuck on, I just want to go to the next one. But it only gets harder. I wouldn’t say I’m on the level of the idiotic game journalists who use their presence as a writer to beg a ‘Skip Boss’ button, hell, I’ve wanted to skip bosses before, but where’s the fun in that, right? You’re not actually beating the game if you can just skip it.

If you like a challenge, have fun. If you get mad easily, good luck. After finishing the game, I honestly wish there were more and harder bosses, and I guarentee you will feel the same. (8/10)

How does it sound? The OST is not what you would expect from an intense game with mostly boss fights, but I would be lying if I said I would rather have a DOOM like OST. Instead of metal guitar, rock, or techno, you get piano, jazz, and trumpets. I love it.

There is really not much else to say. It’s amazing. Another (10/10)

Conclusion - This game is the bomb. It’s only been out for about two weeks now and it is incredibly successful. If you are looking for a game to keep you busy, this is it. This game is perfect for casual gamers, completionists, perfectionists, speedrunners, anyone of any playstyle, this is the game. Growing up playing every Mario or Sonic game that ever existed, this is really all I could ever want. Now I just want a part two, a 3d version of the game, a DLC, anything, I just need more. While I’m waiting, I’ll probably just re complete the game on expert mode. Anyway, controls are great, not too complicated, and they register well. No BS hit boxes and the hit regulation is wonderful. With different charms, super arts, and bullet types, you can customize the game to your playstyle. The music is unique for it’s time as well as the graphics. You can tell the animators worker they asses off with this project. Good game boys, good game.

9.8/10. If you haven’t bought this game already, what the hell are you waiting for?

#cuphead #cup #head #game #review #videogame #video games #pc #pc gaming

0 notes