#there were more screenshots i ultimately did not use but the game did not like me switching the emet and hades models out lmao

[queensbrother]

xii. past

#FebHyurary

[moodyhaaze]

just me ranting about s*lmare again,,, sigh

it’s kind of getting on my nerves seeing people getting mad at others for pointing out s*lmare’s shitty behavior. like, i get that people may not want to see negativity about the games/devs but acting like people aren’t allowed to be negative is a whole different thing.

look. i’m not trying to be seen as the like “ultimate s*lmare hater™︎” or anything (or maybe i am), but i’m just going to compile a quick and nowhere near exhaustive list for everybody so they understand why i and so many other fans are still so mad. because quite frankly i’m sick of people crying on twitter that i’m “just being mean” when what i’m really doing is calling a spade a spade.

for an ENTIRE YEAR before nightbringer was released, devs never told anybody that a new game was coming out. everybody grinded for an ENTIRE YEAR because we were kept under the impression that a new season was coming to OG only to be told “haha we’re going to make you pretty much redo the whole story again (but in the past :O !!!) only after which you’ll get a conclusion for OG :)” [the end of lesson 80 of OG literally said coming soon until AFTER nightflop was announced.]

devs waited until a reddit ama to even tell us that a new game was coming, but only when asked by a fan who’s question subsequently got buried in all the other responses. the only reason anybody else saw it is because it was screenshotted and posted to twitter and in its own post on reddit. no official announcement was made prior. the first official announcement we got was like a week or two before nightflop was released.

they keep pushing out terrible quality events back to back just to milk money from fans even though the vast majority of fans have said they don’t like back to back events because the quality of them are horrendous. most players would rather have fewer events with better writing then to have constant shit ones.

never told us that daily chats were ending in OG. we only knew this was happening because someone sent a ticket to the devs and it was then screenshotted and posted to twitter.

s*lmare has proved time and time again that they only care about whales. they’ve proven this by paywalling a lot of features in Nightbringer. and before anyone drops in with “but they give us more devil points in battles >:(“ shut up. haven’t you noticed the increase in need to spend devil points? whether for character outfits, sprite outfits, level up sales (that they’ve made more frequent by making leveling up easier), ap sales, etc… they’ve only given you more DP so you’ll spend more DP.

they literally shoved an ad down our throats as many times as they could (in NB) by putting it on the HOME. SCREEN. as well as making it one of the first things you see when you boot up the app and in the side news thing. they didn’t do anything about it until fans complains relentlessly for WEEKS.

they took away the 10x free pulls for HDD 4 (which is OG’s birthday NOT Nightflop’s). they have always done the free pulls since the games inception. they did this so that fans are more likely to use they’re own vouchers or pay irl money for the cards they want.

they lowered nightmare drops EVEN LOWER to force players to draw more if they want certain cards (this goes back to putting players in a position to use irl money to buy devil points for nightmare summons if they want certain cards).

wanderers whereabouts and fabsnap are lazy and unnecessary and from what i understand, most people barely fool with it. the models are cheap and horrendous. (i get it’s a mobile game and the graphics are not going to be like PS5 level, but come on.)

they took away birthday events without an announcement. people were saving AP and demon vouchers for their favorite boys’ birthday events only to instead be given ONLY a birthday nightmare with a pity OF 200. they also stopped doing birthday events before asmo’s 2023 bday, leaving him as the only brother without a prince card. never mind the fact that they’ve paywalled birthday items in wanderer’s whereabouts for $3.99 (usd).

they changed some devil grams (in OG) to please a loud minority of players that didn’t like having to kiss the brothers in the devilgrams. in a game about dating and kissing demons. they pandered to a small (but quite loud) minority of players BITCHING that they didn’t want to kiss the brothers. in a game about dating demons.

they’ve infantilized the game and lowered the age rating (to 12+) to make it more accessible to younger audiences which has significantly lowered the quality of the writing. this is a game about demons !! they are not child friendly and they don’t need to be written as such. a game about dating and romancing demons is a kids game now.

i want to express very sincerely that i absolutely adore obey me. i have for the past four years. (you should see my collection of luci merch LOL). it’s the first franchise i have devoted myself to so strongly. i just really hate s*lmare and how they keep getting greedier while offering NOTHING to fans but lukewarm content and constant money pandering. this franchise means a lot to me, and i know that rings true for most of the players, and it hurts to see it going down the drain like this considering it is so special to me. i love this community (except when people are crying over misinterpreting criticisms against s*lmare/devs as personal attacks) and i love what everybody creates. it’s all so so very special to me and it’s important that we all understand this. these games and franchise could be something so very special. it started out so different (in a good way!) than almost all other otomes i’ve played, but now it’s getting left in the dust because a multimillion dollar company is more worried about how to milk an extra $3.99 from their fans than they are making quality content that fans would be WILLING to pay for, instead of locking content behind paywalls.

i wish nightbringer was never a thing. the story they wanted to make could have easily been a 1-2 season arc in OG. but instead we were forced to essentially play the same game over again, just in a different setting and time, and pretty much be told that the time we’ve spent grinding and leveling up our cards and getting through all the battles in OG was wasted. all for a new game that nickels and dimes players while offering shit in return.

solmare was proven that they have no intention of being transparent with fans. that they only want to milk whatever money they can from us. it’s created a lot of distrust and aversion in the community. and believe me, after all this, and even after obey me is run through and isn’t a cash cow for them anymore, i’ll never play another fucking solmare game ever again.

❤︎ it’ll always be ‘one master to rule them all.’

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

It’s been literally so long since Fire Emblem 3H came out. At this point, I’m a hair away from assuming people who say Rhea was running around murdering people of other religions are being intellectually dishonest. We have multiple support conversations just saying entirely uncryptically that she doesn’t do this, and we never even see strong evidence that she does? She executed people for active blasphemy and attempted assassination, it’s just that the context made her ruthless (the people executed were clearly pawns, scared, and suffering too) which is why the scenes depict her as cutthroat. But to say she’s killed people because they just casually didn’t think Sothis was real is more than just simplifying— it’s just incorrect. It’s because these people ultimately threatened the juggling act Rhea is doing to prevent another grand scale war and triggered her because they messed with things she considers sacred, final reminders of her mother.

It’s just so weird because I used to post like screenshots and STATEMENTS FROM THE WRITERS that confirm all this in no uncertain language and people would be like doing extreme mental gymnastics to explain why “Rhea doesn’t care that I don’t believe in Sothis” and “Rhea did what she did to prevent war” are not clear statements. I mean, I am so chill with having different takes on characters from people or viewing characters as more or less sympathetic. That involves personal code and ethics. But with 3H, I hit this wall where I’m like.. when do we admit that, for you, this conversation is not about actually understanding the character?

I swear, some people need to go take a break, grab a latte, and privately come to terms with their irl beefs with the Catholic Church before engaging with this game. Because, my friends, I do not have the ability or strength to shoulder/accommodate your external opinions on a real religion on top of my analyses of the motives of the green haired dragonfolk.

[silenthillii]

Special interview with director Shuji Ishikawa, art director Makoto Hanafusa, and producer Yuya Takayama about Rule of Rose, formerly available on the official website.

These are the only screenshots I was able to find from the site itself, but the actual interview I was able to find in the form of a PDF! The full interview will be below the cut.

A disturbing tale of a dark, shadowy society formed by a group of young girls... Who envisioned this psychological adventure and its shocking themes? How did their creative vision take form? We spoke to key members of Punchline, the developers, Shirogumi, the visual effects supervisors, and SCE, the producers, for answers.

The following is an excerpt from an article in the February 2006 issue of Japanese magazine "Hyper Playstation 2" (published by Sony Magazine on December 28th). This article is presented, courtesy of Hyper Playstation 2 Magazine.

--First of all, would you tell us how you came up with the idea of a world of isolated children?

Ishikawa: It began when SCE asked us if we could create a horror game. We discussed this within Punchline and agreed on the type of game we wanted to make. If we were going to work on anything, we wanted to do something that was new and different for us--something that would make an impact on people. So we simply asked, what kind of game would command a presence in the horror genre? What kind of game had not been done before? This led naturally to the theme of darkness in children, from an adult perspective.

Hanafusa: Yeah. We put aside all complicated reasoning and thought very simply. An innocent child doing cruel things—what a scary picture that paints. We also paid attention to the cruelty that exists in fairy tales—"Little Red Riding Hood," for instance. When the Wolf's stomach is cut open, the aunt who was eaten climbs out, and they ultimately put stones in the wolf's stomach and drown it in the river. Fairy tales can be horridly graphic. This, I thought, would fit well with the dark side of innocent children. From there, the planning proceeded to take shape.

--I cannot easily express what this game is like in just a few words. It's more about the sensation you experience while playing it. The creepiness gradually builds and fear heightens. The story as a whole is pretty serious and dark...

Ishikawa: It ended up going in that direction. The results illustrate our attention to how children can sometimes appear scary to an adult. The story was gradually conceived through trial and error, as we investigated ways of generating fear. You see, things we don't understand tend to frighten us, don't they? Not just in children, but also in the opposite sex. We made a conscious effort to create gameplay that takes advantage of our inherent fear of things we don't understand.

--I see. Most of the children in the game are girls. Was this also a design choice related to that theme?

Ishikawa: In childhood, boys see girls as sweet and admirable, but they are in fact mysterious and misunderstood, aren't they? Maybe they are more like adults than boys, mentally. Furthermore, I think the relationships between girls are totally different from those between boys. This is something that men cannot really understand. They're in a world of their own.

Takayama: On the other hand, boys are pretty simple. I think even if they fight, they forget about it quickly and then get along without carrying a grudge. The boys who appear in this game are also simple compared to the girls. You'll see them having sword fights or playing with toys. The boys even willingly run errands for the girls. I hope that the relationships between boys and girls depicted in this game ring true when people think back to their childhoods.

Hanafusa: By producing this game with a focus on the mysterious nature of girls, we thought we could create a world that was baffling and unpredictable for the player. If we stuck to just the themes of fairy tales and children, then we could not have made a game that has this much impact. By adding the unsettling element of the girl's aristocracy, we were able to produce the game we had aimed for—a game with a powerful atmosphere never experienced before. The game, I believe, is a psychological mystery that provides plenty of thrills and chills. All of the characters and visual effects of the game embody doubt and fear.

--Besides children, a few adults appear in the game. What role do they play?

Ishikawa: They also represent something beyond our understanding, as the young girls do. When you were a child, didn't you ever have a strange feeling about an older person in your neighborhood, as if they existed in a different world? To children, these people can be very frightening, even if it's just in their imaginations. They may even start rumors that are untrue. In short, the adults are like the young girls: they exist as objects of fear for both the player and Jennifer.

Takayama: Children, adults, imps, and even the main character, Jennifer, is a bit unsettling. Nearly every character in this game who appears will make you feel uneasy, as if something's not quite right. They awaken hidden fears within us that disturb our sensibilities.

--What about the dog, Brown, Jennifer's only friend?

--Then, does that mean Brown is present simply to serve as her guide?

Ishikawa: Actually, Brown did not exist at the beginning of this project. But as Jennifer's character was solidified, we realized that the game wasn't interesting enough with Jennifer alone. Since she was so helpless and unhappy, we decided to give her a partner.

Ishikawa: Well, of course he serves as a guide, but he also has a role in terrifying the player, like the other characters. He's her only friend among all the characters, and he's sweet and reliable. But, he's not a human being; he's a dog. The Bucket Knight is also friendly towards her, but he's an inanimate object.

--After playing the game, I wondered if some of the mysteries were a little too difficult to solve...

Ishikawa: It is indeed difficult to proceed in this game if you don't carefully connect all of the fragmented hints, but to some degree that is what we intended. Many games these days are designed to be played easily without thinking all the way through. But when I was a kid, there used to be lots of games that you couldn't solve unless you really used your brain. It was fun to solve things after trying really hard to figure them out, and it felt really good afterwards. That's why I wanted to make this game require some thinking. The game itself is simple, but you cannot advance without thinking and making your own interpretations. Only bits and pieces of hints and images are offered, not the answers. My hope is that players pay attention to these hints and use their imaginations.

Takayama: Players may be able to progress relatively easily if they rely on the dog, Brown. But, I want players to think on their own. There is a limit to how far away Brown can smell something, so if Brown isn't able to use his nose, you'll have to think about where to look for an item, and then use the "Find" command. You can also stumble upon hints if you use the "Find" command in different locations. It's even possible to discover other stories which are not related to the game's main plot.

Ishikawa: We believe the game will appeal to a varied audience: from hardcore gamers to those who enjoy French and independent films. We featured many different elements throughout the game, and we're proud of what we've accomplished. We hope you'll have fun with the game and experience fear like you've never felt before, wether you're a fan of horror games or are looking for something new and different.

[ren-054]

Infodump about my Kitsune Clans Backstory (including Natsu)

I’ve been thinking on it and I realized, if I ever wanted to artistically present my view on the kitsune lore, I’d have to either write a whole novel or make a game because I absolutely do not have the time or energy to plan out the reveal of all the info I have

Like I still have ideas for some pieces I’ll want to make, but I’m a yapper first and foremost and I wanted to just put my ideas on the table for future reference

Notes on the screenshots: I should correct the “why would you go to war” line with “if your leaders were mutually super competent”

I would never say that the kitsune never knew what they were doing, but when push came to shove, they all fell short of their duties unfortunately and couldn’t maintain peace

It was a long running tension between all the clans that came to a head with part of the Summer clan being the instigator, but the Winter clan, under Fuyu’s command, technically declaring the war out of vengeance and to exercise their power in the face of being horribly disrespected by their neighboring clan

Leading up to this instigating event, the Autumn clan was in the (possibly unprecedented/emergency) process of exchanging leadership and were not in the position to be doing risky diplomatic decisions while Aki was still adjusting

While with the Spring clan, I genuinely view Haru as a passive individual (at least during the time before the wars) who really didn’t have the experience or wisdom to use his authority with purpose. He prided himself on maintaining peace within his clan and his clan alone. It may have also been within the interests of his advisors or the Spring clan’s culture in general

As for Fuyu, he’s an old man who holds a sense of self righteousness and dignity about him at all times, at least from what I’ve seen in game. He’s a man of pride, to a fault. I’d assume Fuyu would’ve felt off-put by Natsu’s more forgiving and lax leadership style due to their closeness in age—only a difference of about 200 or so years.

Fuyu had a much more pragmatic and cold method of leading which didn’t make him the most popular authority figure in his community, to be honest, whereas Natsu was loved dearly by many his clan members, almost cultivating a family-like dynamic. Fuyu objectively knew why his relationship with his people was so different from Natsu’s, but still it nevertheless stung.

Fuyu ended up being too prideful to realize that Natsu needed direct (and probably less accusatory) confrontation about the issues Fuyu was noticing before they got out of hand like they did. I feel like his lack of understanding and slight jealousy over Natsu’s comparatively gentler nature festered into a resentment that Fuyu wished to watch be “corrected” through Natsu’s own error.

This ultimately led to The Incident, and Fuyu, mad at himself (subconsciously) and Natsu, had no other choice but to take action

————-*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*'･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･* —————

Ahhh god that’s so much text _:(´ཀ`」 ∠):

This isn’t even talking about Natsu’s time post-escape OR his recovery but fpfpakdjs

If you made it to the bottom of my post, thank you here’s some Natsu concept sketches as a reward :3

[muffinrecord]

Ooo all this stored info is great!

But my previous ask was about the english archive app, the thing they left behind after the english magia record eos'd. Do you have anything on that?

OH

I'm sorry aaaugh

Uhhh Honestly I do not. The archive app was very buggy. It's been a while so others can correct me if I'm wrong, but if you had too many characters then it didn't record any of your account's progress.

Oh! Actually I found one screenshot I took. Here:

The images never showed and if you tried to watch the transformation video, it just gave you Tsuruno's. Needless to say, I was pretty disgusted by how useless it was and deleted it pretty quickly.

Thinking back on it, I'm thinking that the archive app at the end for NA was made by maybe one or two people who were probably overworked/underpaid trying to deliver a product that ultimately didn't work. I'm thankful that the development of the archive app gave us another month before NA's EOS though, because it gave me more time to record things.

However, for the upcoming JP Archive, we do have some select information. And it looks like it's going to be different than the one for NA.

There was a big livestream earlier this month that combined Magia Record news with Exedra news. I made a post that just copy+pasted Raz's thorough summary from discord: you can check out the link here.

It looks like you'll be able to see what girls you had along with progress on them (how many slots, magia, doppel). It doesn't look like you can look at card art, but you can see their sprites?

NA looked like a modified version of the archive, while this looks like you can see the girls in the character screen.

From the earlier Exedra stream summary, we also know that we'll be able to see:

Your Magical Girl info screen, from which you can view all of your Magical Girls and their levels/Memo Slots/Magia Levels/Transformations, etc.

Your info archive, which shows off the information of all the Magical Girls, Memoria, Doppels, Witches, and Uwasa that you have encountered during you Magia Record career.

So it combines the Archive with the Magical Girl Info screen?

The last thing I want to say is that the NA Archive sucked, but that's because I think we weren't going to get one in the first place-- it's been a while so my memory might be wrong on that. It was sort of thrown together at the end to placate angry players.

I don't think that JP is going to be as buggy and messed up as NA was. It still sucks that we won't be able to view events in the archive but it appears that the version we're getting is more comprehensive. Additionally, just based on the way the game is going out at the end, I feel like the devs do care about the player experience. Some things are very slow at getting fixed-- for example, the issue with Kimochi capped numbers-- but they were eventually fixed. This is for a game that is going to EOS in less than ten days. They didn't have to jam a bunch of cool events for two-ish months (THAT BRING THEM NO MONEY) but they did, and I think it's because-- despite all the flaws and the predatory nature of gacha games-- the devs do care about its players.

Maybe. I dunno. Probably?

My point being, I am tentatively hopeful that the upcoming EOS archive app will be far more useful than the NA one and much less buggy.

I hope this helps? I apologize that I didn't have a video or screenshot for you more than that one. I think I remember people posting images on the subreddit, if that helps with giving a direction to look for.

[my-rose-tinted-glasses]

Saturday's Specials

So I've been letting several specials pass me by so after giffing Wandee I decided to basically go on a specials marathon. Oh and if you truly enjoyed any of these just don't read. Because well, for the most part, I didn't.

Starting with The Sign

It was so boring. I'm sorry but a whole new case for an hour and 20 minutes special, why? It was nice to see Saint and we did clear up a few things from the show (just like you said @twig-tea). But I didn't care for the investigation bit of the actual show, why should I care now? The ending of them by the pool was entertaining and I honestly think if they were to give me an hour of fluff with all the couples I would've preferred it. Just go on a trip and catch a purse snatcher and go back to the pool. I guess they needed to justify the money they asked people for this.

After this were the VBL specials

They used that heart bokeh in all but VIP Only. Missed opportunity for matching screenshots. You Are Mine was a love fest with a proposal in the end. It was the show I liked least originally so I wasn't really very invested. There was A LOT of kissing. And I guess they make a nice pair. But also I was bored. VIP Only. Fluff, no substance and Liu Li annoyed me a little. Nothing much to see here. The double date was cute I guess. Stay By My Side. This was my favourite show originally. This one feels like a continuation, including the problems in communication so good to know somethings don't change. There was a bit of tying of loose ends so that was good. They are still very cute together. Anti Reset. Just pure fluff. Couple goes to the amusement park. Couple goes on several rides and are very cute during it. Couple finds another couple (the one from SBMS) and compete to see who is more in love. Couple kisses by the river with hearts in the background and declare eternal love. The massive elephant in the room gets to just hang out.

And the last one...

Scent of Memory. Look, was it great to see them together again? Yes. Did I missed them? Yes. Are they still great together? Yes. Was it worth the wait? Hell no. They are cute as hell, and I still adore them, but this was like the whole original show condensed in an hour and we once again had to see one of them disappear. Was it a dream? Was it reality? Does it really matter? It was funny to see Yai get scared of the robot vacuum and the sound system and get quickly addicted to vr gaming. It was nice seeing Jom in charge. But it was blip. A montage. Cute yes but ultimately kinda hollow.

End of specials.

[gamerism]

Kiryu Kazumi is an interesting exercise in fandom, in my opinion. And I wanna talk about that.

[Kazumi is the fan created drag persona for Kiryu. Often Kiryu is genderfluid or exploring identity through her.]

Kazumi places a few tiers down the "non-canon fandom iceberg". She exists in response to Goromi who is already a very minor thing in canon, and was written as a Bit/with the intent to make an offensive joke about drag/ect, the fandom were the ones who made Goromi mean more than that. So Kazumi is a layer down from all of that already.

Despite her existence being entirely fanmade, she's not a vehicle for the fandom to cannibalise the source material into something unrecognisable purely for fanworks' sake. Though she might look it on the surface.

If the fandom decided to make Goromi mean something because she's the most blatant moment of queercoding for Majima in a long history of queercoding for him, then her theme is ultimately masculinity in canon.

Which is absolutely what Kazumi is about. Kiryu sits at the very beating heart of Like A Dragon's themes about masculinity. Be it toxic, be it ideals, be it the kind of appearances you're expected to maintain in the yakuza. Kiryu shoulders the heavy burden of them all.

We see him exhibit both positive and toxic masculinity throughout the series. But what the games have rarely brought up for him, is the rejection of masculinity in any context, or at least, femininity in equal amounts.

This isn't really surprising, if they're unwilling to make Majima say he's gay with his own mouth after using queerness as a means to Other him and make him seem dangerous, untrustworthy and even scary...they're certainly not going to have their shining beacon of Honour, Kiryu, do that. (Majima's queerness and coding has changed role somewhat over time and is generally more neutral or positive in positioning now. But even as recently as Yakuza Kiwami, it was being used in a negative way.)

So Kazumi serves the purpose for fans who wish to delve more deeply into that thorny complex relationship to masculinity.

[Kazumi In Kiwami 2 On NexusMods] By kiryussideburns.

Personally I find the idea of Kiryu exploring Kazumi as a means of escape, as a means of fully free self expression (something Kiryu has never had), really really interesting. I also find the time frame she's generally written in interesting. Most people place her post-2005. Kazama is dead. This is a hugely important factor in Kiryu's willingness to take the risk to explore gender expression. Kazama is not the kind of man who approves of any (perceived) weakness in men. In Kiryu and Nishiki's lives he's who instills a lot of toxic aspects of masculinity in them. I'd also hazard a strong guess that he's homophobic, though we don't actually know that.

The next largest factor is that December 2005 is the point where Kiryu leaves the Tojo Clan permanently. Kiryu definitely still cares a great deal deep down about his image and public perception within the underworld after leaving, but his day-to-day is no longer dictated by the rules of that life.

(Some people, me included, also dabble in Kazumi in 1988. But the same things essentially apply there. Kazama is in prison & as far away as he can functionally be while alive. And Kiryu is out of the Tojo Clan temporarily.)

As someone so enamoured with this exploration of gender expression for the character, I was floored when LAD Gaiden allowed Kiryu to wear makeup. Seriously, I had to go lay down to calm down about it when playing Gaiden day of release.

(Gaiden's lighting is very contrasted, I did my best to find a screenshot where you can actually see the makeup.)

The makeup, nail polish and pearl earrings in the Boutique was kind of unbelievable to me. I know RGG didn't really mean anything by it, that they didn't make those customisation options because they were going to touch on these themes. But even the hint of that in canon, it was so much more than I ever expected....even if it did go nowhere, as I knew it would.

It kind of gives me hope that Goromi might mean something more than just an offensive joke (in canon anyway) in the future. Or if not Goromi than something else, in LAD9 or such. Either way Kazumi will continue to be fandom legacy for gender expression, presentation and what the expectations Kiryu & other characters have resting on them mean.

[front-facing-pokemon]

gmax sandaconda is the DEFINITION of snootirific. i'm not the nose rater but i have to say gmax sandaconda might have the best snoot in the whole franchise

i saw someone in the tags of one of the posts where i used the word "snootiferous" say that they added that word to their vocabulary. as though it was a word i didn't make up. i totally did make it up and now i keep saying it, specifically in posts on this blog. i have not said it anywhere in my real life but if i can make other folks say it then i think that's the ultimate funny

not getting their models, but rendering the eyes properly. there are two competing and likely theories for why the eyes are so fucked up in gen 9: number one being that the eyes are rendered dynamically in-game as shaders instead of as flat textures like they typically were in past pokémon games so that pokémon can look around, have reflections in their eyes, have more dynamic eyes, et cetera, which means they're much more difficult to render authentically for quick silly tumblr screenshots; and number two being that game freak renders them dynamically as a "security measure" to keep folks online from ripping the models as easily to use them for… whatever they want. such as blogs like this, which are of course extremely harmful to the pokémon company's bottom line and destroying their business et cetera et cetera (sarcasm). either way, the eyes are fucked up, and i either have to find a way to recreate the eye textures from what i am given in the texture files, or i have to find a way to recreate the eyes to the best of my ability using shaders in something like… blender, which is what i've been using for more recent models since gen 7. that puts more work on me for every individual model, and isn't exactly easy for models that i have to rip and convert myself when there are dozens of nodes in the shading panel that i don't know what to do with. for example, here's what quaxly (famously, a pokémon with pupils that can look around, as it appears in a whole cutscene in-game) looks like out-of-the-box when i convert it myself from the model format used in-game:

if you can't tell what's wrong, here's what it's Supposed to look like:

notice the white pupils? those aren't rendered properly in blender, notably because no texture exists for them. no texture even exists for anything you see in the eyes there, but it's all somehow magically appeared in the shading section, by magic. and i am not that kind of wizard

this means very little to me. i just played around with some of the nodes by looking at the strangely-colored textures that were given to me with the .trmdl conversion, and i managed to get something close enough:

but they kinda look like they're looking in two different directions (possibly fine? we'll have to see how they look front-facing) and the colors are slightly off (can anyone tell but me? possibly not); not to mention it likely won't be this easy with every pokémon. pokémon whose eyes are much more complex or have colors i can't easily match, for example, or pokémon for whom multiple parts of their eyes are missing… not to mention i don't necessarily have the time or willpower to be spending hours tinkering with these models every morning to make sure the eyes look right. ideally i can take what i've learned from fucking with quaxly right now to hopefully move forward a bit smoother, and eventually i'll refine a process. but until then, this is what worries me

right, but it's also less funny. the initial concept for this blog, inspired by pokémon like snivy, is that some pokémon look really funny when they're up in your face staring at you. it's a concept everyone loves. but if they're facing away from you, there's considerably less to work with there. they're all Kinda just gonna look the same. they lose a lot of that personality. i suppose i'll consider it if i ever run Really low on options, though

nah. i don't do visual art anymore. that time has passed—now if i do it, it's usually a one-off thing and i never want to look at what i've created again afterward

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

I want to talk a bit about a thing I played around with... this last February, apparently (in the midst of quitting my job and upending my life? wow). Consider this a sort of vague and casual interest check, as well, simply because I'm curious.

Note that this specific little self-indulgent project isn't publicly available and most likely won't ever be - I just had a couple people I know run through it for fun, as it's super rough and ultimately kind of pointless as-is. But I am actually interested to hear what people around these parts think of this kind of interactive fiction as a fanfic format. If I suddenly decided to go all in on writing, I don't know, a post-game Selûnite mini murder mystery in something like this, would this even be a kind of fanwork anyone would want? Or want to participate in, even?

In any case, what "this" even is is me messing around, first in Twine and then in Ink (which was brought to my attention thanks to Heaven's Vault being one of my favourite things ever). Then trying out what hosting things on itch.io looks like, after which I tried out both Unity and Godot variants of plugging the Ink into an existing engine - this was pretty much a test vehicle for me to play around with for a couple of evenings in a private little game jam. Outside of poking around Ren'Py five million years ago, this is the first time I've actually tried making anything interactive in this sense. And honestly, I loved it!

It's really not much, writing-wise, at about 5k words total. Just a bunch of scenes harnessing that sweet, sweet BG3 hyperfixation, shaped purely around me trying out different things in a technical sense and using the characters as a sort of shorthand while doing so. So you have fairly classic branching dialogue trees (Wyll), scenes that change when you leave and then come back (Jaheira), scenes that briefly diverge but end up at the same place and set some flags in the process (Aylin, Lae'zel), some stuff hidden behind checks you need to make (Halsin, Shadowheart, Isobel), and completely random events that may or may not happen during certain scene transitions (Orin). What I identified as the essentials, really.

I did a bit of exploring ways to incorporate small changes to encounters depending on which order you do them in. As a very simple example:

The above basically means your dialogue changes very slightly depending on if you found Shadowheart before talking to Aylin. Additionally, if you ask Aylin to tell you where Shadowheart supposedly went (which is completely optional even if you do talk to Aylin first), you'll have a bit of extra dialogue in the scene with Shadowheart when that flag up there gets checked. So some very, very basic reactivity - just for flavour, here.

My skill checks were plain d20 rolls without modifiers and with fixed DCs - a simple "create your character" intro bit would be perfectly doable, though, to get some stats and bonuses going. But roll badly enough and you can always make a complete ass of yourself in front of the Blade himself!

Visuals are super rudimentary, obviously. Taking a zoomed-out screenshot of the BG3 camp and blurring it to get this nice, chill background where that damn fire actively interferes with readin-- I mean, look at this, dynamically changing the look of the text to convey a shift in mood!

And, of course, a little structure of options and checks to get some of the good old "choices and failures having meaningful consequences":

(...for Shadowheart, at least. Sorry.)

In conclusion, this was all very fun to try out, and I can see a bigger project spiraling completely out of control because it's so tempting to try to cover everything in the universe and make everything branch out infinitely! But I also definitely want to do more of it, beyond this little proof of concept/experiment. I'd also love to encourage people to try their hands at this themselves - both of the tools/languages I mentioned and linked up there are very beginner-friendly and very well-documented. Give them a try! There's also a sea of works already out there to jump into, to see how these things can be used and the interactivity part leveraged to great effect - I've still barely scratched the surface, myself.

[nabaath-areng]

The weirdest part about FFXIV for me now is that for years I considered myself a newbie. I was always around people who had played longer than me, both legacy and not, and with it also being my first ever MMO they all seemed so experienced to me.

... And here I am now, forgetting that I am in a sense closer to all those players I looked up to back then. Year after year I've seen fewer and fewer legacy mounts and titles, and as time goes by I am more and more shocked by how many I interact with who describe Shadowbringers as "the old days". And not only that, I realize then that 5 years IS a long time, and that all the things I keep thinking of as new and flashy (Gpose, job gauges etc) have been in the game longer than they have not.

Mind you, I became psychotic less than a year into my FFXIV career, and then I spent nearly a decade after that trying to heal from both that as well as the paranoia it left me with, so in a sense the years 2015-2022 might as well not have happened in terms of me remembering them in a way that matters. My vague measure of time between 2014 to 2019 in particular is only possible because I memorized FFXIV patches, since the game was practically the only thing keeping me both sane and alive. I cannot tell you what I did IRL in November 2015, but I can tell you what I did during patch 3.1.

And I guess that's why it all feels so mindfucky to me? It's not like I can look back at my years in FFXIV like normal memories, so realizing that 10 years have passed in what to me felt like the blink of an eye, and then having to reconcile with my self perception and reality not quite adding up... it just makes it feel so weird? It kinda feels like waking up from a time bubble, where everyone else has lived normally and you have to adapt super fast to keep up with the changes you barely have time to process.

In a strange sense, many of the people I knew and loved at the time feel like fuzzy figures to me. Some of them I cannot even recall the names of, and some I remember nothing except for their names. I know they were real, because I have screenshots of us playing the game together... but it still feels very little like they're my own memories. It's not like amnesia, but I don't know how to describe it.

They're kind of like the Warrior's of Light who vanished during the Calamity as described in ARR. I know these people were there, and I know that they saved me when everything seemed hopeless... and yet when I try to recall their faces, all I see is light behind silouettes. When I try to say their names, they disappear on my tongue.

And it feels so shitty, because why wouldn't I remember people who were super close to me? But that was the nasty thing with being psychotic, I was so caught up with being constantly in terror, and being unable to determine what was real or not, that even the good things aren't more than vague flickers of light amidst the hopeless darkness I was in. I can barely claim to be the same person, because those years stole "me" for lack of a better way of putting it.

I feel like I came out of that situation a completely different person, someone who is ultimately more "real"... but that makes me question whether the people I held dear actually knew me. They knew a broken down person bearing my name, but I don't recognize that person at all. It was practically a stranger behind the wheel veering off the road over and over again and causing more damage to the vehicle itself.

And it sounds so stupid, I know, but FFXIV sincerely was my sole lifeline. It was the only normal thing... and yet it didn't shield me from the repercussions of losing my sense of self, as is evident in hindsight now that I'm out of the abyss that was my abode for years. It's like I fell asleep at 19 and woke up at 24, and suddenly I had to recalibrate the way I viewed myself and the way I no longer felt like I belonged with other people my age. And then another couple years were spent catching up and trying to "age" myself accordingly. All while fighting to rid myself of the paranoia and delusions that still had me in a chokehold.

And here I am now, running around in FFXIV, free from my delusions and my paranoia once and for all... all while still looking for the people that were around me when I had just started playing, and trying to process that the one safe place I had was just as fleeting as everything else in my life after all.

I should have known that, it's an obvious thing when spelling it out like such. But it shows me that despite having come this far, there's still a lot of work for me to do, and a lot of grief to come to terms with about everything I lost. Things that one may take for granted, that can never be reclaimed once it's gone.

[queer-as-used-by-tolkien]

I have full executive authority to modify my text posts for another audience - to express the exact same sentiment but in words that the new audience will understand. To translate, if you will, from "broad and unknown Tumblr audience" who speak the Tumblr lingo and dialect and who could be literally anybody, to "close family with a humongous bunch of shared experience and similar language to talk about them," who share my worldview and understand what I'm saying without getting offended by a caveat I forgot to include or a specification or detail that I thought was unnecessary. (E.g. on Tumblr I might say "my friend X", but to family I'd just say "X")

Translation from one to the other, and vice versa, is necessary for both clarity and brevity. Different audiences require different approaches.

Tumblr audience might have sentences providing caveats or clarity or introduction to a concept that the family audience already knows or doesn't need. For brevity, I would cut those out, but I might also add sentences to help with transition or to aid in pacing of the ideas, concepts, or story. (This also goes for fic; is the fic for fans only or is it friendly to fandom-blind readers? Same story, told in slightly different words sometimes.)

But they are still my words and all those words remain as true as they were in the original form (assuming I didn't decide to lie to one group). In fact, if somebody had access to both versions (and understood both), they could see more of my mind, heart, and will than otherwise; for example, my willingness to even do such a thing as translating or providing two different versions. A family member who forgot my relation to X might be reassured by the label "friend" when describing her. (It might also mean a lot to the friend, if she read both accounts.) It always helps to see further caveats, examples, side notes, details, or even just different phrasing that I thought would help one group's perspective but wouldn't be too useful for the other unless they were doing a deeper study of my words, for whatever reason.

Now if I DID decide to lie, of course, you can't believe either version (or any new one I came up with), because now I'm a liar and you can't trust anything at all. But assuming I'm not a liar (and nobody has messed with my words, or it's not an outright faked screenshot or deep fake or whatever) - assuming I am truthful and you trust me (and/or my messenger), you can learn a lot from the differences of how I convey the same idea.

Between the two versions I might also do things like update typos or accidental occurrences of misgendering, clarify grammar, institute proper capitalization, and so on.

It makes me think of a post I saw once about the differences between Hunger Games books and movies; how the books tell a story of how awful war is to kids, and how awful the capitol is to make them have a love triangle to survive, and how awful it is for them to sit back and watch it as entertainment. And how the movies have us sit back and be entertained while children have a love triangle and fight each other. It seems like a classic case of "movies butchered the books," but the author was actually involved in and had quite some say in the production of the movie. Looking at them, they both together tell a more powerful story than otherwise. I'll see if I can find that post because it was a JOURNEY.

Anyway. The author has ultimate authority to translate their work to different audiences, with different emphases and details, whether the work is a Tumblr text post or an essay or verbally telling a friend what happened to me today.

Same goes for the Lord Jesus Christ, the word of God (John 1). (For one thing, translating God Himself into human form while preserving his divinity? Major translation skills there.)

The four gospels are an example of this; Matthew, for example, is addressed primarily to the Jews and includes many extra details, adding things like "BTW this was in fulfillment of XYZ prophecy" and including the genealogy through David and all like that. Luke is written by a Gentile to Gentiles, and tells similar stories but often with different details.

Only one gospel mentions that when Jesus fed the five thousand, it was at evening; only one mentions that it was a little boy who had the five loaves and two fishes; when Jesus asks a disciple what they're going to do, only one gospel mentions that Jesus said it "to try him."

John is far more focused on Jesus' divine nature, including many stories not included in the others. Different details, different emphases, different audiences, although ultimately, all four are available to us who have lived after the first century AD.

The gospels also show off another aspect of the author having final authority to translate while still being pure, truthful, and accurate: quotations from the Old Testament.

The OT was written in Hebrew. Jesus reads from a Greek translation and calls it Scripture. (I.e. equally as inspired as the original.) The apostles and writers of the New Testament often do likewise.

The same can be true of other translations as well. Translations into Latin, into German, into French, into Old English, into Early Modern English... God is the master of language. He created it, after all. Jesus is the word. All Scripture is inspired and profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness...

But only the author has that authority. If I tell my sister one thing and she tells my friend something in anything other than my own words, it may still be true; but it's slightly less true than my own words. Hopefully, usually the difference is negligible, but in a contest, anything I've ever said or written on the topic is more accurate than what somebody else said.

Hence, if there's something strange about the story my sister tells, my friend would do well to take it with a grain of salt (or more than one, if she knows I have a bad relationship with my sister.) If not, this can pass from one to another like a game of telephone until it devolves into gossip that's wholly untrue, outright malicious, etc.

I and only I retain the right to point to two different versions of my words and say both are equally true. My sister can't say "her words and mine are equal" unless she was there, and even then, any differences would be down to her own different perspective (and level of honesty), not mine.

You never know when somebody might embellish a Bible translation. I hear Satan has quite the interest in perverting God's words (just see Genesis 3). Compare your translation carefully with both itself and others.

On that note, let me share some comparisons to get you started.

One of them has to be wrong. What do you think?

[cadybear420]

Lucas/Jo Wedding Details (with some edits by me).

Source for questions

How long were they together before they got engaged?

4 years. They started dating sometime in their senior year of high school, and got engaged while Lucas was in his final year of college.

Who proposed and how?

(screenshots from @itlivesproject)

Going by the ILW timeline, Lucas. He proposes after the memorial when they're back at their shared home.

With Jo spending all these years helping Noah, and Lucas studying at college, she'd been a little more unsure of how he felt about their relationship and how close they actually were. But once she heard "these four years we've been together? We've had our ups and downs, but ultimately, we're here. You and I", that was how she knew he felt confident about their relationship, and it made her feel confident too.

(more screenshots from @itlivesproject, for the ring description)

I do think Jo is also the type to propose, though she probably wouldn't have done so as soon as Lucas did, for the aforementioned reason of her being more unsure.

How long was the engagement?

One year, they waited until Lucas had graduated from college and then they married in early-mid July. It was kind of a tough call, because Jo really wanted a summer wedding, but Lucas wanted to take Jo's last name and kinda preferred for "Lucas Hunter" to show up on his diploma. But they managed to work things out.

Where was the Wedding?

The ceremony takes place in an area next to a small river/lake just outside of Westchester, and the reception takes place in the ballroom of a nearby hotel.

Colors/Theme?

(Backgrounds from the Choices game assets)

Lucas being Lucas, he also adores rustic old-fashioned aesthetics, and Jo shares his enjoyment of that, so that tends to be a bit of a recurring theme.

Big Wedding or Small?

They only invite their closest friends and family.

Who did most of the planning?

Mostly Lucas because he's the organized planner type, but both of them did have equal say in it.

Tell me about the cake!

(Images used/edited from the Choices game assets)

A layered duo-flavor cake, chocolate and pink champagne.

What about the flowers?

(Images from the Choices game assets)

Mostly light-colored roses.

(Images from the Choices game assets)

Jo's bouquet. The two plan to do a little twist to the bouquet toss.

Their attire?

Lucas wears a nice, form-fitting suit. He isn't quite as interested in wearing dresses or more skin-showing clothing as Aiden is, and tends to prefer very form-fitting clothing. And he knows how much Jo loves it too. Seriously, she would not, does not, and will never shut the fuck up about how well his hoco suit hugged his waist and hips. So he goes with a fairly form-fitting old-fashioned tux. And since they're reversing the garter toss tradition, he chooses to wear one over the suit.

Jo was initially torn between suit or dress. She tends to prefer pant suits, but she also sometimes likes a big long gown to hide, er, certain things under it. In the end, she chooses to go with a combination: a wedding gown with a suit jacket over it.

Wedding Party?

Jo's bridal party consists of:

Ava, who is her maid of honor

Lily

Stacy

Harper Addison (my ILB demigirl MC)

Imogen

Danni

Amalia

Jocelyn

Lucas's groom party consists of

Andy, who is his best man

Dan

Noah

Tom

Parker

Abel

Cedric (my ILW m!MC)

Connor

Lincoln

Fun fact, Ava is the maid of honor for Jo because I've always had this headcanon that of the ILITW group, Ava and Jo had been extra close friends as kids. Almost as much as Jo and Jane were.

Which traditions were important to them? Which ones did they skip?

Lucas likes rustic old-fashioned aesthetics a lot, so they do use some aspects from that a bit. But most traditions might be reversed or have a little twist on them.

The two meet at the start of the aisle and then walk down together.

Jo carries the bouquet, but she hands it over to Lucas for him to do the bouquet toss.

Meanwhile, the garter toss gets a full role-reversal with Lucas being the one to wear it and Jo being the one to toss it.

Their first dance starts with a role-reversed ballroom waltz, then morphs into an upbeat Roaring 20's style dance that is mostly gender neutral.

After the ceremony, the reception went as follows:

First, is the first dance.

Bouquet and garter tosses are next. Tom caught the bouquet and Harper Addison caught the garter.

Dinner and cake next. Cue Jo playfully smushing cake into his face to get icing all over his mouth.

Toasts. IDK about the rest of the characters, but Ava has been preparing the ultimate roast for them ever since she heard of Lucas's plans to propose.

Last, is the actual party.

What about something that was uniquely ‘them’?

Probably the way they utilize a lot of "old fashioned" aesthetics, with a lot of role-reversed/GNC elements.

What’s their favorite memory of the day?

All of them. They can't decide on one. Though for Jo it'd probably have to be their wedding night when they, ahem, "consummate" their marriage.

Where did they go for their honeymoon?

(Backgrounds from the Choices game assets)

After spending the wedding night together at the hotel, the two would spend a two-week honeymoon in Vegas.

[twilightknight17]

@loopingpyre

Putting under a readmore for Tactica spoilers.

Persona 2's characters were, like Maki, all functionally Wild Cards. So you can fudge that a little. But this whole thing around Toshiro is something new, with very little explanation on why his thing works differently from anything in previous games. I know Atlus plays fast and loose with their lore at times (because I've spent years trying to untangle it), but there's usually some connecting thread to how things have worked previously.

Toshiro's persona being basically its own person just seems weird to me, when it would have been more consistent with prior stuff in P5 to have the shadow, and then a separate cognitive entity. Erina didn't need to be his persona for the story to make sense, and the fact that she is seems like a strange choice when I think it just makes things more confusing.

Plus, Erina coming with them was basically a fluke. If she'd stayed in her Kingdom, we'd have some major problems.

Rules that are at least partially consistent doesn't seem like too much to ask. But I'm really into worldbuilding and how things work, so that's just me.

Nanjo's ultimate taking the form of his butler who passed away can make sense. That was someone important to him, who genuinely cared about him and had a huge effect on his life. Cendrillon taking on aspects of Sumire's memory of Kasumi when she fully awakens follows the same thread. So if Toshiro's persona took on aspects of Eri, that's cool! There's a thread there!

But my point is more that versions of Yamaoka and Kasumi weren't walking around the metaverse with them after their awakenings. The personas were not their own people with their own character and desires and goals.

The only time that's really been the case was like... Pharos/Ryoji/Thanatos. But Ryoji's not an aspect of Minato. He was an outside entity.

And mechanically, a Wild Card is just someone who can use multiple personas. So with that in mind, technically the casts of 1 and 2 count, even if the term itself hadn't been invented yet from a Doylist perspective. So I think it's fair to look at things from that angle when considering how all of this cognitive stuff works. But again, I'm a worldbuilding person. I want to draw all those connections.

I noticed that his glove was missing but I don't think they ever talked about his hand being injured??? Unless it was early on and I've forgotten. Like, I see it in the screenshot but I don't think they talked about it. And if the glove is replacing the mask, cool. They haven't actually mentioned that (yet?) either.

And "different world different rules" would be fine if they'd bothered to explain any of the rules! But the kids literally have no idea how any of this has happened.

What is Erina? How does she work? We don't really know.

How do the Kingdoms work? We don't really know.

Why is Toshiro's mental world so much bigger and weirder than anything since Ideal Mikage-cho? We don't know.

How did the kids even end up here? We don't know.

I feel like at the point in the story where I've met the final boss, I should know a little more than that. Or at least be able to extrapolate.

And... I hope I don't come across as upset. I'm not; I like discussing lore stuff! But I gotta admit it was a little off-putting to see a comment starting with, essentially, "Hi, it doesn't work like that," considering how much thought I've put into figuring out how it all works. ^_^;;;

[cosmicgardencreative]

Vindictus - F2P Action MMORPG & Why We Love It

Hi all, it's been a minute since Ismaire and I got to let our hair down, so I'm just gonna take a sec to share my love of Vindictus. 

I don't always talk about how a game is underrated, but man, I will stand by Nexon/DevCat's first free-to-play action MMORPG. I've heard many people put it down for how "unoptimized" this game is. I'm not a PC gamer, but I feel that with today's technology, you can definitely play this game on today's graphics standards. 

Obviously this isn't a comparison to the new Vindi in development, but I'm just impressed to see how far this MMO has come.

PaikMyungJin (left, Evie/Choi) and Ismer (right, Lann/Ismaire) make a comeback to Vindictus in 2024.

The game can overall feel pretty simple and low-graphics to some, but frankly, I just see that as the dev team being smart with their resources. The only hang-up I can think is if you have a slow internet connection, it might be a difficult game to play with others, but it's pretty solo-friendly for the first 2-3 seasons. 

Kinkoku (left, Sou/Ismaire) wondering what Biseuri (Sylas/Haegi/Choi) is thinking about.

I'll have to do a separate post that goes into the game's history. There's so much that could be said when the game first rolled out on October 13, 2010 for the US release. Izzy and I dating coincided with us finally having a game we could play together, since a lot of console games weren't prioritizing couch co-op as much (except for Resident Evil 5-6). [[On a separate side note, I just realized where our points of influences could be traced back to about here. All the more reason why we just love some of our old fandoms...]]

The nice thing about Vindictus is that you can play it solely with a keyboard (our preferred controls), a mouse + keyboard, or a gamepad. The game is pretty versatile for people with preferences. Most of the characters respond pretty well to the keyboard controls. The few that I noticed were difficult to maneuver in combat was Kai with his bow and crossgun, and Hurk with his teide (sword + shotgun combo), more for precision reasons than anything. Ultimately, do what's comfortable for you!

Alts, alts, and more alts!

Yes, this game will make you play so many alts. And it's worth it. I find this comparable to FFXIV's multi-job branches that your WoL can unlock, but instead of it all stockpiled to one character, you have multiple MCs with various backstories and even special connections to one another! This game being so lore-heavy actually deserves to have multiple characters for the player to explore with. You'll find over time that you'll catch some things you didn't think about from your first playthrough, and it'll just hit you differently... 😭 

Kiena (Fiona/Choi) slicing through enemies.

BradieHU (bg left, Charon/Izzy) and Lycapollos (fg right, Achel/Choi), hecking over a Kobold commander.

PaikMyungJin firing her lasers at a laser cannon/golem.

Ismer slipdashing past the lasers for the finishing kill.

Can't guarantee great screenshots 100% of the time, but the more you play, the better the chances :) 

______________________________________________________________

Final thoughts:

Being a casual player, I personally can't give a testimony on how the overall MMO culture is like in Vindictus nowadays. We did have a generally good experience since we weren't the types to go ham about stat comparisons and just genuinely want to have fun. You'll likely run into cool people as long as you're a nice and polite gamer. But of course, we weren't exempt from being driven away by guild dramas, which then later caused us to have an on-and-off hiatus from the game since 2014...  (wow it's a decade already...) Just be prepared that you may get inundated with a lot of female characters in very... curvy skins. Some of the costume/outfitters come with special enhancements, and Vindictus really doesn't hide the fact that it's a rated-M game 😳🪭 Personally it does shock me, but at the same time, props to people who aren't afraid to flaunt it 😂

Moonglitter (Eira/Izzy) not afraid to flaunt her "All Curves Revealing Off Shoulder Set". 

Because there's so much content to push through, DevCat did their due diligence in balancing the first 3 seasons of content with gear that rewarded for progressing. If you do appreciate a little bit of a challenge, though, I recommend keeping on the lowbie gear till you know you need the damage boost. And if you ever find yourself not liking the aesthetics, the game is usually good about giving you aesthetic coupons for you to "rent" through events and the AP shop. 

As far as solo/duo-ing experiences go, Izzy and I were able to catch up to Season 3 on our own. We found that we're not able to go through Redeemers currently, but I'm curious to see how well we might be able to duo the battles soon as we're properly geared from endgame :) I'm only hesitant to pug with others because we're not sure if our internet connection could handle a crowd of 2+ external connections. But then again we're working adults who pay for good speed so maybe? lol 

By the way, you get to choose two paths of either a Dark Knight or a Paladin:

Scaley Edgelord

Shiny Sparkle Knight

Thanks for taking the time to read my little appreciation post for Vindictus. If you're another Vindi-fan, feel free to comment on your experience here! Vindictus/Mabinogi Heroes is such a niche fandom, so I'd be happy to chat with others who love the gameplay and lore ^_^ I'm very inclined to share some Vindictus fanart in the near future, so let's have fun!

[ejsuperstar]

SOULBREAKER DIGEST: APRIL/MAY 2024

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No video to dissect for the digest today! The official update was written out on the cryodon website!

It doesnt mean I dont have fun things to say though! There was a fun chat within the fools gold discord a little bit ago where we got a bunch of stuff leaked! Including the highest res image of naked jack yet!

So a little bit ago Felix jumped into the Soulbreaker channel in the fools gold server and we chatted with everyone!

And thanks to our Ohio Jack simpage we got to see some early concepts!

We also got a good few things that were also shown in the actual devblog, but I wont show them here. Go read them on the cryodon website! The digest is for writing out things that happen in update videos, or just talking about things that happen in the discord!

Like THESE adorable images of Jack!!

Theres news on code for Jawbone too. I wonder if he'll be a feature in the combat parts of the game, either an attack or a movement ability.

(Sadly I did NOT get a job at cryodon. Maybe next time boys)

In other news: SNEEZE

Felix told us to ignore the bloody hand print and we proceeded to do just that because OH MY GOD ISN'T HE JUST THE CUTEST.

We also got some news on a fun bug that happened during development:

We ended up getting a REALLY old screenshot of the dating sim too...

And of course a closeup:

Felix then proceeded to send one last ohio jack picture...

My favourite from the bunch...

This is the HIGHEST RESOULTUON image we have of Ohio Jack, and he's almost COMPLETELY NAKED.

As shown in the devblog, this allows the artists to draw clothes to be layered over him, ultimately allowing for more customisation! But since we got this ultra high res image... It also means that I could draw over him (and I did)

JUST TO NOTE: THESE ARE NOT OFFICIAL. I DREW THESE AS FANART

And after sending the soulbreaker chat into a frenzy... Felix left us to our own devices