#they are actually switching. the text changes colours when someone else is fronting (example: this very image. the post you're on.)

[idrawsometimes]

if you get what this is referencing without checking below the cut, you win a cookie!

meme this is referencing:

drawing without speech bubbles:

[marginalgloss]

the red telephone

The thing about Control is that I don’t think I’ve ever played a game where I’ve felt such a vast difference between a game’s artistic and technical quality and its total lack of thematic and narrative depth. 

There is a good case for saying that this oughtn’t to be a problem. It’s long been the case that if a video game is entertaining enough, any further ‘depth’ (by the standards established by other media) is unnecessary. This is why we don’t much care if the story isn’t good in Doom. The sense of being there and doing the thing is enough. But Doom isn’t drawing on influences bigger than itself. Clearly it’s been influenced by a variety of things — from Dungeons and Dragons to heavy metal album covers and Evil Dead and everything in between — but Doom is not referential, and it’s not reverential. Doom is complete unto itself. Control is not complete.

Horror films and ghost stories and weird fiction are best when they are about things. Think about The Turn of the Screw and The Thing and Twin Peaks and Candyman, to pick a few examples off the top of my head. They work not just because what we see and hear and read is mysterious. They are compelling because they have intriguing characters and thematic resonance. The Babadook is not just a story about a monster from a book for children. Night of the Living Dead isn’t just about, you know, the living dead. By comparison I find it hard to say that Control is about anything, but it presents itself as adjacent to this kind of work. It is a magnificent exercise in style which trades in empty symbols. It wraps itself in tropes from weird fiction in the hope of absorbing meaning by osmosis.

It feels like a wasted opportunity, because the setup is not without interest. You play as Jesse Faden, a woman supposedly beginning her first day on the job at the Federal Bureau of Control, a mysterious government organisation that deals in high-level paranormal affairs. The FBC is a feast of architectural and environmental detail: a vast Brutalist office complex with an interior that seems to be stranded in time somewhere around the mid-1980s. Everything is concrete and glass and reel-to-reel machines and terminal workstations. It’s frequently stunning.

Unfortunately most of the staff are missing because Jesse’s visit to their headquarters coincides with a massive invasion by the Hiss, a paranormal force which has taken over the building. The Hiss is a sort of ambient infection that turns people into mindless spirit-drones, chanting in an endless Babel. (Conveniently, most of those drones are present as angry men with guns. There are also zombies, and flying zombies, for variety.)

There is, obviously, more to Jesse than meets the eye. She spends a lot of time talking to someone nobody else can see. But there isn’t that much more to her. Like every other character in the game she is a monotone. There is no reason to believe she has any existence outside the plot devised for her here. Similarly, the other characters you meet exist only as the lines they speak to you. It works only when the effect is entirely, deliberately flat: the most compelling person in the game is Ahti, the janitor with a sing-song voice and a near-indecipherable Finnish accent. He is nothing but what he is — he has no past, no future. He has all the answers, if only you knew what questions to ask.

Control is undeniably stylish. The interiors are striking, vast, spacious. Even on the smallest scale the game has a great eye for little comic interactions via systemised physics. You can shoot individual holes in a boardroom table and watch the thing splinter apart into individual fragments. You can shoot a rolodex and watch all the little cards whirl around in a spiral. If a projector is showing a film you can pick the whole thing up and the film will reveal itself as an actual dynamic projection by spiralling and spinning madly across the nearest walls. (Speaking of film, the video sequences with live actors are great fun, and this being a Remedy game, there’s a fantastic show-within-a-show to be found on hidden monitors around the FBC.) And all of this before I mention the sound design — the music, which is full of concrète mechanical shrieks and groans — and the endless sinister chanting which fills the lofty corridors and hallways of this place, The Oldest House. 

All of this is very, very good. And most of the time it’s quite fun to play. I mean, you can pick up a photocopier and fling it at enemies. It’s never not fun when almost anything can be used as a projectile. And then you get the ability to fly! At its best the combat in Control feels messy and chaotic — in a good way — but in a way that has little to do with typical video game gunplay. Staying behind cover doesn’t work because the only way to regain health is to pick up little nuggets dropped by fallen enemies, so most of the time you have to use your powers to be incredibly aggressive. The result is that often you feel like the end-of-level boss — a kind of monster — throwing yourself into conflict with a team of moderately stupid players who think they’re supposed to be playing a cover shooter circa 2005. 

That you are given a gun at all seems odd. The gun feels like a compromise. The gimmick of a single modular pistol that can shape-change into a handful of other weapons is neat, but those weapons are just uninteresting variations on the same old themes: handgun, shotgun, machine gun, sniper, rocket launcher. The powers are more interesting and powerful. But of course the gun has to be there; can you imagine them having to go out and sell this game without a gun in it? What would Jesse be holding on the front cover? 

A gun is an equaliser. It evens the odds between the weak and the strong. But if you’re already strong it doesn’t feel worthwhile. You’re clearly so much more powerful than everyone else you meet in Control that after a while you begin to wonder why the game is also frequently quite hard. The omission of any difficulty settings is notable in a game of this type; it suggests that the developers were committed to their vision in the way that might recall Dark Souls. In fact the hub-like structure of the game is pretty clearly influenced by From Software’s games, and though it’s nowhere near as challenging, it seems to be reaching towards the same kind of thing.

It’s a game which demands you take it seriously as a crafted object. But then it has all these other elements cribbed from elsewhere — the generic level-based enemies with numbers that fly off them when shot, and the light peppering of timed/semi-randomised side activities, both of which made me think of Destiny. So there’s games-as-service stuff wedged in here too, and it doesn’t sit at all comfortably with this supposedly mysterious, compelling world that you’re supposed to want to explore.

This isn’t a horror game. There are one or two enemies with the potential to induce jump scares, but given that you can always respond with overwhelming force, it’s never really unsettling. But it’s clearly been inspired by horror. A source often mentioned as an inspiration for Control is the internet horror stories associated with the SCP Foundation wiki. From there the game borrows the idea that unlikely everyday objects can become sources of immense cosmic power — hence we see items like a rubber duck, a refrigerator, a pink flamingo, a coffee thermos imprisoned behind glass as if they were Hannibal Lecter. A pull-cord light switch becomes an inter-dimensional portal to an otherworldly motel. The great part about this is that these little stories can be told effectively in isolation; it’s always interesting to come across another object in the game and to discover what it does. (The fridge is especially unpleasant.)

But experiencing this kind of thing in the context of an action game is entirely different to stumbling it on it online. SCP Foundation is pretty well established now, but still, there’s a certain thrill in stumbling across something written there in plain text, titled with only a number. When those stories are good, they can be really good. Given the relative lack of context, and the absence of any graphical set-dressing, there’s room for your imagination to do the heavy lifting. 

In Control these fine little stories are competing for attention with all the other crazy colourful stuff going on in the background. You read a note and you move on to the next thing. You crash through a pack of enemies and the numbers fly off them. There’s never a sense of the little story fitting into an overall pattern. That lack of a pattern can be forgiven in the context of a wiki. In Control, these stories start to feel irrelevant when you never come across an enemy you can’t shoot in the face. In a different format, or a different type of game, this kind of rootless narrative might be more compelling. 

But what is this game about? There’s a sister and brother. A sinister government agency. Memories, nostalgia. A slide projector. It’s all so difficult to summarise. When I think about the game all these words seem to float around in my head, loosely linked, but not in a way that suggests any kind of coherence. The game always seems to be reaching towards some kind of meaning but it only ever feels hollow. It feels flat. Yet all the elements that are good about Control must be made to refer back to these hollow, flat signifiers. Sometimes the flatness works for the game, but mostly it doesn’t.

Today, it’s hard to see that anyone could see the point in establishing a website like SCP Foundation if it didn’t already exist. Viral media is not what it was in the first decade of the 2000s. Written posts that circulate on social media have a shorter half-life than ever. It’s almost impossible for any piece of writing over a few hundreds words to go viral in ways that go beyond labels like ‘shocking’, ‘controversial’, ‘important’, etc. ‘Haunting’ and ‘uncanny’ don’t quite cut it. This kind of thing doesn’t edge into public spaces in the way it used to via email inboxes, or message boards, or blogs. 

Perhaps the weird stuff is still out there. Perhaps we only got better at blocking it out. With the arrival of any new viral content, today’s audience is mostly consumed by questions of authenticity, moral quality, and accuracy. If you think this creepy story might be ‘real’, you’re a mug. If you promote it you might be a dangerous kind of idiot. And that’s fair: there are a lot of dangerous idiots out there. Yet there’s something to be said for an attitude of persistent acceptance when it comes to the consumption of weird stuff on the internet. I know I become gluttonous when I come upon such things. I want to say: yes, it’s all true, every word. I’ve always known it’s all true. 

[kyeugh]

Dave and Katherine Discuss Real Life

Author’s Note: this is just a little thing i threw together after reading @antialiasis’ Morphic because the sad ending left me wondering about the future. i originally had plans for it to go further, but i’m not really interested in making this a long-term project, at least for the time being, haha. anyway, i hope you enjoy it!

Calm down now. Be cool.

Katherine took a deep breath and looked at herself in the mirror. She looked damn good. She didn’t think such things very often, but right now, she had no shame in admitting it. She was a little off base in some places, sure— her eyes were rather squinty, for example, and her nose was much too small and high— but you didn’t have to be perfect to look your best, and she certainly did.

Oh, there was also the trio of green horns sticking out of her head, and the fact that her hands were in fact giant roses. But those were minor details, really, hardly worthy of address. At least, that’s what she had to tell herself if she had any hope of making her case.

“Ms. Harrison, five minutes.”

Katherine nodded. “I’m just about ready,” she replied, glaring at her hair in the mirror. She wished she could do something with it. Its utter plainness was all the more obvious when contrasted with her rather fetching pantsuit. Oh, and don’t even get her fucking started on the pantsuit. No one would ever appreciate it for what it was, that being nothing short of a miracle. Just try putting on a tight shirt when your hands are roses and your head is covered in thorns.

Christ, what was she doing? Ruminating on her clothes? In less than five minutes, she would leave her house and step into a car, which would bring her all the way to the town courthouse. How long had it been since she’d been to town? In a car? Outside of her neigborhood, even?

She took a final look at herself in the mirror. Flawed. Perfect. Plain. Beautiful. Human. Pokémon. It was hard to describe someone like her concisely, but that’s just who she was. A mix-up. And today, she was going to change things for all the other mix-ups. Today, years of hard work would finally come to fruition. After hours and hours spent poring over books and articles and wiki pages and proceeding transcripts and histories and everything else imaginable, teaching herself the inner workings of this particular corner of law, Katherine had finally reached the day she’d been long preparing for.

Today, Katherine would testify before the city court to free the Pokémorphs from their perpetual house arrest. And, with any luck, today would be the day she was finally freed.

Unfortunately, David Ambrose woke up.

“Agh, fuck.” His head pounded as he rolled to the side, his eyes scrambling desperately into focus before resting on the alarm clock on his nightstand. 12:17. “Shit.”

Didn’t he have something today? The, uh… The thing. Fuck. What the fuck was it?

Dave flopped onto his back again and was just about to shut his eyes and fall back into the sweet embrace of sleep when he saw something taped to the ceiling. What the fuck? He squinted at it, rubbing his forehead as though it would actually do something for the pain.

It was an index card, and he could just make out the text. It read: “Court case. Katherine. 11:30, don’t forget.”

Ah, fuck. Well, he hadn’t forgotten, at least. He’d overslept, which was at the very least outside of his control… Though, if the taint of beer on his breath was to be trusted, it probably _was _in his control after all. But whatever. He’d probably have slept in until noon anyway. Right?

Groaning, he sat up and fumbled for the remote on his nightstand, nearly knocking over his alarm clock and table lamp in the process. When at last he found it, he switched on the television and turned it to channel one.

There she was, in all her morphic glory. Dave had never seen her so dressed up— she wore it wonderfully, though he found the buttons that ran along the back seam of the sleeves amusing. So that’s how she’d fit it on despite her hands…

A marquee rolled across the bottom of the screen. Dave wasn’t yet conscious enough to read it all, but he got the gist. Katherine was still making her case for the humanity of the Pokémorphs, and arguing that the Dangerous Nonhuman Act was unconstitutional— or, at least, it was unconstitutional in its application to the Pokémorphs. Dave had heard the argument a million times. He’d even helped write it. He could only hope she delivered it well, though he’d never resort to fucking praying, thank you very much. If anyone knew how important delivery was, it was him. It was definitely, fucking definitely him.

“—aware that the media paints us as half-human, half-Pokémon hybrids,” Katherine said, her voice cool but just shaky enough for it to be perceptible. Well, Dave sure as hell didn’t blame her. At least she was talking fucking sense. He’d seen way more severe television blunders on similar topics in his days, to say the least. But it didn’t take much to outperform fucking Brian, of all people. Dave didn’t realise he was shaking his head until he felt it pounding in protest.

“However, this is simply not the case. You will notice by the upright posture and intelligent behaviour of not only myself but my peers that we are much more human than anything else. As per the lab report, in fact, we are almost entirely human, with some Pokémonic genes spliced in. So, modified as we may be, Pokémorphs cannot be described as ‘nonhuman’ any more than, say, a black person, or a disabled person might be. There are simply different genes at play, but we look and behave and think the same way as anyone else. The line between human and non is blurred, to be sure, but i think that given my substantial evidence, even the most resistant will see that we are just like everyone else.”

Dave shook his head. Fuck. It was too early in the morning for this shit, and he had very important things to do today. He always did. Such as reflecting on what little he’d seen as he made his way to the kitchen.

Katherine was a fairly good public speaker, you had to give her that. But that was only true on some accounts. She presented herself confidently, true, and she vocalised without timidity. She was a proud and strong speaker. And yet, what on God’s green fucking Earth was she talking about? While he could agree that the Pokémorphs were primarily human, why he hell did she think to compare that to race and, fuck it all, disability? Well, whatever. It wasn’t Dave’s case. If he’d wanted it done better, he’d have just done it himself. This wasn’t about him. It was about the Pokémorphs, and it was also (purely by chance) about everything Dave had worked toward for the past ten yeaoh goddamn it who was he kidding.

Katherine couldn’t fuck this up. She just couldn’t. To her credit, she had a sound argument when she wasn’t botching her attempts at injecting political buzzwords. If the judge had any reason at all, he’d see her point and rule in her favor. But in truth, Dave had come to distrust the public sector a long time ago.

He’d come to distrust a lot of things, actually. Sometimes he wondered whether his drinking habits should be one of them. Even still, he produced a fresh beer from the refrigerator and cracked it open, taking a good sip. Christ, why the fuck was alcohol in the morning looked down on? There was nothing in the world like a cool splash of beer on a dry, scratchy morning throat. Absolute fucking ecstasy.

Dave took the can to his recliner and fell into it, leaning forward and taking healthy sips as he stared off into the distance, into his regrets, surrounded by a rather impressive castle of beer cans and the persistent drone of the courtcase on the television in front of him. His throne. It was another day in the life of the once-great David Ambrose.

If he had been watching the television, of course, he might have seen something very important. Game-changing, even. But, of course, it was absolutely nothing like Dave to see important things until it was entirely too late. Who did he have to blame but himself?

Literally everyone, obviously.

Sighing, he turned his gaze to the portraits that sat on his shelf. He wasn’t the sentimental type, but, well… He wasn’t the sentimental type. Having a bunch of your kids die tended to change some things about you.

He regarded the images somberly.

Will was such a sweet kid. He’s the last one you’d expect to get shot. But that also made him the likeliest. That’s what happened to sweet kids. It happened to Brian, too. When you’re in peril and you can’t stand up for yourself, you get a bullet in the fucking head. No golden charm was going to deflect that. Dave sniffed a little, and took a long drink of his beer.

Mia. Christ. What a character. And yet, Dave found himself thinking that her loss was perhaps one of the most profound ones the world would ever know. He knew he was wrong for allowing himself to choose favorites and value one life over another, but… Mia was something else. She was unstable. She was terrifying. She was a psychopath. But there was something beautiful about that. She was all of those things because she was supposed to be. They had always been here. They were not defects. They were woven into her DNA as solidly as the colour of her hair or the shape of her face. It was who she was. And now it was all gone.

Nothing personal, of course. Purely scientific. She was a marvel, biologically. Well, they all were, to be fair. But she was something else. Sometimes it seemed like she was more Scyther than anything. There was real scientific potential there. He should’ve tested her more. Should’ve prodded her. Picked her mind apart and figured out what she really was on the inside.

Well, there was nothing on the inside now, and there was no sense moping over it. Dave finished his beer, then crushed the can in his hand and threw it backward haphazardly. It fell amid a pile of similarly crushed cans, at least three dozen in number.

It was going to be a long-ass fucking day.

“Your honor, if i may.” Daniels’ voice was so damn smug that Katherine could hardly resist leaping over the bench and socking him in his face. There were two reasons she couldn’t do that, however. Firstly, the public already erred on the side of Pokémorphs being extra dangerous and violent, so her case would certainly not be helped by flagrant aggression. Secondly, her hands were roses, and she suspected they may not be very good for punching anyway.

“The plaintiff raises valid points, of course,” he continued snidely. Grr. “Points worth considering. However, it seems to me, with all due respect, like she’s gracefully failing to address the Mamoswine in the room, as it were.”

The judge raised an eyebrow. “That being?”

“Mia Kerrigan, your honor.”

The audience burst into quiet but energetic chatter.

Mia. Of course.

“Order!” the judge cried. “Continue, Mr. Daniels.”

Daniels happily obliged.“Mia Kerrigan was a proven psychopath. All witness accounts corroborate claims of her violence and dispassion. She attacked with little provocation, and herself provoked others, seemingly searching for reasons to fight or even creating them. Such behavior is consistent with the observed behavior of Scyther, and in human beings is antisocial to the point of justifying asylum. If the animal genes could have affected the mind of Mia Kerrigan in such a way as to make her unfit for human interaction, your honor, why should we assume her fellow Pokémorphs are any better off, when they are purportedly equally human? After all, we do know that several of the surviving Morphs were personally responsible for the tragic deaths of several men of the Church of Holy Truth.”

Katherine stood abruptly, heat rising to her face, heart leaping in her chest. How could he say something like that? “I object, your honor,” she said through clenched teeth with all the tact she could muster. “The kills made by the Pokémorphs are shown by the court of law to be in self-defence, and are not valid evidence against the humanity of our kind.” Even as she said it, she could feel Daniels’ smug grin. It doesn’t matter, he’d be thinking. The seeds of fear have been sown. “Mia Kerrigan was a psychopath, it’s true. There’s simply no denying it. However, her mental state is not indicative of any of the rest— there is no evidence to suggest that any of the other Pokémorphs are psychopathic in the least, and none of us have committed violent acts apart from the Church of Holy Truth incident, which as i stated previously was self-defensive. And, for what it’s worth, you don’t put psychopaths in asylums. They walk free just like everyone else, until they commit a crime. Which Mia didn’t.”

Daniels’ grin had faded. She was right, and he knew it. Or he knew she was technically right, at least. If he was anything like his cousins, Katherine knew he was fare more malicious than he was letting on. But you simply couldn’t in court. Katherine almost wished he would. Then everyone could see what a sham he was once and for all, and the support of the judge would be hers for certain.

No one else spoke, so Katherine continued. “Besides, that’s a matter of mental stability, which, while admittedly influenced by our Pokémorph genes, has nothing to do with our status as human. Your honor, i believe the truth is evident here. Despite our appearances and minor differences, we Pokémorphs are no less human than any other person in this courtroom. Our segregation is unjust and should be repealed immediately. I see no reason to believe otherwise, and none has been presented.”

And that was true. Daniels had sure said lots of things about Pokémorphs over the last few hours, most of them bad and some of them true. But none of them had anything to do with their status as human. And that’s what the case was about.

The judge’s softening impression implied that she agreed. “A fine point, Ms. Harrison.” Daniels tried rather poorly to keep his fear from spreading to his face as she spoke. “The court rules in favor of the Pokémorphs. They are hereby excluded from the provisions of the Dangerous Nonhuman Act, and otherwise protected against further discrimination by the full power of this land’s constitution.” She slammed her gavel with a resounding and unbelievable satisfying, crack. And it was all over. “Case dismissed.”

Katherine fell into her seat, lightheaded. And for the first time in a decade, free.

“Jesus fucking Christ, what the fuck?” Dave sounded more angry than excited, as he often did. But in truth, his heart was leaping in exuberance. “She did it. She really fucking did it. Holy shit.” Still muttering to himself, he looked around for his daughter before remembering they no longer lived together. Fuck, how long had it been? Three years? And he still expected her to be around. Christ.

He grabbed for his phone and began punching in Jean’s number before anxiously holding it to his ear, leaning forward in his chair with anticipation.

“Hello? Dad?”

“Jean,” Dave said, more of an energetic breath than a true utterance. “You… You’re… Fuck.”

“So you heard?”

“Yes, of course i fucking heard. Wait, are we talking about the same thing? Did you watch the fucking—”

“Yes, of course i watched it. We all watched it.”

“So you know that—”

“Yes, Dad. I know. I’m in town right now, actually. God, i forgot how awesome it is here! And did you know you can pay for things with your phone now? You don’t even need credit cards! I mean, people are staring at me weird still, especially now that i’m yelling into a phone, and they probably don’t know that i’m allowed to be here yet so it’s all really weird, but still! Wow! It’s so great to be back out here, i can’t even hardly believe it! And i know i can’t really be Sarah Hooter anymore, and that sucks but i’m over it so whatever, but maybe i can be an actress in something else now? And i think Katherine should be a lawyer forever now, she was so super good. And Gabriel could toootally go into construction or mining or something, i mean he totally jives with rocks and stuff, and Jack… Well, i don’t know! But we can all have jobs now, that’s the point, and we can finally be with people, and even if they look at us weird that’s fine because we’re free, and—”

She continued for a good little while, but Dave stopped listening to the words. That wasn’t the important part. Instead he clung to her voice. The energy, the enthusiasm. It had been gone for years now. Ever since she’d evolved, there had been something off about her. This was it. The cheer. And here it was back.

His daughter was happy again.

Dave revelled in it as she spoke. And when she finally finished, drawing for air to replace all of it she’d just displaced while talking, Dave found himself at a loss for words. For once.

It was a good thing Jean couldn’t hear him cry through the phone.

[baabybern]

Moving forward

Some may say, that talking about moving forward kind of defeats the purpose of the action itself. But for some it’s a therapeutic way of getting out of your mind rather than just keeping it inside. There’s a guy that I used to go crazy for. No, not my 3 year relationship. I don’t even know if my ex still looks at my tumblr, but hey if he does, i hope he knows that he was the best relationship I’ve ever had and I’m saying I’m so sorry for it ending the way it did. I can still feel a sense of pettiness lingering on him, and it sucks but there’s not much I can do about it other than accept it for what it is. 

How is it that I can get over a 3 year relationship that fucking quick rather than a fling that happened for maybe 6 months tops. It’s crazy how someone can take your soul and just crush it right in front of you, lie to you, and feel no ways about parting with you as if it was all just meant to end. The worst part is that you actually believe them. They’re so deceiving to the point where you really truly believe that you mean something to them. 

I can continue to sit here and cry about it, believe me it’s been almost 2 months now. They say it takes about 3 months to get over someone on average. For my first serious relationship that took almost half a year. So I find that statistic to be utter bullshit, but then again, it’s just a statistic. You can constantly search up the amount of things to try to help you get over someone and some of it may work. However, it really is up to you on how and when to get over things and it’s not really up for a debate; which of course sucks but it’s out of anyones control.

If anyone has ever met someone who is your dream come to life, you will know exactly what I’m feeling. You first see them, and your eyes haven’t laid on anything quite gorgeous before. You first hear their voice and you find it’s a soft melody escaping the lips that you desire to lay yours upon. I don’t know if anyones ever felt the same as me on this, but when I first met him, I had this strange feeling that he was going to ruin my life. But I let him in anyways, and now the damage was far more destructive than I could have imagined. 

There were so many things left unsaid the last time we spoke. About how it was essentially my fault that we ended up not being together. You fronted as if you had no control over the problem. You fronted as if I was the one who made it all happen. You honestly made me feel bad for falling for you in the first place. You justified your actions but mine were made to look like it wasn’t valid. Don’t you remember we were on the same boat at the same time? Remember when I was the first one you would hit up and end your day with? Remember when I was your first choice for a girlfriend? 

I would have taken care of you, I spent much more money on you than her, not that it should be a factor, but you named that off as a reason to be with her, I remember quite clearly how you explained it. You were about to ditch her for me again, but I guess the guilt got to you. I honestly did want to meet her, I wanted to get to know the girl who makes my best friend happy. But I asked you if she made you happy in person, and you said it was whatever. Then you switched up and said she made you the happiest. 

After that switch up, I thought long and hard about everything else that you said to me. I had to learn the hard way to fall for actions and not for words. I understand you were hurt, I understand she fucked you up, but that’s never a reason to destroy a soul. Especially a soul who was there for you through everything, who took care of you, and who became your best friend. But I guess your girlfriend who hates my guts was more important than your best friend who just wanted peace. 

I could name off all of these reasons why I would have been the best girlfriend you’ve ever had, but it’s not gonna change anything. You tell me to not dwell on the past how could I not? You wanted a future with me, you said so yourself. We had plans, you said I was the one that you cared about the most, loved the most, and made you the happiest. You wanted to give me something that my ex couldn’t and didn’t want. But the fact that you lied about that too, makes me question everything. My life knowing you has been a lie. But if it weren’t for you, my life would be so different. Maybe one day, things will fall into place, I told you I don’t care about the sex, I don’t even care for the relationship, all I wanted was my best friend back, and you couldn’t even give me that. 

How is this moving forward you might ask. Well, talking about it is one thing, coming to terms with it is another. I wish I had a talk with you, like a proper one, but you’re too busy now. But that’s the thing, nobody is ever too busy, it’s all about priorities. Once I realized I wasn’t a priority anymore, it was kind of a nice epiphany. Another thing I’ve come to terms with is how much money you owe me. You owe me almost a credit card limit. Like, almost if not $1000. You said you would pay me back by getting a telly and getting bare drugs. You said you couldn’t do that anymore which is completely understandable. However, I still don’t have that money back from you. It’s been two months. 

But I realized if me spending all of that money made me a good friend and maybe even saved your life in one way shape or form, then that’s all I could ever ask back for. It was my choice to spend that money, I knew you weren’t going to force me to use it anyways. Even the piff. Piff was meant to be shared and I was going to give you some of that anyways. Even if you did smoke it with her, I’m glad it all went to good use. 

The hardest thing to come to terms with was how you lied about how you felt about me. How can you stare into the windows of my soul and lie to it. I couldn’t look at you, you were too good for me, I truly didn’t feel worthy to look into your eyes. Once I did, I couldn’t stop looking. It’s like i bestowed upon the most beautiful creature; little did I know you turned out to be a monster. The worst kind of monster. Take a jellyfish for example, so beautiful once you’ve laid eyes on it, but it’s also the deadliest thing upon a simple touch. Once this jellyfish drained out all of my love, it left me there to fend for myself, no warning, no nothing. 

Maybe you didn’t lie to me though. Maybe what you said to me was 100% true, just in the moment. I remember now you tend to say a lot of things you don’t mean when you’re angry. Maybe it’s the same way when you’re infatuated. Yes I said infatuated, because nobody would leave someone they love out to dry and never return. I swear we were the same. I swear you and I would’ve been the best couple. Even you said you saw us living together and being happy. You changed goals, and now I have to change mine. 

At some point, you meant everything to me. No matter what you did, I always saw you as perfect. You couldn’t do anything wrong in my eyes. Whatever you did was always justifiable, but this time you explaining yourself was just so incredibly wrong and one sided, now I see you for your true colours. You were not at all what I thought you were and that’s completely my fault. I expected way too much from someone who was broken and lost and just wanted to make everyone happy. Though I’m being honest, you made me afraid to love again. 

But you were absolutely right on needing to focus on myself. Who am I to keep dwelling on this if I don’t move forward. Just pathetic. I know it’s still going to take time, but I’m coping. Before, I was asked if you came back in my life, and asked me to be your girlfriend would I say yes. Before, my answer would have been “In a heartbeat”. But now, I’m not sure. I don’t even know. Would I want you back in my life? I haven’t burned any bridges, but I did walk away from it after wishing you a happy birthday and not getting a response back. I think it would hurt being your girlfriend. But then again, what would I know about that?

I recently had dreams of you, one good one bad. the bad one came first, it was me living with you, but she was living with us too. She was talking bare shit to me and you were just lying in bed with her laughing at me while she was talking. The other dream however, was us chilling again, like old times and how well you and I clicked, and that you paid me back for all the things that you owed me. I don’t know what to think of you anymore. I haven’t seen you recently to even judge what you’re truly like anymore.

I hate that me slightly hating you is the only way to get over you. Now it’s honestly such a shame to say that you’re someone i used to know. I hate speaking in that tense where you became a part of my past life but like I said, I didn’t burn the bridge but just simply walked away from it. You were the realest person Ive ever met. You checked me, but I checked you too. We had the same thoughts, dealt with the same bullshit, paid loyalty where it’s due.

I’ve always hated goodbyes, that to me just means that you won’t see them anymore, and then people will forget. I won’t forget you though. You showed me how to have sex (God bless you on that), you showed me how to not be so defensive, you showed me the true meaning of friendship, and you showed me good music. I never forget people that showed me good music. 

UPDATE (Wednesday June 28th 2017):

I got a message from you around 3 weeks ago. I remember freaking out because I literally didn’t expect anything from you. It was around the same time I made this text post; possibly a few days later. I saw a notification in my instagram inbox, thinking oh it’s probably my friend getting back to me bout some shit, or maybe it was another friend who sent me a funny meme. None of the above, it was you. I remember the mixed emotions that were running wild through my mind. Happy because I thought you figured out she’s not the one for you, sad because I feel like you hit up everyone else you used to talk to, and mad because you destroyed my trust and you think saying sorry once over instagram is enough. 

It was all too much to think about in the moment but one simple thought ruled my mind: I just needed to see you again. I needed to figure out what I needed to say to you and since I had no idea what to say, I just knew that right when i meet up with you, everything will just fall into place. You talked about how you weren’t happy again. I knew it. I knew you couldn’t stand to be with her. But what tipped me off was how you feel bad if you break up with her just because she bought you a fuckin ipad for your birthday. 

There are two age old rules that should’ve been embedded in your mind: 

1. Money can’t buy you happiness

2. All that glitters is not gold

Honestly, talking to you again felt nice. It reminded me of why you were my best friend, funny how I almost forgot. You asked me about my life and I asked you about yours. You complained about everything, how guys would send her dick pics, how she gives you so much bullshit. But you don’t break up with her unless you have solid proof that she’s cheating on you. But why should that be the deal breaker? If you’re not happy then fuckin end it, it’s black or white. 

But at the same time, if you honestly truly cared about me, you wouldn’t block me on everything, you woulda checked your bitch and kept our friendship alive. But since you didn’t do any of that, I guess I’d have to say it’s black or white, right? You didn’t care about me, and I guess you just confirmed it. One thing I know for sure is true, is that you didn’t speak to anyone else other than me, because “seaweed” never mentioned you. 

I know because I would be hearing about it for days. Y’know everytime i chill with her, she never fails to mention you once. And I said I felt like her in the skype messages because I felt like I was in the dark about everything. You stopped talking to her for a week before breaking it with her, and you stopped talking to me for about 2 or 3 weeks before telling me your situation without listening to mine. I just felt like someone who was just around for you. You say to not over think, but it’s kind of hard not to when you’re not fully explaining everything to me and i just have to play a fucking guessing game by myself; thus figuring out every possible outcome without someone there to give me a concrete, definite answer. 

However at the same time, you being unresponsive and ignorant is also an answer. That I shouldn’t have wasted my time on someone who was just gonna do me so dirty.

However, this isn’t a goodbye, this isn’t a farewell. I don’t expect any sort of communication from you anytime soon.

But it was nice meeting you; I hope to see you again sometime.

[nerdygardenercupcake]

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[altermidgard]

Great Expectation - Pokemon Proposal

When I get asked to create something, for the most part, I tend to assume its because the person asking has some idea in their head they want realised, a cool concept they can't quite bring to life by themselves perhaps or a thought they need solidifying. This can take you on fun and interesting journeys but once you have taken on the mission you start to realise there are expectations beyond those set out in the brief you must also meet, expectations that come from ingrained cultural trends, expectations people aren’t even aware they have since they are subconscious but if you were to leave them out they would know there was something missing.

Today's story is one of meeting expectations, working digitally, and getting a rhino to sit.

So whats the brief?

Two Pokemon: A Drowzee is proposing to a Rhyhorn. The style should be more like the early anime than the modern designs. Two clear expectations then. The first a conscious desire to replicate a particular look, 1995 era cartoons in this case. The second the unconscious expectation of what a proposal should look like. Lets take them in order. Here's the finalised background. Why have I painted the whole thing rather than only the areas that will be viable? That's not really the right question. It should be. How would they have produced backgrounds back when they still used cells and paint?

Your going to have several layers of clear film. The top most layer is going to have the character on it, you could decided that on the lowest layer where your background will be painting the bits that are under the characters would be a waste of time, I mean no one will ever see them right?. Or you could look at it the other way. Why add back in the areas the character moves away from when you can draw the whole background once.

Well its the same thing with digital. Most drawing programs have layers, if i'm going to get that old fashioned feel I might as well take advantage of them. More importantly it means that if I decide to modify the figures in some way, make them smaller or move them about for example I'm not going to have to keep going back in and fixing the background,

The colour pallet for this piece is a bit of a mix. I've made sure to choose colours that match those the characters would have been originally but the background takes most of its cues from modern digital pallet. Did you know that when the show switched from analog to digital colour the staff were worried the fans wouldn’t accept the change? So worried in fact that they deliberately damaged the image quality with special filters. Over time they reduced the effect so by the time they removed it the audience had acclimatised to the new look. I mention this because while the brief was to create an old school feel the human brain is a fickle thing. They’ve been using the digital colours for over a decade now, colours which would have been chosen based on the paints they originally used. Subconsciously these are the colours you expect to see, the originals are the ones that wont look quite right. For another example go back and watch an early versions of the Simpsons, are those the colours you associate with the show?

Background painted its time to release the Pokemon.

…

Have you ever seen a rhino sit down? I can't say I ever remember having done so either but luckily for me they can because I needed Ryhorn's front legs free.

Have you ever seen someone propose? That's more likely to be a yes but even if you haven’t I bet you can imagine the scene.

What did you imagine?

The man down on one knee holding out the ring? The woman with a look of surprise, hands moving subconsciously to protect her face or cover her mouth?

Yeah you and everyone else.

So that’s the scene that's expected but how do we do that with one monster who doesn’t really have knees and another that stands on four legs?

We take liberties that's how, the pose is more important than fake creatures anatomy. At least that’s what i thought until i started looking up reference material and found rhinos can sit down in a pose that's much like that of a teddy bear.

That frees up the front end now on to Drowzee.

The designs of Pokemon have evolved over the years. Pikachu is the most obvious example starting out pudgy he's slimmed down considerably. Luckily for me Drowzee hasn’t undergone quite as radical a change. He doesn’t really have knees in the original but we can use grass to disguise that we have added some. It's a bit like those images where circles and other shapes obscure parts making your brain fill in the gaps with what it expects to see. More important is to fet the face right he used to have a more pronounced curve in his nose.

I'm painting the characters in a very similar way to  how they would have done back in the day. I create the lines then move on to painting the blocks of colour. It's just I've done the lines in a vector drawing program so they scale to any size without loss of detail and I'm painting with colours that have an undo function if I mess anything up. I could have done the colouring in vectors too but to avoid too crisp and modern a look I decided it was best to stick with old fashioned pixels.

As for the choice of colours for the Mon's. This time I will be pulling from the originals, they aren’t all that different to be honest perhaps a tad warmer, it's more that there used to be more variation between scene and episodes because of noise on the film.

Thats actually the last piece of the puzzle. Once I've got the image finalised I'm going to want to add blur and noise to create that feel. Not too much though we don’t want to lose the detail. The filters that do this have been around almost as long as the drawing programs themselves, its certainly quicker than trying to get the same look using paper (Since, you know we are trying to imitate film)

Putting it all together the last expectation I need to meet is that this image might end up being used elsewhere. What if they want to use it as a wedding invite or on their website? If thats the case the text should really use a fancy curly font. A clean white boarder would also seem appropriate but a square image seems a tad uninspired.

To keep things interesting I go for a non standard edge to the image, making the white background feel more connected to the image by turning it into the silhouette of foreground grass and the edges of the trees This phase is really where working digitally saves time and opens up options. With access to almost limitless numbers of fonts (Don’t go to crazy) theres bound to be one that suits your project. Not only that but you can move them around and resize things until you get everything just right, I don’t envy the designers who used to have to build magazine layouts by hand.

When you think your finished you send it to them and hope you met all the expectations you needed to cover. Digitally, via email or message obviously. If you haven’t, well you have your file still, its easy enough to make changes.

Like I did to this post's introduction. Originally I was going to concentrate on the working digitally side of things. By the end it was obvious it wouldn’t have met that expectation.

Thais all for today.. expect a more analog related post in the future.