#theyre programmed like background characters

[peachducy]

If it is okay to ask, what brushes would you use when it comes to drawing in the Professor Layton Artstyle?

Hi!! if you mean for sprites like these:

then i just use the basic lineart pen that can probably be found on any art program. for csp it's the G-pen and my settings look like this:

i set the pen pressure to a lower range just to have more consistency

if you mean for the box art style like this:

then i still use the G-pen for the lineart, but i use the basic default round brush which can again be found on any art program for the shading, for csp i used this:

more in depth tutorial for the box art style below, i guess?

obviously start with references, i was picturing diabolical box in my mind so i used that as my main inspo but i also had all the other box arts up, was definitely also thinking of last specters art

(note: weirdly the 3ds titles go from soft shading to hard shading? not sure why but i was going for the soft one personally)

anyway, after that i went into compositional thunbnail, sketch, then lineart, fairly basic, i would show you what these looked like but im running out of space for images. the main thing to make it look "layton style" is to have a good grasp of the characters and shapes and how they move which is not something i can teach you in one Tumblr post i have just spent a lot of time staring at layton arts

also for your compositional sketch be sure to include where youre gonna put the logo because i forgot to !!!!!!!!

for the base colours i just used the colours from their official arts, its much easier than trying to figure out how to keep their palletes later

my layers here looked like this (but turned on obviously) the first few are an overlay on battler & co. to make them more orange to fit the tone of the art, and a multiply layer for both descole and beato since theyre more in the background. theres also a black gradient around battler & co. to make the transition into beato less jarring

from there is the lighting, i just used a yellow overlay layer for the light and a greyish brown multiply layer for the shadows

deceptively simple! the whole process probably took me about 1hr and 30 mins maybe

[opal-owl-flight]

I SAID I WAS GONNA WORK ON SOME ANGST CONCEPTS AND THEN. I WAS GRANTED A GODDAMN VISION OF SPLOON4 IN MY SLEEP. HIGHLY DOUBT ANY OF THIS WILL HAPPEN AND FRANKLY IM NOT A FAN OF SOME OF THESE CONCEPTS BUT HEY. GOTTA DRAW AND WRITE WHAT I CAN.

The trailer had quite the focus on new hairstyles, but our main squid is sporting classic 3s for some reason. They also made it a big selling point to "put your sparkle on!" -- the squid's tentacles are as shiny as the ink you have in Sploon2's hero mode.

Actually, Im not sure theyre a squid.

A lot of the tutorial/trailer text shows salmonid icons. Granted, theyre...salmonid with rocking hairstyles and different colors (not just green and grey.)

The character finally turns around tk sjow us her face and...

She doesnt exactlt have an eyemask. She has bags under her eyes and her ears and top half of her face are darkened (similarly to how I color in my inkfish). Smile a set a SHARP teeth.

Jumpcut to where this...creatura is going. She was at first in a warm canyon of sorts, but it transitions to a cold area. Gives Alterna vibes. Except its completely revamped and the vibe is now one of Las Vegas with all the shining lights and rides and shit. Festive (like. Anarchy rainbow almost) plays everywhere. Hell, Frye's in here too! With a new hairstyle and clothes. I cant remember much of that....

Trailer moves to show the maps. A lot of it is in this cold environment. As if...as if the world has frozen over, instead of warminh up. And everyone had bundled up for warmth. "The world is ending but its bc its an ice age" and yet the damn inkfish (?) Were sporting military style gear.

There was also a lot of Octarian tech in the maps (moving floating platforms, octotroopers moving around the background or ARE the moving platforms...think that toaster boss), and there are salmomid also just vibing in places.

The story mode is hinting at the mysteries of the flooze and humanity.

And...Whys this majorly Octarian nation freezjng over? Is it bc they dont have a zapfish again? No, not really. Theyre starting out with a new energy source that they discovered while digging around human ruins: geothermal power.

They havent mastered it yet. Not at all. But its better than begging Inkadia for help

Oh, and. The Flooze.

The trailer implies quite heavily that this is a new Alterna, or an Octarian + Salmonid majority living in Alterna. And the new creatura in the trailer is a salmonid who gained humanoid form bc she touched the flooze.

Then the logo of tbe game, yadda yadda.

The dream also had a lot of pro players analyzing the maps. Bc moving platforms on maps arent that common a sight, from what I know. Like, platforms thar move on their own and not pushed by players (like the ones in Lemuria hub, or Wahoo, etc)

OKAY THATS IT LMAO THATS ALL I CAN REMEMBER. GOOD DAY INKOPOLIS ITS TIME TO RETURN TO YOUR REGULAR PROGRAM OF SQUIDS IN THE BLENDER

[rileyclaw]

Hii! First off i just want to I'm such a big fan of your art and animatics! Your art is just so expressive and unique its addicting to look at 💞💞

I was wondering if you could go over how your process or tutorial in making an animatic? Whenever I try to start to make one, I get jumbled up and end up ditching it lol

I'm sorry if you get this question a lot 😭

So sorry it took me so long to answer this- I was in a Busy time (diseaseridden with covid and being punched by finals) when I got the ask and wanted to answer it with some stuff Im using for my next TOH animatic!!

I'll say one thing first: I get jumbled up and ditch so many animatics. For every one animatic I release, there are three to five more I have that have NEVER seen the light of day (yet). And that's okay!! It's fun just to make them for me, and I hope it is for you too!! Animatics are scary because if you're working on it alone, it can be really hard to be your own cheerleader to keep up the mojo to keep going. So that makes it really special when there is that project that makes it to the finish line- cuz you can look at it and go "holy crap I made this. holy crap i MADE that look how SICK that is dude!! all that work and look at the turnout!!"

The following stuffh is just my personal process and is by no means representative of a professional animation pipeline, but this works for me as a Lonely Artist! It all begins with the idea - whether it's a song, or just a story you wanna tell. In the case of the one I'm gonna demo here with , I wanted to animate Hunter's first day as Del's apprentice!

The first thing I did was write a script. Not fancy or AO3-quality, but enough that I understand the pacing and the visuals of each shot. I usually just put this in a doc or put it in a script format, if I feel fancy.

Then, I take that script and find music that I think would fit for it- and remix it (if needed) to fit the pacing/mood/etc! This is what this new animatic looked like before I began ANY artwork- this is a me thing because I'm super inspired by audio as opposed to visuals first. But you might be different- this is just how I like working personally!

Then begins the research! I find references for characters, background layouts, and create a style guide for the animatic that tells me how thick lines will be for characters, backgrounds, if there'll be tons of value or no. I make a turnaround for each character so I can refer to them because Im gonna be drawing them over and over a LOT and want to be consistent! Luckily TOH has no shortage of references, so I based my work off them.

THEN, I can begin drawing. I'm a little,,, (a lot) ADHD and may not always do this process, but if you're new to animatics or daunted by the task at hand, make beat boards of the entire project.

This is just a page of rough thumbnails that get your visual idea down - look how rough and quick these are!! I try not to spend over a minute on each beat board if I dont have to, unless it's a particularly complex shot.

When it gets to the stage where you're ready to begin the actual scenes, I personally tend to do backgrounds first because I like to set characters into backgrounds - and for every animatic, I have the Awkward Blue Sketch Stage which is basically my beat boards timed out as an animatic.

I used Storyboard Pro for this (Toonboom, not free ): icky), but the process can be replicated across most art platforms in whichever way you feel most comfy with! This is so I can time the drawings before I devote time cleaning them up-- which can make for some Pretty Funny looking little guys but theyre important!! trust!!

Once a big sequence of shots is cleaned up (I usually do 40-60 second chunks at a time), I export the .mov and send it to my editing program (which in this case is still Premiere Pro) - and then repeat this process again and again until.. it's done??

Here's like a TL;DR list of basically everything I said summed up:

• Make a loose script or bulletin of the idea! Do your research!

• Depending on what kind of animatic you're making, time it to music!

• Make a beat board of very loose gestures for your shots, and time them - then move on to refinement & cleanup!

• Combine all shots, refine music cues and timings, add any last needed VFX, and export!

There's no secret recipe or anything, it's just learning a pipeline that best suits you, whether it is for something professional or something you want to make for fun because you just love to make!!

[sophaeros]

Just need more fab/nick fics like for some reason I ship them so hard like that one interview where it describes them as a comedy duo or something

BRO FOR REAL. fabnick is a happier place than casamond honestly theyre so besties forever. in rock & folk 2011 iirc nick says he and fab hung out almost every day in the years between fioe and angles 💔💔💔💔💔 not to mention nick taking so many photos of fab during early tours that people called him nick's muse IM SICK im sure theres a compilation of pics nick has taken of fab somewhere in my fabnick tag. if not i might make one sometime this week

my friends and i actually do have some fabnick aus..current favourite is the good ol college au with fine arts major fab (i just realised he went straight for a sculpture specialty irl but i think it might suit his character arc more to not specialise in anything yet? tbc) and photography major nick modelling for each other's projects 😋 fab didnt even have a project due he just panicked and lied so he could hang out with nick more

in this au they only meet in college. nikolai decided to go to this one specific college known for its arts programs for english literature, julian followed him to stay close to him and went for political science (stroke of genius on my part if u ask me it's so funny. hes the only non-arts student in their group and extremely annoying in seminars), and nick followed julian. fab and nikolai are roommates and nikolai introduces him to the other two whereupon fab gets a crush Immediately. meanwhile in the background of fab and nick's meet cute albert and julian are roommates again and having their domestic drama love story. oh and nick's roommate is ryan BSJFJSN i think hes a business major lmfao

this became less about fabnick than i intended oops. hope my mutuals dont mind me sharing this au we were talking about i really wanna draw or write something for it bc it's sooo cuteeee. learning how to value yourself for who you are and that youre deserving of unconditional love via seeing yourself lovingly rendered by someone who loves you. the slope of your nose in clay or the unconscious turn of your body in a candid photograph. that one james baldwin misquote the role of the lover is exactly the same as the artist. if i love you i must make you aware of the parts you do not see.

[grox]

i must inquire, thoughts on the happyman finale?

You know, maybe its the 13 years of waiting in me speaking, but it was honestly underwhelming. The original music in it was a bit lackluster and I think he knew this which is why it featured so many callbacks to past scenes, which I don't mind! It is a finale, its all about remembering and remeniscening. The songs they changed to sing again were great, it was awesome to finally be able to hear every character together, I loved old fingerheads little special guest apoearence, but like, idk. It did feel like ryan dorins kinda just like, okay I gotta do something about this. and I do hold the happyman opera very very near and dear to my heart so I can't possibly hate it. But it did feel weak. I am happy with it overall, I just wish it hadn't simmered for so long. Especially with like, how potent the ending of scene 17 was.

What I'm most excited for is the fact that the backgrounds are the way they are! Years ago he said the program used to make them broke or something when he got a new computer and so he's been unable to make them for wuite some time, but theyre here, which means he either gor a new old computer, or the program itsself hss been remade to work on new computers. Both are awesome because the backgrounds in happyman hsve always captivated me and I really hope now that he has it back he keeps making little 2D animations with it, especially now that theyre able to be seen in higher definitions.

[kaistrashbin]

Hey-!! I noticed that @donnabenevientosimpingzone did a cool sketch of your Magic Professor Donna AU, and you’ve been loving their stuff on Bernadette and Claudia- so!! What would the Beneviento sisters be like in the Magic Prof AU?

Hello! OH YEAH

God I loved that sketch so much, SHE JUST LOOKS SOOOOOO ARRRRRRRR i'm LIVING for it. And yes, I love their Beneviento sisters so so muchhhh

Ok so since Bernadette is a psychologist I think it makes sense that she'd be good with psychic based magic(i'm looking at a wiki while writing this cause I honestly don't know too much about this lolol) so things like divination, dream magic, telepathy, telekinesis, illusions etc. For her honestly, my first thought was that she'd be really good with illusions and i'm leaning heavily in that direction. Perhaps not as the only thing she does, but one that she has more expertise in or is a more in depth subject covered in her course.

As for Claudia, then I would see her as the professor of healing magic instead of Moreau. I'd imagine her and Donna would work together a lot as Donna deals with plants. That or perhaps she'd be like the school nurse, i'm sure there are MANY students who either get hurt often and need a trip to the infirmary, or that there's enough students to have a program for students to help out lolol. Though perhaps she could do both, who knows.

I like the idea of them being in the AU but with the story I have in mind, they would be side characters that are a lil more in the background(where pancake's Beneviento sisters seem so close you see their bond much more. Theyre a tight knit little family, so you see them together a lot). At least for now. I may try to develop their involvement further but I make no promises! XD

[eeveekitti]

hi. hi . hi . i made a warrior cats fan game on scratch when i was young. seeing u post about making one activated all of my childhood programming memories so PRO TIPS FOR FREE

(disclaimer: there are probably other ways of doing these things these r just the ones i came up with lol)

make 2 separate sprites for the standing and walking. the walking sprite should be constantly cycling through its frames. pick one of them to contain the movement code (i always preferred the standing sprite for this) and set the other to always match its position.

then, when an arrow key is pressed, hide the standing sprite and show the walking sprite, and vice versa when released.

thats how i fixed the 'press button for 1 millisecond and sprite has to cycle thru all 8 frames before returning to standing animation' problem

you can extrapolate this logic into an arbitrary number of sprites for separate animations, though you can also include one or more non-looping animations within the standing sprite to save space. as long as your walking sprite is kept separate the player will have instant feedback when they start and stop moving which will rid you of most animation jank.

i dont know if you want any platforming functionality, but if you do:

use separate sprites for the terrain art and terrain hitbox!! it gives you more freedom. (to make a hitbox, you just gotta turn the sprite invisible.)

i also had separate wall detection and floor detection hitboxes to allow the character to do things like walk up inclines. set the wall hitbox to be a little bit off the ground, then if you detect floor but no wall, move the character upward. be warned, you have to make the wall hitbox cover both the front and the back! if the player turns their character backwards while up against a wall, they will be able to glitch up it.

also Do not map the interact button to the same key as advance dialogue. the player Will accidentally skip the first page of dialogue. (also include a slight delay before theyre able to advance to the next page, but not too long or getting out of dialog boxes will become hell)

anyway yeah hope aany of those r helpful GOOD LUCK WITH UR SCRATCH GAME

OOH THAT IS A LOT THANK YOU FOR THE PRO TIPS DSNFJSD?? /POS

i would say more but it is almost 1am i'm going to bed soon but these r really cool actually!! i didn't know a good chunk tbh my knowledge of coding a scratch game extends to the basics of character movement, talking, and making dens work [barely though] [i had a bug where a different background + the cats in it were in the apprentices den for some reason] [i still dont know why and cannot be bothered to figure it out]

[lemoneychicken]

Give us the hazbin hotel shitty cosplay dance breakdown king, the world needs to know

okay <3

one major reason that it looks so strange is because im 90% sure that they are trying to replicate shots from the music video. ive never seen it myself but ive seen screenshots from ppl memeing on it, and judging on their posing an how many cuts there are, i think thats a pretty safe assumption. they arent technically pulling off the actual dance moves incorrectly but because they are attempting to mimic the movements of a highly stylized animated character its going to look weird regardless- especially the shots with them lying on the ground. sometimes you just cant replicate the vibe of an animated movement with a real person, especially with dance moves that arent... really dance moves.

another detail (or lack thereof) is the backdrop. while the idea of using a bg from the media youre cosplaying could work in the right context, its certainly not a good fit for that cosplayer dancing. the background is barely shaded, making it all look very flat and empty. their dance moves on the imaginary stripper pole specifically feel so much more awkward because of this- its incredibly clear they are in a fake environment yet they clearly intend for us to take that video seriously.

lastly, an this also ties into the backdrop, is how plain it all looks. music videos are flashy, with a song like that youd expect dramatic neon lights! but theres flat lighting on themselves, and zero lighting on the background. (i know that theyre some some cosplayer with a phone but they could use the same editing program they used to key in the background)

its so lifeless and the lack of lighting + the vacant backdrop png make their quote unquote dance moves look even worse, and they all mix together to remid you that thats just someone alone in their bedroom swinging their legs around thinking theyre hot shit

....sorry to get a bit mean at the end there. anyways, thats why i think its not the greatest to look at

[gwenthebard]

THESE TAGS:

Because also like, theyre ruling now that ai art cant be copyrighted

You cant easily replicate characters or creatures in different scenes

It requires a constant stream of unguarded real art, while being easily corrupted by people using programs to protect their art or it cannibalising other ai art

For ttrpgs its basically useless for getting quality. You can have *a* supplement or two use it, but what happens when youve made an iconic character and want to see them somewhere else? What happens when you want to have one your monsters in a scene? It can only be used for small single use pictures, and I doubt youre paying a real artist for other things, so the game will never have a consistent feel or connection

For novels? The cover cant be copyrighted. How do you protect other people from using your cover art for their books? How do you make it seem apart from the ai art people post regularly on reddit and the like?

Movies and tv shows, animated or not, what precedent do you potentially set up if your backgrounds and character designs cant be copyrighted, or look cheap and generic?

Reblog to kill it faster

[windtempos]

the operatives: comprehensive 600 word summary

ok im gonna make this as casual and concise as possible so i dont sound insane. all character information available here once youre done with this

their present-day world is more or less the same as ours, only with furthered efforts in bionics and science at large. the operatives are a team of individuals who work with a cybernetics institute to handle particularly dangerous/violent situations in LA. any place where having a high pain tolerance/steady robot hands/mechanically enhanced agility/etc would be both helpful and necessary to make sure people Do Not Die. there are five main operatives in the story— adya, reese, colby, zion, and nate— as well as two mercenaries, caelius and kiana.

adya is the world’s first successfully uploaded human consciousness into a bionic body (aka a mind transfer), giving her some celebrity status in the science world. she is a natural leader and an honest person, but also stubborn and worried about what others think of her.

reese is a combat specialist who, with the help of her friends, is removed from a job that is actively brainwashing her into Doing A Lot Of Crime. adya’s girlfriend. she is focused and curious, but also distrusting.

colby is a sharpshooter with a background in mercenary work, as well as the reason reese was rescued from her job. she is clever and laidback, but also loyal to a fault and unwilling to open up.

zion receives bionic replacements for all four limbs after he loses most of them to cancer. he is incredibly gentle and level-headed, but also naive and often too trusting.

nate is adya’s mentor when she first becomes an operative. he is easy to talk to and a humble leader, but also self-destructive with a savior complex.

caelius is also a mind transfer, only her procedure had terrible complications. naturally, she resents adya for a long time, and jumps at the opportunity to go after her when hired by an anonymous client. she is loyal and fearless, but also A Terrible Bitch.

kiana is caelius’s partner in crime. trading in cage fighting for mercenary work, she is skilled in computer science and bionics programming. she is a good liar and can throw a good punch, but also controlling and combative.

that’s mostly it :] they all have different little details/side stories but this is the general gist of it. more fun facts that are not necessary but i like them ⬇️

adya fucking sucks at video games. it doesnt matter that she has a robot brain. she is terrible at them

caelius’s birth name is ashlyn mercy and she grows up in las vegas. she and her best friend both allegedly die (and then survive) in sudden freak accidents with little conclusive explanation given to the public. if i had a nickel

nate’s old roommate is one of colby’s exes. colby lives in her ex’s old apartment bedroom. very weird thing that would only ever happen to a lesbian

zion and reese both have “house arms” aka a set of very simple, endoskeletal bionic arms that are basically just for picking up utensils and turning on the faucet and stuff. their real arms are complex and combat-built

there is a big industry for black market bionics, since they have to be registered and regulated by the government. caelius’s enhancements and kiana’s bionic arm are both illegal and theyre often involved in deals related to black market bionics

colby and caelius are motorcycle girls. theyre not really friends but they will go to car/bike shows together LOL

they were all created in the form of a really shitty screenplay i wrote when i was 17

ok thanks love you bye

[13daze]

no im still mad actually. incoherent solomon ranting below

all the cast take morally ambiguous if not downright Wrong actions. more than half of them are demons. theres lucifers extreme punishments, mammon remorseless theft and general moneygrubbing crimes, satan casually talking about murder like its at best something to show off about and otherwise just a regular thing, asmo starting wars for the fun of it... ALL YOUR FAVES ARE PROBLEMATIC THATS THE POINT. diavolo let lesson 16 happen! belphies only locked in the attic to protect him from diavolo! simeons even got his own fucked up background bullshit going on. and out of ALL that, SOLOMON is the one that cant be counted on? every single one of the characters would end worlds for mc regardless of their interpersonal relationships with each other. theyre doing their own thing, theyve got their own motivations, thats NORMAL and solomon as a human and an incredibly strong one without the connections mc themself has made over the course of the game with everyone - of course theres some conflict there, of course the demons think hes suspicious. they moved past that long ago. in universe solomons pact-making attempts are only as reprehensible as quite literally anything else any of the brothers do. if we are supposed to ignore and even embrace that (as we SHOULD) why is solomon the exception? why is he still "suspicious"? demons angels and humans arent all that different, that was the core concept of the exchange program. the demons constantly call themselves demonic and say its only natural they act the way they do - and the point is that sure but theyre not the ONLY ones who do that. we had the celestial realm set up as an antagonist for fucks sake.

but you take away all that, take away angels and demons and great wars and you leave only the immortal human behind, ignoring how his character is shaped by his interactions with all three worlds and beyond, ignoring that hes the only human immortal we know of, and you want to apply human morals to him. you want to call his pact with asmo unfair because he scammed him into it, as if thats not the thing demons would hold in highest regard. as if asmo himself doesnt respect that.

literally just. i think solomon,

[sillybillygirlinher20s]

pls.. lol i do not wana go back 2 work yet😰😬 the hospital ddnt even call me back yet like. idk if i can pretend to b a stable person being a server and talking to ppl and shit

[rozugold]

Ask game: 1, 2, 4, 7, 11, 13!

1. Art programs you have but don't use

Ibis paint, i used to use it to blur backgrounds but not anymore

7. A medium of art you don't work in but appreciate

TRADITIONAL WATERCOLOR and whatever that chocolate guy is up to

11. Do you listen to anything while drawing? If so, what

Mostly podcasts (like trash taste) or old livestreams (either techno and wilbur vods or osp vods) i only listen to music when i livestream but if i do it alone i end up imagining animatics and thinking about characters and never get anything done sjdhdj

13. A creator who you admire but whose work isn't your thing

DICE shimi’s and Shyshui’s animations!! Theyre so freakin cool but i could never imagine making something like that sjshsjk

[dahniwitchoflight]

So as long as im going on for changes to KH that I think make sense

Let's actually make Re:Coded do something important and relevant, shall we?

So post KH2:

Disney gang parts ways with Destiny gang and heads back to Disney Castle. As they discuss their journeys, Jiminy notices strange new entries in the journal that he didnt write, and they digitize it into a data world to explore it, summoning data sora as usual.

However, instead of retreading kh1 disney worlds stories for the bajillionth useless time, the strange new additions to the journal are about exploring pieces and perspectives or memories that Sora didnt have at the time or that he forgot, OR even spicier, didnt belong to Sora in the first place.

Instead the major focus is on the memories and stories and memories that Namine and Riku went through together between CoM, Days and KH2.

They didnt go to Disney worlds really so its shorter compact story, kh stuff only, despite covering 3 games ish. New story content basically coming from what the novels said Riku and Namine were up to during those times which are basically mostly canon already, with a sprinkling of attempts at Xion reconnection, not enough to fully fix that, but to at least become aware that theres a Xion shaped hole in everyones hearts, to be aware that theres someone still missing from the bigger picture, to feel that loss.

But the purpose of Mickey and Data Sora exploring the new data and working through the bugs is basically the same as it was. 

For Sora to Remember the hidden hurts of the Lost, Namine, Roxas and Xion and accept that hurt. Remembering their stories, accepting their pain, AND: seeing new perspectives on DiZ/Ansem the Wise/Discovering that DiZ hid research deep inside of Sora that can be used to help them all revive one day.

With a projection of Namine being the initiator of the story, the one who managed to create an access point between hers and Riku's memories and the journal, bonus of being a better explanation for why the Journal which should be Sora's memories was changed to look like Riku instead. Because Namine put Riku's memories into the journal.

The bugs in the data represent the disconnects between those chains of memories that Namine needed help reconciling together, the incompatibilities between Soras memories of CoM and Namine and Rikus. And everyone's dissonant memories of Roxas and Xion. In a data form in a data world the incompatible memories could be better programmed together by literally defeating the inconsistencies as Bug Blox and be the key to making what Namine thought couldn't work, actually work. Everyone just, getting to keep all of the memories they made in CoM and Days.

It would serve the plot purpose of going through the timeline and stories of the background characters in a smoother consistent way, instead of leaving thing with too loose interpretations. 2 be part of the fix for Sora forgetting CoM and Namine and be a launching point for reattaching Xions memories, even if theyre not fully fixed like CoMs would be, people can start to be more aware of her in preparation that theres more to be done, its unfinished and 3 start to lay the foundations for accessing Ansems hidden research inside of Sora, the key to truly reviving all of the Lost.

Otherwise the stuff that happens with Mickey and Maleficent and all the disney characters in recoded can all stay the same as it was, and the story ends with Mickey writing the letter to the destiny trio that says we've uncovered a lot of new information about those who've been lost, they need all of your help to be whole again, but especially Sora

and then Destiny trio heads off, meets at Disney castle, and the credits can roll over silent scenes of Destiny trio reacting to the full story and Data Sora making the connection to real Sora and unlocking and readjusting the memories for him for real using the data world thats been all fixed up as the base, ending with him fully remembering Namine and having a new perspective on Namine, Riku and Roxas, with a determination to reach out to Xion fully as well. 

Then DDD can happen and stuff goes on from there.

But yeah the gist of it being, Namine couldnt fix the connections that were inside of peoples heart without doing too much damage to them to try and force all the pieces to fit, so she thought to use the medium of data in the journal as a way to work out the bugs instead, letting it become a more perfect template of what she couldnt achieve on just her own power by letting data sora run around inside and smash the bug blocks snd data together until they worked

[headphonemouse]

9-3-2021 comic liveblog

I DREW HIS SHOULDERS SO WELL AND NOW I HAVE TO PUT CLOTHES ON HIM 😭

Theyre holding hands 😳😳😳

8/14

I've got all the major panels done can't I just call it good?

Cradle he...

I hate every moment I spend drawing Senkuu's hair but it's so satisfying seeing the finished product

PAGE 2 MORE OR LESS DONE just gotta do backgrounds. All the characters are drawn and it looks pristine 👌👌👌

used this screentone. I dunno what the procedure is for this but I don't have a DeviantArt account so ill just link it here and again in the final post https://www.deviantart.com/dontdothatchaos/art/Shoujo-Screentone-352561609

NOPE. No sorry sorry I just checked again and that screen tone is supposed to have been sold for "points" (?). Anyway, I used it without permission because the description said "can be used for personal/professional work" (paraphrased) and I misinterpreted that as it being for free. I checked the poster's account to make sure and THATS where they mentioned points. Anyways. I'm glad I havent posted any pictures about that full panel. I'll go back in tomorrow and take that screentone out.

I dont feel like it's right to recreate that screentone myself, it feels like how people trace art but I don't know how people feel about that in regards to screentones. It was hard finding a screentone that fit the panel, because I needed sparkles, but not too many sparkles, and sparkles that didn't stand out too much because that panel is largely made up of speech bubbles, so there's not a lot of background room. And without a lot of background room, complicated sparkles can just look confusing because half of their important details are covered up. My art program came with a sparkle brush which I played around with a bit in the night sky background of the kohasengen moon comic. Maybe I can use that again

[readingaccountability]

snow crash - neal stephenson

my playlist (because of The Way That I Am)

final thoughts:

okay, im going to be honest right out of the gate- i cant decide whether this is a book id recommend or not. it was really fun for the most part, but personally there was a lot more exposition than id like. the early portions of the novel have exposition which feels completely fair, mostly things relating to worldbuilding. stephenson creates his own vision of future america, and some places online referred to it as cyberpunk, and some as post-cyberpunk. id be more in the latter camp, mostly due to the way he plays with tropes, leaving the reader unsure of which will be subverted and which wont.

the use of language was really fun, and i enjoyed the worldbuilding a lot. his vision of a futuristic capitalistic earth feels surreal in its immediacy and recognizability. the back jacket blurb ends with "a future america so bizarre, so outrageous, you'll recognize it immediately." which, yeah. a texan info-tech magnate? two competing corporations owning the highway system? suburban city-states? this was another enjoyable thing- everything was colorfully named, and names treated totally normally, which kind of poked fun at how we have everyday things named very ludicrously and for the most part we are totally blind to it.

one aspect i really enjoyed was that the author often doesn't make certain things clear to the audience, until he does, and then it becomes necessary to reassess the entire story and setting. this goes to underscore the theme of the importance of information and the ways we take it in and perceive the world based upon it. for example, we don't learn that y.t. is fifteen until maybe 75 pages in, at which point a lot makes sense in retrospect. the same thing occurs in the worldbuilding, as suddenly a detail is given in passing and the reader must incorporate it into the setting, which by default we assume to be similar in many ways to our idea of america. it keeps the reader on their toes as well as furthering the worldbuilding. for the most part, the tech stuff didnt feel outdated to me, despite being a future projected out from '92.

however, aspects of the book are definitely very 1992. id put these into two camps: the first, being that the book does at different times use slurs. the main character is black and asian, the n word is used a few times by racist side-character/antagonist types, as are a few other racial slurs. there was also the occasional usage of the r slur, within the narrative prose itself, rather than usage as an insult within dialogue.

the protagonist, who is named, unfortunately, hiro protagonist, is a great character and felt very fleshed out to me, though at times he reminded me more of dirk strider than normally would be ideal. (its obvious that stephenson and andrew hussie are of a similar type of writer, and play with similar tropes, lmao.) hiro is a man of many worlds. he seems to shift between them easily, though never fully existing in any of them. this is reflected in his background, both in his biracial identity and in having been raised on a myriad of army bases. this is layered further in his fluidity in interacting with both reality and the metaverse, yet remaining slightly, consistently aloof. fascinatingly the first moment i sensed this drop was when we meet juanita- aka where his real and meta realities coincide. the description of them as the adam and eve of the metaverse is both insanely romantic and thematically key (good god i wish we had more than like, two conversations between them). juanita designed the facial component to metaverse avatars, doing the majority of this work when the two were together, and hiro can see echoes of both their facial tics in the face of every avatar in the metaverse. in a way, by having done this work juanita is positioned by the narrative as one of the gods of this digital realm. she is also hiro's call to action, being aware of the coming trouble and alerting him to it, as well as connecting him to the informational database he needs to prepare.

y.t., the secondary protagonist, fucking ruled. i loved that she was just a fifteen year old punkass kid whose mom doesnt know how crazy this part time job is. y.t. being worried about her mom was a great thread throughout, and a really good balance to how obviously independent y.t. is. i do wish there had been a chance to explain more about her background (she has a dad who left who is mentioned in a throwaway sentence, and a boyfriend who is mentioned near the beginning but never again.) i really enjoyed how obviously hyperaware y.t. was at all times about her own place within the insanities of the setting, while also consistently writing her as a teen maybe in way too deep who thinks about things in typically teenage ways. but like, that wasn't ever held against her? the narrative meets her where she is. it was honestly awesome. HOWEVER,

i absolutely hated the raven and y.t. scenes. how creepy!!! he basically statutory rapes her!!! we know hes at least late 20s early 30s, because hes the same age as hiro. if this sort of content is upsetting to read for you, i definitely do NOT recommend this book. (if you want to avoid reading these bits: ch 47 y.t. meets raven, ch 50 they are in a bar eating, ch 52 things happen that result in y.t.'s anti-assault device activating- she did not activate it on purpose, but forgot it was there- and raven is knocked out.)

please PLEASE dont take any of the following analysis as like, trying to be apologetic towards this scenes. because again they were awful and hard to get through and really gross. but im also cognizant that the author was obviously trying to convey something by making the choice, like the way it was written is obviously not condoning this sort of thing.

i think maybe what stephenson was trying to get at with that, was that we see hiro internally negate any potential for anything untoward with y.t. basically immediately, since he kind of senses that she might have a small crush on him (though this doesnt last more than a fleeting moment, especially from her perspective). vs raven, whose 'poor impulse control' warning tattoo eventually elicits a sarcastic remark from hiro after he finds out raven and y.t. were "a thing". i really dont think hiro knew how far it went? like it was just suuuper weird, but i figured it was meant narratively to 1. execute the chekovs gun of y.t.'s anti-assault device, 2. contrast hiro and raven (especially considering the bike-racing argument where theyre telling the story together, which is supposed to parallel them, while contrasting the differences in how they ended up?), and 3. just to get raven unconscious, i guess. but good god it was weird and i hated every second of it, why couldnt the device have like, activated way earlier?? gah. fucking upsetting. moving past that!

honestly i was really frustrated by how little screentime juanita got, because the way she was introduced was so fucking interesting and then shes mostly off doing her own thing. the bits of explanation she gives at the end about what she was up to on the raft are so sparse and im like damn, can we get a little bit of her pov in here? please? that would have ruled. additionally, shes supposed to be hiros love interest, but we see so little of them interacting outside her intro scenes. a huge portion of why hiro is getting into the sumerian mythology is literally framed as something that will help him understand juanita, but we dont get to see him talk to her about it barely at all.

the supporting characters were quite fun, i particularly liked the librarian. big surprise, i liked the overly literal ai information-dispensor, lmfao. watching him and hiro interact reminded me SO hard of geordi laforge having honest to god conversations with the computer where he tries to coax information out of it, aka one of my favorite little aspects of tng.

and lastly, the major plot themes themselves. i adore the way stephenson approached action, it was very entertaining. usually i cant really visualize action scenes written out, but his use of language was really really effective and engaging. the plot itself was absolutely fascinating, though i found the premise pretty contrived. which isnt bad in itself, i was fully suspending my disbelief until the last hundred pages or so. which for a 550+ page book, isnt too bad.

i did like the approach of linking the ancient to the modern, that is always really neat. and i think ultimately stephenson did it in an interesting way, not how i would have done it, but definitely interesting! creating these ideas about information infrastructures, and there being words that can access those and be used to control people, was wild. not sure if i agree about the equating of religion to a virus, though he did specifically establish that it was more the approach to religion, than religion itself. (maybe if juanita had been more goddamn present in the narrative that could have been elaborated on a little more. literally her perspective would have been perfect in balancing that out!!)

ultimately what did me in was the very very very long winded MONOLOGUE where hiro re-explained the whole premise, in ways that didnt really neatly organize into a cohesive argument. a lot of the scenes where hiro talks to the librarian, which are interspersed throughout the book, are really exposition heavy, because stephenson is rooting his ideas in historical concepts that need to be explained to both hiro and the audience. and i thought all that was fine, because it was a conversation where hiro was grappling with the information, and he was figuring it out along with the reader, and most importantly it was a conversation between him and the librarian computer program.

howeverrr later on we get a full rehash of all that, where hiro makes clear some stuff that was just implied for the reader, and hes literally just telling these important men whats up in this big long monologue. utterly worthless. i kept reading it and going YEAH, we KNOW, we know this we know this. and the important men barely interjected. it added basically nothing to our understanding of the situation, other than reframing it. but everything added was already an implicit thing, and didnt really need to be said again.

the resolution to the book was stellar, the last 30-40 pages, once hiro is onto the raft, were great. ultimately after reading and giving some time to digest it, i think it was a solidly great book with a few big drawbacks near the end, but which dont carry through and sully the ending.