#will share any specific asset if anyone wants them

[lulu-lullabies]

Messing around with some CSP custom assets i downloaded and never used while in VC, have these low effort doodles without context other than the fact the last two reference @lavenoon's Accidentally Undercover.

[1shirt2shirtredshirtdeadshirt]

Sexism in TOS: Worst Offender, or Progressive in Retrospect in Comparison?

I see a lot of folks claim that TOS was the most sexist of the Star Trek shows by a landslide -- and while I agree that it definitely suffered from the sexism of the times, I also have other perspectives to share to give some food for thought.

I am of course not insinuating that TOS isn't sexist -- it is, but I have to ask folks to consider the breadth and depth of Berman's sexism in his run and ask yourself: Was Gene Roddenberry genuinely more sexist in his storytelling and delivery than Rick Berman?

I'm not telling you to feel one way or the other, but all I ask is that you hear me out and consider some perspectives and make your own balanced assessments. Nobody is obligated to share my opinion, but it means a lot just to have folks hear it and see their thoughts on the subject. So here is what I was originally responding to:

Someone's response to this photo:

"Devil's advocate. This was a part of the popular form of cardio during the production time of TNG. Yes, it was heavily sexualised by men, but so is literally every other way women work out. Men have been caught taking pictures of women while trying to do dead lifts, running on tracks and working on sled machines. They post them online to share too. The fact is, there is no way a woman can be shown working out without it going there. And yeah,t hat includes the combat forms of workout they do in Star Trek. Just look at how Dax dresses when she spars with Worf. Yes, they're dating, but still, same goes when 7 does and any other female.

Aerobics routines like this were made dirty and cringy. This was what women wore then by and large. This is how the workout was done. We make it cringy."

My response to them:

"I respect your take, but I disagree on a few fronts.

The miniskirt was chosen by the TOS female cast, not the male cast, specifically requested by Grace LW and affirmed by Nichelle and Majel who would go on to vehemently defend the miniskirt over the years as comfortable and embraced by them.

Grace said it was comfortable and seen as a symbol of female sexual empowerment during the 60s and thought it would be a progressive garment (and turns out that it was, as it was later adapted and worn by male crew as a skant on TNG) -- FYI those were designed by a gay man and Gene approved them.

This was also supposed to be Spock's TMP outfit:

Literally lingerie.

We saw both Uhura (who saves Kirk in from Marlena Mirror Mirror) and Yeoman Landon (the first to initiate combat with a classic Kirk-esque kick to help the Captain being attacked in The Apple) carry out their combat training in their Starfleet uniforms without ever being made to change into any ridiculous workout gear.

In fact, I'd argue Jim Kirk was sexualized even more than the ladies of the week on the show and I saw his naked body more than anyone else's on a fairly regular basis. He wore red yoga tights while topless in Charlie X while the women wore full length gymnastic suits that covered their entire body. If anything, it went out of its way to avoid sexualizing women practicing fitness in those scenes and instead focused on Kirk.

Gene confessed that he asked to have Shatner filmed in suggestive/provocative ways to "give something to the ladies", so he -- as he said -- liked to "film him walking away" or have him conveniently busting out of his shirts in just about every episode as it were, because Shatner apparently had great assets. LOL

Gene made an effort to at least sexualize both if he was going to sexualize one, and he carried that attitude forward in wanting the m/m and f/f scenes in the background on Risa for TNG. He also insisted that the men and women wear skimpy outfits on THAT TNG planet. You know the one. LOL I mean the dudes even had on less than the women:

Gene also gave permission to K/S shippers to have their conventions back in the 70s when he was asked for permission. Gene and Nimoy felt with all the skimpy outfits they had the ladies wear, why not let the ladies and gay men have their fun, too? It's how we ended up with moments like this:

Yes, those are two people dressed up as Kirk and Spock's penises doing interpretive dance. Gene didn't give two damns. LOL

In my eyes, that was a very progressive take on Gene's part for the 60s. It was actually PARAMOUNT STUDIOS who had the big problem with K/S stories and vehemently tried to shut them down. Gene literally hired slash authors on his payroll and even had several slash stories/writers published in his official Star Trek books (The New Voyages & The New Voyages II).

I feel I saw Uhura and women in TOS engaged in more physical combat/altercations defending themselves that Troi or Bev were shown holding their own.

In fact, Kirk used to get furious when someone would "dress up" his female crew members without their consent (Trelane episode, Shore Leave episode) because like his male crew members, he wanted them to be treated professionally and to also have his male crew act professionally.

Berman brought some of his own personal biases into Star Trek that in some ways regressed it. While TOS had blatant sexism and was called on it time and again, that show was made in the 60s -- a solid 21 years before TNG. We as a modern audience understood why some of it was cringe/sexist due to the time period -- look at any other media coming out in the 60s and Star Trek was miles ahead of what other shows were doing.

Compare that to Berman who was churning sexist stuff out when women like Starbuck and Scully were simultaneously on screen on other programs airing, and we had already had Sigourney Weaver and other strong women in Holywood playing respectful roles.

In my eyes, there was no need of the sexism seen in TNG but especially VOY and ENT. There was no excuse for it when other shows were writing women far better and a number of those weren't even set in the future like Trek was, making it age even faster due to having those dated perspectives frequently highlighted.

In the Center Seat documentary as well as "The Fifty Year Mission" book you will find cast members, writers and other studio alumni who attest to this. Some discussions from "The Fifty Year Mission":

"First, Berman was supposed to have been a real sleaze ball . . . According to Terry Farrel, he would go on constantly about how her breasts weren't big enough, how she should do something about it, and how his secretary was a good example to follow as she had huge breasts. She even had to have fittings to get larger bras, and that was all done at his behest.

Later Berman and Braga developed a name for Jeri Ryan's character prior Seven of Nine. They originally called the character "perineum" which if you look it up it is the area between the anus and the scrotum. Later they floated the name "6 of 9". I mean, what does it tell you about where these two were coming from in the development of this character if they had names like that put forward in all seriousness for her?"

Gene Roddenberry also had some of his own more progressive ideas for TNG cut or watered down by Berman. Roddenberry agreed TNG should have homosexual relationships and representation at a con in the 80s and insisted on it in a meeting with his writers -- something Berman later would not honor. Gene wanted the AIDS episode, showing m/m and f/f in the Riza scenes -- these were some of Roddenberry's requests to include in TNG that Berman later stonewalled.

Berman's era was sadly dated by his own misogynist bias, IMO, to the point that it can somewhat hurt the shows he worked on through his cringe egoism and blatant disrespect toward his female cast.

There is a reason why Gene could keep female actresses working with him and Berman had a revolving door of women that he couldn't seem to keep working for him -- he was abhorrent to women, on and off set. Gene wasn't perfect at all, he had a lot of issues himself -- but Berman was a whole other level. Just look at what he did to poor Jolene Blalock, Marina Sirtis and his toxic commenting on her body weight which exacerbated her struggles with eating disorders, or how he treated and talked to Terry Farrell.

Anyway, just some food for thought. I'm not saying anyone is wrong regarding a take like that, but there are a variety of ways to look at this. Gene Roddenberry isn't a saint by any means, but it definitely bothers me how folks will tote the Berman era as if it were the lesser of two evils or the more progressive depiction of women when I felt there were far more concerning portrayals of women in his era with far less justification.

(P.S: I don't event want to go near the sheer amount of "creepy old dude/villain preys on innocent/naïve/scared young woman or little girl" stories there were in Berman's era, either. But that's a whole other can of worms I can write about in a part 2.)

[sleepynegress]

THIS ISN'T COMMON KNOWLEDGE BUT SHOULD BE...ABOUT MEDICAID....

If you ever find yourself in the position of living in the home of a parent who is disabled and requires full-time care and you are their primary caregiver for at least 2 years, and they intend to leave their assets to you after they pass, make sure to transfer ownership of their assets, home/land in your name ASAP...or they will require you to pay back any benefits received and claim those assets even out from under you, as soon as your loved one passes. This is yet another way that generational assets /wealth are easily taken out of marginalized communities. It is a loan.

And the sharks circle as soon as your loved one passes. Here's an article about it:

Decided to add context. I don't like to talk about it here, because ehh, social media is for my vapid entertainment thoughts for me. It's a hobby/getaway/ place to get semi-social with strangers and online friends with shared interests, but I don't want anyone else to go through what I am... Of course, this applies specifically to the U.S.'s broken healthcare system. So, for those who don't know, my mom passed recently. I am an only child with no siblings or children. My whole life during that time was 24/7 care. She had insurance, but it wasn't enough to cover everything that she needed, so Medicaid was the obvious solution, right? The government takes care of our disabled elderly who have worked until retirement, right? It seemed like the routine thing to do, I had never heard anything during the process about having to pay it back,but sure enough, less than 12 weeks after her passing, I was hit with a warning (which I followed up on and was told I would NOT be charged because of my caregiver status) and then 2 weeks later the "bill". The lady I spoke to, totally changed her attitude from the first time I spoke to her to the point where I felt scammed. Out came a patronizing voice certain people use with children, that measured whiny thing (it's always a red-flag to me and makes me instantly dislike you if you do this even with kids, btw... speak to kids like PEOPLE). I feel like an idiot. I have been doing this for over a decade and didn't think to transfer any assets of hers during that time because it *was* hers. I wanted her to feel as empowered about that as possible.

Not a single soul said I should transfer those assets to keep this from happening and now I'm facing down what feels like some kind of weird conspiracy to take the land and house.

FYI, there have been weird inquiries, the census came to mark down my mother's death literally *immediately* after she passed...and odd timing called the day of the notice to "help", with all the southern Christian signifiers (bless your heart we'll be praying for you).... It feels so seedy. Anyway, all this to say if you find yourself in a similar position....

TRANSFER THOSE ASSETS INTO YOUR NAME 2 years into caregiving or they will take them from you, house etc..

[yukirayu]

These I've also shared on Twitter, but I thought I'd share them here before someone tries any sort of libel.

You know what's funny about this whole discourse about the Slow Damage patch ? The whole discourse reminds me of game mods, in a way.

Game mods are made by fans, for free no less, for you to download, and only if you wanted, to help improve your experience with a game.

Whether it's improving the aesthetic (character or background design) or tweaking some of the gameplay elements itself. Or adding new elements, or even changing things purely for shits and giggles.

That way, mods are akin to patches. More often than not, mods are made because the base game had flaws in their design (technical or otherwise) that the mod intended to fix or improve.

But these mods are optional. And naturally, most mods are going to use preexisting assets from either the game they're modding or from another game, assets that they'll either refine or combine with other assets to make something better.

While some mods earn a raised brow, if the mod isn't to one's liking, most generally just ignore it.

Except in this specific instance, some don't like the mod that is the patch and feel that it doesn't sit right with them for whatever reason, believing that its existence would be "spitting" on the original game or because it no longer sounds as snarky as they themselves would like to read it as.

But instead of ignoring the patch, which they were explicitly advised to do if they take offense to it, they decide to make their dislike everyone else's problem, and by poisoning the well, no less.

And one quick way to ensure that is to accuse the patch of bigotry towards the LGBT community.

I'm already aware that this same accusation is spreading like wildfire, both in Reddit and especially in Twitter, and in some Discord spaces, most likely.

But did anyone, and this includes the accusers, even play at least 40% of the patched version, and intensively at that, before making that claim?

Oh, I'm all too aware that bigotry is a real, serious and widespread issue.

But in most online circles nowadays, accusing something of bigotry right off the gate is also one surefire method of turning people off of it before they can even check it out for themselves.

I mean, what better way of publicly dragging something you don't like through the mud than to spread accusations/misassumptions that are quick for others to believe before anyone can even try and personally fact-check anything?

Especially in a place like the internet itself.

The note stating the avoidance of using a specific pronoun for some characters to not assume their identity could've been phrased better, yes, and the patch team did clarify their stance on the matter. Alas, anything can still easily be misinterpreted and used as flame bait.

But what's odd is that the people who first touted this claim (either here or in other platforms) have one thing in common: they never checked out the patch (let alone played through one certain route in full) to personally confirm if that really is the case.

Taking all this into consideration, I think that no matter how the patch was presented, it'd get backlash.

Even long before any of us knew this patch was even going to be a thing, even giving constructive criticism about the localization and any mistakes/goofs it made already drew ire, and it's those same people who took offense that are spreading the hate about this patch.

It all really boils down to the matter of the patch even existing, since - as some detractors point out - it's what they call to be a disrespectful spit to the face, even without factoring the false accusations of transphobia and plagiarism.

Let's say they used the JP game files instead and have the patch work with that version. They'd get decried for copyright infringement and they risk a C&D order.

Use the EN files? We already get the claims that they barely did anything to the text, among other things. Why?

Because they didn't adjust every single syntax and change every single word in every single sentence… when English isn't exactly the most versatile language and there's only ways you can translate something, especially in the simpler sentences like "Who are you?".

Using a thesaurus on everything would make it sound weird. Heck, the patch being more verbose and detailed and impersonal (which is what's to be expected when it's third person and in a visual novel, no less) already got it accused of being no more than a fancy MTL.

And it doesn't help that many already assume that the statement that MTL can be a helpful tool is also the same as "MTL being the superior translator of all time", and people will find anything and I mean anything to hate on something and discredit it.

And as for the preferring 1st person over 3rd person and vice versa? It's a matter of preference, yes, and that can't be helped.

But let's get one fact out in the open: Out of N+C's 5 main VNs, only one is told in first person POV in the JP/original version, and that's DMMD.

The other game that used 1st person narration is Slow Damage's spinoff game, Clean Dishes, but not the main/parent game itself.

And even years before they got licensed, the fan patches followed the intended narration viewpoint of the first 4 VNs. Third person for Togainu no Chi, Lamento, and Sweet Pool, and first person for DMMD.

Their respective localized versions (except Lamento), also followed the intended narration viewpoint, and nobody complained because that was all they knew.

But because Slow Damage's localization took the creative liberty of changing the narration from third to first person, with people exposed to it, it's not really surprising some have gotten accustomed enough to end up preferring it.

Even when another version that retells the game in original narration comes up, for the past two years, the localization has been what they knew, and that is what many usually then decide to stick to.

In the scenario where the localization - even if it would still be a mess - never changed the narration, would people still say "Oh but they should've changed it to 1st person since it would've enhanced the story"?

It's telling that it never happened with Togainu no Chi, Sweet Pool and DMMD, no?

And before anyone tells me that I just hate localizations overall, you don't hear me complaining about the official translation of any of the BLVNs that Mangagamer licensed, do you? I also have plenty of gripes with DMMD's fan translation over what it did to Mink.

[katescribblesabit]

I absolutely adore your art style! Do you have any tips? Specifically for the fairies cause I am struggling to draw them.

thank you so much! well, this is gonna be a long post.

Im gonna be real, the best art advise anyone can give you is to use references and to break complicated stuff down into easier shapes. for example:

this is my basic body skeleton! i always start with the circle of the head and work my way down to the feet. i have highlighted some part of the body which are actually just simple shapes.

the center line down the middle of the torso also helps me draw on collars, bra cups, ties, or any other more difficult clothing more accurate!

However i have to ask you, are you comfortable while you draw?

I remember when I first started drawing digital, i was really uncomfortable with the basic set up of my program. The white canvas and the light setting of the program was really bright and irritated my eyes. And the contrast of the pure black I used for drawing wasn't really helping. sketching and doing line art was my least favorite part of drawing because of this.

you don't have to draw on a white canvas, you can also use multiple colours for sketching if you wanted. Once I stoppend using a pure white canvas I noticed i stopped staring at a empty canvas not knowing what i wanted to draw anymore!

also sometimes when a drawing doesn't want to look right, i switch back to traditional. idk why but when my brain sometimes struggles with a specific pose or character design, it comes to me a lot more easier when I switch back onto paper. i guess the change of scenery opens up the creativity again haha.

don't be afraid to simplify stuff, you don't have to draw everything! As long as it still translates to the thing, it should be fine.

these two are a bit clip studio exclusive,

but Gradient maps! god how I love my gradient maps, it just makes the colours pop! I never draw without it anymore. I always pick the sunset gradient, put it in Linear light mode and put it on 10% (cus its really saturated on 100%)

usually i have it on while i sketch and line, and turn it off so i can properly colour and shade. i turn it back on at the end again

the clip studio assets has a lot of beautiful stuff in there created from other users. (a good amount for free too) for example I got the lace pattern of my shawl from there. and its really easy to import the downloaded stuff into the program.

now this is a drawing hack that blew my mind when I first saw it! i use it all the time and I just have to share this!

whenever you want to draw something random like sparkles, stars, bubbles, feathers, falling leaves, or anything that you want to float around your characters, position them in the form of a triangle.

its even better if you put two points of the triangle closer together and then the third further away. this makes it look random but still looking appealing to the eye, and not oddly placed.

now that thats out of the way! Fairies! The one thing i struggled with when drawing them first is their hair. I suggest looking through the fop tag to see how other people have drawn them and take inspiration from your favorites and make up your own. (do not trace tho! that should be obvious!)

when I draw hair I think of it separated in two parts, the front and the back. I usually start with the front hair pieces, then draw in the jaw, ears and rest of the head, then continue with the back section of the hair.

the only outliers of this are Timmy and Peri. when I draw Timmy (Ymmit as well) I start with his hat, before drawing his hair. Since I draw Peris hair-swirl over his hairline, i start drawing his upper back hair style first before drawing his head and then his mullet.

wings can also be tricky. the fairy wings i have given then have a more butterfly look. if you also want to base off the wings to real life animals or bugs you can use them flying as references to. Or you could even cut out the wing shape out of paper, fold it in the middle and take pictures in the angle you desire.

I hope this somehow helped, I thought about what could have helped me if I had known it sooner. even if most of these were for generic drawing.

[van-yangyin]

EyeTree Table Lamp (2 versions)

This is a EyeTree table lamp. Hope you enjoy this one! 💗

Rest peacefully, you will feel watched even if your eyes are closed. (Not suitable for paranoid people) From unknown source this lamp with a natural tree shape, has an eye that emits a magical light that will not go out unless you say the magic words. The paper with spell is sold separately - good luck! (All items are for sale exclusively at the Glimmerbrook Magic Market, but we, the Sell Your Soul for Something Supernatural For-Profit Association, will ship it to your door.) 👁️🌳

Download under keep reading ↓

If you download my CC it means your agree with my T.O.U (English/Español/日本語).

General Info:

4 packages per version of 26 swatches (Red and Galaxy) and 39 swatches (Meteor Shower and Nebula) each one

two versions [EyeTree Table Lamp and EyeTree with eyes Table Lamp]

You will find in this post the Spell paper written in medieval Simlish (Actually it's not necessary download it to turn off table lamps but you can download it and place it near one of them to keep the mystery if you read description above)

Base game compatible

all LOD's

All Maps (Diffuse, Normal and Specular)

Category: Buy Mode > Lightings > Table Lamps/Miscellaneous. Version 1: Price: 500 【English Name: EyeTree Table Lamp + (Red/Galaxy/Meteor Shower/Nebula) | Spanish Name: Lámpara de mesa Árbol con ojo + (Rojo/Galaxia/Lluvia de estrellas/Nébula)】 Version 2: Price: 801 【English Name: EyeTree with eyes Table Lamp + (Red/Galaxy/Meteor Shower/Nebula) | Spanish Name: Lámpara de mesa Árbol con ojos + (Rojo/Galaxia/Lluvia de estrellas/Nébula)】 Contain a description in English and Spanish, personalized by me and Lea (@lea-heartscxiv) [Anyone can send me translations of text in their language so that more people can enjoy it in their own language.]

Mesh and tree texture made from scratch by me, eyes from game assets Sims 4 Get to Work.

Custom Thumbnails

LODs Info: LightTree Table Lamp: LOD0: 7234 poly | LOD1: 3618 poly | LOD2: 1810 poly LightTree with lights Table Lamp: LOD0: 10114 poly | LOD1: 5057 poly | LOD2: 2528 poly

IF YOU LIKE MY WORK PLEASE CONSIDER BECOME A PATREON OR TIP✰BECOME A MEMBERSHIP ON KO-FI TO GET SOME EXTRAS. ANY HELP IS ALWAYS WELCOMED BUT ALWAYS OPTIONAL. YOU CAN ALSO COMMISSION ME HERE OR FROM TUMBLR, IF YOU WANT ME TO DO SOMETHING SPECIFIC FOR YOU.  THANK YOU ALWAYS FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

※Choose download the one/ones you want the most or only download "_Merged" version where all the files of each version are together.※

✨DOWNLOAD LINK✨ (Patreon ~ Always free, no adfly)

✨DOWNLOAD LINK✨ (SFS ~ Always free, no adfly)

Photos in-game:

To download this last one click here

~⭐️~

Let me know if you find any problem. 🙏❣️ Also if you use this or any of my CC, feel free to tag me so I can see your sims, it will make me very happy to see it!

Do you want to know what else I'll be releasing this month and on what day? You can support me on Patreon or Ko-Fi and find out in this posts, here (Patreon) or here (Ko-Fi).

👀👉MORE DOWNLOADS

Happy simming! 🍀

💛

🛹 You can find me also on Patreon | Pinterest | Ko-Fi | Blogger (Shared with Lea) | Instagram | X (Twitter) | My F.A.Q. | My T.O.U. | MORE DOWNLOADS 🛹

[tremendouskoalachild]

Transcript (from about 0:27 on) under the cut

I've had a lot of Star Wars fans, and gamers in general, ask some pretty great questions about Bode and his motivations and why he does some of the things he does. So I figured I'd just share a little bit of some of the behind the scenes work that I do for a character like Bode. And let me say right off the bat: I'm a huge Star Wars fan but I don't pretend to be, like, a Star Wars academic – so if you want to come at me with how my headcanon is factually inaccurate, you're welcome to do so, it's not going to bother me, but that's not why I do it. I create these backstories because it gives me an emotional hook, so that Bode's emotional journey is honest, for me.

And I should also say, anything I say now isn't on any of the writers or anyone else on the Survivor team, this is all just my broken dumb brain. So, let's talk today about Ghost Star.

So, the song Ghost Star was introduced by one of the writers, Danny – mad genius Danny – pretty late in the sequence of things, and then brought to beautiful life by Tajinae, who plays Kata and is ridiculously talented. I'm very jealous. So, Danny had asked me in a session, would you feel comfortable singing a song as Bode? I don't sing, which may have become quite apparent if you play the game, but any chance for me to show and share more of who Bode is, stuff that you don't get to see in all the missions, I'm grateful for. So I was like, hell yeah. And I got this song titled Ghost Star, so the first thing I did was look up "ghost star", specifically looking for anything revolving around astronomy.

I don't know if this was Danny's thought from the get-go, I have never talked to him about it, but in my research I found that there is a theory being postulated that when you're looking up at the night sky and you see the sky just covered in stars, that there's actually a lot of astral bodies you're not seeing. Among them being ghost stars, which are stars with dark matter cores. Dark matter has gravity but never undergoes nuclear fission the way a normal star does, and therefore emits no light. So there are stars out there with tremendous gravity that are essentially invisible to the naked eye.

And I thought that was really beautiful and poetic, in a way, and then I started thinking about Bode and a question that arises a lot, which is: why does Bode not get found out by Cal, or Cere, or Cordova, these incredibly powerful Jedi?

That's a really good question, and it made me wonder if perhaps there is a rare contingent of individuals who have the ability to tap into the Force but don't emit a Force resonance like most people do – which is how a Jedi is able to tell that someone else is able to manipulate the Force. I mean, Emperor Palpatine is a perfect example of an incredibly powerful Force user who is literally standing right in front of Master Yoda and all the Masters on the Jedi Council, and they never know. So, maybe this is a rare trait that they share.

And that got me thinking, that would probably be something that you'd pick up on very early at the Jedi Academy as a youngling. And one of the things that Bode shares with Cal is that before Order 66 he worked in intelligence.

It would be a very powerful asset to be able to take an operative and insert them into situations where they can watch over Force users without that target knowing that he can manipulate the Force. Where would that be useful? Intelligence gathering, obviously, but also the Jedi equivalent of internal affairs. Jedi are incredibly powerful. And power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And if anyone's seen The Clone Wars, you know that there are very powerful “Jedi” that are not good. Pong Krell being a great example. I want to punch him, repeatedly.

So perhaps operatives like Bode were sent to gather intel and make sure that the Jedi out there were doing what they're supposed to be doing. One example. And, perhaps, his operative name was Ghost Star.

Order 66 happens, all hell breaks loose, everything that Bode has known burns to ash. He's on the run and somewhere on his journey he meets a wonderful woman named Tayala.

When you have to run and hide and constantly change locations for fear of being found, that's not something you can do with a significant other and not let them know what you're doing and why. So I'm sure Bode shares his past with Tayala. And then a while later, Kata is born.

Anytime Bode gets an inkling that Imperial intelligence has been sniffing around, or forbid an inquisitor makes their presence known anywhere nearby, I think Bode leaves his family behind, travels to distant parts of the Galaxy and very subtly makes himself known, so that he attracts the attention of intelligence or the inquisitors and draws that focus away from his family.

And Kata's so young and doesn't understand why her father has to leave for weeks or months at a time, and so Tayala sings her a lullaby called Ghost Star, which brings Kata comfort while she waits for her father to come home. And it's also for Tayala, perhaps a silent prayer that her husband comes back safely.

And they survive like this, constantly moving, constantly on the run. And then one day Bode is out with Kata. They're coming home and as they're getting closer to the house, he hears Tayala singing Ghost Star, which is a song she never sings if he's home. And he knows that something's gone terribly, terribly wrong.

And he flees with Kata, and the inquisitor that was waiting for him at home in their anger strikes down Tayala, knowing that, somehow, she gave them away.

So, a lot of things happen. Bode makes some very difficult, very terrible choices in the pursuit of keeping Kata safe, and now sings Ghost Star as a way to make sure that Kata's memories of her mother stay as fresh as they can; and just because it brings him comfort, but it also is a poignant reminder of a terrible, terrible day and the fact that he left his wife behind and that his wife paid the price for Bode being who he is.

And I think in his time as a dog for the Empire Bode has done some terrible, terrible things. I think he's often sent to hunt down Jedi that are that are in hiding, especially if it seems like they're trying to rally up resistance, because he can come in and his target will never see him coming. I think he's an assassin, and I think every time he does it a little piece of Bode chips off.

And I think Bode hates himself for it, and I think a lot of times, especially if it's a mission where he's gotten to know his target to any degree, that makes it that much harder to do what he knows he has to do. And in those moments he uses Ghost Star as his anchor. He sings it to himself when he's alone, as a way to remind himself of why he's doing the terrible things he's doing, that there is a greater purpose, which is making sure that his daughter stays safe and that Tayala’s sacrifice is never in vain.

And then he meets Cal, and I think finds the brother he never had. And in the crew of the Mantis the family he's lost, a family that would allow Kata to live a normal life. And he really struggles with what to do, and tries desperately to make it work. And when it becomes clear that Cal is going to share the information on Tanalorr and turn it into essentially an access point, Bode is devastated, because the Empire has already found Cal, Cal just doesn't know it yet. And if they found him now they'll definitely find them again, if this turns into essentially a way station. And Bode makes an impossible choice.

And he tries to use Ghost Star the way it's always worked in the past, to kind of remind him of what's important, and I think it fails him, and I think it breaks him.

[ectogeo-art]

Rules: You will be given a word. Share one sentence/excerpt from your wip(s) that start with each letter of that word. My word was STAR.

Tagged by @pinkgrapefloyd

S - sloanshir soulmate AU 💖💕🥰

STARDATE: █████.█

AGENT: S████, L█████

TARGET: B█████, J██████ S███████, M.D.

REQUEST: Soulmark-mirroring implant to aid in the Agent’s ongoing mission to secure the Target as an asset for Section ██.

JUSTIFICATION: The Target is a high-priority individual to acquire and control, as established in previous observations (refer to reports with the following codes: DBIP, INQ, IAESL). He is an accomplished doctor who serves as Chief Medical Officer on the frontlines of the Dominion conflict, and his medical knowledge covers key areas of interest for Section ██ (xenobiology in general, Cardassian and Bajoran medicine, ketracel white, and the Dominion’s genetically engineered viruses).

T - Sub Rosa sloanshir

The door to the shared bathroom was ajar and he didn’t think before pushing it open.

Steam rolled over him.

Garak turned his head to stare back at him from the shower, but didn’t stop running the washcloth over himself. Though Julian could see his face, the water droplets and the steam made the transparent shower curtain translucent lower down, leaving only the suggestion of his gray body below the swell of his chest.

A - Garak gets interrogated (Sloanshir noncon whump)

“Anastasia Komanonov,” Garak said as though he was forcing himself to give up someone real rather than a fictional name from Julian’s spy holoprogram.

R - Sleep Awake

“Really? I can’t think of much happier a circumstance than Sloan’s gruesome death.”

(As a side note, I keep referring to my wips lately “sloanshir whatever” when really they are still primarily garashir for the simple reason that the specific type of sloanshir dynamic present in each of these fics is the feature that distinguishes them best from any of my previously posted 50+ garashir fics lmaooo.)

Anyways. My word for you is TREK (couldn’t help myself) and I'm tagging @nostalgia-tblr and @sapphosewrites and @ernmark and @hellostuffedtiger and anyone else who sees this and wants to grace us with snippets of your WIPs! ^_^

[lady-raziel]

Hi! I've lately started expanding my video game repertoire and I would love advice on whether or not I'd enjoy any of the Fallouts. I'm more into time/colony management and simulations, but your love for the Fallout series peaked my interest. Should I take a leap of faith? Thanks :))

Hey! Love the question! I'll give a bit of context info on "why Fallout?" (for you and anyone else seeing this post) and then tell you what my take is.

First of all, a bit about Fallout and why I think the series is unique and worth people's time within the game landscape as a whole, just for background: there are a lot of good post-apocalyptic games out there, there are a lot of games with irreverent and dark humor out there, and there are a lot of RPG games that involve stories that prompt reflection on deeper themes. But what I think Fallout brings to the table beyond the combination of the above that makes it rise above the average enjoyable game series are two things:

Fallout, in each iteration, is rooted in its sense of setting. While this includes the recognizable aesthetics and icons of the series, it's more about how each story's placement within the larger world reflects the themes of Fallout at large. The locations within post-apocalyptic America focused on in the games (and the show) are fundamental to why Fallout works and is influential in a way that stories set in generic post-apocalyptic settings (or in solely fictional locations) often can't be. Each of the settings chosen are "characters" that further the thematic messages of the universe. (That's why, IMO, trying to set a Fallout anywhere but North America wouldn't work--it wouldn't be the same story.)

The series is known for its satirical commentary on America, war, and human nature as a whole. It doesn't take itself too seriously all the time, and thus is very fun and funny to enjoy. A lot of people are fans for this reason alone! But at the same time there really is an intense amount of deeper meaning-- not just in the "best" (subjective) parts but nearly everything, given someone wants to take the time to look. It's as deep as one WANTS it to be, and many other games can't manage that. It can be an important mirror to understanding real world events in a unique way.

As far how to go about approaching Fallout (and what you specifically might enjoy most), I think a fundamental pitfall that nearly everyone gets tripped up by is viewing the entire franchise as a uniform story and universal experience. In truth, while they all share the same world, I think a lot of the conflict between fans themselves (as to what the BEST game is/how things should be) and between fans and the creators' choices comes from a key misunderstanding. Fallout's stories may all share a universe, but every single installment offers a different experience with different assets that appeals to different desires.

Each prioritizes different things-- and people have a tendency to gravitate towards the experience that elevated the elements they prefer. The issue comes when audiences struggle to accept that the variation in experiences is an ASSET, because naturally they think the version that appealed to them the most should be applied universally. At its core I think this is why Fallout fans are always fighting about what is "good" or "bad," and why there will always be a portion of fans upset at ANY new content. If it doesn't reflect their preferred experience, they think things are going in the wrong direction.

All of this is a VERY long way of saying that I think when people are trying to approach this series, it's key to match the elements and type of experience you like best to the installment(s) instead.

Everyone will have their own take on good/bad/etc. and it will all conflict-- so trying to come at it from that angle can prove to be a barrier for many entering the series. I would take that discourse with a grain of salt and optimize for personal enjoyment.

For you personally, based on enjoying colony management and simulations, I would start with Fallout 4 and Fallout Shelter.

Fallout 4 (PC, Playstation, Xbox) has a pretty advanced settlement building, resource management, and crafting system that involves creating networks of settlements within the open-world map, and crafting to upgrade those locations (via infrastructure, defense, resources, etc.). It's easy to spend hundreds of hours solely focusing on playing with this, completely outside of any quests or role-playing elements! I think this would appeal to you and allow you to dip your feet into the world even if FPS or RPG aspects involving a complex story may not be your primary goal.

I'd also definitely try out Fallout Shelter--this is an entire free-to-play construction/resource management sim that you can download as a mobile app (as well as PC, Playstation, Xbox, AND the Nintendo Switch). Some fans out there might scoff at including this in an official slate of Fallout games, but keep in mind what I said above about prioritizing for preferred experience. It's not story-heavy, but it is easy to get in to and fun to play especially for a low time investment! IMO it's a great way to get a feel for some of the world elements if engaging in one of the larger games seems daunting (or potentially cost prohibitive).

This post is already getting lengthy, so I won't take up more of your time. But if you (or anyone else) want a full writeup as to what I think each installment prioritizes, and why that appeals to given playstyles and desired experiences, I'm happy to do so! This series does have a little bit of something for pretty much anyone, it's sometimes just about knowing what to look for. 👍

[honeybewrites]

Echoes of War Chronicles WIP Intro!!!

Look at me! Writing and posting a WIP Intro and not a tag game like last Wednesday!! Did it take fifteen reminders and ten instances of sitting down with the intention to write it but getting distracted and not making any progress? Yes. But I finally got it finished!! So let's get into it!

Fair warning, this is kind of a long post, but when is anything I post not?

While nothing in this post has any kind of CW/TW I can find, this whole series is pretty dark/gory in its contents, and for that reason, I'm labeling it 18+. Specifically for excessive violence, dark themes, and general explicit content and gore. I try my hardest to label content appropriately whenever I post tag games and snippets.

Series: Echoes of War Chronicles

Genre: adult high/dark fantasy/sci-fi (I don't really know what genre to label this as lol)

Status: First draft/planning

Tags: #echoes of war chronicles #eowc

Synopsis (for the overall series, so it's pretty vague)

Created to fight a war that has wrecked the Realms for years, two genetic experiments were trained side by side. Merciless, lethal weapons of death. Inseparable. Until they weren't. Years later, they're on opposite sides of the war. Both of them intent on destroying the other, regardless of their shared history. Bonds are tested. Secrets revealed. Loyalties made and destroyed as two partners threaten to destroy the entirety of the Realms in their hunt for blood.

Tropes and Things

Found Family

DRAGONS + other fantasy creatures

Living Weapon

Lovers to Enemies

LGBTQ+ OCs and relationships

LOTS OF MAGIC

Morally gray OCs and just downright completely morally black OCs

Angst

High Action

War

Now let me introduce you to the stars of the show!

Asset 703

Created from Project Viall, 703 has been with the Mors her entire life. Trained from birth to be the most deadly weapon in the Realms. She is regarded as a demon of death and an unfeeling monster. It's the only life she's known, and she long since accepted that fact. She doesn't particularly care about the nature of her creation or the brutality of her job. She was created for a purpose, and it's the sole reason for her existence. It's not her place to think about things like life outside the Mors. Those were traitorous thoughts and pointless hopes.

Fres

Another of Project Viall's subjects, Fres was also raised in the Mors. Nearly as deadly as their partner 703, the two were feared. But as Fres was exposed to more of the Realms during their missions, they began to resent the life they had. All the pain and abuse fueled their anger. So they created a plan, escaping from the Mors in a blazing chaotic mess. From them on, they devoted themselves to fighting against the Mors. They wanted to see them burn in eternal damnation, unable to ever rise back from the smoldering pile they left them in.

Ronan "Rage" Airvix

Assigned to be 703's field handler and healer, Rage works for the Mors. He's very calm and patient, unless you disregard his healing expertise, then you'll see where the nickname Rage came from. He will adopt anyone left unattended for five minutes.

Dana Hueland

Dana is one of the hardest fighters against the Mors. A feisty woman and phenomenal fighter, she's intimidating to anyone that comes across her. She excels at close combat and piloting and is a certified BAMF, MILF, and top tier Bisexual.

Master Gerd

One of the highest ranked in the Mors, Master Gerd is a psychopath with a god complex. He abuses his power religiously, especially over 703. He is feared my nearly everyone in the Mors and he knows it. -1000/10 would drown violently.

Healer Asurr

The head of Project Viall, Healer Asurr is a bit of a mad scientist. They're only concern is their life long work of enhancing species, ultimately to create the superior lifeform. They would stick you in a cage and study you obsessively for months.

Now, because the Seven Realms are so expansive, I'm just including a few basics here (she says after having written way too much info and then hitting delete far too many times). If anyone shows an interest in knowing more about them, I'll do a post for each Realm, I'm planning to anyway at some point, but for now, enjoy the little snippets that tell you absolutely nothing about their importance to the plot!

Mirralia has the second largest population of the Seven Realms. With its variety of biomes and massive cities, it's one of the most sought after places to live. Full of some of the most rich and powerful flora and fauna, many resources for alchemy are found in the Realm. It also remains to be one of the only Realms dragons have still been spotted. Mirralia government positions are highly sought after and their military is one of the strongest of the Seven Realms.

Enkkon produces some of the best Agi (trained magic users) in the Seven Realms, with schools to match. With top schools in many specialties, it brings in species from every Realm, creating the most diverse population of any Realm. Far less rich in raw elemental, Enkkon is a quiet Realm, reliant on technology far more than the other Realms, but that doesn't make its native species any weaker than the other Realms.

Levekint has the largest population. While the cities are large and bubbling, the flora and fauna of the planet interacts with everything. It's not uncommon to see buildings with vines or trees growing out of the middle, or for a shop to have bird nests and other creatures wandering about indoors. Levekint taught healers make up ninety percent of the Seven Realms healers. It is the forefront of healing innovation, producing some of the most renowned and well known healing names in history.

Zj'ahju is the smallest Realm, with the smallest population to go with it. The harsh biome and oppressive heat make the Realm nearly inhabitable for non-native species. However, it has some of the most beautiful architecture of the Realms, specializing in metal and glass. Both are big exports for the Realm, and they produce nearly fifty percent of the Seven Realms building supplies. Weapons and jaw dropping pieces of glass art are other major exports.

Ketaawi is the second largest Realm, comprising of ninety percent water. Most of Ketaawi's native species can breathe underwater, or can hold their breath for long periods of time. The massive cities of Ketaawi are either floating on the water, able to move much like a boat, or beautiful domes underwater. Right after Enkkon, Ketaawi is one of the most technologically advanced Realms, with some of the best defenses and security to be found anywhere.

Rorrut is a mountainous planet, having the highest peaks and deepest caves in the Realms. With such conditions, it's also a major Realm for rare alchemy supplies, specifically minerals and powerful, giant creatures. The planet is constantly "growing," creating more mountains and caves to replace the ones mined. With some of the most dangerous creatures in the Seven Realms, the natives became natural fighters and survivalists. There are very few large cities, and the habitants mostly form small villages, keeping to themselves and protecting each other.

The largest of the Seven Realms, Aveilu is a gas planet. The natives of the Realm have built their cities on the many rings of the planet, which are made up of large floating island, with the largest cities being floating cities, completely fueled by energy to keep them in the sky. Most native species in the Realm have some form of flight capabilities. Aveilu is the top Realm in ship production and export, creating ninety percent of the Realms flying transportation. It is the only other Realm dragons have been spotted in.

My Master Post is here with all the links to my other more detailed intros, including OCs, world related things, and the magic system if anyone is interested in reading any more about EoWC.

I know this is a pretty long post, so if you read through everything, wow, you're amazing! Thanks for reading through my little (okay, big) rant!!!

If anyone wants to be added/subtracted from the tag list, you can comment or DM me!

General Tag: @orions-quill @fractured-shield and @leahnardo-da-veggie

EoWC Tag: N/A

LotA Tag: N/A

[freakattack]

Been thinking about the wario guys drawing lately. It's kind of hard to pin their "art styles" because while all of their microgames are made by them we also don't know how they got the art assets you know? It's warioware. It's anarchy. In mega microgames orbulon has a memory microgame where you control what looks like a crudely-drawn music band but then in touched when you turn on the real-life diamond city news it's the same damn band. they just look like that. So you can never know for sure. That being said, here are all of the most unambiguous examples of their artwork that i can remember

Wario: i already made a post about this bht i don't care. Wario is an amazing artist. If he actually wants to make something look good, like himself, he can. But most of the time he doesnt give a shit so he just craps out whatever. I get it. I'm the same way except it just so happens that i don't give a shit about anything so youve never seen me make good art even though i totally could if i wanted to. Dont look at me like that

Orbulon: orbulon, i am happy for you. I do not hold this against you and i think we all have a right to draw our ideal selves. Who among us hasnt drawn ourselves 10ft tall and jacked. Hypothetically. Dont look at me. Dont look at m

Anyways unlike wario i would like to believe that orbulon is gracious enough to share his talents with others and thats why most of the other game and wario title cards look like.... that. They probably all requested orbulon to draw them looking super cool and gave him very specific and at times vaguely frightening directions. Red wanted to look like freddie mercury for some reason. Pyoro did not make any requests becayse he has better things to do so orbulon took some creative liberties there. I'm not going to post every game and wario title card here because if youre reading this you probably have already seen them and if not go do that. I'll wait for you.

Penny: Ok now that we have all seen orbulons beautiful portfolio let's look at penny's. Penny is very self conscious of her art skills and so her portfolio has only one piece. Penny do not despair for i love your turtle drawing and i would kill myself for you.

Kat&Ana: Flawless. 10/10. The best artists here by far. Put it in the louvre

Anyways i am probabaly forgetting key examples here as it is currently ass o clock at night so if anyone has any non-microgame works of art from the wario crew you are welcome to bust in and give me them. I'm making a collection

[titleknown]

So, inspired by a post by @bogleech on the idea of a mascot horror thing specifically for kids where the monster is the playable hero, I made a design for a main character in such a work, and I have a concept bouncing around in my head that I may as well share!

They're basically from a creepy ambiguous "family entertainment center," but the twist is they're sincerely the good guys, trying to protect humanity from far worse monsters. Ideas I have bouncing around for those include the BeaverHats and Jane Doe, if anyone has any thoughts on those. The gameplay would focus on that sort of tension and resource management akin to old-school survival horror, in that all your special abilities use your health as their fuel, creating that "to use or not to use" struggle. And you'd not only have to fight the nasty monsters, but also retreat from adult humans trying to attack you because they think you're causing the problems. You can't hurt the humans, because you're trying to help them, the best you can do is just stun or spook them, adding that further tension. I say adult humans because kids would actually be far more receptive to what's going on and willing to help, even though the adults won't listen to them. Because again, the idea is this game would be for kids who like mascot horror characters and want one that's the hero, and one of the most universal experiences as a kid is being very aware of something bad the adults around you don't seem to care about.

With that audience in mind, the horror elements would be from the school of "Technically safe for kids, but significantly more fucked up than just normal brutal death," a bit like Courage The Cowardly Dog or those 80s movies with nightmare fuel moments if you're familiar. The idea for the release would also be it's episodic, each episode introducing a new map, a new type of enemy, and a new character with their own gameplay style and tradeoffs compared to the "main" one (I have a couple of ideas bouncing around my head there too). But it would also add challenges re-using/remixing enemies/maps from all the parts so far to extend the game with less assets.

So, thoughts? ...And yes, I'm aware that mascot resembles Candyman from Lethal League a lot, that was a pure coincidence, I was actually thinking of HR Pufnstuff of all designs along with a general idea of a very simple uncanny yet creepy-cute creature design, and I haven't been able to find any colors for the head that work better than that yellow. Is the resemblance too much?

[purekesseltrash]

Hi! I'm that one person on ao3 who was like. Utterly obsessed w Bury Them Deep, and I was wondering if you have any thoughts you'd like to share on the playing styles of any of the other characters? Especially the women, but really anyone, I just find it really neat

Oh my goddddd, yes yes yes please because I have thought so much about this shit.

Momo: an absolutely incredible goalie positionally. You could put her in textbooks on how to hold yourself. Her pushes are perfection, like she's just floating on the ice. Her glove hand is wonderful too, as is her stick handling and she has great height. But her best asset, and also worst one, is absolutely her mind. When she is calm and confident, she's an analytical God. The problem is with her tendency to overthink. Too many bad goals or even just unlucky ones and she has to be pulled because it's just gonna get rough. It's one thing that she really admires about Mezou because he can just shrug it off.

Urakara: The ballsiest defenseman you have ever seen. She played exclusively with boys for years and you can tell because if she's going to get a penalty, it will be for playing too rough. She has really excellent vision for the game however and plays a long game that even Bakugou has grudgingly admitted is admirable. They've had some scrimmages where she's actually out played him and after the first time, everyone expected him to blow up but he was like 'good game'. She's not the best skater and her speed isn't fantastic but its the hockey iq that keeps her where she's at, knowing when and where to pinch and where the game is going. She also has a pretty gnarly snapshot and a fantastic PP QB.

Mina: Mina is a skating god. Seriously, she will break your ankles and you won't have any idea until she's long gone. She was a figure skater until she got suuuuuper bored by it and talked her way onto a team, only to end up being super good at it. She's a right winger with a nice little wrister and is great on the foreheck but uuuuuuh, backchecking isn't her forte. That being said, she actually isn't terrible on the PK, especially since that means chances at short handed goals and boy do you not want to let her try.

Hagakure: You know those players that you tend to forget about? They don't really do anything especially interesting so when they do score, you're like 'oh! Holy shit! They're on the team!'? Thats Hagakure. Definitely a grinder queen, doing all the little shit that makes everyone on the team *love* her but that makes her seem totally unremarkable unless you're looking for it. A Chris Kunitz type, if that makes any sense. Always the first on the backcheck, has an awesome +/-, fantastic defensive forward, but unremarkable. She's also locker room gold because she WILL break any shitty moods up.

That's all the girls. I could also bring up Shouta and Hizashi.

Shouta: Positionally pretty good, pretty good reflexes though really nothing spectacular. His biggest handicap has always been his height, which is only short for goalies, and his lack of the superhuman athletic ability that most pro hockey players have. The thing that got him as far as he did was his hockey iq and specifically, how he could look at the ice and read plays. The ECHL and even the AHL were rough for him because the play was so much more chaotic but the few times that he got to play in the NHL were incredible. Because he could see it, he could read all of it and it all made sense. His body just couldn't hang.

Hizashi: I based him off of a combo of Beau Bennett and Tyler Seguin. I even gave him Beau's number, 19, and it was partially due to Beau's nickname of Sunshine and me liking how that matched with the meaning of the name 'Hizashi'. I also thought it was pretty apt given Beau's talent and promise but how his body just could not stay healthy enough to do the things that you could tell he wanted to do.

Oboro: He was a pond hockey player and was proud of it, lol. Put him on defense or have him play as a forward, he didn’t really care. He saw pretty early on how the hockey world just kinda sucked and was like 'nah, I'm good'.

If you have any more questions, I can not stress how delighted I would be to answer them.

[plumoh]

lay down your burdens

Rating: G

Wordcount: 2642

Summary: “What I’m trying to say is that… you look more bothered about your arm when you’re wielding my weapons. Specifically the Binding Blade, so maybe don’t force yourself to use it…?” / Roy asks Diamant about his scar.

Note: AO3 link. You know how Diamant had a fire magic accident when he was younger and Roy has a flaming sword? yeah.

Engaging with Diamant, as opposed to other warriors, feels natural—Roy is extending himself to become Diamant’s sword and armor, protecting him while also making him stronger to take care of their enemies in one sweep. Each Emblem has different assets, which aren’t suited to everyone’s fighting style; while Roy is more than happy to provide assistance and protection to Princess Ivy, he knows that he isn’t the most compatible with her. Alcryst says that he benefits greatly from the power Roy is lending him, but there is still something not quite right when they’re engaged, even if he’s the second prince of the kingdom that has watched over Roy’s ring for generations.

This feeling of wrongness is an oddity that is shared among many of the Emblems, even Marth, who has arguably been around far longer than any of them. Engaging with someone develops a bond that cannot be replicated easily with the next person who decides to use the ring’s power. But an unbreakable bond is just as dangerous as a weak bond—some stories tell the tale of warriors and Emblems who lost themselves when their partner fell in battle.

Roy knows that. Some tools are only meant to be tools, but the human nature is to love. He can’t think of anyone deliberately trying to avoid becoming friends with the person they’re engaged with. It is also difficult to fight in an army without caring about the people that constitute it. For an Emblem, ignoring their warrior’s feelings and resolve is a tall task; they become one.

Which is why Roy is keenly aware of Diamant’s heart hammering against his ribcage like it wants a way out whenever he brings out the Binding Blade to set a part of the battlefield ablaze. Roy wouldn’t call it nausea, but it’s a near thing—Diamant is doing his best to remain calm and to direct his attack at the exact location it is needed, but the effort that is required looks far too taxing to be healthy.

“The path is secured!”

Diamant wipes the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, and grimaces when the metal of his gauntlet scrapes his skin. There’s only the slightest frown on his face when he looks at his gauntlet and sees that no blood was drawn. He sighs, takes a slow breath, and readjusts his grip on the Binding Blade. His fingers are firm around the sword, but the uneasiness never leaves. Roy should make Diamant disengage for him to regain his composure, but they’re in the middle of the battlefield and a new wave of enemies is rushing them.

So Roy keeps quiet and watches, as Diamant calls forth the fire of the Binding Blade while flinching away from it.

Roy, since he can’t exactly fidget when he’s incorporeal and not touching ground, hovers. Micaiah waves her staff and the bright green light closes most of the cuts on Diamant’s arms and face. She smiles at him and floats away to heal the next person. Diamant lets out a sigh, stares at his left arm for a moment, then pulls down his sleeve.

“What happened to your arm?” Roy asks before he changes his mind.

He’s seen the dark mark running across Diamant’s skin. On hot days, he’s seen the way Diamant purposely rolls up the sleeve of his left forearm just enough to avoid exposing the mark, while the right sleeve goes all the way to his elbow. This is a scar that Diamant isn’t proud of.

Diamant glances at Roy, his face not showing any kind of surprise, though his eyes shine with a glint of resignation—and Roy frowns at the sight.

“Sorry, if you don’t want to answer that’s totally fine,” Roy says. “The… bruise caught my attention a few times before and I got curious.”

He didn’t mean to be so blunt in his question, but if he waited any longer, he would never ask.

“I suppose it’d be impossible to hide anything from an Emblem who has lived with us for so long,” Diamant says, smiling.

Roy’s lips tug upwards at Diamant’s casual tone, but his stomach twists into knots. Even if Brodia’s royal family has protected Roy’s ring for decades, Roy doesn’t personally know them. He recognizes them through their aura, he can sense the purpose that runs deep in their blood, but he has started to get to know them only these past few months.

Getting to know someone and fully trusting them takes a long time. However, Roy won’t deny that a special bond is keeping them together, like they are truly destined to fight alongside each other.

“You know that as an Emblem, I can feel what you are feeling when you use my ring,” Roy tells Diamant. “So. It seems that you’re not entirely comfortable. Uh.”

Roy falters, bringing up a hand to rub the back of his neck. Now that he’s actually broached the subject, the words are failing him and he thinks that it might not have been the wisest decision. Diamant clearly doesn’t want people to notice the scar on his arm for some reason, and Roy, even as his partner in battle, can’t just demand an explanation.

The knots in his stomach transform into a heavy weight as he realizes that even though their bond is steady and strong, if Diamant is always on the verge of passing out when he’s using the Binding Blade, then maybe they’re not that compatible after all.

“What I’m trying to say is that… you look more bothered about your arm when you’re wielding my weapons. Specifically the Binding Blade, so maybe don’t force yourself to use it…?”

"Roy.” Diamant lifts up a hand and that effectively makes Roy stop rambling. “You don’t have to worry so much. I’m not angry or upset you asked that question.”

Diamant cradles his arm closer to his torso, like he is trying to protect it a little while longer. That doesn’t make Roy feel any better.

“I think I’m simply self-conscious about this injury,” Diamant continues. “I’ve had it for a long time now, but it is evidence that I’m not as flawless as people think me to be.”

“Is that… truly a bad thing?” Roy asks, frowning.

Diamant sighs. “I suppose not. But most days, it is difficult to remember that those close to me won’t think any less of me because of one injury that I sustained years ago.”

Diamant tries too hard to act and stand like the formidable, unwavering prince who does nothing but train to protect his kingdom. These are qualities that befit princes, without a doubt, but the pressure he’s putting on himself is going to crush him one day. Roy would know.

When Roy looks at Diamant, he sees a friend before a prince, but people have often told him that his dislike for rank doesn’t necessarily reflect well on everyone—some nobles think him impertinent, commoners find him out of touch with reality. He and Diamant aren’t as close as he’d like them to be; sharing a similar status is clearly not synonymous with sharing the same values and priorities. Roy isn’t sure how his words would help Diamant, a man who has built around himself a barrier of forced self-confidence.

“I know soldiers who are proud to show off their scars,” Roy offers instead.

“A lot of warriors in Brodia are the same,” Diamant answers. “I’m not ashamed of my scar, but every day I am reminded of my weakness.”

“You’re not weak.” Roy’s reply flies out of his mouth before he can even think it.

Diamant casts him a small smile, certainly to show he appreciates the comment but he’s not believing it yet. He extends his arm, then slowly unclasps hi armbrace one belt at a time before rolling up the sleeve of his shirt.

The scar is no bigger than the width of a small dagger, located right in the middle of Diamant’s forearm. The passing of time made it dark red, almost brown. It’s obvious healers concentrated their efforts on treating it, but the attack must have been of incredible force if it left such a mark even years later.

Roy glances at Diamant, looks at the scar, then at Diamant again. He’s seen this kind of mark before, during his battles against dragons.

“Did someone burn you?”

“No, not exactly,” Diamant says, looking down at his arm, and Roy feels a weight lift off his chest. “It was an accident. When I was younger, I was training with fire magic and got careless.” Diamant looks back at Roy. “Ever since I got that injury, I’ve been afraid of magic, and specifically of fire magic. It sounds kind of silly when I tell you that, right?”

“From the looks of it, it was a very powerful spell. Dragon fire leaves similar marks if it’s not treated properly, and getting injured is never a good memory.”

It was hard at first to understand how dragon magic worked and how to efficiently heal the burns, which resulted in many soldiers going home with scars. Roy wishes that they could have done more for these soldiers.

“Is that why you’re hiding the scar? The memory of the accident must have been terrible.”

“It’s not entirely because of the memory itself. I’m… truly afraid of fire magic. I’m not exaggerating when I say this is my weakness.”

A hot wave of determination overwhelms Roy in a snap, and he takes a step forward, gesturing wildly at Diamant’s arm.

“You can’t say that, Diamant. You say you’re afraid of magic but you’re still fighting in the war and holding your own against mages! I’m not calling that weak.”

He’s spent so long being attuned to Diamant’s feelings during battle—his desire to protect, his quick thinking when in a tough spot, his ability to always summon the right weapon at the right moment. Roy remembers most of his past wielders, who were always invigorated with the knowledge of being able to use a fire-based sword. Just like Diamant, they were all courageous and headstrong in their own way; they all went to the front lines with the reassurance they were accompanied by an Emblem.

This is Roy’s role. He’s an Emblem giving strength to his wielders and turning the tide of a battle, but he is first and foremost a support for these warriors.

“If anything, if you’re always afraid when you’re using the Binding Blade but still succeed in winning a battle, then you’re one of the bravest people I’ve met.”

Diamant is staring at him with disbelief, mouth hanging open. It’s not fitting of a prince at all. If Roy still had a corporeal body, he’d be shaking Diamant’s shoulders with both hands and try to physically shove those words into his skull. Roy himself has been called stubborn and blind to his own behavior, and without the help of his companions, he’d still be an awkward ball of nerves unable to stand his ground.

“I hope you know how much strength it takes to fight while scared,” Roy finishes in a low voice.

Just as it suddenly overtook him, the burst of energy vanishes right as the last word leaves Roy’s lips.

Silence falls between them, stretching long enough for it to become uneasy. But Roy doesn’t regret his words nor does he wish this conversation turned out differently. He crosses his arms over his chest, attempting to hide his urge to fidget under that tense atmosphere. Even after a year of working on his body language, controlling his nervous habits remains the most difficulty task.

Finally, after what felt like hours, Diamant lowers his arm and directs his eyes at the scar instead. His face doesn’t betray much; he seems to have retreated into his own mind.

“That injury will most likely never properly heal,” Diamant remarks, pensive. “I’ll bear it all my life.”

“It is most likely, yes,” Roy replies, thinking about the scars that Dieck and Garret can’t hide and have accepted as part of themselves.

“I try to be the perfect prince that Brodia needs. I’ve always thought that if people saw this scar, they would think I wasn’t worthy of the title of heir because I had a clear disadvantage against mages. Brodia is a kingdom of hardened warriors, after all.”

Then Diamant lifts his eyes, and something much more appeased settles on his face.

“But no warrior is infallible.”

Roy grins. “That’s right. And no heir is alone in their journey to become the ruler they want to be. Asking for help isn’t a weakness either.”

“I suppose an Emblem would know that better than anyone else.”

“The others also faced similar struggles, talking to them would be very insightful. I learned a lot from them.”

Even before getting acquainted with a younger Aunt Lyn, Roy befriended Marth and Ike; two heroes whose legends apparently crossed time and dimensions. They might not have led the same kind of campaign or lived the same experiences, but from one general to another, they had many pointers and ideas to exchange—and Roy is always eager to learn more about battle tactics. He’s had longer discussions about doing what is right and how to rebuild a nation with Lucina, though. And Micaiah knows a thing or two about different peoples learning to coexist.

Diamant nods, and he rolls his sleeve back down to cover his arm.

“I’ll probably talk to Alcryst first, if the opportunity arises. He’s always saying he’s weaker than me and is nowhere near my level. He’s wrong, of course.”

Alcryst could also use a pep talk, Roy thinks.

“Alcryst will be surprised to learn his brother isn’t as indestructible as he imagines, but not in a bad way,” Roy says, then pauses. Backtracks immediately. “I mean, it’s not good you’re not indestructible! But you’re not a superhuman, that’s what I want to say!”

“I know what you mean,” Diamant laughs.

There’s no doubt Diamant never imagined that Brodia’s precious ring would house someone who still stumbles over his words. Roy groans.

“You see, I might have been the general of my country’s army, but I can’t even hold a conversation without making a fool of myself.”

“Well, I’d say the majority of the conversations I’ve had with you were reasonable,” Diamant indicates with a hint of teasing.

“Speaking in clear sentences is still something I’m working on…”

“Then let’s do our best, shall we? You’re working on your speech, I’m working on my fear of fire magic. We can achieve our respective goal together.”

It’s always reassuring, in a way, to see that rulers weren’t born perfect—all of them had to struggle and to work hard to erase as many of their visible flaws as possible, without stripping themselves of their humanity.

Roy lifts a hand and summons the Binding Blade in a flash of light. Diamant blinks at it.

“I’ll teach you how to protect yourself from the fire of the sword and how to face fire attacks,” Roy says. “It won’t be as thorough a training as the ones you’re used to, but I hope it will help.”

The corner of Diamant’s lips curls upwards. He extends his hand, palm up, and Roy deposits the Binding Blade on it. The sword takes on brighter colors upon the contact.

“I’d be honored to have you as a teacher, Roy.”

“And in exchange you can give me some tips about speaking with absolute confidence.”

“That sounds like a honest deal.”

Maybe Roy read it all wrong. He’s not incompatible with Diamant; they both have abilities they need to improve on, and what one lacks, the other can cover it. It is only natural to accept help and kindness from comrades and friends.

[misscaptainbear]

A while back I wrote a blog on how I'd make a soulslike using retro hardware, I'm gonna repost it here :D

Yeah, so the twitter post where I first explained my idea was my most liked/shared post by like a factor of ten. Since there was so much interest, I figured I might as well make a mockup in Unity. Look what you made me do. 

Here’s a link to the build, and the controls are detailed on that page too. For the full effect, I’d also recommend using JoyToKey or a similar program to convert controller inputs to key presses, because I was too lazy to implement key rebinding for a mockup. See the itch.io page for suggested bindings.

Also, if you (yes, you!) want to continue this work, the zip file for the build also contains inspiration art, models, game data, and source code. It’s low polish code and almost nothing is systemic, but maybe it’s a springboard for someone who wants to push this project farther. I’d love to see it. The work that I have the rights to (i.e. everything except the inspirational art) is hereby released in the public domain.

Findings

Animation

The first and most noteworthy thing I’ve discovered while implementing is that there were more animations than I anticipated. Like, I figured there’d be a lot, and there were more than that. As of right now, there are 532 player sprites, each at 100x100 pixels, giving us roughly 6.4 mb of sprite data. (assuming indexed image format and smartly cropping fully alpha 8x8 blocks)

Bruh

One of the things we could to further shrink these is to run-length compress them, and also reuse tiles. I considered writing a python script to go over all 8x8 tiles within all sprites, and saving them in a massive lookup table. Then, it would go through all sprites again, replacing the tiles in the sprite with any similar tiles. This would mean, say, the thigh tile from one animation might be the cloak in a different frame if the pixel colors and shapes were sufficiently similar. However, I decided not to because it doesn’t actually have any savings on modern hardware, only on tile based renderers.

I could have also hand deleted specific entire frames of animations and reused similar enough ones - just by eye - but I also wanted to include all of the animations in the data that I distributed, just for the sake of it all being there for anyone who might need it, for whatever reason. I think these techniques might get the total data down to 50-60%, but that still means a ton of data just for the main characters sprites. 

I could also cut the animations in half by simply making the character designs so that the left-facing animations can be reused for the right-facing animations, but I felt that put a lot of constraints on enemy design and combat readability, so I didn’t pursue that either.

Turns out tons of animation variants work better on skinned 3D models (which is why I’m pitching my next souls game on the Nintendo 64. Hit me up Bandai Namco!) I chose to do one player model with no costume changes and just a boring sword. Any variants like clothing, weapons, or equipping a shield would have completely blown the animation data budget.

Framerate

You’ll also notice the game runs by default at a low framerate, 15 frames per second (The quality can be changed with the - and + keys during runtime if it causes discomfort). I did this for two reasons. One, it made the animations, which run at a consistent 10 frames per second, feel much more in line with the sprite movement and the camera rotation. Plus, it might accurately simulate the game running on actual hardware; making the game run a quarter at SNES framerate might be required for the “high-fidelity graphics” on show here. (Who knows if the hardware would actually allow that without awful artifacts though, ha). But throttling framerate is a tried and true tactic for better visuals. 

Environment

Another thing that surprised me is the amount of reuse on environment assets I was able to get. I was ready to put together a bunch of textures for the walls and floors, but I finished up what I wanted to achieve and found I’d only used 20 64x64 textures. I think the real game would benefit by focusing on unique tilesets to give each zone or level a special feel, and I think that’d be within the budget of a real game.

Environment took about 20 textures total

I also quickly abandoned the differing-heights-of-walls idea I talked about in the first blogpost. The requirements of the way walls are rendered described in the post made certain arrangements of walls impossible, and those were kind of the only level designs I wanted to use. That’s confusing, here’s some drawings to explain what I mean. Basically, having shorter walls in front making a visually tiered level with hedges that obscure the walls behind them just isn’t possible using that technique.

The rendering technique causes gaps where there would be walls behind walls.

While we’re on the topic of environment, I guess I skipped over the way we’d have to z-sort sprites to allow walls to layer correctly over them, and for sprites to draw back to front. That’d be a performance issue too probably. 

Palette and Rendering

One of the big wins I had was the palette I set up, I felt it was super moody and conveyed the tone I was going for. It felt muddy and sad and tired. It had pops of blues and greens, but even then they muted and melancholy. To achieve this look, there were three mechanisms here. First, all the sprites and environment textures were palletized to those colors. Then, in-game, I used a fog effect to fade the world to black. Finally, a post processing shader took any pixels outside the gamut and palletized the final game render, so every pixel displayed is within that palette.

The palletization is most noticeable in gradients, where it slightly changes the tone of colors. In a cool retro way, I think.

To create the sprites, I was kind of forced to do it by rendering 3d models (blender files included in the data!). This was due to time and money. As mentioned previously, I would have loved to dress up in costumes and downscale, pixelate, and rotoscope real pictures, but that costs stuff. Also, I’m sure hand-pixelled sprites would absolutely look more appealing, but like I said above, there were just so many animation sprites. The upside to hand authoring is you can have more control of implied movement during animation, and therefore probably fewer frames. All said, I don’t dislike the rendered results, it has a bit of a Diablo 2 look to it, but I wish I had been able to experiment with different techniques, mostly for fun.

I remember loving to see these render breakdowns in gaming magazines and websites back in the day

I think if I had lower-resolution-better-looking sprites, fewer animations using the techniques described above, and designing levels so as to not have to  z-sort sprites, it just might be able to run on SNES. Just maybe. A commenter mentioned it might actually run on GBA, and I could see it being possible. Shoutout to the most impressive 3D gba game ever.

One final design note I liked: The ducking mechanic was inspired by Super Mario World. I felt that was a nice homage, and there wasn’t enough buttons for more soulslike interactions like parrying, so it felt like it was a good choice with some mechanical depth with the limited inputs I had available. And, this game being simpler is alright by me - we are theoretically in the realm of before King’s Field. 

Summary

So there it is. I said I didn’t have time to implement it, and I did anyway. This is all your fault.

But for real, I really enjoyed tinkering with this, and I’d love to see anything that gets made out of this idea. Hoped you enjoyed reading this!

[decadentworld]

Hi, thank you for reaching out. It means a lot to me especially because this is something I enjoy doing. I like learning about people and their behaviors and their opinions. I have a lifestyle that makes it complicated to reach out to others and have honest discourse.

I ask very open ended questions. Some of the questions may feel like they have little direction on how to answer them but I hope to get some great results with them.

In person I am really friendly, but for some reason I can come across kind of robotic on the computer. I believe the main reason for that is I became a customer support agent and use to answer emails from people all day. My literal requirement was to answer 100 emails to all sorts of emails so my typing became very...tense. I am unlearning some habits so that I may have my writing reflect my personality better. If something comes across cold please know that I don't mean to offend or trigger. You are free to not answer any questions that result in that emotion and I want to apologize if anything I say upsets anyone. It may be helpful to read through all of the questions before responding or only choosing to answer ones that you read and instantly want to rant about. I want whatever answers you have to give. Don't hold back on opinion or page numbers :)

If you want to be anonymous I am A-Okay with that friend. I would still like you to answer the questions honestly. Please leave out any information that you feel would unveil you mask.

So on to the questions.

Would you be willing to share a little background about yourself? I am interested in what you would share when asked to describe yourself in terms of a person being interviewed about art. What background information do you think relevant to this interview?

Do you do art purely as a hobby or work or a mixture of both? If you do sell your art what is the price range of your work? You can be general here. I am looking for brackets of what type of artists I am working with.

What type of mediums do you work in? Do you stick to certain genres or themes? Are there any the frustrate you but you still enjoy the process and end result?

What compels you to work on art?

Do you have a process in how you get yourself set up to work on art?

When do you consider a piece done?

Do you seek out other artists to befriend? How do you interact with other artists?

What hot topics are making you excited in the art world?

Is there anything new in the art world you would like to share with other people?

Do you consider the environmental impact that art has on the world? This can be in general or your art specifically. Please consider that if you are a digital artist you have an impact with electricity types and server usage.

These next set of questions might trigger those sensitive to AI.

What is your opinion on AI?

If AI is here to stay, do you think there will ever be a happy medium between AI usage and artists?

It has been suggested that some companies use AI but hire artists to train them. If a company approached you with a business model where you create assets for a hypothetical project but then wanted to use those assets to also train an AI "artist" so they could continue to create with your style, what would your response be?

What if you were paid royalties? Does your answer change?

I may come up with more questions but I am going to start off with these. If you would like to be contacted with more questions for possible future editions of this please let me know. If you would like to be tagged in the article I write or DMed a copy please let me know that information as well. Again, thank you for taking the time out of your day to participate in something as random as this.

Helloooo! I’m so glad you reached back. I absolutely did not see your writing as cold or robotic at all! I actually thought it was very well articulated and straightforward, which I appreciate because sometimes I cannot understand questions very well :-)

Q & A time! (warning for some triggering topics)

Would you be willing to share a little background about yourself? I am interested in what you would share when asked to describe yourself in terms of a person being interviewed about art. What background information do you think relevant to this interview?

I think a person’s background is almost 100% of what makes up their person, isn’t it? My upbringing was very violent and I feel like this has influenced a lot of my art, be it the process, the results, and the themes or topics chosen. I was exposed to violence and thinly-disguised neglect as a child, and I turned to NSF-W and gore media as a sort of escapism when I was as young as 7. I can recognize now that that had a negative impact in my way of thinking. That combined with me knowing I was queer on the down-low from a young age didn’t really help my situation, so I would lash out in specific behaviors. I was the weird kid and I’m still a little bit convinced I might have some low level of autism, but I’ve never been one to self-diagnose. I was raised Evangelical but to my own shock I was never really one to Bible-thump onto others, even with how easy it was to fall down that alt-right rabbit hole. I think Tumblr had a lot to do with that. If I hadn’t found it in the moment I did, I’m afraid to think I’d be one of those right-winger youths we have nowadays. I went through the religion resentment phase for a long time but surprisingly I’ve found faith once more a couple of years ago, in a critical way of course. I love God but not the church, and I feel like most Evangelicals have lost the plot long ago.

I started drawing at a very young age, probably before I even had a conscience. I went through many phases. One of the most influential ones in my life was fantasy art, specifically dragonsonas. I remember it as being longer than it probably was, though. I went through the manga/anime phase. I went through the typical vent art phase, the literal one in terms of my then works being ‘what you see is what I mean’ pictures: edgy, gory, ‘I want to die’ messages all over the page, etc. I think from the moment I was like 16 and onwards I started focusing more on realistic human art. And I think my art might reflect my progress as a person in a way? I’ve evolved backwards, but not in a necessarily bad way. When I was young I acted an adult because I was forced to grow up too soon, but now I’m 25 and I act more like a kid because I’ve started finding the whimsy in life. I think my art might reflect that because I now draw the things that make me happy, not the ones that make me sad.

Do you do art purely as a hobby or work or a mixture of both? If you do sell your art what is the price range of your work? You can be general here. I am looking for brackets of what type of artists I am working with.

I do it as both a hobby and a side job, hoping one day for it to be more like a main job. The thing is I’m not famous enough yet lol, and I am open to suggestions of websites where you can find those kinds of work more easily.

My ranges vary wildly because I work with different styles, some of which will take me a lot longer than others. For reference my least expensive style starts at 40 USD but in a very near future I’m going to open a new, more accessible tier that’ll probably start at 25 USD. There is no definite maximum in the range I work because that will be defined by what the client wants me to do, but for reference my more expensive styles can start at +100 USD; the priciest thing I’ve been asked to do was 460 USD and it took me a bit less than a month. I’d work faster if I lived on my own though because I take so long due to all the things I’m made to do for others (a life I didn’t choose).

What type of mediums do you work in? Do you stick to certain genres or themes? Are there any the frustrate you but you still enjoy the process and end result?

I do all my work digitally, but a lot of the time I try for it to emulate a traditional medium, such as making a semi-realistic illustration look like an old oil painting. I used to work on paper and pencil but I found a lot more agility in digital mediums since I can’t really ctrl Z or distort a pencil drawing lol.

I typically like to draw humans and humanoids mostly because it’s what I’ve had more training in. I’m also getting more interested in interior design due to a better understanding of Blender and how you can use it to easily lay out the basis of an interior. As for themes I’m not really sure if there’s any recurring one. I guess if you could count NSF-W as a genre then that’s one I aim at more, lol.

I think any style or theme could be frustrating enough if you get to a tricky part you can’t advance in. I find that mostly one of my styles, which tries to emulate a “poster” or “Marvel comic” drawing is the more difficult one since it’s hard to place a black shadow in a way that doesn’t eat at important parts of the drawing, but the hard-worked result is what makes it worth it. In terms of genre or theme I think I’m kind of fried if I have to be creative and think up intricate designs, for fantasy characters and landscapes alike. I feel like my creativity in general started drying out some years ago.

What compels you to work on art?

Usually fandom and specific existing characters. I feel like that’s the one thing I’ve always looked forward to, since I was really young and found fandoms such as the Avengers. I’m not sure if it’s the want for a sense of belonging, the need to see an idea on paper, or both. I’ve had maladaptive daydreaming for the longest time, thinking about my favorite characters/fictional crushes as an escapism, and this is probably one of the ways I’ve had to turn that into actual scenarios and stories, which is why I also started writing at a young age. It’s stupid to me when people say fanart and fanfiction aren’t valid forms of media, because I think they’re a valid, low-stakes outlet you can have, both to give tribute to your fictional muses, and to improve your art in a way that no one can really critique, since you’re doing it for free and for the love of those characters.

Do you have a process in how you get yourself set up to work on art?

If it’s on a topic or a character/s that I don’t know then I’ll start looking for a lot of references, both appearance and information, especially if this is a commission, just in the case I’m being made to draw something against my terms of service unbeknownst to me. Actually, I’ll look for references even if I know the characters or subjects perfectly, because you never know if taking your last memory of them as reference can turn into a ‘broken telephone’ sort of situation.

When the general idea is laid down in my mind, I’ll open up Blender and set up a scene with OpenSource 3D models. Sometimes this might be time-consuming instead of just starting with a sketch but I find this helpful in order to find the perfect angle and ‘camera’ rotation, something that would be a lot harder to do from zero. After this the process will follow according to the style chosen and will most likely involve sketching 100% of the times.

When do you consider a piece done?

This varies a lot from work to work, but the timing is usually long, because I’m too much of a perfectionist. There’ll be a point where I think the piece can’t be improved any more, and at that point I’ll probably distance myself from my computer for some hours or maybe even a day and come back to the piece, to see it with fresh eyes. If the style is similar to a sketch then the process to the finish line won’t be that much of a problem because it’s a sketch after all, but I’ll pour all my effort when it comes to more complex pieces like a semi-realistic. I think my signature has the final word in it; after I’m done with all the possible FX and filters, when I put it in a piece it’s like putting the bow on a giftbox, it gives me a sense of finality.

Do you seek out other artists to befriend? How do you interact with other artists?

I have to admit that I don’t usually seek up people with the purpose of looking at their art or for them to look at mine. If I find art I like it’s probably because I got it recommended on a page or I was looking at specific fandom tags and a piece from that fandom caught my attention. But when I find artists I make sure to interact with their works and leave them nice words.

What hot topics are making you excited in the art world?

To be honest I don’t follow much of what’s ‘hot’, I usually just do my thing or what clients want to see. I’ve been tempted once or twice to recreate art trends just for the clout but I can never connect with them fully, I feel like it’s too artificial of me. But never say never because I might find one I like in the future.

Is there anything new in the art world you would like to share with other people?

Not exactly new but for those who use Paint Tool SAI and don’t know, there’s a SAI 2 version that’s been out since 2020 and it has a lot more cool features like rulers, perspective grids, Bezier curves in linework layers and more.

Do you consider the environmental impact that art has on the world? This can be in general or your art specifically. Please consider that if you are a digital artist you have an impact with electricity types and server usage.

Not really, unless we’re talking about AI, which I’ll state down below. In terms of what it can do for the world then I think there’s a lot of value in impact works that serve to bring awareness to environmental issues. I did a digital piece for a university assignment last year about the desecration of wetlands and it really stuck to a few of my relatives who weren’t even aware of that issue.

In terms of how digital work affects electricity, I would say it doesn’t, much. The amount of energy a person uses to draw something in their tablet can’t possibly equate to how much electricity big corporations use for their own nefarious purposes, and I feel like this is probably something they’ll use to guilt-trip us into lowering our own usage, just like they do with plastic straws for contamination.

These next set of questions might trigger those sensitive to AI.

What is your opinion on AI?

I hate it, and I can’t even resignedly accept it like I did with NFTs. One of the things I hate the most about it is how it’s changed the vision of non-artist snobs, who are now like “I could have easily made that in 5 seconds with Midjourney,” when you show them an amazing piece made by a real artist. It’s like they said: in the future we’ll build robots to do our jobs so we can make art, but it’s now the future and they’ve built robots that make our art and we still have to do our jobs.

I wouldn’t hate it so much if it was only public domain paintings that were fed into it, or drawings from people who were paid and consented to it, but they had to go and steal hard-work from people and they still have the gall to call those amalgamations ‘theirs’.

I think it won’t stay for too long, though. One of the deterrents of AI even snobs can’t deny is how much electricity and water it consumes. Not even a session, but a single command consumes as much as dumping a bottle of water on the floor or something like that. Over time whoever runs those servers won’t be able to, anymore.

If AI is here to stay, do you think there will ever be a happy medium between AI usage and artists?

I personally don’t think so. I think any self-respecting artist wouldn’t want to get associated with that. Some people try to start the argument that for example being against AI is ‘ableist’ because AI helps people with physical disabilities with the process of their art, except it’s not like that. I’ve seen people without any limbs drawing with their mouth and while I believe comparison is the mind-killer, I think this argument is just plain stupid, because AI isn’t helping you. It’s creating for you, and that’s what has people so angry. It’s not a tool, like 3D posing programs to get pose references, or automatic perspective grids to make the process faster, or the likes of those. I don’t think there’s any value in just stating your idea and just letting something else create it for you, unless it’s to hire a real artist who can see your vision and who you can bounce ideas off of.

It has been suggested that some companies use AI but hire artists to train them. If a company approached you with a business model where you create assets for a hypothetical project but then wanted to use those assets to also train an AI "artist" so they could continue to create with your style, what would your response be?

No, I don’t think I will. I know that styles don’t ‘belong’ to a person in particular, but regardless of that, like I said, I don’t think any real artist would want to go through that. It just serves to perpetuate the idea of AI ever staying for good.

What if you were paid royalties? Does your answer change?

As much as I need money and as tentative as the idea could be, I wouldn’t, because it would be short-lived if I did. You get a hefty paycheck from a place like Outlier.ai for training their machine baby but have to walk out of it knowing you’d be appropriately ostracized by your fellow artists if your name ever came out of that site. And when the money runs out, what self-respecting client would want to hire you after knowing that?