#wish they utilized them more:(

[lotus-pear]

free will is drawing ur two favorite characters together and making them gay

[fiapple]

i'm getting towards the end of the skypeia arc, & i'd like to say just how much i adore the way the female strawhats have been treated.

just... every aspect of how the way their characters have been previously contextualized influences the story-line is treated with a masterful amount of consideration. we're given so many layers to both of them that enrich not only their characters specifically, but the arc, and the one piece world as a whole. without nami & robin having their specific skills, and their specific values, without those being built upon, the story would have come to a halt.

you could not have skypeia without nami & robin being who they are as individuals. not just because they never would've gotten there without nami, but also because the way these women think is itself foundational to the machinations of the arc as a whole.

to be totally upfront, if you think any other strawhats were more central to the skypeia arc than nami & robin were you are full-on fucking lying to yourself.

[princess-of-the-corner]

*thinking very intensely about the OCs I made to be Enji's parents*

[a-goumang-ripoff]

A (Hopefully) Small Rant on the Fengs Fight

So I got a small amount of inspiration to rant a bit more on Nine Sols even though I am like. Dead fucking tired.

So, the Fengs, Nuwa and Fuxi, to be entirely honest I really just feel bad for their fight. I've been seeing quite a bit of people disliking their fight for a variety of reasonings and I kinda think it's because of the placement of the fight. Entirely shoving story stuff out of the way, I feel like the fight would fare quite a bit better in the first half of the game, or at least more towards the middle, if it was tuned down a bit. I think the fight is pretty cool and decently impressive, but it has to put up with, what I consider, to be the 3 best bosses in the game placed around it.

Lady Ethereal starts off the second half of the game with a fight which is, to me, the most visually impressive fight in the game just in the moveset alone. She is my personal favorite, but I know she tends to be in the second/third place range for most people. Ji is. Well, Ji. It's a cool fight to watch and so satisfying to get down, it really gets you into a sort of flow state with how much you can memorize is moveset and perfectly counter everything he has. And Eigong is so mechanically impressive and her moveset is so cool and so fitting of a final boss in a parry game. They easily blow every other boss out of the water together

From what I know, Lady Ethereal MUST be done before fighting Ji or the Fengs. Ji can be done either before or after, though I think with grotto of scriptures having a full room that you see in Goumang's area, the game kinda nudges you towards them over the Fengs. Then after them, you are hit with Eigong, which is an especially insane fight compared to any of the ones beforehand. And the Fengs kind of just awkwardly sit in-between. They have a LOT to live up to, having to keep up with the surrounding bosses, and they definitely fall behind. Fuxi is slow and predictable; not a bad thing, but without outside gimmicks, it makes him bland and boring on his own. With Nuwa in the fray, the fight definitely picks up and I do have a lot more fun with it, but it kind of lacks a lot of that visual impressiveness of Lady Ethereal, it lacks the same smoothness Ji has, and it's not like Fuxi gets any less predictable or simple even with Nuwa's tricks.

I think it is a good fight and I had quite a bit of fun with it, but with how slow and predictable of a moveset Fuxi has, I feel like they should show up before the bosses pick their pace up, maybe like right after Jiequan or right before, if you tuned back Nuwa's abilities of course. I think it would give them a better light shined on them that isn't overshadowed by everyone else. Alternatively, speeding up Fuxi or complexifying his moveset (and reworking Nuwa to work with Fuxi better, she more interrupts him to let off her own thing and it throws an odd pause into the fight. I guess you could say it makes sense for Nuwa's personality, but I feel like part of the point of her and Fuxi's presence is the fact that they pair so well) could greatly improve the fight at where it's at now.

I honestly think that their fight strongly outdoes a lot of those early fights, Goumang's fight definitely isn't for me, but I will still criticize it for its strong lack of synergy between the two servants, they do their own thing and it's hoped that the AI makes it synergize, but it's quite evident they're separate fighters and it made the fight often create uncomfortable scenarios that don't feel like they have a proper solution. Yanlao's fight has like a grand total of two attacks you see constantly, one you see rarely, and an environmental hazard. And Kuafu's.. uh, I forgot the dude's name, but that fight is obviously just a tutorial boss, so it kinda gets a pass (but I think it could have been done a bit better rather than just making it a nothing fight). You throw a slightly tuned down Fengs fight in there and I feel like people would be losing their minds (exaggerating a bit).

Also, on a more negative note, maybe this is just me, but it was the first time I started to question a boss' attacks in this game. Most of the time the context just leads into the concept, y'know? Ji teleports around and throws a barrage of various almost supernatural moves at you? Yeah they're mysterious and an oracle and stuff, that makes sense. Lady Ethereal has the most insane stuff she throws at you? Yeah it's a dream, of course she does all that. Yanlao's crane has a fucking laser? A bit of a stretch but I just fought an ancient living weapon earlier so I'll allow it. But Nuwa's instrument.. summoning snakes? and throwing stuff at you? and summoning AoE fields? I'm really not sure where this is coming from-

All we've really gotten from them is they're rich and they're actors, so why does Nuwa have an instrument that just summons that stuff? It might just be a lost in translation sort of thing, I know they're named after characters in a myth and that myth had them making special instruments or something of the sort? I didn't really look deep into it, I did a quick google search and skimmed, but that would be my guess. Still though, it's the only time I've questioned that stuff in the entire game.

Anyway, I do think that the Fengs is honestly a good fight, coming from someone who has no hit them (it was hell). It just has some moderate flaws and is surrounded by fights that blow them out of the water. I would like to state, while I was talking about putting them earlier in the game, I obviously don't think that's a great idea, they have a lot of significance tied to them specifically in the story and it would certainly ruin the flow of the writing, it was more to state a point on the level of skill demanded of them and the comparative impressiveness of the fight.

Also while writing this I got a cool idea that I think would make the fight really cool. I mentioned the way Fuxi and Nuwa don't really work with each other earlier, I think a great idea could be making the fight mostly scripted. It would be a dangerous idea, easy to fuck up or make irritating to fight over and over, but I feel like it fits them as actors to have their fight and moves be scripted, it could also allow Nuwa and Fuxi to have a synergy that I don't think a boss can really have otherwise without becoming one boss with two hitboxes. I also think it could allow Nuwa to actually play music, she just kinda blasts single notes from what I can tell whenever she does an ability, I think scripting the fight could allow her to actually play full music while having it key into certain abilities (I think it can be done without scripting it too, but I love the idea of the two bosses known to be actors and put on shows having a scripted, almost rehearsed fight).

[shell-lee-inc]

Marvel: Avenger Infinity War and Endgame was the most ambitious crossover event in history!

Me:

[possum-tooth]

got our water bill the other day and between that and gas/electric bill im never taking a shower or turning on a light ever again

[quixot1sm]

Hear me out: N and Hilbert going back to the ferris wheel with their kid

this is very very sweet (and i most certainly will be doodling something about this at some point) but i think, when their kid's grown enough to ask why they're so sentimental about the old thing, the following conversation would be pretty funny to overhear. well this is where your father rejected me<3

[wxywardsun]

Psychics in supernatural are the ultimate weirdgirls!! [lovingly of course] [im taking all of them and putting them in my pocket]

[get-rammed]

Let me guess, cassie's dad was Bonnie's handler when he was alive still wasn't he. (Bonnie being alive I mean) I mean Bonnie was his favorite uwu.

Nope! Bonnie had a whole different Handler, and I'm sticking with that 😂 as she was made WAY before we knew about Cassie and all of Ruin. Or at the least before I knew. My ass didn't know about the books until about 2 weeks ago so. And I haven't read them yet so idk what's in them besides gore. But Bonnie's Handler was a middle aged lady who grew up with Fazbear stuff :) didn't mind Bonnie sometimes ate cats-

Fun idea though. I'll probably yeet his ass in as a basic Handler or maintenance if we ever get a canon design for him 🔥 someone who helped Bonnie's Handler out when she wasn't able to do something

[childofaura]

For FEH: have you done sena yet? (Limstella, L!Yuri, F!Dimitri, Soren)

I haven't, but that one's a really good pick! I really liked Limstella's art when they were added, and despite my gripes with Yuri, his art is good too.

So yeah, Sena has drawn all of the above. They have some fantastic artwork: their coloring skills are gorgeous, the anatomy is good, the posework is all dynamic, and most of the time they tend to have some neat effects going on in the critical portraits. It seems like they're on the newer end of the artists in FEH (I consider "newer" to be anything from Book 5ish onward) with their first entry being Dimitri, and only continuing to get more characters from there.

One thing I wanna note is that they DO have great expression work, as seen with Dimitri, both in his crit portrait and his damage artwork:

But sadly most of the time they've gotten pretty blank faced or non-expressive characters, like Yuri and Limstella and Soren.

I will say that Limstella had some AMAZING effort done for their artwork, especially how unnatural and creepy their eyes look:

I think Yoneko's an amazing artist and I think Sonia was drawn well, but her eyes simply don't have that same inhuman effect.

Oh, and before I forget, here's some neat effects in their Soren crit artwork:

I like the addition of the magic circle at the bottom.

Now I DO have one criticism of their artwork, and it's that it seems like they haven't drawn a huge range of characters in terms of age and gender. I think they could definitely easily pull off female characters, since Limstella kind of leans into some female physique choices despite being androgynous. But at the same time, I don't know how they'd handle drawing bigger male characters too.

That aside, Sena's art is easily a 9/10. I think IS needs to stop giving them stone-faced twinks though and let them have fun with some more expressive characters. Though I will contradict that sentence by saying I would absolutely love it if they were Zelkov's artist. They'd enhance his gorgeous eyes.

[axellis-archv-2]

i just need to put these on my blog for science . ramram design evolution video is something

[jessamine-rose]

It is Day 1 since I stopped playing Obey Me! :’>

[sysig]

Many months of paper review (Patreon)

[alkaysani]

🔥 topic: anything 911 related

oh boy

well, i think they don't know what to do with maddie after her PPD

like the whole 6a storyline (you know which ones), and then the way she was just there afterwards was very telling

and while we're here, i also don't like for a really long while madney was just all about maddie, and i'm really happy that hen addressed it, but also though as soon as she addressed it, it became about maddie again? and like, enough of that now please, thanks

send me a 🔥 for an unpopular opinion

[saintqueer]

.

[redysetdare]

Still thinking abt how huntsman never got a satisfying ending. Like ik a writer on the show said he did and that his whole arc was wrapped up in his decision to not leave but like... idk it did NOT seem like that AT ALL in the show.

Like when we see him looking at the tea bag???? that's supposed to be read as him deciding not to leave and THAT was our closure??? You gotta be fucking joking right???

Idk what i thought that scene was doing (and seems like a lot of ppl thought it was doing as well because someone had to actually ASK A WRITER ABOUT IT) was that him looking at the teabag was a jumping off point for a redemption arc. He had STARTED asking questions. He didn't show signs of being okay with the answers he got. It felt like a set up for MORE and then we just...didn't get it and we're supposed to just accept that?

And i get it. I get that not everything works out. sometimes shit goes wrong and not every character gets a happy ending...but then why even set up the possibility in the first place? we got ONE episode with him being like that and thennnn nothing? like usually this sort of thing is supposed to feel like a wrapped up arc y'know? cutting it short like this usually is never good unless you want ppl to be mad that a characters arc was cut short.

It just feels like the show didn't have enough episodes to explore everything they were setting up. It feels like if maybe there was more episodes we would've seen more of huntsman questioning everything that was happening and maybe even getting a redemption arc. But we'll never know because monkie kid is stuck to 10 episodes a season fsr and it kinda sucks that things just get dropped and never explored.