#hey… long time no post

[bloodnbunnies]

[humming-fly]

I love how Gerald was trying to keep Shadow from spoiling anything about the future meanwhile literally everything Shadow says and does around Maria is the biggest death flag ever

[inquisitor-apologist]

Ok I’m being so brave about it but a couple of days ago I saw this post claiming that the Jedi saying ‘this weapon [your lightsaber] is your life’ is emblematic of ‘the Jedi’s failure as peacekeepers’ (not an exact quote but pretty close) because why would a weapon be the life of a peacekeeper?

And like. The Jedi are a culture. They’re a religion.

You know that, right? You know that many cultures, including generally peaceful ones, have sacred weapons, right? You know that the bond between a Jedi and their crystal(s) is an extremely sacred thing that requires the consent of both parties and is integral to their way of life, right?

You know that lightsabers are not intended to be only for killing, right? That the first thing Luke learns to do with his lightsaber is to shield and defend? You know that a culture having sacred weapons doesn’t mean that they view killing as sacred, right?

Not trying to start shit, I don’t even remember who said it, but ugh

[remxedmoon]

your friends don’t know what to do.

so!! i redrew every single enemy in the game. in the span of like 9 days (excluding the king i made him right after the last update). that’s abbbout 79* drawings total, with only 3 custom ones for once!! i’m so normal. as always, these are free to use with credit!! go nuts!! spritesheets are included <3

got some notes under the cut, along with As Many Enemies As I Could Fit without making this post obnoxiously long. and i failed. i had to swap between the app and browser several times and i still couldn’t fit every drawing. open this post at your own risk (silly).

okay so first of all. what’s with the asterisk. well. I Drew A Lot More Than 79 Assets Actually. they’re getting posted separately, because this post is ABSURDLY long. you can find most of them in the miscellaneous folder, but for a bit of clarity, i added the teleport map and a bunch of ui elements that reference sprites from the icon sheet. and also the game over and loop back animations but i haven’t finished the spritesheets for those because they’re a pain in the ass so they’re not in the drive yet

if you missed my complaining a few days ago, a few enemies might look a bit crunchy in the actual game? specifically, calamité and désespoir were drawn at the wrong size, because their images in the files do not match the spritesheets! i avoided the issue with most of the other enemies, those two just blindsided me. sorry about that!

^sadnesses having inconsistent designs was actually a running theme with these. détresse rock has an unused design in the files (which i managed to catch before having to redo it thankfully), anxiété has extra spikes that don’t appear on the spritesheet (sorry i was too lazy to fix that one), even the version of the friend rescue in the files doesn’t match any of the frames in the spritesheet. hfjfhfj. sorry about the quality issues.

tangentially related to that, massive thank you to @riggedbones for grabbing the individual frames for the animations for me!! they made my life so much easier. vs friends would’ve been so annoying…

speaking of the animations! hi can you tell i’m not an animator. these were my first time doing Anything animation related since, like, middle school. super sorry for the Jank in some of these! the friend rescue looked way better when i drew it 💔💔.

bourdon’s hands also might act a bit odd, my apologies. the sizing ingame is SUPER inconsistent (why is one of the hands SMALLER than the other????). once i’m able to actually test the mod, i’ll try to fix it wauaua.

the 3 custom sprites are for the triplets! i ended up making two versions for each, one that follows the ingame art, and one with my personal designs for them. i like my own designs for them, but they’re a lot easier to tell apart? so if you want to use the ones that fit the gimmick better, they’re also in the drive 👍

this update. was originally going to have way more custom art. i’ve actually got an act 6 siffrin enemy asset in my art program! but school started and i decided it’d be better to just get the normal stuff done. so the mod can actually come out in a reasonable timeframe. promise that’ll all come out Later! sorry about the wait 😓😓😓

also adding this because i almost forgot: no i don’t know if these are compatible with sasasaap. i don’t have the game still and it’s not my main priority atm, apologies!

okay! that was a lot! and there’s a ton of art down here! thank you for reading all this, i’ll be back with the game over animations and teleport map pretty soon! like. within the weekend. enjoy!!!

[sirlanval]

saw a pair of very cool shoes in a charity shop the other day and immediately had to run home and draw doflamingo in them

[emedeme]

While the world is ending (again), the Hero of Ferelden and his son are on a journey together...

(AKA why the Warden and Kieran are missing, they're somewhere else having their own family adventure)

[ahopefulbromantic]

What do you find patriotic about the themes of In Stars and Time?

Yayayay thank you for this question anon! I have SO MANY THOUGHTS!!!

I hope this won't get too long sorry in advance for the whole huge essay heh

I think first we need to get into what patriotism actually is. Because what some seem to propose is that it is only “supporting the political interests of a country you're a citizen of” which is not actually true or “glorifying it to the point of warping into nationalism and chauvinism”, which is extrremely untrue and frankly bonkers??? No, patriotism is love for your country, for your nation, for your people. And by extension, for your culture, your language, your history (loving means admitting to the dark sides of it btw), your home, all of it. It doesn't mean your national food, music, etc. have to be your favorite in the world, but it does mean you find value in them, you want to preserve and remember them, you want what’s best for them. (I love my brother. He gets on my nerves so much i wanna strangle him sometimes. You get the idea) so sorry if it's all obvious to you but i thought it needed to be clarified just in case

ISAT as a whole but especially Odile, Siffrin, and the King’s character arcs pose a question: how much of yourself is influenced by your origins? This topic is explored in many various forms, woven into the flesh of the narrative, ever-present (the differences and customs between countries a recurring topic in the party’s conversations, for example). The cultural exploration is often what drives the plot forward.

(Also the use of national religions is so great, it adds a yet another perspective to the problem, but it’s a whole nother can of worms for a whole nother day!)

While the Country is used mainly as the vehicle for themes of loss and loneliness, the so-called "Homesickness" (“Mal du Pays”),

its national aspect is never undermined. This is, among other themes, a story about being denied the connection to your roots, after all. If you think about it, the whole plot happened because of it, is undivorceable from it, and arguably serves to show how horrible such a thing might be.

This is also a brilliant way to explore what being a “country” means - it's not just about some territorial politics or conservative history classes. It's the whole environment you grow in as a human being.

The King and Siffrin are juxtaposed here as narrative foils, the King acting as a fallen Siffrin: now this is especially interesting, because in every other story like this i'd expect the King to be a chauvinist. But… surprisingly, he’s not. He is a patriot, in a sense. He does love his country and he does love Vaugarde, his actions are not motivated by a political self-righteousness, they are motivated by a love warped into obsession by fear. Don’t get me wrong, he is an irredeemable villain, but he’s as much a victim here. He isn’t condemned by the narrative. He gets his wish granted in the end (wishcraft and the Universe? add it to the aforementioned can of worms, not today but boy do i have things to say), he gets to remember his homeland. He gets justice, both in the form of punishment and compensation.

Siffrin nearly ends up like him, but doesn’t - not because he decides to abandon and forget his country forever! but because in being loved by his family he finds strength to conquer the fear of losing everything again. It’s a fine line, but i think insertdisc5 navigated it masterfully. Check out how Sif's internal monologue changes in regards to the Island. He has a history of running away from the painful things and thus not working on his massive trauma (one could make a case that the rewinds when he remembered his past weren't actually caused by the Universe but by him but again, worms. in a can.). But now in act 6 he finally stops looking away:

and you might even imagine a fondness in his eyes.

By the way, here's a tiny personal digression: i 100% believe that there are some nationalities that will inevitably be hit harder by this narrative than others - one of those being Polish. Which i happen to be! Now lemme tell you, at some point in act 3 i thought: "huh. i, too, am from a country that disappeared once". But it didn't really disappear now, did it. So then i thought, what if it had, and i were the only one left and i, too, couldn't remember anything? And then my heart weeped, and i grieved inside a little, and made a fanart, and didn't feel better afterwards. Yay!

But you know what? There's a cool quote from Shang-Chi saying: "you are a product of all who came before you" - and your own unique characteristics, one should add after Odile. Your past, and i mean the generations upon generations before you as well, is a part of who you are, whether you like it or not. We see it in Siffrin. No matter how the wishcraft tries to erase it, it can't. Because one way or another, he will remember. He will love the stars and know basic astronomy, he will be able to use wishcraft, he will dress in his ethnic clothes, he will love malanga and cheese samosas, he will instinctively swear in his language. It's a part of him:

And maybe that's what's actually the most patriotic aspect of ISAT's narrative - that you can't erase it. As much as you try, you will never be able to fully succeed. Because there are people who love it, still. Even if they will never remember it. After all:

[lmadsadness]

soundwave and his weird ahh husband who always somehow managed to get into his quaters without waking him up

[apparently-artless]

Mommy, thank you for all you do.

[heartorbit]

find another role, carry on the show

[jollyparaphernalia]

*Inhales* Hey there, wanna see my 'In Stars And Time' AU? I call it 'Kingswap'

Hey, What's This?

My Brainrot <3 This is Kingswap: Also known as 'Hey lets swap The King and Siffrin's roles around in this play, and go from there'. There's more to it than that, but that's the premise. While 'The Guy Who Would Be Siffrin' has their life derailed in such a way that leads to them becoming the Main Villain, 'The Man Who Would Be King' likewise has his life play out in a way that has him in the shoes of a Saviour of Vaugarde.

WARNING This AU chatter post has spoilers for pretty much all of 'In Stars And Time', including stuff from 'Two-Hats'! and 'Start Again: A Prologue'. This is the Spoilers Zone. Also any Content Warnings that apply to In Stars and Time also applies to this post, just to cover my bases.

Let's Take a Look at The Stranger Who Could Have Been Siffrin:

Meet The Stagemaster. Potentially known as 'Sulking One'/SM/Don't Call Me Shirley Siffrin'. While the King and Siffrin in baseline ISAT woke up on a beach with no memories, i've decided it would be interesting to put 'Siffrin' in Corbeaux as a young adult when The Island disappears. He wakes up one day with no memories of his past, no name, and only a vague idea that he had a community in the city...that has forgotten him completely. He takes this Very Normally over the next 10 years (alongside some other...complications) and after some travelling, returns to Vaugarde to be a Menace.

He's also got some funny 'Craft Hands' that let him do things even when he has his hands in his cloak. These hands are also capable of conjuring wires/strings that allow him to physically bind/control people as an added bonus (For the Puppeteer motif) Watch the hands, Heroes!

But Wait, I thought The King Was Big, Why Isn't Stagemaster Big?

Because this tiny form isn't their 'true form'. THIS is what the Stagemaster ACTUALLY looks like, trapped in the House of Dormont by the Orb Door.

The Stagemaster...really isn't a person anymore. It's sort of debatable he was still human even before Big Mode. He can fly like this, and can control his cloak as though it's a part of himself (But he can still remove it) If you are looking at this going 'hey, he looks like a boss out of Kirby' then I did my job right. A theatre kid isn't very fun to watch unless seen, so, even before the Party gets to Dormont, it seemed fitting for SM to have a presence in Orbquest. So...Stagemaster controls a crafted avatar from afar - like playing a character in a game. There's a metaphor about disassociation from the self here. I personally love the idea of this nasty little guy interfering with the Orb Quest and antagonizing the Heroes - he is not NEARLY as powerful as his Big Form when he's Little Guy, so there's enough back and forth for Stagemaster to both be a threat, and also give some wiggle room for the Party to bully the Villain. Build up some rapport for funsies.

Stagemaster's a real piece of work. Imagine if Siffrin took all his self loathing, and then transformed that into outward loathing. If you took the WORST impulses from Loop and Act 5 Siffrin and put them in a blender, and then added a huge chip on his shoulder against the Universe, you might get the rancid creature you see here. Wet Meow Meow has transformed into a Feral Cat With Mange. And Rabies. And an impulsive urge to monologue. He doesn't even like puns!! Horrible!

The Party eventually calls him 'Smaster' for short before arriving in Dormont.

So if 'Siffrin' is in Kings place...Who or What is travelling with our beloved Party?

Meet Clovis (Named after an old King of Franks because I am very subtle). While Siffrin was a wet meow meow stray cat, Clovis is more a nervous dog. The King's explanation behind why he called himself The King seemed very utilitarian to me in ISAT, like he wanted to embody his role completely. So...here, Clovis puts all his eggs into his identity as 'Knight'. He doesn't serve anyone, he's just really into the idea of a brave, heroic persona. He's...very awkward and nervous, and often falls back onto 'what would a more brave, knightly sort do?' to make up for the fact his entire life was carved out of his skull with a spoon.

Look at this, took a perfectly good villain and made him a blorbo. Look at him, I gave him anxiety and sword autism. Like Siffrin, the party grows to love their weird wet dog. Mirabelle bonds over swords and anxious 'do it scared' behavior, Isabeau shares a 'battle bros'/'two bros sitting in a hot tub' dynamic, Bonnie treats him like a Substitute Teach ("yeah this is fine for kids c'mon lets go' 'uh, if you say so, boniface...') and Odile merrily bullies him (Paper beats rock)

Of course we need the Don Quixote reference. (He lost the fight, for the record.) Clovis is more than just a cute face, of course. Even he has his secrets.

Something is wrong here. Something wrong with him, maybe. Maybe he isn't supposed to be here.

Much like the King, Clovis also knows he's missing important things from his life, and has taken great effort (and personal injury) to keep what bits he can close to him - even when he really shouldn't.

The Party keeps Clovis from the Headache books not because they don't think they matter, but because the party doesn't want Clovis to hurt himself. They joke that he's an amnesiac prince from a far off land, but, well, at a certain angle, that's sort of the truth, isn't it? Clovis isn't a trap master like Siffrin, (or nearly as fast) but tends to walk as the lead of the Party because he's a Very Durable guy with some armor and protective Craft, so, any traps that explode in his face are easier to shrug off, and those that aren't...well, he's got quick reflexes.

But Wait! If The King is the looping hero, and Siffrin is the Big Evil Bad Guy, who does Clovis get as a Guide?

It's good ol' Loop! Our Loop, the Loopert we love and adore. SURPRISE! I fooled you!! This AU isn't meant to be a thought experiment, it's actually an overly elaborate way to give Loop as much psychic damage as physically possible!!

What's worse than having Another You take your place? Having a Tiny Version of your Nemesis take your place, earning the love and affection of your beloved family instead of you!

(They call him 'Princeling')

Needless to say, Loop and Clovis' dynamic is what we call in the scientific community fucking atrocious. Clovis wants to put his trust into this Guiding Star, and Loop is far, FAR worse to Clovis than Loop would be to a Siffrin. Loop may not be able to guess every single thought Clovis has, but any anxiety that is a reflection of Loop/Siffrin will be mercilessly picked apart with a smile. It's hate at first sight. At least Loop can take solace in the fact that Clovis is just as clueless as Loop/Siffrin was in their loops.

Clovis meanwhile is just intimidated. A guiding star of the universe?? And they hate him already??? 'Ohh...I really messed up already, haven't I? What'd I do???' Anyways, that's all for now. I just really wanted to get my initial brain worms out of my head and into the world. Please enjoy. If I do more posts like this, i'll prolly tag it as 'isat Kingswap au'. okay byyyyyyyyyeeeee thanks for reading! And thanks to the AU channel of the ISAT Discord for being so supportive of my brainrot!

[saessenach]

dear fellow traveller

I know they're in their divorce era rn, but I'm still on S1 and they will not let me rest

Galadriel & SauronHalbrand in Númenor, in a moment of peace between arrests

[peace-hunter]

Hi, I was wondering if you could do a previous moment of B-127 in sub level 50 like a couple minutes before Orion Pax and D-16 arrived, acting emotional and wishing someone was there with him; then his thoughts while meeting Orion and D-16.

P.S. I love your art, it makes me happy. (:>)-->--<

erm. well. he's never gonna be bored again for sure (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞

i'm really sorry i know this isn't really what you asked for but i couldn't get the idea out of my head and i just had to draw it out (/▽＼) i hope you still like it and i promise i'll try to do something more angsty later 〜(￣▽￣〜)

[milkywayes]

GARRUS VAKARIAN: DATABASE IMAGE ACCESS. > PT. 1 : 2160, 2166, 2170. > all files backdated according to user preferences: (terran_coordinated.calendar).

[sunlight-shunlight]

i don't have an excuse for this. woe. young solas be upon ye.

[lukitua]

Babygirl and Little Guy (or Laudna and Pâté de Rolo)

+ little bonus up close for Laudna's ear: