#probably the most fun ive had 3d modeling in a while

[adreamoverlife]

I would love to see your Richas' (and any of the Brazilians' really) phone headcanons!! Super excited to see how different each phone is going to be! You are so talented :0

Omg hi again! Sorry these took awhile was doing some totally not rushed research lmao but I got the Brazilian line up! Welcome Richas, Bagi, Cellbit, Pac e Mike!

Qsmp Brazilian Comms Links Headcanons

The resident trickster, Richas!

Based on a DOCOMO D253IWM

The Wayfinder Queen, Bagi!

Based on a nokia 7260

The Cannibal we all know and love, Cellbit!

Based on a sony ericsson p1i

Mr Tazer himself, Pac

And Craft, Mike!

Both based on a t-mobile sidekick lx

Previously, the French Qsmp Comms,

Up next, Morning Crew and Late night Trio!

[mister-e-muss]

Alright. I’m late but here’s my backlog report for January. How did my first month of 2024 go in terms of games?

In a word, rather well.

Trails from Zero:

The first game of the new year that I beat. Would you believe me if I said this whole thing only took me about a week of concentrated play to beat?

Anyways, it’s probably the most solid title in the Trails series so far. As I’ve said before my journey into Trails was a bit screwy, due to only having a Switch and a standard laptop. It was surprising to find that a lot of the good that the series accumulated was actually added in this entry specifically, from attacking enemies on-screen, to bonus experience, to being able to use combo attacks a la Chrono Trigger.

Also, music good.

Star Ocean Second Story R:

I’m a sucker for anything that can blend science fiction and fantasy, which means that this was almost as good as drugs.

The only two negative things I can say about it is that 1.) the music wasn’t really bad, but not what I’d call my favorite, and 2.) I wish that characters had more interaction in Private Actions. I like the Private Action events, but I wish more involved more than the protag and the character in question.

My complaints with First Departure, mainly that the combat felt very barebones and there was no fast travel, have been destroyed here with extreme prejudice. The breaks and sidesteps are fun additions that don’t break the game, and the fast travel system not only gives you easy access, but also notes when and where events are available, so no more cursing yourself for not having the exact timing to recruit a character.

Gunvolt Chronicles 2:

If you liked Mega Man Zero/ZX, chances are you will like or do like this series. I myself have been a fan since the 3DS days.

Unfortunately, while I did enjoy my time with this, I was a little bit disappointed.

In terms of gameplay, Copen no longer feels like Copen. The high-speed human pinball has been grounded and his range has been shortened. While he gets his wings back once the kudos reach a certain threshold, this means that I was constantly cursing my muscle memory, having to remind myself that I only had one air dash and the attack button was no longer a straight shot but a melee saw.

In terms of story, while I like a few of the ideas and the new character of Null, I found it hard to truly get invested. None of Gunvolt Chronicles 1’s supporting cast is present aside from Kohaku, and we frankly don’t spend enough time with Null or Ypsilon for them to be compelling. Also ‘character falls into portal because reasons!’ is a trope I hate. They explain it eventually, but it’s just the perfect encapsulation of how break-neck fast this story moves. Prologue movie where characters get isekai’d, short two-sentence long introduction to Null, and Bam! Months long time-skip.

I feel like Inti-creates and I just have different opinions on the Gunvolt series’ identity, but that’s a discussion for an entirely separate time. I make these reports to have fun, not to vent.

Final Fantasy IV (DS version):

Would you believe me if I said this one took half the month?

Anyways, I first encountered this game on the Wii’s Virtual Console shop, back in the good old days of owning your own retro software. Being a kid of average intelligence, it completely escaped me that you could save on the overworld, which meant that despite trying to get into it a few times, FFIV was the first game to be booted when I needed memory space.

A few years back I finally got my hands on a copy of the DS remake with 3D models and voice acting by the likes of Yuri Lowenthal. And it rocked.

I think the augment system is undercooked, but that is the only complaint I can think of, because the music, the story, and the gameplay are all great! Let me put it to you this way: FFIV’s active time battle system was so good that they used it for five more games straight, and borrowed from it heavily for 12.

I know that the Crystal Remasters have come out and gained notoriety, but I still prefer this version because of the solid voice cast, fun art direction, and balanced yet challenging difficulty.

[bluheaven-adw]

Hi ive seen your art while scrolling through the trollhunters tag and i really need to ask because this is kinda weirding me out...

Is your art a result of you drawing so closely to the show it looks like the 3d models or a bad edit of the 3d models..

Because for me it looks like both and i cant tell which one it is and it confuses me each time i see your art

🤔

Honestly, this has kind of thrown me for a loop and I'm still not sure how to take this? But I'm going to take it as a compliment. And, for those interested, y'all are getting a bit if history after the jump.

Short answer: It's the first one. I draw very close to the show. It's all my drawing. I love Jim's design and strive to get as close as possible to how he looks in the show. I'm a technical realist most of the time. I also have years and years of experience in a lot of different types of art and mediums. So for fun I thought I'd do a screen grab from my current WIP while I do a little bit of quick and dirty work. I've clicked through some of the various layers, sketch, lines, finished layers... and then my ugly process for all to see lol. I'm self taught in procreate.... I have no idea what I'm doing. Usually I'd spend way more time on things.... but that would be a long ass video. A lot of my current work takes weeks. The one of Blinky reading to sleeping Jim has over 65 hours in it, and the Masquerade Ball is close to 80.

Long answer!! All of my art is my own (with the exception of one borrowed art work, which was given credit), drawn by me from ugly concept sketch (that sometimes looks vaguely like our characters.... and sometimes just circles and triangles) to polished sketch, to final line work and then color and rendering. I'm self taught, but also have some fine art background... and some in CAD and graphics and when I first started college it was with the goal of automotive design, so I'm more of a technical artist than what most people are used to. I have a background in Copics and my color and blending from those bled over into Procreate. I have medication induced aphantasia, so a lot of times need references. I've been doing sketches of Jim every night for almost a year now. There's a few speed sketch vids on my instagram (same username). I do have photoshop, but the extent of my editing skills is photoshopping aftermarket wheels on my car to find ones I liked, and it's been an ungodly long time since I've done that. I mostly have it because, prior to disability, I spent a lot of time as a photographer shooting landscapes and such, and shooting In infrared.... but I haven't touched a camera or photoshop since...... 2017? I don't even remember how to use it for the most part. Photoshop is not like riding a bike.

Trollhunters and especially Jim, are my comfort show. Helped me through some bad times... and then RotT happened basically right when I had a major surgery, and the combo really messed me up. I started sketching Jim as a way to heal from both... and well, it was all downhill from there 😂

That's probably way more of an answer than you were looking for!

[daaziscoolbesties]

i yearn for one(1) thing only, and that is to have a nice, simplistic, cartoonish artstyle. an artstyle that doesnt rely on anatomy, but the "movement" of the drawing, if you get what i mean.

i dont want realistic proportions and traditional colors and basic poses and gradient shading, i want funky lil dudes in funky poses with funky styles littering my sketchbook :( but alas i havent figured out how to develop that kind of style yet, my brain wants anatomy to look nice but also i dont want to draw eyes. i dont want to take time out of my day to learn how to draw lips i want to draw a line that extends past the characters face. i dont want all my characters to have pointy chins with curved cheeks i want their heads to be round and friend-like or full of sharp edges depending on their personalities and styles. i want to give them all not-quite human ears, blob feet, simple faces, but at the same time i want enough detail to convey the story or emotion im trying to tell.

ive spent so much time recently agonizing over how to use 3d model websites, using real-life references and tracing over them for practice, color-picking from real images to try and do realism and failing miserably, but you know whats easier than that? funky little dudes. little dudes who do not care if their legs are too long or their hair is too bouncy. i dont want my characters to look human.

ive spent enough time on the artfight website to realize that most people who classify their characters as "human" have the most basic ass designs (no offense to people who like basic human designs its just not my thing) or its like dnd-medieval style outfits which i cant draw for the life of me (ive tried). again no offense to people who actively enjoy and draw characters like that. i just need my dudes to have that certain,,, off-ness to them. tails are cool. wings are swag (especially if they arent even like,, fully attached,, ), elf ears are so wonderful to me no matter how much theyre overused, horns are so much fun to draw, and colors!! i have no knowledge in the color theory department so this works great for me!! the only thing i really know is dont shade with black, other than that i just colorpick from references usually but i dont want to do that!! i want the colors to hurt people's eyes but in a satisfying way. like the character's design is so nice to look at that you dont mind your eyes hurting a bit. like how im enjoying writing this post even though its 2 am and the brightness on my computer wont go any lower.

and then another thing ive noticed from being on the artfight website is that a lot of people classify their characters that are anthro/have anthro features under humanoids/monsters. like i made a google form to find some people to attack and someone sent me in a character with some sort of animal (wolf? idk) arms and legs. like dude!! peak character design i love her. but me personally? i cant draw that shit, its so hard for me. i tried a while back and its just Not my thing. nothing against furries i just. cant. and i dont want to either.

and i got another submission that i accidentally deleted that was like full anthro/wolf-like like my comrade,,, i cannot draw animals what makes you think i can draw an animal who acts like a human lmao. i can do like. very basic tails, and also animal ears but i cant do the arms and legs and such i just dont know the anatomy, and i know i was talking about how i dont want to care about anatomy but i feel like for anthros you really do need to know at least basic animal anatomy so you know how the limbs look and shit and i dont have that knowledge and dont feel like gaining it.

and then there were some submissions that i absolutely adored. there was one that like, was vaguely human shaped but definitely was not a human. they had a dark-ish lavender colored skin and horns and tusks and like goat ears and a sorta fluffy tail with spikes on it and they had wings and such and they were such a pleasure to draw i love them. and they had a fairly simple outfit too, nothing too complicated. and then i also enjoy object head characters, theyre so neato to me. i got one of those and i really wish i had the motivation to work on it cause it looks so fun.

i want to make funky characters but id have nothing to do with them because the only book i ever tried writing (key word tried - never got past planning it out) had strictly human characters in it, and most of the books i read are humans/humans with powers in situations specific to them so id have no idea what lore to make with the dudes. assuming i have the motivation to make lore and backstory because honestly i just really enjoy character designing its super duper fun.

(side note a song about trucks doing the deed came on just now and its interrupted my flow, apologies).

i only have three actual characters right now. one is an original roleplay oc whos design is literally athletic shorts, an oversized long sleeved grey sweatshirt, long purple hair, and demon horns. the second one is my persona whos design some sorta medival knight outfit kinda thing? but not ugly it looks really cool (idk one of my friends designed it bc i won some contest from him but the drawing was on a super small scale so idrk the details,,,) with a plague doctor mask and crown, and shoulder length wavy brown hair, dyed bright pink at the end. and then my last one im not too comfortable using other places because theyre a character my friend is using in the story hes writing, and thats really the only place theyve been used. but theyre easily my favorite and im already writing a ton so ill talk about them too.

they're a sorta elf species thing from another planet, with pale green skin and pointed ears. they also have a tail, its like,, super thin, but with a feathery bit at the end. probably not the texture of a feather but i dont know how else to describe it. they have short, curly, almost-draco-malfoy-blonde hair that when it gets too long they can put in a man bun. their eyesight is kinda shitty so when they got to earth, they were exploring some supply closets around the airship. drop off area. thing. like airport but for rocketships and also fancier. yeah. they were exploring that area and found a nice big pair of round glasses with grey frames. and they also found a cowboy-style hat and a sharpie so they wrote their name on the underside of the brim of the hat and stole the hat and glasses (but left the sharpie in the supply closet).

yeah theyre my favorite, my absolute beloved, my child, so cool. i want more characters like them but with maybe a bit more snazzier designs. theyre super cool and all but they could have more pizzazz if they werent in a story where its too late to give them more pizzazz. i just want to be able to give my characters thigh-high boots with a bunch of buckles and fluffy hair with tons of accessories crammed in and abnormally large and long ears that can harbor many piercings and horns that can hold rings on them and special little details on their outfits like who knows what but i dont have any characters to do that too, so i have to make them from scratch, which is always hard especially when you have artblock.

and i also have like 17 characters i need to fully draw, line, and maybe color for artfight before august 1st. so i dont know. i have many things to do and plenty of time to do it but instead i spend my time halfway watching repetitive youtube videos that get boring or sleeping all damn day because i stay up too late doing things like this or i just do nothing at all and its tiring and frustrating but i also feel nothing about it like theres no consequence if i dont do it besides you know. not doing it, not gaining that experience, not making something i enjoy.

so i should do it but i dont for whatever reason, i think its called executive dysfunction but im not sure. this post started out very differently than it ended and i said somewhere up there that i was writing this at 2 am but now its almost 3. this is so many words why couldnt i have put this energy into something productive

[chartreuse-gale]

Dragon Warrior/Quest ramblings/collective review

I rant about the Dragon Quest franchise a lot.

Two of my video game pet peeves are when people laude the original Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest as ground breaking (it’s not, see Wizardy/Ultima), or the great grandfather of JRPGs (it’s not, see Hydlide/Dragon Slayer/Fantasian/) I’m generally not a fan of silent protagonists. I rarely identify enough with a character to feel like I’m “in” the game, so I prefer to be playing the role of a character with some kind of dialogue and a personality. Every dragon quest (that I’ve played) has a silent protagonist. That said, I do have some love for the series. I’ve suddenly found myself interested in giving Dragon Quest XI a spin, but instead I went back to Dragon Warrior IV. I remembered liking it as a kid and I’m happy to say I’ve been having as much fun playing it now as I remember having back then. Here are my thoughts on the dragon quest games separated into the ones I’ve finished and the ones I haven’t (mainline only).

Games I’ve Finished

Dragon Quest: This is grinding the game.

Strategy is almost nonexistent in the battle system outside of “Grind XP to LVL UP/Gold to buy better equipment”. You have 1 character and you never fight more than 1 enemy, so all fights are one-on-one. There isn’t any equipment with special traits or functions (just better Attack/Defense). You get access to a total of 6 spells in the game: Heal Heal More Heal Most Hurt Hurt More Hurt Most (these last 3 are usually a waste of MP) The plot is linear (except for potentially at the very end of the game). At least there’s a decent amount of exploration. Worse than Final fantasy I and Phantasy Star I by far, but to be fair, Enix did better with Dragon Quest II, which beat both of these competitors to the punch. Dragon Quest II: So much better than the original.

The grind is mediated by choices that matter in regards to equipment and combat. Also, you have an actual party this time (of 3), Also, Also, you can fight multiple enemies at the same time. Dragon Quest II added a much wider variety of spells (buff, debuff, and elemental damage spells); Equipment that had special functions when used as an item in combat (e.g. the Lightning Staff can cast whoosh), and a smidge more plot. Many people say more grinding is required in II than in the original, but I would argue that Dragon Quest I is nothing but grinding whereas Dragon Quest II breaks up the monotony with a dose of strategy. Comparable to Final Fantasy I. Far worse than Phantasy Star I. Dragon Quest V: Decent.

Also the first game originating on the Super Famicom (although we didn’t get an official English translation till the DS remake)

Allows for a party of 3 (4 in the DS remake). Considered groundbreaking by many for it’s monster recruitment system but it wasn’t the first game to have one by any means (Megami Tensei beat it by 5 years and Wizardry IV by 4). The game is divided into sections based on time periods as you grow from a kid to a teen to an adult, which is a cool way of pacing the games content, and gives you a little more perspective on the setting than you typically get in a Dragon Quest game. Characters are mostly boring outside of one (or two) of the love interests. Did I mention this game has love interests? I think I would have liked it better if there was only one, because it punched me in the heart for not picking the one it leads up to as the primary love interest (who also happens to be the canon one). Has really frustrating setting/plot-gender dynamics with two characters late in the game who I won’t name because spoilers.

Games I’ve Played but haven’t finished

Dragon Quest III: My least favorite game in the series (out of the ones I’ve played).

This time you have a protagonist and you can hire adventures to join you on your quest. They are all nobody characters. Their personalities are assigned at random, and (from what I can tell) only effect their growth. There’s no fucking dialogue with them (which is something I expected after DQ II). Personalities and seeds are fucking annoying, because both of them are random, have huge differences in their effects, and their effects make a huge difference in character capabilities, so it makes me want to spend hours saving/reloading until I get the effects I want. Fuck this game for introducing seeds to the series which appeared in many Dragon Quest games after this (thankfully I haven’t run into personalities again yet). Often lauded for having the “groundbreaking” option of changing character classes/jobs. Yes this came out before Final Fantasy III (Japan), but I would like to make the following points: - Final Fantasy I let you pick your character classes (which came out beforehand) - Final Fantasy III had a class change system you could actually make use of throughout the game (unlike DQ III where you need to get about halfway through the game first) - The original Wizardry came out 7 years earlier and also had a much more accessible class change system than DQ III I played very little of Dragon Quest III (I dropped it before even getting to my 2nd town). Two great thing about this games: It’s the first in the series to give you the option of playing as a woman, and I heard it’s the game that introduced the casino/mini games to the franchise. Dragon Quest IV: This game is Great! Also, Unlike the first three games in the series, Dragon Quest IV might actually be groundbreaking. You ever play Wild Arms I, II, or III? Did you enjoy playing through the prologues that introduce your early party members? Well Dragon Quest IV does a similar thing: The game is divided into chapters. Each chapter has a different protagonist. In their chapter you play them as silent protagonist, but when you encounter them later in the game they have dialogue. This does a lot to develop much of the cast, because you can see how people react to/talk with them and later on you can see how they engage with the player character (who you’re actually introduced to last). The cast is great and falls into a mix of both very old school and very uncommon tropes for a JRPG: You have an aging knight who goes on a mission to rescue children and then goes on a journey to find more about the ominous forces behind their kidnappers (Ragnar). Then there’s a princess who wants to go on an adventure against her fathers wishes so she kicks a hole in the wall of her room and jumps out of the castle (Alena); she’s joined by a young priest (Cristo) and an elderly mage (Brey) employed by her father, who give up on bringing her home and instead ask to travel with her to help her out. Next you have a merchant who wants to raise enough money to buy his own storefront (Taloon). After that you play a Fortune Teller (Nara) who travels with her dancer sister (Mara) on a quest to avenge the death of their father (an alchemist who was murdered by his apprentice).  Each chapter ends on a climax related to motivations/goals of its lead character and each chapter shows more of the world/gives out more info on what is going on behind the scenes. While you actively control the primary characters of a chapter other characters are either controlled completely by AI (in chapters I-IV), or loosely follow a tactical strategy you select (chapter V). I’ve been getting on fine with it, but this might be a deal breaker for some. The music is better than any of the Dragon Quest games I’ve finished (and what I’ve heard from any of the ones I’ve played, but not finished). A remake of this game has an interesting flaw: they cut all the party chart dialogue from the foreign language versions of the DS version; so if you don’t know Japanese, you’ll probably miss out on a lot of character interaction with that version. (I heard this had something to do with concerns that the game wouldn’t make enough sales to cover translation costs of the party chart [which was reputedly two thirds of the game’s script]). Dragon Quest VI Honestly I’ve barely played this one. You have actual characters for party members (a big plus in my book). I’ve heard there’s a job system as well. Plot/setting seem decently interesting on first glance. I might come back to this one later. Dragon Quest VIII I got about halfway through this one.

They included a character-specific skill tree system which is cool, except that there are objectively best routes to take for some (possibly all?) characters and these best routes are not even close to obvious from the outset. It introduced a pretty fun crafting system.

There’s  a decent cast of characters, but they don’t have quite enough going on for my tastes (my fave is Yangus). Plot has an interesting premise, but feels very barebones, and the environments/towns/npcs aren’t very interesting (maybe about as good as DQV, but worse than IV).

This game gets lauded for the 3D models of characters/enemies, but honestly I’ve never been a fan of the character designs of Dragon Quest (especially the monsters), so I feel pretty “meh” about it outside of being able to see your party members in combat (for I think the first time in the series), which is very nice. The music is very ambient a lot of the time. It does a good job of fitting melancholy moments, but doesn’t do such a great job of building excitement during battles and high-tension events. Dragon Quest IX This game feels a lot like Dragon Quest III.

You don’t have any actual characters, you just recruit them and use them in battle (no meaningful intraparty dialogue, character development, etc.) I think I played around 10-20 hours before dropping it.

Final Thoughts

Dragon Quest games vary from game to game in terms of gameplay mechanics, but they vary a great deal more when it comes to characters.

If you like having a lot of control over your party composition and don’t care about having characters with personality, you might like Dragon Quest III, V, or IX.

If you want a party comprised of characters who interact, have personalities, and might even develop over time, you might like Dragon Quest IV, or (sort of) VIII (I haven’t played much of VI, or any of VII or XI, but I heard they also fall into this camp). If you want to play an old school, 8-Bit JRPG that launched a spectacular franchise, might have actually been ground-breaking for its time, and is still fun to play today, check out the original Phantasy Star. . . . . . . (at least, for me it’s still fun to this day) [notes: - edited some typos, and mistakes most notably regarding the Hurt series of spells in Dragon Quest I - Revised some word choices - Added a comment about being able to see your party in combat in Dragon Quest VIII]

[zaptap]

since minecraft is in smash now heres my full history with minecraft

when it was still pretty new i started hearing about it (this wouldve been like, probably 2010 but MAYBE 2009???) and im like huh that game sounds fun

but i looked into it and you needed to buy an account (i seem to remember it being like a subscription model but idk maybe thats wrong) and of course back then i could only buy things myself using cash, and id have to convince my mom to buy anything else for me (example: i had $250 to buy a 3ds when it launched but it took so long to get my mom to order it for me that 6 months went by and the price dropped)

additionally you needed an internet connection to play. at this stage in my life i wasnt allowed to have internet on my computer and my time on the family computer was fairly limited, like as fun as this game seemed there were things id rather use my internet time for

so i forgot about minecraft for a while

then in august 2011 i went to my cousins’ house for a week. they got me to avatar for the first time (saw the entire first book while i was there) and introduced me to portal, as well as gave my my first proper introduction to minecraft

that game really pulled me in. i was mining and crafting for a few hours and got so into it i gave myself a migraine and went to bed early. worth it tbh

had a lot of fun playing it over those next few days. then when i went home i decided i needed to play it more. looked around and downloaded a version of it that was cracked or whatever so you didnt need an account and more importantly didnt need an internet connection (since it only requires that for the login process), and put that on my computer

so at that point i had it available for me to play at any time. id come home from school and just play minecraft for hours. i kept coming up with kind of ambitious projects like “hey that mountain looks cool i should completely hollow it out and make it into a cool mountain mansion with multiple floors all the way down” or “hey i should dig a secret passage from this island down under the water to my mountain mansion” that id only end up parly finishing

i only ever played in peaceful difficulty because the monsters were scary :o

i also remember going into creative mode and being like “hey what if i just dug a massive hole in the ground all the way down to the bedrock” and then spent hours trying to do that (i particularly remember having to manage all the water and lava blocks i ran into) until i finally got bored with it

i started looking into installing mods but didnt quite get around to it

im also reasonably sure i didnt even know changing the skin was a thing because i was really into doing pixel art back then and i wouldve been all over that shit and i definitely didnt mess with the skin at all

eventually i realized that i was spending so much time playing minecraft that i was neglecting other aspects of my life, like i got behind on doing homework for one thing

i’d reached the point where it didnt feel that fulfilling to play it. i think it wouldve been different if i was playing it with friends (which of course i didnt do bc i was offline), but at that point i decided that the fun of exploring and making things in that infinite world wasnt quite worth the drain it was having on me, and i made myself quit early into 2012, after maybe 6 months of playing the game at most

has now been almost 9 years since ive played minecraft. i think the only thing thatd bring me back is if i played it with some friends. it’s a good game but it can easily become Too Much

[comicteaparty]

September 18th-September 24th, 2019 Reader Favorites Archive

The archive for the Reader Favorites chat that occurred from September 18th, 2019 to September 24th, 2019.  The chat focused on the following question:

What webcomic(s) have you created fanart/fanfiction for?  What inspired you to make it?

seetherabbit

During last years inktober, I had a theme which was "quick fanarts" where every piece was a maximum 30 min drawing of a fanart. Did lots of fanart of webcomics, including 32'Kickup, Maiz, Jasper Gold. Just to name a few. I'm thinking of doing it again this year, since it was a lot of fun.

The Q

What a great idea! I definitely want to make more fanart of webcomics and niche podcasts!

spacerocketbunny

Oh gosh I try to do fanart every once in a while and I've accumulated a lot!

Job Satisfaction https://spacerocketbunnyart.tumblr.com/post/187511608156 Superpose https://spacerocketbunnyart.tumblr.com/post/187365212571 O Sarilho https://spacerocketbunnyart.tumblr.com/post/185824775876/spacerocketbunny-summer-witch-vibes Tiger Tiger https://spacerocketbunnyart.tumblr.com/post/183426693926/spacerocketbunny-felt-like-drawing-some Never Satisfied https://spacerocketbunnyart.tumblr.com/post/179577275446/spacerocketbunny-i-got-the-chance-to-do-guest Shaderunners https://spacerocketbunnyart.tumblr.com/post/175472239131/spacerocketbunny-happy-third-anniversary TINF https://spacerocketbunnyart.tumblr.com/post/127396963621/spacerocketbunny-j-ust-kiss-alre-adyyyyy-its Parallax/ Devil's Candy https://spacerocketbunnyart.tumblr.com/post/116639381141/spacerocketbunny-felt-like-drawing-some(edited)

And more for Devil's Candy, Awaken, Prague Race etc!

spacerocketbunny

I'm always want to show love and support for the comics I read so there's always something I can draw from!

AntiBunny

Now this is a topic I can sink my teeth into.

For Sluggy Freelance http://sluggy.com/ of course. This art's a bit old (I should make some new stuff) https://www.deviantart.com/fragraham/art/Bunbun-114266731

Gunnerkrigg Court http://gunnerkrigg.com/ https://www.deviantart.com/fragraham/art/Antimony-679410561

seetherabbit

https://www.instagram.com/p/BoeRdLzh4rn/ Jack Legend

AntiBunny

I've done several pieces for Da Pukas http://dapukas.com/ but this one is my personal favorite https://www.deviantart.com/fragraham/art/Let-s-Draw-Malo-734648837

seetherabbit

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo1d6GEBUV5/ Maiz

https://www.instagram.com/p/BowTc50hLt0/ Paranatural

AntiBunny

For Latchkey Kingdom http://latchkeykingdom.smackjeeves.com/ I did this one a while back https://www.deviantart.com/fragraham/art/Willa-Dragonfly-623180930

seetherabbit

I've done three fanarts for 32'Kickup https://www.instagram.com/p/BooK-zrBswz/

http://www.32kickup.com/ http://jack-legend.com/ http://maizcomic.com/ http://www.paranatural.net/(edited)

AntiBunny

And this one for Slightly Damned http://sdamned.com/ https://www.deviantart.com/fragraham/art/Buwaro-620491813 I especially like this one because I did it while streaming with the author. Very fun to draw alongside other creators. At least before picarto stopped even working for those of us stuck with DSL in the boonies.

And one for Two Kinds http://twokinds.keenspot.com/ https://www.deviantart.com/fragraham/art/Inktober-2016-Day-29-Two-Kinds-Keith-643156576

Anyway, I'll stop there, because if I included all the art I've done for various comics over the years, some of which sadly aren't around anymore I'd be flooding this chat all day.

DaeofthePast

I’ve done fanart for my friends’ comics. The main thing that inspired me to draw for them was that I wanted to see how their characters would look in my style, and I also just like making fanart for people X3 https://twitter.com/daeofthepast/status/992160815653507072?s=21 https://twitter.com/daeofthepast/status/985002172189310976?s=21

Erin/Leif & Thorn on Kickstarter

...I keep all mine in a Twitter thread, should probably just link the whole shebang: https://twitter.com/ErinPtah/status/1031561632357527552

Deo101 (Millennium)

I've made fanart for Super Galaxy knights http://sgkdr.thecomicseries.com/comics/

And I did that because as soon as we met this character I just decided i loved his whole shebang. the look, the drama, the extreme confidence. love that

I've also made fanart for Court of Roses https://courtofroses.spiderforest.com/

cause similarly to the other one I just really like this guy. I don't make much fanart

The Q

Ummm love that Sven!

Nutty (Court of Roses)

IT'S SUCH A GOID SVEN UGH <3

HiddenElephant

I only ever drew fan-art the once, and it was for Zebra Girl, which wrapped up about a year ago I want to say, maybe more. I don't generally do fanart, and this was a good example why, because some design elements and anatomical features gave me a lot of trouble.

Nutty (Court of Roses)

I'm on my phone but i know I've done fanart for @Deo101 (Millennium) 's Millennium

khkddn

ive made a buncha fan art over the years uhhhhhh can't remember every comic. the comic ive made the most fan art for is prolly Super Duper Galaxy Knights Deluxe Extreme Mega Ultra R (http://sgkdr.thecomicseries.com/), for some reason that one's easy to think of stuff to draw for

Deo101 (Millennium)

Its cause of the its really good

khkddn

one of the latest fan arts ive done is for queens (http://queens.thecomicseries.com/) of Amelia, because i love her shirt

One fan art that I'm still quite happy with is this Sunstrike and Bluemist (http://sunstrikeandbluemist.thecomicseries.com/) art that I made for the fanwork initiative. I like how cute both of them turned out

jestershark

I have a whole webcomic fanart moment on my twitter-- I've been trying to do more fanart of indie stuff recently. http://www.ushalacomic.com/ https://bvbcomix.com/ https://sarilho.net/en/ http://www.peritale.com/ https://twitter.com/i/moments/1014897456566415360

Nutty (Court of Roses)

ok i'm home here's the art I did for @Deo101 (Millennium) 's Millennium https://millennium.spiderforest.com/

OH AND ALSO cuddles

JUNK

Here's some weird fanart i did for A Ghost Story https://www.aghoststorycomic.com/

snuffysam

I unfortunately don't get to do as much fanart as I'd like. Drawing is difficult for me, and it's a lot of front-end time to 3D model a character who I'm not going to render that often. So... pretty much all the fanart I do is part of the #fanwork_initiative lol. What I essentially do for that is write down all the comics I'm interested in doing fanart for, and pick one that I think I could do something interesting with relating to the theme.

[xseedgames]

2017 End-of-the-Year Q&A Extravaganza Blog! #1

It’s time for our first 2017 End-of-the-Year Q&A Extravaganza! We’ve got a bunch of these we’ll be posting over the holiday break, so please look forward to them. Now, let’s roll right in!

We have answers from: 

Ken Berry, Executive Vice President / Team Leader John Wheeler, Assistant Localization Manager Nick Colucci, Localization Editor Liz Rita, QA Tester Brittany Avery, Localization Producer Thomas Lipschultz, Localization Producer

Question: Has selling your games on PC worked out for you so far? I know supporting the PC platform is a relatively recent choice for XSEED. - @Nate_Nyo

Ken: Being on PC has been great for us as it allows us to reach anyone anywhere in the world regardless of region or console. We were probably one of the earlier adopters in terms of bringing content from Japan to PC as we first published Ys: The Oath in Felghana on Steam almost 6 years ago in early 2012.

Brittany: I love working on PC. The work involved is greater than working on console, but I feel like it's a bigger learning experience, too. For console, the developers normally handle the graphics after we translate them, and they do all the programming and such. For PC, everything falls on us. I wasn't that experienced with Photoshop in the beginning, but I think I've gotten a lot better with it over the years. We can also receive updates instantly, and since I talk with our PC programmer through Skype, it's easier to suss out our exact needs and think of ideas to improve the game or bring it to modern standards.

Question: What non-XSEED games do you praise the localization for? - @KlausRealta

Brittany: Final Fantasy XII. I love everything about Final Fantasy XII's writing. I'm also a big fan of the personality in the Ace Attorney localizations. I'm still playing Yakuza 0, but you can feel the passion of the localization team in the writing. There are some projects where you can tell the editing was phoned in, and then there are games where it's obvious it was a labor of love. All of these games have a color I aspire to.

Tom: Probably going to be a popular answer, and not an especially surprising one, but I've got to give props to Lost Odyssey. It's hard to deny the timeless quality and absolutely masterful English writing that went into basically every line of that game's massive script, with the many short stories being of particular note. That game really does represent an inspirational high bar that I think most everyone else in the industry will forever strive to reach in their own works.

For a more unexpected answer, I've also got to give mad props to Sega for their work on Monster World IV. As a Sega Genesis game released digitally in English for the very first time less than a decade ago, I guess I was kind of expecting a fairly basic "throwaway" translation -- but instead, the game boasts a full-on professional grade localization that's easily up to all modern standards, brimming with charm and personality. It's really nice to see a legitimate retro game being given that kind of care and attention in the modern era, and it makes it very easy for me to recommend (as does the fact that the game is actually quite fun, and is sure to be enjoyed by anyone who's played through all the Shantae titles and really wants to try something else along similar lines).

John: I played Okami on PS3 earlier this year (before the remake was announced), and I was awed by how skillfully the team handled text that is chock full of localization challenges like quirky nicknames, references to Japanese fairy tales, and regional dialects. I was especially amused to see a reference to "kibi dango," the dumplings Momotaro uses to bribe his companions in that famous story. We dealt with the same cultural reference with STORY OF SEASONS: Trio of Towns.

Nick: My go-to response is always Vagrant Story, because it’s the game I credit with getting me really interested in a career in localization. Before that point, I had enjoyed games for their story and characters, but hadn’t realized just how much the specific word choices and tone contributed to a reader’s perception of a story as a whole. The gents behind VS’s localization would go on to be industry luminaries, with Rich Amtower now calling shots in Nintendo’s Treehouse department and Alex Smith being synonymous with the highly regarded prose of Yasumi Matsuno’s games – including the cool and underappreciated Crimson Shroud for 3DS, and Final Fantasy XII, which as anyone who’s played it can tell you is a stellar localization. Having spent a lot of time with FFXII’s “The Zodiac Age” remaster this year, the care and attention to detail put into the localization still blows me away. The unique speech style of the Bhujerbans (with...Sri Lankan inflections, if memory serves correctly) sticks with me, because I knew that I myself would never have been able to pull off something like that so deftly. I guess you could say Vagrant Story started a lineage of games that’s always given me something to aspire to as an editor.

Final Fantasy XIV, which I’ve been playing this year, also has a very good localization, especially considering the reams of text that go into an MMO of its size and scope. Michael-Christopher Koji Fox and his team have done a bang-up job giving life and personality to the land of Eorzea, and I’ve enjoyed seeing how the localization has changed in subtle ways as time has gone on. The initial “A Realm Reborn” localization sort of cranks the “regional flavor” up to 11 with heavy dialects and vernacular, but in subsequent expansions, they kind of eased up on that and have found a good mix between grounded localization and the kind of flourishes that work well in high-fantasy settings.

 And, while I haven’t played it in a number of years, I remember Dragon Quest VIII having a really great localization, too, with ol’ Yangus still living large in my memories. Tales of the Abyss was fantastic as well, and both DQVIII and Abyss delivered some really brilliant dub work that showed me how much richer one could make characterization when the writing and the acting really harmonized. I still consider Tales of the Abyss my general favorite game dub to date. The casting is perfect, with not a bad role among them. I also want to give mad props to Ni no Kuni’s Mr. Drippy, just as a perfect storm of great localization decisions. Tidy, mun!

Question: How hard is it to turn in game signs and words to English for Japanese? Is it as simple as going in and editing text? Or as hard as creating a whole new texture for the model? - @KesanovaSSB4

Tom: We refer to this as "graphic text" -- meaning, literally, text contained within graphic images. How it's handled differs from project to project, but the short answer is, yeah, it involves creating a whole new texture for the model. Sometimes, this is handled by the developer: they'll just send us a list of all the graphic text images that exist in-game and what each image says, we'll send that list back to them with translations, and they'll use those translations to create new graphic images on our behalf. For other games, however (particularly PC titles we're more or less spearheading), we'll have to do the graphic edits ourselves. When the original PSDs or what-not exist for the sign images, this is generally pretty easy -- but as you might expect, those aren't always available to us, meaning we'll sometimes have to go to a bit more trouble to get this done.

John: The best practice is to review graphic text very early in the localization process because it takes effort to fix and can throw a wrench in schedules if issues are discovered too late. On occasion, it is too difficult to change ubiquitous textures, especially those that might also appear in animation. This was the case with "NewTube" in SENRAN KAGURA Peach Beach Splash, which the localization team wanted to change to "NyuuTube" to make the wordplay clearer to series fans.

Question: With the Steam marketplace becoming increasingly saturated and being seen as a greater risk to publish on in recent times, what does XSEED plan on doing in order to remain prominent and relevant in the PC gaming space? - @myumute

Ken: It is indeed getting harder and harder to stand out as hundreds of new titles are releasing on Steam each month. We are working our way towards simultaneous release across all platforms to help leverage some of the coverage from the console version to get more attention to the PC release, so hopefully that's something we can accomplish soon. For PC-exclusive releases it continues to be a challenge, but at least they have a long tail and even if it's not an immediate success at launch we know it can continue to produce sales for years to come.

Question: What was your favorite film that you saw in 2017, and why? - @Crippeh

John: I'm way behind on movies this year (haven't seen Disaster Artist, Phantom Thread, or Get Out, for example), but recently I've enjoyed both Star Wars and Lady Bird. I expect I'll watch my favorite film from 2017 sometime in 2018.

Ken: Wind River. Mainly because of Jeremy Renner's performance and how many quotable lines he had.

Liz: Get Out for horror mindblowing amazingness, Spider-Man Homecoming for genuinely fun comic book movie, and The Shape of Water for Guillermo del Toro. Guillermo del Toro should always be a category.

That’s it! Stay turned for blog #2 later this week. Here’s a preview of the kinds of questions we’ll be answering:

Question: Have you ever considered selling the music CDs for your licenses stateside? - @LimitTimeGamer Question: If possible, would you please consider researching and localizing classic Korean-made PC xRPGs? - @DragEnRegalia Question: Do you have any interest in pursuing the localization of any of the large, beautiful Chinese RPGs that have been hitting Steam? Or are you focused exclusively on Japanese titles? - @TheDanaAddams Question: What inspired you all to do this kind of work in the first place? Also, what’s the story behind the company name XSEED? How did you all come up with it? - @TBlock_02 Question: What was everyone's favorite game(s) to work on this year? - @ArtistofLegacy Question: What's everyone's favorite song from the Falcom games you've released so far? - @Crippeh

[jjinomu]

how did you get into editing pmd models? you're super good at them, and i'm considering taking it up. i was wondering, how/where did you pick it up?

oh boi oh geez where do i even begin omg (long post so i chucked the rest under the cut)

first thank you for your compliment hehe i really appreciate that!! but hmmm well- i started editing pmd/pmx models like aaaaaages ago i dont even remember much but generally for most beginners, lots of people tend to recolour (i mean i did it too when i first started hehe shout out to my zatsune model edit of animasa miku phew gud ol’ days) which is totally okay especially if you’re just figuring out how like colours/textures work and the whole material panel/subsets/i’m saying-weird-terminology-that-you-probably-don’t-get-yet pretty much all the tools and what they do that’s totally okay hehe once you poke around it for a while, you’ll get use to which tool does what and that’s all gud (i recommend getting the english translated version of PMDeditor (or PMX- i use PMX) because that’ll save you a lot of time (i use the japanese version because i’m weird and dumb and i’m still trying to figure stuff out myself to this day)

after that phase of recolouring (normally i wouldn’t recommend staying in this for long like, i recoloured 1 model and moved on straight away HAHA) at this point one of the most common and main styles of editing for starters is taking editable (or ‘legal’) parts from other models that allow editing (make sure stuff is editable before you do anything or you could get in trouble), and then piecing it together to form your own cool new model edit yeyeye, there should be plenty of tutorials how to do this and how to avoid glitches with joints/physics/bones and stuff so if you want, just hmu privately and i can quest for some for you, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to find!! 

usually lots of people generally stay in that area of editing which is totally chill as well, with practice and constant improvement you could like reach some good levels of work from just part-editing itself, ive seen it happen many many times!!

otherwise the other option you could go down is what i generally do nowadays for editing- and that’s i guess, ‘modelling parts’ (which is what most people call it) or ‘meta-editing’- it involves pretty much, chucking a base into an external 3D program to build clothes/your own parts and then re-rig it entierly again in PMXeditor (i’m a lil tired asf but i have a tutorial tab on my tumblr page where i go more in depth on this and where to start if this is what you wanna do) thoUGH keep in mind, it’s probably best you get use to using PMX and all the terminolgy and such before anything or else it’ll be like what whAT WHat

personally i think that this ‘meta-editing’ method is almost the more easier and safer route, though when you’re starting out it’s like ‘MmMM shit’ but trust me it’s…. imo it’s easier than part-editing (because i used to do that too) mostly because 1. you just make your shit rather than find it (sometimes some parts aren’t even ever made) and 2. you avoid breaking rules completely because heck ur doing it 100% urself wat are rules (aside from obviously your base model’s rules haha)

i forgot what else i wanted to say um

oh yeah well- this is like the basic of the basic explanations, i need you to be more specific if you want me to teach you stuff but the least i can do now is give you a brief overview?? but das it ehe

otherwise some tips i’d like to mention as well which have nothing to do with the actual practice, are as follows:

#1 tip: that i donnn’t think i’ve ever preached on this blog before but i might as well start bc it’s important!!! try ur best to remain humble/modest watever- honestly i think….. if you start thinking you’re some God level editor or watever that’s when…… improvement kinda halts……. so even though it might be kinda ehhh, be a little harsh on yourself- you’re your own critic and it’s better to recognise your faults before someone else points them out for you (because that can hurt heaps, but i mean if u hate urself first nobody else can amirITE AMIRITE i’m kidding don’t hate urself)

i, for one am always very horrible to myself with my edits- like i dislike a looot of them which is actually kinda terrible LMAOO so i don’t recommend like hating everything you do because that ruins the fun- and sometimes it might even push you to stop entirely (i’ve known friends that have quit because they couldn’t get it right etc.) as long as you realise that whatever you do currently isn’t going to be as great as what you do later in life, then you’re like guranteed to improve no doubt about it- in a way, you’re not putting any limitations on yourself so you can grow from that! just continue to persevere, some people don’t improve until a looot later and some people improve like within weeks- so don’t let that get to you either!!! i’ve been doing this shit for like ages and i still am not as good as like actual modellers because i’ve just…. been too comfortable and improved only as an editor askdajsk

#2 tip: do not compare yourself to others especially when you’re first starting out- i’ve had…… quite a number of people compare themselves to me which is….. to say the least……. quite uncomfortable for the person you’re comparing yourself to??? because you gotta keep in mind how long people have been doing stuff (like this is my 6th year and literally everyday i’ve opened up PMX or metasequoia and i’ve toyed around for at least an hour) and idk just try not to compare yourself- because i know it’s kinda difficult not to but trust me, try to walk your own path you can create your own shit without necassarily comparing- unless you’re comparing to improve yourself whiiich leads me to my #3 tip

#3 tip: do not be afraid to mimic styles or toy with styles, i mean do not claim a certain style as your own that’s a HUGE nono, but it doesn’t hurt to like attempt to mimic someone who you look up to, and their style in order to help you improve and find your own style!! i personally mimic artists (rather than MMDers/editors) when i do my edits and then i started to develop my own kinda style??? like i still do a lot of imitation ‘edits’ which are those anime edits you see every now and again (like my yoi models or my binan models) and that’s fine!!! i think the most improvement i’ve ever had in terms of face-editing and stuff have come from me trying to imitate art of others (instead of just blindly going for my own style from the getgo) and this goes for drawing too!!! hell i still ‘mimic’ styles whenever i do any edits that have already an art design for?? i like accuracy first and then i play my style into it later and that’s totally cool too!! as long as you correctly credit and don’t claim as your own, you can’t really go much wrong (unless the person is like hey? can u pls stop? then ya don’t HAHA) i once had an incident back when i was a baby editor where i,,,,,,, kind of recreated someone else’s style of model edit line into like a different model style (in this case it was LAT so that’s how long ago it was) and then redistributed without their prior permission and ya that was bad don’t do that HAHA

and ya that should be it, i wrote this like 60 years ago and it’s been sitting in my drafts and i totally forgot about it until today so i hope that helps ya out!!

[baconpal]

since ive been complaining about shit already tonight i might aswell just mention random crap that i’ve been thinking about, but ill spare your dash, feel free to read me rambling about absolutely random shit if you want

first some video game stuff i guess;

the good: I don’t have a switch and still definitely cannont justify getting one yet but woo boy does ARMS look good, i wanna try it, and also splatoon 2, i really liked splats when it was first out, and martyo kart, but its p spensive stuff and im a cheap-ass 

the new thing code vein thing is simultaneous promising and incredibly boring to me, cus anime styled action game with the potential for cute girls to be wielding giant fucking weapons is like, my dream, and the boss designs looked pretty good, if a bit unrelated in the trailer, like the moose knight dude is fucking sick and i wanna use his armor, but then there’s also like, abyssal spear lady miku whose fucking cute, and they’re shown right after each other and it becomes a bit hard to follow, and the story seems to be just fucking dark souls “wah we go hollow and the world is a fuck”, i wish it wasnt that, cus dark souls alone made that setting overused, and while a modern-ish universe certainly sounds nice, it looks fucking bleak and they spend half the video in places that just look like bluer versions of DaS3 areas

the bad: so ive already complained about momodora 4, some people like it for some fucking reason but i dont, and now 5 is happening because they cant just make a new fucking series i guess, and it looks awful, like honestly horrid, its fucking shitty 3d when nobody asked for it, and it’s like, all the worst parts of something like dark souls, and none of the good parts and it angers me to no end that they keep dragging this sorta cute and okay free game series into the mud like this when they could make new games and try new things

the ugly: i never funded or thought about supporting indivisible because i had zero fun with the demo and i never really cared for any of the designs other than the redesigns of other characters from other games, and maybe the big fist girl, who didnt really fit in the style to begin with, but now they’re going and doing major redesigns and model updates that just look stupid and lifeless, like “wah wah diversity” drama aside, that cowboy guy went from a gritty, perfectly decent design to like, fucking nothing, he’s nothing now, i cant even identify him as something because he’s just nothing, and the entire cast seems to have been stretched up for no reason, and now a lot of the interestingly wide characters arent very interesting anymore, im not mad about it cus i never planned on getting it, but as an artist when i see artists take a very solid and nice character/design and just make it fucking awful, it makes me mad, especially cus i’ve seen some artists i used to know do it too, not starting drama or something it just seems pretty dumb to take things that are nice and people like and make them into different things when you could just make a new thing and have both

also uh like my friend showed me this jap band called uplift spice and at first i thought they were meh but i cant stop listening to them now its fucken cute rock stuff and it kills me

now art stuff. these are the things i really wanna talk about but they’re really just me problems so if you’ve already made it this far maybe you’ll care about this random shit

so like commissions have gone decently recently, not complaining about nobody wantin em or something, but for the longest time i’ve had people ask me about commissions, ask if there’s slots open or something, or even straight up say they intend to commission me, and then i’ll never fucking hear from them ever again ever, and like, if you just ask “hey got slots?” doesnt mean i expect you to actually get a comm, but it usually suggests there will atleast be a follow up response like “okay thanks but nevermind” or “ok cool ill be contacting you soon” and then actually following up on it, cus without any closure i just get stressed out thinking about why they never get back to me, are the prices too much? are they worried i won’t accept the comm? did they fucking forget i exist? did they get hit by a car? like even if you fucking told me “nevermind i dont want a comm you’re fucking SMELLY and i HATE YOU” i’d feel better cus at least i wouldnt worry about it for a week or something, none of the people reading this are likely the kinds of people who do this, most of them dont even follow me, but cmon man why you gotta make me worry about this shit

and last thing probably (hopefully jesus what am i even typing all this for) so like now that i’m doin comms more to support my own ass i’m really not pushing for requests in my inbox since a lot of them i’d never do anyway unless i got paid, but at the same time, i really liked drawin the ghost lady for that one ask, cus nobody is ever going to comm me for my own characters unless your one of my super good friends and youre just looking for an excuse to give me money, if you DID honestly comm me my OCs i’d fucking love you that’d be sick, but regardless i think that the only requests ill end up doing anymore are cute megalo1 and 2 ideas or stuff of my OCs, but i dont even know if you guys remember or like any of them, i actually have way more of them than i post because i like to design for fun sometimes, but like other than maybe neon idk if any of my OCs are know to any of my followers other than good friends, so idk if you guys would even care enough to request my OCs, but they’re mine and they make me happy so if you wanna see more of them or ask questions about them or anything, feel free to send me asks or messages or whatever, it’d be cool

so ye that’s all the shit im thinken about right now, if you actually could read all that you’re fucking weird and i like you

[ladala99]

Pokemon XD: A Modern Review

Something I see somewhat often is people wishing there were more games like Pokemon Colosseum and XD. Up until recently, I was really confused by this: the main draw of these games were POKEMON IN 3D! and we have that in the main series now, so what’s the point?

Well, I got to wanting a Lucky Egg in Gen III, and decided out of playing the entirety of the copy of XD I never got to, and going on a frustrating Chansey hunt in FireRed, XD would be the more enjoyable course of action.

I’ve just recently finally obtained my prize after a long and harsh game, and I now understand why people miss it. It’s not the 3D (but it certainly doesn’t hurt), it’s the battles. It provides a fundamentally different experience to the main series, even now, and now I join those wishing for something else like it.

But as great as it is, it has its flaws. I’m going to review it now in the context of now, and see how it holds up to GameFreak’s latest games.

Graphics

I’ll start off the review by looking at the graphics. Simply stated: they don’t compare with the Alola games.

The polygon count is low, especially for Gen I Pokemon. Their models were not updated from the Stadium series, and it shows. Trainers appear in battles, always behind the Pokemon, and they just look ugly. Although there are a couple of interesting designs (notably Lovrina, who looks a lot like a certain Team Skull Admin), for the most part they’re dull and unremarkable.

The environments are also not very interesting-looking in comparison. Alola is vibrant and has a few different landscapes. XD takes place in a desert, and mainly indoors in places that look made of tin. There’s a couple pretty places, but you don’t spend that much time in them in comparison to the ugly places.

One plus though, is the animations of the Pokemon. They take a long time, but they are filled with personality that the main series never matches. Especially the more cartoony animations of the Gen I and II Pokemon from the Stadium games, such as Misdreavus disappearing into its necklace and Vileplume melting when fainting.

Story

It’s probably unfair to compare XD to Alola, but I’m going to anyway. XD’s story is almost non-existent. Spoilers follow for XD if you care, so skip this section if you do.

It starts off with your friendly professor being kidnapped after he has designed a Snag Machine for the remote possibility that Cipher will be back. Surprise surprise, they are back. After rescuing him, you just go to various places where they’re stated to be in hopes to stop their clearly evil plans and snag their Shadow Pokemon. They’re also talking about this amazing un-purifyable Pokemon that they’re trying to make.

They do all sorts of evil things, like turning Pokemon from the destroyed SS Libra Shadow (where are their trainers?), having two bases, and attempting to replace everyone in a town with imposters. I seriously don’t know what the last has to do with anything other than giving you another place to go.

You annoy them enough and eventually they reveal that their main base is on this place called Citadark Isle. You go there, snagging every Shadow Pokemon you can, find out that their unpurifiable Shadow Pokemon is Lugia, Snag it and all of their leader Greevil’s team, and Cipher is stopped for good.

Also, after you defeat Greevil, it turns out his bodyguards are his sons and one didn’t really want to be evil. There’s a touching moment that was never foreshadowed, and the credits play. Like, I didn’t care about these guys at all.

Compare this to Sun and Moon where I care deeply about nearly everyone involved, especially those on the evil teams, and it’s a no-brainer which is better. Cinematics in Sun and Moon also are far superior, as characters other than the protagonist emote during cutscenes, and there are actual camera tricks used. Say what you want about your ability to skip them, but since I don’t play the same game in a row too often, and I always read the dialogue, Sun and Moon do way better.

Gameplay - Shadow Pokemon

I’m actually going to cut Gameplay into a few sections because there’s many aspects to it. The first is Shadow Pokemon.

In main series, including Sun and Moon, when you enter a battle, you have a single goal. If it’s a wild battle, it might be to gain experience or it may be to capture the opposing Pokemon. If it’s a trainer battle, you want to win.

In XD (and Colosseum), you do both in the same battle. And that is one thing that makes these battles much more intense. It’s often easy to win. It’s not so easy to have your attention divided between defeating certain Pokemon and not defeating others. Surviving against Pokemon who hit you with Super Effective attacks 100% of the time while not trying to defeat them, relying on luck that they’ll stay in the ball.

And here’s where one of the mechanics from Gen III that was changed in Gen IV really messes with you: if a Pokemon is defeated, the next is immediately sent out, and if you have both Pokemon targeting a single slot, your second Pokemon will attack the next Pokemon to come out. Which may be a Shadow Pokemon with extremely low defensive stats.

That combined with some battles which must be fought in a row, and you get a pretty naturally difficult game.

Gameplay - Double Battles

This one isn’t better or worse - just different. And different is good! After you catch your first Shadow Pokemon, every battle in the game (aside from some Battle CDs) is a Double Battle. Double Battles have different tactics to Singles, and thus different Pokemon are good in them.

It also really helps with multitasking when capturing Shadow Pokemon. Throw a ball and see if it works, and if it doesn’t, have an attack aimed at it. Or throw balls trying to get the Shadow Pokemon out of the fight while you aim attacks at the non-Shadow.

Double battles also leave your opponents able to take advantage of Double Battle strategies. Some as simple as using Rain Dance when they have a Water-type also on the field, while others include using Earthquake when all their other Pokemon have Levitate or are Flying-type.

Gameplay - Pokemon Variety

For a game where you can nearly only obtain Pokemon by stealing them from others, there’s a pretty hefty list of unique species available, even before the final dungeon.

This includes 46 unique Shadow Pokemon, 9 Pokemon from Poke Spots, and 4 Pokemon from in-game trades all before the final dungeon.

For comparison, Kanto has 79 unique Pokemon families in the entire Pokedex, including Legendaries and Pokemon only available late-game. Add in all 36 endgame Shadow Pokemon, and we have ourselves a Pokedex of considerable size!

Obviously, that’s not anywhere near how many are available in Alola, but considering how many Pokemon total there were then, it was a pretty impressive number!

Gameplay - Difficulty

The AI is idiotic. I found that most of the time, when an opponent has a move that’s Super Effective on one of my Pokemon, and Not Very Effective on the other, they’ll use it on the Pokemon it’s Not Very Effective against.

Which is great because of all the other things stacked against you. I used a team of purified Pokemon after the beginning, which meant I had no defense against Shadow Pokemon. The fact that the non-Shadows were being idiots made my survivability easier.

What’s not fun is the level curve, especially on Citadark Isle. It starts out in the low 30s and ends at six Shadow Pokemon around level 50. There are not enough trainers to make up this difference, so unless you’re using the Shadow Pokemon you’re snagging along the way, you’ll need to take extensive trips to Mt. Battle to get your level up, and that isn’t fun.

Sun and Moon do way better in this regard, with the dynamic experience system. Simply having that would have made XD a lot more doable without extensive grinding sections.

In general, though, Shadow Pokemon fights make XD hard. Totem Pokemon fights make Sun and Moon hard. There’s more Shadow Pokemon fights in XD than Totem Pokemon fights in Sun and Moon, so XD is in general harder. Perhaps not in individual fights, however.

Gameplay - Tutorial

XD has a tutorial, but it’s completely optional and kinda out-of-the-way. You can do some Battle Sims in the first area that teach the basics, but they’re kinda tedious to do.

I’d say it’s better for veterans than Sun and Moon, but definitely worse for newcomers. But the Stadium series (which XD is a successor to) was never for newcomers anyways, so it’s not really needed. It’s a good bone to throw at newcomers so they aren’t completely lost, though.

Gameplay - Progress

Definitely one of XD’s weaknesses is how difficult it is to gauge how far you are into the game. The main series has a definite amount of badges (or Trials), so you know, depending on how many badges you currently have, relatively how far into the game you are. Similarly, in Alola, you know there are four islands and seven/eight trials.  You can tell how far you are by how many trials you have done.

There is no gauge like that in XD. You can kinda tell when you’re getting far into the game because your map starts looking full, but still more locations are added beyond that. The closest gauge is the Shadow Monitor, but you only get the data for the Shadow Pokemon you haven’t found yet right before you enter the final level. And it’s pretty obvious that it’s the final level.

Now, not every game has this sort of progress gauge, so it’s not a bad thing to lack. Still, I found myself seeking out guides not because I didn’t know what to do, but because I wanted to know how much I had left. The game sends you on so many quests that seem irrelevant that it was hard to tell if it was ramping up, or if I still had a long ways to go.

Gameplay - The Lucky Egg

I’m just going to mention that in order to get the Lucky Egg, you not only have to complete the story, but also finish a round in a facility that matches your level, and your opponents have EV trained and IV bred Pokemon. They also have actual strategy (luck-based ones in this round) and AI that doesn’t hold back.

Also, there’s nothing between the end and it, and the lowest level the opponents can be is 10 levels higher than Lugia.

I imported an in-game team that I made that abuses Sandstorm and I feel like I earned that Lucky Egg. It took a few, extremely frustrating, tries. And that was after an extended visit to Mt. Battle because they were only level 54-56.

Conclusion

XD, while it doesn’t look as great as Sun and Moon, is a unique experience which doesn’t disappoint. It even gets frustratingly difficult at times. I was shouting “Oh, come on!” at my screen so many times, when I really only did that twice in Ultra Moon (both times against Necrozma).

What stands out the most, though, is that it isn’t a game for beginners. GameFreak has said that the 2019 titles will be aimed at veterans, so I wonder how those will compare.

[cerealmonster15]

u know whats exciting for me but also kinda scary

i changed my major do digital arts last semester and the main thing i wanna do for it is 3d modeling/animation

and i mean, im terrified that im not gonna be able to do it/i’ll hate it/whatever but

im really excited about it and all the other arts classes im taking, and i realized im sorta following my ~childhood dream~ of being an artist

cause when i was a kid i liked the idea of drawing pictures and painting and stuff, and art was always my favorite class, but when i told my mom [who does painting and crafts and stuff for craft shows she does with my grandma ;p] that i wanted to be an artist, her immediate reaction was to go “o youll starve, artists dont make money” and im like well shit [except not really bc i was probably like 6 or something] and for so long i just threw the idea of being any kind of artist out the window bc it wasnt “realistic”

for a while i thought i wanted to be a doctor bc my grandpa’s a doctor and i liked the idea of helping people

but i’ve never really been particularly interested in biology and after taking honors bio in hs i realized it wasnt my thing

i still looked for other science and math based classes to find my interests in, and while i could handle them at a basic level, going deeper was stressful and just wasnt what i was into

digital arts tho

that’s fun. it’s a bit stressful, but it’s fun and i like it so far. i just hope i continue to like it enough to learn something useful so i can get a job ;p my mom is actually really supportive and says I should make the most of my ~college experience~ and that changing majors around and finding what i like is part of the process, and i guess now that ive got a more practical idea of what i wanna do, it’s more acceptable than just a vague “idk, i will art”

if 3d modeling doesnt work out, i was also interested in the interactivity and art section, even tho im not really sure what that means? like part of the summary is ‘computer interactivity by exploring human computer interactions, software programming, sensor acquisition, and the translation of human movements into expressive multimedia art forms’ which sounds stressful but super cool. we’re supposed to do 2 sequences and ive already started the digital video one, but maybe i’ll have extra time in my schedule for an interactivity class :”) i gotta meet with my adviser tbh, we got a lot to talk about

and then there’s grad school?? like, i dont go to an art school [i thought i was gonna do physics or comp sci HAH] so there’s only so much i can learn here, so the idea of grad school is both exciting and stressful bc, bleh, more classes and more spending money. 

right now, im excited about taking my drawing class, and im gonna try to take drawing ii as well as painting and maybe sculpture to help me out with 3d modeling concepts and stuff so i’ve got a better idea of color theory and proportions and all that good stuff

i wanna be well rounded

i really wanna learn art

im excited, and im scared, but i have a clearer(ish) view on what i wanna do with my life. physics i had no idea. comp sci was pretty open ended and i was interested in game design. digital arts/3d modeling and animation, i could still try for game design but the more artsy side of it

and maybe... work on shows :”) maybe rooster teeth, tho i know like 56564675 people have dreams of working there too, so that’s a little intimidating

but i gotta say theyre part of the long process of me getting re-inspired to study and pursue art

rooster teeth and a lot of my supportive friends who are always so sweet to me and helping me out emotionally and encouraging me :”) it does help me get through times where i really feel stuck

i think i’m doing what i want to study now and not what i feel like i “had” to do because it was “safe” cause really, those werent “safe” options for me because i didnt like them and i didnt understand them

i think in pictures and am a visual learner

i think im where i’m supposed to be right now

i’m scared

but excited

[shutupxdance-blog]

THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES! 3

『♬♬♬』

It’s the FUTURISTIC SPACE YEAR OF 2002, and a HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN logo bounces around the sky behind Cíoroc, as pixelated stars shine above a poorly 3D-rendered city. “And in the end, it turns out that all Arno Cyberspace 2, the evil one, ever needed, was to be loved, and also for the evil AI that he made for some reason to be destroyed because nobody had thought of doing that before. But enough about our serious lore, and on to what really matters: the characters. They’re what we’re all here for, after all. That’s what some of our producers forget sometimes, you know? What we’re really here for. Welcome back to another segment of 『THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES!』” He pauses. “It’s a pun this time.”

“When I was younger,” Horang’s, or rather, Chan-yeol’s voice begins in the interview footage, “I would look at kkachi horangi paintings, which were totally weird looking, but fun at the same time. They meant something back then, but I don’t remember what.”  A young boy and his slightly older sister sit alone in the house, while a festival goes on outside. The footage, no longer as grainy as the VHS footage from previous segments but now afflicted by screen tearing, pixelated noise, frame skipping, and a wide variety of other playback glitches, switches to two adults, clearly the parents, gambling away in a smoky room. “Tigers are known to keep evil away and good luck in, which is what I fucking need. I’m not that superstitious,” Chan-yeol continues as the young boy gets older, attending high school, walking curiously down the streets of a red light district, surrounded by adverts for strip clubs and bars, “But taking on the name might give me something at least. Maybe at least confidence.”

“It sounds over the top and glittery,” STELLAR —Seishirou — says from across the table, green hair in stark contrast to Cíoroc’s pink, as a young boy in the low-res archival footage is shoved against a well by a trio of larger boys, a glitch obscuring the screen before he’s left wiping a bloody nose and being comforted by another boy as he cries, “I’m really into that.”

“What’s your price, baby?” Cíoroc asks, voice crisp and clear, winking behind his shades at the unfortunate souls on the other side of the table.

Chan-yeol walks into a cabaret, music thudding, drunk patrons cheering, someone dancing on stage. “The cabaret, as it is. My boss... y’see...” After the show, he approaches the dancer, the words they say to each other inaudible as the voiceover takes precedence, but a few months later he’s back, waiting tables, and even later than that, the footage flickering as it fast-forwards, everything advancing at an incredible pace, he’s a singer up on the stage, getting money and spending it as soon as he gets it, an unending cycle of fluorescent lights and the bottom of a bottle. One day, he comes in, and the man who he talked to on his first night is nowhere to be seen, a number of people hurrying to show him a pile of paperwork left on a table which he stares at with bleary confusion. “He ran away after signing my name under everything. All of it. He was the piece of shit who got me here in the first place and left me behind.” Meetings with unsavory people, men in black suits, midnight drives. “I... can’t keep a whole business afloat and worry if these people are gonna die because of me. I can’t live with that. “

Seishirou’s voice is as calm and conversational as ever, the version of him in the glitchy archival footage studying late nights, getting more and more confident as the years flicker by, the same boy who comforted him by his side the entire time. “Simply put; my medical license.” Seishirou is wearing a white coat and a smile as the voiceover continues, studying even harder. “It was more than just a piece of paper. It was even more than the proof of some years spent at school. I can earn it back if I make it through, of course, but nothing will replace that… physical proof that I survived.” He walks with his friend, the two happily talking, when all of a sudden the boy, now a man, is struck by a speeding bus. As the Seishirou in the footage runs over, forcing his panic aside to begin performing medical procedures, the voiceover is calm, if a little wistful. “That I didn’t kill myself and got to study what I love. The reminder of everything Hideki has done to help me… It meant a lot to me, that silly piece of paper. But Hideki means so much more to me.”

There’s another glitch, strange colours and dead pixels radiating out from the center of the screen, the sound alert of an error message playing over and over again, layering over itself until the voiceover is now Memory’s voice. Meri’s voice, cheerful and lighthearted. “Hmmm....Aha, you caught me there!” A building collapses violently on screen, an accident that must have killed dozens or hundreds and that likely doesn’t cross the mind of the young girl, no more than a toddler, being delivered to the front door of an elderly couple, far too old to be her parents. She doesn’t mourn, she doesn’t cry, she just goes about her life, going to school, talking to her grandparents, and going up to her room to use her computer, a cycle that just repeats over and over again, each brief conversation barely worth a frame of video. “I just thought it sounded cute…but I suppose I could say because I’m very reminiscent of the past, haha.”

A young Meri does make a friend, walking everywhere with a girl, wearing matching outfits, and then one day, she says something, her posture making it clear what it is: a confession. The girl shouts at her, recoiling, and leaves. Meri looks crushed, and the next few years of her life are dull, colours drained from the footage, going by in a low-res blur. The cycle continues, a non-existence, until she starts taking photos of herself in different outfits and a screen tear causes the audio to jump; when the video resumes, Meri is posing for the cover of a magazine. “My medicine. For my illness, that is,” she says, as the magazine crumples and falls out of view, Meri now dressed not in any designer outfit but in a hospital gown. “Haha. It was only important to me...like...physically. To keep me alive. I don’t really give a shit about them. Without them, I’ll probably die way sooner than expected. That’s fine though. I’d rather live a few weeks in happiness opposed to living like this for another miserable decade.” An IV is hooked up to her arm and she lies in bed, checking her phone, refreshing repeatedly before putting it down. “I can’t keep living like this anymore.”

The footage is crisp and clean now, right from the show, ad banners running along the bottom of the screen, and Seishirou, Horang and Meri are talking, laughing together, sharing a moment. A roll of distortion obscures them and then Seishirou is standing over his friend, lying with his eyes closed in a hospital bed, another doctor saying something that can’t be made out, vague electronic beeping the only indication that this footage ever had audio. “It’s nothin’ more and nothin’ less than the knowledge needed to cure,” the doctor keeps talking, and Seishirou’s posture gets tenser and tenser,  “Full body paralysis, specifically, irreparable nerve damage, anything I need to know to prevent unexpected complications. I want to-... I need to be able to do it myself. I can’t fail again.” There’s a skip, another barrage of error messages and for a few moments a frame of Seishirou’s friend lying, against a storefront is interposed on a frame of Meri sleeping in a hospital bed and then with the rapidly flickering images of Horang and Seishirou’s bodies. “Why? Maybe because I’m selfish. Maybe because I can’t let go of someone I care deeply about. Of course, Hideki is the only thing on my mind most of the time, but… That doesn’t mean I can’t keep using that knowledge for good after, right?”

“Everybody wants to feel secure, right? Everybody wants to feel like they can take care of themselves in the future. That they don’t have to spend their rent money on food or lose it all because... ha. They gambled it all away.” That’s Chan-yeol’s voice, of course. The scenes of footage are brief. Dancing. The bottom of a bottle. Singing. Wads of cash, thrown at him. A meal at a restaurant. Gambling. Dates with a number of different people; a graphical glitch seems to blur them all together at one point. “I just want to finally... settle my debt. I want loan sharks off my ass. I want my name off of any papers I didn’t actually sign. I just want to get out of the fucking underground.” The cycle repeats and it doesn’t stop, but soon there’s conversations with shady-looking men, and the dancing and singing are replaced with carrying strange packages, a man in a too-nice suit helping him go over paperwork. “I could... buy back jobs. Build a new cabaret. I could send my sister money. Ji-min... I could fund her whole life for her, if she wanted me to. Fuck, I’ll even send my parents to a retirement home in the future.” The lights of the red light district pulse and throb like the lights of the faerie world. “I just. I just want control, for once. Money has always been control.”

Chan-yeol is sitting in a casino, and then there’s a wipe and it’s Meri in a casino, faeries each jostling for her business, wide smiles and glowing eyes and eclectic outfits. A text box offers GLIMPSES OF THE FUTURE and she smiles at the faerie behind the table, who holds up a deck of cards enticingly. “I don’t actually care about modelling all that much. I just want the fame I used to have before it was taken away from me.” Archival footage is intercut, a girl who looks just a little but not quite like Meri wearing outfits like hers, smiling like hers, on the cover of every magazine. “Everyone who admired me. I want them back.” Back to the show, and Meri is staring into the distance, shellshocked. In her room, she puts on a mask. “I’m scared to die alone,” she admits in the voiceover, as the Meri on screen grips a sword tightly in her hand. “My career...The fame that came with it...it’s the only thing that’s ever made me truly happy. It’s the only thing that made living feel different from being dead for once.” There’s another digital glitch, and Chan-yeol — or should that be Horang? — goes down, blood staining his clothes. “I’ve never felt that before..besides when I found out I was dying and lost all that I cared about. Then dying felt much scarier than living. I don’t want to die afraid and alone.” Seishirou’s eyes widen as he looks at the scene — Meri turns to him and says something, the movement of her lips blurred out by errant slides of colour. “I want to die while I’m still happy. I want people to be sad. I want them to miss me. I don’t want my existence to be forgotten and meaningless.”

She’s talking to Cíoroc in the interview, happy, ready for the show to begin. “After all, I don’t have any family left to carry on my blood. I feel bad that...I don’t miss them like they deserve. I’m rather hypocritical for not wishing the same upon myself, huh?” Cíoroc listens, smile serene and implacable as always. Seishirou, or, well, STELLAR, bleeds out, expression peaceful. Horang lies on the floor.

Chan-yeol’s voice speaks as Horang Lee bleeds out on the floor. “...I visit my sister. I tell her... as much as I can about all the years we were apart. I don’t tell her about this show, but I tell her that some... big local talent show gave me a shot and I won. I tell her something, but bottom line,” and the footage begins to fade into nothing but electronic noise, “I spend the rest of my life taking care of her. I find everybody whose lives I ruined because of the cabaret and send them money. I buy a real apartment. Maybe I’ll get a cat. And I just... live as quietly and as peacefully as possible until I die. That’s my plan.” The lights of the red light district flash and pulse. It’s always the same; prices and prizes.

STELLAR and Meri… well, it’s Memory, right? — talk as the former dies. Instead of their voices, it’s Seishirou’s dub. “Help Hideki. He… Ahah, it’s weird. I know he wasn’t too keen on staying alive, especially the past years. How the tables had turned, right?” He looks serious as he gives the interview answer to Cíoroc. Far away, a man lies motionless in a hospital, hooked up to wires and monitors. “But I can’t… let him meet his end like this. Withering away in a hospital bed. Lucid but immobile. I want another chance at making him happy. Doing for him what he did for me. And, selfishly, I... don’t want to live without him. “ On the stage of HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN, STELLAR breathes his last breath. “After that, well… I just hope we can keep living. Together.”

The rest is familiar. Memory at the trial. The execution. Her smile at the interview table is bright and cheery. A glitch causes another screen tear, half of the pixels of the hospital bed visible onscreen instead of what should be there. “Live for however long I have left. Enjoy the admiration. Die happily and surrounded by people. Be remembered. I don’t care if it’s only a few weeks or so. As long as I...get it back. Hey, even if I don’t win though...hopefully I’ll be remembered- no, immortalized...through this show?”

And with that, it’s back to Cíoroc. He’s still smiling, but it’s a curious smile. It’s not a happy one. Is he, perhaps, actually sad? Nah, that’s impossible. “Hahahaha… it’s a funny thing, right? She’s just like me when I was younger. Oh, the good old days. Who’d have thought old Watershed from season three would end up a star like Cíoroc Mair, huh?” A pixelated portrait of Memory flickers into existence behind him inside an empty Paint window. “Don’t worry, Memory. Nobody’s going to forget a performance like that. Nobody. You don’t get the fame you wanted, but you’re not in bad company there, not with Kleos from season one, Taiyang from season two, Cathode from season five, Divinity from season seven, Gloria from season nine, Starlight from season ten, Parameshwara from season twelve, Sveca from season thirteen, Five from season fourteen, Yeong-gwang from season sixteen, Shirley from season eighteen, Ursula from season nineteen,  Bundy from season twenty-one, Uzuri from season twenty-three, Alexandria from season twenty-five, Glamorama from season twenty-seven, Shrine from season twenty-eight, Takibi from season thirty, Ganymede from season thirty-two, al-Aziz from season thirty-four, Zhuchiren from season thirty-six, and Blue from season thirty-seven!”

Although he names a lot of names, Memory’s portrait remains central, each portrait of another contestant circling hers in a curious sort of mosaic. After a few seconds, Cíoroc reaches out, taps the ‘save’ button, and continues as Horang’s portrait appears. “Wishing for money to get out of their problems we find Scoop from season one, Rat from season three, Cooper from season five, Marie Antoinette from season seven, Flashpoint from season ten, Don from season eleven, Real from season thirteen, Jinzi from season sixteen, Penny from season seventeen, Boxcars from season nineteen, Grendel from season twenty-three, Gatsby from season twenty-five, X from season twenty-nine, Rembrandt from season thirty-four, and Kisamata from season thirty-eight.” With another tap, a portrait of STELLAR joins them. “And wishing for the skills to save a friend or loved one, we see STELLAR joining up with Chaos from season four, Desperado from season eight, Bonnie from season thirteen, Sun Wukong from season nineteen, Gwydion from season twenty-five, and Sancho Panza from season thirty-two.”

He pauses. “This show’s been going on for a long time, huh? Kind of makes you wonder when it’s going to grind to a stop. Oh, wait, that’s right, never! The show must go on, and we’ve got an audience who wants to keep watching, right? Still, the longer we make it, the more it feels like everyone’s moving on. Even the people watching right now, you know? They’ve moved on in their hearts already. Showbiz, baby. It can be tough. See you all next episode, where we’ll be challenging our contestants to survive in the deadly wilderness of an on-studio location with a full camera crew! Constant scenery changes keep things from getting fresh and stale by letting characters interact in new settings, you know? That’s just a little showbiz secret!”

Cíoroc then proceeds to make robot noises for the entire remaining thirty-minute duration of the broadcast.  

[bangkok-dangerous]

big sad ramble time. MAN im at one of those points where the only inkling of a feeling of emotion or sincerity within me can only be evoked by these tacky nostalgic songs 

like simple and clean and other sappy anime stuff. these past few days its like ive almost gone out of my way to burn bridges or at the very least appear like i dont want to be around anyone, and for all i know thats actually true.

i just cant see past this idea that everything everyone (including me) does is motivated by selfishness, be it fun, an ego boost, or their own sense of satisfaction for “helping” out their friend who obviously isnt having fun. i think i got invited to a friends house at near midnight just so they could have enough people to play pictionary. i was only otherwise ignored or treated like a punchline and an incapable idiot with no drive, which in my mind is the least true thing someone could ever assume about me. ive spent about 4 years now teaching myself 3d modelling, animation and drawing, on top of dabbling in programming and youtubing, and it pisses me off so much when these cunts who think theyre my friends just dismiss it because im so uninterested in participating in their shitty game and conversations that they mistake me for being an easy target.

right now i so badly want to feel sincerity and believe that there are people who are inherently positive and willing to help others and just have a fun time, and i want to believe that im capable of that too, but i just cant. even people who behave altruistically and characterise themselves with being kind and caring are just after the good-chemicals boost of being able to tell themselves that theyre a good person.

what really sucks right now is that theres so little i can do about this but wait it out for about a month until uni starts and ill ideally be too busy or overwhelmed to bother thinking about how terrible i and the people around me are. right now i have maybe 2 friends that i actually want to spend time with, while the rest are boring, unmotivated, shitty ‘friends’. There were so many things i wouldve liked to do in the 6 fucking months weve all had off school like go to the beach, watch movies together, do more podcasts and other youtube shit but my 5 or so ‘hangout’ friends are such boring ‘gamer’ dudes that they either dont want to go out or dont find us fun enough as a group to do outdoors stuff with, and I hate that. I want to be around people who are as fun and motivated as i am, but just being around these people is so depressing and draining because all they do is play counterstrike, go to work, sometimes go to a shitty club, and thats it. i just cant muster the energy to organise stuff like this and invite them just for it to either end up boring or for it to fall apart and never happen.

ive tried reaching out to 2 friends about this who i thought would understand and be able to either convince me that good people are real or at least that i can trust them, but it comes up with nothing. they have nothing to say about it other than that my feelings are valid probably. ive always tried so hard to be a good friend, someone who is endless fun and jokes but can always put shit on the shelf to listen and be supportive when needed... and for nothing. the friends ive done so much with, tried so hard to keep together and keep active has just fizzled out into complacency. Im down to the one friend who ive had since year 8. it started with the two of us and now its ending like that too. even then it might just be a matter of time until we finalyl get to know each other well enough that we cant stand each other. ill get too clingy and then come to notice and be annoyed by every single one of his flaws.

its so hard to look back on my childhood and teenhood because i did so fucking little with it, and most of the cool things werent my choice. i didnt have a cool set of childhood friends to run around with on weekend and ride our bikes and play video games together. i didnt have a family that watched movies together or a dad who i could watch while he played SNES games. i didnt even own any of the GOOD ps2 nostalgia games like kingdom hearts, sotc, and any final fantasy. instead of pokemon and FLCL i watched the same 3 episodes of beyblade and whatever shitty french/australian/canadian cartoons the ABC could license.

I barely made any significant/lasting amount of friends in high school. i went in feeling invisible and assumed the guys and girls didnt like me so i acted accordingly... like an angry antisocial cunt. i just rode the current of the same friendship groups melting and molding into other ones over several years, never bothering to make real connections or interests with people outside of my small group. i went out of my way to avoid doing the extracurricular activities that wouldve helped me make friends in my school. joining a band, a club, even just bothering to participate in mandatory sports. i was so miserable and lazy and just like now took comfort in my artistic skill and determination to one day make it all worth it. to be fair i had better friends and we had plenty of fun sleepovers and whatnot, but i still feel like i missed out on so much in those first 4 years of bullshit.

anyway ill edit this if i have more shit i want to complain about but rn i started a preety cool drawing so imma do that peace