fulminouswitch

[fulminouswitch]

I’m pretty sure they’re just like me and sick of seeing all the fantasy books being called “Sci-Fi” in the stores.  Because yes - Mythril Swords are the cutting edge (ha ha) technology of the future!  No.  They’re sub-genres of speculative fiction, but at least group Sci-fi, Science Fantasy, and Fantasy together so they’re easier to find, dangit!  I’m sure the Star Trek guys are just as sick of elves as I am of Terran explorers, the least they could do is freaking sort things better.  Or at least make the stupid sign in the stores accurate by just using “speculative fiction”.

“sci fi and fantasy are polar opposites! they can’t coexist!!”

what is this, the genre binary?

[fulminouswitch]

You’re right - this is unfair... but not for the reason you’re thinking.  This is unfair because you’re essentially saying that a fundamental change in identity is no different than a pet name.  That is neither fair to the people who have to deal with the fact that the person they knew is undergoing a huge change, but also to the person who has to go through it. 

Let’s use my name as an example.  Rolina can be shortened to Role as a nickname, and Roli as a pet name.  But changing it to Roland isn’t the same.  That’s a fundamental change - not something short or cute, but a full on change in identity.  You’re being horribly unfair to both sides when you say that trans people should just be able to change their names willy nilly - even the trans people you’re claiming to defend struggle with this in their lives.

Life isn’t as simple as “just go with it”.  It’s not this black and white thing you can just use to judge people.  Just as it’s a shock for people to find out that the person they knew is now essentially a new person to them - complete with different name, gender, and public face - so too is it a struggle for trans people not only in that transition period, but leading up to it.  It’s not a simple name change for them.  It’s essentially them forging a new identity for themselves - one that they feel is more true to who they are.  Just saying it’s the same as a nickname cheapens that.

its weird how everyone, really, has multiple names that are used in different contexts and that many (most women, for one) people will change their names throughout their lives. like a guy might be called bobby by his friends robert by his boss mr burton by his co-worker he might become burton-smith after he gets married, rob at school, he might be robby to his mum, he might have the pen name of burton ellis, and he might be analdestroyer94 on one forum and forallthatsgood344 one another and that is all perfectly acceptable. people have different names and identities in different contexts and these change as they grow throughout their lives.

but then when trans people want to change their names, or young trans people have multiple names for different contexts everyone starts to get a bit weird about it.

[fulminouswitch]

Badass Generalist Warlock.

hey CH fans, Describe Ket in 3 words.

?

[fulminouswitch]

This.  So much this.  I had heard good things, and went to watch it, but half the time I was confused as to what I was watching, and the other half I was downright offended.  It seemed like it was half "artsy for the sake of being artsy", and half "look at all the lesbians!  Aren't they strange?"  I actually got angry with the show - I've never felt that way about a show before.  I mean, we're talking to the point of ragequitting it after that "trial" thing.  It came out of nowhere, had no context... hell, I can't really see much semblance of story anywhere in this show.  I mean, there's some hints, but what it winds up doing is coming off as some trite parody, rather than a meaningful statement.

Okay, okay, I got like four different people asking me to elaborate on why I absolutely hated YuriKuma, and after having some time to process it I think I can at least try to explain why.

The most obvious, glaring issue is that the entire concept revolves around the fetishizing and...

[fulminouswitch]

That's a pretty decent design for a mars djinn.  I know they were going more for luna, but... well, there's a bunch of things working against Luna going on that I won't get into - I'm celebrating art here, not trying to attack it.

I love the dark themes of it, though.  It'd totally be at home on a character who's got more of a darker tone to them, like Felix, Himi, or Sveta.  To be honest, I wish there were more djinn designs like this.  Djinn currently seem mostly designed around a neutral or sol-aligned aspect, rarely do we get to see one closer aligned to the luna fundament.  I definitely encourage more like this to be showcased in the future. ^-^

Remember how there were Dark adepts in Golden Sun and remember how I cant get over this series.  This djinn would be named lantern

[fulminouswitch]

I call bullshit.  You have to go out of your way to get a Sylveon.  The trainer's just being a cruel for cruelty's sake here.

no text version

i think about these kinda things a lot

[fulminouswitch]

I love how this pompous holier-than-thou asshole assumes that all of us who feel that way don't pay for art.  Artists - seriously - many of you need to get over your egos.  Not everyone's a leech.  Some of us are honestly jealous of your skill and will pay you to take advantage of it.  Please do not assume that everyone who wishes they could do art is out to snatch your stuff for free.  If that were the case, you'd not be offering shit, now would you?

Remember that there's a ton of decent people out there who will pay you good money for a good job, and try not to lump us with the other filth.  It tends to push away your customers.  After all, the only times I've not paid for art are when the artist themselves refused to accept payment.

Hey man at least you can make your sprites whenever you want.

Alright. I can’t even excuse this passive-aggressive comment. A passive aggressive comment that’s supposed to guilt me or to get me to stop complaining because i have something a little better that others.

A passive aggressive attitude people take toward those to try and drag them down to your level. It’s not cool, anon. It’s not nice. And it’s not helpful.

Allow me, my dear followers, to educate this anon. And while it may or may not be directed at you(I have no idea who sent this, obviously, so I’m assuming someone who follows me and knows enough about me and my work), maybe you can learn something from a different perspective.

SO THEN, LETS GET STARTED, SHALL WE.

"at least you can make your sprites whenever you want"

This can be synonymous with “i have to wait to get free art”, or “i have to pay for my sprites to get them when I want them”, or simply ”i can’t make sprites myself because i don’t want to take the time and effort it takes to make art”, the latter also being synonymous to "i have to wait for someone to make free art for me otherwise I’m stuck with nothing"

So, why is that, Anon? Because it certainly isn’t an artist’s problem if you can’t draw. It isn’t their fault if they don’t want to give away free art, It isn’t their fault that you don’t want to go through the path of art. It isn’t their fault that you’re too impatient or self-deprecating to draw your own sprites. And it isn’t their fault that you aren’t able to make your own sprites. And it DEFINITELY isn’t their fault if you feel envious or jealous of the skill they spent years to develop and hone their skills.

That’s YOUR problem. And you shouldn’t make artists feel bad for YOUR problems. 

I know. Shocking, ain’t it?

Then again, you may be saying “but art is hard!” or “I’m not good enough!” or something like that.

That’s the point.

Art takes time, and effort. I have been working with art for years. YEARS. I probably would have had a shorter, and easier, time, if I actually took art classes instead of being self taught. Art takes time. Art takes effort. Art takes a special kind of patience, to put up with the frustrations that comes with art: Such as making/fixing art mistakes; learning how to draw something new; finding appreciation for our creations(i dare you to find four artists that are confident in their ability); and dealing with people that don’t properly understand and appreciate the work we do.

AKA, pricks like you.

I think I speak for a lot of artists when I say this stuff. Sorry if you get offended.

Moving on.

We don’t get to make art “whenever” we want. It takes time, planning, effort, and did I mention time? A lot of time. Especially if we want it to look good. Patience comes into play again, when we have to scrap an image/layer again, and again, and again, without giving up. And that’s just us dealing with this shit on a good day. When we’re actually able to look at our art utensils without cringing, when we’re able to pick up the drawing instrument and get our hands to cooperate, when we’re able to get into the flow and love what we’re working on.

A chef that lost their passion to cook serves bad food. A musician too worn to play makes sharp notes flat. If there is no desire, their is no life.

Weird concept, right? It’s as if we’re actual people that need motivation to be good like everyone else.

There’s a reason we don’t work for free unless we’re in a REALLY good mood, but even that can change at a drop of a hat. Or a drop of an anon hate telling us to feel bad because we worked hard to get what we have now.

Now, lets go on my experience for a moment, shall we? I drew my character, Aillan Ajjaya, today. It was during a livestream and I worked throughout it all, breakless. It’s all recorded. Before I began, I spent about 20 minutes on the initial sketch, making sure the anatomy and proportions were correct. And then I spent 10 minutes in a join.me, before I booted up Livestream because join.me wasn’t what I needed at the time.

From the start of the stream to the very end, it took about six and a half hours. With the prep sketch, drawing this character took roughly 7 hours. This project took a little less than a 9am-5pm workday. The lowest legal Minimum Wage state offers about $5.15 per hour, while the current highest Minimum Wage is $9.04

If I were being paid to draw Aillan by normal standards I would have made from $36.05 to $63.28, assuming I don’t get a tip.

To a person trying to get into college, that’s a good chunk of change to make in a days work

So, taking all that into perspective, how do you think I feel when I see people demanding free art, or trying to guilt people into making it, or even worse, trying/pretending to be friends with artists to get free stuff?

How do you think ANYONE feels when other people act like they’re just some drone without feelings, like they’re just some machine to produce things for free?

Shame on you, anon. Shame on you for trying to make me feel bad for a skill I’ve worked hard to hone. Shame on you for trying to make me feel guilty that I can do something better than others. Shame on you and anyone else to criticize an artist and be passive aggressive just because you can’t do it yourself

I’m done.

Sorry for all the words, but it needed to be said. I tried to break it up with some gifs, if that helps any.

[fulminouswitch]

GSS - The Races of Weyard - The Races of Man

The Races of Men are the most populous of the three great races, although their lead in terms of population is starting to even out with the other two as time goes on.  They tend to be about 5-6 ft. tall, and weigh about 100-200 lb., with a slight bias towards lesser weights. They have varying skin colors, from pale and tan to ebony in color, which is largely influenced by regional descent.  Hair color mostly depends on their element, though it is known to fade to a grey or white with age.  Their skin tends to be softer than other races, and as a result the elements have a greater influence on humans than other races.

Sub Races

There are only three Subraces of Men - Humans, Dwarves, and Elves.  Most of the differences between the three subraces are aesthetic and lore based - with no differences mechanically outside of a few types of Overdrive classes.  There are no differences in stat ranges, classes, or spells they can have. 

Humans are about average in height and weight compared to the other subraces.  Their skin is also the softest of the three, allowing them to take advantage of certain items that have strong psynergetic power.  These items tend to give them overdrive classes better suited for casting. 

Dwarves tend to be shorter and stockier, tend to have thicker, quicker growing hair.  It's rare to see a male dwarf without facial hair.  They're able to utilize certain types of items with strong physical traits, allowing them access into overdrive classes with high attack and defense power. 

Elves tend to be on average taller than the other subraces.  They have pointed ears and slender frames, and their lower appetite leads to less of them being overweight.  They're able to utilize certain types of items with swift, technical traits, allowing them access to overdive classes that have great speed and skill. 

Overdrive Type - Overburst

The Races of Men have the ability to channel energy from objects much more efficiently than the Races of Drakes or Beasts thanks to the relative softness of their skin.  Because of this, they are able to achieve powerful states of being by channeling power from various tools.  This is a technique called "Overburst", and is exclusive to the human race.  However, prolonged exposure to these energies can be lethal, and as a result djinn are used to channel away excess power so as to prevent death upon using overburst.

The form that these items take varies - they could be tomes, quivers, scabbards, cards, scrolls and a wide variety of others.  Generally speaking, most item types can be equipped by any of the subraces.  However, Tomes are unique to Humans, Scrolls are unique to Dwarves, and Bindings (ex: Forearm chain-like accessories) for Elves.  It is these types of Overdrive Items that show off the main battle differences you'll see between the three subraces. 

Overview

Overdrive Class:  Overburst (Item Dependent) Weak Influence:  35% chance of location override Moderate Influence:  65% chance of location override Strong Influence:  85% chance of location override Global Population: 45% of Weyard

Examples of the Races of Men in canon include:  Felix, Mia, Eoleo

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[fulminouswitch]

GSS - The Races of Weyard - Introduction

As many of you know, Weyard is home to all sorts of races.  There's the most common, Human, which most of the playable characters in the game are.  There's also the Drakes of Prox, with their draconic scales and implied ability to be able to take the form of a dragon.  And finally there's also the Beastmen of Garoh and Morgol.  While some other races might be possible, as it currently stands it is possible to categorize all characters as one of these Three Great Races.  Yes, including Blados and Chalis, believe it or not.

Now, the first thing people may say is "What about the dwarves of Loho?"  Well, these is where the next part comes in - within each of the Three Great Races are many sub-races.  Each chapter in this series will cover one of the Three Great Races and will explain not only what sets them apart from the other races themselves, but also how each of the subraces stand out from one another.

At first glance, however, there will appear to be no difference whatsoever.  Unlike some games, such as Dungeons and Dragons, races has absolutely no effect on what stats, classes, or spells/skills a character can have.  Most of the differences are lore and aesthetic differences, in fact.  However, there is one big, huge distinguishing factor between the races:  Overdrive Classes.

What is an overdrive class?

Remember Sveta's beastform ability?  Every Beastman will have this ability.  Drakes, similarly, have an ability that lets them change into a type of dragon.  Humans, however, have no innate ability - rather, they must equip certain items that grant them the ability to tap into their innate alchemic power - essentially, they have to equip their Overdrive Class before they can use it.

In the days to come, I will post the next chapters in this series.

The Races of Man

The Races of Beasts

The Races of Drakes

Of Parents and Children

                                                                       Next Chapter» Back to Contents

[fulminouswitch]

Yeah... no.  The one thing I have never had is a punctual artist.  There's a reason you're paid by commission instead of per hour.  Now, if you can pull off art consistently and efficiently that's one thing, but until you reach that point, your art will not be worth an hourly wage.

I've waited up to nine months for a commission before.  The last art I paid for was two weeks late.  I've never gotten a job that was done within a month.  Unless you've proven your worth, hourly's not happening.

A tool that I’ve found is really handy is a called the Cash Clock. It’s a simple program that measures both the time that you’re working on a piece as well as how much money you should be earning. You can adjust the hourly wage to whatever you feel is…

[fulminouswitch]

There are.  Sort of.  They're called Super Sentai.

There's also several magical girl series that star males as the protagonists, often as traps.  My personal favorite is Oto x Maho.

WHY AREN’T THERE ANY MAGICAL BOY SERIES

[fulminouswitch]

Diary of a Witch - Fifth Entry

BAAAAAH!  My artist was late in delivering last week.  Ah well, I got it anyways.  I've uploaded the concept arts and stuff for Satoru and Soren, as well as for the Digivice.  I'll have Satoru and Soren's full profile up tomorrow, as well as the promised next chapter...

As far as gaming is concerned, been playing a lot of Disgaea D2 recently.  I'm really loving this game!  Pokemon, however, has dropped off a bit.  In fact, it's dropped off a lot.  Without Whimsicott, my desire to beat the E4 and Champion are kinda... not there.  Also Disgaea is awesome and I wanna play that instead.

Oh, I've also got a new bed.  You know those temperpedic beds that have that sleep-number style thingies?  I have a Twin XL version of that (I'd have gotten a queen, but I couldn't afford it at the time).  I also have a new bedspread.  It's SOOOOO PURPLE.  AND SO MANY PILLOWS.  I LOVE IT♥!  I'm still fiddling with it to find whatever works best for me, but so far I've found I prefer things in the mid-soft range.  Papa's making a headboard for his new bed, and it looks really nice... so I might commission one from him once it's done, though in a similar, tweaked style that matches my bed and sheets.

[fulminouswitch]

Here we have the design for the Digivice from the Digimon Record series.  Since the first character made was Satoru, his Digivice of Courage was the first one done.  The digivice has many abilities and properties which will be discovered by the characters as time goes on.  Some of these are returning abilities from past seasons, while others are unique (to my knowledge) to Digimon Record.  If, when reading the story, you find a property that you like, feel free to use the idea yourself.

Anywho, here's the process that was taken when creating the Digivice design.  The first step was to figure out what style to use - and I already knew this one.  An angled design, as seen in Savers and Xros Wars (as opposed to the previous four, which used more rounded designs).  Then, it was a step by step process...

Basic Models - The next step was to choose between four basic shapes.  Ultimately, I chose the two on the left, since the looked like they'd work best.

Model Refining - Next, we took those basic designs and played with them a bit, trying to find something we liked.  Ultimately, we chose design B3.

Model Tweaking - After that, some tweaks were made.  The top part was made smaller, while keeping the screen the same size (thus, being proportionally larger).

Initial Design - The first design has... some issues, as you can see.  The middle part looks like a sleeve, though the top part looks pretty solid, and the three-button system is ideal for a device like this.

Improved Design - the next design keeps the top, which worked pretty well, and gives a more vertical-based design, having the extending parts be a grip of sorts.  However, the two horizontal buttons kind of bugged me, so we decided to take the 3-button design of the first design, stylize and tweak it to work, and then we got...

Final Design - This is the end result.  The Digivice, with it's current setting as being of the Courage Blessing.  Because this digivice in particular belongs to Satoru, it only responds to him.  As such, if another child tries to use it, even if they're another child with a Courage blessing they won't be able to get it to work.

Art is done by Misery from the GSAR.  Not sure if he’s opened his Tumblr yet, but for now I’ll just link to his profile for the credits.

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[fulminouswitch]

This is the first of many picture series to be released.  This one is for the Goggleboy - Wada Satoru, as well as his partner, Soren the Dracomon.  This will take you from concept to final product, and I'll explain the development as we go through.

The Initial Sketch - this was created as an original concept for the character.  This doesn't have the pose or anything, just a general look.

Pose Check - in this one, we checked for which poses we wanted everyone in the pic to be in - we looked up some previous poses known to be done by goggleboys from digimon past, and chose this to be the ultimate "profile pose" for Satoru.  Each character will have one that fits their personality, and Satoru and Soren are no exception.

Final Concept - this is the final concept pic for Satoru, detailing his outfit.  Thanks to the skill of the artist, it looks quite great, capturing what he'd be like pretty much on the first shot.

Color Check 1 - The colors, though, needed some tweaking.  First thing was that the orange used was a weee bit too on the light side, and would blend in too close to the skin.  The shorts are also kind of... yeah.  We also started looking at digivice designs here.

Color Check 2 - The shirt was darkened so that it'd stand out much better in contrast with the skin.  We also narrowed down the design for the digivice.

Color Check 3 - The pants were changed to a better color here, and the color check for Soren was done (pretty easy for the mons compared to the humans).  With the colors finalized, next step was to...

Detailing/Prefinal - here details were added.  Shading, detailing, etc.  Just a few more final tweaks after this and we get...

The Final Picture - Satoru and Soren in all their glory.

Art is done by Misery from the GSAR.  Not sure if he's opened his Tumblr yet, but for now I'll just link to his profile for the credits.

See Profile Next Art >> << Back to Contents

[fulminouswitch]

GSS - The Aspect System, Part 3

Last time, we learned what the twelve aspects were.  However, no adept alive has access to all three aspects of a single element without the use of an Item Class, Weapon Unleash, or a Psionic Tool.  No combination of djinn, no amount of training, nothing will allow them to cast more than two aspects, and even then, some are only able to cast a single.  But that's not how it was in Golden Sun - so why is this?

Now, this isn't to say that it can't be adapted to Golden Sun.  If by some miracle of fate I was able to get a hold of the IP as a game producer, that series would have one hell of an overhaul on its hands - an enforcement of system, so to speak.  Camelot, however, seems do follow the "do whatever" approach, while I strictly follow a set of rules and guidelines.  And I do this for good reason - I refuse to break lore.  I could go into this further, but that's a story for another article.

Anywho, in the interest of enforcing Magic A is Magic A, a caster is only able to tap into spells that match both their Innate Element, as well as their Fundamental Affinity.  Innate Element is something everyone already understands - without the use of alt-elemental djinn, you can only use spells of your own element.  Fundamental affinity's a bit different, however.  This governs not only what forms of spells you can cast, but also what types of supports you're able to use.  Support spells will be covered in their own section, however.  For now, let's focus on the aspects.

No matter what class you are in, you follow the rules of your fundamental affinity.  If you can only use Lunar forms, then when you go from pure Venus to Dual Opposite, you can only cast the bolt form of Jupiter (as that's the lunar form).  With that in mind, let's look at what you can do with each type:

The Zenith Affinity only has access to the Solar forms of the elements.  It is symbolized by a midday sun.

The Dawn Affinity is able to use both the Solar and Pure Elemental forms of the elements.  It is symbolized by a sun at sunrise.

The Clear Affinity only has access to the Pure Elemental forms of the elements.  It is symbolized by a pulsating orb of energy.

The Dusk Affinity has access to both the Pure Elemental and Lunar forms of the elements.  It is symbolized by a moon at moonrise.

The Nadir Affinity only has access to the Lunar forms of the elements.  It is symbolized by the moon at it's highest point in the night.

The Eclipse Affinity has access to both the Lunar and Solar forms of the elements.  It is symbolized by a Solar Eclipse.

So long as you can use an aspect, you have access to any spell that utilizes the aspect.  That is to say, all the Wind spells that the Clear Affinity can use, the Dusk affinity can use as well.  So why then would you choose Pure Elemental over Dusk?

The answer lies in the support spells.  Recovery, Buff, Debuff, and Ailment spells are also affected by Alignment, and the more focused alignments have earlier access to some of the stronger effects without needing to reach to dual- and tri- element classes.  Dual element, on the other hand, are able to use a much wider variety of supports and added effects early on.

In the end, they balance out, and for the most part, they're aesthetic.  The easiest way to determine what Affinity you should be if creating your own caster is to just pick the aspects you want to use.  If, say, you want to specialize in lightning in your main class, but want to use Ice in an alt class, look into the Eclipse Affinity.  After all, nobody said you had to use all the forms available to you in a single class - you're as versatile as you make yourself.

The only part of the elements that is completely unaffected by Affinity is healing.  Healing is not to be confused with Recovery - recovery category spells include things like Cure Poison, Revive, Break, and Psy Drain, while healing is specifically spells like Pray and Cure.  Healing Spells are considered "Affinity Neutral", meaning no matter what aspects you wield, you are never unable to use healing spells.

With that, you know everything you need to know about the aspects.  I hope it was informative, and if you wish to adopt the Aspect System into a Golden Sun RP or something, feel free to do so.”

<< Page 2 Back to Contents

[fulminouswitch]

I was wondering what was going on!  Yeah, that's really annoying to have a new tab open every time.  I figured it was something weird going on with my browser, but for the life of me I couldn't find what it was.  So... it was just tumblr being stupid, then?  Well, hopefully enough people will complain that they undo that particular change.

I’m really not liking the new search format… I liked it a lot better when it was similar to the dashboard, now it’s just… really confusing and annoying and unnecessary. Not to mention that searching tracked tags opens a new tab instead, which isn’t really all that bad, but it’s still a bit annoying.

Kind of disappointed now because I used to have a lot of fun searching through tags like hiatustuck and such. Now it just… confuses me navigating through it.

[fulminouswitch]

Trade Request: Togepi ♀ or Cottonee ♀ in luxury balls.

So, I want my team to all be in luxury balls, right?  Well, apparently in X and Y, the ball of the baby is the same as the ball of the mother... unless the mother is a ditto.  Screw you too, gamefreak.  Great, now I've got to go through the annoying task of finding someone who caught a female Togepi with a Luxury ball.  And, of course, it's got that STUPID 1/8 chance of being female.

*sighs*

Glad I didn't just grab a male Cottonee... It'd suck to have to deal with the same thing.  So here's the gist - I'm looking go get these two on my team, but they must be caught with a luxury ball for me to accept the trade.  I'll try and get whatever I can for you, just keep in mind that I've yet to beat the Elite Four, so many of my options are limited.  Was kind of hoping to breed a good solid team of fairies before going after them.

Anywho, anyone got a friend safari with these?  I don't care about IVs or Nature, just that it's female.  Willing to take a bit of time to grab one in a luxury ball?