skaruresonic

[skaruresonic]

it's wild to be reminded that a lot of people consider "visual novel" to be like. an insult. a shockingly popular take that's just completely alien to me

[skaruresonic]

it's wild to be reminded that a lot of people consider "visual novel" to be like. an insult. a shockingly popular take that's just completely alien to me

[skaruresonic]

Mobius is not the name of Sonic's world and it can't be called that, nor the creatures from it be called mobians. This one is a no brainer, the world has never been know as Mobius in the games.

Which is funny considering Mobius is just Earth thousands of years in the future anyway. The planet has always been Earth. Earths all the way down.

---

Shadow must be arrogant and stupid. This one is a more recent one that hasn't been floating around since the beginning of the claims of SEGA Mandates but is classified as one. This one isn't really a thing, see my previous post for why. If there was some kind of writing note on him it would have been Shadow is prideful as this is something established in the game and previous bios. But would have been misinterpreted as arrogance and hubris as people often conflate pride with hubris.

There's no hard evidence that Shadow-specific mandates exist. No mention of them predates the writing of a Reddit post where the OP relayed a secondhand story of a friend asking Flynn why Shadow behaved Like That in issue 19.

The OP merely speculated that Sega must have wanted Shadow to be a jerk, and the other Redditors took the ball and ran with it. Fandom is the one that invented the concept of Shadow mandates using circular logic. Shadow behaves in a way we don't like and Sega """approved""" his writing in issue 19, ergo Sega must have wanted him portrayed that way, therefore he must be mandated to behave in a certain way.

---

As you've illustrated, most of these mandates are common-sense measures. Sega likely put them in place because people's grasp on the characters and world tends to be so tenuous that they literally do need it spelled out for them.

For instance: Shadow isn't a conversationalist, something that frustrates Flynn. Naturally, Sega are going to have more notes on his characterization when Flynn tries to shove more words in his mouth, such as suggesting that a three-paragraph monologue be changed to thought bubbles instead. That doesn't mean Sega has Shadow-specific mandates dictating how he should be written.

Likewise, Sonic canonically dislikes tears, so why would he bawl?

---

Money can't exist. This one seems to be something Ian Flynn might have had said.

Flynn said money doesn't exist in Sonic's world, which isn't true any way you dice it; Vector frequently mentions money in the games.

Cross-examining mentions of the characters selling things on Twitter Takeovers with Tyson Hesse's statements about how he had to change a scene to omit onscreen depictions of rings and wallets would imply that the concept of money can be alluded to, just not shown explicitly.

Personally, I'd attribute this to a desire to avoid the confusion/early installment weirdness in SA2 and Heroes, where both dollar bills and rings count as money, but that's just my conjecture.

---

Shadow must be moody and edgy and show no emotions and have no friends.. This honestly seems to have no basis. Overall it seems to mostly base itself on his Sonic Boom depict given the games that what would have had Shadow after the time these alleged mandates would have been the boom games. Meanwhile other games he has been in shows he does show things such as emotions, and we know how he views Rouge and Omega.

Like with fandom's saltiness at Shadow's portrayal in IDW 19, this too stems from fandom's saltiness that Shadow doesn't technically consider Rouge and Omega his besties.

"Shadow doesn't verbally acknowledge his teammates as his friends, just allies at most, probably due to trauma from the ARK incident" becomes "SEGA SAYS SHADOW HAS NO FRIENDS" through fandom-wide games of telephone.

Questioning The Existence Of The Sonic Mandates

So something I've started to dig into more recently has been the SEGA Mandates on the Sonic series, and something I've come to find is the overall original mandates don't seem to have a source. Which has gotten me to question, do they really even exist????

So for starters when I question the existence of the SEGA Mandates I am not saying Sonic Team doesn't have rules on what you can and can't do with the characters. But rather the collection of supposed mandates that have been floating around on the internet might not actually be real mandates. Now the claim is that these mandates were created around 2012 because of the Ken Penders case and that they have been ruining the Sonic franchise since then. But here's the thing...... Everyone says this but provides no source on where this list came from or if Pender Case is even actually involved. The earliest thing I could find online was a TV Tropes page on Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) apparently from Nov 20, 2011 mentioning SEGA Mandates, but nothing on what they are.

I believe these collection of mandates that have floated around aren't actually mandates we have gotten officially, but rather rumors and hearsay that have floated around on the internet. With some being no-brainers while still being never officially stated to my knowledge. So, I'm going to go over each using Sonic Wiki Zone as my list, with some I can remember hearing floating around.

Only male hedgehogs can go super. I debunked this one in a previous post, and is a prime example of a supposed mandate without a real original source.

There is 2 worlds like in Sonic X. This one is based on a misinterpretation of something Iizuka had said as I showed in a previous post, and by extension never official confirmed as a mandate. This also seemed to have been fueled by GeneHF claiming this to be the case. But he was wrong about only male hedgehogs, and he is wrong on this as well.

There are no humans in Sonic's world. This primarily based on the last one which has already been debunked, but also some people have even claimed this one was a rule that humans just didn't exist at all in the Sonic world.

Mobius is not the name of Sonic's world and it can't be called that, nor the creatures from it be called mobians. This one is a no brainer, the world has never been know as Mobius in the games.

Classic Sonic is from another universe which the Classic games take place in and not the past. I think this one was an assumption there was a retcon and by extension mandate here based on the Sonic Forces blunder which was eventually fixed.

Mighty and Ray can only exist in the classic games/universe. This one is partially reliant on the previous one, and by extension assumes Mighty and Ray can't be used in the modern games with no evidence outside of we haven't seen them in the modern games yet. At least to my knowledge and it ignores they are confirmed to be out there somewhere.

The Hyper Forms and Super Emeralds don't exist. This one is similar to the first one as in with even GeneHF claiming it. And of course it has been proven to be false as well.

Sonic can't cry. No idea where it came from with some people claiming it's Sonic can't bawl which yeah no brainer. It overall doesn't make sense to have the paragon hero with a smile on his face to just cry without a reason let alone bawl. But again, it's such as short and simply claim it could mean literally anything and have cut context if a real mandate, which I don't think it is. Heck some have suggested this is just for the Archie comics but who really knows.

No romance/relationships. Overall vague and kinda contradicted by Knuxouge, if an actual mandate I think it's probably misinterpreted. As in while characters like Sonic and Amy can go on dates, Amy be in love with him, and Sonic be shy about it all. The series is going to go on and by extension someone like Amy is always going to chase after Sonic, and the adventures they all go on continue. With romance being reserved for fandom.

Money can't exist. This one seems to be something Ian Flynn might have had said. But overall this is just contradicted by all in-game currency in the games to this day, alongside everything about Team Chaotix.

No characters like the SATAM characters. While nothing official Sonic Team seems to not want to use the SATAM characters and by extension would make sense to them simply saying no to their usage by anyone who askes.

Male characters that aren't humans, can't wear pants. This one seems to just be a claim based on the lack of characters wearing pants and that one Sonic Boom joke. Outside of that games like the app games and Sonic Speed Sim contradict it.

Only one Metal Sonic is allowed, not multiple. If this one is a bit of a no brainer while being false. For the false part Metal Sonic 3.0 exists. But it also makes sense because throughout all the game the Metal Sonic we see is the same Metal Sonic, so it makes sense to not have a second one created by Eggman as it cheapens the original's existence.

Nothing from Sonic Chronicles. This one is a no brainer because of the lawsuit. While not stated as a mandate it's just obvious.

Knuckles must be dumb. Nothing here really exists and seems to be based on a few times Knuckles is depicted as goofy like in Lost World. Or well Sonic Boom which is not canon.

Shadow must be moody and edgy and show no emotions and have no friends.. This honestly seems to have no basis. Overall it seems to mostly base itself on his Sonic Boom depict given the games that what would have had Shadow after the time these alleged mandates would have been the boom games. Meanwhile other games he has been in shows he does show things such as emotions, and we know how he views Rouge and Omega.

No game characters cannot have relatives unless they were established in the game canon. Doubtful as an actual mandate but seems to be a thing for the comics, at least IDW. This is because of the specification of game characters, which would make sense. But overall just confusing.

Game characters cannot be killed-off. This is just a no brainer, and again seems like a rule for the comics is it's a real rule given it specifies game characters.

Shadow must be arrogant and stupid. This one is a more recent one that hasn't been floating around since the beginning of the claims of SEGA Mandates but is classified as one. This one isn't really a thing, see my previous post for why. If there was some kind of writing note on him it would have been Shadow is prideful as this is something established in the game and previous bios. But would have been misinterpreted as arrogance and hubris as people often conflate pride with hubris.

And yeah that's basically it.

[skaruresonic]

He is. People get big mad if you point it out, but it's true. French romance writers had him usurp a variety of other characters' roles just to hype him up - from Cai, Arthur's original right-hand man, to Llacheu, Arthur's son, to Bedwyr, one of his closest companions.

The latter case especially gets my goat because it still happens to this day. Bedwyr gets spiritually shunted into Lance's role just because he so happens to be handsome and Arthur's friend... And there's literally no basis or precedent for that interpretation.

As I explained on my sideblog,

Ngl whenever someone describes Bedwyr as a "Welsh version of Lancelot," it makes me want to eat drywall. For several reasons. One being that Bedwyr is his own character, and I feel like it borders on erasure to force him into a role he was never implied to have held. People assembled the pieces together that he was A.) handsome, B.) one of Arthur's closest companions, and just mashed the two together with the thought that "...and so he has to betray Arthur, right?" It feels very remiss towards his character, treating him as though he's so hollow or lacking that he could be replaced with something else without much substance being lost. Plus, a cursory reading of Culhwch and Olwen will tell you that he was hella gay for Cai, okay. Second is the idea implicit in such descriptions that post-Galfridian Arthuriana is the definitive version of the Arthurian narrative, that Welsh material is not worth engaging with on its own merits except to support post-Galfridian material. Nobody's really saying Lance should be out here helping Arthur hunt Twrch Trwyth, for instance, but when it comes to Bedwyr, he's suddenly the "Welsh Lancelot"? Huh? Also, if that's the case, isn't that a little backwards? Shouldn't we be calling Lancelot the "French Bedwyr" instead?

Finding out that Lancelot was apparently the invention of a french writer is absolutely hysterical to me. 12th century french poet sitting around reading arthurian romances and thinking "yeah these stories are pretty good but I think what they really need is a french guy who shows up and fucks arthurs wife"

[skaruresonic]

An example of sprite animation using the Matrix Rotate function, which I'm immensely enjoying. It's a little difficult to convey animation through screenshots alone lol.

Arthur taps Carnwennan on Caledfwlch's blade, tilting it twice along the z-axis.

Basically what this block of code does is:

1.) When the sprite first appears onscreen - "on show" - it will have a transparency of 0 and a blur factor of 6, have its size scaled down to 75% of its original size, then take a little less than 3/4ths of a second to become unblurry and fully opaque.

2.) In the meantime - using parallel - we rotate the sprite along the x-axis (horizontally).

3.) "block" indicates a block of code the program will execute next. We copy-paste the last values of the previous block and build on them. Once the first block of animation completes, RenPy will then rotate the sprite along both the x-axis and the z-axis (indicates distance from screen) at the same time, and do it twice. Hence, the "tapping" motion.

[skaruresonic]

"he's just sidestepping, how many lines of code could it be? ten?"

[skaruresonic]

The question is simple: "why haven't I yet fed a prompt into ChatGPT to give me what I want without failure and strain?"

The funny part is AI artists insist that it takes a lot of effort, failure, and practice to fine-tune their prompts to get exactly the image they want. Then they open up Photoshop to tweak the image even further, and it's like bruh for the amount of time and resources you wasted, you could have just picked up the pencil from the get-go.

Despite being marketed as a way of equalizing the field for creatives and non-creatives, AI will still fight you. You're better off just starting from scratch.

AI also lacks imagination. It can only make singular pieces without any ability to replicate character design, so that nixes comics and visual novels.

I, on the other hand, can draw my blorbos as many times as I want. And maybe the designs are not always consistent, either, but I derive satisfaction from the fact that I drew them and they more or less match the image in my head.

I know you were talking about writing, but I feel the same way about coding for VNs. It's a giddy feeling to have struggled through wonky code and see that the animation is finally looking just how I want it.

It may not look like much to anyone else on the surface, but it is immensely satisfying to be like "I made this Shitty Thing into a Cool Thing just by chipping away at it."

That's what OP of that post was saying: frustration tolerance is a muscle you build up because leveling up is in and of itself a reason to create.

They made a follow-up post where they say that ego is often the root of perfectionism. Intellectually, you know that only studies and practice will get you to a point of producing quality work, and there is no other way around it... but your ego wants to bypass all that and just have the polished product in your hands right now. So rather than sit down and make many mediocre attempts that get a little better each time, you're stuck stymied by visions of a perfection that doesn't exist.

Confession: despite how long I've been writing, I've never fully grown to enjoy the moments of discomfort and struggle, even if it is an inevitable obstacle that must be accepted and is admittedly nice to eventually overcome afterwards. It might be due to how frequently it happens in my case, meaning that I rarely get to actually feel the satisfaction of growth for long because another stone wall will slap me in the face moments later, but normally it just leaves me feeling like an incompetent failure who can only write forgettable fluff at best, if even that. It's a recurring fear of inadequacy that I grapple with more often than I'd like to admit, sometimes to the point where I find myself questioning if it's even worth the trouble.

And yet... despite everything, I'm still doing it. Somehow, after all this time, I haven't given up. I wonder why that is?

I would say that the majority of writers feels like you. When you care about your craft, effort is hard and unrewarding. Your standards keep rising, and you fear that you can't keep up, and all the mistakes and difficulties you notice feel like a blaring "YOU AREN'T GOOD ENOUGH".

The post said that you must "enjoy and look forward to discomfort", but obviously it doesn't mean "hell yeah I have writer's block yippie <3 <3 <3". It means that you are willing to fight against it, because you know that it's worth it. Why it's worth it, that's something only you can know. The question is simple: "why haven't I yet fed a prompt into ChatGPT to give me what I want without failure and strain?"

[skaruresonic]

...do you ever feel like people try so hard to have balanced views on villains and antagonists that they sometimes loop back around to missing the forest for the trees?

"Eggman doesn't know what he's doing is wrong" is one such case, but recently the debate I've been hearing is "Is the G-Man antagonistic?"

And, like. While I sympathize with the need to analyze his possible motives and see shades of gray in his character, the fact of the matter remains that we need to examine his behavior within the parameters of the context we are provided. Trapping people and coercing them to work for you on pain of death, forcing them into Hobson's choices, don't really read as benevolent behavior, even if it is all ultimately For The Better Good. Which is in itself a huge assumption until proven otherwise.

The G-Man could have delivered a straightforward message to Eli without also literally possessing Alyx and, to quote Eli, "putting words in her mouth," because we know he directly whispered those words into Eli's ear before; Eli admits as much to Gordon. But he possesses Alyx with a seeming amusement. Coupled with his insouciant admission that he plucked Alyx from Black Mesa despite his employers' insistence that she was "of no practical use to anyone," his behavior reads like someone who considers humans toys.

There's also the fact that the G-Man describes both Eli and the dead Advisor as "entities," no characteristics to distinguish one from the other. Very dehumanizing, and doesn't speak well of his views of humanity. If he is indeed an ally to mankind, he is only one of convenience, and an opportunist to boot. Unlike the Vortigaunts, he's not bunkered down with humans in the trenches, taking a stand together "on this miserable rock."

This is assuming G-Man is an enemy to the Combine at all, which I still press X to doubt since none of his actions have really been shown to affect the Combine on a large scale anyway. His actions only affect the human side of Combine administration, as well as the Resistance.

Assuming he does want the Combine's downfall, at most, his agenda would so happen to align with humanity's; it's not like he's their protector or anything. I'm still very much side-eyeing his remark that removing the Combine is "too large a nudge" not because he can't do it, but because it runs contrary to his employers' interests.

Makes me wonder who his employers really are. At this point, who benefits from keeping the Combine on Earth other than the Combine?

Otherwise, this would imply that the G-Man's race is engaged in a power struggle against the Combine, and only saw the Combine takeover as a problem once they personally started being affected. Don't forget how he told Gordon that the borderworld was now under his employers' control following the Nihilanth's death.

[skaruresonic]

I'm not sure I agree, if for the fact that HL2 is a video game. Interactivity is the means through which we, the player, and thus Gordon, interface with the world.

Alyx frequently speaks as though she expects Gordon to answer. She wouldn't remark "Man of few words" otherwise. She also thought Gordon would respond to her Zombine joke. His silence implies that either he didn't get the joke or didn't find it funny.

If Gordon had no capability for communication whatsoever, she wouldn't tell him what to do, relay anecdotes of his vent racing with Barney, or make sarcastic quips about the situation, because Gordon would have no way of expressing that he even understands her.

But more than that, because he is the player's proxy, Gordon communicates through action. Picking up objects and throwing them at people. Blowing up Magnusson's casserole, breaking Kleiner's mini-teleport, punting roller mines into the basketball hoop at BME and flooring the gas during your race with Dog. Lollygagging so that it triggers NPCs into telling you to get a move on. Following their orders and getting praise, or disobeying and getting chewed out. These are all forms of communication.

When the Metrocop tells Gordon to "pick up that can," Gordon can respond in several ways. Depositing the can in the trash prompts the cop to walk away chuckling. Throwing it at the cop, or otherwise trying to nudge past him, prompts the cop to chase you down for a beating.

I'd also argue that following/disobeying orders at least shows Gordon understands what people are telling him, even if he may or may not be able to talk.

I don't think Gordon canonically has any means of communicating. Not even with sign language.

I can't recall a single moment in Half-Life 2 where a character responds to something Gordon said or even alludes to him attempting to communicate aside from Eli noticing Gordon looking at newspaper.

I think Gordon would have told Alyx about the hunter. Or warned Griggs and Sheckly about the angry antlions. If he could.

The fact he says nothing when its vital for him to makes me think he can't communicate at all for some reason.

[skaruresonic]

"You think you suffer."

[skaruresonic]

Wanted to write some Arthur and Amr quality time...... AKA "Arthur dunks on his son for ten minutes straight and cracks cheesy jokes cuz that's what good dads do." aaaaawww yeah Real talk though, I've always wondered how Arthur felt about his son Amr's death considering he was the one who killed Amr. Based on Welsh!Arthur's general characterization as a brash, violent, and hotheaded person, I always got the sense that it may have been a crime of passion, an unfortunate accident that he later regretted, as evidenced by the building of a cairn.

However, for the purposes of this VN I decided to tear out my own heart and stomp on it tweak events so that Arthur had no choice but to kill Amr to end his suffering. Amr gets mutilated so badly by Saxon abductors that his father cannot in good conscience carry his body back to his mother.

Even though Arthur hates the idea, he agrees to Medrawt's suggestion to bury Amr under a cairn of stones beside a spring, to allow his shadow-body quicker passage through the watery gates of Annwfn.

anyway I'm not crying, you're crying

---

In this scene, Amr is carving a new horse figure for Llacheu while walking about the tent and talking to Arthur. Although it appears simple, involves a lot of moving parts.

Since this is a flashback, Amr is supposed to be portrayed in an ethereal way, hence why copies of his shadow trail him. (He's also restless, so he's going to wander across the screen throughout the scene.)

One thing that cannot be conveyed through screenshot alone is the fact that Arthur's hand subtly tilts along the z axis, giving the impression he's tipping it back and forth. We achieve this effect by tinkering with RotateMatrix function.

He also tilts Caledfwlch back and forth and taps Carnwennan's blade on Caledfwlch's using RotateMatrix.

[skaruresonic]

@oldowlshollow come look at ya bois. them <3

[skaruresonic]

[skaruresonic]

Okay, so I've only got two Gwenhwyfars and one Arthur CG left, and after that I think. I hope. That'll be it for the CGs lol.

It's difficult to convey through screenshots alone, but most CGs have moving elements because I want them to have a cinematic feel. Lots of zoom shots and such.

It's moreso the coding than the drawing that takes a lot of time. Generally I tinker with the values one tenth at a time and refresh the game until it's just right.

For example, in this scene a chi-rho pendant swings on a chain in front of a small flame, visual reinforcement for the line where Arthur likens Gwenhwyfar's smile to a thurible.

The chi-rho's design is a hybrid between a Celtic cross and the chi-rho pendant owned by Emperor Honorius' wife Maria:

More technical talk: it's a pain in the ass to animate arcs because RenPy doesn't have reliable documentation on spline motion, so I have to combine animations using zoom and rotate functions. The yzoom (vertical length) of the pendant increases as it reaches at the apex of the swing, hence why it looks a little long in these screenshots. Also gotta tinker with the timing a little more to make sure the chain and the pendant align during the swing.

That's not to say we have no backgrounds, but I really didn't want to clutter the screen with excessive detail when the focus should be on the sprites.

[skaruresonic]

not dead, just working on VN stuff

finally............. I've finished the CGs

now for eight million years of coding

[skaruresonic]

doodles 15

[skaruresonic]

that medieval peasant you’re trying to kill with hyper-pop is gonna make you clean and butcher a chicken and you’re gonna throw up.