#for my own original story i often used to imagine it like. a video game. playing through it

[noxtivagus]

🥺 thinking about ffxiv again hehe

[starblightbindery]

Editor's Note from The Black Sands of Socorro by Patricia A. Jackson

While researching Patricia A. Jackson’s entire body of Star Wars work for a short story anthology, I came across the West End Games sourcebook Star Wars: The Black Sands of Socorro (1997.) It’s a crucial work of Star Wars ephemera: The first creator of color writing for Star Wars in an official capacity, writing not just about individual characters of color, but centering entire cultures populated by non-white characters. A young Black woman in the 1990s wrote science fiction for Star Wars, worldbuilding with concepts like antislavery, indigeneity, linguistic divergence, and settler colonialism...while Disney-Lucasfilm in the 2020s ineffectually positions Star Wars as a post-racial fantasy.

I non-hyperbolically refer to Patricia A. Jackson as the “Octavia Butler of Star Wars,” not because fans of color need to be officially sanctioned by Lucasfilm to create Star Wars content, but because of how difficult it is to carve out anti-racist space in a transmedia storytelling empire. Challenging even in transformational fandom spaces (e.g. fan works), to broach race in affirmational fandom spaces—or while writing content for the property holder—is to be unflinchingly subversive.

And Jackson did it first. In an interview with Rob Wolf in 2022, Jackson described her experience writing race into Star Wars in the 1990s as an “experiment.” The planet, peoples, and cultures of Socorro were a way for Jackson to obliquely, yet concretely, center Blackness and racial justice into Star Wars, pushing the racial allegory constrained by the original trilogy to its limits.

Since it’s inception, Star Wars has spent much of it’s storytelling on the fringes of the galaxy (whether it’s Tatooine or Jakku, Nevarro or Ajan Kloss.) The Black Sands of Socorro is an extension of that trope, but where the Star Wars films used indigeneity as set dressing (eg. “Sand People”, Ewoks, Gungans, etc.) Jackson creates a vivid world where indigenous culture and settler colonists collide; where characters are coded with dark skin and central to the action. The planet Socorro is distinct as a Star Wars setting. As one of the only places in the galaxy where slavery is eradicated with a vengeance, Socorro refuses to let go of a plot line Star Wars media often leaves behind. Socorro is a haven from Imperial fascism, a space where readers are invited to imagine a story that does not center around occupation.

When I learned that Patricia A. Jackson no longer has a physical copy of The Black Sands of Socorro, I realized that I had the materials and the means to create a fanbound hard copy for her home library (well, and also for my own home library.) While this handmade book is not an exact reproduction of the RPG supplement, I hope my renvisioning of the supplement as an in-universe travel guide lives up to the original work.

As the idea of creating a travel guidebook based on the original material percolated, I reflected on the State of Race in Star Wars in the year since I compiled Designs of Fate, an anthology of my favorite Patricia A. Jackson short stories. In May 2022, actress Moses Ingram debuted as Inquisitor Reva Sevander, the deuteragonist in the Dinsey+ streaming Obi-Wan Kenobi series. As predicted by Lucasfilm—and any fan sick of alt-right Star Wars related “whitelash”—Ingram was promptly subjected to a firehose of racialized harassment and misogynoir.

Yep, fascist self-proclaimed fanboys complained about a Black woman Inquisitor in 2022, having no idea (or deliberately whitewashing) that one of creators of the entire freakin’ concept of Inquisitors was a Black woman writing for the Star Wars Adventure Journal three decades ago.

Then, a public facing Star Wars account (@StarWars on Twitter) broke precedent and slapped back at the trolls. Lead actor Ewan McGregor filmed a video retort, posted on @StarWars, stating “racism has no place in this world” and telling off the racist bullies: “you’re no Star Wars fan in my mind.” A few months later, Disney+ debuted it’s second flagship Star Wars streaming series of the year, starring a Latino actor as the protagonist. In the opening episode of Andor, a police chief describes Diego Luna’s eponymous lead as a “dark-featured human,” perhaps the closest the franchise has ever gotten to acknowledging out-of-universe constructions of race, to date. The series explored aspects of imperialism with more depth than Star Wars had previously done on screen, such as the Empire’s treatment of the native people of Aldhani. And, in November, the The Acolyte, a Disney+ series co-developed by Rayne Roberts, announced Amandla Stenberg and Korean actor Lee Jung-jae as its top-billed leads. Stenberg will be the first Gen Z, mixed race, Black, Inuit, queer, and non-binary actor to lead a major Star Wars series.

On the Patricia A. Jackson Star Wars front, in 2022, Jackson’s character Fable Astin was an easter egg in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series. Jackson will again write for Star Wars in an official capacity in From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi, due for publication in Fall 2023. A series about Lando Calrissian, the galaxy’s most famous Socorran, is still in production, so I have my fingers crossed that we may soon see Socorro on camera.

I wonder if this past year will have been a fulcrum year for BIPOC fandom. Maybe Disney has finally realized it’s bad for business that the alt-right uses social media algorithms and Star Wars fan spaces as a soft recruiting ground to radicalize young white men? Maybe Star Wars as a franchise will continue to loudly disavow fan whitelash and firmly position performers of color in true leading roles? I really hope so. On the other hand, as much as I am in favor of increased representation in Star Wars storytelling, I am also troubled by Disney-Lucasfilm’s framing of the Galaxy Far, Far Away (GFFA) as “colorblind.” Recently, Star Wars fans have been asked to accept that in the (a long time ago) sci-fi futurepast GFFA, humans have always been post-racial, and it’s just a coincidence that racialized people were not caught on camera the way white characters have been for years. The galaxy is post-racial and it’s just acoincidence that the movers and shakers of the galaxy have largely been depicted as white men for the past 40 years of media.

For example, in the decade since Disney rebooted the expanded universe, fans have learned that Star Wars’s biggest galactic war criminal to never be depicted on screen is Admiral Rae Sloane, a bisexual Black woman who was the leader of Imperial remnant forces, one of the architects of the First Order, and personal mentor to General Hux. Under Disney-Lucasfilm’s post-racial retcon of the Star Wars universe, the allegorical fascists are intersectional equal opportunity employers (at least in expanded universe content like animation, video games, and novels.) Along those lines, several of the franchise’s newly introduced, prominent women of color have been part of the Empire: Imperial loyalist Cienna Ree (Lost Stars), Inferno Squad leader Iden Versio (Star Wars: Battlefront II) former stormtrooper Jannah (Episode IX), First Order pilot Tamara Ryvora (Star Wars: Resistance), Inquisitor Trilla Sundari (Jedi: Fallen Order), Captain Terisa Kerrill (Star Wars: Squadron) and, most recently, Inquisitor Reva Sevander. Once the sole purview of stodgy, very white and very British men (demonstrably so even in the sequel trilogy movies,) now anyone can be a stooge of the Empire.

That’s not to say that marginalized people can’t collude with fascism, or that there haven’t been heroic characters of color introduced in recent years. Rather, I posit that in order to sell audiences on the post-racial/colorblind GFFA, fascist-of-color characters like Rae Sloane or Giancarlo Esposito’s Moff Gideon (The Mandalorian) are created by necessity. The franchise wants to at once be racially inclusive and yet never directly address race. In Star Wars, real world oppression is primarily explored through allegory—such as Solo (2018)’s bit on droid rights, the clone army, or the myriad of non-human alien bodies that nonetheless are coded with racial stereotypes. A lot has been said about how allegory in sci-fi allows audiences to grapple with inequality from a comfortable distance, and not enough has been said about which audience is being prioritized for comfort.

What does it mean when race is supposedly a non-issue for humans in the GFFA, but creators and actors with marginalized identities cannot participate in Star Wars in any capacity without experiencing identity-targeted harassment? In the past ten years, this has been true even for white women like Kathleen Kennedy and Daisy Ridley, but the vitriol has been most strongly directed towards Black women like Lucasfilm Story Group lead Kiri Hart, author Justina Ireland and The High Republic Show host Krystina Arielle. Can the Galaxy Far, Far Away truly be “colorblind” or “post-racial” (never-racial?) if the narrative continually centers white characters and replicates all the common racial inequities seen in commercialized Hollywood storytelling? Upon the release of The Force Awakens in 2015, critic Andre Seewood aptly described Finn’s positioning in the story as “hyper-⁠tokenism,” even presciently predicting that Finn would continue to be hyper-⁠tokenized in Episodes VIII and IX. As the narrative veered away from Finn, it also left unrealized a stormtrooper rebellion plot line where Finn could have been, in effect, a Black abolitionist. Actor John Boyega’s critique of his experience in the sequel trilogy aligns with Seewald’s assessment: “Do not bring out a Black character, market them to be much more important to the franchise than they are and then have them pushed to the side.”

Published in 1997, The Black Sands of Socorro came before Finn, before Mace Windu, back when all the melanin of Star Wars could be found in Billy Dee Williams’s singular swagger and James Earl Jones’s distinctive voice. Back then, the most prominent Black actress in the original trilogy was dancer Femi Taylor, who played Oola, the hypersexualized green twi’lek fed to the rancor in Return of the Jedi. Bantam Spectra, the publisher that held the license for Star Wars from 1991 to 1999, had no leading characters of color in its’ Expanded Universe. The first full length Star Wars novel by a writer of color, Steven Barnes’s The Cestus Deception15, would not be published until 2004. Even though the book featured two protagonists of color, they would not be depicted on the cover. At Comic-Con in 2010, I spoke with Tom Taylor, a white Australian comic book writer who tried to make the lead family in Star Wars: Invasion (2009) a Black one, but was shut down during the creative process. The comic instead depicts a family of blondes, because the publishers did not think fans would embrace leads of color. All this to say, the inclusion of melanated characters in Star Wars has been so, so hard fought. It’s incredible The Black Sands of Socorro exists at all. It’s more than worthy of celebration, and I’m floored that more attention has not been brought to it.

Patricia A. Jackson is a smuggler.

This sourcebook was explicitly written to assist fans in telling their own Star Wars stories, and in it Patricia A. Jackson smuggled in emphatic allusions to the Black Panther movement and the trans-Atlantic slave trade, smuggled in commentary on indigeneity and settler colonialism, and smuggled in multiple ways for fans to envision characters of color. Her writing has consistently added richness to the GFFA, and in The Black Sands of Socorro she envisions multiple histories for multiple cultures coded as non-white. She ensured the existence of not mere tokens, but flourishing societies of people of color in Star Wars.

The coda for The Last Jedi again shows how perilously close to tokenization characters of color, particularly Black characters, are in modern day Star Wars. In this film, the franchise returns to itsprevious exploration of slavery with the depiction of enslaved children on Canto Bight. The last speaking lines of the film are from Oniho Zaya (played by Josiah Oniha, a young Black British actor) who recounts Luke Skywalker’s heroic exploits to the other children. The film then closes out by showing that one of the downtrodden children is Force-sensitive—a future hero in the Star Wars mythos. In a film where every single Force-user depicted is white, the next generation kid with the potential is, again, a young white boy. Once again, the Black character can only serve the narrative in a supporting role. A franchise depicting a colorblind fantasy continually reifies racial and gender hierarchies in America. With The Acolyte, scheduled for release in 2024, it’s possible the franchise may finally be shifting past hyper-tokenism. In the meantime, fans of color and our erstwhile allies will continue doodling in the margins.

In the end, the sequel trilogy left the Canto Bight plot line (and the overarching slavery plot line started in Episode I) unresolved. I’d like to think the Black Bha’lir strafed Canto Bight and grabbed those kids. It seems like something they would do. Out among the stars, Oniho Zaya is adventuring with Drake Paulsen, and his story does not bracket another characters’; he is central. The Black Sands of Socorro is a launching pad for stories like that. It represents how fans of color have always carved out pieces of Star Wars for ourselves.

[hogwarts-legacy-confessions]

Anon writes:

"Right, let me get this straight. 

Creators in this fandom are shamed for being over 30 or made fun of for being under 30. We're wrong for shipping our MC's with the popular NPC's but just as wrong if we share "too much" lore about our original characters. We're shamed for putting our characters in too much makeup or modern clothing, shipping gay characters because it's not "era appropriate" (despite same sex marriages being literally CANON in the game), or for not shipping gay characters "enough", imagining characters in relationships that would "never happen" because some anon said so, aging up our characters, not aging up our characters, or making an error in a fic that we shared for pure enjoyment and fandom enrichment. If we're popular, it's only because people are sucking up to us, but if we're too nice or supportive, it means we're only chasing clout — and if we DARE try to cultivate some positivity by giving accolades to our favourites on the hype blog, we're made fun of for "sending anon hype about ourselves." 

*slow clap*

It's like you people don't WANT this fandom to exist.

I speak directly to those of us who have personally felt the negative effects of this blog:

Block it, ignore it, filter it out of your feed — do whatever it takes to protect your energy. 

Fandom is a space for YOU, not some nasty-ass anon. Your blog is yours, your creations are yours, your characters, stories, artworks are YOURS and you can do whatever you want in the pursuit of your own happiness without having to adhere to a bunch of nonsensical judgements from self-entitled anons. If they don't like it, they can eat rocks. Or alternatively, use how to use the filter system. 

Babes, you owe these people NOTHING. Stop listening to them. 

Personally, I believe this blog has done irreparable damage to our small fandom and I hope fervently for it's deletion.

Bye."

....

I've done this anon the favor of blocking her from this blog so she can more easily avoid the temptation to look at it. I thank her for her honesty that what she wants is this blog deleted.

I'm not the type to cave to social pressure, so that's not going to happen.

I do agree with what this anon said about not letting things posted here get to you. People are expressing a variety of viewpoints, and oftentimes, even on this blog, others are disagreeing with them and they are sometimes even ratioed.

But - I urge you - if your presence in fandom can't coexist with any criticism, no matter how indirect, that's something that needs to be explored on your end.

I'm a creator too, you know. I'm a writer for starters. I also make the dreaded AI-audios, I make videos, I post photo mode grabs and all kinds of other things. Does everyone like my work? No. Have people expressed that to me? Yes. Have people posted anons here that applied to me, or were directly targeted at me? Also yes.

I don't expect everyone to have my thick skin, but if this blog's mere existence is that bothersome to you, I urge you to please submit an anon request to be blocked. This will make it less easy for you to peek at the blog through your fingers.

Seriously - I've already removed a lot of posts, and vowed to be more censorious going forward. If you won't be satisfied until this blog is no more, I don't know what to tell you. If you have someone in your DMs who is constantly sending you things from this blog or bringing it up, you need to ask them to stop. Otherwise, it's up to you to curate your experience on Tumblr, because I have never once seen a negative post about creators from here be reblogged by more than about one person, and often with plenty of push back. So try to put it in perspective for sure.

Hope this helps.

[smaller-comfort]

AHHHHHHHHH oh my god how is it over 6000 words what the hell.

This fought me so hard, but it more or less ended up where I wanted it. Resh'an gets to be a little bit weird sometimes, as a treat.

Notes below the cut.

Posting this story as a chaptered work instead of a one shot probably made the whole thing seem a lot cooler and more mysterious than it actually ended up being.

I hope the reveal is satisfying, but I honestly can't tell anymore! My google doc clocks in at nearly 10k words. It's an absolute mess.

Ultimately both Resh'an and Aephorul make stupid mistakes, frequently. We just see the aftermath of Aephorul's fuckups more often in the game. Sure, they're basically gods, but Resh'an can't even remember that he stuck a cork in his hat on a good day. Aephorul's first response to any minor inconvenience is to murder something. They are terrible at this.

I cut a whole lot of stuff about Aephorul wanting to be human again. There's an epilogue scene that I didn't write where he dismantles his lab- the world eater he was keeping dormant there primarily served as a power source. He drains off all the energy of those devoured souls and uses it to transform himself back into the body he remembers having when he was alive.

It only lasts for a few minutes, and every second is agonizing. The price of inmortality: he can never get back what he lost. He'll destroy the universe trying, though.

Originally Resh'an was a lot more of an asshole- or rather, Aephorul perceived him as being more of an asshole- and that's partly what I was struggling with in writing this chapter.

I considered leaning into the time loop shenanigans and including all of the stuff that I cut as one of the other 26 iterations that Resh'an experienced. That felt excessive, though.

Resh'an was definitely lying at least a little when he said he didn't remember much of the times when he wasn't lucid.

I keep making accidental locked tomb references. I swear I don't mean to.

"If we're awful together, I can't even imagine how much worse we'd be on our own." Still probably my favorite line, although the one about laboratory precautions in the third chapter makes me laugh a lot. Their bickering is a lot of fun.

Resh'an's ears aren't the only thing Aephorul pierced when they were younger. (It was his nipples. Aephorul absolutely pierced Resh'an's nipples.) (His were already pierced when they met.) (It's my sexy AU, okay, I can do what I want.)

Resh'an's terrible poetry:

Hang my heart in the sky

And see it outshine the sun

For love of you

Am I more embarrassed by this than any of these characters ever could be? 💯 That's where the series name comes from, anyway.

These guys have invented sex acts that are probably illegal in at least three separate worlds. Of course Resh'an thinks being dismembered is sexy, he's got the depression. I don't fucking know.

At some point I'm going to end up writing skullfucking and it's going to be like the assassin's creed stump fucking kinkmeme fill all over again.

I am so, so sorry I just wrote that sentence!

I will probably post some of those cut sections here tomorrow.

[haevchanie]

I love the Lily Simpson video because it's so well done and I also still love the Harry Potter series. Why? Because the books aren't that deep and don't need to be nitpicked, but if you do find yourself doing that, it's still valid. You could also accept the canon stuff and create your own, more positive explanations using your imagination, because at the end of the day Harry Potter is a fantasy series that started off as a children's story and blew up, so if things don't match up too much, not to worry! You can be creative and immerse yourself more into this wonderful world.

I still think it's very well-written because I am personally very appreciative of simple, whimsical prose communicating more complicated concepts. Others aren't. That's okay. I can accept some of the weirder things in the books, plot holes, and mishaps because I can use my imagination, fill in the gaps, and call it a day. Others can't. That's also okay.

What irks me however, is the fact that shitting on it so wholeheartedly is really just being pushed out as almost something that should be a very universal opinion. It's weird and overdone, and that's exactly why I appreciate the Lily Simpson video at some parts, because it actually addresses some of the other things (I really liked the Eugenics section) in a logical and thoughtful manner. I think it's a really cool dissection. I don't really correlate it with the series too much because I don't see the point in doing that; it's just not that deep.

I genuinely like the books, and not just out of nostalgia. I think they're very good, writing, characterization, and world-building wise. It's got problems as does any original series, cause any new creative thing is bound to be imperfect and I think jkr did a decent job (given that she's jkr). You can also argue that's it's not really original, it's just a regurgitation of other concepts mashed together, but I've personally yet to discover any other series that includes the elements shown in Harry Potter as beautifully as the series does. (There's Le Guin with AWOES, and it's also got really cool elements and some of them aren't fleshed out entirely either, but I also love her writing, so there's that). It's still quite unique with its charm. It lacks more than a little depth, given it's got so many elements, but it's still very very cool. But to each their own, I could say.

It's just weird that all of a sudden there is everything wrong with the series, and more often than not, I find more criticisms than appreciation. Some of it stems from jkr bring jkr and some stems from the fact that people put it on a 'literary genius' pedestal (and while I think it's a very impressive series, just like pjo, neither are paragons of literature).

I have nothing against the criticisms, per se, it's just that most of them stem from advocative mindsets that set these expectations that the books ultimately don't fulfill well. The reality is that the writer of anything doesn't particularly owe an audience anything; authors can choose what they want to focus on more, be it plot, characters, worldbuilding, etc. It's more well rounded nowadays because of, well, the way things are now. This doesn't mean that the author is entitled to degrading issues vehemently in their writing (words are very powerful), but it is ultimately theirs to do what they want with it. And jkr wanted to keep it digestible and charming enough for the younger audiences. It definitely could've been really cool if it was a more serious thing like Hunger Games, but it wasn't really launched with that intent from the very beginning. I do think there was decent transition in tone between boom 4 and 5.

Some people expect too much from a fantasy series that started off for kids and grew into something for teens, that's all. Not saying they're wrong for what they want, it's just weird when you're straight up bitching about stuff that isn't as deep as you think it is. If y'all don't like the series, that's your business, cool, but you don't have to drag it through the mud and belittle it. That's weird, guys.

Anyway if you've read the entire thing, kudos to you, have a wonderful day.

[morkitten]

I finally read the IDW Sonic comics

I wonder if anyone’s been wondering why did it take me this long to do it. “You’re a Sonic fan, right?” I imagine some people who know me ask. I think people get the wrong idea of me.

I have strong opinions about Sonic-related things having followed the games for so long and having some Sonic games be my favorite games of all time. I was in Sonic forums, my first characters were Sonic fan-characters.

(pictured: my first character)

But I think people think that because of those things, you need to “follow the fandom”, that you need to consume and like every single thing related to a franchise. I was like that when I was young, but I’ve been an adult for a decade, and I think “liking” things should be much more complex than “is of this intellectual property”. Do the people who made the things that you like about your favorite game still work at the company who owns the IP of its franchise? People make things, not companies, although it can be fun to see other talented people do their take on a thing that you like, when they have interesting ideas and aren’t doing so cynically.

Still, when it’s something that it’s been a big part of your life and you have strong opinions about it, you feel the pull of curiosity tugging you, and when my friend asked me to read the IDW comics to talk about’em and gave me access to their account so I could do it, it felt like the perfect opportunity to jump in.

To be honest, at first I was extremely bored. It took me something like 30-something issues (yikes!!!) to start coming around to it. I thought that the writing was really boring. It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t witty, it didn’t make me feel things for the characters. Especially at the beginning where they’re just introducing every single character from the games. Why? Couldn’t you introduce a handful to use for a story arc, then use another different selection for the next story? Were they worried that a kid that had Silver or the Chaotix as their favorite characters would think that they would never be a part of the story if they’re not introduced fairly early? It’s strange. So the first few issues feel like a bunch of “introduce a character and make them look cool defeating some robots”. It’s boring. I mean, there’s really no sense of danger when those characters are just fighting regular badniks, is there? You know it’s not going to be an issue. So why have them? You could argue, well, it can still be good action even when there’s no sense of danger or stakes. I think it can be great opportunities to make good physical comedy, like Tom & Jerry where the robots are Tom and Sonic is Jerry. But a lot of times the way to dispose of those robots is just a panel of like, Sonic dashing between a bunch of them and they explode. Snore! Like, remember how Sonic CD had those ending sequences of Sonic fighting badniks in different Zones and every single time he does it in a different way? How cool and even sometimes really funny it looked?

dude... he’s made’em look like they were fuckin’

now let’s compare to literally one of the first pages of the IDW comics:

Boring! Just because Sonic boosts into enemies to destroy them in the games doesn’t mean that I’d want to see him do that in a comic. Actually, especially because of that you *shouldn’t* do that in a comic! We’re outside of the boundaries of video games - you can write all sorts of scenes and actions and stories that we don’t see in a video game, that don’t work on that format, that we haven’t already *seen* in the games. Give us something new, exciting, funny!

This is actually a big issue that I have with adaptations nowadays. It feels like we’re overcorrecting the fact that adaptations in the west were often completely uninterested in the original material, now going too far into “needs to be very literal to the source”. And especially with the IDW comics at first, it feels like a barrage of references to the games, like it’s marred to this mentality that more references = better adaptation. Anyone can read a wiki nowadays, it’s not impressive. It just feels like you’re being bombarded with stuff that shouldn’t even be here. Who was asking for the Deadly Six to come back? Why do we need them? And like, because I got the Sonic brainrot I understand every time that they pull something out of the reference hat, but often they’ll reference things in ways that I’m like “how is a kid supposed to understand what this *means*”, like they’re written like you’re supposed to already know these things, already have played every single other game, and the comics are just a “sequel” to all of that.

Anyway, I think this issue with the action might also be a problem of how comic books are made. Writer and artist are often separate entities, unlike manga, so you often don’t get like, very specifically graphic comedy or action that requires that many panels to set up a joke or some specific action that is maybe only appealing because of how specifically it is drawn. I’m guessing the writer just writes “Sonic disposes of badniks” and the artist isn’t going to debate “well, if we can make some significant cuts to other things that you wrote and give me some time, I can both think up and do a whole sequence that takes up a page and a half as to how he disposes of this very small inconsequential thing in a way that’s funny or fun”. That isn’t going to happen. You’re going to get one or two panels of Sonic dashing into these inconsequential badniks unless the writer envisions a specific bit and writes it down, I’d imagine. Unless you got pages to spare. Also all the characters look like that while they’re doing it, right? The smug smile, throwing a quip or two. I really dislike that. There’s not much emotional range in the comic for a while, it’s just this emotional temperature for several issues.

And even when they start introducing different emotional temperatures and character conflict, the writing at first really isn’t great. I was also not sold by the Metal Virus story, even though there are some nice ideas that I really like in them, I don’t think it’s “there yet”. I think this page here illustrates my issues with the writing:

For context, Cream (the rabbit) is something like 6 or 8 years old, and the robot (Gemerl) is her robot friend butler who decides in its programming that the best course of action to make Cream and her mom safe is to beat up everyone infected by the virus that turns people into robot zombies - Sonic’s partially infected and is fighting off the disease.

Like, is this how a 6 year old would talk? Is this how a 6-8 year old girl would plead to her friend to not attack her other friends? It feels like that genre of tweets where it’s like “my 6 year old son walked up to this bigot in the bus and told him how racism and homophobia is bad and that you should vote joe biden and the entire bus clapped”. I think she should be scared, she shouldn’t be able to “make an argument”, like she’s not that articulate or confident in her own words, but that she knows that it’s wrong, she knows she doesn’t want this to happen and is pleading desperately to Gemerl and is maybe confused as to why would Gemerl even hurt her friend. It’s also really weak that Gemerl would just be convinced by this tepid argument like it hasn’t thought of these things before until Cream said them, it makes Gemerl look really stupid. Maybe it changes its mind because Cream is scared, because it decides in its programming that keeping her happy is part of her safety or more important than her physical safety, maybe something else happens! I don’t know! I just know that what we got instead is boring!

There’s tons of plot points or conflicts that are disposed of quickly, easily, pointlessly like this. Sonic for an issue drops down in Blaze’s dimension with amnesia but gets his memory back and gets sent back to his world extremely quickly. Like we spend maybe 4 pages total with this whole “Sonic has amnesia” bit. Why did that happen at all, then? It’s not funny, exciting, it doesn’t set up anything, it’s... nothing. Nothing happens.

Also, a lot characters are constantly written in a really flat way. Especially if they’re good guys, they often don’t feel like they have motivations other than “to do good” and their argument for someone in a moral crisis is always “well, but you’re doing *good things* now, aren’t you?” And it makes me want to scream “Good doesn’t mean anything!” I think every character should be written like they have different ideas of what doing good for themselves and others mean. I think they get slightly better about this later on, they make it a point that Sonic’s ideals are about fighting for people to be free, that he prizes freedom above all else, which then leads to him resolving conflicts often with just letting villains go. But like, Tails disposes of a bad guy in an issue by putting him in jail. I would not write that. I think Tails is too lined up with Sonic’s ideals and prizes him too much to do something that Sonic would disagree with so strongly.

The art is also hit-or-miss. I don’t like shit-talking visual artists. Illustration is hard especially if you’re banging these out quickly. Comics are hard! But the quality undoubtedly fluctuates a lot depending on what artist they got for the issue. I like a few artists and I don’t really like the rest.

---

Okay, so! With all of that out of the way, how exactly did I turn around on these comics? Just to be clear, I don’t think they completely turn around, a lot of these issues still somewhat persist, but are lessened.

Well, I think the comic really starts getting good once we get more of the original characters in. I really like them! They’re interesting concepts and they work quite well with the already established cast. Dr. Starline in particular, feels like a great secondary antagonist to play off Dr. Eggman and the rest of the cast. It’s a really welcome presence that never feels like it’s jutting out weirdly, like a guest appearance or a temporary addition.

Belle the Tinkerer is also a really fun character. What all the new characters have in common is, besides that they’re fun conceptually and that they have fun designs and personalities, is that they’re allowed to have character arcs, growth, plotlines, these things that are essential for a comic that leans into a serialized narrative like this one, that they can’t quite do with the pre-established SEGA characters. It makes me wonder if a significant part of my issues with the early stuff is just that they were very tied on how they’re able to portray the pre-established characters or what they can do. Once they create a cast of new characters and flesh them out and create narratives surrounding them, it really starts to get going.

To be fair, the thing that most made me want to read these comics was Surge. One look at her and it’s like. Oh. she’s catnip made for me.

But that made me all the more wary about her. Do I trust her to be written well? I think people often fall into these pitfalls writing the sort of character that she is and end up with stuff I find really bad. But man, I’m so glad she’s exactly the kind of character that I thought she was going to be, she’s written and drawn exactly how I would like her to be. I don’t wanna spoil people so I can’t exactly explain what that means, just know that: I love Surge, I really do. I’m just going to post some of my favorite panels of her.

The art is also consistently better in the more recent issues (look at this last panel I posted! this artist gets a ton of work on the latest issues and their stuff consistently looks great!), and the Surge & Kit, Starline and Belle the Tinkerer plotlines are engrossing and fun. I’ve been finding plenty to like even if there’s some stuff I’ve felt is less than great still persists. In short, I’m glad that I didn’t quit even when I felt plenty justified in doing so. I’m trying to be open and not dismissive of things. Try stuff out and go through with them, because I don’t ever want to dislike something, and if I do, I want to be desperately proven wrong! If you keep trying new things out, even those that you’re iffy on looking from the outside, you’ll often find some stuff to enjoy, to enrich yourself, or even to just make an enormous post that nobody in their right mind will read afterwards.

[daringdoombringer]

Got bored and made this, now that I have a decent amount of Ocs now. Is this just an excuse to summarize their backstories? Yea probably. One things for certain I am FAR NICER to my Ocs than a lot of people. They are my children and they deserve happiness goddamit.

Tier One: Moderate to Typical Oc Trauma/yea you need therapy after that you’re ✨messed up✨ now

Matthew Fencer: Originally made solely as a protagonist for an MCYT horror game thing before evolving into his own character (and the “AU” evolved into its own thing/story/timeline whatever) so yeah I’d say he’s been through some crap. Mofo had SIX very angry people-turned-monsters trying to kill him cause they weren’t happy he was entering their town without permission (actually, at all). He didn’t even enter on purpose he was just kinda SCP-spacial-anomalied in there by chaos magic from several miles away while he was tryna take a walk poor guy. Bro needed a lot of therapy after risking his life to break a curse. But he did (kinda) make a friend during that whole fiasco and he has a wonderful girlfriend who was glad to see him alive after he went missing so ✨yippie✨ happy ending

Anchihiro.ExE: Was a human until Sonic.ExE/Xenophae killed them and now it’s a disembodied soul trapped in a Sonic ROM hack they shouldn’t have clicked on that’s floating around the internet. Idk how it would get therapy at this point since it’s yaknow… DEAD. (I still have the Gacha edit thing I made of their death for a video last summer. There is so much blood.) Pretty sure I did Anchihiro the most dirty out of everyone since they’re the only one who actually dies. Not to mention they are somehow trapped with the fucker who killed it in the first place (who is trying to gather human souls so they can become powerful enough to leave the video game realm) so yeah imagine being stuck with your sworn enemy in a video game for all eternity #skillissue At least it’s befriended Fleetway and Tails Doll so they’re not entirely alone????

Cyroblast: Was an elven soldier sent to the Frozen Wastelands of Vesh to find a treasure, got badly wounded and JUST ABOUT froze to death until King Pen found him and managed to revive him with Mind Magic. Now he’s half Undead and often wondering if he should even be alive. Also he’s realizing the king he worked for is actually an a-hole and wouldn’t have cared if the entire squadron died, he just wanted the treasure that probs don’t even exist. And did I mention his nose and mouth are just g o n e? (the head I used in Imaginators didn’t have em and it worked it’s way into his drawn design :P) But hey, he’s great with a blizzard bazooka and made plenty of awesome friends at the Academy who are there to help him, so I’d say he’s alright.

Raystrike: Hers isn’t even as bad as these other three she just had a strict/kinda mean family and now she has really low self esteem because of that. She did meet a bisexual fire spirt (Spellfire) who’s just as confused about the world as she is and they’re gay now along with Mysticat being like the genuinely supportive parent she never got so ✨yayyyy✨ she’s healing we love that

Tier Two: you had like one or two milder things happen you’ll be alright

Foreclash: Bro just got teleported into a cave while trying to get the vortex at Shellmont Shores under control, and was stuck there for I think a week before Starcast found them. Other than maybe some mild claustrophobia/homesickness he’s fine.

Shield Shocker: just daddy issues lol. He just hates the fact his father (a very powerful tornado dragon) is evil and wants to spite him. The dad also plays a role with Cool Factor but we’ll get to that in a moment.

Shade Ace: found a weird spell in a book and it cursed them/turned them into an undead lizardy thingy don’t do necromancy kids

Mecha Quad: His workshop was attacked by Greeble air barons and he lost his legs. He should’ve died but he was like PEACE WAS NEVER AN OPTION and he built himself a new set of cyborg legs, tracked down the baron base and beat all their asses. Bro death/giving up could’ve been a one-way street but you somehow did a u-turn you go dude✨✨✨

Tier Three: no trauma, you’re good👍

I’m just gonna stick Cool Factor’s summary here cause something did happen to him but it wasn’t necessarily bad for him or anything. The curse Shield Shocker’s dad put on him just caused him to be part dragon and have his dry ice powers/magic and he was like “oh hey this is cool :D” Cool Factor and Shield Shocker did have a V E R Y awkward conversation about it (cause none of Factor’s family really told him about it) so other than MAYBE a mini epiphany he’s completely fine.

And uh everyone else didn’t really have anything major happen: Spellfire’s just glad to have a physical form (and an awesome girlfriend), Trick Black bamboozled Count Moneybone cause they didn’t wanna join him, Heat Stroke helped Freeze Blade and Doom Stone destroy some Evilizers, Spring Bloom was accidentally created after Hoot Loop zapped a tree, and Ground Pound has barely even been brainstormed yet. But yeah that’s everybody, I love them all✨✨✨✨✨

OH AND ONE MORE THING SHIELD SHOCKER AND SHADE ACE ARE GAY

[writers4all]

Hey, so I saw your post about chatgpt and I was wondering, Can someone who has an expressive language delay and receptive language delay use chatgpt to help. I have those two language impairments plus autism (the kind of autism that gives me aphantasia and makes me struggle with writing) so is it okay that I am using chatgpt to help me write? I use it in a guide kind of way where I send in my writing then ask it to refine it and tell me what I did wrong. I also ask it things like 'how do I fix my imagination when I have none' and "how do I write dialoge/pacing/show and tell" is that fine? I would ask an actual human but the questions I have are so weird that they always get sick of me and they judge and condescend me so I prefer an ai like chatgpt who really helps. I write myself for the most part and chat gpt has helped me improve but I still lack so much clarity in my writing and so I struggle. Also I can't read other things sometimes so I have to send in that to help it explain it to me cuz its just really hard for my brain to understand.

Please help, I don't want to do the wrong thing but if my brain can't understand some writing then I kinda have to use a tool to help... Also audio books didn't help

Hello, anon!

That's an excellent question! I genuinely see nothing wrong with people using it due to impairments, disabilities, disorders, and whatnot. Let's take Stephen Hawking for example. He basically used an AI in order to speak. And let's not forget that the GPS is basically an AI that gives us map locations and the best routes to get from Point A to Point B. We also have voice-to-text as well and various programs that allow us to speak words into our documents and turn it into works of art.

Something else I recommend is going to your local bookstore or thrift shop to see if there are any textbooks or writing guides on how to improve your own writing. In fact, I plan on making posts in the future talking about various textbooks and writing guides that I own along with going into detail about my thoughts and opinions on them. They're rather neat. Now if, for whatever given reason, you're not able to afford said books I would just write down the Book Title + Author and then go to Library Genesis's website to see if you can download it for free.

AIs are great in practice and to genuinely help people. Heck, I don't even mind people using it to get some ideas for their fanfics or to have it give randomized prompts. It's just that I'm not too keen on the whole "I want ChatGPT to write out a 50,000 word fanfic or story for me so I can upload it, publish it, and claim it as my own originality." fiasco. Stating that you had an AI write the whole thing is one thing. But if you used the AI to help you get into the right direction because you genuinely need help? That's okay! There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, I promise. Why? Because we all need help. Not only that but socializing is hard.

I also want to say that I'm genuinely sorry that people find your questions annoying. As someone who struggles with properly wording and phrasing thing properly, myself, I feel your pain. One of the reasons for this is because vocabulary and definitions have never been my strong suit — it's always been spelling, ironically enough. I always feel like I'm going to confuse and/or annoy people with my questions because I'm a genuinely curious person who loves learning new things but am unable to properly phrase anything. So I can 100% sympathize and empathize with you on that!

There's also nothing wrong with audio books not helping. It's not for everyone. Some people do better reading in silence. Some people do better reading aloud. Some people do better reading with music. I'm sure you get the point by now. And the same is equally true for white noise and ASMRs. I often think people forget that it's never a "One Size Fits All" kind of scenario. The same can be said about clothes, medicine, makeup, programs, video games, languages and the whole nine yards. We're not made out of clay and made to be exactly the same. We're all uniquely different. Besides ... it's like one of my best friends says, "I don't want to be normal. Normal is a cycle on the washing machine."

With that being said, I definitely recommend you doing whatever helps you and makes you most comfortable. I can guarantee that there's no judgement coming from my end and the most I would ask is "Why?" Simple as that.

[alsjeblieft-zeg]

043 of 2024

Created by sassybabexo

Do you know anyone who works at McDonald's?

Not in person.

What are your plans for next weekend?

Groceries and taking some good rest.

Do you know anyone who plays heaps of sports?

Not really, I rather know plenty of people who play just one.

Have you ever been suspended from school?

Not really.

When was the last time you had chocolate?

Ate some chocolate-covered cookies now, but I'm not a big fan of chocolate.

Have you ever been to a sports game?

More than once.

If so, what sport did you see?

Football. I attend all the matches my stepson plays, and the ones his kids play. (No, I don't like football.)

Have you used a sewing machine before?

Yes, my mum had one.

When was the last time you had a snow day?

Centuries ago lol. Just kidding, the last and only snowy day we had in this country was in March, I think.

Have you ever gotten in trouble for using a phone in class?

Who hasn't lol. But I'm from the older generation, times have changed.

Where do your cousins live?

All over Europe.

Have you met any of your second cousins?

Yeah, more than once.

Do you like the All-American Rejects?

Nope, not my type.

Is your computer slow or fast?

Fun thing, it had RAM replaced from 8GB to 20GB and it's still lagging like ell at times.

What colour shirt are you wearing?

I'm not wearing any shirt.

Have you ever faked sick to get out of something?

Nope, it's lame.

If so, how did you do it?

I didn't.

Have you ever been ice skating?

Yeah, as a part of PE classes. I hated it.

Who do you sit near in math?

I graduated school 14 years ago.

Have you ever had Werther s Original butterscotch toffee?

I know the brand and I like their candy, but I don't remember if I ever tried this particular one before.

When was the last time you wore a skirt?

Lol I'm a guy. I don't wear skirts.

Have you seen all the Shrek movies?

Yeah, they're funny.

Have you ever fainted?

More than once.

What did you have for breakfast?

I didn't have anything. I legit forgot about breakfast because I was busy cooking and cleaning.

When was the last time you went on vacation?

Last year, Christmas trip to my parents. And last summer to Poland.

Have you ever had to sit next to some smelly random person on a bus?

What's the question even. More than once, last time today. Ew.

Do you have any pets other than dogs or cats?

No, but I used to have a pet rabbit when I was a child.

What colour is your bed sheet?

Light blue.

Do you have a job?

I do. I was fighting hard to get back to it, and I succeeded. I'm happy for that because I love my job and I can't imagine doing anything else in my life.

If so, where and what does it consist of doing?

I work in a rolling stock company, so long story short, I build trains. I'm an electrician, so I make electrical components (including wiring control racks) and then install them in train carriages. Very responsible job.

What was the last thing you cooked?

Tomato soup.

Do you know anyone with the surname Matheson?

No, but I know two people with similarly sounding last name.

Tell me about the posters you have on your walls.

I don't have any posters. I'm not 14.

Are you the type of person who gets injuries often?

Yup. Mostly bruises, thankfully.

What does your soap smell like?

Chamomile.

Have you ever finished a whole video game?

I don't play video games.

If so, which one(s)?

N/A.

Are your siblings allergic to anything?

Most likely, although she's less allergic to things than me.

Tell me about a funny TV ad you've seen.

...wait, there's such thing as funny ads?? :O I've only seen the cringy ones.

What time is it?

19:54. Time to take my evening meds.

Do you know anyone with a pet snake?

Not in person.

Do you own a purple hoodie or sweatshirt?

No, but my husband does.

When did you last stay home from school?

I'm not even in school.

^ What was the reason?

N/A.

Has your house ever had a pest infestation?

Yea we had ants at some point.

Do you have any bad habits?

Is there anyone who doesn't?

Can you speak French?

We have mandatory French classes in schools (it's one of our three official languages), but I forgot everything lol. I would be lost without my husband, he's fluent in French.

Which one of your friends has great music taste?

All of them and none of them at the same time.

What can you smell right now?

Raspberry cookies.

What was the last movie you watched?

I don't watch movies, I always fall asleep on them.

What was the last CD you bought?

À NÉANT by LE MONDE PAR LE FEU.

Was it a digital copy or old school?

Digital because they didn't release physical CDs.

What will you do after this?

Probably either another survey or I'll go to bed.

[amewinterswriting]

Happy STS! What’s the story that has influenced your writing craft the most? Whether it made some element of storytelling ‘click’ for you, or served as an example of how not to do things, which story has taught you the most?

Oooo, this is a tough question to narrow down. Mostly because I am a big believer in consuming stories in a lot of different mediums, all of which have some different advantages and disadvantages to the way in which it can tell a story. Partly because I definitely pick up a lot of 'how I don't want to do things' and I don't really want to put those stories on blast, necessarily. So I'll try to narrow down a short list (edit: this is definitely not short):

I, Lucifer by Glen Duncan (novel): A masterclass in unreliable narration, given that it is told from the perspective of the Devil and he himself tells you he might well be lying! Very witty and surprisingly heartfelt and queer sympathy for the devil story - all things that have shaped a lot of my writing!

Oneshot by Future Cat LLC (video game): I urge anyone even thinking about making interactive media to give this game a full playthrough. This really challenged my perception on what a video game is 'allowed' to do and be. The characters within the narrative address you personally (as in, you the player, not the character you control), and it only gets more meta from there. Some puzzles involve you digging around in your own documents folder (on your actual computer) for a file the game has generated for you. Narrative wise, it makes you care so much, so quickly for Niko, a lost kid who just wants to go home and is in a dark and unfamiliar land with only you to help them. It manages to capture that emotion of helplessness perfectly, especially given that it only has 2-D sprites, written text and music to work with. I can't say much more about it without spoiling it, but it's short (~11 hours), cheap (£8.50 full price, regularly on sale) and so very worth your while to experience first hand.

Old Harry's Game by Andy Hamilton (Radio series, originally on BBC Radio 4): Another take on sympathy for the devil (I might have a type) but closer to pure comedy than I, Lucifer. That doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of pathos, however. It's a wry and darkly comic view of Catholic Christianity dogma (written from Hamilton's own experiences of the Church growing up) but also veers into physics, psychology, philosophy, politics and history...and somehow continues to be funny throughout. It uses the radio medium to great effect, too: for example, having the entire environment of hell and the punishments therein reduced to sound effects and a few pithy lines of dialogue lets the listener fill in the gaps and imagine the scene. Demons often transform their bodies with a single sound effect and the characters get to narrate the grotesque ways in which they've changed, often leaving the worst detail until the right moment for maximum comedic effect. It's very intelligently written and available for free on the BBC Sounds app as of writing.

Robinson in Ruins by Patrick Keiller (film): My obligatory 'do not do things like this' pick. A documentary film if you take the meanings of both words very loosely; this is an essay, spoken over static shots of everyday British objects. Such as a road sign. And the lichen on a road sign. Or a brick wall. It's an infodump made into a film and possibly the most bored I have ever been by a piece of media (closely followed by Goodbye Dragon Inn, which is ostensibly a narrative about a cinema's very last movie screening before it closes down, and follows the people inside in slow, tedious detail as they do such riveting things as eat lunch, walk up stairs and take a piss). I have a reasonably high tolerance for 'art' films, but I discovered a very low tolerance for being bored to tears while watching this.

Notable mentions:

Love Simon, 2018 (film): I learnt I really don't care for coming out stories. They either go ridiculously well, with super supportive friends and family, after a long period of closeted worrying (which really minimizes the very real concerns a lot of us do have about coming out) or depressingly badly (which is just trauma porn for straight people). And they always gloss over the ongoing process of coming out - for me, coming out to family was no big deal, but I did have to think carefully about whether it was safe for me to come out at work and I still have moments of hesitation when dealing with older distant family/friends of family because I simply don't know if this particular acquaintance is homophobic or not.

The Chrestomanci Chronicles, Diana Wynn Jones (novel series): one from my formative years (and incidentally, a series I still think would be amazing to adapt to a television format). Often quite dark for children's literature (spoiler: a protagonist's sister has spent most of the protagonist's life spending his life force for her magical power. He is twelve when he finds out), can be read in any order but reading them all gives clues and details about the worldbuilding and offers background to the characters that do show up over multiple books. I really like the format of self-contained stories within a wider narrative world and this was possibly my first exposure to it.

Tales of Series (video game): a narrative hallmark of the whole series is setting up an expectation about the world (along with a serious question) and then, about a third of the way through, revealing some new information about the nature of the world that often adds a new dimension to the question asked. I still feel like Symphonia does this best: the beginning of the game establishes that your childhood friend is a Chosen - the only one with the power to save the world, and must go on a quest to different shrines to unlock her power and save the world from the evil half-elves. So far, so standard fantasy fare. Then, as her journey reaches its conclusion, you learn that her role is sacrificial, and you refuse to allow that to happen. Shortly after, you learn the world you're saving is one of a pair, and by saving it, the other world goes into decline. And this is a cycle that has been ongoing for millennia. And that the half-elves aren't all evil but a lot of discrimination has been thrown around by humans, elves and half-elves, and some of the acts you've seen are a twisted kind of self-defense. And it all gets more thorny and complicated from there, including a morally grey ultimate villain who is a perfect narrative foil for the lead protagonist. But the major thing I love about this series is the twist in the nature of the world that ultimately leads to the detailed analysis of the question being asked (in this, the twin worlds in a constant state of rise and decline lending nuance to the question of discrimination and what to do about it, not only along the race axis, but also about wealth, social power and cultural groups). All this with a genuinely lovable cast of characters who have so much hidden depth and personality that slowly gets revealed by plot and optional 'skit' scenes that are triggered by various game activities (from plot points to cooking to visiting different areas on the world map). If you have 60+ hours to dedicate to it, Symphonia is very rich in world development, character development and narrative. Just maybe don't hold all the other games in the series to the same high standard... (look, Graces was bad, we all agree on that. And they never made a sequel to Symphonia that reduced all that character and narrative development to ashes because that would be frankly awful)

[zvkydesign]

5 Character Design Tips for Creating a Winning Game  Character

Are you an aspiring artist looking to make your mark in the world of character design? Or maybe you're a writer who wants to add a little pizzazz to your latest story by creating some amazing characters?

Either way, this guide is for you! Character design can be incredibly rewarding, allowing you to bring your unique vision to life. Let's dive into the steps involved in designing a character that is used by top game concept art services.

Step 1 - Brainstorming

The first step in character design is brainstorming. To begin, ask yourself questions like "What kind of character do I want to create?" and "What sort of qualities should my character have?" After you've come up with some ideas, start sketching out potential designs.

Don't worry if they don't look great at first – the goal here is just to get your imagination flowing and get a rough idea of what your character will look like in the end.  

Step 2 - Refining Your Design

Once you've got a few sketches on paper, it's time to do the fun part – refining! This is where you'll really start bringing your character to life. Think about how each design element interacts with one another and how that contributes to their overall look.

Consider elements such as facial expressions, clothing choice, posture and more to give them depth and personality. As you refine your design, remember that every detail matters – even seemingly small things like hairstyle or accessories can go a long way toward creating an interesting and unique character.

Step 3 - Find the Right Tools

When it comes to creating artwork, the tools you use don’t necessarily make or break your success. In most cases, you can accomplish the same outcomes utilizing both traditional and digital mediums – the only difference is the production speed.

It is possible to replicate certain art styles like watercolors on a computer, but they often look best in their original luster. Ultimately, your aesthetic preference and that of your client will heavily influence what tools you decide on.

That being said, no matter how advanced your equipment may be, it cannot compensate for poor concept development or fundamental shortcomings in your artistic skill set. So it is important to hone those skills first and foremost!

Step 4 - Do not underestimate thumbnails

Thumbnails are an important babbling point for creatives. From small previews of images or videos on the internet to sketches in the traditional illustration world, they are useful tools for professionals and hobbyists alike.

Thumbnail sketches allow a video game concept artist to draw out several ideas without committing to a finished piece of artwork. This ensures flexibility when moving through creative processes.

Step 3 - Creating Your Final Piece

Now that you've refined your design, it's time to create your piece! Start by drawing out each individual element of your character (such as clothing items or facial features) separately before putting them together into one cohesive image.

If needed, use reference images to help perfect certain details or get inspiration from other artists' work. When you're done, take a step back and admire all the hard work that went into creating your very own unique character!  

Conclusion

Congratulations on completing this guide on how to design a character! You now have all the tools necessary to create any type of character imaginable – so what are you waiting for? Get creative and show off those skills!

Whether it's for a comic book series or just for fun, designing characters can be incredibly rewarding when done right. So go ahead – get designing! Who knows? Maybe someday we'll see your characters featured in their own stories! Good luck!

Try us now if you are looking for the best concept art services. We have the dream team of artists for game art services that can put your concept to life. Trust us; we are the best among video game outsourcing companies.

[forbidding-souda]

hello hello!! i just randomly thought of this one while spaced out in class LMAO- could i have kaede, kazuichi and chiaki (separately) meeting someone who has the same talent as them? tysm, stay safe and have a great day!!

Kaede Akamatsu, Kazuichi Souda, and Chiaki Nanami falling for someone who has the same talent as them

I hope you have a good day too lovie

I'm writing this instead of working on my d&d campaign because I'm a procasinator and next session is going to be so mathematical I want to die

currently watching: Gen Z Childhood Trauma Iceberg THE COMPLETE SAGA

-Mod Souda

Kaede Akamatsu

✯ She is a tiny bit competitive. She's not used to people being on her level, or anywhere near it, as she's always blown the roof off. Initially, she doesn't know how to prove herself beyond trying to put emotional passion into her pieces and even writing a bunch of her own. When she first found out you existed, she spent a bunch of hours of her life researching you and watching your videos (you know what's even worse about you? You're hot. It's sick, makes her sick to her stomach, how could you be so perfect?).

✯ Once it came to her trying to pull you, she was so optimistic about it. Originally it was like keep your friends close and your enemies closer until boom, she wanted you to be closer to her than both her friends and her enemies. She knew that the two of you were like no one in the world so she immediately tried to convey her interest through pieces. She would chose romance-based ones. To a Wild Rose for small things like playing at restaurants while you two have a meal together (but isn't it a bit melancholic? She's pining, that song is what it feels like to her). She could play Chopin but that would only end in the two of you giggling together.

She breathed deeply, trying to steady herself. Why is she nervous? She does this sort of stuff all the time! Well, no, that's not true... competitions is not something she does that often. Her body trembled from a combination of anticipation and anxiety. Using her foot, she elongated notes as well as softening them. She played the music in which way the audience feels rather than in whatever way she felt. She needed to win - she needed to find something that can assure the world that even though you are out there, she is not going anywhere. Her confidence was unwavering. She was nervous because you are in the audience. In a more literal sense, you were her competitor. Did she want to impress you, or was she scared of losing to you? She let the melody stain the piano keys like rain to asphalt. She then put you, note by note, into the front of her mind until she discovered that it was your smile she was imagining - and it wasn't you smiling to the audience, but you smiling to her.

✯ Whose sheet music is whose? You guys don't know, you've only just now started to sign the top corner of them so you could keep track.

✯ She's used to being the one that soothes everybody but now gosh it's amazing to know that there's somebody out there who's capable of soothing her back.

✯ Throughout the day, she will grab your hand and dance with you and make you spin as if there is music playing.

.

Kazuichi Souda

✯ Mans awkwardly rubbing the back of his head. His self-confidence is going haywire at the notice of you. There's no way he can even consider himself one-of-a-kind anymore but when he actually meets you, he tries to play it off as if he is unbothered which is mainly because with all the stories he's heard about you, he didn't expect you to be as attractive as you are. That conversation had a lot of "uh, yeah"'s. After meeting you, he's going to be kicking his feet doodling in his diary about you.

Driving home, he was grumbling under his breath. He's driving a stupid car that works stupidly better than it did when he was stupidly working on it. He considers himself skilled at what he does but of course, he has his flaws. You always manage to size him up around his flaws (but he can do the same to you, so it's fair game, he's still sensitive though). Around him the city is dying down as the sun starts to drop, people shuffling into karaoke bars and ice cream places makes him hum. He thinks, we should do that together. His cheeks go pink. It still surprises him how much the little things remind him of you. After closing the front door he kicks off his shoes and shuffles out of his jacket to the sound of you filling the air with your joyous exclamation of his name [he can almost hear the xoxo in your voice].

✯ The thing that makes him want to scream and cry the most is how when somebody tosses a mechanical instrument at him most of the time he won't notice and just gets hit in the head... but when he tosses one at you you just catch it! How dare you - he can't stand it.

✯ He will be on the verge of making out with you whenever you come out from under a car and you got the mucky hands and the sweat around your body.

✯ He can just talk... naturally to you about stuff and not worry about you not knowing what he's talking about.

.

Chiaki Nanami

✯ You have the same interest as her? That's awesome. She is so excited to have somebody to talk to (especially about all the niche things she's into). You can impress her by knowing the shit she's talking about, and it's mainly because she's used to keeping a lot of this information in her head so she doesn't infodump on random people (and when she's talking to you, it's not infodumping but instead an two-sided conversation). Hanging out with you means that she can have a calming silence as she games with you by her side.

It is now that Chiaki takes her butt over to your house. She walked the way with her nose in her game, almost missing the train and then her stop too. The adventure gave her four wins (technically five if you count seeing you). You are surprised when she knocks and you are more surprised when she speaks before you can even say anything. "I didn't tell you that I was coming, huh?..." She trails off, her voice dreamy as she continues to game even on your doorstep. It makes you wonder why you even paused your game to answer the door when you could have just brought it with you. You laugh an airy laugh, "That's alright. I'm happy to see you." She smiles before slipping by you into your house. You look her up and down affectionately before welcoming her in. You have of course had her just walk in before, and you've also experienced her just being in your living room playing your games. She's so comfortable around you that she doesn't put much thought into social awareness (and she knows you'll continue liking her no matter how many times she walks through your front door while you're busy gaming upstairs).

✯ Ahh the two of you can have matching consoles, and since the two of you are so popular, the consoles will literally be made for you both.

✯ Omg and in game couples being based on you two. They'd have kissing animations

✯ She doesn't feel threatened by your presence at all - she is just so grateful you exist. She feels hearddddd like no tomorrow.

[illusionsofdreaming]

One thing that bothers me anout TCF is why the God of Death decided to transmigrate KRS after he finished Volume 5 of TBaoH. Why not wait for him to finish the series? Like, what's the disadvantage of KRS finishing the book before becoming Cale? The speedrun in TCF would have been faster if he knew how the story ended. Sure, there's the idea that maybe the author wanted to showcase KRS' brilliance in being able to adapt and conquer situations, and I'm not asking for Kim Dokja the 2nd, I JUST WANNA KNOW WHY TRANSMIGRATE HIM AFTER THE FIFTH VOLUME? I'm sorry for the rant...

I really should catch up to the more recent chapters because I feel like I'll trip on canon facts without knowing and become the laughing stock of TCF.

So whatever I say next is just me making up theories based on my knowledge up to reading to chapter 663.

Firstly, OG!Cale was forty before switching with 36 year old Kim Rok Soo. Because we know time runs different between these parallel worlds, it could be due to time differences- OG!Cale died faster than Kim Rok Soo could finish the entire series and triggered the whole Death God transaction and all. That's the easiest plotwise explanation.

But if we're talking about storywriting decisions here's a different view:

How much our protagonists knows will affect how well they assimilate into the world they transmigrated into.

We all have read ISEKAI novels/webcomics of protagonists equipped with varying degrees of preemptive knowledge. If I were to grossly simplify and summarise the three types it would be:

"All-Knowing" Protagonist - the ones who know the most if not the entire plotline, future, flow of the world, with foresight/power so great they break the world's natural laws/logic mechanisms. (e.g. Kim Dokja, Ainz Ooal Gown, Kim Gong-Ja, Shiroe)

Semi-present Protagonist - ones who have 'part' of the full picture. Their knowledge of the world only helps them up to a certain extent - either due to limited preemptive knowledge or butterfly chain effect of their actions changing the future they ‘know’. They learn more about the world the longer they stay and adapt accordingly. (e.g. Kim Rok Soo, Athanasia de Alger Obelia, Melissa Podebrat)

"I just want to be a normal NPC!" - isekaied as a normie with no preemptive plot/world knowledge. They have to learn and adapt to the new world from step 0. (e.g. Rudeus Greyrat, Myne, Naofumi, Rimuru Tempest)

*note that these are just my own categorisation and by no means, encapsulates all types of ISEKAI tropes. Here I'm just separating them according to how much 'world' knowledge they already have before transmigrating.

We all love our “All-Knowing” Protagonists who shred through crises like it’s wet paper. It sets an exhilarating fast pace and honestly now, who doesn’t enjoy the constant victory high from being right all the time? Original plot doesn’t really matter much in this category because our beloved stronk af protags will bend all unsavoury parts to fit their purposes. Keeping momentum at a constant high is a challenge but when done well it feels pretty dang awesome.

Here’s one thing about “All Knowing” Protags, they are never fully immersed into the world they’ve transmigrated/reincarnated into. Because they ‘know’ how future events unfold they are able to objectively view the situation they’re thrust into. They can take a back seat (which really gives us that powerful omnipresent feeling) and pull strings or armstrong their way past obstacles because that’s just how powerful they are. They however, never feel part of the world they’re in because their OPness emphasises their ‘otherness’ in this world. Natives either fear or respect them and it could lend to a feeling of distance. Most of the protagonist examples I’ve listed as well, have on multiple occasions been able to reflect on “Oh right, I’m in a story/video/game world.” often pulling themselves back from integrating fully into their new world.

Now, imagine Kim Rok Soo having read the entire series, with his perfect memory it would guarantee he’d have the solutions to every problem that’ll be thrown his way the moment he transmigrates into TBoaH. This would launch him straight into “All-Knowing” Protagonists because with that sexy smart brain, he’s going to eliminate all threats at the root ASAP so he can enjoy that sweet, sweet slacker life. Knowing Kim Rok Soo, he’d also not bother with interacting with any of the character casts because why bother making friends when you can solve the problem just like that *snap*? 

With only limited knowledge however, Kim Rok Soo has to be careful how he manipulates things. He still took a lot of shortcuts due to his understanding of the world, but the fact he got reincarnated before he finished meant he can’t afford not to make friends with the main cast. Because logically, he does not know how many more problems Choi Han will have to face, but he does know Choi Han is the protagonist and protagonists always live to the end. Sticking close to Choi Han, or at least making an ally of him would ensure his survivability. As such, through befriending Choi Han and his allies, it’s inevitable Kim Rok Soo has to immerse himself fully into the story’s world - it’s not just a story now. It’s a world he has to survive in - and eventually decides to live in as well.

So tl;dr TCF would only last 50 chapters if KRS had transmigrated with full knowledge of TBoaH.

I’d like to add in a writer’s point of view that, even I, wouldn’t want to plan 700+ chapters ahead and never write my story. I'd just write it. LMAO

[amazingphilza]

maniac :: cc!tommy x reader

angst (?) , platonic (?) , gender neutral ! ib: conan gray’s maniac

this is satire & note that i write the reader to be a few months younger than tommy (besides that, i think it is fully inclusive !)

synopsis : you put all your hard work towards a useless crush. with no expectation for reciprocated feelings in the first place, it still all ends in a bittersweet slap to reality.

you grew up with minecraft and it was an understatement to say it was part of your childhood

even years later, you still maintained interested in the game

it wasn’t just a simple video game, the community inspired you to do many things

you aspired to be like the creators you watched at a young age like sky, dantdm, cupquake, stampy, and many more

making people happy and entertained was a dream

and when minecraft slowly began trending again in 2019, you started making your own content whenever you felt like it out of fun

you never got much views but it was an enjoyable experience nonetheless

but it wasn’t until the first minecraft monday you decided to push a bit more with your hobbies and worked hard to make it somewhere

however balancing your passions with school wasn’t the easiest

given, you were still only around 15 and your content wasn’t even that good

with not much of a goal or plan with your youtube channel, you fell out of interest eventually

you loved minecraft but you always a rocky relationship with it; getting back into it for a few months then pretending it never really existed for another few

besides the occasional videos you watched in your pass time, you didn’t stay that updated

then lockdown happened

it changed everything and even got you regressing back to old interests

soon enough you were back to minecraft

there was so much to catch up on

hermitcraft season 7 just started, there was minecraft championships, and smp earth and smp live, and so much more to look forward to watching

you were a bit late on both of the smps but your interest peaked specially towards smp earth and it didn’t stop you from watching the past videos

you first gravitated towards a certain youtuber’s videos first since you remember stumbling onto his videos before from your recommended page; wilbur soot

besides recognizing him from his you laugh you lose series and making parody-type of songs, you didn’t know much

however with a few clicks, you had binge watched his smp earth series effortlessly

you found yourself falling down the endless hole, finding more creators to watch through wilbur

one in particular caught your eye in an interesting way

tommyinnit

my god, how can someone be so annoying and pushy in these videos? like shut up already

and to find out he was barely months older than you frustrated you

you just wanted to be better in some way

if someone like him could be popular, why can’t you? yelling at others and causing problems didn’t seem that hard

and so you went back to working hard on your previously failed youtube channel but this time with a goal; be better than tommyinnit

it was a weird aspiration in your head but it worked

he was your age and successful, why need a better motivator?

tommy wasn’t the sole reason why you strive to make content since you truly did want to create videos to entertain people like the youtubers you originally grew up watching

and with the amount of free time you had, you thoroughly analyzed his content; what was the most popular, how he streamed, edited his videos, everything

you just completely studied the algorithm in general

along the way, tommy’s personality grew on you

tommy was undoubtedly a very loud and energetic person but you became fond of his ambitions

you understood why he was popular at such a young age; he was a natural entertainer

your spite towards the boy turned into a hope

a hope to be at par with him someday and even be mutuals

and it was like your dreams were suddenly manifested into existence

you gained a large following in the early months of lockdown and even was recognized to be apart of minecraft championships

it felt like yesterday that you were just watching your favorite youtubers livestream the same competition

and now you were situation in a team to play yourself for the first time instead of being a viewer for once

not to mention, with tommyinnit as a teammate

how did you manage to get so lucky?

under the excitement, you felt beyond never nervous waiting in the empty discord call for your team to join you to practice the mini-games

in the middle of gathering your thoughts together, you heard a sound from discord signaling someone joined the call

“uh, hello?”

you heard the familiar british accent you spent hours listening to from countless streams and videos

“h-hi! i’m y/n, how are you?”

you hoped tommy couldn’t hear the strain in your voice due to fighting your nerves, but you quietly celebrated that you didn’t freeze up altogether

“oh i’m good, thank you. and i’m tommy by the way, this is the first time we’re speaking, yeah?”

“yep! it’s nice to meet you”

“yeah, i’ve seen your name around the timeline a few times, you seem cool”

oh my god what?

“thanks! um i actually really enjoy your content not gonna lie”

“oh wow, good shit!”

and the conversation smoothly went on, bouncing back and forth between you two before your other two teammates joined the call

once everyone was situated, you decided to start streaming since it was your first mcc and you wanted a vod of you practicing to look at later on as a memory

your chat immediately noticed how much you were enjoying yourself, especially after all the short stories of talking about who inspired you in the past

the smile plastered on your face never left

after stream and your other teammates went offline, it was you and tommy left in the call once together again

“it was nice talking to you tommy! and the practice was really fun, i cant wait for the actual competition!”

“yeah definitely, we’ll for sure place high”

“hopefully. it’s my first time and i hope i don’t cost us the dub”

“nah, you think so? i mean rt and plumbella are also our team mates so you know, it’s all for fun in the end”

you knew tommy was implying the teamwork wasn’t going to be the best compared to the other teams but at least in the end you’ve both made a new friend

“yeah you’re right!”

“anyway it’s getting late imma hop off”

“okay tommy, talk to you soon?”

“yep!”

“alright byee”

“bye!”

the moment he left the call, you felt a sense of relief before a small wave of sadness took over

you wanted to continue talking to tommy but you knew you had other responsibilities to tend to

for the rest of the day, you couldn’t stop thinking of the call and mcc practice

the funny jokes, singing random songs, screaming for no reason, everything

it even kept you awake until the early morning

you buried your head in a pillow and screamed into it after realization hit

y/n no

no no no no no no no

you tried to recall anything that remotely related your other teammates which you remembered that didn’t include tommy

even if it was a few hours ago, you couldn’t pin point something specific

no

i must just be forgetful, right?

what the hell did rt and plumbella even say that whole call?

you vividly remembered everything with tommy and it was clear to you why

surely not

with putting a hand on your chest above your heart, you confirmed that you couldn’t lie to yourself based on the rapid speed

you liked tommy for a good while but it hadn’t clicked to you until now

eventually you fell asleep due to exhaustion but that’s to say you didn’t do so without imagining spending more time with tommy

ever since that day, time went by in a flash

your team didn’t do the best in mcc but it had been a while since then to have that as a concern

sadly you and tommy didn’t talk as often as you hoped but that didn’t make you have less feelings for him

on some days you felt bad since you thought you didn’t know enough about him to even be allowed to crush on him

it was a bit unprofessional but you were nearly 16, it’s normal to have these little crushes right?

eventually time came to rescue when tommy asked you if you wanted to accompany him in the dream smp

undoubtedly, you said yes

and for the few months during summer, it was where you two became even closer than before

however, once both of you two had to go back and attend school, it was harder to catch up with each other

even on calls together off stream, the occasional snapchat notification going off irked you in a way you couldn’t explain

only winter break was the small pause on your disappointment

but even then, it was a slow but steady hill of repressed sadness and frustration until early spring of the following year

you had hoped 2021 would be better than last year but after scrolling through twitter one day and seeing stans making rumors about how tommy had a crush on one of his classmates gave you the same pain you felt when school started last fall

you dreaded to look over at tommy’s most recent story time stream vod where all the gossip arose from; it was him stumbling over his words with the mention of a girl during a certain part

jealousy wasn’t the right word to describe the way you felt

you would never go out of your way to make tommy reciprocate the feelings you had for him

and if he liked someone else the way you saw him, you wouldn’t mind

having a crush is ecstatic, and if he has someone like that too, you should be happy

right?

you tried

what finally broke you was seeing a tiktok a few weeks later of tommy in college with eryn and another girl talking

you didn’t know how she looked like or anything but you wanted to sob

good for him

she didn’t even say much in the video and you dont know enough about tommy’s personal life to jump to conclusions like this

you knew you were acting irrational and you couldn’t be upset at tommy for something he couldn’t control

if anything, you never directly showed interest in him

you didn’t want to in the first place

it was a bad idea from the start

you looked back at the past year and all your intentions

what kind of sick fanfiction did you think you were living?

becoming a content creator, hoping to blow up, just to talk to a big youtuber you had a crush on?

oh my god

y/n what is wrong with you?

listen to yourself, y/n

you need to get some help

whether tommy was dating or even just had interest someone was none of your business

you had to move on no matter what it was and be good and supportive friend

it was dreadful to get over a stupid crush like this but after so much work you put in, you gave some sympathy for yourself

in a friend perspective, you were happy with whatever tommy did and was satisfied your friendship together, but you hadn’t realized how much you gambled from the beginning

and just for a crush?

you couldn’t comprehend how far you gone because you fancied someone

it wasn’t like anyone could get famous and become a popular content creator either

and now with you being on the dream smp along with a successful youtube channel at 16? you were grateful something pushed you enough to work this hard

but you’d never forget the fact everything that lead up to this point was a crush on no other than tommyinnit which first spurred from complete spite

“who’s the one better off now?” your thoughts mocked you from the complete irony

sigh

y/n, you maniac

[arotechno]

Jughead (2015), Issues 1-6: Discussion and Commentary

"I am like unto a god, Archie Andrews. Respect me as such."

Recently re-typed and ready to go, here is a broad discussion of the first volume of the Jughead reboot comic series. I was originally going to review each issue individually, but given that the first six comprise one story arc, I decided to do the whole volume in one go. That means this is a bit crunched for time and therefore not quite as in-depth as I wanted to go! But I encourage you to read the comics for yourself, if you are able.

This will not be spoiler-free, for the record! The images here are taken from my own copy using my phone, so they're not the best quality! But they also aren't especially crucial to this commentary, so you'll have to bear with me.

I just really like the inside cover art for this volume, alright (it's also the cover of issue 5)? I can't help it, I'm aro, I see heart imagery and something in my brain goes haywire.

When we first meet Jughead at the beginning of Volume 1, he comes off as lazy and apathetic, at least on the surface. After an all-nighter of playing video games, Jughead is dragged to school by Archie. There, they find that Betty has started a new campaign to save Fox Forest, a beloved local greenspace that is being threatened by Veronica’s wealthy father, Mr. Lodge. Jughead is… not very interested in Betty’s cause, to put it politely. It’s not that he doesn’t care about Fox Forest, but he does not believe that Mr. Lodge would be convinced to change his mind by a petition. He tells Betty as such, and she remarks that he lives a very hollow life.

“Man, you’re so cynical,” Archie tells him. “Is there anything you’d actually fight for?”

The answer is yes. What ultimately gets Jughead to fight for something? Food—well, kind of, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

When Archie and Jughead get to class, they learn that the principal of Riverdale High, Mr. Weatherbee, is being replaced out of the blue by a new guy called Stanger. Stanger is a stiff, serious type, and he immediately starts making changes: new uptight teachers, a strict dress code, new bootcamp-esque curriculum, and most importantly, supposedly nutritious slop to replace the food in the cafeteria.

This sends Jughead down a bit of a rebellious path—he’s not a rule-breaker, but he’s perfectly comfortable with bending the rules in his favor while narrowly skirting around getting into trouble. He starts selling burgers in the cafeteria, with the proceeds benefitting Betty’s fundraiser for Fox Forest.

(Hell yeah, Jughead, unionize that student body! Sell those burgers! You have nothing to lose but your chains!)

This stunt gets Jughead on Stanger’s bad side immediately, and a slowly simmering feud between them ultimately boils over when Stanger plants a knife in Jughead’s backpack to get him expelled. Thankfully, his dad is able to talk his sentence down to a week’s suspension, but that doesn’t stop his friends (and his mother) from worrying about him.

As an aside, I’d like to take a moment to appreciate Mr. Jones.

“Something’s off here and I’m not sure what it is, but I am sure Jughead didn’t bring a knife to school. My boy’s weird, but he’s not a criminal.”

I really like this line from him to Betty. He clearly knows his son and is willing to stand up for him, and it’s comforting to me, especially viewing the story through the lens of Jughead being aroace, that Mr. Jones is not at all bothered by his son being a bit on the strange side, as long as he’s still a good kid. Nothing but respect for Forsythe Jones II in this house.

Something fun and unique about this volume in particular is that in every issue, Jughead either falls asleep or passes out, and has an elaborate imaginative dream about the events of the story. In one he’s a pirate, for example, and in another he’s visited by a descendant of Archie’s from the future, who belongs to the time police. But towards the end of the volume, the line between these daydreams and reality seem to blur for Jughead. He comes to the conclusion in one particular nightmare that Stanger is trying to brainwash them all into becoming mindless agents for his evil organization—and then he realizes he may not be that far off from the truth.

Jughead brings this realization—that Stanger is using the school as a sort of training ground for secret agents—up to his friends, and understandably, they aren’t convinced. They worry that the compounded exhaustion of multiple all-nighters playing games and the stress of being suspended has started to get to Jughead, but he vows to prove it to them.

I mean, damn, Betty, that kind of hurts. (Don’t worry, Betty is actually a good friend, as I’m sure we’ll get into later in the series.)

To make a long story short (and to avoid spoiling the entire plot for those who haven’t read it!), Jughead does find proof, and once he does, his friends are immediately on board. They are ultimately able to save the day, and once it’s revealed that Stanger and the new teachers are ex-CIA trying to brainwash the students (no, seriously), Mr. Weatherbee is re-instated as principal and things return to normal.

I’m leaving out a lot of nuanced details, mostly for the sake of time, but there are a lot of surprisingly weighty moments to this first arc, and Zdarsky’s character writing is incredibly endearing and funny, while still hitting the serious moments when it needs to. There’s an interesting underlying commentary in this arc about military recruitment and U.S. propaganda; Stanger says that he specifically chose Riverdale because the students are so average. There’s something to be said here about the way the military industrial complex preys on average or underprivileged teenagers to convince them to serve when they feel they have no better path to take. It’s an almost funnily serious commentary for Zdarsky to make with a seemingly silly and off-beat comic series, and I respect him for that.

(If you recognize this panel, it’s because it appears on the page where Jughead’s asexuality is canonized. What a good page. So good that nobody ever points out this panel.)

By the end of Volume 1, we see that Jughead maybe isn’t as apathetic and careless as he seemed to be. Sure, he got up in arms about food of all things in the beginning, but it stopped being about food very quickly, once he realized that something truly messed up was going on. And it bothers him, deeply—at one point, the gravity of the situation begins to weigh on him so heavily that he nearly gives up entirely, convinced that there is nothing they can do and that they ought to just lie low until they make it out. But he does end up making things right, with the help of his friends, and in the end, he does decide to help Betty out after all. It’s the least he can do, really. You do get the impression that although Jughead’s friends often don’t take him seriously, they’ll always have his back when it counts—and he’ll do the same for them, even if he’ll insist on being a bit snarky about it.

(That slightly cynical attitude is still there, though, and truthfully, Jughead wouldn’t be the same without it.)

To close out, I am just going to share some of my favorite panels/quotes that didn’t fit elsewhere, including some choice Aro Moods. I hope this (admittedly brief) discussion of Volume 1 convinces you to read the comics, and to join me again when I cover the next arc. Until then, cheers to Chip and Erica.

Jughead’s attitude towards Archie’s romantic problems will never not be funny to me. He’s just like “RIP to you but I’m different.”

Kevin. :/ Kevin come on, man. Mr. Zdarsky, sir, this is character assassination. (Jughead’s face in the corner is a reasonable reaction.)

This one’s gone around so many times before (as have a bunch of other aro moments that I don’t think I need to bother re-posting here), but I just think it’s neat. Don’t worry, Betty lets go.

Aaand lastly, I just really like this line from Jughead. “The world is out of our hands, pal. You just gotta make your own weird way in it.” That we do, Jughead. That we do.

[felassan]

Mass Effect development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

This is the Mass Effect version of this post.

[In case you can’t read it the subtitle in the bottom left logo above is “Guardians of the Citadel”]

Note: Drug use is mentioned.

Cut for length.

Mass Effect 1

ME began its life in a vision document in fall 2003

Codenamed “SFX”

Conceived of by Casey Hudson and a core team from KotOR. Its genesis was the intention to create an epic sci-fi RPG in an original setting that BioWare owned (so they could have full creative control), and in a setting that was conceived of first and foremost as a video game

Initially players could control any squadmate, but they wanted it to be about Shep and for players to be focused on Shep being a battlefield commander, rather than on switching bodies

By the start of 2004 its story was shaping up. Initially humans landed on Mars in 2250 and discovered evidence of an ancient alien race and a powerful substance, Black Sand, which rapidly advanced tech to the point that FTL travel was possible. (My note: obviously now the Prothean artifacts on Mars & associated mass effect force tech enabled this in the final canon, but I wonder if aspects of the ‘Black Sand’ naming-type & powerful substance stuff was rolled into red sand from final canon) Humans were suddenly capable of travel to multiple star systems and made contact with a multitude of other species. At the start of the first game, these species together with humans had a fragile peace, with focus placed on the political center of the galaxy, a hub known as Star City, later renamed the Citadel

Multiplayer was a vision for the series as far back as 2003. The plan was for ME1, an Xbox exclusive at launch, to take advantage of the platform’s online components. Early designs saw players meeting in one of the central hubs to interact and trade items in their otherwise SP adventures

By 2006 it had the name ME and the story was more specific, with the theme of conflict between organic and synthetic lifeforms. The story’s scope now stretched across 3 games and included scope for full co-op MP

They tried to do MP in every game, discussing it from the get-go, but it always just fell by the wayside. “When you’re trying to build something that is a new IP, on a new platform, with a new engine, you’ve got to really focus on the core elements of the game.” 

The conversation system prototype was made in Jade Empire, and some of ME’s earliest writing was done in an old JE build. At first there was no conversation wheel. Paragon was “Friendly” and Renegade “Hostile”. In the prototype Shep was a silent unnamed Spectre. Many conversations in the prototype about the player’s choice in smuggling a weapon through Noveria made it into the game

In said prototype a merchant referred to themselves as “this one”, though the word hanar never appeared. The PC in it also had the option to end a conversation with “I should go”. In the prototype also, Harkin was voiced by Mark Meer

An early version of the Mako got used as the krogan truck in ME2

Early concepts of the Citadel were drawn in pencil by CH. A piece of concept art of its final design was painted based on a photo of a sculpture near Aswan, Egypt

As with any new IP naming it was a struggle. They put out a call to all staff for ideas, did polls, made a name generator that combined words that they liked in random ways and made pretend logos of ones they liked in Photoshop to see if they could make themselves love the name or find visual potential in it. (Some of these names are in the pic at the top of this post.) CH liked “Unearthed” as it was a reference to Prothean ruins dug up on Mars and humanity’s ascendance going away from Earth. They knew the game would have a central space station featuring prominently so some of the ideas were based on that - “The Citadel”, “The Optigon”, “The Oculon”. “Element” was another one they had in mind due to the rare substance in the game 

CH: “I was a big fan of John Harris’ book Mass, which had epic-scaled sci-fi ideas, so that was a word that came up often. Many of the names came from the idea that the IP featured a fifth fundamental physical force (in addition to the known four of gravitational, electromagnetic, strong nuclear and weak nuclear) so the word ‘effect’ came up pretty often.” Ultimately none of the ideas really felt right. One Monday morning they were going over the names and Greg Zeschuk said he had an idea on the weekend: “Mass Effect!” CH: “I said, ‘I don’t hate it’, which in the naming process is a high compliment. And it stuck!”

CH on Shep’s Prothean vision from the beacon: “It was hard to imagine how we would do this. CG was - and is - really expensive. Instead I wanted to try doing it through photography and video editing. So I went to a local grocery store and bought a few packages of the weirdest looking meat that I could find. Then I set up a little photoshoot in my basement, complete with some electronics parts and some red wine for juicyness.” He used these props to create a video sequence where the photos were rapidly cycled and blurred, along with production paintings, to create the scary vision an organic/machine experiment on the Protheans. These mashups were also used as inspiration for concept artists and level designers who were working on these themes

Tali used to be called Talsi

On the licensing side they often joke that they’re licensing N7 not “Mass Effect” due to N7′s popularity

There was a confidential internal guide to the IP in 2007 to help devs along and summarize/synthesize the vision etc. Some excerpts from it are shown in the book and this is the first time the public have ever seen them

Early versions of Asari had hair

Asari were designed as a nod to classic TV sci-fi (with human actors wearing obvious makeup and prosthetics to play aliens)

The turian design guideline was “we want them to be birds of prey”. They also wanted a range of alien types, some close to human like Asari, while others were to be a lot further away, like turians

BioWare patented the conversation wheel, which was a first for them. CH had been frustrated with reviews of Jade Empire that said that the actioncentric game was too wordy [with its list dialogue]. “I’m like, story is words. [...] What is it about our games that is making people feel like they’re wordy?” Then he thought “In a game you kind of need to feel like you’re continuing to play it. Maybe you should continue feeling like you’re playing it actively into the dialogue.” “[The wheel] kind of gave a new experience with dialogue when you did start to react based on emotion, and that’s ultimately what we’re trying to bring out in our games”

The original krogan concept was based on a bat “with a really wide squidgy face. We just used its face on top of this weird body and it kinda worked”

Geth musculature was based on fiber-optic cables, with flexible plates of armor attached

The vision for the IP was 80s sci-fi inspired space opera

The concept art of Saren lifting Shep by the throat inspired a similar scene in-game. The staging wasn’t planned til designers saw that art

A squadmate with Shepard on the way to meet Ash in an old storyboard was called Carter. Early name of Kaidan or Jenkins?

Bono from U2 was kinda instrumental in bringing us ME lol

Finding the right cover art for ME1 was notably tricky

Matt Rhodes got his start drawing helmets for ME1, including one which would become Shep’s “second face”. He estimates he drew between 250-270 different ones

Some of the sounds in-game were people smashing watermelons with sledgehammers and sticking fists into various goos

The audio team had fun trying to slip the iconic main theme into unexpected places throughout the MET. “We were very aware of how powerful that track was for the fans and it was tempting to overuse it for any moment we wanted to make really emotional”.

The theme was creatively repurposed in ME3: slowed down and reworked as the ambient sound for the SR-2. “If you listen to it for a really long time, just stand in the Normandy and listen, you’ll actually hear the notes change slowly. It doesn’t sound like music, it sounds like a background ambiance, but it’s there.” (My note: Well no wonder the Normandy feels so much like home?? 😭 sneaky..)

Bug report: “Mako Tornado”. There wasn’t enough friction between the tires and the ground, causing testers to lose control of the vehicle and send it spinning into the air like a tornado. “As it turns, the front end comes up, and then it starts spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning faster and faster and faster until it just flies up in the sky” (My note: Sounds like a regular day in the Mako to me)

Cerberus originally had a bigger role in this game. It was cut but they had a whole explorable outpost. “I called it Misery,” says Mac Walters, “It was this planet with a little outpost that said ‘Welcome to Misery’”. Everything on the outpost was shit - dirty worn stuff, no windows, no kitchen, the vehicle bay was open to the elements etc

The Reaper sound is literal garbage. Some audio designers went on a recording trip to a national park. One of them got fixated on a garbage can, “a metal bear-proof receptacle with a heavy lid that creaked horribly when opened”. “It was like, ominous, spooky, tonal and almost musical. I decided to throw a mic into the garbage and record it moving. I didn’t know what it was going to be until later”

They were making lots of noises to record like throwing logs and rocks around. An old couple peered at them through the window of their camper van in the woods and must have called the cops because then the cops showed up, pulled them over and told them to stop. The cops towed their car (the driver’s plates were Cali plates and expired), drove them to Edmonton outskirts and then the audio producer Shauna got a call and had to go pick them up “like three little boys”. “We got a stern talking to”. Once back they were playing around with the garbage sound, editing it etc. Casey heard it and proclaimed “That’s the sound of the Reapers”

Preston Watamaniuk: “There are things I could have done to Mass 1 to make it an infinitely better game with better UIs” and some simple cuts and changes. “But when you’re living with it, it’s very hard to see those things”

BioWare Labs

As social media and smartphone games exploded, BioWare dedicated a small team dedicated to exploring opportunities here - BioWare Labs

Mass Effect: Galaxy used a unique graphic art style and static visual presentation common in visual novels. It has the distinction of being the only iOS game BW have made during their first 25 years

Scrapped ideas were a 3rd person space shooter called Mass Effect: Corsair and 2 DA titles - a strategy game and a top-down dungeon crawler starring young Wynne. (My note: Maybe the corsairs stuff was rolled into Jacob’s backstory in 2, the Alliance Corsairs)

Corsair was a very short-lived project that never got its feet under it. It was a spin-off on Nintendo DS featuring a behind-the-ship perspective and branching dialogue. At one point it had MP. The idea behind it was basically “ME: Freelancer” - fly your ship around, do missions, get credits. It had a limited branching story but was a gameplay-centered experience intended to fill the gap between ME1 and 2. That gap ended up being filled by Galaxy

Galaxy and Corsair’s smaller screen allowed concept artists to use bold colors and a simplistic character design style to help those games stand out from Shep’s story

Nick Thornborrow did some art for Corsair but was worried his art style didn’t fit ME. He moved to DA where he feels his art style fits better

Lots of BioWare VAs and even a lead writer and the VO director are drawn from Edmonton’s local community theater scene, which is vibrant. Think this is how Mark Meer got involved

Mass Effect 2

Player choices carrying over was a first for BW

Dirty Dozen-inspired plot

Its plot is a web of conditionals (see Suicide Mission)

Was more of a shooter than anything BW had made since Shattered Steel

There was 2 camps on the team, those who wanted to push combat and systems forward and redefine the ME experience and those who wanted to make a true sequel, with the same gameplay and systems but a new story. Karin Weekes: “I think it ended up being a good push-pull. It felt like a pretty healthy creative conflict”

“ME2 was a game you could hold up to someone who argues that games aren’t a serious medium and go ‘Oh yeah, then why is Martin Sheen in this?’” Sheen was their first pick for TIM

The idea for TIM came from a mash-up of concepts CH had collected over the years. The name “Illusive” originally came from his pitch for naming DAO’s Eclipse engine, a word inspired by Obi-Wan’s line “It’s not about the mission, Master. It’s something... elsewhere. Elusive”. “I thought, what if we called our next engine 'Elusive', but used an ‘I’, and then it’s like ‘Illusion’. [...] I still really like the word with an ‘I’ and what it conjures”

When ME1 DLC was in production, CH had been watching a lot of CNN, specifically Anderson Cooper. “How is one guy travelling to all these places and never looking tired and always being able to speak with clarity?” CH says it seemed almost superhuman. “What if there was someone who is the absolute maximum of the things you would aspire to be, but also the worst of humanity?” Cooper, though not evil, became an inspiration for TIM down to the gray hair and piercing blue eyes

Inspiration for TIM’s behind-the-scenes role pulling political strings came from Jack Bauer’s brother Graem in 24. Graem “can call up the president and tell him what to do and hang up, because he’s so connected and so influential”. Sheen had played a president and his performance brought gravitas and wisdom to the role. He had quit smoking, but the character smokes. He didn’t want to fake it, but he also didn’t want to smoke, “so he actually asked for a cigarette” to hold so he could stop his words to take drags with natural cadence

Writing was still pushing to write and revise lines hours before VO started. A series of problems like injury and some writers leaving for other opportunities left it so that Karin, Lukas Kristjanson and editor Cookie Everman hand to land the story safely, with PW helping where they could. Lukas: “We took over the writing bug and task list, and I can’t stress enough how much [Karin and Cookie] did to get ME2 out the door. There’s no part of that thing we didn’t touch”. Karin: “That was the most dramatic 2 weeks of my life”

Initial fan reaction when they started promo-ing ME2 was very negative because people didn’t want to know about new chars like Jack and Mordin. “[fans were like] ‘Get them out of here. We want our characters from the first game’. But then when they played them, those became some of the most popular chars [of the series]”

Concept art of Thane has an idea annotation saying “Face can shapeshift?”

At one point when designing Thane concept artists sent multiple variations of him to the team asking them to vote on which was the most attractive

Most of the Normandy crew was written by lead level designer Dusty Everman. Lukas gave him advice in the evenings between bugs

BioWare Montreal made ME2 and 3 cinematics

CC for Shep was based on tools used by char designers to create in-game chars. Under the hood similar tools existed to create aliens

Aliens were much easier to animate than humans. When something is human it’s very difficult to make it look realistic and you can see all the mistakes and everything

Over the holiday period in 2007 CH worked out a diagram on a single piece of paper that would define the entire scope and structure of the game. The diagram is included in the book

Bug report: “I shot a krogan so hard that his textures fell off”. At one point shotgun blast damage was applied to each of the pellets fired, and shot enemies ended up with just the default checkerboard Unreal texture on them after their textures got blown off

Blasto was meant to be 1 step above an Easter egg but his fan popularity prompted them to bring him back in ME3

They rewrote chunks of Jack 2 days before she went to VO. She was the only one they could change because all the other NPCs were recorded. They redesigned her mission by juggling locked NPC lines and changing Shep’s reactions by rewriting text paraphrases to change the context of the already-recorded VO

Lukas snuck obscure nods ito ME2′s distress calls. In the general distress call for the Hugo Gernsback, there’s BW’s initial’s and Edmonton’s phone number backwards. In a fault in a beacon protocol there’s the initials and backward phone number from Tommy Tutone’s “Jenny”. In 2 other general distress calls there’s initials and numbers from Glenn Miller Orchestra’s “Pennsylvania 6-5000″ and initials and numbers from Geddy Lee and Rush’s “2112″ respectively 

Mass Effect 3

“The end of an era marks the beginning of another”

ME3 “marked the end of Shep’s story”

Saying bye to Shep was as difficult for devs as it was for players

JHale’s final VO session included Anderson’s death and romanced Garrus’ goodbye. “We were in the session and we both just started crying”, Caroline says. “I couldn’t come on the line to give her notes because I was crying, and she was crying. And so there was just this minute-long pause of like, nothing, nothing, nothing - just silence through the airwaves. And then I came on and just told her that I was crying and she said ‘I’m crying!’” They talked about these anecdotes also here on the N7 Day reunion panel

The Microsoft Kinect voice support required devs to teach Kinect hundreds of commands in a variety of accents across multiple languages. The result was useful but made for some awkward moments. Numerous players accidentally said “geth” or “quarian” while making a particular decision and accidentally killed Tali

MP chars were voiced by cops and military people

The helmet on one of the MP chars was originally designed for cancelled project Revolver

The payload device at the end needed to attach to the Citadel while essentially serving as a giant trigger. “It ended up becoming quite the engineering feet just to visualize how this thing would move and connect to the Citadel”

Concept artists explored creating an anti-team, where Kai Leng was almost an anti-Shepard essentially, with an elite squad to counteract your team. This idea never went beyond concept phase

ME3 Special Edition was released on Nintendo Wii U exclusively. This exclusive version of the game includes Genesis 2 (a sequel to the original Genesis comic) and unique gameplay features that took advantage of the touchscreen GamePad. For years Sonic Chronicles: Dark Brotherhood had had the honor of being BW’s only game made for a Nintendo console

FemShep regrettably didn’t feature in major ME marketing til ME3. Later releases like DAI, MEA and Anthem have taken increasing care not to gender their protagonists in cover art

To capture combat sounds they took a trip to CFB Wainwright, a military base southeast of Edmonton. They got a big tour of it and were allowed to record anything they could find. The tour ended with them getting to drive and shoot tanks (real shells). The force of doing that sent waves through Joel Green, he felt his whole chest compress when it went off; the perfect sound for the Black Widow! After the trip the soldiers let him keep the shell he fired and it’s been passed on like a torch to various devs since

Kakliosaurs began life as a joke in the writers’ room after John Dombrow placed a Grunt figure on a t-rex toy he had on his desk. Lore was brainstormed to justify the mash-up before someone asked, “Why don’t we put this in the game?” They loved it so much Karin had custom coffee mugs made

Bug report: For a while Tali’s final romance scene would fire when she was supposed to be dead

“Balancing combat: how designers in ME3 entered an ‘arms race’” - the solution to players feeling OP vs players feeling frustrated by really strong enemies is to find a good middle ground, but for designers Corey Gaspur and Brenon Holmes, it was war. Brenon designed enemies, Corey designed guns. Corey “was obsessed with bigger, heavier guns. We had this sort of informal competition where he’d make this crazy overturned gun that would just murder all the enemies, and then I tuned some stuff up to compensate”

Brenon had to invent new ways to “stop Corey” and this led to the Phantoms. Corey had in turn designed consumable rockets that could wipe out entire waves of enemies. He must’ve figured this would make short work of Brenon’s space ninjas, but Brenon had other plans: “I had just added the ability for her to cut rockets [when Corey was playing MP and he was watching]. She cut the rocket in half... Corey just turns and looks at me and is like: ‘Really dude? I just shot a rocket at this Phantom and she’s fine? Not even damaged? Zero damage?’” 

This friendly rivalry helped elevate ME3′s gameplay. Corey had a knack for making a gun feel so good to fire it had his fellow designers scrambling to keep up. It was his version of balancing. Before Corey sadly passed away he mentored Boldwin Li in all things weapon design and the arms race continued

Corey designed the Arc Pistol. It was causing problems for enemies because it was too powerful. It seemed hell bent on staying that way, Boldwin would tune down all its stats and it was still doing 3x the damage it should have been doing. “I was like ‘What the hell?’, and then I looked closer. It secretly fired 3 bullets for every pull of the trigger! Corey, you sneaky jerk”

The day it launched there were midnight launch parties across North America including one near the BW building. Numerous devs sat at long tables greeting fans and signing autographs as the fans picked up preorders. When midnight struck the line was long enough that it took several hours for some fans to get their game. One particular fan is remembered: “It was 3am. Some guy drove up from Calgary with his friends. He was like one of the last people in line. I think he was sort of tired-drunk. He threw himself across the tables, pulled up his shirt and shouted ‘Guys, sign my abs!’ And like I did, because he waited so long. It felt impolite not to. So I hope he enjoyed his copy of ME3″

For designing Protheans concept artists had free reign to design something that read as ancient

Before the concept art team had the story of the game to work toward, they explored wild ideas of their own including an image of the crew stealing back the Normandy to go after the Reapers

Jen Cheverie was testing scenes and was initially excited to be testing Mordin scenes, til she saw she was testing the Renegade version of his death. “This is even before like all of the audio and everything was in, so you didn’t even have the sad music. I remember sitting at my desk and my hands just went to my face when I saw that the gun Shep pulls on Mordin is the gun he gives Shep in ME2. I burst into tears and was crying for the rest of the day. People are waving to me as they walk by and I’m like, ‘It’s ok, I’m just killing my best friend’” 

There’s a segment called “Shepard’s story ends”. Casey on the ending: “There’s a whole bunch of things that come together to make it incredibly tense and emotional for players. I think the biggest one was the sense of finality, that whatever it was that happened in that very last moment... was it.” 

Wrapping up the story was a massive feat. In a way all of ME3 is an ending. Its final moments were the players’ last with a char they’d been with all the way from Eden Prime

“And while the critical reception of the game was extremely positive, many fans were unsatisfied with the ending, which became one of the most controversial in the history of games.” CH: “We were, on one hand, at the end of a marathon trying to finish the game and the series. But as devs we also knew that there would be more. We knew that we would continue to tell the story. In retrospect, we didn’t fully appreciate the tremendous sense of finality that it would have for people”. He envisioned an ending that posed new questions, something in the tradition of high sci-fi that left players dreaming about what that particular galaxy’s future could hold. “Frankly, there’s a lot more that we could have and should have done to honor the work players put in, to give them a stronger sense of reward and closure”

AAA games are massive undertakings with a million moving parts. Somehow they come together but even the best-planned projects don’t turn out quite like devs hope. From start to end video game production is a series of compromises. It’s rare if not impossible for devs to ship a game they’re entirely happy with. “I think that people imagine that when you finish a game, it’s exactly the way you wanted it to be. But whether people end up loving or hating the final result, we work hard to finish it the best we can, knowing that there’s a lot we would have wanted to do better. I think that’s true of any creative work”

As the dust settled after the initial reaction to the ending and later its epilogue, meant to show the wide-reaching ripple effects of Shep’s final choice, “players emerged mostly asking for one thing”. CH: “Now, most of what we hear, after both ME3 and MEA, is ‘Hey, just go make more Mass Effect’. And that to me is the most important thing. Knowing that players want to return to the ME universe is what inspires us to press on and imagine what comes next”

Mass Effect: Andromeda

By creating a new ME in a new galaxy the team was challenged to put their own visual stamp on the game while keeping it true to the franchise

Being the first ME game on a new gen of consoles meant for more detail

“Massive transport ships called arks populated with salarians, turians, humans, asari and quarians” made the risky jump to the Cluster

MEA was the first time BW had truly codeveloped across 3 studios: Edmonton, Montreal and Austin. The bulk of the work especially early on was done in Montreal, which was composed of a handful of Edmonton expats and heaps of experienced devs who joined from elsewhere specifically to bring a new ME experience to life. Series vets in Edmonton then came on to contribute writing, cinematics, design and QA, along with leadership from creative director Mac Walters and the core Production team. Austin writers and level designers also joined the fray

“It took a new team to take ME beyond the Milky Way”

Mac: “A lot of people in Montreal joined BW as fans of the franchise, so they just had this passion, and it felt like it was more like the days of Jade Empire, where a smaller younger team gets to do something for the first time. Even though it wasn’t necessarily a new IP for me, it felt fresh and new because of that. The team was just super excited to be working on it”

Early plans had the player exploring hundreds of worlds, procedurally generated, allowing for a nearly infinite variety of experiences. But as development wore on, it became clear that the game narrative required more specific, hand-touched level design on each world to keep the story focused and the experience engaging. “The plan was to give players numerous uncharted worlds to explore. Designers worked hard to come up with procedural elements that would make such planets special. Eventually the team made the difficult decision to abandon procedural planets in favor of more memorable hand-touched alien worlds, each with a specific story to tell”

One challenge was defining what ME meant without Shep. Care was given to include many of the MET’s key species. “Ryder recruited turian, asari, krogan and salarian followers”. Like Shep Ryder represents humanity’s hope for a peaceful coexistence among aliens who had long operated without human contact

Beginning with MEA the team decided that with few exceptions vehicles in ME have 6 wheels. Early Nomad concepts were bulkier. Later ones focused on its ability to move over its ability to protect itself from hostile fire, underlining the themes of exploration

German concept designer and auto-motive futurist Daniel Simon was contracted to create the Nomad and Tempest. The Tempest’s final design took inspo from the Concorde 

Concepts for angaran fighter ships have the following notes: “Two doors swing open, wings rotate down to function as landing struts, the landing struts split open. It has a spinning turbine engine 

Despite being set a galaxy away and some 600 years after Mordin’s death, there was a time when he had a cameo. It wasn’t cut due to running out of time however, it was cut due to drug references. John Dombrow explains: “One day I had to write a small quest for Kadara. I thought it’d be amusing if these 2 guys living way out on the fringes in a shack were growing plants for uh, medicinal purposes, and needed Ryder’s help with it. It occurred to me, wouldn’t it be amusing if Ryder had the option of actually trying ‘the medicine’ to see what would happen? And I thought, what if it turned into some hallucination that somehow involved SAM - like maybe SAM would sing? But why? How could I motivate that? Then it hit me. Who else in the ME game sings unexpectedly? MORDIN. As a nod to him I wrote SAM singing Modern Major-General. It got even better when our cine designer John Ebenger wanted to take it even further. Bless him, he came in on a Saturday to do a special hallucination showing Mordin himself. It was great. Til the fateful day we were told MEA had already been submitted to the ratings board. That’s when you declare things like drug references in your game. Mordin fell under that category which meant it was a no-go. We were too late”

Ryder’s white AI armor contrasts Shep’s iconic dark armor (intentional design)

Concept art for Ryder involved experiments with cloth (cloaks, ponchos, capes - “Pull here to release cloak”) and asymmetrical design elements

For alien design, there’s a few exceptions but humanoid figures are the ME standard and this persisted into MEA

Kett and angara concepts explored striking lines and textures 

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development