#i compared this to ruby and sapphire

[twildflower]

[aqqleshiqqing-archive]

during my brief absence in this blog I continued my hgss gameplay!! I stopped for a bit because I'm focusing on school and I'll continue it when it's over (starting Mondayyyy hehe)

me talking about my experiences as a blind player of hgss vvv

i finally met eusine (hi sarah <3) wherever suicine goes, eusine follows 😭 but hey I like his design! I tried out the pokeathlon(?) spelling?? yeah. but that thingy!! i had a uueueueu moment seeing ethan's jersey outfit he's so adorable 😭 i love his hair??? I was pleasantly surprised to see that's how it'd look like. unique even! anyways, the pokeathlon was suuuper fun, I had a lot of moments where I was just laughing from pure joy + my oddish aggressively breaking wood panels that's literally too small for him LMAAODKOAS that one made me laugh so hard...

when I finally got the HM for surfing I decided to backpedal for a bit to travel beyond the small streams in caves and rivers found in some routes. when I got back to new bark town and went past that river JUST NEXT TO MY HOUSE AND THEN THIS DUDE ON THE OTHER SIDE TELLS ME — OH HEY, YOU'RE IN KANTO NOW, I WAS LIKE ?;?!?!?!??!!?;?!? *ROCK EYEBROW MEME* ARE U FR.?? I was under the impression I'd had to take a special traveling option just to go to kanto BUT NO ITS LITERALLY NEXT TO MY HOUSE LMAOAOSODKSO I saw victory road in the map and got crazy excited 😭 (the satisfaction of finishing leaf green hasn't subsided yet so shh) then I saw mt silver on the map. the evil stupid grin I had DBBFBDBFBDD

anyways yeah that's it — I figured it'd be fun to write entries abt my gameplay since I don't remember much when I first started r/s/e back then :')

[infizero]

gawddddd i love him i love him so much

[primus-why]

I think it's funny that Cybertronian cuisine includes stuff like minerals and ores because there's always that classic fanfic trope of comparing someone's eyes to a precious gemstone, right? Like I've lost count how many times Megatron has been described as having "ruby red optics" or Optimus having "sapphire orbs"...

So now I'm giggling to myself imagining Megatronus picking up a jewel while walking in the market with Orion and it being like:

Megatronus: Your optics... they shine like this sapphire...

Orion: Oh! Thank you, Megatronus... *chomps on the mineral in one big crunch*

Megatronus, internally: Primus below I can't not frag him...

To see a better illustration of this scenario, check out this art by @staticoctopus !

[tassjis]

I want to talk about the Vault Gods and my design process

Each idol was drawn as though they were statues or altar peices, something of worship not necessarily what the gods look like but what the villagers would interpret their looks to be.

First I wanted to ensure that they looked like villagers, or have a villager template. The initial drafts has them with their arms together in a villager pose.

Each design had multiple aspects I gave them, a material, a gem, a minecraft mob, and an item

Idona The Malevolent, kill and sacrifice the marked to appease this god

The idol is designed after cinnabar a toxic red material with high levels of mercury.

Idonas item is the vault hunters altar with reference and designs inspired by Mayan and Aztec sacrificial alters.

They are designed to look like a bat and a Wolf with lots of sharp angles and shapes, with cultish and sacrifical undertones

The eyes are rubies, a gemstone that symbolises life force. They are cut with a 5 point star facet and bezel with means the eyes are also pentacles, there is also a hidden sacrificial knife in the eyes.

They say experience makes you wiser, but is it wise to give it up for treasure? Sacrifice your experience and knowledge to Tenos the Omniscient to be granted treasure beyond your wildest dreams.

Tenos is made of silver or iron, a pure metal that is reflective

Tenos has the enchanting table book, a potion of enchanting and xp balls

They are designed with a lot of softer rounder shapes compared to its counterparts and is based on a polar bear with angelic bird wings to give it a wise and pure vibe.

The eyes are sapphires, with a gemstone meaning of focus and inner vision. Tenos also is the one one to wear a gemstone accessory to give the allusion to a third eye.

Velara The Benevolent, sacrifice your health, sacrifice yourself to appease Velara, only then will you gain the riches

The idol is designed to look like oxidised copper. I wanted Valara to look like an old and ancient god from a forgotten religion, the kind where you find a forgotten statue in a forest overgrown with new life.

The like all the idols, it focuses on a theme relating to what you use to open the altars, so Valaras design is health or in this case life.

Velara has the fern and tall grass as its minecraft item.

Initially designed to be more rabbit like the design ended up becoming vague in animal and more bug like.

The eyes on Valara are emeralds that symbolise rebirth and growth.

Wendarr The Timekeeper, you only have limited time, will you sacrifice some of it to this god for riches?

Wendarr is a brass idol, a very common metal for clocks and timepieces to be made from.

Wendarr is designed to look the most like a villager with wings similar to that of DaVincis flying machine.

Unlike the other gods, Wendarr did not receive a minecraft item as I felt the minecraft clock did not fit the ancient and old aesthetic. Instead, they received an hourglass and an alluded clock face in the background, and some rococo inspired designs in the foreground.

The eyes are made of topaz, which apparently stands for manifesting clarity and astrology?

Anyway that's my thought process and some small details about each God and my designs.

[haphazardlyannotated]

So I was thinking about how Steven, Connie and Stevonnie all have a duet with one of the main Crystal Gems and I realised how masterfully these songs are deployed to tell us things about them.

First of all, On The Run for Steven and Amethyst.

Amethyst is the Crystal Gem who relates the most to Steven's experiences and vice versa. They're both the 'juniors' in their household, they've both been struggling with being respected by the older Crystal Gems for a while now, and though Amethyst is very much Steven's guardian when it comes down to it, she's also Steven's peer in a way that Garnet and Pearl just aren't even when they try to include Steven.

And now this song sets them up as parallels in other contexts, too. They're both from earth! They both don't wholly belong in one category (Steven as a half gem, half human, Amethyst as a Crystal Gem who never fought in the rebellion and whose existence runs against the Crystal Gems' original wishes for Earth), and as we are about to learn, they both came into existence at the cost of other life and might harbour guilt about it, even though they had literally no say in this.

And then later on they continue to be parallels, especially in season 3 (though they share the child of divorce energy during the Sardonyx Arc). They both compare themselves to impossible standards of what they 'should' be (Steven to the idea of Rose, Amethyst to Jasper) and it is their recognition of their own struggles in each other that allows them to at least partially overcome them. No wonder Smoky Quartz is Steven's first fusion with another gem!

Next up: Do It For Her, sung by Pearl and Connie.

Speaking of parallels! It's pretty obvious watching the episode that Pearl is spending some time in projection city regarding absolute devotion to a beloved, if not revered partner, but she might actually be closer to the truth in some respects than she realises.

Remember Lion 2: The Movie? When Connie said that she didn't understand why Steven would hang out with someone as normal as her? Doesn't this remind us of someone else who feels like she's objectively inferior to a special (in several ways) someone? Someone who stepped out of the predetermined role she was supposed to fill to join her loved one on their dangerous path? Who lived a double life to avoid retribution from controlling authority figures? Couldn't say.

Also, they're both the knowledgable planner to their all loving goofball partner.

With all of this, I think Do It For Her both draws parallels between Pearl and Connie as well as Pearlrose and Connverse, and shows us how the example of Pearl and Rose's unresolved dysfunction could stop Steven and Connie from falling into the same trap before it was too late. I think seeing Pearl demonstrate the end of the road they were beginning to walk was what enabled Steven to step in before they got to Pearlrose's point, where Pearl was to deep in her self sacrificing mindset for Rose to reach her.

And finally, Here Comes A Thought for Garnet and Stevonnie.

First of all, obviously, Garnet and Stevonnie as an embodiment of the love and harmony between Ruby and Sapphire and Steven and Connie respectively.

It also draws parallels between Ruby and Connie and Steven and Sapphire though. (I saw a great meta about that in my lurking days, which I will link here if someone could kindly direct me to it). Sapphire and Steven as people who would rather bury negative feelings, like Sapphire tries to in Keystone Motel and Steven in... the entirety of suf to name just the most prominent one. Which of course only leads to more problems in the long run, because they haven't processed the feelings at all.

On the other hand, the comparison with Ruby draws attention to a trait of Connie's we maybe wouldn't have noticed otherwise: She is, for the lack of a better term, much more confrontational about things that make her unhappy. Just look at The New Crystal Gems.

Also, letting Ruby and Sapphire demonstrate their conflict resolution for Steven and Connie gives us an insight into what goes into keeping Garnet together through everything. Love takes work indeed. It's also worth pointing out that Connverse have been paralleled with both Pearlrose, Rupphire and (a little bit in We Need To Talk) Gregrose this way.

This show has so many layers, I swear, I'll be on my deathbed and I'll still find new nuances to write an essay about. Well done, Crewniverse.

[would-this-pokemon-be-a-friend]

I gather that ghost-types don't really make good pets, but I'd love to see where Sableye ranks.

Sableyes earn a C rank, but it’s not for the same reason as most ghost-types…..mostly.

On the bright side, sableyes are little guys! They don’t need a lot of space to get around, but unfortunately their wild behavior necessitates a pretty specialized living space. The biggest issue with sableyes is their diet. Wild sableyes make their homes deep inside isolated caverns under the ground (Ruby) where they use their sharp claws to dig through rock in pursuit of their food: raw gems (Sapphire, Emerald). The discerning reader can probably already spot a couple of problems. For one, getting food for your pet is gonna have a pretty high price: providing your sableye with raw gems is going to get expensive fast, if you’re wanting to provide them with the good stuff. The other problem is their digging: these little guys are adept at digging through solid rock, so they could really do a number to your home or backyard when they can a little hungry. Due to their unusual gem-hunting lifestyle, this pokémon has a low ease of care compared to their size.

Are sableyes friendly to people? Well, it’s complicated. For one, they don’t have a lot of contact with us: sableyes are rarely seen since they living in dark, underground caves (Ruby, Emerald). They are often feared by humans due to stories about them having a sinister, supernatural power to steal the spirits of humans when their eyes glow in the darkness (Ruby). While this tale is certainly concerning, it isn’t confirmed as true in the pokédex, so we need to take it with a grain of salt. Are people afraid of sableyes because they actually have sinister intentions to humans, or are people afraid of them because of how unknown they are as rare, bizarre creatures? The jury is still out.

What the jury isn’t out on, however, is that sableyes can be pretty formidable foes. While they aren’t known to engage in battle often, aside from (mostly unsuccessfully) hunting carbinks for their gems (Sun), sableyes can use an interesting mix of physical and ranged attacks to fend off foes. Ghost-type moves like Night Shade and Shadow Ball make use of the supernatural to harm you in ways we don’t fully understand, while moves like Shadow Claw and Foul Play hurt you in a much more tangible way. Given their size and timid demeanor, it isn’t exceptionally likely that a sableye will try to harm you by attacking, but given their lack of socialization with humans this risk is always present. Plus there’s the factor that, if the folk tales are true, they could steal your spirit just by looking at you. I’m going to assume that’s not great.

While other ghost-type pokémon struggle in the ranking due to an outright malice towards humans or an indescribably power, sableyes score a C rank mostly for their low ease-of-care. Providing a pokémon that is used to scavenging for raw gems deep underground with a home adapted for their needs will be difficult and costly. Add in their latent power to do some serious damage if they want to, and you have the recipe for a pet that should only be handled by someone experienced with pokémon with similar lifestyles.

[quitealotofsodapop]

In any kind of Shadowpeach au: I like the idea of them finally tying/retying the knot after S3 with an official wedding, figuring that one too many near-death experiences warranted an actual ceremony. Heavily inspo'd by Ruby and Sapphire's wedding in Steven Universe.

The kids, the noodle gang, Demon Bull fam, Chang'e (via Zoom), Nezha, the villains and celestials they've befriended, and the monkeys of Flower Fruit Mountain all attend. It's both a big gaudy affair, but with only close friends allowed to attend.

Cue the very end of the wedding getting interrupted by the S4 return of Azure Lion and the rest of the Brotherhood. Like 90% of the guests immediately whip out their weapons.

And ofc the sight of imminent Shadowpeach marriage (+kids) causes some uh... problems with Azure Lion's attempts to come off as reformed. Things quickly go awry.

Wukong, in an elaborate peach-inspired imperial wedding dress: "This dress costs way too much money not to fight in it!" Macaque, in a Billy Porter-equse tux gown: "Peaches please. We paid so much for the open bar." MK (ring bearer), watching the carnage unfold: "I just wanted there to be a normal wedding..." :') Red Son, a bridesmaid: "Actually, compared to the demon weddings I've been to, getting crashed by a jealous past suitor is pretty normal.

As a side effect, lots of fights with the characters in fancy clothes.

[davekat-sucks]

the implication i got was that kanaya realized that rose was just her rebound from vriska all along and she never got over her, which is why she started to sympathize with jade's first world issues. also rose said that this wasnt the first time she used her dead mother in an argument, but it doesnt matter because rose knows kanaya is an enabler and will forgive her anyways. its all so fucking foul on both sides.

also funny how both kanaya and karkat used the humans as rebounds.

Yep. Kanaya using Rose as a rebound was kind of a thing back in the old fandom days. It's noticeable in Act 6 too because of how much she tries to be close with Rose becoming alcoholic and not doing a single damn thing to address the issue. It makes it worst by Post Retcon since Vriska is alive and now Kanaya can have TWO girlfriends still around. And it got worse when she adopted a cerulean to name her VRISSY. People paint Kanaya at that point as still not getting over Vriska. Fans of Kanaya want her to move on from the bad girl phase. She should be around people that are actually good like Karkat. Because the last time she had trusted someone who is awful, she got KILLED for it. Eridan was the final straw that she began to have trust issues. Kanaya using Rose as a rebound is now seen as bad. But you know it will never be said the same for Karkat with Dave. Because homosexuals are better than women. The nu-fandom doesn't think Rosemary is progressive as it used to be. They now prop Davekat as the true LGBT symbol. Sorry folks, but there are other lesbians that people like more and Rosemary ain't one of them. They aren't even top contenders like Bubbline, Garnet (Ruby and Sapphire), Poison Ivy x Harley, Undyne x Alphys, Utena x Anthy, or even recently Chaggie. Some could argue it's because those series are at least big named compared to Homestuck. But isn't this the same fandom that praised the comic for Rosemary being one of the few LGBT ships in a WEBCOMIC? Especially when it was around 2009-2012, way before LGBT was accepted in places like America and other countries. That the Internet was one of the few places to express whatever you want without consequence. So why isn't it talked about like the other ships? Because Homestuck is irrelevant and not important as it was.

[followthebluebell]

Skyrim things

I saw Blackreach for the first time and holy fuck.  Holy shit.  My god.  It is so beautiful.  It’s amazing.  I think it’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve seen in this game so far, except when i happened to catch the aurora borealis at night.  It’s a close contest.  It’s like comparing rubies to sapphires and trying to determine which sparkles more. I think I spent just a solid five minutes just looking at the place.  I actually am really enjoying finding crimson nirnroot because it gives me an excuse to just look around at the place.

Another unfun glitch: Serana was stuck in the Wounded Limping animation.  I had to reload a previous save and lost around 30 minutes of progress.  But that’s not too bad, really.  It could’ve been a lot worse. 

[pinkandpurple360]

If you ship RosePearl (Master and Servant between a ruler with bottom of society hierarchy) and RubySapphire (Codependency fluffed up as true love), its hilarious that you're tearing down and insulting the Hellaverse ships 💀

What’s with this weird hostility? “Tearing down and insulting” just means applying some scepticism to it.

Yeah…good thing I’m not really into that. I can ship people as exes, appreciate there are different types of love, and Pearl didn’t get her happy ending but can with someone new. Because Rose knew Pearl and her weren’t equals and may never be. So she let her go. That’s a type of mature love story I like to see.

My god. Don’t compare Pearl and Rose to Stolitz. What an insult. I think HelluvaReceipts did a great thread explaining why one works and one doesn’t.

As for Ruby and Sapphire, they are an alien species who can fuse together and it’s an important part of their alien biology. They communicate it as a mutual bond where Garnet is almost the equivalent of a lovechild. A physical manifestation of the relationship itself rather than the sum of two people. It’s hard to apply a human standard of relationships and psychology to that. Whereas in Hellaverse the concept of independence identity and consent are important.

Ok this made me love Garnet even more

[worldwidedino]

I cannot imagine Hardenshipping with the RSE designs. Is it because I grew up with ORAS marketed at people around my age (18-20 ish) and so I can’t imagine Gen 3 characters in their RSE designs at all? Or are the ORAS designs so appealing that the RSE designs look comparatively weird? Is it the lack of Gen 3 nostalgia because I was born in between the North American releases of Ruby/Sapphire and Emerald.

Also yes. Hardenshipping good. They are gay and in love(half the time).

[greetings-inferiors]

What game do you think most deserves a remake?

Any game ever? Kingdom hearts 358/2 days. That game is on the ds and it's still the best non numbered (i.e. 1,2,3, I get it is technically numbered but shut up) kingdom hearts game. It's a CRIME that only the cutscenes were added to HD 1.5 ReMix, especially since one of the things that made the narrative so compelling is that the cutscenes were the reward after a hard day of working missions. The cutscene collection is just the reward without any of the buildup, it sucks. It's fine I guess if you want to just experience days, but the actual game is SO FUCKING GOOD. I'd kill for a days remake. Giving it kh3-ish combat would solve one of the only problems with the game, the boring combat. I don't want them to add mission mode or the non-roxas playable characters, because I want them to focus on the main story, and the consequence of having about 20 playable characters is that every weapon has exactly one combo and it gets boring fast. KEEP THE PANEL SYSTEM THOUGH IT'S SO GOOD.

The only downside to a days remake is that there are certain scenes where Roxas visits places Sora had once been, and on the bottom screen you control Sora at the same time as controlling Roxas on the top screen, and like yeah I guess you could just cut to Sora but it's way less immersive. Still very much worth losing that one thing and getting a remake of one of the best kingdom hearts games, but still.

The only other kingdom hearts games that I'd want remakes for is kh2 (just to fix the disney worlds mainly. They're so distractingly awful compared to the rest of the game and the rest of the series) and Union cross (it's a bloody mobile game that no one's ever played with possibly the most important story in the series. At least the damo279 fandub is PHENOMENAL.)

Other games I want remakes for...

Persona 4, Persona 3 reload is absolutely phenomenal and I think that fixing persona 4's combat (every dungeon is a palace???) as well as all the other small things they could add could very well make it the best game of all time. Also you could call it Persona 4 Rewind and that's really funny

I'd love to see an omega ruby alpha sapphire level remake for pokemon Black and White, maybe even including black 2 and white 2. They've definitely got the best story of a mainline pokemon game (scarlet and violet's gets better, but it's only really the last few hours that are good) and I'd love to see them get a proper loving remake.

Last thing: Chibi Robo. I've never played it, but I've heard nothing but good things and the concept is FANTASTIC. Having a open world (but in reality it's just the whole house) Chibi robo game would be incredible. It's the most unlikely (okay maybe kh2 is more unlikely) one but I just think it'd be really good.

[otakween]

Digimon Tamers - Episode 45

I hesitate to call this the final battle because Digimon's always throwing out surprise bosses. That being said, considering how few episodes are left, this feels like the beginning to the end. They're finally confronting the D-Reaper head-on and they've digivolved to ultimate. The auxiliary folks are joining as well.

Looking back on it, this show has had really good pacing and hasn't really felt long at all. It was less segmented than previous seasons which I think helped it.

Notes:

I thought the kids' speeches in the beginning were kind of clunky. Jian brings up that he was spoiled "as a kid" (you still are a kid buddy) and Ruki talks about her dad randomly. Like...okay...I do get what they were going for, with the overall theme being how friendship has given them strength, but they shouldn't have brought up random stuff that hadn't been established before. Like Jian being spoiled and wanting attention isn't something we ever really saw, so I think he got over that before meeting Ruki and Takato.

Alice being licked by the disembodied head of Dobermon was more creepy than touching. I wish they had at least given him forelegs or something.

Alice walking away from the explosion like an action star was unintentionally funny

Glad to see the ultimate digivolution sequences again, definitely one of my favorite bits of animation from this series.

I guess the army (I know Japan doesn't really have an army...SDF?) has given up on fighting the D-Reaper lol. I guess it's a bit like shooting at a natural disaster: hopeless.

Takato addresses Dukemon by name which took me off guard because, isn't he a part of Dukemon? (Like in Steven Universe, Ruby or Sapphire wouldn't be like "hey Garnet!") Kinda fuzzy how this digivolution works from a body/soul/mind perspective.

Equally confusing is how the digimon are in their perfect forms (Rapidmon, MegaloGrowmon, and Taomon), yet to digivolve to ultimate they go back to their child forms first. (Probably for ease of animation honestly)

I feel like the D-Reaper felt like more of an immediate threat in the digital world. Like it went from insta-destroying everything it touches to just weakening things. Maybe the ultimate forms are more resistant?

I enjoyed seeing Kenta's mom for the first time. We don't get plus-sized (by anime standards) anime moms too often and I liked her design.

Very glad to see Antiramon again! I guess we haven't really seen them fight much yet, so I hope they get in on the action.

Impmon still bullies Culumon in the exact same way but now it has buddy-buddy undertones lol. Nice to see their relationship improve.

So I guess the D-Reaper used Juri to analyze the human race and deemed us unworthy. This is just your average "AI destroying its creator" plot line now. What exactly DOES D-Reaper find useful? I guess the AI learned nihilism and is just like "EVERYTHING IS MEANINGLESS." Mood.

Someone pointed out that Juri's behavior isn't too different than the dark seed kids from 02, which is a good point. With only 6 episodes left...I don't think Tamers is really that dark compared to the other seasons. It had that one episode that got kinda edgy, but in the grand scheme of things, nothing too brutal. Well, we'll see.

[dazeddoodles]

Lol u drew one suggestive Raeda and you live in harmony as the "spicy Raeda artist"

Btw I love the correlation of Raine to Lapis, any chance u would extend it to other SU characters?

I live in infamy as "the spicy Raeda artist" more like. Also thank you (for changing the subject lol)

I actually was discussing over on my Instagram thre idea of drawing young Raine as Connie (and potentially vice versa). Both love interests with glasses, who play the violin and end up being skilled fighters. Also have a friends to lovers relationship with the character who they end up with despite one keeping secrets from the other, and are "jam buds" (Steven's guitar is kinda like Eda's mandolin?)

I also had another comic idea where after defeating Belos Raine tells Darius they're moving in with Eda, and Darius gets upset because he thought he, Raine, and Eberwolf would live together to raise Hunter "like in Steven Universe". The joke would be that Darius thinks he's Garnet and Raine's Pearl, but Raine assumed Darius would be Pearl. (Eberwolf is Amythest and Hunter Steven ofc)

Then of course I've seen a few people compare Eda and Raine to Ruby and Sapphire. So they're Garne-

[sirenspells]

Okay so I have a dilemma for pmd au, and that is: I don't know if pokemon as a series exists in the human world/Sunny and Mari's world

Whether or not I do it, a funny thing about Sunny and Mari compared to the protags of actual pmd games is that they do not know what pokemon are. They literally wake up in the pokemon world and have literally no idea what strange creatures they've just turned into, which is really funny

Here's the thing, I'm not sure if I'll have it where pokemon exists, but if it did, it would be really funny. Cause here's the thing, considering the time period OMORI takes place in, pokemon would've had around up to Gold and Silver out. So not only would Mari and Sunny end up in a world populated by creatures based on a game series back in their world, but this world is populated by species of pokemon that don't even exist yet

Imagining Sunny and Mari waking up from their coma and Ruby and Sapphire coming out soon after and them going "what the fuck" as they recognize all the new pokemon added in the game, with one of them being the pokemon that Sunny literally lived as for a year

And this keeps happening for each new game that comes out. It takes like ten years for Espurr and Meowstic to finally come out. And don't even get me started on when the first entry in the pokemon mystery dungeon series comes out