#ive also made a lot less art than i would have liked and its disappointing to me personally... but ive been making excuses for myself and

[kitnapz]

because so much of my art inspiration and creativity was based in like, fanculture and popular media, i often feel like im just waiting around for the next thing i get invested in. first it was homestuck, and then it was demon slayer, and then i never really found "the next thing" i get hyperfixed on and make art for. idk if its because ive just become busier or if im just waiting around for something thatll never come

[unlimitedtrees]

talkin' about the largest level from my game, 'UNITRES Dreams' , called ~DREAMSCAPE DISTANCE - SECTION 2~

hello. today i want to talk about the level 'Dreamscape Distance - Section 2' from the game i made, 'UNITRES Dreams'. this level is one of the largest levels i've ever made in any of my games, and it's something i'm really proud of and want to talk a little bit about. so click the read more thingy if you wish to learn more about it,,

also , By The Way, play da on newgrounds ehehehehe ~! or u can download it on itch.io too if you want

the version of this level in the final version of the game is one of the most ambitious things ive ever done and is something im Really proud of. to sum it up... it is the largest level in the entire game, with tons of paths and secrets, with there being things you can only find once in the level in Very Specific places. it was one of the last levels to be completed, and it's one of my favorites. but before i can get into the specifics... i want to first talk about its history.

when development of unitres dreams began, it was a much slower paced game, with the controls being a lot more simplistic and level design being more focused on linear platforming against enemies that constantly shoot bullets at you. both 'sections' of dreamscape distance were completely different early in development, having a different tileset and level layouts.

dreamscape distance - section 2 at this time was a lot more basic than the one in the current version of the game. it was linear and didnt have a whole lot of stuff going on. in fact, when i first invisioned it, it wasn't supposed to be anything. it was kind of just another city level where at the end you fight against the spaghetti monster you just created in a cutscene in the last level. there was One other thing i had in mind when i first created the level, but unforunately it was cut from the final game. i was planning on having there be puzzles in this level which youd solve using the party swapping mechanic. each character would have separate traits which would be used in the puzzle. i dont remember fully what the puzzles would have been like, but i think you wouldve had to the '??????' character to punch the 'trees' character across the room. sadly, at that time of development i originally gave myself a deadline of having the entire game come out on may 9, which was like less than 3 months from when i started development on the game. So, with me having little time to come up with the planning and programming and artwork for an entire puzzle section in One level, i decided to just remove it. this meant that the party swapping mechanic in the final game had a lot less purpose than what i hoped it would have... but oh well.

one idea i Tried to implement from the very beginning of the level's conception was the flying car gimmick... i wanted to have a set piece where you're flying through buildings and ships, shooting enemies with bullets and having the spaghetti boss fight be a bullet hell fight... but Well...

not only was the car itself kind of messy, but the spaghetti boss ended up being really disappointing for me. since the screen's size was really small, there wasnt a whole lot of room for you to move around in. not only that, but i couldnt really do any complex attacks from the boss, as all the bullets took up a lot of space on screen and you couldnt really see things coming ahead. so, all of the boss's moves are very basic and either incredibly easy to dodge or incredibly annoying to dodge.

so yea. i was really disappointed overall with the game back then. so, i then decided to completely change the gameplay to be more fast paced, have more movement abilities, and have more open levels with things to do. i also decided on completely remaking most of the old levels, with both of the Dreamscape Distance sections being entirely remade with new art, level design, and gimmicks. i wanted the new levels to be prettier, more fun to go through, and to leave a really good first impression. Dreamscape Distance - Section 1 was one of the first levels i remade (and i might have a lot to talk about it later... we'll see!), but Dreamscape Distance - Section 2 was one of the last levels to be finished, as at first i wasnt sure what i wanted to do with it yet.

But Then, i finally realized what i wanted to do with it, and i spent like a whole entire month dedicated to making it the most largest level ive Ever made... i wanted it to be a sort of magnum opus for me. i wanted this level to leave a lasting impression on you at the very beginning of the game. I spent Days working on just the level collision Alone, and took even longer putting in all the artwork and objects. the level even got updated multiple times to add even More stuff to it after the game came out...

and well, im not sure if other people feel the same about it, but for me it is one of my favorite levels in the whole game. im gonna talk about it now.

first off, i wanna talk about the inspirations for the level. i wanted to turn it from a simple "city area" into a whole mall area. i wanted it to feel Huge and dreamlike, so a lot of it is inspired by my own personal memories of an old mall i used to go to when i was young. one Specific thing i can bring up is the air balloons area that appears at the beginning of the level...

you see, the mall i used to go to had this sort of sculpture thing of a cartoony air balloon in the clouds... i dont remember much of it but i wanted to include something like it in the level. it's something you can Easily miss, but just before you encounter the first POLYCAR section, you can find a bunch of large air balloons floating above, and you can even bounce on the balloons like large bumpers.. it is such a specific set piece that only appears at this specific part of the level that i love so much. my only wish is that i spent more time on the art for the balloons themselves,, theyre kind of just a repeating tile set, but it is what it is.

that area is actually full with even More specific things you can only find there. just below where the balloons are, there is an entire part of the level where you can find two hidden NPCs if you go down far enough... i wont say who one of them are, but i Will tell you about the 'Vie' character...

when you first talk to her, she will give trees all of her flowers so that they can spread them all across the levels. every level from then on will have flowers placed All Over. it is such a small detail that i loved implementing, and it's something you can Only find in one incredibly easy to miss area. That is kind of what the whole spirit of the game is for me and what i want to implement in my future works,, the idea of there always being something new to find,, i wanted it so you can just get Lost in this level and find something weird to do. i may not have been able to accomplish a Whole lot with this (due to me being the Only developer working on this in my spare time), but i am really proud of what i managed to accomplish with this game...

Anyways, speaking of NPCs, this level has the Most NPCs out of every level in the game, and some of them are in Incredibly Specific places. a lot of the NPCs are actually cameos from my close friend's OCs, and im really happy they let me include their characters as little secrets in my silly little game. my Only regret is that i didnt get to create as many original characters as i wanted (as making the NPC sprites along with dialogue portraits and writing takes Longer Than You Think), but i at least was able to implement the clown trio in Chaotic Carnival... which is a story for another day...

So , after the room with the balloons, you enter the first area with the 'POLYCAR'. the design is a Lot simpler... just a diamond that moves around, but i like it a lot more than the old design, and it even controls better too. one of the important changes i made to the new version of the car is that the screen actually zooms out when you enter it, this allowed me to make the car sections more larger and for the spaghetti boss to actually be Good and like an actual bullet hell. But Anyways...

after the first POLYCAR section, you are dropped into an area with two SAVE points, along with a sign in the middle that tells you that that there's a left and right path you can take. these signs were something added later on in an update as a sort of easier way of adding more NPCs into the level without actually designing a new character, and i really like them. i managed to add a lot of these in a bunch of random spots, and while i am not proud of most of my writing, i Really like some of the stuff i wrote for these signs. they're Interesting.

so, something that only this level does is there's a left and right path which takes you to entirely different parts of the level. the left path has a few level gimmicks that dont appear at any other part in the level and is also a faster path to take, while the right path is Large and has tons of NPCs and set pieces that you skip by taking the left path. this is something ive Always wanted to, from even as far back as my old fangames, but always been afraid of doing as in a lot of cases, players will just get Lost when you make the level go in a direction that Isn't just a straight path forwards. Luckily, i think this kind of level design worked here, as the left path is a Little more linear and easy to get through compared to the right path. the left path is also more crazier, with you having to go Down, then right and then left again. so it's probably a bit more confusing, but the few playthroughs ive seen of it seem to understand it after a bit, so i think it worked out.

the left path i wont get into too much, as i think it's better for you to experience for yourself. i Will say that there's a window sprite you can find there that doesnt appear anywhere else in the level. i wanted that part of the level to feel more like a City than the rest of the level, but i didnt get to do as much with it due to time. it's still pretty neat, though. the left path is generally focused on straight Gameplay, while the right path (which is the one most people take) has a lot more Things to do.

for one, the right path is very Vertical, with tons of little areas you can find. i wanted to make the right path look like a bunch of shops, but while i didnt get to make too much art for it, you can find things such as tiny cash registers and shelves, along with scrolling walls with hearts, stars, and diamonds on them. there are, of course, Tons of NPCs and signs you can find here.

one specific NPC i'll tell you about is the 'Stealth' NPC, who is based off my friend stealth's squirrel character. just to the right of him, you can find a swimming pool which appears Nowhere Else in the level, along with a polygonal palmtree. something else you can find which only appears on the right path are escalators which move you upwards... these are also inspired by the old mall, and while i wish i couldve designed better artwork for them, i just like that theyre there.

there's a lot of specific gimmicks and areas in the right path that you can just Miss by only going one way. i dont think i will reveal every single NPC and secret in this level as i think it's best to find it yourself, but i Will say that at the very bottom of the right path you can find a hidden area with a hidden sign and NPC..

last specific little thingy about the level ill get into is that, at the end of the level you exit the mall and the background turns into a bright night sky with an ocean full of little flowers. i have nothing much to say about this other than it's pretty. also at the end of the level i tried doing a little thing where you have to go right and then left and the up and right again to get to the end, which is something i tried carrying over from the old level. idk if it worked out well but i like it anyways LOL!

so. now that ive talked about all the specific parts of the level that make me love it a lot, let me get into the Issues with this level. you see, it being large is a Curse. with it being the largest level in the game with the most objects in it, it lags like Hell. at least for me, anyways. on both of my computers it runs at like, 40 fps during most of the level, and at like 30 fps and the very end of the level. Now, i have seen people run the level at 60 fps... id imagine youd need a good pc to actually run it at full speed. but it isnt too slow for me that it's Unplayable.. and my computers arent exactly Powerful.. so i cant imagine how this level plays on a computer that is Worse. there's nothing i can really do about it. the lag is kind of the only thing that prevents me from replaying this level a billion times, especially since it Also takes awhile to load the level. it's a small price to pay for ambition...

my last real problem with the level is that i wish i could do even More with it. theres so much i wish i could add to it to make it feel even more alive,, such as making the "shops" feel like Actual Shops. i designed the level collision first before anything, so there are a lot of things i had in mind that i never got to fully detail with the artwork. my biggest fear with adding more art is that id make the level lag even More.. which is something i dont want to do. i think the big culprit for the lag is the scrolling walls with the hearts and stars on them... You See, i am Stupid and dont know how to make proper effects in construct 2... and the tiled background object type which is good for the sort of repeated texture that is used in the game can Not be animated.. so in order to pull off the scrolling animation, i made a 32x32 object with a bunch of frames for the animation and just. Copied that object a billion times. so there are Thousands of instances of this object all across the level. so yeah, that is very bad and dumb of me and i probably couldve done something way better. idk.

overall, even if i didnt manage to fully go all the way with the level, im still really proud of what i managed to do with it and the level is really important to me. i think the only time ive managed to Somewhat surpass it so far was with the level in the demo for my game 'TREES' ADVENTURE', which i tried making just as large and open as this level, along with having tons of secrets. That level i will probably have to talk about another time, but for now i'll say that while it is probably one of my most polished and prettiest levels ive Ever made, i still wish i couldve done more with it and also it just doesn't have as much going on as Dreamscape Distance - Section 2 does.

so yea. dreamscape distance - section 2 is one of the most prettiest levels ive ever made and is absolutely massive. if you're a freak for Sonic CD like me, i dare you to play it and spend as much time as you want in it, exploring for all the secrets. it may not be a Whole lot, but you might find something really neat. i hope someday someone could appreciate the weird stuff ive made the same way i have, but also i'm just fine with having this level even exist. there isn't anything like it.

that's All, play unitres dreams on newgrounds dot com EHEHHEEHE !!

[plagueislost]

Hii, for the artist ask game: number 4 and 10 is something I'd love to know :3

i wrote A LOT for this ask, sorry! i wanted to do the questions justice, yknow how it is.

4. piece you wish got more love?

Ive found from experience that original art tends to not do very well on social media, which kind of makes me sad. It's not much of a problem for me (because most of the stuff i post is fanart anyways) but i can't help but think that part of the reason i rarely ever draw original pieces or make OCs is because of the lack of feedback i get on social media. I know tumblr is supposed to be the fandom website, and maybe id have a different experience on another site, but it is disappointing when i post something original that I'm very proud of and it barely manages to get more than 20 notes, whereas something i like less easily surpasses 100 just because of the tags i put on it. i think the most recent example of this is this piece, which admittedly did get quite a few notes for an original piece, but definitely would have gotten more had it been fanart of the same caliber. this is also not to blame anyone or make anyone feel bad about not reblogging original art (god knows im guilty of that too, and art piggybacking off the popularity of other works of art are of course gonna get more notes), its just something ive noticed from my time on social media.

10. how do you deal with artblock?

i dont get art block very often, but when i do, its ANNOYING. it mostly manifests in me having a bunch of motivation for a part of my process that i cant get to without doing the stuff i have no desire to do (does that make any sense?). like, ill have a strong urge to render an artwork, but no ongoing WIPs that are at that stage, meaning i would have to sketch and color and shade a whole new piece before i could satiate that urge, or do the steps out of order which could mess up the flow and end look of a project. when i get like this, i find its best to try and translate those desires into different activities and take a step away from art. for example:

if i want to sketch, but nothing comes out right digitally, ill find a scrap piece of paper and a crappy pen and make thumbnails until i cant think of any other iterations of the ideas in my head. if one of them turns out good, ill take a picture and transfer it into my software, but only go over it a day or so later so i can have fresh eyes.

if i want to color, but i have no sketches currently ready for coloring, ill go into my photo editing program, find some random old photos that i never edited, and post-process them until i get something im happy with.

if i want to shade, but have no colored artworks ready for that, ill usually do a study of a photo ive taken, because most of the time me shading is really me wanting to see how light and shadow interact in certain scenarios. i actually did a whole AP portfolio on that because i liked shading and lighting so much!

if i want to render, but ive got no pieces ready for rendering, i find its easiest just to find a tedious activity where i can be a perfectionist but also feel like im the smartest person in the world. this generally turns into me cooking some big meal because its constantly engaging but also not that difficult. i know its probably weird for it to not have anything to do with art but this is just what works best for me, and i get the bonus of a nice meal at the end of it!

if i get the more classic kind of art block where everything sucks and nothing i make is good, i find its best to go back to the media that inspires me to make art, and not worry too much about having made something by the end of it. generally the media that inspires me ends up, well, inspiring me, and i can remind myself that art is a voluntary practice that i do because its fun, not because i want something out of it. if it doesnt manage to inspire me, thats okay, i can just tell myself im taking a break and live life for a bit.

i hope that was helpful, and i really enjoyed answering these questions! if anyone else wants to ask a question, the artist ask game is here.

[agalnamedlunasea]

No one asked but fuck it, here's my thoughts on all the swimsuit sprites for danganronpa

Makoto 9/10

I actually really love when they put makoto in boring clothes. Its always so perfect for him. That said, it IS still kinda boring

Kiyotaka 6/10

Honestly the more I look at it the more I enjoy it. I did have an initial "no no NO" reaction, but Honestly the more I think about it the more I can see him wearing it, and when people comment on it, him defending it as "standard swimwear" and it gives him "less resistance when swimming". However the look of it is pretty boring and it makes his legs look far too long. Also he is far too ripped

Byakuya 7/10

Its pretty much fine, it looks a lil uncomfortably tight, and I wish the gold was more evenly distributed throughout the suit. The strong emphasis the gold puts around the junk is.... not my favorite. But otherwise it looks fine, and yay no abs

Mondo 8/10

Its basically just his coat as swim trunks, they look fine, no real notes. Its solid.

Leon 9/10

Exactly what I'd expect for leon. I really dig the jacket and the gradient on the trunks. The outfit is really solid. The pose they chose is an odd choice but no points lost. Made me Google if baseball players have/ should have abs, ive decided they're fine

Hifumi 9/10

I should note that a good chunk of the scoring is based on how fitting it is for the characters, rather than the look itself. Hifumi would 100% wear swim trunks of his favorite character, regardless of how it looks. Its just fine.

Yasuhiro 10/10

Absolutely perfect stoner/lazy dad vibes. The prints, the somewhat clashing colors that doesn't hurt the eyes, its perfect for him

Chihiro 8/10

Oh thank God. I was so worried about what they'd do for chihiro and honestly its good. Its *slightly* more feminine than I'd go, but it absolutely works. Bright blue and yellow feels like a bit of an odd choice for him, but its still pretty flattering on them.

Sayaka 7/10

Its fine i guess? The shawl is a bit odd, and could go for a bit more pink,but otherwise its fine.

Kyoko 8/10

It's pretty basic, but it fits. Personally I'd have put her in something either high waisted or a one-piece, but it works. I love the gloves with it.

Aoi 8/10

It'd be hard to find something that doesn't work for her at all,and this one is fine. Its a bit of a weird color for her skintone though. Maybe a blue or a different shade of yellow would be better.

Toko/ Jill 10/10

I. Am. Obsessed. I really love the sash, and how it along with the gradient on the bikini changes depending on which of them is fronting. She looks really cute and I think its perfect for her.

Sakura 9/10

Its cute and frilly and she looks beautiful! Its what she deserves. My only note is I'd have picked a less saturated shade of pink. Otherwise perfect 👌

Celeste 10/10

Absolutely perfect for her, and it looks so cute on her. No notes.

Junko 1/10

Excuse me?!? Ms. Junko Enoshima, ultimate despair and fashionista in a *school swimsuit* ?! Absolutely fucking not. What happened to the bikini from the promo art? I really hope there's a plot reason for that or something because what the fuck

Mukuro 3/10

The suit itself is fun and cute but it doesn't feel very mukuro. Im also sooooo disappointed that we're not getting un-disguised mukuro sprites. If anything I think she and junko should switch. She deserves better.

Monokuma 10/10

No notes, exactly what I'd expect

Thh average: 7/10, overall decent.

Hajime 7/10

It looks fine. The orange is unexpected but fine. The radial design is not my favorite but its subtle so I guess it works ok. Its overall kinda boring but it works, though less so than Makoto's boring-ness.

Nagito 9/10

Gay rights! Nah but really I do like the blue on him, its good.

Imposter 8/10

Definitely better than byakuya's. The white is nice on him and is less of a contrast with the gold than black is, which helps a lot. I think he looks great.

Gundham 9/10

The trunks are perfect and I love that he's keeping the scarf and bandages like the absolute chunnibyo he is. Absolutely works

Kazuichi 9/10

Perfect adaptation of his jumpsuit into trunks. Also thank God they kept the beanie. I love kazuichi but no hat on him is a lil cursed.

Teruteru 5/10

Ehhh it fits but I really don't dig it. The roses are weird, as are the black top with white shorts. Not my favorite but its not bad...

Nekomaru 10/10

Exactly what he'd wear. Perfect.

Fuyuhiko 9/10

The trunks really work for him and I dig the necklace with it, its a nice touch

Akane 8/10

Its the same one from the game. It fits and looks nice, but I was kinda hoping for something new. Its at least nice to see her in it without all the blood. Also no abs makes me sad on her especially.

Chiaki 9/10

Again, same one from the game, but it looks perfect on her, no complaints.

Sonia 8/10

It looks really cute on her! They actually picked a flattering shade for her skin tone. The wrap is a little bit long and I can't tell if its supposed to be bulky or if Sonia just got wide ass hips. But she looks cute.

Hiyoko 9/10

Exactly what I'd expect. Slightly too saturated but still cute.

Mahiru 8/10

Wouldn't expect blue but its cute. However the white dots on blue combined with her red hair makes my dumb American brain think 4th of July :/. I think she'd look cuter in a gingham pattern but this works just fine.

Mikan 4/10

I can smell the fanservice coming off of this one. The white of her bikini and bandages makes her seem really washed out, and the bandages look really odd with that style of bikini. Not a fan.

Ibuki 10/10

Perfect for her and super cute. I love the style of it.

Peko 8/10

Same as in the game. So no surprises but still cute.

Izuru 6/10

Very basic and kinda boring. I think a little detail could be nice, but it works

Monomi/Usami 10/10

Look at her!! She's so cute, i love the floatie and the goggles and ruffle, I love it.

SDR2 average: 8/10. Probably my favorite collection overall.

Komaru 3/10

Nooooooooo!! Where's the cute one-piece from the promo art? That one looked much cuter. The shape of the bikini is ok I guess, but that color is awful on her. How could they do my girl like this.

Masaru 9/10

Exactly what I'd expect, I dig the asymmetrical pattern.

Jataro 10/10

I love the jacket!!!!!!! I love that its long and I dig the camo. I also like the cut of the shorts. He looks great.

Kotoko 9/10

Cute, and exactly what I'd expect. No notes.

Nagisa 7/10

Pretty basic but fitting. It looks kind of incomplete tho. I think he'd wear a rash guard.

Monaca 8/10

About what I expected but a little plain.

Kurokuma and shirokuma 9/10

They both look cute! I dig the hats and I love the floatie for shiro

Hiroko 8/10

The jacket is cute and helps the bikini clash less with her hair. Overall looks nice.

UDG average: 8/10, jataro is definitely making up for komaru's lost points.

Shuichi 7/10

This one is just,, so close to being great. The jacket should either be zipped or unzipped, and short sleeved, or maybe even no sleeves. Also the shorts look way too small. Just make them normal trunk size. The idea is just fine but its just a lil off.

Kaito 9/10

As expected, trunks in his signature pattern. Perfect

Ryoma 9/10

It looks fun but a touch off. Maybe give him some sunglasses or something. But overall nice.

Rantaro 6/10

The pink is an odd choice but its fine i guess? I like that he's keeping the jewelry tho.

Gonta 8/10

Cute, absolutely fits him, but its a little boring. Kinda wish they gave him the ponytail he has in the 10th anniversary outfit.

Kokichi 6/10

The shorts are fine, but a lil odd. I miss the jacket from the promo art, so this looks less complete. They got rid of his weird as shit abs though thank God.

Korekiyo 8/10

The wetsuit is very fitting, and I like the design of it, even though it's a bit generic. Keeping the bandages feels a little weird.

Keebo 10/10

The floatie!!!! The goggles!!!!! I love it!!!!

Kirumi 7/10

Its cute,but it doesn't feel very kirumi. I feel like she'd wear a one-piece tbh, or at least not such a small bikini. But I guess its fine.

Himiko 1/10

Oh noooooo what the hell is that? My poor girl, she looks like she bought a shitty cave person Halloween costume, someone stole half of it, and she decided to wear it anyway. It doesn't fit himiko at all, and aside from that it looks terrible. I simply do not believe that himiko wouldn't wear something more "magical" looking. Maybe like purple with some ruffles? Or something with a shawl? Who the hell decided to put her in a one shoulder brown bikini?! I hate it.

Maki 10/10

I really dig the straps and the slightly desaturated red. Give her some abs and its perfect.

Tenko 4/10

Do I believe tenko has good fashion sense? No. Do I believe she'd wear a pink gingham bikini? Also no. It just feels too preppy and feminine for her. Not that she isn't feminine at all, but I think a cool color and either a one-piece or shorts would fit way better.

Tsumugi 7/10

Its suitably boring,but the color feels a little off for her skin tone. Maybe if she and hina swapped color schemes, they'd both be better.

Angie 5/10

Its cute, but its literally just her v3 outfit without the yellow shawl. Paintbrushes and everything. Its a bit disappointing.

Miu 8/10

Of course Miu would wear a leopard print bikini. It absolutely fits her. Maybe they could have done more, but I'm satisfied with it.

Kaede 7/10

The blue is a weird choice for her. If she and tenko swapped thatd work a little better. I just think it'd be nice if they kept her in her signature colors.

V3 average: 7/10, definitely my least favorite overall but its still good.

[yeoldontknow]

catch up tag 🌸

tagged by beautiful angels @chillingtae and @yoonia to do this catch up tag. thank you so much loves! i hope you guys are having a happy friday <3 <3

1. what do you prefer to be called name-wise?

kat is fine! i introduce myself to people as kat. if youre using my full name youre either upset with me or a member of my family lmao

2. when is your birthday?

jan 23

3. where do you live?

nyc

4. three things you are doing right now?

working (waiting for one of my systems to load which has been bogged down and super slow lately), listening to my spotify release radar (which is....not great today im disappointed), mentally drafting lines and description for the next hero chapter as im in the mood to write today but im absolutely not in a romantic place lmao

5. four fandoms that have peaked your interest?

uhhh ill list fandoms ive written fanfic for! kpop (obviously), merlin, muse, and supernatural (but like really specifically supernatural seasons 2-5)

6. how has the pandemic been treating you?

i mean....50/50. my company is amazing and i know im super privileged. ive been working from home since the end of february and corporate have been extremely generous (giving us additional time off, mental health days, extending summer fridays until end of 2021, compensating for home office needs, restructuring work from home policies to accommodate parents). i got a bonus in june in place of my raise due to financial tensions but was confirmed for another promotion next year - even was offered a new job, literally straight offered didnt even need to interview, to create my own team in a different department. i have a roof over my head and food on my table. my family is healthy, my parents are retired and safe. like...im so so so grateful.

mentally and emotionally and creatively...i am struggling. a lot of my inspiration for fics comes from being out in the city and observing people and their interactions. even architecture inspires me. the act of moving through a city inspires nearly all of my fics (like..i think everyone can sense that lmao asas is in london, light sakura is tokyo, all quiet is movement through spaces, hero was inspired by a building in harlem). not having that kind of motion and observation has made writing really hard. and also just...the news and the onslaught of hyper-reality. its been utterly daunting and ive found myself completely burned out more this year than ever before. usually my burnout hits during new years or the holidays. ive spent part of summer and part of autumn and literally all of november just...vacant.

so yeah. 50/50

7. a song you can’t stop listening to?

Flexibility of Mind - GRoost

8. recommend a movie?

Summer Wars (2009, hosoda mamoru)

9. how old are you?

31

10. school, university, occupation, other?

currently employed at a major company in the arts & entertainment industry

11. do you prefer heat or cold?

cold!!!! its so easy to warm up and bundle. who doesnt love cozy socks and hoodies and slippers <3 <3 its so hard for me to cool down in the summer and i hate sweating lmao

12. name one fact others may not know about you?

uhhh i worked in music supervision while getting my masters and the two degrees i have do not necessarily relate to the work i do now lmao

13. are you shy?

i can be. im definitely introverted and find other people to be way, way more interesting than i am. i enjoy listening to people talk about their passions and what interests them, and this also means that i dont say much or say anything at all about myself, really. im not usually the first person to engage in a group or even to introduce myself first to someone unless i get the sense there is someone uncomfortable (with the energy, the topic, the setting, etc) and then i will put myself in a position of leadership to make them feel safe

14. preferred pronouns?

she/her !

15. biggest pet peeves?

people who react rather than respond to criticism or confrontation; people who instigate drama; really loud groups of people on public transportation

16. what is your favorite ‘dere’ type?

i dont believe i have one

17. how would you rate your life from 1-10, 1 being crappy and 10 being the best it could be?

ill say like...8

18. what is your main blog?

this one - yeoldontknow

@yeoldontknowiread is for ficrecs

20. is there something people need to know about you before they become friends?

i can be pathologically secretive in that i dont really talk about myself or what my day has been like or what im up to unless something happens that is exciting or interesting. being an introvert also means that my regard for our friendship will define it as something sacred and i will likely be more devoted (though quietly so) than you might be if youre an extrovert. im really passionate about things and if i sense that you are not as passionate about those same things i will likely not bring them up again unless i feel like you want to hear about it. it might take me a while to respond to texts or messages, but it doesnt mean i love you less. there could be long periods of inactivity in our friendship but if someone else asks me about you i will say i love you and you are special to me and will call you a close friend even if its been years since weve last talked

tagging: @yehet-me-up @kyungseokie @jenmyeons @jamaisjoons @j-pping @yeolville @loeybeans @ditzymax @imdifferentshadesofpurple @red-exo @iris-somnia @inkedtae @yeojaa @hobi-gif @sahmfanficbts @snackhobi @delhyun @yutacrush @nunchiwrites @blackberrykai @kimtaehyunq @jiminiethot and anyone else who wants to do this. i know i tagged a lot of people but really i just want to check in on you and see how youre all doing. as always please only do so if you wish <3

[its-jijii]

chuuya’s masculinity

i was talking to hannah and thinking about the whole chuuya feminine/masculine debate and decided its time to write an essay on this. i have been waiting for the opportunity. and now my thoughts are gathered, so prepare for a mildly frustrated tangent abt the portrayal of chuuya in canon and in fan-made things.

i think that there are a lot of factors in play that influence how people see chuuya, the main one being canon content of course. in the manga, i do not get the vibe that he is feminine or weak in any way; in fact, he’s very aggressive and his stance indicates that he does not intend to be viewed as less. i will agree that the anime portrays him as more feminine: he has a higher pitched voice, and he is short. 

my problem with this is both the people who take that as being feminine, and the people who try to say chuuya is not feminine or weak. i don’t enjoy seeing chuuya in dresses not because i view it as feminine and therefore weak- rather, the circumstances of the source that makes me dislike it. for instance, primarily when he is drawn in dresses, he is clearly annoyed and doesn’t like it. i believe that to be because despite his “feminine” body type, his personality is very masculine. the way he acts and speaks does not imply that he is weak or feminine in any way.

my thought process isn’t dress = feminine = weak, so chuuya in a dress = weak, but in contrast, he is doing nothing about it. he is out of his comfort zone and obviously doesn’t enjoy it, yet he always seems compliant in wearing a dress. all of that is also usually for dazai’s entertainment, in some way. same thing when i see scenarios of them on an undercover mission together. one always dresses up like a girl, and that is usually chuuya. that is still because people equate his height and body type with girls, which makes sense to a certain degree, but one i still disagree with.

chuuya’s body type has almost nothing to do with being feminine, in my opinion. subconsciously people equate his height with femininity, which is not really the case. i don’t think they are necessarily equating his body with that of a girls and determining its weak. rather, they likely look at his height and body build and think “that’s weak.” that has no direct relation to being feminine, nor is it true. i think everyone knows he is far from weak, he is just never portrayed in the way he should be: masculine and dominant. 

his body type being feminine does not change the fact that he is strong and fit; his outfit doesn’t exactly show that off, so his features can be dumbed-down to long hair, cute face, and curves. this is completely disregarding his personality and actions, which annoys me considerably. in people there are often traits that are tied together- outgoing and dominant, quiet and submissive- and there are actions that tie into those categories, too. people on the quiet and introverted side tend to curl up and take up as little space as possible. extroverts assume a position that takes up more space (called power posing) 

“power posing” is a stance that indicates that the person is comfortable and confident. many times i have noted that despite chuuya being small, he does tend to stand in ways that take up more space. just from his body language, you can tell that he feels strong and in control. the art and scenarios of him unhappily sitting in a dress for someone else’s entertainment, but doing nothing to get out of the dress? that shows he is yielding to someone else, which is incredibly unlike him.

more chuuya in high power pose positions here lol

the reason i believe a lot of people think of chuuya as feminine ties into how he was introduced and how dazai treats him. upon his introduction in the dungeon, he is shown as a powerful and confident character. to me it seems that the first impression he made, which was asserting dominance and strength over dazai, was erased somewhere along the way. well, dazai happened to plot things out in advance, and later felt like he had the upper hand on chuuya. so despite chuuya’s strength and intentions, in the end he was rendered powerless by dazai. and to finish that off, he ended up pretending like he was a very feminine girl for dazai’s amusement.

his initially strong introduction was overwritten by the funny scene where chuuya acted like a girl. chuuya continues being masculine and dominant throughout the series, but oh so often is ending up following what dazai wants, or used as the object of dazai’s jokes. in the end, that rubs off on people so they think of him as less than dazai. his voice actor and the way he is animated likely ties in the thoughts of him being feminine, and when combined, people tend to think of him as either feminine, weak, or both.

it seems that no matter how this argument is presented, i find fault with it. even when people state that femininity =/= weakness, i feel that they are not presenting it right at all. i understand where they are coming from, but from my standpoint it isn’t as in depth as it should be (which i guess is why i’m writing this lol). maybe im overthinking things i accidentally analyze stuff and feel disappointed when people post unpopular opinions with nothing to back it up 😭

lastly, slight nsfw warning? (discussing top bottom stuff nothing explicit)

the entire top/bottom debate regarding soukoku also exhausts me. i believe chuuya to be a top, but again not because i equate being a bottom with being weak or submissive. power bottoms are a thing. however, i do acknowledge that there is a power difference between tops and bottoms- tops have considerably more control over the situation than bottoms do. and that is where i believe people have misconceived notions of whether he is a top or a bottom. on some level they do associate him with being a bottom, likely due to his size and believed inferiority to dazai. as dazai always seems to be ahead of chuuya, isn’t it only natural that dazai would be in control and would top?

w r o n g you can’t convince me dazai isn’t a lazy bottom, at best a switch. he does not seem like he would enjoy putting forth the required effort for topping. additionally, dazai himself isn’t exactly dominant or controlling. often he is relied on and respected, yes, but he only really tries to dominate and control chuuya as a way to harass him. chuuya on the other hand is outwardly dominant and likes being in control of a situation- and above all, hates doing what dazai wants. so even if chuuya was ever to bottom, no way in hell would i believe that he’d do it with dazai. he would not want to surrender control to him unless absolutely necessary.

additionally, i guess i just see chuuya as an active person. bottoms don’t seem to really do much,, they are on the receiving end of it all, so they often aren’t controlling the situation or moving around. it is hard for me to imagine chuuya to be the type to sit around and take something like that. it is much more reasonable to me to believe that he would rather be the one in control, and the one actually moving and doing things. if talking in the terms of soukoku, that seems doubled in my eyes. chuuya is far more physically capable than dazai, and likely has better stamina too. dazai would be one lousy top lol

thank u for reading! ive always thought about this, as there was a lot of art and fanfics that were the opposite of the impression i got from chuuya. to me, chuuya has always radiated big dick energy, top/dominant vibes, etc. i love chuuya and its not really a big surprise to me that my first post/analysis regarding him is talking about his masculinity haha. it’s always been a hot topic for me to think about and talk to my friends about.

i apologize for the lack of posting & original content rn ;; still con crunching for ota this weekend, and then i will be at the beach for a week. so i’ll probably just be reblogging art nd stuff when i can. hopefully ill get back to writing and posting normally after im not ultra mega busy. edit: forgot to say earlier but thank u for 200 followers! didn’t really expect anyone to care for my content but it means a lot to me

[martisxladyshura]

Midnight Nuptials: A Martis x Lady Shura Halloween Couple Fan Concept (Art + Alternate Universe Lore)

Happy Halloween everyone!

I wanted to do something special for the occasion so, with the help of some amazing artists, we made a Devil Groom and Spider Ghost Bride fan skin for Martis and Lady Shura complete with an alternate universe lore 👻

Please enjoy and stay spoopy!

*****************

MIDNIGHT NUPTIALS : An alternate universe skin lore

Cast: Martis, Lady Shura (Eleusia, her real name), Vexana, Leomord (minor but important role), Faramis (minor role)

*****************

I. The Mansion on Devil's Creek

Under the ashened sky of Hallow’s Town, on top of a small hill at the edge of the settlement, beyond the high wrought iron gates stands an old antebellum mansion. This formidable edifice was once owned by Lord Martis, a wealthy nobleman known for his ruthless conquests and draconian governance. Most of the town is made up of lands he acquired either through coin or blood, making him the town’s true founder. However, his name remains unsung for he was more feared than respected. While he was fair in his judgments and never harmed the innocent, he emanated an air of coldness and he was horrifically cruel to those who dared stand in his way. This reputation left him in solitude. Outside of his conquests, he spent most of his time in the cold, darkened halls of his home, tended only by servants.

No one really knows what became of him. Legend has it that in his loneliness, he went mad and tried to harness energy from the depths of the underworld to acquire more power. After a particularly harsh, stormy night, he and everyone in his household simply disappeared and the misty brook that ran across the hill turned red. To this day, the waters remain a deep crimson for reasons unknown. No one is brave enough to venture further up the hills and poke around to investigate this mystery. The towns folks, being incredibly superstitious, took it as a mark of the devil. Whether it was a confirmation of the ritual’s success or a warning to anyone who dared try the same foolish endeavor is uncertain. Nevertheless, this is how the whole area came to be known as the Devil’s Creek.

Years passed yet the mansion and its owner’s reputation live on as accounts of mysterious occurrences persist. The Mad Lord had eccentric taste; he decorated his home with horrific sculptures and paintings of monstrous beasts that are sure to unnerve the faint of heart. But those are nothing compared to the strange tales and tragedies that befell anyone who dared set foot in his home. The towns folks would warn newcomers not to stray near the place, speaking ominously that the Mad Lord still held dominion over the area.

Thus, you can imagine everyone’s disbelief when a stream of magnificent black carriages entered the town and went straight up the mansion. Word quickly spread that the place was purchased by a widow from one of the more prominent cities. The towns folks stirred, curious to know who are the naive, poor souls who bought the cursed land.

II. The New Mistress of the Mansion

The first to step out of the carriage was a dashing but sombre looking young bachelor named Leomord. Upon setting foot on the property, he held out a hand while bowing his head to assist his mistress, the Countess Vexana, in getting off the carriage. She was followed by the last member of this household, her step-daughter Eleusia.

The countess could not hide her disgust and disappointment upon seeing the cold, damp, depressing sight around her. The manor felt more like a prison than a home, paling in comparison to the aristocratic villa she bequeathed from her late husband, Eleusia’s father. Unfortunately, due to her lavish spending and underhanded dealings, her palatial home was seized by authorities and she had to escape to this dreadful town. With her dwindling fortune, the old mansion was the best they could afford to keep up appearances.

The carriages were not even hers! They belong to Lord Faramis, a marquess who pitied and secretly had affections for the countess. He would have courted her but the strange details regarding her late husband’s untimely death made him suspicious of the widow’s propriety. Still, he could not resist her when she came to his doorstep, pleading for help.

The marquess’ men, however, were less empathetic of the family and the sense of dread they felt upon entering the hill was growing. The air was heavy. Everything was eerily quiet and still despite the woodlands surrounding the manor. They hastily and recklessly dropped the family’s baggage then set off, not even looking back. The countess screeched at this blatant display of disrespect, vowing vengeance once she had regained her status.

Vexana had many plans to regain her fortune, one of which included her step-daughter. The countess despised Eleusia with unbridled passion for the young maiden grew more beautiful each day while she was slowly becoming nothing more than a husk of her former glory. But the girl was necessary in securing the inheritance and gaining sympathy when her father died. She would prove useful again. If Vexana could find a wealthy nobleman to marry her step-daughter, the countess would be rid of the girl and the large dowry she planned to demand would take her back to the lavish world of the elite.

For now, they must settle in the old mansion. Since they could not afford servants and not wanting to be seen with her step-daughter as she secretly feared being compared to the young girl, Vexana left Eleusia to do all the chores while she and Leomord went about their schemes.

III. Madness and Longing

Eleusia obediently took to the task of cleaning up the mansion, a nearly impossible feat as time has not been kind to the old facade. She soon found solace among the beasts despite her initial trepidation. Forbidden to befriend anyone lest passions give way to foolishness, the young girl began speaking to the inanimate creatures around her. She would coo and sing as she wiped the dust off them that one would think she has lost her mind if one saw her. There was no way to return the mansion to its former glory, but little by little, Eleusia breathe a bit of life into its gloomy halls.

Her biggest challenge came in the form of the fallen and ripped painting of the mansion’s previous owner, which she found lying face down on the dusty floor a few feet from the fire place of the mansion’s great hall. It was the only portrait she found with a human figure, though the Lord’s expression gave off an equally, if not more menacing air compared to the other works of art in the house.

Parts of the painting were stained and faded, but enough detail was left for her to admire the lord’s features in spite his uninviting gaze. Countess Vexana told her to get rid of it but instead, Eleusia took it to her room and spent her nights trying to sew it back together while talking to it like a friend. She smiled sweetly after finally finishing it one night, though she apologized to the lord for her amateur patch work. It was the best she could do with the common wares she had, after all! She set the painting on the wall across her bed, making it the last thing she saw before falling asleep and the first thing she’d lay her eyes upon most mornings. It quietly observed her as she stitched and weaved other items throughout the night while humming songs her father used to sing to her.

The towns folks admired her beauty from afar but were wary of her presence as they believed she carried the curse of the mansion with her like a plague. No matter how hard she tried to be friendly when she went about the market, none would open their hearts to her. The most she got were concerned, vague warnings about the hauntings in the mansion, which she took graciously but dismissed immediately from her mind.

Indeed, the paintings and sculptures’ eyes feel like they were following her as she went about her chores. The painting of Lord Martis had an especially piercing gaze that she often found herself blushing while undressing in her quarters. Still, they were just works of art, nothing more.

She would also have vivid dreams that slipped from her upon awakening, leaving her with a strange longing. But all this she attributed to loneliness and exhaustion. There was nothing to fear about the house. In fact, she found herself to be growing very fond of it and its silent residents.

What she did fear was her step-mother’s wrath. Her efforts were never enough for Countess Vexana. Everyday, the countess would complain of uncomfortable sleep and nightmares, which she blamed on her step-daughter’s lousy housekeeping: the sheets were heavy and rough, their clothes smelled, the food was under-cooked and tasted raw, and there were insects everywhere! Eleusia tried her best to remedy the problems, but could never find the faults her step-mother complained about.

It did not help that Countess Vexana’s health was declining: her skin grew pale, her hair thinned and she lost a lot of weight, making the shadows on her face more prominent. The worse she looked, the more bitter and fearful she grew of her step-daughter, believing the girl was poisoning and playing tricks on her. Alas! She could not send the wretched child away lest she gave up the possibility of great fortune. Worse still, whenever Vexana lashed out at the young girl, the accusing eyes of the beasts around them felt like they could see through the countess’ soul, see her secrets, her sins.

The countess needed to get rid of the girl soon. She needed to get out of this dreadful place before she completely loses her mind.

IV. Till Death Do Us Part

One day, Countess Vexana returned to the mansion much earlier than usual and in an incredibly cheery mood. She announced that a very important guest would be joining them for dinner! She commanded Leomord to set the table, take out their finest wares, cook the best meal and make the place as welcoming as possible. Meanwhile, she told Eleusia to dress up and look her best, even offering to lend her step-daughter some of her jewelry.

By dusk, a wealthy Earl from a neighboring town arrived. From the moment they met and until he left, Eleusia felt uncomfortable around their guest who was twice her senior. She could not meet his gaze, but she felt his eyes wandering through every inch of her body. She breathed a deep sigh of relief when he left, hoping that was the last she would see her step-mother’s new acquaintance.

Much to Eleusia’s dismay, the Earl began to visit frequently, showering her with gifts she did not want but could not turn down lest she displeased her step-mother. Luckily, their meetings were shorter than the usual courtship. The Earl felt unnerved being in the mansion and the town was bleak with little to offer in terms of amusement. He tried to invite the young girl to his homeland but the countess refused to let her step-daughter go without her.

Eleusia would cry in the evening, relaying unpleasant days she was forced to spend with the old man to the painting of the lord in her room. She would fall asleep on her tear-soaked pillow, soothed only by a cold breeze that gently brushed her cheek and the nape of her neck.

The young girl surrendered all the jewelry and precious stones she received to her step-mother as they lightened the countess’ mood. Vexana meant to prolong the courtship, plotting to squeeze as much as she could from the Earl while looking for wealthier prospects for her step-daughter. But her nightmares worsened since the day the Earl step foot in the mansion, so much so that the delights from receiving new trinkets paled to the dread that constantly filled her heart and mind.

In just a few weeks, Eleusia’s worst fears came to pass: the countess finally agreed to give her step-daughter’s hand in marriage to the Earl, who was eager to have such a young, beautiful wife. Eleusia begged her step-mother to take back her word, but the countess would hear none of it and even accused her step-daughter of ungratefulness.

The Earl agreed to take in all three members of the household to his expansive manor where they can live in complete extravagance. Ecstatic to be rid of the hideous mansion, Countess Vexana thrashed the place a day before their departure to the new town. Eleusia cried helplessly as her step-mother desecrated the house and the silent friends she has grown to love.

The following day, the countess practically dragged her step-daughter to their new hometown, scolding her the whole way through. Arriving at the temporary lodging the Earl had set up for them, the countess locked her step-daughter in a room then instructed her faithful servant to keep an eye on the girl until her wedding day. For seven days and six nights, Leomord heard nothing but crying and lamentations from behind the door he guarded. Despite his loyalty to his countess, the young lady had always been kind to him and his steed. Her suffering pierced a hole in his heart that grew until the dreaded day arrived.

Several maids were sent to prepare Eleusia for the lavish nuptials. The girls giggled as they told the despondent bride of the impressive guest list and the magnificent decors that awaited her.

The company brought with them an elegant wedding dress that fit her form like a glove. After all their preparations, everyone was in awe of the young bride and wished her well as they exited the room. Eleusia could barely wait for the door to close before she fell to the floor in tears, lamenting her last few moments as an unmarried woman.

A few moments later, Leomord entered the room. She thought he had come to accompany her to the church, to her chains. But he told her to hastily grab a cloak and quietly follow him. He could no longer stand her torment and was determined to free her from a lifetime of regrets, regardless of the cost.

He led her to the stables and they rode his steed until they reached the bridge leading out of the town. Leomord got off his horse and told Eleusia to ride as far away as she could. Eleusia begged for him to come with her, but he was resigned to his fate for betraying his mistress. He was doomed the day he swore his loyalty to the countess for he has done dishonorable deeds in her name. He hoped with this act, he would be redeemed in the next life.

Despite the dangers, Eleusia could only think of one safe haven. She knew they would look for her in the mansion but it did not matter. If all was to end, she wanted to be with the only thing she loved and cared for.

A thick fog had set in when she arrived in Hallow’s Town. Her cloak fell off mid way the journey, making her look ghostly through the mist that some folks nearly had a heart attack as she passed. Curious gazes followed her as she went straight up Devil’s Creek and into the mansion.

By nightfall, the streets shook from the thunderous galloping of horses as the countess, the Earl and his men hastily rode up the mansion, their fury palpable. Vexana’s quiet servant was missing from the troupe.

None of the towns folks saw anyone who went up the mansion that day come back down.

The people wanted to believe that the whole company quietly left after taking back the girl. They simply did not see them exit the town for the fog had become unbelievably thick that night. They stuck to that story whenever outsiders inquired of the countess, the Earl and his mens’ whereabouts

But no one could explain the blood curling screeches that pierced through that quiet, fateful night. Nor could they explain how the color of the creek from the hill became a deeper shade of red since the day after the strange events.

Not wanting to linger at the thoughts any longer lest they incur any more misfortune, they let the whole matter rest. Soon, the investigations stopped and no incident occurred for months.

One night, a man entered the tavern looking very troubled. After a few hard drinks, he shared his strange tale. All merriment, singing and squabbles stopped when the words “Devil’s Creek” spilled from the man’s lips. You could hear a pin drop at the silence that overtook the room. Everyone gathered around him to listen.

His eldest son came running home that afternoon looking extremely distressed. The young man and his friends dared his younger brother to go up Devil’s Creek. They planned to catch and scare him in the area near the foot of the hill, but he disappeared. Several hours had passed and they still couldn’t find him.

The man quickly ran up the hill searching for his son. Reaching the wrought iron gates, his legs grew weak and he fell to his knees when he saw his son’s hat on the pavement in front of the mansion.

Mustering all his courage, he went inside, calling out to his son louder and more urgently, his heart racing with every moment spent in these cursed walls.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the young child answer back. He followed the voice, which led him to the mansion’s great hall.

The father’s smile disappeared when his son told him that he had gotten lost, but a beautiful lady in white lead him to the mansion. When the man asked who it was, the child pointed up the wall.

There, on top of the fireplace, surrounded by spiders weaving webs around it was a great portrait, clumsily stitched back together. The Lord of the Mansion gazed down upon the man and his son with coldness.

And peering through the hall with melancholy eyes while clinging on to the arm of Lord Martis was the countess’ step-daughter, looking resplendent in her wedding dress.

[oswednesday]

could we possibly get an update on your tmasona :3c i feel like maybe some things have changed, or i'm just getting confused...

omg yeah i need to update their art ref! ill get to it, i have to finish up some other stuff first! omg yeah ive been adjusting things as i go, making themes clearer i guess! or w/e fits the setting better a i listen again, omggg thank you for asking, also im so rendered playdough soft that youre keeping track enough to feel confused like,o mg ;x ;, okay so updates!:

-theyre born in america to a beholding cultist group, their parents are like Teachers With Doctorates, they have six other siblings (who also all go different ways) the upbringing is like zero privacy 100% authoritative, they live on the compound which doubles as like a high end Alternative Schooling, i imagine they would have called their parents ma'am and sir more than mom and dad, its competitive family dynamic and theyre being Trained to take the archivist position on the off chance that gertrude dies of old age (i think given that a branch in china had a guy lined up thats a reasonable thing to assume the cult does as a whole?), they attend like a compound boarding school with other cultist children (like, america has A LOT of cult compounds,, so i think it would be def a thing for dread god followers, and since tmi has like Some kind of academic standing, with american culture there’d be some kind of accredited legitimacy to the school)

-they go to whatever fancy university for a weighted accelerated library sciences program that their family has a connection to, with like the smallest bit of experienced freedom they also take art classes at a Less Nice For Profit liberal school thats just a block or so away from the other as it tends to be in small american cities that are designated college towns, theyre like so paranoid about being caught and watched and judged that they go through the whole trouble of fabricating a whole entire different person to be for the other school which does not check anything ‘cause theyre getting paid, which like the money dries up a bit enough for them to start up some Fraud, i think the very start of like the identity theft is the End, but before that they would keep track of everything like taking notes about different places different selves needed to be, keeping track of lies the best they could, theyre the only one of the siblings left who havnt made it Super clear theyre with a different patron, so they feel the obligation to keep it up, i also think there’d be a lot of, wow no one can ever know anything about my terrible fucked up monster life so no one can get close, i cant even get close to me, vibe going on with all that

-this is the lead up to the psychotic break they have, and it Looses them up enough to experience the spiral, during the break down they find a book that Feels Familiar and its like, transcribed recordings of children in therapy conversations accompanied with art from the patient , it probs has a Misleading title like “my wonderful changing body and me!” like one of those youre going through puberty and instead of helping you emotionally im going to toss a book at you and leave the room kind of thing

-so they get lost a while, read a book in peace, break a mirror in a way thats v symbolic, like a representation of their sense of self becoming fractured, they use their blood to mark where theyve been, its all very trans formative and dramatic, (like they def arnt using they/them before this, they embrace the multiplicity of it all)

-their Purpose is to lead victims through, they create and maintain narrative mazes for people to get lost in and lead them to madness (so, like the metanarrative function of pyramid head, or like the bartender+delbert grady in the shining, or like the night clerk in the first downfall game? i guess the second one too but the first one has that vibe im going for and is less symbolic over all), this also means they like vacuum up after a messy meal

-the title that old fashioned people use is the minotaur, but stuff about their role within the cult as a concept is like jaws of madness, the teeth, the porter, doorman, caretaker, maid, whatever nondescript jobs victims see them having

-happening simultaneously to that metaphysical stuff, their physical self drops out of everything and a distant aunt offers to take them in which their family is Fine with cause their a disappointment and all, but it turns out their aunt is a house that like uk buzzfeed and travel blogs calls the mouth of madness, its like a winchester house, m takes it over and converts it to a bed and breakfast tourist spot for the income and it just, becomes a legit hotel business (but i think thats after the great twisting fell through)

-so timeline wise its, breakdown, impulsively marrying the physical embodiment of the lonely,the great twisting, hotel

-like cause they had no place of their own there was no place for them to go after the twisting fell through so they went no where, it was real upsetting tho

-things that not every minotaur had but some could do so this is like personal quirks! is they can move the understanding of physical things to create obstructions as long as its repetitive,so making mazes and labyrinths! and sometimes their fabricated spaces are like noticeably fake, they also cant balance a lot of victim plots and make new space like the first purpose comes first even when the second function would benefit

- they look however you expect them to look whatever that means for you but they also have a static like base self that they can like, replace with other selves

-like seeing the pure concept like how the distortion is that weird long fuckhands thing, their True shape is like a vitruvian man in constant motion like a photographic blur, you could probs see how a leg could be a tail and how shifting heads and shoulders could be horns and how weapons held by many hands are hooves of a beast

-there’s not always time for any of that so sometimes they have to just lock someone up, let their mind fill in the blanks and do them an insanity, box cutters have a nice sound but power drills are more appropriate for quick jobs

-they can fully Check Out of their physical body and just leave it there, they eventually have to go back and get it tho, it can do its own thing but its primarily customer service auto pilot

-their dreams are like realistically mundane, with the occasional interruption of something that catches up with them (like if they cut their hand off irl itll be fine but theyll eventually have a normal dream where their hand gets severed) (they also do a lot of work in dreams but they like differentiate between like im consciously doing stuff in the dreamscape and im a victim here dreams but theres no real, difference, thats not really their thing to be in control of)

-i think the sum of their personality would be like someone who exclusively talks in customer service voice and when theyre not working theyre a nervous wreck, they hide behind stuff when ever they can and feel more comfortable with something between them and other person like a wall or a magazine or a counter desk, that sort of thing

[tymime]

I generally consider Gen IV the last good generation of the Pokémon franchise, but really only up to a certain point. I’ve played a bit of Platinum, and it’s... okay. Doesn’t inspire me with wonder like Gens I and II do. And I pretty much gave up entirely on the anime after the Battle Frontier arc.

And looking at the Pokémon introduced then, I really only like Bidoof/Bibarel, Buizel/Floatzel and Riolu/Lucario. Buneary/Lopunny is pretty good, and Gible etc. is okay, but almost all of the rest of them I can’t stand their designs at all.

Of course, I really like HeartGold and SoulSilver, but I guess I’m biased.

Back when I was growing up, the anime was the most important to me, and it still is. I hardly ever played the TCG, as I was more of a collector, and I didn’t even play the games that much because I was so bad at it (although I did complete Silver). I remember that when it came to Pokémon, the online fandom in the early 2000s was mostly concerned with the anime as well, whereas you mostly heard about the glitches and rumors in the games and schools banning the cards. The main reason I preferred the anime was because of the characters. Ash, Brock, and Misty made a great trio, and Jesse, James, and Meowth are among the greatest sympathetic villain characters of all time, imo. Nowadays you hardly ever hear anybody discuss the anime.

But ultimately the reason anybody becomes a fan of Pokémon is because of the cool monsters. I think sometimes fans forget this, incredibly- too much focus is given to gameplay mechanics and metagaming and competitive gaming, which I really couldn’t care less about. I remember one of my first interactions with a Pokémon fan, way back in 1999 or so, was when somebody asked what my favorite Pokémon was. I told him it was Charmander. And why not? He’s a cute, fire-breathing dragon-lizard thing! His reaction was “But Charmander is weak!”, and all I could do was stare at him incredulously. I didn’t care if he was “weak”, which is an exaggeration anyway. Must I quote Karen?

That’s actually the entire point of Pokémon. Lots of PETA-types didn’t understand this: We’re not forcing them to fight as slaves, we’re making friends with all these creatures. The early episodes of the anime especially emphasized this, culminating in the movie Mewtwo Strikes Back, and it’s message of peace, sacrifice, and love still makes me misty-eyed to this day.

The anime started going downhill as soon as Ash left Kanto for the Orange Islands. We all remember how incredibly dull and pointless Tracy was, and how repetitive and formulaic the Johto episodes were. This was despite how amazingly good the G/S/C games were. It was around this time that the fandom was diminishing, and people who weren’t all that in love with it in the first place started sneering at it and saying it was “for little kids” and “uncool”. I remember Digimon fans were especially obnoxious about it. Here’s the thing: It might sound a bit shallow, but I don’t think I would’ve become interested in Pokémon if the monsters didn’t look cute or cool. I’m very keenly aware of what kind of character designs I like, and if I don’t like the way a cartoon looks, there’s absolutely no way I can get into it. Lots of people are gonna hate me for this, but I find the vast majority of Digimon to be downright butt-ugly. They’re mostly wrinkled and lumpy and look as though they’re made up of leftover puppet parts. There’s a tiny amount of them that I actually think look decent, but not nearly enough to make me want to watch the show.

But that ties into what happened next- when the Gen III games were coming out, I was looking forward to it, but I was disappointed in how unappealing some of the Pokémon designs were, especially the legendaries. I thought they looked more like Digimon. I don’t see anybody else who has this view. Sure, occasionally I see someone complain “They don’t look like Pokémon anymore!” but they’re always shot down with the rationalization “Who says what Pokémon look like is set in stone?” It’s not a good idea to slowly drift the art direction of an ongoing franchise with an established look and continuity. It’s what makes for a TV series suffer from Early Installment Weirdness and Seasonal Rot, among other things. Things like Mickey Mouse and Looney Tunes can get away with this because they don’t have an established canon, but a series like Pokémon shouldn’t start looking weirder and weirder. I remember having high hopes for the Hoenn episodes of the anime, hoping that the fresher, more sophisticated animation would bring the series out of its doldrums and return to the more heartwarming, personality-driven stories of it’s golden age. For a while it seemed like this would be the case- Ash seemed wiser and more experienced at first and the Pokémon were showing more personality. But it slowly but surely entered a long string of indistinguishable contests for May to compete in. Another thing I wish there was more of in the anime is the Pokémon themselves having more personality. Too often they’re just used as battling tools and have few chances to show emotion or interact with the other characters. The Hoenn episodes also made one thing clear: Ash was going to replace his battling team pretty much every region from now on.

This trend flies in the face of the early franchise’s message of friendship. Ash’s Pokémon from yesteryear are hardly ever seen again once they get sent to Prof. Oak or to some other place.

I suspect this new attitude towards the Pokémon is why they’re becoming uglier and uglier. It doesn’t matter what they look like, you just want to train something NEW, right? Something with good stats and EVs?

I've never seen anybody who shares my view about the Pokémon designs from Gen IV and onward. There was a brief period when older fans were saying the new Pokémon were dumb ideas- ice cream cones and garbage bags and key rings aren’t my idea of a cool concept. But then came the whole “Genwunner” backlash. “But Gen I has inanimate objects too! Dont’cha think Voltorb and Grimer are dumb??” people would say. My answer is this: A living Pokéball and a pile of toxic sludge are cooler than keys and garbage. And just because Gen I had a dumb idea like a bunch of eggs doesn’t mean you should repeat it. And of course there’s an excess of foxes, cats, bats, small electric rodents, and cutesy legendaries that look vaguely like Mew. When the Pokémon aren’t stupid or ugly, they’re redundant. And now it seems like older fans are almost entirely silent about their opinions.

I don’t understand why this isn’t a more common opinion. A Pokémon’s visual appeal is absolutely crucial and yet they still continue to look inorganic, cluttered, and awkward looking with every new generation. There’s only a handful of recent Pokémon that ever get fanart, and 100% of the time the fanart is better drawn than the official version.

This seemingly coincided with the American dubbers having the brilliant idea of replacing the entire voice cast of the anime to “celebrate” the tenth anniversary. It was difficult watching the anime after that, and I only stuck around because they were revisiting Kanto. After that, I stopped watching it entirely. It got worse, of course- Ash was redesigned and looked almost entirely different. The eyes are the windows to the soul- if you ask me, by changing Ash’s windows, they changed his soul.

The Pokémon franchise was dead to me by then. As far as I’m concerned the whole series is a shambling zombie, a shell of its former self. And with the anime using retconning flashbacks and remaking the first episode and Mewtwo Strikes Back, the anime has split into two different continuities anyhow. And yet people still try to defend it, even older fans, which boggles my mind.

[bedlamgames]

Q&A #103

Today we have the Twine conversion, lesbian training mantras, social lube, a bunch of random stuff from the discord, and a whole lot more. 

[Anonymous said]: I'm really curious what the tally means for your twine conversion posts. Can't seem to figure out what its suppose to represent progress wise...

- Answered this last Q&A. Because of you asking I’ve now also added the explanation to what it’s about to every stream post so I hope that helped with understanding what’s going on with that.

[Anonymous said]: Suggestion: For races that start with a random corruption (ie: Succubi), have an option in full custom to spend points to either narrow what that corruption is (to be one of the four types, for example) or to outright pick one (for a much higher cost).

- That’s a good idea. Being able to pick specifically I think would be too much. There are ALOT of corruptions so that would mean many many menus to be able to select everything. Being able to pick one of the four types seems fair to me as something to spend points on in Full Custom. Added it to my notes. 

[Anonymous said]: Have a succubus slaver who used to be a lamia. On level up, she had the option to get the Fleet trait, which I thought was off-limits for Lamia due to their body shape. I think it's a bug?

- Good spot and should be fixed as of the last update. 

[Anonymous said]: Noticed a bug with No Haven 0.903: If you select a human (or once-human) for your character, and then quick restart, your next character will keep the human's Racial aspect Social Lube. On the topic of that Racial, it says " includes one human, and three other different races/subtypes gain an additional Success" Does that mean one human and three non-humans, or one human and three slavers each of a different race from each other?

-Took me awhile to work this out as going from human to human seemed fine. However you’re right that those with a heritage like demi-angels or succubi will incorrectly keep the previous racial. 

The second so as long as you have at least one human you can get the buff by say having a northerner, noble, wastelander, and convent. 

[Anonymous said]: hi bud, xfto/x421 here, its been a long time i guess. wanted to ask about the status of the no haven/twine conversation. i joined your picardo lately but couldnt post some reports since you dont allow guest-posts. well anyway, the report is about something ridiculous i have found after some restarts, the chosen main charakter (lamia) starts as male with the hard carry aspect(immense shaft) and different description than the ones the perks would give. 1/2

another question, feels like i asked something similiar in the past, how about the integration of different artpacks/access to older pics, or deletion of those that never get used? i guess that would requiere some more access to the game than you allow atm. maybe with twine? do you have a roadmap on tfgames or somewhere for the future of no haven? i know there are some more races you want to implement and improve some systems, but thats it, hope you are doing well in these times. 2/2

I do an update on the patreon every two weeks which is linked on the twitter. You do not need to be a patron to read these and is the best way to stay informed about what I’ve been up to. That includes the status of the conversion. To quickly sum it up;

It's at a stage where all the RAGS to Twine code conversion is basically done. What I need to do now is translate all that work into something playable and there's currently big logic issues with a bunch of the conditions and passages. So what I'm currently doing is trying to tidy up the visual look of the code with a bunch of idents with the theory that will make finding the errors easier.

Alas it’s not me disallowing guest posts... Picarto had some massive stonking issues and so they locked things down hard due to that preventing guests from chatting. I suggest a throwaway email site to get around that.

I don’t think there’s any art in the game file that’s not used as I try to keep on top of deleting the old ones. Not really down for doing art packs of the old ones as due to that not being my art so I see them as placeholder only until they can be replaced by commissions. 

I probably do need to do some kind of roadmap sometime. I’m less keen as it’s kind of a dirty word these days as due to the miss-use of them by others it’s got some bad connontations, but I’m also aware the alternative which is me randomly mentioning stuff on discord/picarto streams leaves the vast majority of my audience in the dark which is also really not ideal.

[Anonymous said]: [no haven 0.903] [Crit no longer grants Bimboborn] okay, but how do I get bimboborn now?

- It’s a corruption. Specifically Blessings of Perversion. 

[Anonymous said]: With the change to training where hypnotic slavers can fully embed the relevant mantras for blowjob, bimbo, and sissy training, could we also get that for lesbian training?

- Yes that’s the plan when I do the third part of lesbian training. Got a set of commissions planned just got to sort the funding and work out who I’m getting to do it. 

[Anonymous said]: hey bud, x421 here, again, might be already fixed because thats from no haven .903, but i recently had the witch queen super rare quest, you might want to proof read the quest and results, there are a few typos. i really did enjoy the writing nonetheless, just a quick question about that quest, as far as i understood this one, you only change your odds of the final result depending on how good you do on your way to the final, but the reward in the end only depends on the final result? 1/2

2/2 it just dawned on me that its been a while since you made an Q&A post so i guess i ll go and lurk on the tfgames forum in the next days, just one last question: i asked early in development about camp upgrades and you were not that convinced about that stuff, i understand you want the slaver camp as some bandit camp and not some castle/bastion or whatever, but since you added camp upgrades, maybe add proximity to a certain region? or something to spend supplies and gold in a 13month+ run?

- Hah! Okay will give it another read through.That’s correct yes. There’s also rewards on the way if you Critical those parts. 

There is a new gold sink coming soon in an upcoming update. I’ve also got plans for more camp upgrades coming later. 

[From the Patreon]: I'm that guy you replied to about the patch notes in Q&A 101. Solid updates. Bugs in the outfit system has driven me nuts since like, 2015, has it been that long already? I think it has. I like collecting them and something always blows up. This time, I ended up with a slaver wearing both the ooze outfit and ponygirl outfit. So there's that. Also I was disappointed the new Quicker then You'd Like wasn't interactive. Solid in any case though, thanks!

- I'll get them all one day I swear! Don't suppose you remember the chain of events that led to that? New QAYL was a patron requested one with the idea of having a big pay off for playing submissive which often involves playing sub-optimally.

[From the Patreon]: 1-ive been noticing when you choose to repick choices for an slave training assignment the slave gets added to the list of choices 2-also just how rare is the post-slave princess city assignment, cause i can never seem to get it even after selling multiple slave princesses 3-another thing is that the nightly puppet-leader stat is almost impossible to get again(either that or i have bedwarmers incapable of usurping me even thought i my current stats mean i couldnt win against even the subbiest slave)

- Will check 3 as you've not been the only person to mention that. 2 I know exists for sure as other people have definitely got it. Should be no rarer than any other rare City assignment, and thanks for the spot on 1.

[From the Discord]: Top 3 Animes of the 2010 to 2020

Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica the series was staggeringly good. Just redefined what anime could be to me. Film is a... well it was a thing. A beautiful thing with an ending which I still quite know how to feel about. 

Shirobako. It’s about creativity, craft, and about how people can come together to make something. It might not be something good, but dangit it’s been made and that’s worthwhile. It’s also from personal experience by miles the most accurate depiction of working in an office I’ve ever seen.

Oh man this is very very hard deciding on the third so pick one of the following and I could probably make a strong case for it. 

Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon, Darling in the FranXX (yes really, yes even the ending), Lupin III: Part 5, Kill la Kill, Monster Musume, Flip Flappers, Demi-chan wa Kataritai, Zombieland Saga, or Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai.

Also while I was taking the question to mean series both Your Name and Promare are absolutely phenonemal films. 

[From the Discord]: Best recent Eurovision Act

Lena. Always Lena. 

[From the Discord]: What's the agricultural technological level of No Haven like 

It’s not hit industrialization yet. What makes the difference is and allows cities like Aversol and even bigger to exist is that the organization of the human empire is far better than it has any right to be for the other levels of development being able to keep an incredibly complex supply chain constantly flowing even if on the ground level it barely seems to be moving at all. There are also some much, much larger farms both on the Great Plains and further to the north compared to the much more isolated single/couple of households ones that your slavers raid. 

[From the Discord]: What have been some of your all-time favourite assignments, both in terms of working on them and how they turned out?

Love When Week’s End Comes for a recent one. Writing all the results in colour commentary (and all the variations for weather, events and outcomes) was a real challenge and I do like how it came out. 

Witch-Queen and Arisin’ for being the first times I tried to go for a different, more potentially disturbing/freaky mood, and I’m pleased with the results. 

Sable Masquerade as I really like the ‘bad end’ I came up with. Actually I like the whole thing as while the pitch from the patron obviously helped, a lot of it was inspired by a random superhero bondage party picture I saw on HF, which I decided to run with, and had a bunch of fun exploring. 

[From the Discord]: Weirdest bug and most difficult bug

The one that resulted in a male wisp riding a griffon was a fun one. 

Most difficult has to be the clothing management which as a previous question suggests I’ve still not entirely solved. 

[From the Discord]: If No Haven was an MMO, what race/class would you play?

Kreen rogue mainly as I really like the edit I did for the portrait which MidnightonMars later translated into a commission. 

If not definitely a lamia. 

[From the Discord]: Knowing what you do now about the design of the game, are there any game mechanics you wish you'd have implemented differently?

Clothing management. So very much clothing management. I’ve redone it entirely twice now, and it’s still not where I want it to be. 

[From the Discord]: What was your inspiration for creating the setting of No Haven?  Has the direction the game has gone varied from your initial idea? If so what has been the biggest change?

- It started off with adapting the chan game Deeper Dungeons which was basically a certain popular mmo with nothing different about it outside of it being porn along with some possibly unwise options of personal abuse. I first changed it by ditching gnomes for neko which to my mind was a clear upgrade. There even used to be an examine refference in the RAGS version to suggest they’d been in the region of the dungeons before being driven out.

Then it was a gradual process of adding with the occasional subtractions to get it closer to a more Warhammer feeling setting which has always been a major love of mine when I was still doing Whorelock’s in RAGS.

With No Haven it was a case of building on what I’ve done there and expanding upon that with the race lore and assignment descriptions. Biggest was probably when I did the favoured/unfavoured stuff and added a ton of extra backstory to various races to justify the choices made there. 

[anti-tony-god]

(Sorry kinda long) Cass Cain!! I love her! She has her own series: Batgirl (2000)! The problem is Cass’s education was neglected, so she doesn’t know anything at first. Then she gets magicked and knows words, but can’t speak. Then she can speak, but in broken English. She can’t read either, even pretty far in. I am iffy on Bruce’s part because he sucks and reteaches her to fight, he’s her adopted father but uhh this is before that and while he does worry for her like all his protégés it feels a bit like white knight to me (mostly cause I hate Bruce and Cass should be able to kick his ass at any point in time). Barbara Gordon takes her in, too. Idk if that’s a turn off for you. Shes like 16 so she needs someone looking after her anyway.

I’m going to warn you the art is…… well someone definitely drew that. But it gets better further in. Onyx Adams is there and doing amazing!! Cute Cass/Steph moments!! The end is disappointing and the amount to black villains has me a bit concerned but it’s not 100% and there are black good guys so I’m not going to throw down the racist card.

#30-32 has Connor Hawke in it

Kinda bloody. Suicide, murder, the works. Cass can really kick butt and she’s super sweet but she lets Bruce get in her head when she should be letting Barbara in instead. I actually don’t mind that part, it’s kind of interesting to see even if it does make me mad.

The thing I do absolutely love about her is that she speaks in movement, which is poetic and beautiful. I just wish there was more of it. She had a rough growing up and finally got the family she deserves (except Bruce he sucks). I hate that they make reading body language a power or secret weapon of some sort that can be taken away. I’d have loved it if they kept that.

Batgirl (2008) starts off rough, the other batfam members start off acting like dicks, I know that the first intro of a character makes me judge them afterwards (why I hate black widow) so idk if you think that’ll ruin them for you. She still speaks brokenly but it’s revealed she took an esl class, so it’s better. This is definitely something you read if you want to see more Cass, you run into a bunch of characters but don’t get into her as a person enough except for that part she gets a bf. It’s Cass on a deeper level (talking about her trauma, seeing her sister). She is on a mission and it shows. 2000 is a lot lighter, not as serious.

2009? Cass upgrades to her ultimate form and says fuck Bruce Wayne and then leaves. Unfortunately, that’s the most you’ll get from her. Stephanie Brown (blonde white girl) then becomes batgirl. Which, now that I think about it, is kinda fucked up.

Don’t read any batgirls past that, it’s Barbie Gordon and she sucks (I will find you)

Here’s a rec list for her if you still want to see stuff on her, she probably speaks brokenly (really brokenly or somewhat brokenly depends on the time) or not at all in them. She didn’t have any speech problems in batgirl: convergence but Steph is batgirl in that, she’s black bat. In rebirth she’s known as ‘orphan’ which is worse than ‘signal’ so uhh I don’t know shit about that and never will. Also she respects Batman which is sad :( https://fyeahcassandracain.tumblr.com/recs

Don’t read One Year Later

Connor Hawke!! Oooo I hate Oliver Queen and you will see why but Connor? Connor is my baby!! But all black DC characters are because I’m black and I said so.

He originally had a temper (“angry black man” but also Uhhh Oliver Queen’s son) he was picked on as a kid since he’s mixed (¼ Korean, ¼ black, ½ white) he has the occasional white washing too. His mom would kick your ass if you started making fun of him.

Nothing else I can think of I don’t read him much, sorry

https://www.google.com/amp/s/lornahs.tumblr.com/post/95199039664/where-to-start-reading-connor-hawke-lets-first/amp

Ok I did Connor Hawke: Dragon’s Blood and don’t fucking read it he’s whitewashed in the first part then kissed his fucking half-brother’s mom noooooo

People like Connor and Kyle Rayner together plus it’s outside of the Arrow Fam so none of that shit will pop up probably (hopefully) they don’t have a run together but I did run into them a couple of times, they’re so cute!!

https://www.google.com/amp/s/lornahs.tumblr.com/post/156635510974/kyle-raynerconnor-hawke-recommended-issues/amp

I’m kinda traumatized so no I will not sample any of those for you. Also he respects Oliver which is sad :(

Duke Thomas!! I did like the little glimpses of Duke I got before he moved from background to foreground, but I never read him much. 1. Because I hate Bruce (BATMAN & the signal) 2. Because his new name sucks if they just called him Lark like everyone was voting for I would maybe do it 3. Because it was new 52 and I couldn’t care less about Robin War

I am curious about Duke too tho, I will never read Robin War (nothing immoral about it I don’t think, I just don’t give a shit and it sounds boring also respect for Batman which is sad) but I did get into Batman & The Signal

Writer attempts to console the audience about having too many batfam members while showing us said batfam members, one (or two if you count nightwing) of which is whitewashed, another that is ablewashed, and the PoC and Jewish ones are put in the corner (but to be fair, they’re trying to center the more popular ones and THATS why I hate this fuckin fandom).

I’m going to choke this writer, speech bubbles and boxes are two different things I don’t care if he’s talking to both the audience & the people around him it’s confusing and I hate it how am I supposed to know when it’s in his head or not

“No good names left” I’m so mad there are so many birds that exist do you even know how disappointing it is to hear Duke is getting to be part of the batfam everyone’s so exciting making stuff up for him “oh Lark this Lark that” and then his name is fucking SIGNAL what’s he do make bird calls whenever the bad guy is outside??? “Oh uhhh there’s crime Duke hit the button for the batsignal” fucking SIGNAL

Him trying to figure out his powers is boring as hell I DON’T CARE literally “Jason Todd Death Joke” “Someone Gets His Name Wrong” “I’m A Mystery” “I’m The New Guy” this writing is so lazy ahhhh

Black “blue” dude with a big ass nose that’s the bad guy

I got bored again and skipped panels then found a disabled Asian woman, I am interested again… Wow I want a comic on her she’s more interesting than Duke lmao

I SCROLL DOWN TO SEE IF ITS REDEEMABLE AND SEE A WHITE WOMAN WITH DREADS BYE “but it’s ok ‘cause she’s part robot or whatever” I’m not reading anymore especially since Barbie is there probably preying on another young black guy to not be racist with

https://www.google.com/amp/s/lornahs.tumblr.com/post/155680034759/where-to-start-reading-duke-thomas-his-first/amp

Rec list, he’s mostly in batman sorry fam *F* also he respects Batman which is sad :(

If you decide to stay away from batfam please take me with you

If you decide to stay away from DC PLEASEEEEE take me

I should probably explain this since I keep throwing it onto you without explaining what it is Barbie Gordon: Barbara Gordon (second batgirl, most popular) was attacked by the joker and was paralyzed from the waist down. This was an extremely sexist comic that was complained about by all sorts of straight white able-bodied feminists even after DC turned that trash-fire into a glorious fireworks display

She was amazing as Oracle! She was a genius, badass, wheelchair-bound asskicker!! Even the justice league wanted her!! She was so reliable and strong mentally, physically, and emotionally! She was one of the only people to step up during No Man’s Land! She took in Cass and didn’t give up on her when she took Bruce’s stupid advice over her wisdom! And she lost her respect for Bruce which is great! She had more respect as Oracle than she could ever dream of as batgirl. She realized Bruce was bitch and became twice the man he could ever be. She didn’t let that moment define her, and she decided she wouldn’t let anyone hold her back anymore. She didn’t have Bruce’s “huh they look like they can beat someone down hard 🤔🤔🤔” view of worth, she saw people as they were and did what she could to help them improve. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

But with enough whiny bitches DC will do anything, and Barbara was given back her legs, her respect for Bruce, and her wisdom while also gaining a black boyfriend that had no business being there (MY Luke??? I appreciate the bowtie pics but FUCK YOU) that she would soon dump for her light-skinned ex, and a victim complex.

She lost both her dignity and everything great about her.

No one hates Barbie more than me. No one. If I find out that you even glimpsed at her I will hunt you down.

Also recently they made a new Oracle, since she mostly deals with computers it’s sort of a robot thing and it’s STILL FUCKING ABLE BODIED THE POINT FEW PAST THEM AT A THOUSAND MILES AN HOUR

THE MADDEST I’VE EVER BEEN

–

Thank you so much for all this! Idk what a lot of it means since ive literally never read a dc comic but ill keep it in mind when I start reading!!

[ciathyzareposts]

Origin Sells Out

One day in early June of 1992, a group of executives from Electronic Arts visited Origin Systems’s headquarters in Austin, Texas. If they had come from any other company, the rank and file at Origin might not have paid them much attention. As it was, though, the visit felt a bit like Saddam Hussein dropping in at George Bush’s White House for a fireside chat. For Origin and EA, you see, had a history.

Back in August of 1985, just prior to the release of Ultima IV, the much smaller Origin had signed a contract to piggyback on EA’s distribution network as an affiliated label. Eighteen months later, when EA released an otherwise unmemorable CRPG called Deathlord whose interface hewed a little too closely to that of an Ultima, a livid Richard Garriott attempted to pull Origin out of the agreement early. EA at first seemed prepared to crush Origin utterly in retribution by pulling at the legal seams in the two companies’ contract. Origin, however, found themselves a protector: Brøderbund Software, whose size and clout at the time were comparable to that of EA. At last, EA agreed to allow Origin to go their own way, albeit probably only after the smaller company paid them a modest settlement for breaking the contract. Origin quickly signed a new distribution contract with Brøderbund, which lasted until 1989, by which point they had become big enough in their own right to take over their own distribution.

But Richard Garriott wasn’t one to forgive even a small personal slight easily, much less a full-blown threat to destroy his company. From 1987 on, EA was Public Enemy #1 at Origin, a status which Garriott marked in ways that only seemed to grow pettier as time went on. Garriott built a mausoleum for “Pirt Snikwah” — the name of Trip Hawkins, EA’s founder and chief executive, spelled backward — at his Austin mansion of Britannia Manor. Ultima V‘s parser treated the phrase “Electronic Arts” like a curse word; Ultima VI included a gang of evil pirates named after some of the more prominent members of EA’s executive staff. Time really did seem to make Garriott more rather than less bitter. Among his relatively few detail-oriented contributions to Ultima VII were a set of infernal inter-dimensional generators whose shapes together formed the EA logo. He also demanded that the two villains who went on a murder spree across Britannia in that game be named Elizabeth and Abraham. Just to drive the point home, the pair worked for a “Destroyer of Worlds” — an inversion of Origin’s longstanding tagline of “We Create Worlds.”

And yet here the destroyers were, just two months after the release of Ultima VII, chatting amiably with their hosts while they gazed upon their surroundings with what seemed to some of Origin’s employees an ominously proprietorial air. Urgent speculation ran up and down the corridors: what the hell was going on? In response to the concerned inquiries of their employees, Origin’s management rushed to say that the two companies were merely discussing “some joint ventures in Sega Genesis development,” even though “they haven’t done a lot of cooperative projects in the past.” That was certainly putting a brave face on half a decade of character assassination!

What was really going on was, as the more astute employees at Origin could all too plainly sense, something far bigger than any mere “joint venture.” The fact was, Origin was in a serious financial bind — not a unique one in their evolving industry, but one which their unique circumstances had made more severe for them than for most others. Everyone in the industry, Origin included, was looking ahead to a very near future when the enormous storage capacity of CD-ROM, combined with improving graphics and sound and exploding numbers of computers in homes, would allow computer games to join television, movies, and music as a staple of mainstream entertainment rather than a niche hobby. Products suitable for this new world order needed to go into development now in order to be on store shelves to greet it when it arrived. These next-generation products with their vastly higher audiovisual standards couldn’t be funded entirely out of the proceeds from current games. They required alternative forms of financing.

For Origin, this issue, which really was well-nigh universal among their peers, was further complicated by the realities of being a relatively small company without a lot of product diversification. A few underwhelming attempts to bring older Ultima games to the Nintendo Entertainment System aside, they had no real presence on videogame consoles, a market which dwarfed that of computer games, and had just two viable product lines even on computers: Ultima and Wing Commander. This lack of diversification left them in a decidedly risky position, where the failure of a single major release in either of those franchises could conceivably bring down the whole company.

The previous year of 1991 had been a year of Wing Commander, when the second mainline title in that franchise, combined with ongoing strong sales of the first game and a series of expansion packs for both of them, had accounted for fully 90 percent of the black ink in Origin’s books. In this year of 1992, it was supposed to have been the other franchise’s turn to carry the company while Wing Commander retooled its technology for the future. But Ultima VII: The Black Gate, while it had been far from an outright commercial failure, had garnered a more muted response than Origin had hoped and planned for, plagued as its launch had been by bugs, high system requirements, and the sheer difficulty of configuring it to run properly under the inscrutable stewardship of MS-DOS.

Even more worrisome than all of the specific issues that dogged this latest Ultima was a more diffuse sort of ennui directed toward it by gamers — a sense that the traditional approach of Ultima in general, with its hundred-hour play time, its huge amounts of text, and its emphasis on scope and player freedom rather than multimedia set-pieces, was falling out of step with the times. Richard Garriott liked to joke that he had spent his whole career making the same game over and over — just making it better and bigger and more sophisticated each time out. It was beginning to seem to some at Origin that that progression might have reached its natural end point. Before EA ever entered the picture, a sense was dawning that Ultima VIII needed to go in another direction entirely — needed to be tighter, flashier, more focused, more in step with the new types of customers who were now beginning to buy computer games. Ultima Underworld, a real-time first-person spinoff of the core series developed by the Boston studio Blue Sky Productions rather than Origin themselves, had already gone a considerable distance in that direction, and upon its near-simultaneous release with Ultima VII had threatened to overshadow its more cerebral big brother completely, garnering more enthusiastic reviews and, eventually, higher sales. Needless to say, had Ultima Underworld not turned into such a success, Origin’s financial position would have been still more critical than it already was. It seemed pretty clear that this was the direction that all of Ultima needed to go.

But making a flashier next-generation Ultima VIII — not to mention the next-generation Wing Commander — would require more money than even Ultima VII and Ultima Underworld together were currently bringing in. And yet, frustratingly, Origin couldn’t seem to drum up much in the way of financing. Their home state of Texas was in the midst of an ugly series of savings-and-loan scandals that had made all of the local banks gun-shy; the country as a whole was going through a mild recession that wasn’t helping; would-be private investors could see all too clearly the risks associated with Origin’s non-diversified business model. As the vaguely disappointing reception for Ultima VII continued to make itself felt, the crisis began to feel increasingly existential. Origin had lots of technical and creative talent and two valuable properties — Wing Commander in particular was arguably still the hottest single name in computer gaming — but had too little capital and a nonexistent credit line. They were, in other words, classic candidates for acquisition.

It seems that the rapprochement between EA and Origin began at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago at the very beginning of June of 1992, and, as evidenced by EA’s personal visit to Origin just a week or so later, proceeded rapidly from there. It would be interesting and perhaps a little amusing to learn how the rest of Origin’s management team coaxed Richard Garriott around to the idea of selling out to the company he had spent the last half-decade vilifying. But whatever tack they took, they obviously succeeded. At least a little bit of sugar was added to the bitter pill by the fact that Trip Hawkins, whom Garriott rightly or wrongly regarded as the worst of all the fiends at EA, had recently stepped down from his role in the company’s management to helm a new semi-subsidiary outfit known as 3DO. (“Had Trip still been there, there’s no way we would have gone with EA,” argues one former Origin staffer — but, then again, necessity can almost always make strange bedfellows.)

Likewise, we can only wonder what if anything EA’s negotiators saw fit to say to Origin generally and Garriott specifically about all of the personal attacks couched within the last few Ultima games. I rather suspect they said nothing; if there was one thing the supremely non-sentimental EA of this era had come to understand, it was that it seldom pays to make business personal.

Richard and Robert Garriott flank Stan McKee, Electronic Arts’s chief financial officer, as they toast the consummation of one of the more unexpected acquisitions in gaming history at EA’s headquarters in San Mateo, California.

So, the deal was finalized at EA’s headquarters in San Mateo, California, on September 25, 1992, in the form of a stock exchange worth $35 million. Both parties were polite enough to call it a merger rather than an acquisition, but it was painfully clear which one had the upper hand; EA, who were growing so fast they had just gone through a two-for-one stock split, now had annual revenues of $200 million, while Origin could boast of only $13 million. In a decision whose consequences remain with us to this day, Richard Garriott even agreed to sign over his personal copyrights to the Ultima franchise. In return, he became an EA vice president; his brother Robert, previously the chief executive in Austin, now had to settle for the title of the new EA subsidiary’s creative director.

From EA’s perspective, the deal got them Ultima, a franchise which was perhaps starting to feel a little over-exposed in the wake of a veritable flood of Origin product bearing the name, but one which nevertheless represented EA’s first viable CRPG franchise since the Bard’s Tale trilogy had concluded back in 1988. Much more importantly, though, it got them Wing Commander, in many ways the progenitor of the whole contemporary craze for multimedia “interactive movies”; it was a franchise which seemed immune to over-exposure. (Origin had amply proved this point by releasing two Wing Commander mainline games and four expansion packs in the last two years, plus a “Speech Accessory Pack” for Wing Commander II, all of which had sold very well indeed.)

As you do in these situations, both management teams promised the folks in Austin that nothing much would really change. “The key word is autonomy,” Origin’s executives said in their company’s internal newsletter. “Origin is supposed to operate independently from EA and maintain profitability.” But of course things did — had to — change. There was an inescapable power imbalance here, such that, while Origin’s management had to “consult” with EA when making decisions, their counterparts suffered no such obligation. And of course what might happen if Origin didn’t “maintain profitability” remained unspoken.

Thus most of the old guard at Origin would go on to remember September 25, 1992, as, if not quite the end of the old, freewheeling Origin Systems, at least the beginning of the end. Within six months, resentments against the mother ship’s overbearing ways were already building in such employees as an anonymous letter writer who asked his managers why they were “determined to eradicate the culture that makes Origin such a fun place to work.” Within a year, another was asking even more heatedly, “What happened to being a ‘wholly owned independent subsidiary of EA?’ When did EA start telling Origin what to do and when to do it? I thought Richard said we would remain independent and that EA wouldn’t touch us?!? Did I miss something here?” Eighteen months in, an executive assistant named Michelle Caddel, the very first new employee Origin had hired upon opening their Austin office in 1987, tried to make the best of the changes: “Although some of the warmth at Origin has disappeared with the merger, it still feels like a family.” For now, at any rate.

Perhaps tellingly, the person at Origin who seemed to thrive most under the new arrangement was one of the most widely disliked: Dallas Snell, the hard-driving production manager who was the father of a hundred exhausting crunch times, who tended to regard Origin’s games as commodities quantifiable in floppy disks and megabytes. Already by the time the Origin had been an EA subsidiary for a year, he had managed to install himself at a place in the org chart that was for all practical purposes above that of even Richard and Robert Garriott: he was the only person in Austin who was a “direct report” to Bing Gordon, EA’s powerful head of development.

On the other hand, becoming a part of the growing EA empire also brought its share of advantages. The new parent company’s deep pockets meant that Origin could prepare in earnest for that anticipated future when games would sell more copies but would also require more money, time, and manpower to create. Thus almost immediately after closing the deal with EA, Origin closed another one, for a much larger office space which they moved into in January of 1993. Then they set about filling up the place; over the course of the next year, Origin would double in size, going from 200 to 400 employees.

The calm before the storm: the enormous cafeteria at Origin’s new digs awaits the first onslaught of hungry employees. Hopefully someone will scrounge up some tables and chairs before the big moment arrives…

And so the work of game development went on. When EA bought Origin, the latter naturally already had a number of products, large and small, in the pipeline. The first-ever expansion pack for an existing Ultima game — an idea borrowed from Wing Commander — was about to hit stores; Ultima VII: Forge of Virtue would prove a weirdly unambitious addition to a hugely ambitious game, offering only a single dungeon to explore that was more frustrating than fun. Scheduled for release in 1993 were Wing Commander: Academy, a similarly underwhelming re-purposing of Origin’s internal development tools into a public-facing “mission builder,” and Wing Commander: Privateer, which took the core engine and moved it into a free-roaming framework rather than a tightly scripted, heavily story-driven one; it thus became a sort of updated version of the legendary Elite, and, indeed, would succeed surprisingly well on those terms. And then there was also Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds, developed like its predecessor by Blue Sky up in Boston; it would prove a less compelling experience on the whole than Ultima Underworld I, being merely a bigger game rather than a better one, but it would be reasonably well-received by customers eager for more of the same.

Those, then, were the relatively modest projects. Origin’s two most expensive and ambitious games for the coming year consisted of yet one more from the Ultima franchise and one that was connected tangentially to Wing Commander. We’ll look at them a bit more closely, taking them one at a time.

The game which would be released under the long-winded title of Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle had had a complicated gestation. It was conceived as Origin’s latest solution to a problem that had long bedeviled them: that of how to leverage their latest expensive Ultima engine for more than one game without violating the letter of a promise Richard Garriott had made more than a decade before to never use the same engine for two successive mainline Ultima games. Back when Ultima VI was the latest and greatest, Origin had tried reusing its engine in a pair of spinoffs called the Worlds of Ultima, which rather awkwardly shoehorned the player’s character from the main series — the “Avatar” — into plots and settings that otherwise had nothing to do with Richard Garriott’s fantasy world of Britannia. Those two games had drawn from early 20th-century science and adventure fiction rather than Renaissance Faire fantasy, and had actually turned out quite magnificently; they’re among the best games ever to bear the Ultima name in this humble critic’s opinion. But, sadly, they had sold like the proverbial space heaters in the Sahara. It seemed that Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Rice Burroughs were a bridge too far for fans raised on J.R.R. Tolkien and Lord British.

So, Origin adjusted their approach when thinking of ways to reuse the even more expensive Ultima VII engine. They conceived two projects. One would be somewhat in the spirit of Worlds of Ultima, but would stick closer to Britannia-style fantasy: called Arthurian Legends, it would draw from, as you might assume, the legends of King Arthur, a fairly natural thematic fit for a series whose creator liked to call himself “Lord British.” The other game, the first to go into production, would be a direct sequel to Ultima VII, following the Avatar as he pursued the Guardian, that “Destroyer of Worlds” from the first game, from Britannia to a new world. This game, then, was Serpent Isle. Originally, it was to have had a pirate theme, all fantastical derring-do on an oceanic world, with a voodoo-like magic system in keeping with Earthly legends of Caribbean piracy.

This piratey Serpent Isle was first assigned to Origin writer Jeff George, but he struggled to find ways to adapt the idea to the reality of the Ultima VII engine’s affordances. Finally, after spinning his wheels for some months, he left the company entirely. Warren Spector, who had become Origin’s resident specialist in Just Getting Things Done, then took over the project and radically revised it, dropping the pirate angle and changing the setting to one that was much more Britannia-like, right down to a set of towns each dedicated to one of a set of abstract virtues. Having thus become a less excitingly original concept but a more practical one from a development perspective, Serpent Isle started to make good progress under Spector’s steady hand. Meanwhile another small team started working up a script for Arthurian Legends, which was planned as the Ultima VII engine’s last hurrah.

Yet the somewhat muted response to the first Ultima VII threw a spanner in the works. Origin’s management team was suddenly second-guessing the entire philosophy on which their company had been built: “Do we still create worlds?” Arthurian Legends was starved of resources amidst this crisis of confidence, and finally cancelled in January of 1993. Writer and designer Sheri Graner Ray, one of only two people left on the project at the end, invests its cancellation with major symbolic importance:

I truly believe that on some level we knew that this was the death knell for Origin. It was the last of the truly grass-roots games in production there… the last one that was conceived, championed, and put into development purely by the actual developers, with no support or input from the executives. It was actually, kinda, the end of an era for the game industry in general, as it was also during this time that we were all adjusting to the very recent EA buyout of Origin.

Brian Martin, one of the last two developers remaining on the Arthurian Legends project, made this odd little memorial to it with the help of his partner Sheri Graner Ray after being informed by management that the project was to be cancelled entirely. Ray herself tells the story: “Before we left that night, Brian laid down in the common area that was right outside our office and I went around his body with masking tape… like a chalk line… we added the outline of a crown and the outline of a sword. We then draped our door in black cloth and put up a sign that said, ‘The King is Dead. Long live the King.’ …. and a very odd thing happened. The next morning when we arrived, there were flowers by the outline. As the day wore on more flowers arrived.. and a candle.. and some coins were put on the eyes… and a poem arrived… it was uncanny. This went on for several days with the alter growing more and more. Finally, we were told we had to take it down, because there was a press junket coming through and they didn’t want the press seeing it.”

Serpent Isle, on the other hand, was too far along by the time the verdict was in on the first Ultima VII to make a cancellation realistic. It would instead go down in the recollection of most hardcore CRPG fans as the last “real” Ultima, the capstone to the process of evolution a young Richard Garriott had set in motion back in 1980 with a primitive BASIC game called Akalabeth. And yet the fact remains that it could have been so, so much better, had it only caught Origin at a less uncertain, more confident time.

Serpent Isle lacks the refreshingly original settings of the two Worlds of Ultima games, as it does the surprisingly fine writing of the first Ultima VII; Raymond Benson, the head writer on the latter project, worked on Serpent Isle only briefly before decamping to join MicroProse Software. In compensation, though, Serpent Isle is arguably a better game than its predecessor through the first 65 percent or so of its immense length. Ultima VII: The Black Gate can at times feel like the world’s most elaborate high-fantasy walking simulator; you really do spend most of your time just walking around and talking to people, an exercise that’s made rewarding only by the superb writing. Serpent Isle, by contrast, is full to bursting with actual things to do: puzzles to solve, dungeons to explore, quests to fulfill. It stretches its engine in all sorts of unexpected and wonderfully hands-on directions. Halfway in, it seems well on its way to being one of the best Ultima games of all, as fine a sendoff as any venerable series could hope for.

In the end, though, its strengths were all undone by Origin’s crisis of faith in the traditional Ultima concept. Determined to get its sales onto the books of what had been a rather lukewarm fiscal year and to wash their hands of the past it now represented, management demanded that it go out on March 25, 1993, the last day of said year. As a result, the last third or so of Serpent Isle is painfully, obviously unfinished. Conversations become threadbare, plot lines are left to dangle, side quests disappear, and bugs start to sprout up everywhere you look. As the fiction becomes a thinner and thinner veneer pasted over the mechanical nuts and bolts of the design, solubility falls by the wayside. By the end, you’re wandering through a maze of obscure plot triggers that have no logical connection with the events they cause, making a walkthrough a virtual necessity. It’s a downright sad thing to have to witness. Had its team only been allowed another three or four months to finish the job, Serpent Isle could have been not only a great final old-school Ultima but one of the best CRPGs of any type that I’ve ever played, a surefire entrant in my personal gaming hall of fame. As it is, though, it’s a bitter failure, arguably the most heartbreaking one of Warren Spector’s storied career.

And there was to be one final note of cutting irony in all of this: Serpent Isle, which Origin released without a lot of faith in its commercial potential, garnered a surprisingly warm reception among critics and fans alike, and wound up selling almost as well as the first Ultima VII. Indeed, it performed so well that the subject of doing “more games in that vein,” in addition to or even instead of a more streamlined Ultima VIII, was briefly discussed at Origin. As things transpired, though, its success led only to an expansion pack called The Silver Seed before the end of the year; this modest effort became the true swansong for the Ultima VII engine, as well as the whole era of the 100-hour-plus, exploration-focused, free-form single-player CRPG at Origin in general. The very philosophy that had spawned the company, that had been at the core of its identity for the first decade of its existence, was fading into history. Warren Spector would later have this to say in reference to a period during which practical commercial concerns strangled the last shreds of idealism at Origin:

There’s no doubt RPGs were out of favor by the mid-90s. No doubt at all. People didn’t seem to want fantasy stories or post-apocalypse stories anymore. They certainly didn’t want isometric, 100 hour fantasy or post-apocalypse stories, that’s for sure! I couldn’t say why it happened, but it did. Everyone was jumping on the CD craze – it was all cinematic games and high-end-graphics puzzle games… That was a tough time for me – I mean, picture yourself sitting in a meeting with a bunch of execs, trying to convince them to do all sorts of cool games and being told, “Warren, you’re not allowed to say the word ‘story’ any more.” Talk about a slap in the face, a bucket of cold water, a dose of reality.

If you ask me, the reason it all happened was that we assumed our audience wanted 100 hours of play and didn’t care much about graphics. Even high-end RPGs were pretty plain-jane next to things like Myst and even our own Wing Commander series. I think we fell behind our audience in terms of the sophistication they expected and we catered too much to the hardcore fans. That can work when you’re spending hundreds of thousands of dollars – even a few million – but when games start costing many millions, you just can’t make them for a relatively small audience of fans.

If Serpent Isle and its expansion were the last gasps of the Origin Systems that had been, the company’s other huge game of 1993 was every inch a product of the new Origin that had begun to take shape following the worldwide success of the first Wing Commander game. Chris Roberts, the father of Wing Commander, had been working on something called Strike Commander ever since late 1990, leaving Wing Commander II and all of the expansion packs and other spinoffs in the hands of other Origin staffers. The new game took the basic idea of the old — that of an action-oriented vehicular simulator with a strong story, told largely via between-mission dialog scenes — and moved it from the outer space of the far future to an Earth of a very near future, where the international order has broken down and mercenaries battle for control over the planet’s dwindling resources. You take to the skies in an F-16 as one of the mercenaries — one of the good ones, naturally.

Origin and Chris Roberts pulled out all the stops to make Strike Commander an audiovisual showcase; the game’s gestation time of two and a half years, absurdly long by the standards of the early 1990s, was a product of Roberts constantly updating his engine to take advantage of the latest cutting-edge hardware. The old Wing Commander engine was starting to look pretty long in the tooth by the end of 1992, so this new engine, which replaced its predecessor’s scaled sprites with true polygonal 3D graphics, was more than welcome. There’s no point in putting a modest face on it: Strike Commander looked downright spectacular in comparison with any other flight simulator on offer at the time. It was widely expected, both inside and outside of Origin, to become the company’s biggest game ever. In fact, it became the first Origin game to go gold in the United States — 100,000 copies sold to retail — before it had actually shipped there, thanks to the magic of pre-orders. Meanwhile European pre-orders topped 50,000, an all-time record for EA’s British subsidiary. All in all, more than 1.1 million Strike Commander floppy disks — 30 tons worth of plastic, metal, and iron oxide — were duplicated before a single unit was sold. Why not? This game was a sure thing.

The hype around Strike Commander was inescapable for months prior to its release. At the European Computer Trade Show in London, the last big event before the release, Origin put together a mock-up of an airplane hangar. Those lucky people who managed to seize control for few minutes got to play the game from behind a nose cowl and instrument panel. What Origin didn’t tell you was that the computer hidden away underneath all the window dressing was almost certainly much, much more powerful than one you had at home.

Alas, pride goeth before a fall. Just a couple of weeks after Strike Commander‘s worldwide release on April 23, 1993, Origin had to admit to themselves in their internal newsletter that sales from retail to actual end users were “slower than expected.” Consumers clearly weren’t as enamored with the change in setting as Origin and just about everyone else in their industry had assumed they would be. Transporting the Wing Commander formula into a reasonably identifiable version of the real world somehow made the story, which hovered as usual in some liminal space between comic book and soap opera, seem rather more than less ludicrous. At the same time, the use of an F-16 in place of a made-up star fighter, combined with the game’s superficial resemblance to the hardcore flight simulators of the day, raised expectations among some players which the game had never really been designed to meet. The editors of Origin’s newsletter complained, a little petulantly, about this group of sim jockeys who were “ready for a cockpit that had every gauge, altimeter, dial, and soft-drink holder in its proper place. This is basically the group which wouldn’t be happy unless you needed the $35 million worth of training the Air Force provides just to get the thing off the ground.” There were advantages, Origin was belatedly learning, to “simulating” a vehicle that had no basis in reality, as there were to fictions similarly divorced from the real world. In hitting so much closer to home, Strike Commander lost a lot of what had made Wing Commander so appealing.

The new game’s other problem was more immediate and practical: almost no one could run the darn thing well enough to actually have the experience Chris Roberts had intended it to be. Ever since Origin had abandoned the Apple II to make MS-DOS their primary development platform at the end of the 1980s, they’d had a reputation for pushing the latest hardware to its limit. This game, though, was something else entirely even from them. The box’s claim that it would run on an 80386 was a polite fiction at best; in reality, you needed an 80486, and one of the fastest ones at that — running at least at 50 MHz or, better yet, 66 MHz — if you wished to see anything like the silky-smooth visuals that Origin had been showing off so proudly at recent trade shows. Even Origin had to admit in their newsletter that customers had been “stunned” by the hardware Strike Commander craved. Pushed along by the kid-in-a-candy-store enthusiasm of Chris Roberts, who never had a passing fancy he didn’t want to rush right out and implement, they had badly overshot the current state of computing hardware.

Of course, said state was always evolving; it was on this fact that Origin now had to pin whatever diminished hopes they still had for Strike Commander. The talk of the hardware industry at the time was Intel’s new fifth-generation microprocessor, which abandoned the “x86” nomenclature in favor of the snazzy new focused-tested name of Pentium, another sign of how personal computers were continuing their steady march from being tools of businesspeople and obsessions of nerdy hobbyists into mainstream consumer-electronics products. Origin struck a promotional deal with Compaq Computers in nearby Houston, who, following what had become something of a tradition for them, were about to release the first mass-market desktop computer to be built around this latest Intel marvel. Compaq placed the showpiece that was Strike Commander-on-a-Pentium front and center at the big PC Expo corporate trade show that summer of 1993, causing quite a stir at an event that usually scoffed at games. “The fuse has only been lit,” went Origin’s cautiously optimistic new company line on Strike Commander, “and it looks to be a long and steady burn.”

But time would prove this optimism as well to be somewhat misplaced: one of those flashy new Compaq Pentium machines cost $7000 in its most minimalist configuration that summer. By the time prices had come down enough to make a Pentium affordable for gamers without an absurd amount of disposable income, other games with even more impressive audiovisuals would be available for showing off their hardware. Near the end of the year, Origin released an expansion pack for Strike Commander that had long been in the development pipeline, but that would be that: there would be no Strike Commander II. Chris Roberts turned his attention instead to Wing Commander III, which would raise the bar on development budget and multimedia ambition to truly unprecedented heights, not only for Origin but for their industry at large. After all, Wing Commander: Academy and Privateer, both of which had had a fraction of the development budget of Strike Commander but wound up selling just as well, proved that there was still a loyal, bankable audience out there for the core series.

Origin had good reason to play it safe now in this respect and others. When the one-year anniversary of the acquisition arrived, the accountants had to reveal to EA that their new subsidiary had done no more than break even so far. By most standards, it hadn’t been a terrible year at all: Ultima Underworld II, Serpent Isle, Wing Commander: Academy, and Wing Commander: Privateer had all more or less made money, and even Strike Commander wasn’t yet so badly underwater that all hope was lost on that front. But on the other hand, none of these games had turned into a breakout hit in the fashion of the first two Wing Commander games, even as the new facilities, new employees, and new titles going into development had cost plenty. EA was already beginning to voice some skepticism about some of Origin’s recent decisions. The crew in Austin really, really needed a home run rather than more base hits if they hoped to maintain their status in the industry and get back into their overlord’s good graces. Clearly 1994, which would feature a new mainline entry in both of Origin’s core properties for the first time since Ultima VI had dropped and Wing Commander mania had begun back in 1990, would be a pivotal year. Origin’s future was riding now on Ultima VIII and Wing Commander III.

(Sources: the book Dungeons and Dreamers: The Rise of Computer Game Culture from Geek to Chic by Brad King and John Borland; Origin’s internal newsletter Point of Origin from March 13 1992, June 19 1992, July 31 1992, September 25 1992, October 23 1992, November 6 1992, December 4 1992, December 18 1992, January 29 1993, February 12 1993, February 26 1993, March 26 1993, April 9 1993, April 23 1993, May 7 1993, May 21 1993, June 18 1993, July 2 1993, August 27 1993, September 10 1993, October 13 1993, October 22 1993, November 8 1993, and December 1993; Questbusters of April 1986 and July 1987; Computer Gaming World of October 1992 and August 1993. Online sources include “The Conquest of Origin” at The Escapist, “The Stars His Destination: Chris Roberts from Origin to Star Citizen“ at US Gamer, Shery Graner Ray’s blog entry “20 Years and Counting — Origin Systems,” and an interview with Warren Spector at RPG Codex.

All of the Origin games mentioned in this article are available for digital purchase at GOG.com.)

  source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/origin-sells-out/

[yn6k]

hi shine! i wanted to know your thoughts about the book of us: gravity album? any personal favorites? least favorites?

sorry this is so late! i wanted to take my time to answer it because i do have a lot of thoughtsTM hahaha more (like a LOT more) under the cut :) 

so on first listen of the album, or honestly even just from the album spoiler haha, my ears instantly focused in on cover and how to love! so i’ll probably have the most to say about those songs + time of our life since ive listened to them the most!!for me: love how its in compound meter! always love me a good 12/8 or 6/8 or whatever it is haha its felt in three basically lskj i dont have a lot to say about this song? i think the focus is more on the lyrics? but musically i cant really identify anything that really sticks out to me alkdj like typical poprock i really dont know what to say maybe theres more interesting things going on underneath that im terrible at picking out (like in the chord progressions) fav part is def the prechorus^^time of our life: its so weird talking about this now bc ive gotten so used to the song that lkj some of what im saying (like the changes i would have done) feels /wrong/ but ahaha still here are some of my thoughts^^ FIRST OF ALL WONPILS PIANO SOLO >>>>> i just really love listening to it and i think an underrated part of his solo is the i think synth drums underneath them and how it creates this driving motion for the song and so like even tho the song starts kind of bare we can go straight into that hype instrumental intro instead of like having only his solo be the intro and going straight into the more mellower verse or smth along those lines? hahaha i think on first listen the first thing that stood out to me was how the chorus sounded like an extension of the verse?  like the chorus wasnt very obvious and im not sure why in terms of like chord progression music theory, but in terms of instrumentation i think one of the reasons is because that driving quarter note drum thing we get in the chorus only resolves in the second half of the chorus instead of sometime in the first half of it. so it almost gives off this sense that we might be building up to something greater but we arent? really like all of this energy from the drums piling up for seemingly no reason and also the effect that it has on really accentuating the opening lines of the chorus dissipates imo the longer that drum rhythm plays out. like the whole “a page of beautiful youth” part that opens the chorus is mostly all quarter notes and i love how we have the quarter notes within the actual drum line to back that up but then two things after that happen: 1) we get i guess a reiteration of the opening melody in the chorus with the “let’s write it together” which i feel like having the drumming driving with those same quarter notes underneath it makes the intro of the chorus feel a bit less special and memorable? and 2) and after that line plays out, the melody becomes a bit more loose in in terms of its rhythm (the ‘i want to fill it with our memories’ part) the melody doesnt have those same impactful quarter notes anymore, but u still have the drum playing it so its kind of? like a why? at that point like i personally feel it takes away from the support it gives to the earlier melody that was obviously more driving quarter notes. i kind of wish that driving forward motion in the drumline was resolved within the third measure of the chorus with like a singular drum hit into the release (like going from here to something like here but with a drum hit in between as a transition or smth? hard to explain lks i actually had a made a video a while back kind of experimenting with the sound but idk how to upload it to here) but!! i am a fan of having those driving quarter notes coming out of the bridge i love the usage of it there and would not change a thing! i think it fits because we are actually building up to that release in the instrumental, it feels a lot different than the chorus which just feels like it drags on for a bit too long. but i would also would have liked if we had a bit of an instrumental pause or something like right after sungjin says ‘dont worry about a thing’ like after that ‘ma’ a brief pause or like even the omission of the downbeat that the drum is giving like /something/ missing before we get back into him singing ‘leave everything to me’ idk i feel like that change would have been interesting and way to build up tension again in a way?? anyways to circle back to my original point about the chorus feeling like an extension of the verse..i lowkey feel like maybe day6 felt that a bit too? laksdj and thats why we got that drum intermission bw the end of the prechorus and the start of the chorus but thats just a theory idk how true it is like honestly to me it felt slightly out of place and kind of a random transition? i dunno i could be wronghere are some misc. things not in too much detail since i think talking about one song has already gotten too long alksdj but sungjins part in the prechorus i think could have been sung a bit /gentler/ than his usual throaty approach for day6 songs idk. love the vocal layering in the chorus! maybe my headphones are terrible and maybe im biased (a bit of both or neither who knows) but laksdj i kinda wish youngks bass part was a tad bit louder he has some cool parts that often get overshadowed by the electric guitars + vocals i think (like here! the sound is so tiny in the studio i wish they had brought it out a bit more because when it is brought out it like here sounds gorgeous…that sound actually might be a bit overpowering actually haha but some happy balance bw those two). also totally random but i love the way jae says ‘한 페이지’ its just satisfying to listen to like he slurs the words a bit? whereas sungjin in his part is more staccato and lkj i think i prefer the legato connection of the words to the staccato one. also thank god they brought back the piano solo for the bridge laksjhow to love: SHE!! was a favorite/look out for since the album spoiler and she did not disappoint. wonpil said it was motown influenced? love that for them;; the chord progressions are funky and fun to listen out for! love how we get a bit of instrumental differences between the first and second reiteration of the first part of the verse?  (the introduction of this electric guitar kind of in ur left ear if ur wearing head phones thats not there initially but then also this part in the electric guitar in the right ear which isnt there also again in the first reiteration just to keep it different and not redundant! i love the prechorus, introduction of strings for chorus stellar (but im strings biased) but its just so fun to follow how its similar and different to the vocal melody also whats a day6 song without some sort of chanting! love how the rhythm in the melody follows the drum part into the chorus all three times that it happens! the bridge is funky love it haha and also just love how at the end they switch up the ‘cause im ready’ and have sungjin jae and wonpil each sing one of those and then have youngk end with the ‘ooooh’ i thought that was adorable. ok keeping it short thats all i’ll saywanna go back: not to be a svt stan but holiday is that you? hahah jkjk its just a similar genre its like holiday meets maroon 5 haha i actually enjoy a lot of the song the chord progressions in the verses are interesting but also the prechorus is really pretty sounding but lakjd i honestly wish the tempo was just a little bit faster in the chorus i feel like its dragging a bit its hard for me personally to stay engaged with the song because of the murky feeling i personally get from the chorus. also the transition into the second verse is kinda ?? idk ahahaha but yeah main thing is just i wish the tempo was even just the tiniest bit faster for the chorus specifically i feel like verses are fine but just the chorus could have afforded to been a bit faster…but maybe this is just a personal experience cover: this is my personal favorite from the album! musically i just love the sound of the chord progressions in the verses? also the chorus! she! the vocal melody how it goes down but then u hear that piano in the background go up *chefs kiss* art! and i love the changes in the instrumental they introduced for the second verse! they added the bass i believe as well as another electric guitar part that isnt that muted plucking thing that we got in the first verse! AND THEN THE BRIDGE!!!!!!! THAT!!! IS!! A!! BRIDGE!!!! its so stunning and incredibly climatic and beautifully executed!!! i believe thats the first time the drums proper actually come in can you believe it (there are percussion sounds before but i think its a tambourine + a shaker/maraca? essentially not the drumset);; the tension that just the introduction of drums really brings to the piece ahhh and also the chord progressions really take u for a ride the first time u hear it and u dont know what to expect;; and then we get out of the chorus with ‘because im weak and not cool’ as a deviance from the earlier lyrics of ‘my weak and not cool side’ then DRUMTRIPLET!!!!! LAST CHORUS!! MORE DRUM TRIPLETS!! so wonderful the pOWER really the whole song is a huge crescendo ?? kind of influenced by the fact that they keep layering instruments which i absolutely LOVE like its beautiful haha but then the last chorus is just the quickest decrescendo ever as a way to fade out from the song but now with all the instruments (love how the last line really like enforces its importance and lyrical difference from the earlier ‘in the end i was seen’ by having that drum just punch it into u with every hit of the bass drum haha) also like how its not a true circular ending (but it kinda is) like there are instrumental and lyrical differences from the start and the end one thing i kind of wished they experimented with was like maybe mixing up some members voices in the chorus? like i tried a youngpil one myself haha where wonpil sings this part, then youngk, wonpil, youngk (again i hve a video for this but idunno how to upload to this ask) but its not like the song to me suffered from having singular member choruses i just thought it might be kinda cool haha anywhos im biased i love this song and laksj didnt even go into the lyrics rip anyways moving onbest part: i think its really cute that they composed this to be specifically be enjoyed in concert! i really like the best paaaaaaaaa aaaart like that swoop they do and the layering of the vocals i also think its super cool how some of the instrumental drop out towards the end of the chorus but alskj another ‘wanna go back’ transition into the second verse are they experimenting with this transition or smth?? but it just feels like inserted bc they couldnt think of a better way to transition into second verse which?? just kind of awkward akjl idk but maybe they have a reason for it i dont know! but yeah haha again musically im not really sure what to say kinda like for me it just feels like standard pop rock which isnt a bad thing just a /thing/ ahaha 

[tae-ffxiv]

Okay so... some thoughts on healer changes I had. I guess there’s been a lot of salt going around, luckily I’ve stayed out of most of it. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t thrown my own every now and again. I’ve mained Scholar since Stormblood dropped so of course I had my own thoughts. And... they aren’t exactly what I’d expected.

From the time of the announcement in the liveletter that healers would see a fair chunk of changes, and that more emphasis would be put on the healing part of the role, I’d heard some people were unhappy. I was a little too, but I decided rather than lament it, I’d just be... cautiously optimistic. I thought if anything, it might end up like a Summoner situation, people around for the Stormblood launch might know what I mean. The changes might be pretty bad at first, but would probably get improved upon over a few different patches. 

In truth, I was considerably salty about the Summoner changes. And I’ve been rather surprised, I’ve been notably less salty about the SCH changes... BUT...

I was a little unhappy with them wanting to emphasize the healing part of the role, but really decided to roll with it, “ehhh, not sure how I feel about that, but I guess it makes sense”. At this point I still feel about the same. I don’t mind having to heal more.

What I do mind is that part of the reason I stuck with SCH, even after capping the other two healers, is because I enjoyed the way it felt to play. I still prefer its healing ‘style’ to the other two (although I’ve yet to hit 80 on WHM or AST, so that could change), when it comes to how DPS works as SCH... It felt unique, and the changes kind of removed that feeling. I still like healing as a SCH, but I’m not a fan of DPSing any more. And frankly? If it’s not recent content, I find I’m not healing very much at this point. Which leaves me to DPS. 

So, that’s where my disappointment with the SCH changes lies. I feel it took some of the flavour out of the job, and now it feels a touch more generic.

And honestly? I’ve similar feelings when it comes to AST. 

I 100% get why the made the changes that they made to the cards. Aside from when there was a BRD in the party, the main card people wanted to see was Balance. So? Just make everything give a direct damage buff. Makes sense. BUT... I really liked the little bit of extra thought that came with the old system. Who should the card go to? (Yes, I’m aware that I still have to pay attentions to ranged/melee cards, but still...) Should I eat the card and turn it into a buff? It really made it fun for me. Not to mention I will really miss the way that Lord/Lady of Crowns used to work. I loved the instant, flat damage that you got from one, or the (albeit small) insta-heal you got from the other. I’m a little sad to see them also turned into damage buffs. 

At the end of the day, though, I get why they made the changes they did and I’m willing to accept them - perhaps reluctantly in some cases. 

But it also won’t keep me from missing the old playstyles for each of those jobs. Because that’s really the source of disappointment for me. They were a lot of fun, and now they feel kind of ‘meh’. Again, I haven’t finished leveling AST, so maybe I’ll find it more fun once I hit the cap. I don’t know, but I guess I’ll find out.

Still, I don’t want to focus on the negatives, so let’s look at some stuff that I enjoyed right from the start:

First: The effects for Biolysis look super cool. So does the icon. Also I love the little spin they added to the animation when you use it. I just like Biolysis. There’s a part of me that wishes it had a shorter duration just because I want to use it more often. 

Second: Also loving that extra shield from Critlo (I’m not able to recall what it’s called right this moment). Love how it doesn’t conflict with Galvanize, so things don’t get too messed up even if you have another SCH in the party. 

Third: Malefic IVs effects are really pretty. It just really like casting Malefic IV. (I hope that’s the right number...)

Aaaaand Fourth: CONGRATULATIONS AST, on finally, FINALLY being able to cast an AoE before level 50. I will not miss AST being the only healer without an AoE below 50.

Okay, I think that’s all I’ve got to say on the subject, at least for now. Not much point to this except I’ve had some Thoughts, and felt like screaming them out into the void. 

(Oh, also, as much as I don’t like the way SCH DPS style has changed, Art of War is a cool name for a skill, the icon looks cool, and I think(?) I like the animation. I’m usually too surrounded by mobs to really actually see the animation and I keep forgetting to use the skill outside of combat and actually pay attention.)

[oscar-isaacs-number-one-bitch]

“The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part” Movie Review

Back on Oscar nomination day in 2014, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the 5 nominees for the Best Animated Feature of the year, and while that list included some crowd favorites like Big Hero 6 and more mature blockbusters like How to Train Your Dragon 2, the largest story that day wasn’t about any of the nominations, but one film that was left out of them. Most pundits and basically any critic who had seen the brilliantly creative, immensely funny, and more-emotionally-affecting-than-it-had-any-right-to-be Lego Movie had it pegged as not only a surefire nominee, but surefire winner of that award, and our jaws were left hanging on the floor at the lack of its mention during the announcement.

Despite that though, The Lego Movie went on to be an animated hit in the homes of people all across the world, two mildly-to-wildly successful spinoffs were launched to critical praise, and the studio immediately began plans for a sequel, with directors Phil Lord & Chris Miller not returning to the project as they were already booked to direct the Solo movie for Lucasfilm (which they were fired from, and then they moved on to Into the Spider-Verse and we all saw how that shook out). Thus, we have The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, which finds Emmet and the rest of the Lego people 5 years removed from the ending of that first film. Bricksburg has been ravaged and destroyed by the toys of DuPlon, and our heroes now live in Apocalypseburg. But when some of the residents are captured by a mysterious new character from the Sistar system, Emmet must embark on a daring new mission to rescue his friends and prove that he truly is The Special.

I’ve made it no small secret that I love The Lego Movie and thoroughly enjoyed Lego Batman. Lego Ninjago was…fine for me, but I mostly chalked that up to it being very much tied into the popular children’s Ninjago series, which I hadn’t watched. With the direct sequel to the film that birthed them all being not only released but also set 5 years after the original, I was curious to see if the team at Warner Bros. would be able to pull off the same magnificent feat they did in 2014, especially without the direction of Lord & Miller. And, for the most part, they almost do. Much like How to Train Your Dragon 3, I thought Lego Movie 2 was pretty good – just not as good as those initial outings. While there are certainly moments of levity and plenty of jokes from a script by Lord & Miller, something did feel missing in its direction and pacing.

For a start, there are too many musical numbers in this movie. That may seem like a strange thing to say about a Lego movie, especially as a critique to start with over something more significant, but that’s exactly my point. It doesn’t make much sense until one realizes that the studio fell so in love with what worked in the original that they just decided to do that again – but a lot more. Sure, the original film this one is following had an iconic original theme song, and even Lego Batman dabbled a bit in the introduction, but Lego movies are not musicals. Even Tiffany Haddish (who can’t sing very well, as we find out) gets no less than two numbers essentially all to herself, and basically all of them take place in the second act. This not only overcrowds the movie as a whole, but the second act is simply too repetitive. On a story level, that means there’s less time devoted to moving it along rather than just using the same jokes for a little while longer than necessary. They’re not bad jokes, and some of them are actually quite funny, but that zippiness that was so profound in the original film is missing here, giving way to a slightly more elementary-style humor, which follows, considering the director they found to replace Lord & Miller is Mike Mitchell, director of Trolls.

Not only is the second act overly repetitive and reliant on the same jokes, the newer characters added to the franchise aren’t exactly super memorable. None of them leave the lasting impact that a character like a Lego Batman did on the first movie, and there are basically zero interesting cameos throughout (save for one that actually does turn into a pretty hilarious real-world reference joke during the third act). General Mayhem seems to be the stand-in for the Batman character this time around, but apart from capturing the main heroes and transporting them to the Sistar system, there’s really not much else to her until the final couple of minutes and she doesn’t help craft other characters’ development like Batman did for Lucy. In addition to this, the villain this time around (whose name I’m not even going to attempt to type since I’m writing this at almost 2:00 in the morning) might be a more intimidating presence than Lord Business, but she’s not exactly as or more compelling.

One of the things that made Lord Business compelling was his tie-in to the real world that informed the surprise reveal at the end of the original Lego Movie, but while the added-on real-world element to this entry in the series presents a beautiful intent with its message, the actual Lego sections don’t handle telling that message quite as clearly as the first one did its central themes, which makes understanding the villain character in The Second Part more difficult than it honestly should be. Most of the supporting cast that are introduced in this movie aren’t very memorable, which doesn’t bode well for a franchise plan. Even though the Rex Dangervest storyline does go to some pretty ambitious places, he remains sort of a watered-down version of what he’s probably meant to be, and a lot of that is wrapped up in his very convoluted storyline.

Even the animation seems to have taken a bit of a hit; in the original movie, it was made fairly obvious that everything was made of legos, and that was a super cool and innovative way to create an animated movie, but when this sequel gets busy in the Sistar system or with characters not from the Lego world, it becomes difficult to get very invested in the animation, as it no longer carries that particularly unique look. If we’re going to continue to get Lego movies in this vein for a while, spending more time outside of the Lego world than in it is a bad idea. Legos are fun! Spending time in the Lego world should take up the majority of a movie in this franchise, not a minority.

There is a fair amount to like about this movie though; pretty much all the original characters carry the same weight and charm they have since 5 years ago, and the story and themes this movie presents in conjunction with the last one are actually very sweet. Some of the music is actually quite catchy as well, and The Lonely Island come back again with a stellar closing credits sequence. While the direction could have used quite a bit of work, the script by Lord & Miller does what it can to keep the franchise fresh and new, and if nothing else, most of the jokes are funny on first arrival.

It may sound like I’m knocking on this movie too much, but much like How to Train Your Dragon 3 (the superior film between these two, if you’re wondering), I did enjoy it – I just find it to be a bit disappointing as a sequel. That’s the tough part about being a film critic; if you’re reviewing a sequel, talking about the stuff that worked again isn’t nearly interesting as what doesn’t work as well this time around or what works better because that sticks out more, which can make it sound like that’s all you think of the film. With Lego Movie 2, that means telling you that while what worked last time mostly works again this time, there are a few spots that don’t work as well, and that’s okay, if a little bit of a bummer.

“I’m giving The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part” a 7.6/10

[brodaveisbad]

there’s gonna be obvious spoilers for the series also trigger warning for rape/rape attempts/mention, cisnormativity and all that shit. I’ll say when it’s coming up. — now bad yaoi anatomy aside, let’s review this masterpiece that isn’t really a masterpiece as you can see this is some yaoi anime called LOVE STAGE!! clearly, since it’s right up there in big pink letters. goddamn that’s bright i watched this a few years ago because some person i knew recommended it to me and swore that it was the best thing ever and even though i didnt really care for it i thought hey, why not give it a shot now let’s just start off saying that this anime is total bullshit so the main guy is the blonde twink here in the glasses.  (is it just me or does it look like his glasses are fogged up and he needs to clean that shit) izumi, or whatever his name is. I don’t know. anyway he lives with his family which consists of well-known celebrities in their big ass house. his parents are actors and they constantly belittle him and push him away from his dreams because they’re pricks he’s an ‘otaku’ aka huge anime nerd, and his art sucks and he’s sweet and weird but pure so come on man don’t fuckin crush his dreams jfc. parents, man he also has a waifu named lala-lulu (what the hell kind of name is that) and has a body pillow of her  the other guy here is a famous actor or something, I forgot his name.  who the hell cares though his new name is douchey mcasshole because thats accurate and I’ll get to why later (and goddamn check out that seme yaoi face a++) –S P O I L E R– anyway they met when the twinks parents were doing a wedding commercial a long time ago when they were kids.  mini douchey mcasshole was supposed to be the one who caught the flowers with some little girl but something happened and that girl couldn’t be there so they were like hey your kid looks like a girl (ugh) so he can fill her place so he did and he was nervous and kept fuckin up so mini douche who wasn’t much of a douche back then gave him a marble for good luck and they got through it they parted their ways and never saw each other again until the company that made said commercial decided they want them back to make a 10 year anniversary reprise or some shit the thing is though, after that commercial mr douche got a crush on izumi but only because he thought he was really a girl and he still fucking had it after all those years, and because he didn’t know and izumi was dressed up as a girl in the first commercial he had to do it again and he didn’t want to but his goddamn parents decided to force him into it like the pricks they still are also while the douche held onto the memory, izumi wiped it from his memory because the majority of it was a terrible experience for him AND he isn’t great at acting anyway so thats great so blah blah blah they get it over with and all that douchey mcasshole still thinks the twink a girl and is actually really nice until okay first let’s introduce this guy  this is the twinks older brother who’s in a boy band or some shit and I don’t like him much because of what he did here but there’s something he’s pretty cool for that’s gonna come up some time after this (also he gave him the lala-lulu body pillow as a reward for getting through that commercial. what a good bro) anyway back to what I was saying –TW FOR CISNORMATIVITY/TRANSPHOBIA TOO MAYBE–
(he isnt trans but still im just being safe here because of the dudes reaction is pretty…. yikes) basically after douchey mcasshole gives him a sweet, heartfelt love confession, izumis brother comes out and proves to him that he’s a guy by proving that he’s got a dick (ehhhhhh) and so douchey mcasshole gets pissed and hates him now for “"tricking”“ him and wasting his time or some bs like that (like i said, yikes) luckily it doesn’t bother izumi that much, but hes still disappointed that he isn’t the nice boy he met 10 years ago then some time later the douchebag realizes that he actually still likes him even though now he knows he’s a dude, so he comes over to get rid of those feelings by burning the fact that he’s a guy into his head so heres when things go to shit –TW FOR ATTEMPTED RAPE/RAPE MENT.– this fucker ends up chasing him around and makes him strip and those feelings don’t go away and instead take over, so tries to force himself on him which is not okay and why I fucking hate him so much luckily though izumis brother comes in and saves the day, thank god  so hes stopped before he can really do anything and leaves out of sheer terror and izumis big bro hates him now and they both lost whatever trust they had for him Izumi locks himself in his room for a while but eventually leaves for school. there he sees the guy at the front entrance or something, the guy notices him and goes to talk to him. flashback time. twink is fucking terrified and RUNS. douchey mcasshole chases him, and izumi thinks hes gonna try that shit he did again. so he kind of escapes, but then some fucking. weird sumo wrestling dudes with animal heads are blocking the way and he can’t get trough (what the fuck)  and yaoi douche catches up to him, then they spin away (I’m done) much to izumis surprise, he isn’t gonna try anything. he bows down on the ground and apologizes, promising not to do it again.  so of course all of his trauma is dropped, he is magically not afraid anymore and forgives him. after this douchey is somehow less of an asshole and acts like a happy cutesy gay guy, and they even go on a date he even helps him out later with his entry for a manga contest thing. and Izumi, the twink, happened to promise his familys manager dude(whatever he is) or his parents or whatever that if he lost he would start his career as a star so of course since his art sucks ass he didn’t make it. poor guy.  (im not gonna lie though. this shit looks worse than the bad anime art i made when i was 11. no fucking wonder he lost) so since im lazy as hell and I don’t feel like explaining the rest of the 10 episodes as a whole, im not gonna do that. skip skip so now he’s finally following his parents footsteps, everyone’s making a big deal about it and he gains popularity pretty fast. as everything’s going on he debates whether or not he has feelings for guys, douchey mcasshole specifically one day he accepts those feelings on that one day he has to hide from something and ends up in an area with this group of creeps.  these creeps saw him on tv before or something, and don’t really believe that he’s a dude so they want to make sure. –TW FOR RAPE ATTEMPT AND CISNORMATIVITY, AGAIN– these guys hold him down, lift up his shirt and see his flat chest and are like aw man, hes really a dude. but then because he still looks cute to them or some shit they try pulling the same shit douchey mcasshole did so just as it’s about to happen again izumi realizes that he only wants douchey mcasshole, so he puts a stop to this and kicks some ass  you go, man. (aw, our little twinkie is growing up) so he escapes, later runs into one of his nerd friends. they were supposed to hang out with some other guys but that didn’t go well since he was chased by fans earlier. and they talk about mr seme and it makes him think of his feelings more or something so he runs off to his house there he knocks on the door, tackles him, kisses him and says he wants to fuck so they fuck and that’s it, that’s the end. they fuck. douchey mcasshole finally gets the ass hes been craving and glasses twink gets the dick. the end, y'all. so what do i think is bs about this? the love interest dude is an asshole obviously, even though he acts like a fucking dork a lot of the time. because of his reaction when he found out izumi was a guy, the fact that he tried to rape him (twice, i didnt mention the second time because fuck that tbh) izumi left behind all of his fear and got over his trauma from what happened immediately which isnt even a thing that happens realistically he also ended up loving his almost-rapist and only truly accepting it when he was about to get gangbanged. and its kind of ridiculous how many times that shit almost happened to him. like, fucking hell, leave this guy alone. he ended up letting go of his dreams like his parents wanted just like that (practice makes perfect, my dude. keep drawing) there are some good things though, the art style is fine aside from the yaoi anatomy and the colors are alright. douchey mcasshole isnt really much of a douche a lot of the time and he does really care for izumi and there were some laughable parts, ive got to admit but jfc those sumo wrestling things, what the hell were they doing there? could they really have been more lazy so anyway i still think its bullshit