#text portrait effect

[divinector]

CSS Text Portrait Effects

[sahdevvala]

Text Portrait Effect

#Adobe #Adobephotoshop #photoshop #kshitijvivan #sahdevvala #artwork #Photoshoptutorial #photoedit #photoediting #graphics #graphicdesigner #designer #creativegraphics #creativedesigner #creativedesign #educationvala #education_vala #parthsir #educationvala.com #educationvalanews #creativeagency #socialmediabanner #socialmediabannerdesign #socialmediapost #realestate #realestatesocialmediapost #socialmediapostrealestate #socialmediapostdesign #socialmediapostlayout #creativesocialmediapost #creativegraphicdesign #creativedesign #socialmediapostfor #socialmediapostforrealestate #movieposter #moviebanner #filmposter #filmbanner #clipmask #clipmasking #layermask #layermasking #texteffect #textportraiteffect #textportrait

[codingflicks]

CSS text Portrait Effect

[tadmalretreatnresort]

[drenched-in-sunlight]

one thing that i find interesting is that even though we never get to interact with Marika directly, only knowing her via obscure cutscenes and other characters' dialogue... she actually displays a wide range of emotions as much as any other NPCs.

her statues depict her as having a warm, gentle smile:

the Mimic veil description points to her playful, mischievous side:

(it's a popular theory in the JP/Asian side of the fandom that it's sth from her childhood - hence the "Marika's Mischief", not "Queen Marika's", and she used it to escape the grisly fate befalling her family.

additionally, its equivalence in Dark Souls is also something described as "the mischief of a young girl who sought relief from the solitude of the woods at dusk", aka Princess Dusk who hails from "Oolacile, land of ancient golden sorceries", but i digress)

her portrait, the story trailer's "Queen Marika was driven to the brink" and Gideon's dialogue after the player defeated Malenia pointed out her sorrow:

(back when i first played the base game, this is the portrait that drove my eyes most in Roundtable Hold. i kept gazing at her - the Queen with permanently lowered eyes, and thought "there is a girl in there")

The bat lady's song, Messmer's entire Crusade, all those conflicts to establish the Erdtree, shows her anger, and the cruelty she's capable of:

Then there's Shaman's village, the clinic underneath Shadow Keep, the golden braid, the Minor Erdtree, the sealing of Death - that points to grief, trauma, survivor guilt, kindness, and the ruinous drive for revenge that results in the above path down hell:

(there's also a theory for the Crusade's headless statue being a reminder for the Hornsent of what they put Marika's mother through, but it's not concrete canon so here is the link if you want to check it out)

The fact that all of Erdtree's incantations are heal and protection spells (with only one exception of Wrath of Gold spell which was found after the Elden Ring was shattered), the Capitol's Perfumers originally being blessed healers, and that all Erdtree blessings come in the shape of tears give the picture of Marika's gentle wish at the beginning: to heal everything and everyone.

(and to me personally, there's a kind of vulnerability and honesty in showing your tears to the world and let it be your power to heal at the same time.)

the eye she blessed Messmer with (i do think the Eng translation at some part lost the sentiment of the JP text - that the eye is always referred to as a blessing)

the blessing flask that - unlike its Dark Souls equivalent (which ranges from 6-13 flasks), only have 4 available to us player, heal all ailments and status effect, and specified as sth made for Messmer.

the Marika's soreseal in the Haligtree + the waterfall near Godwyn's final resting place

the Regal Omen Bairn (that was fashioned after the Jizo statue - sth made by grieving parents wishing for protection for their deceased child in the afterlife)

the blessing, gifts, equipment that Messmer and Godwyn's personal knights all get

the fact that Marika's bedchamber and the Impaler's Catacomb (which is the only catacomb in the base game to have the spike trap mechanic used in catacombs in the DLC) remain the proof of Messmer's existence in the base game

how Godwyn's ending is the only ending where the mending rune is placed on the position of Marika's womb (the lower arc or the Elden Ring - also referred to as the basin in which its blessings pool)

that's a whole barrage of motherhood. the love, the fear, the postpartum depression, the guilt and anxiety, (the occasional scheming for revenge with her son). and despite how flawed and tragic that love ends up being for all of them, it is there.

(there's a whole subplot about how Messmer is the only demigod to be called ugly in-game (Hornsent npc dialogue) while Boc's questline is about how his mother being the only one to always assure him he's beautiful, despite everyone else calling him ugly. and how each NPCs questline does reflect a wider theme seen in Marika and her children. but again, i digress)

every time i think of her, Marika is a constantly shifting kaleidoscope, holding everything from within (the beauty and the malign, light and dark, birth and death, she's warm and gentle, she's cruel and unjust, she's strong and kind, she's weak and resentful, she's sweet and she's bitterness made flesh)... and i could only stand there and admire it all.

[exaltedfuzz]

AceAttober day 27: Wound

[ID]A portrait oriented, sequential illustration based on dialogue spoken by Lana Skye from Ace Attorney, which is written in capital letters across the piece. At the top, it reads "Even though he was already dead", next to Lana's hand, gloved, which is gripping a knife. The background is black. Underneath, the same hand illustration is duplicated, with higher saturation and motion blur created with raking brush strokes, accompanied by the text "My hands were shaking at the thought". Underneath, the hand illustration is again duplicated, again at a higher saturation, without motion blur, now with the knife handle visible on the other side of the thumb (indicating that her hand slipped). The text reads "of stabbing him." The background is still black, but in the foreground in front of the hand, beams of light lead into a white background, on which text reads "That's why", above dripping blood. Underneath, the background fades to black again, with Lana's hand in the foreground again, saturated blue at the fingertips and drawn much more roughly, with a double-vision effect on the outline, which is thick black raked lines. There is a red raked line across her hand, and underneath it a cut across her palm is visible, which has also cut open her glove. Some of her palm skin is visible. Across her hand, it reads "I ended up cutting my hand." She holds her right hand at the wrist with her left, her thumb pressed into the base of her palm. Her wrist is visible underneath the glove, with a blue vein visible down the middle of it. [End ID]

Bonus: inspired by a piece by Theo van den Boogaard (and this picture)

[ID] Sketch of Jake Marshall, Lana Skye, Mia Fey, and Diego Armando looking at each other and thinking, "What a beauty!" Jake is looking at Lana, Lana is looking at Mia, Mia is looking at Diego, and Diego is looking at Jake. [End ID]

Thank you to @quailfence for the second description!!

[wickworks]

Lancer Tactics dialogue layout crisis of faith

(from this month's backer update)

Every so often, I'll run into something in development that eats away at me until it pushes me to a crisis of faith and I have a breakdown, burn down a bunch of work, and build something better from the ashes. These are moments of transformation and we're almost always able to come out the other side with something much better than what we started with.

This all sounds very dramatic until you take a step back and see the issue in question is just, like, the layout of a menu. But if medieval priests were able to have schisms over angels on pins I can have strong feelings about graphic design, dammit!

This month's episode revolved around how we're doing character dialogue. For reference the plan was to do a standard 4-slot visual-novel talking heads layout. I call it a 4-slot because there's usually four positions that characters can stand; two on the left, two on the right:

I had it ingame, and it was working. But... something felt off. Do you see the difference between every one of the above examples and this?

It's all about perspective, baby.

Answer: all the character art in those examples are drawn at a slight angle so they can be flipped back and forth to be made like they're looking at each other.

Trying to do this with the perspective we chose early — straight on — makes for a chorus line of weirdos who are looking directly into your soul as they ostensibly chat with each other. Credulity is strained; the illusion of these puppets interacting in the same space is paper-thin.

(I was skeptical of choosing this perspective for this reason, but we ultimately went with it to make the customizable assets in the portrait maker easier to fit together)

We tried a bunch of different layouts, but they all at least one of these problems:

they'd stare into your soul while ostensibly directing comments elsewhere.

they felt like text messages; this would be fine if that's what we were going for, but we wanted something that could represent face-to-face conversations. (Tactical Breach Wizards was able to pull this style off because they had little 3D dioramas to go along with it)

or, most damning of all, they felt like zoom calls.

So, my heart aflutter and spirit in want, I spent a day doing a research dive into various dialogue layouts (bless the Game UI Database!) to see if any other games had managed to pull this character art perspective off. I ended up with this massive non-chronological taxonomic tree:

(fullsize here)

The type of layout that particularly caught my eye was this style where each character had their own little box. These layouts borrow a concept from comic books called "closure" where the space and time between characters are left blank. Freed from the constraints of trying to simulate a single space, these layouts allow the reader to fill in the blanks with something that feels more true-to-life than anything we'd be able to render ourselves.

I was especially impressed with the dynamism of Tales of Symphonia and The World Ends With You; rather than sticking to single slots they would animate the entire panels moving around to indicate motion an relative position of characters.

So we threw out the old code and copied them. Here's what we've come up with:

We'll be able to have portraits interact, like smacking each other (I felt like a kid hitting two action figures together, lol)

We can also apply effects like princess-leia-holograms and full-screen "lighting" effects like warning banners:

Carpenter and I came up with a number of arrangements that the portraits can smoothly transition between:

I've also implemented support for choices during a dialogue, potentially leading to branching paths.

Overall, I feel SO much better about this system than our initial designs. It might feel a little more cartoony, but I think we're making a cartoony game so that's not a problem.

Whew. We bit a lot off to chew with this project. I feel like I just made a second visual novel game engine inside of the first. Fingers crossed that it all ends up worth it.

[glasskey]

Episode 6

After last weeks episode, some press releases and exchanging comments with Tuchman online it’s now become abundantly clear that these writers have done something so incredibly cruel to their audiences that I can’t even. After 5 1/2 seasons and 9 years they have crushed the hopes of 90% of their fanbase.

I’m still processing, but I’ve really tried to articulate this as best I can. 

In episode 2 Holly called Nick a Nazi, setting him up for a monumental take down and of course here we are….subtle? No. Predictable? Of course not. For years now, show runners have made a huge effort to construct an intricate and utterly gorgeous love story the likes of which we’ll be lucky to ever see again….and then they poisoned it in the eleventh hour. They spent years building up trust in a character who for all intents and purposes shouldn’t be trusted…..and then they stabbed the audience in the back. It’s vicious and cruel and after viewer loyalty through Covid and writers strikes, you get to hate them for it. After having the audacity to call this season a “love letter for the fans” you absolutely have permission. 

To say I’m surprised they did this would be an understatement, the fact is I never thought they’d be this stupid. Any social media posting could have told them the math on the price they would pay in terms of ratings and profits, but it’s more than that, they’ll pay in trust. From now on their audience will never trust them again, they’ll pay dearly for it with The Testaments because well, who’s going to watch a show with their name on it, when audiences have already been so brutally kicked in the face? These writers can try to justify this all they like but the fact remains that they withheld character information until the last moment only to pile it on, expect their audience to lap it up and emotionally detach from a character that they’d loved for years and years. It doesn’t work like that. In the absence of complete character transparency, people construct their own history and from the small amounts they were given they developed a portrait of Nick Blaine that was deeply sympathetic and grew to love him. To expect an audience to emotionally detach from a character and “re evaluate”, as Tuchman said, in the final 4 episodes is insane. It demonstrates exactly how out of touch these writers are with how much their fanbase has bonded with these characters and this duo in particular. People don’t simply change over to Team Luke, they just turn off. This love triangle was dragged out for years simply for viewer engagement, but worse than that it was heavily romanticised, reeling audiences in and cutting them off at the knees brutally after a bait and switch in the last season. I’m particularly mortified by the inclusion of such scenes including Blaine reading Corinthians, given their ultimate intent. What the actual fuck? They could have performed their villain reveal years ago but they wanted to have their cake and eat it too. To add insult to injury it completely negated any autonomous choice the protagonist would have to make about this love triangle, to bring it to a close. Once again a mans actions determined the outcome of a relationship. By revealing a character as an “illusion” of the protagonists mind, they will also in effect completely poison the ENTIRE existing love story as being nothing more than a cheap deception. It’s one of the most toxic things I’ve seen a writing team ever do. 

Unfortunately it doesn’t matter if they suddenly have Nick Blaine sprout wings and fly out all the fucking Handmaids, the damage is done. They’ve effectively cast doubt upon him and he’s already had to work overtime to earn that trust. The only noble thing for him to do now is for him to die and that’s probably what they have planned. I mean fuck it, they’ve completely violated all of the rest of the text so why not go the whole hog? 

I’ve heard about fans crying over this, LITERALLY crying and I can’t say I blame them. This show feels like PTSD and these two were the only bright thing in it. What struck me was that they weren’t crying that Nick had done something awful or that Nick and June had broken up, they were crying that the writers had done this. And that really is the point; they won’t hate Nick Blaine for it, they wont REALLY believe that he betrayed June after this long….they’ll just hate those writers for ruining something so beautiful. I know I will. 

[tvlandofficiall]

Wait elaborate on the “rudy dies on the weird route but not the normal route” idea please

i'll do my best! i think there are a few factors in how rudy as a character is written that contribute to this for me, so i'll try to break them down as best as i can.

to start; rudy's sickness is written as too out-of-focus to make me believe it will have an impact as significant as him dying from it on the normal route. it's a bit like the way kris and susie's school project is written about; rudy mentions that the hospital staff ran "some tests" and found "some things", but there's no sense of specificity to it that would make it stand out as something to be focused on. how sick is he? how concerned are the townspeople aside from noelle? when we hear about asgore's feelings on the matter, the focus is not on rudy being sick but on the budding romantic feelings asgore has for him. the pill bottles that were originally going to be in noelle's dark world room didn't make it into the final game. there's not a sense of some intentional mystery afoot like there is with ie; dess.

additionally, there's another way that rudy is framed that makes me think his death on a normal route is unlikely. rudy is a character with both a unique text sound and a portrait. right now, though, you could play through the entire game and never see him. for him to die, we'd both need (and have to account for, given those signifiers of importance) time to be able to get to know him such that we'd be affected when he died. think of how i mentioned that the weird route is framed such that you're expected to have played the normal route beforehand — berdly's death is impactful because of that "oh my god, you can kill berdly" feeling, and the idea of breaking the game to kill an otherwise relevant character is very baked in to what makes it hit. given rudy's bedbound status means he'll likely be absent from ch3, the soonest we could see rudy in a berdly-like role is ch4 — over halfway through the game. we'd only have ch5, 6, and 7 left to explore the effects of him dying at that point, and by that point those effects — noelle's grief, the dreemurr family's schism, ect. — would feel more concisely explored via dess rather than splitting the screentime between discussing her and discussing rudy. there are other plot points that'd take precedence there, too, like the darkners' and kris' fates, that rudy's death wouldn't really be relevant to. if noelle were the protagonist of the game, i could see her being driven to dig deeper into the dark world and harness its magic by rudy's death. but noelle is a supporting cast member, and so i don't think i can quite as easily see that being worked in without it coming to feel a bit like a revolving door of a plot.

but why is rudy sick, then? i feel there are a few reasons. first of all, on the normal route, rudy's sickness functions the same as mayor holiday being an absent mother, spades king being an abusive father, ralsei being spawned in with no parents to speak of, susie having what's implied to be a troubled home life at best, and kris being a child of divorce. all of our protagonists and deuteragonists are isolated kids, outcasts, ect. and rudy being hospitalized drives home noelle's particular isolation — as aforementioned, mayor holiday is an absent mother. kris and noelle's feelings towards one another are only 10 HP higher than kris' feelings towards ralsei. and rudy can only see her when she has the time to come and visit him in the hospital. like the school project, his sickness is there to set up something else in the story.

and second of all — rudy does have a lot of death flags. we know for a fact that undertale's rudy isn't around anymore. i think a lot of players are going in expecting rudy will die — i often see the sentiment expressed "there's no way rudy's going to make it!" when someone talks about him. and deltarune is a game that's deliberately playing on those audience expectations quite a bit, both of the characters' undertale counterparts and of the archetypes they embody. that "there's no way!' feeling is being evoked on purpose.

those death flags aren't just there to trick you. you may remember me discussing how the weird route shapes the game into a "noelle route", and how it seems like we're deliberately trying to isolate noelle such that we can control her. we've removed one person noelle feels she can say no to already — kris. we sever noelle from the moments she gets in the normal route to grow closer to them, as well as berdly, queen, and susie. (of course, susie manages to slip through through the cracks and get a moment alone with noelle, but we do still deliberately try to shove her out of the way. see; ferris wheel poster dialogue.) but who is the one other person noelle feels she can say no to? who might we see as another obstacle? who might cause us to wonder "wait a second, wasn't that guy supposed to die? should i backtrack and see if there's something i missed?" and on what route — in both this game and undertale — do sudden and abrupt character deaths serve the story that's being told rather than feel out of place?

[pillowspace]

Someone on Discord asked me how I do shading/lighting on Siffrin's hat, and I thought "I would have a more coherent time showing it rather than just finding the words" so I did this, but I'll also show it here in case anyone wants it

The text:

Okay, so here's a Siffrin from my gallery with some layers turned off, but it's already got the normal shading.

Personally, I color-pick the dark grey from Siffrin's hat in his portraits.

Black airbrush a preferred side.

White airbrush on the other side in a slightly lesser amount. I set that to Add.

I may then also airbrush in black beneath the hat. One in a smaller area with a higher concentration, then a larger lighter one across the face. I also may airbrush a shadow on the hat if it fits the drawing. These shadows do not go on the inner hat.

You can stop there if you want, but since Siffrin is next to Loop in the drawing this is from, there is a large white area with the airbrush set to Add for lighting.

Nothing special here! Simply drawing in completely opaque white around the edges of bright lighting can have a nice effect.

And if you want, taking a colour like this:

(blue)

and covering the drawing with it set to Vivid Light on a super low opacity can have a cool effect!

[brandileigh2003]

Older wolfstar fic recs: (older in age that is)

let me know what I missed and self recs are welcome (also as always check tags for each one to protect yourself)

~~~please give these authors love, fandom engagement with writers is down and it means more than you know. ~~~

**And I know older is relative term bc most of these wolfstar are in their 30s I do believe. But. They have more life experience than in Hogwarts or uni so I counted it.

--orange juice (i've been ready for you to come home for so long) by raggedypond: @fortunatelyfuzzywombat divorced parents of teddy with one bed at his graduation

-Honey If I'm Not by @brigid-faye divergent post war where remus left, jily lived, and wolfstar only reconnects years later by chance. (Also has a Sirius pov)

---used my best colours for your portrait by @littleoldrachel lie low at Lupin's with flashbacks exploring remus' life

-Looking for Moony by Writer_INFJ_2w1: meet and fall in love birthday party

-Flight of Destiny by @lucigoo lesbian wolfstar meet on plane (Luci also has several others where they're older and lots of beautiful fics

--Aging Gracelessly by orphan_account: texting fic

--the mayors of simpleton by fruity_individual divorced wolfstar get back together, raising teddy

-Second Generation by MsAlexWP single parents, getting back together. The sequel is so perfect too! It's a Nice Day for a Wolfstar Wedding

-the sea is a good place to think of the future by peachyybabe (second in series is mcd but this one is open ending)

-Of Memories and Milk Thievery by moonymoment raising teddy, get back together

--Birthday Blues by YouBlitheringIdiot @blitheringmcgonagall :Sirius is turning sixty and he is appalled...

--Give Quarter to Old Men - @krethes series

--dear your holiness by mollymarymarie

--The Postwar Chronicles by @sliebman10 post canon series

-Vigil Strange I Kept by whitmans_kiss explores effects of lycanthropy

--ten reasons (to go to michigan) by @greyeyedmonster-18 remus headed home, trying to move on from divorce

--Prettiest Star Verse by Raging_queer

-I didn’t sign up for this by Moonystoastandmarsbar divorced wolfstar

-Of Protein Powders and PTAs by @squintclover and @tracingpatternswrites rivals to lovers

-An Infinte Ocean by orphan_account raising teddy strangers to lovers

--The Road Not Taken by @mollymarymarie

-extra credit by MsAlexWP rivals to lovers

-Baby On Board by aqua_myosotis

-Of Memories, Bitter and Sweet by MsAlexWP memory loss

**luci's recs

-my love, take care of yourself by littleoldrachel

-How to romance a guy with (terrible) poetry by BayleyWinchester

-Teddy Plays Matchmaker by grow_as_we_go

-The Front Step Surprise by R33sesPieces

**Recs from others** (I haven't read all these yet but wanted to include)

--Just what the doctor ordered by WrappedUp (be aware there is age gap)

--The Lab by de_sire again an age gap

-Till We Have Arrived Home Again by prouvairing divergent post canon raising harry

-The Patchwork of Us by TracingPatterns

-The Things I Did by Lolo_row

-The Phoenix Agency by LupinsChocolatePraline

-The Fall by EuripidesTrousers

-Pages of You by wolfpants this is drarry main but apparently background wolfstar is really good

-Just Like Heaven by the_prettiest_w0lf_star: mechanic Sirius and librarian Remus

-soloorganaas

-impishtubist

---new additions--

•too busy being yours by peachyybabe ft deaf remus and fluff

----Make sure to check out Moony's Midlife Crisis Fest 2025 it's all about older Remus (there are other ships but def some wolfstar) @moonyfest ----

***Self rec***

--Memories of You: mcd exploring memory loss

--Through the Years: Sirius thinks about the past and how handsome his husband is while holding their granddaughter.

--DN(R): Lie low at Lupin's era where they discuss decisions Remus made in the lost years.

•Silver fox fluffy 1 shot

**also- the wolfstar librarian is always a great resource make sure to give some likes on posts: 30yo and Up part 2 Bring Black Back Back from the Veil Lie Low at Lupin’s Post Azkaban Grimmauld Place

--Feel free to check my other rec lists, as well as the rest of my fics

--also ... This is list of canon divergent fic recs: post-azkaban, bring back black, lie low at lupins. Lots of same fics but I might not have all in both places.

[jup1tersparx]

pov youtube in the sherlock & co universe

(ID under cut)

[ID: A fake youtube thumbnail for a drama video about John Watson from Sherlock & Co. The title reads “The John Watson Situation Is INSANE”. The video has 240K views and was posted 6 months ago.

It features, in the middle, a cut out (drawing) portrait image of a white man with shoulder length brown hair, blue eyes and facial hair, staring vacantly at the camera with a disapproving mouth-open expression. He is wearing a generic white tshirt. A shitty glow effect is behind him to make him stand out from the background. Large text in impact font at the bottom of the thumbnail overlaid over his torso reads “WHAT THE HELL…”. Behind him on the right half of the screen is a (fake, drawing) candid portrait photo of John Watson, a white man with short dark-strawberry-blonde hair and a moustache, smiling at the camera. He is wearing a white shirt, a green coat with a fur hood and an earring. He is smiling at the camera. Yellow text in impact font overlaid reads “ “DON’T RECORD THIS PLEASE” “OKAY I WON’T” *RECORDS ANYWAY* “. On the left half of the screen, there is a (drawing) photo of John climbing through a window to a house. You can see he is also wearing jeans and white trainers. In the reflection you can faintly see Sherlock, a black man with locs wearing a black trenchcoat and a blue turtleneck. He is taking the photo. Text overlaid, also yellow and in impact font, reads “*BREAKS INTO HOUSE*”.

End ID]

[nocreativityfornames]

Everything we know about Michael so far, lore wise.

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR ALL SEASONS

➤ He's an high-ranking angel from the Celestial Realm, more specifically a Seraph. (nb: 18-2 and nb card: Luke - "I can do it too!")

➤ His love for sweets is the reason Luke took interest in baking. (swd: 5-12 and 23-5)

➤ He and Lucifer were equals in the Celestial Realm and no other angel shared the same status as them. Simeon referred to them back then as "the two great leaders of the Celestial Realm's legion of angels." (swd: 23-7) But currently Michael carries that position alone. (swd: 23-5)

➤ He was supposed to meet MC when they visited the Celestial Realm with Solomon but couldn't because a secret spring suddenly started drying and Michael had to go there to investigate the situation. (swd: 23-7)

➤ He used to be Mammon's mentor and tried his best to train the white-haired brother while in charge of him but wasn't able to figure out how to handle him and eventually went to Lucifer asking for help. And since Lucifer was somehow able to get Mammon to listen to him, he ended up taking over Michael's role and became his mentor instead. (swd: 27-19)

➤ He was originally the one in possession of the Ring of Wisdom but gave the ring to Solomon at a time when the human was feeling "lost" and Michael wanted to help him. (swd: 29-5)

➤ During MC's 2° stay in the Devildom when Diavolo was keeping secret from everyone that their powers had become a threat to the three realms, Michael sent the prince a message through Simeon, warning him that if whatever he was keeping a secret affected the Celestial Realm, angels wouldn't hesitate to intervene. (swd: 31-16 Hard Mode)

➤ He's the one who found the Ring of Light, counterpart to the Ring of Wisdom that Lucifer had lost during the Great Celestial War (swd: 37-9), and quickly noticed it was missing when Simeon stole it to give it to MC ( since it was the only other way to control their powers ), shooting the other angel a text stating that they needed to have a "good, long talk" and that he wanted to see him as soon as possible. (swd chat: M, "untitled")

➤ When MC was given the Ring of Light and fell unconscious because of it, Michael appeared to speak with them. And during their talk, the seraph told MC that he had pictured them to be truly wicked person due to being so well-liked by the brothers, but that he had been proven wrong after meeting them. (swd: 38-17)

➤ In that same conversation, Michael confessed to being jealous of MC. He told them: "I must admit that I'm jealous of you, MC. I wish I could have been more like you. Because I loved Lucifer and his brothers, and I lost them. Perhaps things could have been different..." (swd: 38-17)

➤ When asked, Satan explained to MC that Michael was the opposite of Lucifer appearance-wise but that they felt like twins at the same time. And when Mammon brought up Michael's adoration for Lucifer, Satan chimed in saying that in his opinion the reason Michael liked Lucifer so much was because he was the embodiment of everything he wanted to be but couldn't. (swd: 43-19)

➤ He would be the one having meetings with Diavolo when the prince took over the kingdom if he hadn't thrown the responsibility onto Lucifer in the last minute, making Michael in a way the stepping stone that led Lucifer to question his faith and start having doubts about God and the Celestial Realm in general. (swd: 44-15)

➤ When MC ended up in the past Celestial Realm through a dream Solomon sent them to accidentally by feeding them his food, Michael was the one to bring them back home. The angel told MC that they and the brothers would likely forget what happened in the dream but that it would still have an effect on all of them and he would keep an eye on them to make sure that said effect didn't have negative consequences in the future. (swd: 44-18)

➤ Luke told MC that he often found Michael in the hall where the brothers' portraits used to hang staring at the empty space, lost in thought. According to the small angel, Michael to this day still deeply misses the brothers and has regrets about the war. (swd: 49-15)

➤ He was the one to cast out the brothers from the Celestial Realm and send them to the Devildom. (swd: 50-7)

➤ According to Mammon, Michael and Simeon must've pulled some strings behind the scenes to get Luke to participate in the exchange program and be able to visit the Human World with Simeon because, with his low ranking, he'd never be the one chosen for those sorts of things and the Avatar of Greed is convinced that they're doing this because they want Luke to experience life outside the Celestial Realm, see that there's more out there than heaven, and stop thinking that angels are perfect beings who can do no wrong. (swd: 50-10)

➤ He's knowledgeable on constellations and likes them so much he had Raphael rebuilt a whole room so Human World constellations could be seen even from the Celestial Realm. (swd: 52-7) He also taught Mammon about them when he was still in his care, and later on taught Luke as well. (swd: 50-12)

➤ It was actually he who went into the Devildom and told the brothers that they had been forgiven by God and had to choose between staying in the demonic kingdom ( and making an enemy out of heaven ) or coming back to the Celestial Realm and leaving Satan behind. And in a conversation with Raphael, Michael said the reason for his disguise was that he was worried about what could happen if he showed up as himself. But Raphael quickly rebutted that by saying that the true reason Michael didn't go as himself was because he wouldn't know how to act around the brothers. (nb: 20-14 Hard Mode)

➤ Still disguised as Raphael before going back to the Celestial Realm, Michael told Luke that he wasn't surprised that the brothers didn't accept his offer to go back to heaven and actually knew that would be the outcome of it. He was also surprised not too long after when Luke, not knowing it wasn't Raphael who he was talking to, pointed out that Michael seemed sad and lonely whenever he was staring at the wall where the brothers' portraits used to be. Michael's exact response to the younger angel's words was: "...I didn't realize that's what people thought.” (nb: 20-A)

➤ When asked by Raphael if he planned to attend RAD in the future, Michael avoided giving an direct answer and left. (nb: 20-14 Hard Mode)

[radioisntdead]

I have another one! Rosie, Velvette, Verosika, and Loona (respectively) x reader.

Reader 'dies' in a big heroic explosion/self sacrifice way. Then a day or two later, they get a text from reader that is legit just the "I lived, bitch." meme; them all bandaged up in a hospital bed giving the middle finger. How they react to the initial death and the surprise text.

(Cartoon violence rules are in effect, so don't be afraid to let any of them be angry if you see fit.)

THE WAY I LOVE THIS REQUEST??! THIS WAS SO MUCH FUN TO WRITE RARAR

Warnings: None but this isn't taken seriously at all, it's pure crack and silliness, some of these are a little short because I'm writing them while sleep deprived

Rosie

You died during extermination day, based off reports from other cannibals you saved one of the cannibal kids [who shouldn't have been there in the first place where the fuck are their parents?!?] In exchange for your own life.

You had a empty funeral, she cried whilst holding your portrait, she has a little memorial for you in her house.

Now I imagine Rosie doesn't have a modern phone, so imagine her surprise when she receives a letter from you??

You?? Her darling who died??? Was this some type of sick joke???!?

Inside the envelope the letter only contained a few words, no apologies just.

"Greetings Ro-ro!! I'm alive!!!!! Was in a coma but I'll be home soon!!! <3"

With a picture of you giving heart hands in a hospital.

[disclaimer your wounds are not as bad as Captain Curly's from mouthwashing.]

HOW ARE YOU SO CAUSAL ABOUT THAT??? WHAT THE FUCK???

You didn't specify where you were, so she had to play detective to find out where you were because WHAT IS THIS???

The moment she finds you, you are going to get SMOTHERED with affection but not before getting scolded because??? The letter??? You think you're cute being all "Teehee I was in a coma!! I'll be home soon teeheehee (⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)"

AND NOT PUTTING YOUR LOCATION??? GET RECKED THE NURSES ARE NOT SAVING YOU FROM ROSIES WRATH.

On the bright side she feeds you soup until you're all better!!! It's chicken soup!!

Chicken sinners are still chickens.

Velvette

You!!! You!!!!!

Do you know HOW WORRIED SHE WAS WHEN SHE REALIZED YOU SNUCK OUT TO FIGHT WITH THAT HOTEL?!?

Do you know how she held her breath when you decided to sacrifice yourself?? And of all people you decided to sacrifice yourself for, an EGG?!? A FUCKING EGG WITH A TOP HAT!!?!?!?

The stupid camera filming it was knocked out of the way before she could see if you survived.

Do you know how she had to act nonchalant when Vox's drones returned telling her that there was no trace of you anywhere???

Do you know how she wept for you? Do you know the TRIBUTE POSTS SHE HAD DRAFTED??

She was arranging a FUNERAL FOR YOU!!!

and you have the nerve to text her.

"I lived, Bitch."

With a blurred selfie of you bandaged, WITH THE FUCKING EGG?!??

THE NERVE OF YOU????!?!

You are going to WISH you died because she's beating your ass!!

She's storming into the hotel finding you and beating you up with a selfie stick.

You'll be okay, eventually, she's dragging you back to the Vee's tower.

Verosika

Do you know how heartbroken she was when she heard you died? From Blitzø nonetheless? That you apparently died during a mission gone wrong?? Saving some other member of I.M.P?

She mourned you for 48 hours until she got a text from you.

"I'm alive!! I'm stuck here help!"

And you weren't dead, you were alive!!! And from the looks of it you were stuck in a fucking Walmart.

Turns out you didn't die! But you did get stuck in a Walmart for two days with a dead phone, hiding in the ceiling and sneaking food and other things when the lights were out.

You finally managed to snag a outlet and charge your phone to contact her!! And the rest of I.M.P to get you back to hell.

Afterwards she's not letting you out of her sight for AWHILE, tell Blitzø you're on vacation.

Loona

Hey so, what the fuck???

You DIED saving her, pushing her out of the way of something.

She cried, nothing Blitzø or anyone could do or say would cheer her up, your friends mourned you, they planned a funeral.

But YOU HAVE THE NERVE, THE NERVE TO SHOW UP, AT YOUR OWN FUNERAL?????

WHO DOES THAT??

you apparently

everyone's mourning you, saying speeches and you're just in the audience, and eventually you lean over to her.

"I should've asked this earlier but who's funeral is this?"

"WHAT THE FUCK?!?!"

After all the hugs and "You're alive!!!!?!?"'s

you get smacked because WHY WOULD YOU SACRIFICE YOURSELF??? AND THEY THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD???

Apparently no! You just got knocked unconscious, probably got some brain damage now, you got stuck on earth for a hot minute but you were back now!

GOOOOOOOD EVENIN' FOLKS!!!! THANK YOU FOR TUNIN' IN I HOPE YOU ENJOYED!!

I'm working on a little animatic with my OCs rn and it's EHABGEEHSB I also got some fics cooking, speaking of cooking I'm hungry I should eat breakfast, which I normally don't despite it supposedly the most important meal of the day! Also I'm getting unwillingly dragged into another fandom, this time it's Sonic, Sonic underground got me when I was 11 and it's come back for me but this time it's the entire franchise wish me luck.

ANYWAYS have a wonderful rest of your night folks!!!

Psssssst!!!! Join our discord!!!! It's radio themed and any fandom is welcome!!

[phantomchick]

The ending of Oshi no Ko vs The beginning (chapter 166 vs 10)

So as you can see, there's clear evidence of intentional parallels happening here. This is the aftermath of Ai's death that mirrors the aftermath of Aqua's. Aka already claimed to have the ending planned well in advance months ago so it's not a big surprise that even the ending panels of the first (not counting the prologue) and last chapters match.

And yet Oshi no Ko still falls flat despite fulfilling its promise of a revenge-tragedy.

I think the biggest problem it has is the way the last chapter tells us instead of shows us as chapter 10 did.

Yes chapter 10 also used narrative text boxes a lot, but I argue that the effect then was much more immersive.

With them being used with precision to move us through a time skip with only the most necessary information about the fall out for the characters, even the distance had the effect of doing characterisation work with Aqua describing in a narrative text box how the policemen hid the scene from Ruby but Aqua felt his mother's body going cold beneath him as they arrived - this use of the text boxes casual tone over child Aqua sitting in his dead mother's lap gave a sense of disassociation and shock to the scene.

Even the textboxes turning black to mirror Aqua's dark emotions concerning his revenge as the star in his eye turned black showed how much attention was being paid to their use.

Ruby.

Ruby felt much more real in chapter 10, her rant about the internet's callous response to Ai's murder felt real and emotionally charged. In comparison, for all she's the main subject of the last chapter, she feels like a 2d cut out of herself, barely in there for all we see her struggling through Akane's observant gaze.

She expresses her motivation to be an idol despite hardship by acknowledging that Aqua's right about idolwork being difficult and cruel but reminding him that despite the darkside of the entertainment industry, their mother 'shone' very brightly. The talk about how Ruby shines more the darker things get and how this is a good thing because it reaches out to people trapped in darkness of their own (just like her when she was a terminally ill cancer patient) is clearly meant to echo this idea.

Frankly it fails.

Ruby feels hollow.

To the point where we barely get any insight into Ruby's real feelings at all or any emotional connection with her in comparison, by 166 it's genuinely unclear whether or not she's lying even to the portrait of her dead family when she's 'alone' on her way out the door.

We don't see a conversation between her and her adoptive mother about Aqua, we don't see her talking to Akane at all. We see her grief and her success from a deified distance, just like the fans do. And it alienates us from the character.

Lies are love and she has two stars in her eyes. Just like her mother did.

I think this more than anything condemns the idol industry, she has to keep lying even to herself about her job being fun because otherwise what was all that pain and suffering and loss for?

Aqua died in a murder-suicide (shout out to Taiki for experiencing a loved one doing this twice, poor guy) to give his little sister success in a job that she has to get up at 5.30 for, devote her entire youth to and will have to quit in less than a decade. It has to matter, that she provides escapism for people who are suffering like she did, but it doesn't change the grim reality of her exploitation.

I think the lack of dialogue in the final chapter and the loss of voice for Ruby in the last few arcs mirrors the loss of agency she experiences as she becomes the ultimate idol, everyone's star.

But that doesn't change the fact that from a reader perspective it's just bad writing. Aka failed to carry his audience with him to the finish line and his messages about the idol industry were blurred by the rushed plot after the movie arc began.

If it weren't for Mengo's art hard carrying the clumsily executed story, I can honestly say that I don't think many would have read this manga all the way to the end.

[jovial-thunder]

Lancer Tactics devlog

I'm gonna try out posting my ~monthly devlog roundup here as well. These suckers are glorified changelogs with anecdotes and gifs galore. Let me know if this is something you like seeing show up on your dash?

Map Editor

Got units able to be placed/deleted/moved in the mission editor

Can paint/remove command zones in the editor

Can paint minecraft-like terrain blocks in the editor

Can paint/rotate multi-tile props in the editor

Can edit unit character sheets and portrait via the editor

3D maps

Did a bunch of art tests with 3D mech models, provided by GeneralChaos, which we ended up deciding not to go with to keep things simple.

To avoid the can of worms that is animation, we'd have to lean into a static "tabletop minatures" aesthetic which we decided is not a style we want to be stuck with. By sticking with 2D sprites, we avoid falling into a sort of uncanny valley; it's easier to get away with not animating a 2D sprite than it is for a 3D model.

 We also experimented with 3D terrain. We decided to make a rule that the visual style for a piece of terrain should match its mechanical effect: obstructing terrain that you can't move through, such as rocks or buildings, will be in 3D, while non-obstructing terrain like trees will stick with 2D sprites.

Hooking up the 3D camera to follow events like movement and attacks did a LOT for making it starting to feel like it's cohering into an Actual Game™

Implemented cover! And an attack preview! Cover works by aiming a ray from the target to the originator (technically to and from each voxel of each, respectively, to handle size 2s shooting above size 1 cover) and tracking all the terrain blocks it hits (how we'll handle non-terrain hard cover TBD). I think I have it working according to Perijove's cover rules manual, but I'm sure there'll be edge cases to work out. This is a case where things are significantly simplified by working in squares instead of hexes; hexes have a lot more possible weird angles you have to deal with.

Re-added what I'm stubbornly calling Combat Popcorn; little bits of text that pop out when you use abilities and attacks.

UI & game screens

Added ability for the engine to show UI that's anchored to the game world via a little word bubble line but also stay on screen as the camera moves around.

Got word bubbles working; you can now write dialogue in the mission editor, hit playtest, and see it work in a mission! (it does actually translate correctly now; this gif is just from a bug I thought was funny)

Got ability effects mostly behaving appropriately again, including muzzle flashes. The easiest way to handle them ended up being NOT billboarding them so they always face the camera (like all other 2D sprites in the game); instead, I put them on a plane parallel with the ground and just spin them around the unit to point at wherever their target is.

Did some work ironing out our tooltip system. The standard in CRPGs these days is this kind of nested labyrinth of tooltops that you see in Baldur's Gate 3:

I Did Not Want to try and figure out how to wrangle that much UI, so we're instead opting to cap the nested tooltips at the second layer. You can lock a general tooltip for e.g. an action and then mouseover various items within that tooltip to get glossary definitions...

...and then instead of having those glossary tips be lockable/mouse-overable themselves, I collect all related terms to that glossary definition and let you tab through them.

Added skin overlay functionality to the portrait maker, enabling textures like scars, tattoos, stubble, and vitiligo to be applied to just the skin and not extend off into space.

Midway through writing this update, Carpenter sent me this gif of the randomization button working! There's a still a bunch of skintones/assets missing and a few are a bit janky, but it was exciting to start seeing the range of these lil freaks (affectionate) that this editor can create.

Mourning cloak license!

This is the one I'm probably most excited about: I did a bit of a content dive and implemented a basic character sheet + all Mourning Cloak traits and equipment. They don't have fancy graphics yet, but the weapons and systems can be added via the character sheet and used in-game.

It took a little under a day, including adding soon-to-be common mechanisms like bonus damage. This is great news in that it means the engine we've been building for so long in the abstract seems to do a great job in handling comprehensive actual game content, and that it looks like we've set ourselves up for success when it comes time to buckle down on churning that out.

I'm sure other licenses will come with unique difficulties (I fear the day it comes time to do the Mule Harness // Goblin CP) but I'm feeling good about it!

Vertical slice?

Taking a step back, the pressing question on my mind has been "when will we have a playable early access build?"

I was originally hoping for Feb/March, but what we've internally been referring to as the "3D cataclysm" has pushed everything back by at least three months, so the target for the first alpha build is now in May. So, ah, thanks for your patience! Seeing things come together, I've become more and more convinced that moving to 3D was the right call.