#this is really more like concept art than a proof of concept but its too late to change that now lol

[askdannysroleswapau]

"proof of concept" design for Voidball + some pupil designs from '22 (back when he still had a tail)

quite a lot has changed! a few key design details have carried over from this one (chipped ear, singular eye, and the heart-shaped hole in the torso), but many aspects have since been scrapped or reworked

design notes under the cut! but be warned! its just a little under 1k words

before we begin, there's this phrase that i'm going to be using a lot and you ought to know what i mean by it!

the phrase is "design philosophy" and in simplified terms, its a set of rules or principals one follows when designing a character. there's a ton of different design philosophies and they vary wildly depending on the medium, the team behind it, the art style, tone and even country of origin!

the one i used for Voidball is a mix of my own observation/analysis of Rob's character design and some principals that the team of Across The Spiderverse used for The Spot. here are the rules i eventually settled on!

remove as much recognizability as possible from the character's appearance, save for their physical stature and select features (eye/mouth/hair/ears/etc.) the end result should be almost entirely unrecognizable

details such as textures, markings, or accessories must either be done away with or heavily simplified

use sharp angles wherever possible, rounded shapes must be sparse (can you tell which part i gave myself more leeway on lol)

do not clutter the design or over-complicate it; principal of Occam's razor

now, let’s get started!!

Head and Ears

i set out with the intention to give him a similarly complicated head shape to Rob, but i quickly dropped this idea because i hate drawing complex geometry! the slice taken out of the head, however, ended up sticking around! you can see some examples of what was dubbed the "sliced melon" head in the doodle dump post.

you can see that the ears have stayed about the same, although i now avoid drawing them with super defined geometry. out of all of the details carried over from this design, the chipped ear is my favorite :)

Eyes

those pesky eyes! i wanted to keep the singular eye, but at first i was unsure of what to replace it with. you can see here that i initially replaced it with an isolated box of static. this looks bad and is not visually appealing!

as i began to imagine static functioning as more of a viscous, liquid substance, i decided to cover the left side of his face with a constantly dripping river of it, obscuring the eye completely. this is both easier to draw and more visually interesting! plus it removes recognizably, which was very important to the design philosophy.

as for the right eye, the pupil shape depicted here has two sharp triangle indents in it.

while it was an interesting idea, it looked too similar to the eyes you see on rubber-hose animated characters, which wasn’t what i wanted. the other three ideas i sketched had similar ideas regarding negative space, but all of them would eventually be scrapped.

as it turns out, the original pupil shape works for a reason! i learned there that going against the original philosophy would not end up working in my favor. i went on to pull many future design elements directly from Rob's design, such as the doubled pupil!

Upper Body

his left hand was originally disconnected/fragmented from his arm/wrist. while cool in concept, this was eventually dropped because it was too difficult to draw consistently. oh well!

his torso/waist were originally more cylinder/sphere-shaped to contrast how Rob's design is made of squares/polygons. again, i have since decided to follow the original philosophy instead of going against it.

my favorite design detail for the torso is the heart-shaped hole in their chest! it is by far my favorite thing to draw :3c

Lower Body

you can see that their waist was more of an elliptical shape here; the legs were also cylinders devoid of much static and largely maintained their patterns.

also notable are the missing portions of the legs. the right leg prominently features a jagged empty space below the knee and a missing section near the hip. this aspect was dropped to simplify the design and remove recognizability

not so much as a note as it is a funny tidbit, but the feet aren't meant to look as if they've been attached at the heel. i just drew the legs before the feet and didn't bother erasing the overlapping lines.

this design wasn't meant to be super solid or well-thought out, i just needed to get the general idea down on paper, and that's what i did! :)

Tail!

ah, the static tail! the visual style of the tail was meant to hearken back to the scan lines you see on old VHS tapes.

as cool as this idea was, it conflicted with him needing to have gained a pig tail in The Future, which i consider to be crucial to the story progression. hah! i love getting to write stuff like that.

having a tail also made him more closely resemble Gumball, which conflicted with rule #1 of the design philosophy. on top of that, i had already used the static tail idea in The Sister, and i felt like recycling it for another character would cheapen the impact of that moment.

and so i revoked his tail privileges. a tragic, yet necessary sacrifice 😔

and with that the notes are done! i don’t know if anybody will actually read this, but i sure did enjoy writing it!

[biolumien]

Might I say that the Hoshina x Painter! reader was a brush stroke of genius. It's superb so if its possible, I'd like to request a part two?

Maybe Hoshina gets to go out on a date. And of course, the recruits quickly finding out about this and they sort of try to spy on them while they go about their day. Up to you really. I just live for the concept, and I defo want to see how things play out. Especially since their worlds are so far apart from each other.

He probably doesn't know the first thing about art. And Reader probably knows nothing of Kaijus. Let alone swordsmanship or martial arts. And the sudden match made between them is sure to make rapid news around Tachikawa base because, 'Ayo that's our Vice Captain with the famous painter who just so happened to paint his portrait a few days ago?' AKAKHSKNS such an endearing concept.

notes: insanely good pun. i hope this is okay! part 2 of this fic.

the second stroke

soshiro hoshina x gn!reader no warnings apply, i think! let me know, though. word count: 1306

talking to hoshina was–awkward. or so you thought, at least. you couldn’t exchange many words following the panel, apart from saying hi–hoshina had immediately gotten swarmed with questions–what was the relationship between the two of you? what was the meaning behind what you’d said? so you’d managed to find him in the aftermath, pulled him aside and made tentative plans to meet up in the coming days.

you stopped having dreams of your mysterious muse altogether at this point. once in awhile, you thought you might have felt the faint whisper of warmth, the ghosting touch of lips brushed against the side of your face. that had to have been real, right? but the fact that you couldn’t remember your dreams now–if you even had them at all, worried you more th an you’d like to admit.

you’d agreed on a date in a discrete location–but despite that, you held a pretty large parasol in the park, with loose-fitting clothes to disguise the bulk of your figure.

“so it’s true, then?” hoshina asks as the two of you wander the park, past some shady trees. “that’s… i mean, it’s… pretty… ha, i mean, that kind of stuff comes out of a romance novel, no?” 

you like the way the sunlight dapples across his hair, dances across the bridge of his nose. your fingers itch to paint, to scrape a palette knife across a stretch of canvas. 

“it sounds far fetched to me, too,” you mumble, spinning the straw of your drink. “that i would dream of a man from a past life–who… happens to be you. happened. to be you. also in a past life. and i think… well, i–i think we were lovers? or-or something like that.”

“lovers,” hoshina echoes. 

he pauses.

your face feels hot.

“it’s stupid,” you mumble. “i know. i know it is.”

“it’s not,” hoshina says. “i mean–i’m not… a believer. in most of that kind of stuff, but. you painted me.” he laughs. “that’s gotta be proof of something bigger than the both of us. i don’t know if i should be happy or sad that it’s real. like–”

he flexes his hands.

“do you get what i mean? like–like… i’ve been telling myself that-that… i was doing everything within my power–to be the way i was, and then… if there really is some kind of divine providence, pulling us together–some red string of fate, the kind that bonds lovers together–how am i so sure that a god didn’t just decide the limits of my capabilities? i’m not sure… how to feel about it.”

you ponder his words.

“fighting kaiju is… a completely new world, compared to me,” you say. “but i’m sure even if it–even if it was divine providence, you’re doing something only you can do. and–and i think that’s wonderful.”

hoshina’s eyes soften.

“wonderful?” he murmurs. 

“yeah,” you say. “someone–not just someone, but… we’re all… relying on you. that’s something i could never imagine.”

“i mean–” hoshina laughs, brushing a hand across the back of his neck. “i couldn’t imagine painting the way you do. that seems so overwhelming–to conjure things from your imagination and deliver them to the page.”

you shake your head.

“it’s a bit of that, but it’s not completely from my imagination. i do a lot of portraits–with real models, things like that,” you mumble, your face flushing a little bit at his words. “it’s… mm. a complicated progress, but it’s not nearly as physically intensive as you fighting kaiju. i-i read a bit. from some of your press interviews.”

“oh?” hoshina’s eyes widen, and he laughs. “that’s–well, i didn’t… most of those were just–scripted.”

“my press interviews are, too,” you say.

hoshina’s lips quirk up.

“i guess we’re kind of the same, yeah?” hoshina says, nudging you slightly, his hand reaching out to cross the gap between the two of you–of you. he doesn’t intrude further though, even as he crosses the gap—seemingly shy and nervous, worried and careful not to do more until you were okay with it. 

you relax your stance a little, and his hand brushes against yours. 

“i guess so,” you say, blinking up at him. your face feels hot.

you don’t know whether the fluttering in your heart is from you or if it’s from that whisper of a past life, the repeated lines of affection–that it should feel this easy to fall for hoshina, because some version of you did, a stranger-yet-familiar-yet-familiar. hoshina’s expression is somehow fond, and he leans closer before–

he suddenly perks up, his head whirling around, checking the surroundings.

“what’s–” you start, but hoshina raises a hand, glancing at you before raising a finger to his lips. you fall silent, your heart pounding against your throat.

“come out,” hoshina says sharply. “you guys aren’t subtle at all. you’re lucky that kaiju are so stupid.” 

from behind one of the trees, several people come skulking out with lowered heads, as if they were scolded toddlers.

“i told you this was a bad idea,” says a boy with mint green hair, elbowing a taller, older man. the man hangs his head, recoiling dramatically at the boy’s touch. “you can’t get past hoshina at all.”

“in my defense,” the man says apologetically, remorsefully, “i was just curious where he was going… it’s not often he takes days off. you know this.”

“i warned you,” says a woman with her hair drawn up in a tall ponytail. her voice is quiet, but she’s striking–and you wonder what kind of charcoal you might use to sketch out the sharp lines of her face–and then you realize you’ve seen her face scattered across billboards. mina ashiro?

“i love this bit you guys do,” hoshina laughs, archly, “where you talk like i’m not even here. come on. if you want to–hey, put that–put that down. don’t–”

mina lowers her phone as hoshina blurts it out, her face bemused. 

“sorry,” mina says. “force of habit. i keep an album of every moment where you let your goody facade drop. do you want to see?” she looks at you, holding out her phone. “i have some where he’s asle–” “not on the first date,” hoshina says, his voice pitching higher. 

“first date?” the man’s eyes widen. “captain hoshina, you’re on a date? with that artist? the one who drew you?”

your eyes scan between him and hoshina.

“yes,” hoshina says tersely. “is it that weird?”

“no,” the man says. “just–you don’t seem like the romantic… type?”

“i’m not,” hoshina says.

you feel something like cold ice seize your throat.

“but i… i want to try,” hoshina amends, and his hand reaches out for yours, a grasping thread of intent. you entangle your fingers in his, and the weight of his hands feels right. like a preordained fate–you were always meant to find each other, and the weight and feel of his fingers entangling yours, his knuckles tightening as if he was afraid to see you disappear–

that was right.

“if we’re really bonded by fate, anyway,” hoshina says, glancing at you–and your heart seizes in your throat, caught by how earnest he seems– “i want to see it to the end.”

your face heats up.

“it was–it was just a painting,” you mumble. 

“a really good painting,” hoshina adds, and he laughs.

“you guys are cute,” mina says. “but you’re grossing me out. just a little.”

her face is impassive, but the corners of her lips quirk up a little as she says the words.

“oh, how it hurts,” hoshina says dramatically, pulling you closer to him, “to have stirred the ice-cold heart of mina ashiro so.”

and your face flushes again, brighter, but you cling tightly to hoshina like a lifeline, and wonder what shade of red you might use to carve out the feeling of love in your chest.

[datrb]

2023 art review!

Even if this year wasn't the biggest on art, due to my physical condition (especially in last couple of months), it would still be nice to look back on what i did as an artist throughout it!

This is gonna be a fun ride...

So, let's dive straight into it, shall we?

Continuation under the cut

January

2023 started on a high note, with me just having finished the King piece, and moving on to the next big thing, being an AvA3/5 double piece.

Sadly, during the process i messed up big time which led to me being unable to finish the piece the way i wanted to, rendering this project an eternal WIP. However, i still cherish the idea and do wish to either redraw, or complete it.

February

Doing 2 big projects one after another did end up affecting my overall drive, so i spent majority of that month just making sketches.

First one is a little redraw/redesign of my old character - Derek, whom i used for a roleplay with my friends like 3 or 4 years ago, and second one is Deach, a character from my fantasy setting.

Also, back then i joined a new fandom, people in which have reminded me of my admiration for SCP, after which me and my friends proceeded to make OCs for it. Was a fun time! (Also this access card was sold by me as a YCH, sadly i couldn't really find buyers, so yikes)

March

By march is slowly started recovering from january's disappointement and was a bit more productive already. One of my friends really helped with it too.

A musician friend of mine reached out to me, asking to develop a design for a villain character in the plot he was working on. After listening to the theme song i couldn't resist. This ended up being one of my favorite designs so far, and i adore its look in neon.

In the meantime, i kept working on my fantasy setting, refining more minor details of designs and stories, yet having to reserve only to making sketches as i was too busy with college and other projects. Characters you see on screen are Ian and Lanfor respectfully. One is a strong yet troubled mage and other is a great Emperor, and even better person.

April

I'd say april was one of the most productive months of this year, mostly because i managed to snatch some time for myself and my setting, which allowed me to complete two full pieces and achieve some extreme progress with my story.

This piece is an illustration to a scene i wrote for two of the characters, Lanfor and Emile, called "Night Visitor". This was a scene of a reunion of two old friends. A bittersweet, yet a lovely work. Love both the written one as well as the illustration.

This one was more of a... Proof of concept. Needed to test out the expresiveness of the design for one or a relatively new characters - Covlar. Was originally a simple sketch on paper, but i couldn't resist the urge of making it into a complete illustration. I then proceeded to make a few notes for this scene. Both want to write it properly and avoid it at all cost... Best to avoid it, for my own sanity.

May

May was a bit of trainwreck, because i got a brand new laptop, which took me quite some time to get used to and even more time to reassure myself that it is in fact alright for me to draw on this suspicioiusly thin piece of tech.

Ironically enough, the only vomplete piece i drew that month was drawn on my old laptop. This screenshot redraw was to made to honour the premiere of AvA6 ep.1. Sadly, i did it a bit late because fo technical issues, but i still had a ton of fun doing it.

June

June was... Chaotic, to say the least. Mostly because i finally got comfortable with the new laptop and could now draw a lot more freely due to it being a lot more compact than the original one, which worked almost like a PC. Besides, i got a ton more free time because semester finals ended up being a breeze.

Ended up making a ton sketches and doodles, that i didn't actually plan to finish, but still enjoyed a ton. Here are some of them

Then, ofc, the memes and the gand redesign, because AvA6 just had to break all of my portrayals. But, i mean, after AvM s3 my original designs did become a bit dated.

The biggest pride and saddest of failures was this picnic piece, however. I still plan on finishing it, but it is hard doing so, when i have changed quite a bit of my artstyle by now.

July

July was quite lazy. Semester ended and i spent that entire month out of the city. It was a great time, very peaceul indeed.

And again, that musician friend from before came into clutch, asking me to develop another design for his other project. And again a villain. He said he really liked how i draw bastard type of characters.

August

Well this is where fun began. End of summer break means i have just this much time to actually draw something i would never have time to draw normally.

For me to draw something to commemorate a new episode is almost like a tradition at this point. And, given how long it's been since i made anything that would require effort, no wonder i have chosen arguably the most complex piece to pull off energy-wise. Yet i did and now i simply adore this piece, even if it did render me disabled. (I crunched through all of this piece, pulling off 40+ hours of work in just 4 days, so naturaly it ended up worsening my condition by a lot)

Then i also proceeded to do all of these tiny side projects, like Victim ask, which i couldn't last long at due to my condition, and working on a design for my favourite streamer. (Which i cannot show as the work is not complete an it's best if i avoid spoilers)

September and October

These two months i spent being unable to draw at all via a doctor's advice. Arguably, these two were the hardest months for me to handle.

I assume you can imagine how hard it is to suddenly stop being able to do what you love, regardless of how much you wish to do it.

Novemer

*Nervous laughter* I... actually still wasn't allowed to use my hand, but that didn't stop me and i ended up making an entire series of sketches to celebrate AvA6 ep2.

"Small in big quantity will sure be less exhausting than a single big thing" - (C) Me, proably

I will admit, i still adore all of these sketches and each of them deserves to become a fully fledged piece in it's own right, but i really better keep them as they are. For my own safety.

December

As you way have expected, this month will stay without a single thing from me. It's not because i don't want to, but because i can't. And, given the circumstance, it better stay that way.

Afterword

I finally got my diagnosis and soon enough i will start active treatment for my condition. It would be a shame to make this worse than it already is with impulses like those that happened in november, so i am making this post as a way to draw a line for myself.

It is still kinda crazy to realize that there are quite a few people interested in what i make, so i will make sure to take my recovery as responcible as possible, and then come back to you with even more art in the upcoming year! Let's be positive about it.

[lepoppeta]

Song asks: CharPentious

this was even harder than vaggiebomb holy cow

charpentious is probably my favourite charlie ship (theres like... negative art of it so i have to placate myself with the oodles of delicious charlastor drawings available). pentious and charlie are on the exactly same wavelength of golden retriever dumbass that they feed off of each other in this wonderful pocket ecosystem of support and positivity. they would undoubtedly make everyone else around them absolutely sick to their very gums and thats honestly half the fun.

the thing that was tripping me up about these two and finding songs was trying to find something that wasnt super generic - its all well and good to use any happy love song, but those can be applied to any number of situations. i wanted to try and be a little more niche. i dont know how successful i was.

love is an open door (frozen, sung by kristen bell and santino fontana)

all my life has been a series of doors in my face, and then suddenly i bump into you (i was thinking the same thing! cause like - ive been searching my whole life to find my own place, and maybe its the party talking, or the chocolate fondue)

one of the things i really wanted to highlight about the potential for these two is how EASY i think their relationship would be. after years of being met with adversity and ridicule, heres someone who doesnt think youre stupid or that your dreams are too big or that your inventions are too gaudy and complicated - they think its WONDERFUL. they think YOURE wonderful, in all of your goofiness, because within that lies sincerity.

something to believe in (newsies, sung by jeremy jordan and kara lindsay)

til the moment i found you, i thought i knew what love was. now im learning what is true - that love will do what it does. the world finds ways to sting you, and then one day it decides to bring you

something to believe in for even a night. one night may be forever, but thats alright - thats alright. and if youre gone tomorrow, what was ours will still be. i have something to believe, now that i know you believed in me.

(we was never meant to meet, and then we meet - who knows why. one more stranger on the street, just someone sweet passing by. an angel come to save me, who didnt even know she gave me

something to believe in for even a day. one day may be forever, but thats okay - thats okay. and if im gone tomorrow, what was ours will still be. i have something to believe in, now that i know you believed in me.)

i dont normally copy down that many lyrics, but they fit so well that i had to include all of them!

one of my favourite things about charlie ships is that (ideally) she wins over the other party simply by being kind and almost aggressively genuine. while i have my own opinions on how characters work and what they are within the universe, this song becomes heartbreaking if you put it in the context of show canon and have it be the last duet they have before heaven comes to attack - pentious calls her an angel, and they say that even though he/they might die tomorrow (which, as we all know, is what happens), it doesnt change the fact that charlie forgave pentious and allowed him the oppurtunity of redemption, and pentious in turn actually put in effort and became the hotels proof of concept.

[thedeal-if]

💓 for fluff and 💔 for angst

angst 😈

the ask game!

This took surprisingly not as long as I thought it would lol ty anon

💓 - what gets their heart racing?

(Warning for very slight nsfw? It's so mild I won't even tag it tbh, just Lilith being lilith)

Dante: holding hands under the table—everything that has something to do with hands, really, touching and being touched. Compliments and eternal talks of art and music—he knows little of the former but could blow your mind with the latter. Your eyes upon receiving the latest grand gift Dante has been agonizing over—because the concept of delayed gratification is so foreign to him.

Lilith: the tendrils of anticipation before they take the plunge—the little pang of nerves after they've spent an entire day pondering something and finally decided ‘Yes, let’s give it a chance’. Being allowed to touch and taste and feel the welcomed warmth of a body next to theirs. Having their eyes graced by a pretty face—and not a conventional beauty either, but something they consider beautiful, someone they can’t help but compliment and want to seduce.

Josh: a sudden realization, a stray thought—“fuck but I could listen to them talk about nothing for hours”—, and the unexpectedness of it, but knowing that it’s okay, it’s alright. A hand running through his head—no matter if it’s a gentle pat or the sharpness of nails scratching his scalp. The sincerest compliments, simple in nature but as fulfilling as they’re meaningful: ‘You did well, I’m proud of you.’

Villanelle: she wants to be with you by the fire, fighting the frigid weather in the most primitive way. She wants to cook with you, order coffee with you, wash your teeth together—side-by-side, stealing glances in the mirror and holding back the laughter in-between mouthfuls of toothpaste, like it’s a secret. It’s all displays of domesticity, the physical proof that ‘this’ is real.

Victor: It was most definitely not his idea—otherwise what’s the point? Why would he react that way? But Victor can’t deny it feels like a punch to the gut when he sees you wearing his clothes—can punches even feel good, or is he so far gone that pain means pleasure? Apparently, it does: the thrill of teaching you how to defend yourself, of guiding you, watching you grow and learn, receiving your hits steadily—it doesn’t feel bad, not at all.

Aliyah: she pushes, she hates and she bites when she has to, but your backbone—it always takes her by surprise, even more than your kindness—is a kick, a buzz, and a flutter at the same time. Aliyah likes it just as she likes how opinionated you are, how you never back down from a fight. What she often mistakes as defensiveness, a need to fight, might be simply excitement and excitement alone.

Nathan: as an angel, Nathan experiences such a primal reaction at the sight of what he considers as beauty, overwhelming in its nature, and just as unexplainable as everything else. The other side of the scale is perhaps not as romantic: Nathan adores a challenge. Having someone question his ideals, fighting for his opinions, listening to someone else’s, discussing any sort of topic no matter how trivial or boring. The ultimate excitement in life is to be right.

Eden: he likes your voice, Eden should mention it, but he’s too busy listening to everything you say—and everything you don’t say, all those little details, inferences, contexts, and implications. He draws lines and pictures in his mind, falling deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole until he sees your story with his own eyes. It’s the silence too, the quiet companionship, the knowledge that the peacefulness doesn’t necessarily have to be broken, but Eden still knows everything you’re thinking with just a glance.

💔 - what could their partner do that would absolutely break their heart?

(I'm itching to write an angst scenario but it would be beyond spoilery so—)

Dante: physical jails pose a challenge—the thrill of breaking out—but metaphorical prisons chain your soul. Feeling that someone has that control over him, that he doesn't have the freedom to make his own decisions and mistakes— that would be heartbreaking, wouldn’t it?

Lilith: it’s a side of her she has never shown, you know? A face she has never deigned to see in the mirror. But she decided she trusted you and she decided you deserved to see the visage of a demon—the face of the monster she wears under the pretty mask you call Lilith. It’s your rejection, it breaks her more than you’d know.

Josh: any kind of uncertainty, of being unsure. Of knowing too little. Or perhaps too much. It’s not like it takes him by surprise—did he fool you into believing so? Josh would rather embrace deafness than hear the disappointment in your voice. But who is he kidding? It’s not like he can escape your eyes.

Villanelle: she has spent her 25 years on this Earth choosing to avoid her problems, tucking them away—tucking, tucking, tucking away, all her shelves, cupboards, and boxes are filled with unpacked shit, honestly. Any sort of conflict, the mere idea of being confronted negatively— it feels like she’s burning alive.

Victor: you’re… hard to understand, you know? Victor is a simple enough man, complications make his head spin. It’s undeniable, though. You were the one who chose to get close to him. You chased him around, pried his shell open like a knife would a clam, Victor trusted you— and now you’ve discarded him. No explanations given, just a sharp goodbye. Nothing more.

Aliyah: would it make you feel any less special to know that you are most definitely not the first one? Oh, Aliyah would make a list, but her memory doesn’t go that far back. Not even betrayal would sting this bad. Definitely not. It’s watching you die. The reminder that time really is just a relativity for her, while it is a deadline for you. Aliyah never got along with Death. They take too much, too fast.

Nathan: he’s so used to being the main and primary driver, the owner of the temple called ‘Nathan,’ he who for centuries was just Nathan. Not Nathan and Azriel. He can joke all he wants, he can push the truth around like a disgusting meal he can’t be bothered to try— but Nathan hates that you like Azriel. Or that you like him more. He hates being considered the same individual, he hates everything Azriel stands for, hates being pushed toward the passenger seat and losing sight of himself.

Eden: against all rationality and common reason—because that’s the only way to refer to the denial of the truth—Eden would only feel a sense of brokenness if you refused to look at him in the eye. He ignores the matter at first, it’s dumb to fixate on such a thing with no proof. But then you mention the power he holds, the power he inherited as a descendant of Solomon. So many assumptions could be made about such a thing— but Eden halts and entertains one. You too, like everyone else, believe that he’s a weapon, uncontrolled, to wield and otherwise ignore.

I think the point of ask games is to brief but the real challenge is to make me get straight to the point.

[milfygerard]

hi hi hi i’m sorry about the everything in life for a distraction i would love to hear your detailed thoughts on your favorite mcr albums or taylor albums or a detailed ranking of either i just love Music Opinions and also i hope things get better soon<3

thank you sm for sending in <3

im terrible at ranking so ill turn to opinions hmmmm

My favorite mcr album changed by day hour minute but i think i wanna talk about.....bullets....yeah bc bullets is so insane as just a sheer proof of concept, like an expression of raw skill and talent that was growing within this band. Rays guitar work alone was enough for it to make complete sense for major labels to be knocking at the bands door begging to suck them off and then they also had GERARD!!! And this was even before mikey really could write bass parts and frank was still not really in the band like its just ray gerard and geoff (and otter who wrote drum parts that r cool but also somehow out of his skill range? girl you MADE THEM). The fact that vampires not onky exists but was like the second or third song written? Like before mcr gerard either never wrote music or wrote shitty three chord throwaway punk that existed as an excuse to print band stickers and arent even good enough to save on tape and then you decide to start writing for real to cope with major national level trauma and your first song is SKYLINES??? and youre next songs are VAMPIRES and OUR LADY OF SORROWS???? and oh my god the vocals gerard gives on the albuk as a completely untrained vocalist who did one musical once in middle school and otherwise never sang professionally unless you count crazy kids song in breakfast monkey. and then you hear the vocals on fucking vampires???? Like gerard doesnt exactly sing like celine dion on bullets but the raw harmony work and ability to PERFORM and really stretch the emotions of a song and do whatever strange or vulnerable thing is needed to sell the track. Theres still few songs more affecting than early sunsets. Like i fully think gerard is probably the strongest vocalist in the emo scene just because of their ability to completely and utterly sell you on the songs emotions (not just anyone can sing im not okay and get away with it) and thats before all the developing technical talents both already present like how gerard can just toss a melody onto a track without thinking about it or the fact gerard did a lot of the base writing for mcr while fucking barely knowing guitar how did that even work girl. Like i havent even mentioned the lyrics??? How do you. Like you can tell both that gerard never learned how to write songs and also that gerard listens to so much music that he can just fake it anywayyheres like 2 songs with actual choruses on the album and neither of them are the self proclaimed pop song h4h which opens with a queen riff?????? ans then is like a hardcore version of a beatles pop song????dont talk to me about drowning lessons. deomolition lovers!?!?! half of these songs are just poems that gerard hammered into songs and theyre so like. genuinely so incredible and they work??like the album works! as a cohesive piece! it coheres!

and thats the first album. Id say my favorite ts album is probably evermore though i might actually have less to say on it just bc i havent had it since 2015. Evermore is just so....ANGSTY!!! it feels like a complete fulfillment of what she was exploring on folklore with the fictional framing devices and keeping the songs clearly personal while also removing herself in a way she never really has before. It feels like a level of introspection through art that taylor has always been both pushing towards and shying away from because too much introspection or strangeness or even pulling away from the diaristic idea too much never worked with where taylor was at with her career. Evermore had a new collaborator, and the massive success of folklore as well as the continued quarantine gave her both an unprescedented level of artistic isolation personal confidence and professional security that allowed her to just go "fuck it" and write fucking. cowboy like me and dorothea and coney island and closure and she GOT AWAY WITH IT!!! like the albums been out for 3 years or something like that and I still feel like i havent fully processed its existence despite listening to it constantly. It truly felt like she was unshacked and was able to write about herself while also completely pulling away from any sort of literal Truth and going crazy with concept and the way she writes feels so unconstrained from the rules she would sometimes set for herself, it felt like a natural evolution from the freedom she felt jumping into the lover era but its past the honeymoon phase and like it is pop music but its also not scared to be...not pop music if that makes sense? She really fully settles into folk as a genre for the first time and it lets her writing flourish. Songs with no choruses songs with barely any structure at all lyrics that stretch at the ends of verses and fun bouncy wordplay and just allowing herself into a characters life and seeing how it fits her. She has some straight up ren faire tracks on here liek willow is just a collection of similies and metaphors she likes smushed together over a lute and its so GOOD. It feels like she was allowed to really live in adulthood as a woman in her early thirties who creates art because she loves it and because it keeps her alive ALSO proof that she needs to keep collaborating w new ppl bc whenever she does you can feel her pushing herself harder and she becomes so willing to try these new kind of weird things that she may have never tried otherwise aughhhh!!!! i didnt even talk about coney island!!!! I love how moody and dour the whole project is it feels like November where fall drags you into a cold unforgiving winter and you're just trying to survive with your sanity and any of your personal relationships intact. its so!!! tbh its SO new england also which makes me biased. ok thats all

[laufire]

repeating last month's reading meme, with the stories I completed this month (many of them started waaaaaaay before though. thus is the nature of comics).

list and some thoughts under the cut.

NOVELS

Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett. As with every other Discword novel, I practically devoured this one. Very enjoyable, especially Granny's plot, which did hit close to home for me lol.

Dare Me by Megan Abbott. This is proof that, despite having aged out of the YA bracket, some of it, the really good one, still holds up. Still, I know that if I had read this as a teenager, I would've made it my whole personality for at least a while xDD. Nonetheless, it was a great read. It's a pity that the show was cancelled before it covered the entire story, because I would've loved to watched an adaptation :/

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. Of the Austen novels I've read so far, I would probably put it in the last place, but I did end up enjoying it. I had a good laugh with the Ferrars family drama, and I enjoy how... anti-karma Austen can be. Sometimes shitty, selfish people behalf shittily and selfishly, and that works out perfectly for them, lbr.

COMICS COMICS COMICS

Arsenal. And absolutely great mini (four issues long) in Devin Grayson's melodrama era. Vandal Savage collecting body parts of his descendants to replace his rotten ones is A Concept. And I loved the cameos by Dinah, Oracle, Connor... perfect.

Robin (vol. 1). Tim goes to Paris to train a bit more after Bruce decides he's ready to be Robin. There he ends up in between mob complots and gets trained by Shiva for a little while. My main takeaway is that Tim should have a musical staff in more stories.

The Cull. I kept waiting for this miniseries to go somewhere and... eh. The ending is a bit open so it might continue, but unless I hear something really solid I wouldn't pick it back up.

Batman: City of Madness. The concept of this story ended up being far grander than its execution, and I think I would've liked a longer, more involved, riskier storyline... The art is still amazing, though. It's given me some proto-ideas, though.

Dark Spaces: The Hollywood Special. I could literally copy-paste the last paragraph here lol.

Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood. Amazing. Perfect. 10/10. One comic I'm going to recommend.

Robin II: The Joker's Wild!. This should've gone harder with the Jason-haunting-the-narrative concept, IMO, but I am NOT an unbiased party lol.

All of Jason Todd's New 52 (2011-2016) appearances. There is... so much I could say about this. Not much would be good, because yes, I still rage against the reboot xD. RHATO vol. 1 ends up looking even good after Red Hood/Arsenal (which improved a bit at the very end, admittedly); Lobdell is the worst, either way. Batman Incorporated/Wingman... too little effort put on it. Appalling, poorly thought-through characterisation all around, really, alongside a lot of choices I'm still baffled by (chessmaster Joker by beloathed). Batman & Robin Eternal got on my nerves, and not just for Jason. Robin War, Grayson... all of it needed a lot more development for me to be sold on it. The cameos in Deathstroke were... fine, but forgettable, when they shouldn't have been.

I did use the cover for Supergirl vol. 6 #35 because that's the ONE Jason appearance I can say I fully enjoyed! Jason is competent (aided by some "venom" which was an arc that amounted to nothing, but whatever), he is a MENACE, he seeks a team up with Supergirl but is a fucking asshole about it despite clearly wanting to be friends xDD... it felt as if I was almost reading new earth!Jason circa Green Arrow/Outsiders, which I really enjoyed! The stupid uncanny valley helmet makes an appearance but I just ignore that xDD

Robin III: Cry of the Huntress. Tim and Helena meet for the first time and team up! It was all right.

World Without Young Justice. I read the Tim-centric issue as it was one of the firsts in Lewis's run, so I decided to read the other four issues in the arc. Tim's is my favourite, though: it has Steph as the original Robin, in a story that really caught my eye and I might use at some point... honestly, I think superhero!Steph/civilian!Tim is a DELICIOUS set-up for the ship that I know I'll revisit in some fics where I don't have Tim donning a mantle (or at least, not in a traditional way).

Batman Plus Arsenal. Great one-shot (Devin Grayson does it again etc.). The moment where Roy gets on Batman's case for how sparse he is with praise was gr10.

Harley and Ivy: Love on the Lam. Another one-shot, by Winnick this time (I have my selected favourites). The dynamics are very clearly inspired by the DCAU despite being a new earth comic, but as those are my favourite versions of the characters involved, that works for me. It's about cycles and how hard it is to break them, of course

Knightfall. I started reading the arc in January. Although I'd read part of it before, this is the first time I really set out to read the complete thing. My veredict is that it focuses way to much on JPV, who I simply don't connect with LOL. The parts with Bruce, with Tim, and especially with Dick, and even with Gordon and Essen, are far more appealling to me, and I would've preferred them to be expanded upon to JPV's detriment tbh.

Bruce Wayne: Murderer?/Fugitive. Amazing story arc, and as far as I'm concerned, a must-read among Batman/Batfam fans. Bruce's reasons for finally getting his head out of his ass were also very poignant and rang very true to him, as did his shitty non-apology about his actions lol. And in the end, Sasha and Bruce-Sasha ended up being a really fascinating part of it all. I might go back and read her older appearances.

Jon Lewis's Robin Run (vol. 2 #100-120). Really fun! A very enjoyable take on Tim Drake, very cute Steph/Tim stories, really good overall! And the plot with Tim's birthday... jail, jail to Bruce for one thousand years xDD. Very sad that Tim can't be allowed to be mad at him for longer than five pages smh.

[stingrayloveblog]

More side order criticism and complaining that you are under no obligation to read

I get that side order was a roguelike which apparently tend to be short? Idk ive never played one before but anyway that still doesnt justify the initial hype, the blatant change in aesthetics and plot (remember the first trailer? And the second trailer i think with the lobby doors looking VERY different and matching what we saw in the concept art trailer) almost last second fnaf security breach style, and the amount of stupid shit that happened throughout most of splatoon 3s lifespan since SUPPOSEDLY the games only gonna be getting updates for like, what, 2 more seasons? And its like wow we waited all this time and went through so much shit for a story thats hardly even a story. Once you unlock everything its just. Prlz grinding for gear to get.

It was fun! It was enjoyable! But it sucked and it wasnt worth all of that. Unfortunately i care a lot about splatoons lore and they didnt really go anywhere with what little lore they did have. They also contradicted themselves multiple times for a net zero lore gain anyway. This is about the whole memories """subplot""", if you can even call it that. It really was just "pearl and marina and also this other random irrelevant character talk to each other while you stand there and stare at them from the background" simulator and its like. Thats it? Thats the story? Thats what i waited through all the bullshit for? And then they make you think that there is more, actually, because they keep leading up to something, and then nothing happens. Like okay what was that for.

The gameplay was quick and easy because thats just my skill level. I didnt find it difficult. If youre good at salmon run then chances are youre good at side order. Theres nothing else to be done about that. Im not gonna play bad on purpose for a chance at a challenge. That isnt fun. I just wish the game was rewarding and to me the lore is the reward but... when you think about it literally at all nothing that marina did all this for shows any proof of having worked. She still has to hack her own vr world to do anything with it. Order, now smollusk, is still very much in control. They dont show you anything memory-related actually changing or being affected. They just say it happened and act like thats all there should be to it. And if they were gonna focus on memories, why did they make this whole thing about how bystanders can accidentally be sucked in and then do literally nothing with that? Why not show an actual change in the actual inkopolis square? Why murch of all characters to get a pallet. Why not involve iso padre, whos in inkopolis square now (im very happy about that), who had also lost his memories and was an established character that we could actually interact with in the previous game? It just doesnt add up. Like sorry that i expected good storytelling, its just this is the same people who made octo expansion and they keep trying to one-up octo expansion and they keep falling flat on their face because they keep thinking the gameplay is what made octo expansion so good when it was also the plot and the lore and the worldbuilding that added so much to it so i thought "this time for sure" especially with everything they showed us in the first trailer.

Again, i know it was all concept art, but surely it wouldnt be fair to show off so much only for the final product to be almost nothing like it? Surely if they werent set on the story then they wouldve waited longer to be realeasing trailers and announcing dlc in the first place? Surely it makes sense to expect what was shown. I dont get why theres some people who think everyone had too high expectations. Like its literally just a matter of if you think about any of it literally at all and actually care about it any way more than barebones surface level stuff literally at all then its natural to expect more.

[lorz-ix]

Skinamarink (2022)

A very divisive horror movie, though in my opinion it doesn't deserve to be, and is only "controversial" because of close minded movie watchers who equate anything weird and experimental that they don't like with pretentiousness and lack of quality. Because god forbid art steps out of line and does something "you're not supposed to do".

I'm gonna be completely honest here, I didn't even like the movie, personally. While I know appreciate what it's trying to do, and I always like having to think about what things mean instead of having the answers handed out to me, that doesn't mean I particularly enjoyed the experience of watching it. It's one of those pieces of media that I really like to think about, and I love that they exist, but I'm not a fan of actually consuming them. I thought that it was either too long or too slow for the payoff in the end, like an idea so specific didn't catch my attention for the entire runtime, because not that many things actually happen and that's the point of it. Blame it on undiagnosed ADHD if you want.

It was really cool I swear.

Heck (2020 short film)

So you know how I said Skinamarink was either too long or too slow? Heck is a sort of "proof of concept" short made by the same creator, and I actually liked it a lot more, precisely because it's significantly shorter so the appeal didn't overstay its welcome. It's a bit simpler, perhaps easier to understand, not necessarily better or worse, just depends on what you might prefer.

Maybe watch this (it's up on youtube) to see if you might like the concept, and watch the movie later if it's interesting?

I must say though, the final scare in this short freaked me out way more than anything in Skinamarink. That does contribute a lot to why I prefer the short film.

[moe-broey]

Realization in. Several parts.

1. I have the thought of mixing black and blue inks on a single comic piece, but am too scared to do it on my Very Serious Very Real I WILL Cry if I Fuck This Up comic

2. I have an old WIP that was always a shitpost which could actually make use of this. So I pick it up again, proof of concept AND fun post let's gooooooo

3. YAAAY DONE now for the background hm. Maybe a stock image will add to comedic effect... wait...... this feels so familiar........ like I've done this before..

4. I've done this before. In a separate piece. That's already on my blog.*

SAD. Well. Nother art piece now 👍

Although this time I figured I should stick to my words before about having a shitty background even if it is shitty as long as it serves its purpose. I won't learn anything new if I just use stock image again, won't be able to apply that to more serious projects. In this way, it serves Two (2) purposes -- its function within the comic itself, and also experimenting with new techniques/testing dif mediums to see what Could work best.

I think I have a really clear idea on how I wanna approach it going forward now though!! YIPPEEEEE 🎉🎉🎉🎉

*Actually editting this I found the Monster Menu comic and it's not quite just one comic where black ink flows into blue in a single piece, it's. A bit funkier than that. But still my point remains I stand by this 🫡

[4noki-vns]

Consummation Proof of Concept: Post-mortem

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It’s been a little over two weeks since the release of my proof of concept prototype demo for Consummation ~wind above the dragon sea~!

Since I’ve been a little sloppy with the marketing (marketing…?), if you haven’t checked the game out yet, I’d be happy if you’d spend an hour playing through the slice of a chuuni yuri visual novel that I’d been wanting to show the world for about forever (a few years really).

You can play it on itch.io @ https://4noki.itch.io/consummation-prototype

-

Now onto the post-mortem! In this piece, I’ll be discussing how it was like to solo dev a short demo for the Battle Action Fantasy VN Jam (BAF Jam), making most of a game alone for the first time since Draw No More in 2021.

I’ll talk about what was the same, what was new, how the scope had to be managed, and my take on solo dev as well as some clarification on future plans for the game.

I’ll write a separate post about fun facts regarding the story and its history later.

What I usually do

In the games that I direct, I prefer to handle the scenario writing (story), character design, and scripting (stage direction). Although for a solo project, while I would have to cover other areas as well, I’d certainly still be writing, drawing, and scripting.

scenario

Fun fact: there is no outline for this game! (yet)

This has less to do with the fact that I solo-ed the demo but more to do with the fact that it’s a prototype of a story that’s been sitting around in my head for ages. I’ll be filling out that outline a bit more eventually…

The majority of the script was written in May thanks to the relatively loose schedule restrictions given by BAF Jam.

I wanted to have the script written so that I could spend more time on everything else, including tasks that I do infrequently and thus knew would take longer.

As the release is an incomplete story, I didn’t know quite how far the story would go in this demo while writing. I initially envisioned it ending at the end of day one, perhaps cutting off after the prophet’s speech.

However, this is a chuunige—battle action fantasy!

Despite reaching my goal, I realized that day one didn’t have a true fight scene (does beating up a guy and assassinating someone in the prologue count?). Thus, I extended the script to the start of the first fight scene. Really, the start.

By that time, June began, so I unfortunately had to turn my attention to other tasks.

character art

The first item was character art.

For my recent projects like Who is the Red Queen? and Lachesis or Atropos, I drew the character design sheets and left the in-game art to the master artists on my teams.

For the prototype of Consummation, being solo, I decided to forgo the character design sheets for now and get to drawing directly. It helped that many of these characters had been frequent visitors in the corners of my notebooks during high school and so on.

One of the perks of doing sprite art yourself is that you can add expressions as you script!

scripting

I tend to do scripting near the tail end of a project, once most assets are in place.

Given that I was in charge of assets here, I decided to plop the story script in a bit earlier than usual. Alas, actual scripting had to wait until I had art or at least some placeholders!

The last things to go in were the music (thank you, Peritune) and sound effects.

What I don’t often do

Everything I haven’t mentioned yet falls under things I don’t do often.

bgs

God Minikle.

ui

I didn’t have too much time to work on UI, so I followed a little heuristic. If you’re changing anything, do the parts that the player will look at the most:

Textbox (main)

Main menu (lesser)

cgs

The last time I drew a CG was probably for Moon Archer Shooting Stars. Due to time constraints, the CGs in Consummation’s proof of concept can be considered more sketches than fully rendered graphics.

Haha, maybe they’ll be useful as references.

Prioritization

You can probably see a mild tonal difference between talking about my typical work and talking about the work I prefer to delegate.

In the land of solo dev, there is no such thing as delegation unless you mean using asset packs or delegating to future you who will curse past you for watching K-pop survival shows for a whole week. (Kim Seonyou is very impressive…!)

With a team, the schedule of things can’t be broken down linearly because tasks overlap. Ideally, everyone has most of a jam period to work.

Solo, you have to do it all. Hence, you have to make sure you prioritize the right tasks and make sure to start other tasks in time since you don’t quite have the whole jam period for each item.

While I began smoothly, finishing off the script early, collecting background art, and putting down flats in sprites, life hit.

Starting a new job mid-June (future visual novel funds?), I slowed down the dev work. Before I knew it, when I finished the sprites (a nice 6), only a week remained.

Hello, CG grind.

While I could have decided there and then to drop a number of CGs, I ultimately wanted them to exist.

Making visual novels is a balancing of wants.

In exchange, the CGs had to be a bit rougher and I let go of a few other wants such as: a main menu key visual, more cut-ins (Qin… my beloved, your phone calls…), and more polish in general.

Alas, tis solo dev, eh?

(Two days remained in June when I marked the prototype as done. I had a feeling that I wouldn’t be able to do much more in 2 days, so it was time to chill.)

The “s” in solo is for small!

Most of the other visual novels I made by myself were visually simpler and games of smaller scale (shorter than this prototype demo).

To be a successful solo dev, you have to be a jack of all trades. I prefer to focus on my favorite parts of visual novel development: writing, character design, and directing.

While I find making a game by myself fun once in a while, I think I’m happy to stick with only doing so for small games and prototypes.

Q. Why was this game solo dev-ed?

Most of the visual and audio content in the game will have to be replaced in the case that Consummation becomes an active project. I use the terminology “proof of concept” and “prototype” a lot when talking about Consummation because it is not an active project and may not be one for a long time.

As such, I found it better for me to handle the work that will inevitably be replaced.

Q. Why make a proof of concept prototype?

While I could have left Consummation in the ideas bucket, I really wanted to write it. I really want to write it. At the very least, I wanted to show the world a sneak peek at one of the handful of stories that I’ve wanted to bring to life for a long time.

Unfortunately, I do not have the bandwidth to work on two large (huge even) projects at a time.

That’s right, big yuri visual novel…! To be announced.

shino

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[bulkyphrase]

6, 8 and 10, go!

6. which ship fans are the most annoying?

I think this is in part a function of which parts of the fandom I hang out in, but definitely st*cky. Don't get me wrong, I like the ship. I've got 200+ st*cky fics in my AO3 bookmarks, and according to my rec list spreadsheet I've rec'd 65 st*cky fics since 2021. But outside of fic I just can't deal with most of the content or discussion around the ship.

I think it's because there's a common attitude that the ship is actually canon but Marvel is too cowardly to admit it? I like to treat my non-canon ships as fun what-ifs, and holding up canon scenes and treating them like proof that your ship is right instead of evidence that your ship would be a fun time just really rubs me the wrong way.

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

Endgame was a fun and satisfying conclusion to the OG6's story and with a few minor exceptions I think everyone was reasonably in character.

I don't think it's perfect, I don't think it's a great work of art, but I came out of the theater very happy with it and that hasn't changed. The time heist was wonderful. The final battle was too dark but had some amazing moments ("on your left," "I knew it"). I hate the whole Vormir concept, but the scene between Nat and Clint plays out exactly right.

Steve's ending isn't necessarily what I would have wanted if Endgame were the last MCU movie, or if it were a cartoon or comic that didn't need to worry about casting and actor's contracts. But as a way to write Steve out of the MCU, I love it. He'd been trying to build a home in the future for a decade only to have each attempt washed away by the climax of the next film. That he escaped that cycle by going back to his first home and having whatever off-screen adventures we want to imagine is just a really nice idea to me.

10. worst part of fanon

In general, the worst part of fanon is that people act like it's better and more interesting than canon. Like, the MCU isn't overflowing with depth and complexity to begin with, and fans come by and swap out what there is for dumb fandom cliches. Canon Tony is better than just a snarky tech genius who can't live without coffee. Canon Steve is more interesting than a human golden retriever who exists only to take care of his teammate/boyfriend (same goes for Sam).

A specific piece of fanon I don't care for is the idea that was Steve suicidal (or just dumb) in the Valkyrie crash in CATFA. The scene is clearly written to show that crashing the plane was Steve's only real choice - it was on an autopilot to New York - he couldn't steer it, only force it down, and when he took his hands off the controls the plane went back to its original course.

His being suicidal in that scene isn't supported by canon, reduces the heroism of his sacrifice, and is a good example of the sort of take that makes me distance myself from the st*cky fandom.

Also, I don't don't know if this is fanon or just an extremely common mistake, but according to the movie dialog the Hydra factory in CATFA is in a place called Krausberg, not Azzano and not Kreischberg.

Thanks for the ask!

choose violence ask game

[1-1-s1ay-2-2]

I will never believe that listening to your heart or using memory as inspiration is what drives us forward to thrive in a new way. Art is just an imaginative rehash of everything we've ever done because when you make art on memory, that is what you get...a replication of what once was but no longer is...over and over again. BORING.

That's exactly why humanity's creativity is dying. All the fuckin done-the-same-way-ten-thousand-times movie franchises are proof of that. Why? Because too much of modern-day "creative expression" is derivative -- aka -- creating by memory instead of by the drive of a new mind. We create by some memory, we are recreating, we're not really creating anything new at all. We create by a new mind, we travel to new worlds and discover new ideas, new concepts, new ways of life, new ways of going forward, and new ways of healing.

You can't heal by putting a dirty bandaid on a bleeding foot. You get dead that way. Maybe not literally...but you get dead on the inside.

There's no soul in the stuff that's been done again and again. Every time you redo something, based on memory, you are robbing that memory of its importance. Memories should be sacred, and oftentimes, very personal, making them sentimental and blessed.

So every time that memory is expressed, it becomes less of the substance that makes it uniquely a fragment of your mind, and now it's just another notch on the belt of society's never-ending need for consumption of thought and memory.

You are taking the memory of a superhero, for instance, and turning it into a farce because there are now soooooooo many fuckin memories of superheroes, that we got superheroes coming out the wazooo and it's like...no more fuckin superheroes, please!

Can we get a new creation from a new memory now?

Oh, but that would take thinking with a new mind and new imagination outside the box and boldly going where the general public dare not go. That would require abandoning the comforting warmth of familiarity and embracing change straight to its face.

That would take a new story or a new idea or a new concept that is completely different than anything brought about by memory, but maybe something that is brought about by discovery.

Because, after all, everything great that ever came into existence was not remembered, but it was first discovered.

[pepsi1]

P:// ...

"..."

P:// So uh... want a drink?

"?"

P:// I know I beat you into a bloody pulp but you deserved it.

"I always do... Fuck it, what do you have?"

P:// That friend of yours, Bismol. He made a bad batch of moonshine, it'll blind the fuck out of regular humans. 190 proof.

"Sounds fun! Pour me a glass"

P:// So you really have changed... It's weird to hear excitement from you. Of course it could only be the devil that can change you.

[He throws a jug to Pepsi filled with the moonshine and Pepsi catches it]

"He uh... he did play a part."

P:// You have more to say?

[Pepsi chugs a quarter of the jug with a bit of strain before speaking again]

"Listen. I'm sorry. For everything. But it wasn't just Paint that's making me say that... I snapped when you mentioned Ariel. I thought I had terrified you. I am glad you still had it in you to beat the shit out of me.

P:// You are avoiding a more interesting conversation giving me such fucked up praise. I won't follw that tangent.

"It wasn't just Paint. It was his own creator. The antithesis to my realm of divinity. And it was their doing in setting me on a path I had long deviated from... We only had a conversation and I may have fornicated with them or I might still be doing so."

P:// Stop trying to deviate. I don't like hearing about the fucked up sex you have.

"...It's not like I can talk to Frita or Bee and you know damn well Caleb doesn't care. You're my only friend."

P:// Oh yeah, sure, the robot you made that hates your guts.

"I mean it. You're the only honest bastard I know. Paint, while I am his confidant, I cannot confide any of my thoughts or emotions to him without a very annoying interrogation of my words and a willingness to enact chaos on my behalf that I did not ask for. You are simple, to the point, and know me best... It's why you let me ramble at times even with your supposed hatred and ability to rip my jaw clean off."

P:// ...

"The point is, I was being trained in my own divinity by the very concept of its antithesis and I... Our souls are healed, fully. I'm certain you have noticed a wane in your anger, though you attribute it to parenting Kitty and wanting to be better than me as a father. The burden of regret lays heavy on a soul that can no longer ignore it.

P:// I was laying into you pretty hard and you have had a lethal amount of moonshine. Is your brain finally rotted?

"And yet I'm the only one you can truly harm aren't I? You know there's no long term consequence in doing so. You couldn't bring yourself to hurt Frita or anybody else if you wanted to, could you?"

P:// This is not an interrogation of my character and if you turn it into one I will replace your skeleton again and... and... ...hm. I suppose I have stopped considering harm upon others through you. Proceed.

"I think I was depressed. I think I still am, but I'm getting better. I'm starting to look for purpose again. I'm starting to remember why I learned guitar and other frivolous arts as a human. I think I'm becoming more human, more... More me. I have hated who I am for literal uncountable spans of time. I still think I deserve hell. Hell does not want me though, it thinks I've suffered more than enough."

P:// It took you this long to figure out you're depressed? What, did you think you were a glutton of pain for fun? I know you've hidden how much torture truly puts you through hell, it's why I still do it when you think it does nothing for you anymore.

"..."

P:// You can't hide pain from me, I think you've forgotten how I was designed and the original intent behind my programming.

"I have but yes, it did take me this long. Because until recently, I fully believed I was still in Hell. That all the bad things that happened were deserved. That you were a demon mocking my creations. That if I ignored pain and suffering it would eventually be far too normal to consider. That if I was the only one hurting that it would not matter to anyone else... But that isn't true. And it hurts to know it. And... And I've wasted so much time by doing nothing about any of those I still feel guilt for hurting. I have done nothing for those I could still help or can come to help in the future. It's why Ariel's name sent me in a frenzy... I was a dad who let his daughter die and be forgotten. I am a dad, who would rather his sons hate him than ever feel love for him. I am a monster for wanting to be hated like one..."

P:// ...

"I know you won't pity me Phoenix, it's why you're my friend. I have hurt you and your siblings, and for the longest time you were the only part of me smart enough to feel angry about it. But now you have your own soul, wholly yours."

[Pepsi chugs the rest of the moonshine and his eyes turn a glowing white as he loses his vision]

P:// God I wish I could get drunk too... Meet me at Peeps and Bis's place tomorrow. I need. No. Kitty needs your help building a motorcycle. I got the frame built but wiring and connections isn't my specialty d-... Pepsi.

"This moonshine is good, wish I could get drunk too. And Phoenix... Bring Bee and Caleb, you've been mad at me about them for a while now. I'm not sure I can get them fixed as you would like, but anything is better than nothing right?"

P:// Yes. 'Anything' is better than Nothing. Goodbye.

"Goodbye, and Hello. I hope you understand."

[translationandbetrayals]

Corridor Digital Animes that are not animes Pt.2

In a past post I talked about Corridor’s anime-like sketches a shorts but I purposely avoided talking about their series: ANIME ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS (1 & 2), where they use AI filters to take their live action performance and transform those into what looks like a  2D animation, and released those videos under the motto “Did We Just Change Animation Forever? ” .

  First of all, I have to address the elephant in the room; The use of AI.

As someone very interested on the tech space but also surrounded by a lot of artists Im very interested on the advances in AI technology, but I'm also conscious about the ethical use and im trying to form a more studied opinion than just saying “AI is cool I dont care about anything” nor “AI is bad, everything made with AI is bad”. 

  To begin with something, the first Corridor video was trained (trained as in: the filter applied over the frames of the video was made by an AI trained to replicate the mentioned artstyle) in the style of the movie Vampire Hunter D and people got very mad, and I my opinion that was the only thing that was a bit shady, but we have to understand the first video was essentially a proof of concept and they fixed it by commissioning character art for the second video with an artist that was willing to hand their art for the training process. At the moment I don't remember what platform was used to do the training, I know some where trained with copyrighted material but right now there are programs that only use owned material or can be trained with your own data so you can have copyright free generated images.

  The other thing I have to say about AI is that people gets mad very fast with the concept of AI and how “its stolen art and lazy” and I have to ask where is the art in a multimedia piece? Its just the art style or there is more? Im going to make a very bold comparison now, but we all know Marcel Duchamp and the fact he brought a urinal to an art exposition, the “art” in that instance wasn’t the urinal itself, the art piece was the action; the absurdism; the boldness; the critic to the status quo and every analysis of that situation is the art piece, not the material piece itself. In the other hand this youtube video we are talking about ain’t a masterpiece, but it has an interesting original story, voice acting, all the character actions were interpreted by real actors so it has a lot of art and true effort in it, if they didn’t used an AI generated art style and keep the live action format of their old anime videos, no one would have complain and people would loved it, but as VFX artists they wanted to see how far they can go visual effects and made something really interesting.

  I also have to make the comparison to Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series (Or Yugioh Abridged, or YGOTAS), that's a pretty beloved series where some guy just take the original Yu-Gi-Oh anime and makes its own collage, dubs everything and tells a new story loosely based on the original series. Isn’t that stealing the art and the concepts of the characters to create something new and profit from that too? Why YGOTAS wasn’t (or is) equally controversial? Someone could say that's because Yugioh Abridged is a parody, but Corridor’s video is a parody of its genre too, just less explicit.

  Anyways I kinda forgot my original point, but the ANIME ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS videos are cool, as with the ones before Corridor nailed the anime language, they did not change animation forever, but I'm pretty sure that title is just the youtube game. AI criticism is valid, but have a little more critical thinking and don't criticize things just because part of them are made with AI.

 ANIME ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVT3WUa-48Y

ANIME ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWZOEFvczzA

Did We Just Change Animation Forever?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9LX9HSQkWo

Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series: https://ygotas.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page

- Oscar Garrido

[mythgrippa-blog]

New session

Finally got to finish my 6-7 month group project, and the booth we set up looked really nice. I just stood there and everyone came to ask questions, our set up was like a science fair type thing, we had our monitors set up, posters on two boards and QR Codes to use our website posted around our booth.

As soon as 9 o clock struck, people were already going to our booth and asking questions. They almost caught us off guard

I was ready to talk about anything involving the system and its components, the bad news was that our facial recognition was taking a bit of break so no one's faces were being recognized in uploaded images and also image uploads had a long delay because we were doing image processing first before uploading images. This wouldn't be an issue if we managed to redeploy our backend services using a new google cloud instance. So, the reason they weren't being recognized was probably because we had too many image uploads and too few instances? Or was it was something else? I don't know

But despite that everything else went fine, explaining the app was really cool and I really liked the ones who wanted to talk about the backend. Our backend has matured from simple concept art to what it is now. Let's see each version.

I couldn't find the proof of concept image but we can just go through it step by step.

Early

Another version

The final version

The back end architecture is pure micro services and I love it! Everyone loved it, it was so good I legit thought we were going to win the best architecture award. But we didn't, it went to a different team and the reason that team won was because they were able to separate technology from architecture... :(

Well that was the project, the website servers will go down in less than a week. It was nice, now I can focus on other stuff.

Last night I managed to implement an ssh honey pot and it was nice. I didn't create the whole thing from scratch, I made use of pshitt and mapped the ssh server to a different port.

However I need to ramp up my programming skills, especially if I want to get good at this hacking biz or what not. So, my days as a developer are somewhat over, definitely as a group leader.

I'm retired now haha! I feel so free and relaxed, but I can't let my guard down though

Well there's a lot more going on that I Wanted to write about today but I'm literally in a class (not really a class I'm supposed to attend but its whaevs), I'll update a different day.

Thanks for reading :D