#this is the only thing I've heard about this game so far I should add which just makes it funnier

[asleepinawell]

me wearily opening twitter: please show me just one nice thing for once

twitter: baldur's gate 3 lets you fuck a bear

me: you know what? good enough

[atwas-meme-ing]

HEY ALL!!! If you haven't heard, Unity is gonna start charging devs 20 cents per download. Not per sale, but PER DOWNLOAD. This applies to not only big-name games like Hollow Knight and Ori, but also smaller projects that might be free. This includes mobile games made with Unity, Undertale fan games like Undertale Yellow and Deltatraveler, and also, get this: Murder of Sonic! It was made in Unity, and so far, it's still free, but Sega's gonna hafta start charging for it sooner or later- IF they don't decide to take it down completely.

So, on this note, I have 2 things to say:

Get your favorite games NOW. Some devs, like Team Cherry, are talking about "taking their games down" (so much for Silksong- thanks A LOT, Unity!!!). I don't know if that means you'll still be able to play these games- like on Steam, for instance- if you already have them downloaded.

Please, please, PLEASE, support those games that are made with Unity. 20 cents adds up when there's a million downloads, and if it's like a mobile game, where people don't necessarily have to pay for it, that's going to COST the devs money- a LOT of money. I know we all hate the paywalls and "pay-to-win" schemes in mobile games, but let's be real- crap like this Unity thing are the whole reason those paywalls exist! These devs aren't doing this for free, they're trying to make a living! Even if you only spend $1, only 1 time, that is STILL going to be an 80 cent profit over the new Unity costs, and maybe, just maybe, give some game devs enough incentive to keep the game around.

I know Unity has a bad rep because it's easy to use and allows devs to release games that control poorly because you don't have to be good at coding to do it (*cough* Guardian of Lore *cough*). That's why I haven't used Unity, despite having several game ideas in my head, because I don't know how to code (yet), and I didn't want to release a game like that- and now I never will use Unity. But games like all the ones I've mentioned are proof that Unity CAN be used for good games, in the right hands. So please, if you love a game made with Unity, please support it, so the game doesn't go away. Don't send the devs into bankruptcy just because Unity is a money-grubbing so-and-so.

(Oh, I should also mention, for browser-based games, apparently this "per download" thing also includes "per BROWSER REFRESH". So, yeah, please don't blame the devs, support the devs and blame Unity.)

EDIT: It's not quite as bad as I'd thought. I knew Unity had a threshold, but I thought it was an either/or thing- either a certain number of downloads, or a certain amount of money made from a game. And, it's not, it's both.

So free games (like Murder of Sonic) apparently won't be affected.

Here's their pricing schedule once the threshold is met:

It still adds up for the smaller projects, with Unity taking all or most of the revenue from smaller games.

And one thing that's still bothering me: the install threshold is "life to date" and Unity is charging per install over the threshold. So, if a game's been around for years and had a million downloads and has made 200,000 dollars in the last year, they're gonna end up paying that 200,000 all at once.

At least, that's what I'm reading.

So, ok, I was wrong. Free projects won't be affected. But this is still awful, especially when it's first starting out.

EDIT 2 (2023-09-23): They've lessened the fees:

I'm still not using them. They never had a good reputation- I mean, there's good Unity games, but there's also a lot of bad ones because people can just release games with Unity with no coding experience. I want to make games someday, but I want them to be a good quality, so I'm waiting until I can actually figure out C++ (heck, I'm still wading through HTML, I'm nowhere near real programming languages). As long as I have to learn coding to make something good, I might as well find an engine that I can trust. I hear a lot about Godot. I also think I'll want to look at Monogame, because Monogame was used to make Axiom Verge and Celeste, and it's apparently based on the defunct XNA that was used to make Stardew Valley. Or I'll find something else. But not Unity. I just don't trust them.

[girliestwomaninstem]

22nd Oct || Day 1 of 100 days of code/productivity

today I created a general plan for what I want to accomplish over the next couple months in terms of learning to code. I had a Codeacademy subscription that I had totally forgotten about so I logged in and enrolled into the Learn C Skill Path course - which teaches you the fundamentals of C programming. I chose this course because my university prefers to teach their intro to programming course in C (all Computer Science students _must_ take this course as a prerequisite in order to progress to harder courses that will only build up on the knowledge acquired in here). I've heard it's pretty daunting for a beginner to learn programming in C so let's see how it goes. Just because I've heard scary things does not necessarily mean I should quit so soon. I'm no less than the nerdy guy in class who developed a game at the age of 11 or something, haha.

The course seems to be very beginner-friendly, indeed. and the code environment as well as the terminal are integrated into the website so that we can practice as we learn, so that's good. I'm liking it so far!

The first lesson included the basics of C - everything from:

ensuring you have the correct syntax written down so that the code is able to compile

escape sequences (\n -> add new line and \t -> add new tab)

line comments and block comments that are used to document code as you go

I also learnt how to compile a C program using gcc, yay!

that's it for today, it is now nearly 5:30 am as we speak, and I was not able to get any work done all day because we have a religious festival going on from now through this upcoming month, so needless to say I'll be busy helping my family with preparations. but I really hope to commit to learning how to code for at least 2-3 hours every day, as it would make a massive difference. g'night besties! <3

[nayialovecat]

The Ink Demonth 2023 - Day 31. Revival

Day 31. Revival Crossover: Bendy and the Dark Revival I'd say, Bendy, you can't be that rude... but I feel exactly the same way. I know it's not BATDR Bendy's fault that he is the way he is - but that doesn't change the fact that this is how I feel. So, if anyone else wants to ask me what I think about Ink Bendy from BATDR - I will refer to this image.

Yes, I consider it a crossover because I don't consider BATDR to be a sequel to BATIM in any way. It's a completely separate creation that is simply heavily inspired by BATIM. However, in places he rewrites the stories, changes the characters' personalities, adds new threads... This is not an expansion of the world. This is an alternative version of the Workshop - and you won't convince me to think otherwise. So a separate game with which I did a crossover called "Bendy doesn't like his alter-ego".

Actually, the only thing I like about Ink Bendy from BATDR is his voice. When I heard it first time, I felt a shiver down my neck... and then, unfortunately, I focused to the words - and all the charm was disappeared. Seriously. There are reasons why Bendy has been mute so far - and apparently the main one is how much he talks f**cking nonsense. I don't like the shape of his head. His hideous teeth, which are not scary - are disgusting. Hoofs instead of feet is a nice idea - but why both legs? Where is the wonderful asymmetry of the original? Why does he turn into a hedgehog (those spines in strange places - they make sense when they are spine vertebrae). No. Absolutely no. And what's with the skeleton arm? Someone used acid on his ink there?

As for the game itself... Uh... I was impressed at first. First chapter - great. New possibilities of moving the character, beautiful backgrounds, delightful details, an interesting ritual of starting the machine... I was delighted. My slight discouragement began when I first heard Wilson's voice over the speakers and the subsequent behavior of the Lost Ones afther that proclamation... In the second chapter, the game started to piss me off on a regular basis. Then I just watched gameplays and... I don't regret that I didn't keep playing. The game is frustrating, the characters are warped (but not in the realities of the game as they should be warped - warped from the ones we knew and liked). A lot of stupid things happen: Tom being treated like a pet, Wilson acting like a villain from the start, Allison being a fucking deus ex machina, Twisted Alice's death scene and Sammy's death - I hate them both, no physical Bendy (appears out of nowhere and instantly kills - a very lazy solution, game creators), Henry's whole entrance, that weird puppet character what's-her-name Betty... Ok, I like Porter's character a bit - but that's probably only because of his resemblance to my OC Brody.

So you've asked many times what my opinion of Dark Revival is. That's it: I hate this game. It killed my passion for creating SATIM and made me stop looking for images with BATIM on tumblr or on dA - 'cause people don't know how to hashtag and they tag BATIM when they make arts about BATDR. Okay, I'm not saying I have nothing but hatred for this game - but it disappointed me just in the way like BATDR Bendy is disappointment for SATIM Bendy in the picture. And it pisses me off when I see on dA that people add my art to folders called "Dark Survival", "BATDR art" or so. It's like a slap in my face.

That's why I made this picture as quickly as possible. An unspectacular finale - but I've been waiting to say this openly for a very long time, so appreciate the solemnity of this art.

And finally, something positive: I FINISHED ON TIME! Yeah, I did it again!

Bendy and the Ink Machine (c) Joey Drew Studios Inc. Bendy and the Dark Revival (c) Joey Drew Studios Inc. Sammy and the Ink Machine (c) Nayia Lovecat

[beevean]

I've seen stans claiming issue #67 gets to take place after Frontiers and so there was a huge time skip of months based only in the fact Sonic called Amy to lunch as they apparently spend a time without meet each other (???) (Is not it some long running gag in the games that the characters can take long weeks or months to see each other again, thus being already used to this?)

But why?? Why is it so important to set this passage of time?! Do they are really desperate in make the link between games and comics? Because that really makes the comic's narrative sound and look pretty worse:

1- It would mean then that Surge and Kit has been a far more time hidding in Eggman's abandoned base than you would expect, that makes them look even more lazy losers than they already do and clash a lot more with the image of Thirsty For Revenge the comics insist in pass, since they moved NOT a finger in almost half a year (???) (Idk the exact time they want to claim and much less I care) But it makes the arguably near 0 effort of them become a surely negative effort.

2- So then, Blaze is still in vacation in Sonic's world??? Really? She just forgot her kingdom? Are the Sol Emeralds just in Sonic's world as if there was no risk of the universe to collapse (okay, that's a more overkill than what the game really states) if the Chaos Emeralds are reunited and put close to them? Just like that? As if she wasn't all afraid of get some vacantion in the start?

3- Then Mimic has already gone in missions with the DC for real, right? He's bonding with them, right? Surprisingly, there were NO real volunteers after all this time before Surge and Kit finally met Clutch, heard his plan, came to accept his conditions and just gone to the Restoration HQ by the front door, (assuming any of these step even passed by Surge's father head) right? Or, if had, then they left... Geez, guess a bossy rude bitch with a rock hard head can't be a inspiring leader after all, what a surprise, no?

4- The only positive thing of this time skip ideia is that it explains why everyone is so chill of the drooling psychic walking around as well as make no objections to him about use his powers... And why Silver is so chill after the whole fiasco... Buuuuuut, now he's acting Just Exactly the way Lanolin accused him to act when she made the scandal to kick him out the Diamond Cutters (Not only the absence of security helmets or vests, he's playing with the food of the thousands of hungry kids he meant to help, Ian Flynn, a master of self sabotage)

Btw, sorry for this rant, feel free to just ignore if you prefer... And sorry for bringing the Lanolin discourse all over again...

Now that I think about it, it's been a year since Frontiers came out and IDW still hasn't referenced it. Even considering that it takes multiple months for issues to be finalized, I'd say enough time has passed that anything Flynn and Stanley have written since, say, December 2022 has been released. So huh, not even a small reference to that talkative moon, or anything to reflect the supposed new life goal of the gang. It's like it's not canon after all :)

Anyway. Time skips in IDW are indicated. This is how we know that the camping arc takes place months after the beginning of the MV arc because the apocalypse lasted the whole winter, and how we can say that it's complete bullshit because Sonic should have been dropped dead from exhaustion. No time indication, no significant time skip. This is a moot point for me, so I don't have much to add.

[moonbeam-writing]

Hi 👋 me again! After reading your amazing response to my request I had to come ask again 😅 I love my marshmallow fluff romance 🥰 Take your time, if it takes months again that’s fine. Your life outside social media is far more important! And I hope you passed your semester with flying colors! 🌈 📚

May I get another Haikyuu: Kuroo, Iwaizumi and Suna… 🥰 asking the reader to move in with him. 🏡 You can add others but last time you made them so much longer than I thought they’d be (which I ADORE) but 6 I felt was a bit much with how busy are. Up to you. Please and thank you again! 🥰

— “Move in with Me”

๑ Request by @exaltedvalkyrie

๑ Characters: Kuroo Tetsurou, Iwaizumi Hajime, Suna Rintarou (Haikyuu)

๑ Contains: Fluff, ambiguous pronouns, kisses ♡, use of petnames/terms of endearment (i.e. lovely, babe)

๑ Quick Note: I'm going to be perfectly honest, I wrote most of this before/during work ever since I was able to start working on this one, haha. As always, thank you for requesting, and I hope you enjoy this!

(Sidenote — Iwa's is so short for some reason, haha. My bad. I feel like it's always him. Suna's also seems a lot longer and detailed. I think my subconscious was hinting at me, I don't know.)

—

– Kuroo Tetsurou –

Kuroo smiled to himself as he saw the door to his apartment. His apartment itself wasn’t much, it did it’s job keeping him clean and warm. The inside of Tetsurou’s apartment, however, was more important than anything to him. Inside of his apartment was (Y/N) (L/N); his darling partner, the only person he felt could truly keep him sane these days. 

“I’m home!” He announced, theatrics elsewhere, though he was sure (Y/N) would be able to hear the relief in his voice. One of Kuroo Tetsurou’s favorite things in the world was being able to come home at the end of the day, especially if (Y/N) was there waiting for him.

Right on cue, they turned a corner, greeting Kuroo with a bright smile. “Welcome back, lovely.” Gods, their smile made him melt. “How was your day?”

“Okay.” He mumbled as he wrapped his arms around them, pulling them into him. “Yours?” 

Tetsurou felt terrible about asking. Their muffled response reached his ears, but he didn't process a word of it. He was too caught up in the domesticity of coming home to them and holding them close. It was something Kuroo had been noticing more and more as your days together became even more frequent.

"Hey, (Y/N)?" He asked, pulling away from them slightly to get a better look.

"Yeah?"

"Move in with me." The request was gentle, bordering on dreamy. He almost laughed at the slightly stunned look on your face.

A small giggle breaks the warm silence. "You sure?"

"Of course."

– Iwaizumi Hajime –

"Were you planning on staying tonight?" Hajime asked, watching you take off your shoes after walking into his apartment.

The question had you straightening your posture, despite the fact that you'd heard it so many times before. Hajime couldn't help but smirk. "I'm not entirely sure, but I'll more than happily stay if you want me to." The smile on your lips was so sweet to him. He could still tell you hoped that he'd want you to stay the night, though. The answer to that should be obvious to you, though.

"You're always welcome to stay, (Y/N). You know that." By now, Iwaizumi had crossed over to you, one of your hands engulfed in his and a kiss pressed to the crown of your head.

"Do I?" You teased, smiling up at him.

"You should," he responded. "I mean, I'd prefer if you never left at all."

"Iwaizumi Hajime, are you asking me to move in with you?"

"I guess I am." He responded, pressing a warm, loving kiss to your lips.

– Suna Rintarou (Not gonna lie, I've been thinking about him a lot lately.) –

As soon as the option presented itself and his most recent game was finished, Suna Rintarou made the decision to never leave his bed, and in turn, not let his wonderful partner leave either. Suna was home, he had eaten and showered, and now all he wanted to do was cuddle up with (Y/N) and sleep like the dead. Because he played so well, (Y/N) granted that wish for him. That afternoon, (Y/N) had become his pillow, carding their fingers through his hair and giving him little kisses over his face and hands. The two of you had spent hours together, using up what was nearly all 24 hours in the day, and as much as you wanted to stay, you acknowledged that you had to go home at some point, and that you were sure Suna wanted space.

No sooner than he had begun to smother his face into your stomach, you had pressed a kiss to his hands before squeezing them. "Rin, babe, I gotta go home."

Rintarou groaned childishly, seemingly trying to bury himself further into the comfort you provided. "No." He mumbled, kissing your stomach. "You have to stay here. Forever."

You just laughed at the man, giving him a small squeeze. "Rin, are you trying to tell me you want me to move in with you?"

Even though it came off as a joke, Suna disregarded it. He wasn't quite sure what he meant by the comment when he made it, but as soon as he heard you mention moving in with him, something clicked. Rin wanted you to always be with him, every minute of every day. While he knew how unrealistic that request was, seeing you whenever he was home was good enough for him.

"Yeah, actually. Will you move in with me, (Y/N)?"

"Of course I will."

[olderthannetfic]

Do you, or anyone actually, know where/when the '-bowl' sufix started being used in Fandom? Because I can't find any kind of origin, and surprisingly Fanlore doesn't have a article about it (as far as I checked maybe I didn't search well?). I just found and know that it's used for kinda old and relatively new fandoms, thanks to a two-year-old Reddit post.

For anyone who doesn't get/know about the '-bowl' sufix: is basically an All × One thing. For example, if you encounter 'Dekubowl' this means that Deku, the character, is shipped with everyone or that at least everyone else have a crush with Deku.

I can only think of the 'Super Bowl' (just as one comment in that Reddit post suggest) for its origin, but when we talk about Fandom culture we never know. It could have originated from anything no-related to the Super Bowl, LOL.

--

Ooh, interesting. I've never heard of this in my life, and I have no idea what a -bowl suffix is supposed to mean, even if I guess it has to do with the super bowl.

It's not surprising Fanlore doesn't have this if it's coming from BNHA or somewhere similar. Fanlore is fantastic on the history of Western "Media Fandom", zines, K/S, etc. It's much weaker in areas that OTW early adopters haven't spent as much time in.

You should write the -bowl article yourself!

--

I went into AO3's tag search and looked for 'bowl'. I found 1311 tags, 90 of them canonicals.

I'm seeing a ton of references to the Super Bowl, dust bowl AUs, pet play with pet food bowls, Dream in the fishbowl, unending uses like "I'm crying into my bowl of cereal as I write this", "bowl of honey nut feelios", "bowl of pornflakes", "me shaking the food bowl of sbi wilbur-centric angst: come get y'all's juice", etc., and plenty of references to YOI katusdon bowls. Lots of fandoms and episodes have 'bowl' in their titles.

Zeroing in on more related things, I'm seeing BNHA over and over and not much else...

EXCEPT!

Fruit bowls!

I see scattered references to "let's add him into that whole fruit bowl" and "the whole fruit bowl is here" and so on. Some of them are crack fic where everyone is a banana, but a lot of them seem to be a metaphor for "everything together".

Okay, I just spent far too much time trying to categorize tags. Out of the 'bowl' ones, about a third appear to be this kind of sense (counting by number of tags, not number of works).

Game of Thrones has a bunch, but they refer (as far as I know) to which characters will hypothetically kill each other and emerge victorious, not to group shipping.

Some tags I found, like 'edelbowl' sounded more like a group ship than an X/everyone. I also found a scattering of tags that were like 'all of them in a bowl together', which is probably related.

But mainly, what I found is that this is from BNHA and it's recent.

The other fandoms where I found it were:

Demon Slayer, Dr. STONE, Naruto, South Park, Fire Emblem, Genshin, HP, Lego Ninjago, My Next Life as a Villainess, She-Ra, Teen Wolf, Tower of God, VLD, A3! (Video Game), Assassination Classroom, Avatar, Batman, Black Clover - Tabata Yuki, Bleach, Blue Lock (Manga), BTS, Bungou Stray Dogs , Dangan Ronpa, Danny Phantom, Detective Conan, Dragon Age, Durarara!!, Fate/Grand Order, How to Train Your Dragon, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Kaiju No. 8 (Manga), LEGO Monkie Kid, Osomatsu-san, Ouran High School Host Club, Percy Jackson, SK8 the Infinity, Soul Eater, The Disastrous Life of Saiki K., Toilet-bound Hanako-kun, Tokyo Revengers, Virtual Streamer Animated Characters, Warcraft, Xenoblade Chronicles 2

That's giving me a very distinctive picture of a fan who's probably in their 20s or 30s, mostly like anime and some video games, and is not the type that edits Fanlore.

There's nothing actually old here: it's recent anime and stuff that is still a megafandom, like Naruto.

I'm seeing a scattering of 'dekubowl' from 2017 and then other character tags taking off in like 2019. This is definitely a recent trend in terminology, at least on AO3.

[blamemma]

thank u for the tag @semperama 😌 any opportunity to talk about my favourite thing! books! 😌

An estimate of how many physical books I own: where i live currently i have 132 physical books, but i also have some in storage and some in my parents house, so i would guess maybe about 220-250 maybeeee

Favorite author: i really don't have a stand out author...authors who have published my favouriteeee ever books have then produced really lackluster other works in my opinion....i feel like someone who never lets me down is ottessa moshfegh because u get what u get with her but i don't think i'd claim her as an outright favourite??

A popular book I've never read and never intend to read: truly anything by colleen hoover i am all for big popular books that get a large specific audience reading again, but we can do better by young girls and get them reading something sliiiightttllyyyy better (not shitting on anyone who enjoys colleen hoover, again they cater to a specific market and i think thats great, just not my cup of tea, but from what i've heard she's got a couple of questionable opinions)

A popular book I thought was just meh: normal people! :)) god it bored me sooooooooo much which is a shame cause the tv show slaps

Longest book I own: a suitable boy by vikram seth, 1474 pages!!!!!!!! and i read it in two weeks during the height of covid lockdown and it was EXCELLENT

Longest series I own all the books to: probably game of thrones....never been a massive series gal so yeah thats the only one i can think of off the top of my head?

Prettiest book I own: i have a really beautiful collection of charles dickens' books even though i'm not his biggest fan at all (loved david copperfield, enjoy a christmas carol, have read great expectations) but they were a gift and they do look really pretty on my shelves at my parents house!

A book or series I wish more people knew about: urmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm okay not to like talk about it again.............but at swim two boys............it was highly applauded when it was first published and was very popular but feel like it's popularity waned but its got two boys trying to resist falling in love and choosing to spend time together by learning to swim in the cold dublin sea.......the tumblr girlies would eat that up nowadays......also bewilderment by richard powers i think everyone should read that book 😌

Book I'm reading now: briefly, a delicious life by nell stevens....only about 50 pages in so far but good fun, a sapphic ghost love story from what i can tell so far so intriguing....

Book that's been on my TBR list for a while but I still haven't got around to it: the fifth season by n.k. jemisin.....tried reading it but wasn't in a sci-fi mood so only got one chapter in and then it has just.....sat there......for like.....two years......

Do you have any books in a language other than English: no and i am ashamed.....

Paperback, hardcover, or ebook?: paperback anyyyyyyyyyyy day of the week let me BREAK that spine let me make you look worn and loved and read let me chuck you into my bag and u barely add any weight!!! i dont hate a hardback but avoid buying them unless it is a book i am DESPERATE to read asap or it's at a good price but yeah i am a paperback girlie <3 don't own an e-reader apart from having the kindle app on my ipad so v rarely venture into e-books and i am sorry but nothing beats the feel of a book in ur hands like i need to feeeeel the pages

tagging @gokartkid @monagasque @lilyrizzy & @karlmarxverstappen if u would like xx

[syrupyy]

comic studio: one year in

so, wow! comic studio is officially one year old as of last week. in that year, i've learned a lot about running websites, and i feel like it'd be fun to write a post going over how i feel about it, as well as showcasing my plans for the future of the site

the original concept

as you probably already know, comic studio is the sequel to cookie comic creator, with the aim of bringing easy sprite comic making to every fandom instead of just cookie run. so, how'd that go?

cookie run is still on top

i guess i can't say i'm surprised that cookie run continues to be the most popular comic maker, especially since i now even have a community of cookie run fans outside of the comic creator - see: my youtube channel - but i will say that i expected one of two things to happen when i released the site: (A.) the site would blow up and everybody would be talking about it (which happened in the cookie run fandom in late 2021), or (B.) the site would flop and literally nobody would use it...

interestingly, i was wrong - for the past 7 or 8 months, comic studio has been floating in this weird in-between, where a bunch of fandoms have small, thriving comic creator communities, but almost none of them as well-known as cookie run comic studio. exceeeeeept...

alphabet lore actually gets more visitors

i'm gonna be real with you, i didn't watch alphabet lore until about a month after the studio for it blew up. i had heard about the series from various random viral tweets, but the studio was almost entirely the doing of some 16 year old british kid named Jackmoo101...

i don't know how or why it happened, but in october of 2022, the alphabet lore comic studio started getting tens of thousands of users, and at this point (as far as i can tell) is the biggest alphabet lore fan community on the internet. believe me, i checked - the amino is dead, the subreddit has like 12 active users - and yet, comic studio sees thousands of alphabet lore comics per week

interestingly, despite getting less views, cookie run comic studio is still far ahead when it comes to the amount of comics posted to the site; this is because a lot of the users of alphabet lore comic studio are under 13, so they're not actually allowed to make an account. in the future, i plan to add a Youtube Kids-style mode where users under 13 can make an account and post comics, just without features like comments and messages that could be used to harm them

what about other fandoms?

while a couple other comic studios have seen moderate success (Friday Night Funkin Comic Studio is #8 and was retweeted by a huge FNF news account when it came out; My Singing Monsters Comic Studio has captured a solid 20% of the fandom for that game; Pizza Tower Comic Studio has been slowly rising up the ranks), i'm sorta starting to notice a pattern: most fandoms that are mostly run by adults don't really see the point of comic studio. all my non-cookie run friends have said at some point "your site is cool but i don't use it because i don't have any ideas", or "meh, the danganronpa studio you made is just OK, i'd rather use photoshop." and why shouldn't they? they're old enough, they know how to work an actual good image editor... the only major benefit comic studio provides to them is easy access to sprites, which doesn't come up on google - if you want PNGs of the south park characters, you'll go to the south park wiki, not the south park comic studio. and again, i totally understand that, i just feel like that's something i should work on

the genshin impact tiktok incident

in june of last year, some random tiktok account made a video about the genshin impact comic studio that got several hundred thousand views, 50k+ likes, and a metric ton of bookmarks. thousands of genshin fans flocked to the site, and for 3 days the genshin fandom on comic studio was lively... until, all of them left at once. why? well, this goes into why i run cookie run comic studio/creator in such a specific and perfectionist manner: people care a lot about how good it feels to use something, and if you don't have both quality and quantity of sprites, they're not gonna stick around

the problem with the genshin comic studio is that there's no good assets to be found - the only official 2d art of the characters emoting are the chibi LINE sticker packs that they occasionally release, and there's only like 4 expressions for like half the characters. other than that, the only other tab is the one with expressionless cutouts of all the models - who can really tell a story with that?

so, it's not a surprise that comic studio failed in the genshin fandom at large. unlike cookie run where i was able to both provide easy access to sprites that previously weren't cut out and also provide a compelling storytelling/guide-making/question-answering/etc. platform, a lot of other fandoms just... don't have anything nearly as useful or interesting to provide. so, what can i do?

3D will change EVERYTHING

(early development screenshot)

currently, there's no good one-size-fits-all solution to pose and take pictures of character models. source filmmaker/blender/etc. are way too hard to learn, mikumikudance usually requires you to go through and translate random japanese sites to download models, and vrchat requires you to get together a bunch of friends to act it out

this is where comic studio will come in (once i finish the feature): every studio will now be able to upload 3d models, hopefully in most popular formats, and have them converted to work with comic studio out of the box - creating an entirely new kind of 3D comic that has never been nearly as doable. and because there is no competition in that market, i genuinely believe that this update will someday 10x the size of comic studio - once people find out about it, everyone's gonna want to mess around with the studio for their favorite game or series, at least once - and at that point, all i gotta do is keep as many of those people around as i can

speaking of people sticking around, the other big problem with comic studio is that a lot of people just don't have ideas. especially older users just, don't know what to do with it - i'm even guilty of this, in that a majority of the update comics i used to make for cookie comic creator were ripoffs of various old, forgotten meme comics. so, what's my plan to solve this? well, i hate to say it, but...

yeah, it's AI

(design mockup example)

2024 update: i no longer plan to go through with this idea. the original text is provided below, but know that i have since changed my mind

i plan to add an optional feature where you can type in a prompt for a comic, like "Write a comic with GingerBrave and Cream Unicorn Cookie where they get ice cream together" and the machine will just... do it for you i have experimented with this in the past, and now that ChatGPT has made a lot of accessible LLMs pop up i plan to take advantage of that. with that said: i will never involve ai-generated art, ai voices, etc. because those are inherently harmful and are not worth supporting i won't add the feature until i can ensure that user input is NOT being used to train any models without their consent, and i will make sure all AI-generated comics are tagged properly so that anyone who doesn't want to interact can just block it out i personally see AI as a tool to help humans and little else, at least in its current state - and adding AI prompting to comic studio is an extension of that. it's just a way to quickly get an idea out; either to get a quick laugh out of you or your friends, or to set down a starting line for you to make your own comic out of. i think this will be a good thing if i do it right; if you have any feedback or questions, feel free to send them my way! i try to listen to everyone, even if i don't always take their suggestions

more help needed

the last thing i can do to help improve comic studio right now is to announce that i'm looking for moderators! if you're an active user on the site, have a discord account and want to help keep the streets of Comic Studio safe, apply here!

as of today, i've also finally finished the site translations into Spanish and Korean (!) i've been putting off asking for new translations until the whole site was translated so that i wouldn't have to immediately ask anyone for more later, but now that it's done i'm finally accepting help - if you know any other languages and want to see comic studio translated into them, send me a message - either on discord, or on here, or comic studio if you don't have any of that. together, i hope we can make the site accessible to everybody

closing thoughts

i still can't believe it's been a whole year already... what is my life? thank you to everyone who's supported me and my creation, and i hope to keep serving you well into the future. if you haven't seen already, the anniversary update is out now, which adds a bunch of social features that people have been requesting for a long time - tagging for comics and user-submitted sprites, comic reposting, and the ability to organize your comics into series. i hope you'll check it out!

-syrupyy

[skaruresonic]

you can just taste the salt pouring from this man lmao. I only dismissed an entire medium as never being able to be art, why are you all whining

1.) Myst released in 1993, the same year as Sonic CD. Calling it an example of games "from the infancy of the form" following the video game market crash of the '80s is laughable

2.) "I particularly didn't want to play one right now, this moment, on demand" - uwu I just shittalked this entire-ass medium and now people are saying I should try to know what I'm talking about before I talk about it and I don't wannaaaaa

This is just. Rude? Idk how else to put it. Your friend goes to the trouble of offering to fetch a game and a console for you, installing everything necessary to set it up - even offering to send the console back to Sony when you're done so you don't have to spend a single dime - and your response is to make some excuse as to why you can't do it.

You could have just said "no," Roger.

yeah it's almost like talking out of your ass "purely on theoretical grounds" without engaging with the thing you're slagging off makes you seem too ignorant to hold a valid view on the thing you're slagging off. or something.

also "This is the gratitude you get for responding to comments at all" lol these salt levels could dry out the Dead Sea

my man has never heard of video games with linear narratives before

Billy cracked dick jokes, Ebert. Billy wrote his plays to appeal to the common people's interests, Ebert.

then why are you talking about video games if you don't want to be told to play one? real "I'm a Sonic fan who hasn't played the games, stop telling me to play the games you're picking on me" energy

The fuck is up with this weird capitalistic pitting of one art form against another? This isn't some zero-sum game where literature loses if video games win. Gamers read too, Ebert. In fact, many games take inspiration from literature, such as SH2 drawing inspiration from the themes of Crime and Punishment; The Witcher being based on Andrzej Sapkowski's book; and Metro 2033 springing from the self-published book of the same name.

I could name more. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (Harlan Ellison even voiced AM!). Classic RPG Parasite Eve is a spiritual successor to Hideaki Sena's 1995 sci-fi horror novel. Beev will probably want me to add Castlevania as an example as well, taking the titular character from Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Category:Video games based on novels - Wikipedia

Acting like games and literature are two disparate mediums with no overlap is... frankly, deeply disingenuous. You spoke with fucking Clive Barker, Roger, you should know this. FFS.

Besides, anti-intellectualism runs a lot deeper than New Medium Bad. It has more fascist roots than simply "The kids want to play Fortnite all day and don't want to crack open a book!"

Roger goes on this tangent about how it's difficult to find a definition of art that would preclude video games. Even the one he settles on, his view that art ought to teach him empathy for other people - which... has its limits and when taken too far, borders on requiring moral didactism in art; my man has never heard of art for art's sake - doesn't necessarily rule out games. Because video games literally require you to step into the player character's shoes.

you are such a condescending ass, oh my God. could you not?

"I don't personally know how gamers can learn about other human beings despite the entire conceit of the medium requiring you to assume the role of another person, but whatever, I'll give you guys this one because I've run out of things to say. Perhaps one day gamers will learn to have refined tastes like me, the Movie Review Man. anyway y'all losers, I got better things to do despite the fact that I typed out this wall of text poorly defending my position"

[caesarflickermans]

"He tells of the history of Panem, the country that rose up out of the ashes of a place that was once called North America."

(THG chapter 1)

"In school, they tell us the Capitol was built in a place once called the Rockies. District 12 was in a region known as Appalachia."

(THG chapter 3)

Where do you think location of Capitol and Panem's districts exactly?

The Appalachian’s span multiple states. Where do you picture District 12?

How long between this time and Panem rise? 200 hundred years? More?

Thank you so much

@curiousnonny

There's such a plethora of maps and such a large amount of interpretations that I tend to stick to the main map more-or-less, simply because no fan of a specific District will ever be happy with the placement that others make for them, and in that sense, no map ever can really make fans happy.

This is the canon map that we know of; it has been used as a fan material for the Facebook Game, has been in the Catching Fire movie, and has been posted by the official twitter account.

I can see the Districts being a bit more scattered about with more dead space in between and TBH -- yes, I also find it unrealistic that the Districts are that large and yet supposedly District 12 is only a town. I think we can all agree that Collins' strength is not map making.

To attempt setting a timeframe for Panem, we can go to the Catching Fire map:

The vital parts to look out for are the District 4 lake (California), the District 10 thin part (Texas) and the District 11 inward sea (Louisiana).

I think they all more or less are represented when we rise the sea level to 50 metres (164 feet):

The problem is, that is insanely extreme. As in, the sea level will rise a "mere" 10 metres (3.2 feet) by 2300 (source).

So, if we go solely by map, Panem is set a loooong while after 2300.

And it's questionable whether that is an accurate measurement; I doubt Lionsgate put even an inch of thought into the map they created and what sort of date it would have. No matter the catastrophes that are happening, thinking 200 years back seems like a very, very different time and the advancements made since then (in my opinion) are far more rapid than whatever Panem has been doing. Their bioengineering is strong, sure, but I don't feel like that is what Collins intended.

Collins wanted Panem to feel further away and yet a scary future that we would want to avoid. Many technological elements in Panem are weird, but not weird in a Star Trek kind of sense. I don't think she intended for Panem to be in a distant 2600 kind of setting. The Hunger Games was not meant to have a specific time, and the impossibility of predicting such a sea level rise, imo, speaks to that. Panem should feel odd and yet familiar, far away and yet close by. I, personally, don't have that relationship with the number 2300 or 2600.

Onto the Capitol's location:

As pointed out, we know the following:

In school, they tell us the Capitol was built in a place once called the Rockies.

But we also know this:

The mountains form a natural barrier between the Capitol and the eastern districts. It is almost impossible to enter from the east except through the tunnels.

This would locate the Capitol to the West of the Rocky Mountains.

Especially with the movies we have one obvious answer where the Capitol is located, because the movies add another detail: the lake.

And there's only really one place that could host the Capitol; Salt Lake City.

I actually really like the idea of Salt Lake City being the new spot in Capital. It makes a lot of sense with,,, the Capitol being a little bit odd, so to say and I personally enjoy the thought that some Mormon ideas influenced the creation of Panem. Mormon religion does talk about an apocalypse like scenario. Of course, that is not to say that this inevitably happens, but hey... it's a fun thing.

Onto District 12's location:

As for District 12, I am less certain about this, partly because I'm no D12 girl. But I've heard more than once about the theory of the Seam people being descendants of the Melungeon people. This would situate District 12 around the Cumberland Gap area.

If we keep around the Kentucky border, we would also be right in the spot where coal is being mined today, at least according to this report from EIA:

With all of that information, I would situate District 12 somewhere around here, likely a bit larger than the circle, but its centre could be within the circled area:

[inkofamethyst]

December 28, 2023

Admittedly, both times I've done mini twists I was hoping for a more voluminous look, but it seems that many natural hair influencers use extensions to achieve their volume, so I may need to pick up a few packs of marley for my next round. I think I might actually want my next round of braids to have parts this small, but that's far easier to say than do.

Don't know what my next countdown it going to be. I don't know when I'm visiting home again. I'll see my parents in a bit around my birthday, but that won't be at home. I'm sure I'm coming home for thanksgiving but that's nearly a year away. And it makes me a little sad, to be perfectly honest. Like I'm excited to spend the summer in the city, yes, but... I dunno. i dunno.

For now, I suppose the best thing I can do is just appreciate this time.

And figure out what I can realistically bring from my sewing stash to work on. Probably only some drafts and historical items. Maybe I'll handsew an apron. With a few audiobooks.

Speaking of books, I finished Tress. I enjoyed it, I think it was crafted thoughtfully, which is something I've heard about Sanderson. I think it would probably fit into the "cozy fantasy" genre which I admittedly don't have much experience with. It was a fun, quick read with an engaging narrative voice. 4.5 rounded up :)

Up next: CL Wilson's The Winter King. Suppose I should add another book to the back end of my list so as to maintain momentum.

There are little things about being home which I appreciate. Like not having an automatic fan in the bathroom. I can brush my teeth in peace. Today I'm thankful for a quiet bathroom.

I went to the movies with most of my friends tonight (only without our dnd-friend) to see The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and it was really good. Can't wait to listen to (and belt out) some of the songs from the OST because WHEW that's right up my alley these days. I watched the first THG movie for the first time a few days ago with my cello- and puzzle-friends, and that was an experience. I mean, The Hunger Games has been cemented into pop culture, and I'm not completely out of touch, so I knew a lot going in, but I was late to that particular party as a kid and just never tried to catch up. Now I have to see the other three. And maybe finish reading that series, too.

Last thing: after the movie, we hung around to just chat about it, no one really wanting to leave because we didn't know when we'd see each other next. And I've come to realize that I don't really think well while trying to participate in conversations. I put a lot of effort into trying to "be normal" in conversation lol and I find that I'm not very quick at coming up with novel ideas. I do more synthesis, I think. But now that I'm on my own, I've had time to develop ideas. Same thing happens in academic contexts. It's like I just freeze up. I wonder if it's a skill I can work at.

[manygalaxiesinone]

Which Disgaea Party would Persona Characters Join?

((After a while of thinking, I couldn't help but realize that I haven't done this yet. Instead of thinking about which Disgaea characters would join groups in other games, why not do the exact opposite? Starting things off with characters from the Persona series mainly because I still have P3 on the brain. Instead of going one group at a time though, I'm going to see which parties each persona character across the series would most likely join. For this list, I'm going to go over as many playable characters in the Persona series as I'm currently familiar with, which while it is definitely enough to warrant this to be a multiparter, but there are some characters that will slip through the cracks. Simply put, I've currently done only 2 playthroughs of Persona 1 (one with Yuka Ayase and another with Eriko Kirishima), finished Innocent Sin, but never played Eternal Punishment, and the only spin-offs I've played are P4 Arena and Persona Q1. I have PQ2, but didn't get far in it yet, I'm not really into rhythm games so I never touched any of the dancing spin-offs, watched my brother play some of Ultimax, but never played it myself, and I am debating on getting 5 Tactica at some point, but I'm currently not interested in 5 Scramble at all. So that should give you a good idea on who might be missing from this list. So with that out of the way, let's get started.

It's really hard for me to place Naoya Toudou in a specific group honestly. As I said before, his personality isn't as defined compared to the other main characters, though I have heard he is rather blunt at times and we know he's a gamer. That combined with him being the first main character kinda makes him being in Laharl's party adds up.

As a therapist, I can see Maki Sonomura trying to get into Evil Academy for the sake of looking into the heart bank. I don't think she'll try to use it like Maruki from P5, but might think of how to use it to help others deal with their identity crisis.

It's hard for me to place Masao Inaba in any of the groups too, but I think the best bets would be either the Rebel Army in Disgaea 5 or Pirilika's party in Disgaea 7 mainly because I can see him getting along with Zeroken or Yeyasu.

Same goes for Kei Nanjo as I can see him either learning to become successful from either Pirilika or Seraphina so he can become #1 in the world, or becoming their rivals.

Yuka Ayase would most likely join Zed's group, mainly so she can try to mooch off of Misedor's seemingly endless supply of cash, as he's most likely to share the wealth without her having to put work into it, unlike Pirilika who would try to convince her to put in some effort until she eventually gets kicked by Fuji, and Seraphina would shoot her for even thinking of trying to mooch off her or get to her dad.

Eriko Kirishima would probably join Laharl's group as they tend to go on the most chaotic and random adventures compared to everyone else. That and Naoya's there.

I think Yukino Mayuzumi might feel the need to help Zed save his sister in Disgaea 6. Maya Amano's not the only "Big Sis" character in this series. Hell, that's probably why the two became partners.

Speaking of Maya, I can see her joining almost any group as they're all likely to give her a good story for Coolest, but since Yukino's her partner, Zed's group is where she'll most likely go.

I think Tatsuya Suou would be an interesting member for Adell's group in Persona 2, (and not because he's the second protagonist). He and Adell may have conversations about their conflicting views when it comes to their families, though I can see him targeting Zenon for stealing humanity's memories.

Jun Kurosu would also join Adell's group for the sake of stopping Zenon as he's responsible for altering Veldime's nature and we all know how much he cares about plant life.

Now I can also see Lisa Silverman joining Adell's group because Tatsuya's there and wanting to stop Zenon's curse, but I can also see her joining Zed's group for pretty much the same reasons as Yuka Ayase from Persona 1.

I can see Eikichi Mishina joining either Adell's group or the Hades Party from Disgaea 4 specifically for trying rival Axel when it comes to music. Though I would say the Hades party might be more fitting since his Persona his Hades, and Valvatorez would be interested in the fact that he's the son of a sushi restaurant owner, though mainly so he can try some sardine based sushi crafted by a professional.

Minato Arisato could join Mao's group at Evil Academy as he would be used to the environment of an ever evolving dungeon that is Evil Academy, making it similar to Tartarus, as well as helping Mao overcome his past, but I can also see him joining the Hades Party because of the looming threat of Fear the Great.

Hamuko Arisato would join either Mao's group of the Hades party for the same reasons as Minato. Yeah their personalities may be polar opposites, but their goals are practically the same.

Yukari Takeba would probably join Zed's party in a heartbeat after discovering Super Reincarnation. Anyone who finished P3 should know why, but I can also see her joining Adell's party, not wanting to risk Zenon taking away humanity's memories after everything she and her friends went through, and I can see her relating to Adell pretty well.

Junpei Iori I can see joining either Mao's group, simply because he would be counted as an honor student there, which I can see him rubbing in Yukari's face about, or the Rebel Army in Disgaea 5, so he could fulfill his goal of being a hero and across multiple worlds at that.

Akihiko Sanada would join whichever group he would see giving him with the most challenge, so probably either Laharl's group, because of all the chaos he goes through on a regular basis, Adell's group, for the sake of fighting the God of All Overlords, or the Rebel Army, because war. I can also see him joining Zed's group because he knows the pain of losing a sister and would want to help Zed overcome that.

I actually have a tough time thinking about which group Fuuka would join. Maybe Mao's group in the Evil Academy for the same reason as Minato and Hamuko? That and to help Rutile with her relationship with Stella. That's the best I can come up with.

Mitsuru Kirijo on the other hand was piss easy to figure out. She'd join Fuji's group in Disgaea 7 in a heartbeat. The moment she finds out the existence of the infernal weapons, she would start collecting them to make sure they won't fall in the wrong hands!

Aigis would join Zed's group for the same reason as Yukari, Fuji's group to learn about the infernal weapons, especially Suisen and Ao, or the Hades Party for the same reason as Minato and Hamuko. You know what's sad and crazy, with her robotic body, Aigis would likely have less of a chance of having her body break down from using Super Reincarnation over and over again compared to Yukari. Like I said, the themes of Persona 3 and Disgaea 6 really don't mix.

Koromaru's in the same boat as Naoya. I can see him joining any group he wants, aside from maybe Zed's group in 6 because of Zed's relationship with Cerberus. That's not going to look well on the surface for him.

Ken Amada would join the Rebel Army as he was also on the path of revenge. Granted, it's not against Void Dark, but it's still something he can connect with the other overlords about.

Shinjiro Aragaki might join the Hades party to try to atone for what happened with Ken's mom, but I can also see him joining Fuji's party for the same reason as Mitsuru, or the Rebel Army.

At first, I wasn't going to include any of the Velvet Room attendants, but considering that I already included Fuuka Yamagishi who technically isn't playable while 3 members are playable in P4A/P4AU, I have a feeling at least someone might complain so here goes. Elizabeth would join either the Hades Party to learn about Fear the Great or Zed's party to learn about Super Reincarnation.

Yu Narukami might join the Hades Party to figure out the issue with the corrupterment, but I can also see him joining Laharl's party, specifically during the events of D2 and Inifinite because of the mysteries behind the disappearing angels and Laharl's "assassination".

Yosuke Hanamura I can see joining either the Rebel Army, Zed's group, or Fuji's group because all three of these groups involve exploring multiple different worlds, which he would probably find exciting deep down. Though he would need to be careful around Seraphina. The moment he tries to push her buttons, he'll be put under her Balor gaze doing something humiliating.

Unlike Akihiko who would go after the strongest challenge, Chie Satonaka would join either Adell's group or the Rebel Army specifically due to her strong desire to protect others. She would go after Zenon or Void Dark to prevent more people from becoming victims of them.

Yukiko Amagi would join the Hades Party because out of the all of them, it's the closest she'll get to a horror themed group, though if Valvatorez thought not scaring Artina would hurt his pride, trying to scare Yukiko would have it completely shattered.

((Stay tuned for part 2))

[canmom]

The Witch Hunt/Umineko-Project's translation of Umineko is pretty much a sentence-by-sentence one. Individual sentences generally sound natural, but there's a 1:1 mapping between Japanese and English sentences, which lends the whole work a particular cadence. I think it probably makes it longer in general, since in Japanese you can drop a lot of elements of a sentence, which is less permissible in English.

Final Fantasy XIV's translation, now I've played through 2.x with JP voices turned on, is a lot looser. Not exactly as a localisation to modern English though - Koji Fox's approach is to adopt a kind of ren-faire English full of phrases like 'must needs' instead of 'must'/'needs to' or 'mine' instead of 'my', although this oldschool flavour gradually diminishes and becomes more like modern English as the game goes on. But also, the information in a cutscene is often significantly rearranged, so often you notice a short speech bubble in Japanese gets turned into a much longer one in English, and vice versa. e.g. the Japanese might just launch into it while the English has a brief greeting first. My Japanese listening isn't really good enough yet to pick up on a lot of specifics.

There is still a restriction in this 'mapping': I believe the total number of voiced lines, and probably dialogue boxes as a whole, likely has to be the same, since you can change the voices out.

Generally speaking the story is the same at the scene level (you learn the same information about the same characters and places at the same time, you do the same things for the same reasons) and since the cutscene animations don't change beyond lipflaps, fairly close on a cinematography level. The tone of the game is pretty staid early on, so it's usually possible to make rearrangements without affecting the emotional flow of the scene. I'll be curious to see how it changes in the later expansions.

One of the things that I've seen discussed in translation is how an original text that's full of idioms and figures of speech often gets translated in a way that is very plain and literal. So you have to be a little inventive if you want your new prose or dialogue to have some character. (This is, like absolutely everything, a matter of elaborate controversy in fansubbing, the 'keikaku means plan' - 'memesub' - 'jelly donuts' continuum.)

There are some differences of process too. The Witch Hunt were acknowledged in-game and given the blessing of Ryuukishi07, but like most fan translators and even official translators, they received each chapter of the work when it was complete in Japanese. Koji Fox is meanwhile part of the FFXIV writing team, creator of the dragon language conlang and generally a total lore nerd with access to behind the scenes information.

Sometimes Koji's team made fairly large changes to the story, like the tragic loss of horny Haurchefant, although it seems that was only early on, since I haven't really heard similar complaints about the localisation of the expansions.

Though that said, one thing that surprised me to learn is that the Dark Night quests - one of the most popular (if controversially so!) quest lines among English players - got some quite extreme rewrites. The basic thrust of the story is the same, but the characterisation of Fray is quite different, and there's some small changes that seem to just be edgy for edge's sake lol. In general it's also a good example of the sorts of idioms added by the FFXIV localisation.

It's a surprise to me, since I've gone around telling people that if they like the Dark Knight quest, they should look forward to the Steppe in Stormblood, and the whole of Shadowbringers and Endwalker, all of which were written by Natsuko Ishikawa. But it turns out the version of the story I got was pretty far from what Ishikawa wrote.

Anyway, I am writing all this in a pretty neutral way because I'm honestly not sure what is 'better'. I think Koji's weird dialogue actually adds a lot of fun character to FFXIV-in-English that a plainer translation wouldn't, but for a game like Umineko in a Japanese setting that hinges on points of language (particularly in the riddle), Witch Hunt's approach seems to work best - and moreover I get to learn a bit about Japan here and there without the barrier of entry of learning the entire language.

Especially in a visual novel which proceeds at a pace set by the player, I would much rather interrupt the story have a cultural note explaining, say, the Glico running man that I can follow up on and learn something, rather than see it swapped out for a local 'equivalent'. There's a dogma in translation that you should try to recreate the experience of reading the work in original language as much as possible, but that's not always exactly what I want. A work of fiction can be a window into a very distant context, and that could be more important than replicating a 'natural' flow as if it was an English work.

I think it's likely that whichever version of a work I encounter first has an outsized effect - the VA differences of Drakenier don't bother me much, but probably would feel more jarring if I'd played it with JP voices first. But it's mostly interesting to see the possibility space, since translation creative problem about choosing what's most important to preserve, when not everything can be.

For older works, it's common to make many different translations of the same work, and it's kind of a shame that a side effect of the rise of Crunchyroll is that original fansubs have now become much rarer than repackaging of official subs. Not that like... I really watch the same thing twice with different subs, usually there's an obvious answer to how to translate a line and there's only so much time in the world, but it's cool to get a taste of what translators are grappling with.

[aotopmha]

So, about 15-16ish hours in, and I think the FFXVI story is really good. Not perfect by any means, but really good.

(Spoilers.)

I'm at the start of the second timeskip.

I absolutely at least get Yoshi-P's comments on diversity in the game and the decisions they made around this now.

Slavery is almost as literally as it can possibly be front and centre thematically (to the point where I think it can be a little too heavy-handed), but I can at least say limiting the amount of PoC in case of this topic is much, much more understandable than any other because, well, slavery is such a sensitive topic, especially related to PoC characters. Some of this content could look really bad even with PoC put in unrelated positions.

Another thing, though, is that there are two major PoC characters in the game, Cid and Kupka, and Cid especially, is a fantastic character (so far probably my favourite character in the game). So I think they could have introduced more without automatically inviting that baggage.

What seems wierd about this topic being brought up in reviews, though, is that there seems to be a "measure" of PoC representation not being "black enough" and the PoC we have in this game are all Middle East-coded.

That has always bothered me with this kind of discussion – only the "most black" characters "count", when for example, Indian, Latino and middle eastern people are just as much PoCs than "more black" nationalities that supposedly "vary less". I know the subtext is that sometimes it's code for just making PoC characters "tanned" and "not actually PoC", but with all of the promo art, I really think this game simply decided to keep its representation to the Middle East and I think that's not in itself bad.

It's not ideal, but all of this tells me that the limitations at least came from a good place, not a place of hate or bad faith. It's all super flawed goodwill (and probably fear of a PR disaster).

There is a number of issues any of the possible approaches can bring here and there is even an option of just not making a story so intensely focused on the theme of slavery.

But I at least "get it".

All of this said, at this point, Clive and Cid truly have been the highlight characters of the story for me and the story's twists and turns are exciting and compelling.

The pacing is straight-up *perfect* so far.

But I also think Jill definitely deserves much more character focus.

And Benedikta definitely deserved much more time to begin with.

There is absolutely still more time for Jill, but this unfortunately seems to be it for Benedikta (and has seemed to be the case for a while at that).

So the story still has issues when it comes to writing women, too. What we have is good/interesting enough, but the guys, as said, particularly Clive and Cid, get more depth and time than anyone else.

And as much as I loved Cid, he is also dead now.

Part of the story is also that all of the Dominants will probably die one way or another, so if this extends to all, Clive, Kupka, Barnabas and Dion all should go under this, too, at least making it more equal-opportunity.

(Something tells me unfortunately only Clive, at best Clive and Jill, might make it out of this, though, as dark fantasy tends to work.)

So in general, so far, I think the story is great for what it does right, but what it does wrong is pretty old and unfortunately very typical.

But the game absolutely also is a labour of love.

Aside from the major characters, for example, you immediately care for many of even the most minor characters.

The bigger boss encounters are absolute marvels of narrative gameplay.

And the music and voice performances (which also extend to side quests) are incredible enhancers of all of this.

How these elements add up by the end is the bigger question here: I've heard the last third kind of slows down, but potential pacing and plot issues aside, more than anything, I hope all of the characters get complete, satisfying stories because to me this was the strongest element of the narrative in the demo and up to this point has been the strongest point of the story in the full game.

[monty-glasses-roxy]

Now that I'm actually home on my computer, here's a screenshot of the newspapers you see in the opening of the game. Regarding what others have mention, I have heard the speculation that it's less an actual earthquake and more that it's the Blob doing its thing, and the earthquake is the "official" explanation put out by the company, but as far as I know, there's been no solid confirmation of that.

And just because I feel like responding to all the things at once, I agree re: the evidence for Cassie's dad being missing. Like, I saw videos of people reacting to "Dad wouldn't tell me what happened to Bonnie" with 'oh it's past tense so Dad's not around currently!' and I was just there thinking, like... or it's a discussion they had previously and it doesn't come up anymore?? Like I get speculating around it but I don't think it's really solid enough to treat it like a near-certainty.

Also I am beyond baffled by the thing about the Minis. Especially because, if they had the Vanny virus, wouldn't they be less hostile to Cassie when she was wearing the mask?? But they're not. So that one also gets a massive shrug from me.

Ohhh I see about the earthquake thing. I could be the Blob and then covered up, but surely that's like... the worst excuse you could have? An earthquake would have been felt by the surrounding area I dunno if that's gonna fly unless the whole place collapses in itself and the ground swallows it up. That would probably be felt I think. It would also feel like Fazbear Ent knows about the Blob? It's not off the table, I mean they knew about the Mimic and still kept reactivating the fucking thing so... I dunno that's an interesting one I think. Definitely a lot of room to play around with it.

However, I do find it interesting that the newspaper says the place is temporarily closed because of the earthquake. Surely, the fire would have been a better excuse? There's no way they're going back and fixing the place up now. It's abandoned now for sure. If the earthquake wasn't the last nail in the coffin, then that begs the question of, what was? Curious...

For Cassie's dad, yeah honestly? I've seen it in a few fics for a bit and it just felt like an excuse to clear the way for Roxy to adopt Cassie? Which is valid! It might not be, but honestly, it just feels like they've been looking for lore and not actually thought about it for more than two seconds. Because yeah, if she were referring to her dad in the past tense, it could mean he's missing, but like. None of the times she refers to him like that would suggest that? They all have perfectly normal explanations, there's way bigger fish to fry than that one. It's a fun concept! I'd use it if I had an idea for it! But in terms of what's canon, I don't think that's it. Glad I'm not the only one that feels that way about this one.

In terms of the Minis, the Wiki itself says that it's implied that Vanny freed them, reactivated them, and infected them with the virus but that just doesn't make sense. You're right, it should make them less hostile towards Cassie with the mask on, but it doesn't. Vanessa seems pretty confused in the one log talking about them, and if it was Vanny that did it, surely that would mean that Vanessa would at least have a vague idea of what happened? Like... she doesn't know what to do about the situation so... I dunno it just doesn't add up at all. I feel like if they had the virus, they would be chasing after Gregory more often than just in the vents too?? And how they look isn't effected by Cassie wearing the mask at all, unlike almost everyone else, so that just tells me they're not in the same situation as everyone else.

So yeah, I'm chalking all of Vanny's involvement with them entirely up to an assumption and not an implication because it's not backed up at all by literally anything but them jumpscaring the player. I'm glad it makes as much sense to other people as it does for me!