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rstarsims3 · 11 months

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► 4t3 - Island Living - Mermaid Stuff - DF & non-DF

Alright, so...this is not as much a conversion as it is a mash up (a.k.a. Frankenmesh). Here’s what I mean by that:

- Meshes: I took the tails from TS3 and combined them with the fins from TS4 (because the S4 tails have a different UV and in order to fit TS3 they would’ve needed to be re-UV-mapped);

- Textures: a combination of TS3 and TS4 textures -TS3 for tails and TS4 for fins (only because the S4 textures look horrendous in TS3, at least the ones for tails do).

PLEASE READ the details I listed under CREATOR NOTES bellow !!!

Details:

Original meshes by EA/Maxis, I just put them together;

Ages: Teen to Elder, both genders;

All LODs & Morphs;

Disabled for random (for non-defaults);

Custom normal maps included;

Custom thumbnails for both Launcher and CAS (though the game might ignore them and generate normal thumbnails instead;

Format: package files;

Programs: S4Studio, Blender, Milkshape, Photoshop, MeshToolKit, TSRW, S3PE.

!!! The Sims 3 Island Paradise required (for everything except the male tops, those are base game).

What does this upload contain? (so glad you asked!)

2 mermaid tails named Fin One and Fin Two (DF & non-DF) from TS4;

2 female tops - non-DF - these were made by me because of -again- questionable textures n TS4 that don’t match TS3 art-style;

1 male top (converted from TS4 <-> non-DF because by design the male mermaids in TS3 don’t have a default mermaid top);

1 (pair of) stockings - DF M & F (made by me; will replace the “markings” your mermaid sims have on their legs while on land).

EDIT: On a anon's request, I added a NON-DF version for the accessory scales. It's base game compatible, has 3 presets with 3 recolorable channels and is available for both genders from teen to elder.

Edit 16.07.2023: uploaded the male kelp top as accessory as requested by @dezailes2cochon.

!!! FOR Default Replacements install only ONE OF EACH !!!

Polycounts:

Tails AF: Fin One - 1.9k; Fin Two - 1.7k (original - 1.6k)

Tails AM: Fin One - 1.9k; Fin Two - 1.7k (original - 1.1k)

Tails TF: Fin One - 1.9k; Fin Two - 1.7k (original - 1.6k)

Tails TM: Fin One - 1.9k; Fin Two - 1.7k (original - 1.1k)

Tails EF: Fin One - 1.9k; Fin Two - 1.7k (original - 1.5k)

Tails EM: Fin One - 1.9k; Fin Two - 1.7k (original - 1.1k)

Tops: same polycount as the original TS3 items (they’re just painted on the base mesh)

! The reason why I listed the polycounts like this is because it’s up to you to decide whether you’re comfortable using:

the default-replacements (and have all the mermaid sims in town use these items); or

the non-default-replacements (in which case only your sims will use them as long as you’ve changed them in CAS).

Specific Details (for non-defaults):

Tops, bottoms and accessories sections;

Presets:

Tails: 5 presets; 4 recolorable channels

Tops Female: 5 presets each, 4 recolorable channels

Top male: 3 presets; 3 recolorable channels

Mermaid Stockings: 5 presets; 3 recolorable channels

Categories: Everyday, Sleepwear, Swimwear,

Available for Maternity (female versions).

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!!! Attn !!! -> The default replacement tails and female tops use only the first preset because I haven’t found a way to integrate additional maps (UVs, in this case) to a default replacement.

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Creator Notes:

Here’s where it gets interesting!

If you decide on using the DFs - INSTALL ONLY ONE OF EACH!!!!!!!

And to give you an example, here’s how I’m using the default replacements: Fin One for females (the DF files for TF, AF& EF), Fin Two for males (the DF files for TM, AM & EM), stockings for both genders (DF female & DF male).

As I said above the DF files have only the first preset. The non-DF have 5 presets, each with their own individual UV. Meaning I’ve made patterns out of the UVs to better emulate the patterns on the S4 tails. See bellow the difference in UVs and how they control the channels. It’s applicable to both tails and female tops. This is the only advantage of using the non-DFs in my opinion. But you can have both DFs (only one of each!!!) & non-DFs in your game at the same time and maybe use one of the patterns in the non-DF for that one “special” mermaid.

The stockings aren’t the best aligned to the UV, I’ll admit it. But any misalignments (only along the seams) can only be noticed if you look closely.

This appears to be a common issue when installing default-replacements (you’ll know this if you have DF hairs in your game). Upon loading the DFs for the first time you might encounter a texture issue where you can see the new mesh, but the texture has not loaded properly. Like in this example:

To fix it, you either take the sim in CAS with Nraas MC - Stylist (you don’t need to change anything, just get them in and out of CAS) and/or -if that doesn’t work- go ahead and save, quit and reload the game. This should fix the issues.

For NON-DF tails it’s mandatory that you use invisible feet This is what I’m using: 1 or 2 (find the null feet files inside the download). But keep in mind that because of the way the package was constructed, Dashboard might display them as corrupted. That’s because of the age categories being all in one file and not separated. Haven’t caused issues in my game so far and I've been using them since December. Anyway, the important thing is you need invisible feet for NON-DFs.

Let me know if you encounter any issues or need some further clarification.

Watch the tails in action HERE

You can tag me so I can see your beautiful mermaids & reblog your posts!

DOWNLOAD: Patreon / MF / SFS

Download scales acc NON-DF: MF / SFS

Download male kelp top as acc: MF / SFS

Hope you enjoy them!

Happy Simming!

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If you like my work and would like to support me, you can do so on my Patreon & Ko-fi.

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TOU 🔊 Do not re-upload my creations. Do not claim as your own. Do not put them anywhere up for download and don’t add adfly to my links.

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xjustakay · 7 months

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(9/17) prompt: want — 1,402 words (figure skater Regulus/hockey player James pt.2 - pt.1) @jegulus-microfic

Two rows up the bleachers, Regulus sits with his feet propped up on the bench in front of him, leaning forward, chin in his hand. His limbs fucking ache because his mother had him doing speed skates with a roulette of barked out jumps for the last thirty minutes of practice, and he’d prefer to be immersed in a nice hot bath right about now, but… Well.

It’s hockey practice hour.

He should have left right after his practice ended —there was more than plenty of time between it and when the Phoenixes were trickling in for their afternoon use of the ice. Yet, there he sits, still at the rink. Watching. Unbearably obvious given he’s one of the few spectators there. James hasn’t noticed him yet and it’s the tiniest favor, because Regulus will never fucking hear the end of it once he has.

Hockey and figure skating have always oddly gone hand in hand to a certain extent, especially when it comes to the skaters and teams that train at the same rink. However, Regulus never gave much thought to the sport before, always focused in his own little world. Sometimes by choice, others merely by survival. He couldn’t really care about how well the rink’s home team was doing in their season when he had his own competition seasons to worry about.

Now, he’s suddenly a bit more invested. He’s not going to talk about the reason why.

While he wishes that James could be bad at something just once, Regulus can’t deny the truth of the matter. Because the fact is, James is really fucking good at what he does. He’s fast and he’s precise; there’s almost an art in itself to the way he zig-zags down the ice, twists his grip on his hockey stick just so, and sends a puck sailing right to its intended mark in the corner of the net. He doesn’t miss once.

James makes it look effortless, like it’s as second nature to him as breathing. It’s the kind of grace that Regulus has worked all his life to keep mastered in his own area of expertise. An odd cocktail of both envy and admiration settles in his chest as he watches with rapt attention.

Practice is at its tail end, their coach blowing the whistle to round them up for closing discussions about schedule and things to work on for their next game. As James skids to a stop at the edge of the rink, he tugs his helmet up and off to take a drink from the sports bottle he picks up. His mouth hangs open as he squeezes the short stream of water into it and swallows. Sweat mats his dark curls down, sticking to his forehead in a messy swoop. His cheeks and the tip of his nose are flushed from the cold and the exertion of what he’s been doing for the last hour.

He shouldn’t look this good, but he does and Regulus feels an all too familiar want settling into his bones the longer he stares.

Regulus bites at his thumbnail, intent focus locked onto him for so long that James must feel it because he finally looks up, past his coach in front of him, into the stands. When hazel eyes land on him, Regulus drops his hand in a hurry, sits up straighter. Heat colors his cheeks for an entirely different reason when James’ mouth crooks in a self-satisfied grin upon seeing him there.

Fuck, he should have just left after his practice.

Even as he’s spoken to directly, James keeps his eyes on Regulus, nodding and responding to his coach without looking away. Like he’s waiting for Regulus to be the one who does so first, because he knows it will be. It always is. James doesn’t shy away from a damn thing when it comes to him, no matter how much Regulus tries to live in denial.

Clearing his throat, Regulus breaks away from the entrapment of their gazes. He snatches up his bag with his skates and other belongings in it and rushes to stand. He doesn’t look back as he walks off, stepping down off the bleachers and hastening around the back of them to an area where he might be able to catch his fucking breath for a minute.

He shouldn’t be surprised that after that minute James exits the ice on the opposite side from his teammates just to find him there.

“Didn’t your session end like over two hours ago?” James asks, teasing.

“Shut up,” Regulus huffs.

He’s glistening beneath the rink’s bright lighting as he steps closer on blade-guarded skates that make him even taller than he already is. Regulus has to tilt his head back further than usual when James encroaches on his space, invades even more of his senses with the heat coming off of him and the smell of sweat lingering. Regulus wants to fucking die right now, he’s never wanted someone this bad in his life, even in all his disgusting post-practice glory.

“What could’ve kept you here for so long, I wonder?” James props his hockey stick against the wall on Regulus’ left, then lifts one arm to press higher than Regulus’ head on the right.

He’s too close, even in this secluded area with minimal foot traffic, but Regulus is having a hard time willing himself to put space between them. Not to mention, James quite literally has his back to the wall here. He finds he’s farther from complaining about it than he should be.

“Couldn’t have been me, right?” James continues.

“Never.” Regulus tilts his chin up, but given the way the single word leaves his mouth on a sigh, it’s not believable in the slightest.

“Mm, of course.” James nods, eyes dropping to where Regulus pulls his lower lip between his teeth. “Caught the tail end of your speed skate, you must be tired.”

“I’m fine,” Regulus counters.

James arches one brow, corner of his lips ticking upward. “True, it does take a lot to tire you out.”

Regulus manages a glare at him as he takes a steadying breath through his nose. It’s not without effort, but he does his best. “Go take a shower, you’re disgusting.”

“I can shower at home.” James leans off the wall, gives him the tiniest bit more room as he pushes his hair up from his forehead. He looks ridiculous with the damp ends sticking out, but Regulus bites at his cheek all the same to try to remain focused. “You should come join me.”

“And why would I do that?” There’s a part of Regulus in the back of his mind positively screaming, invisibly shaking him by the shoulders and loudly reminding him because you fucking want to, and you should get to have what you want, you idiot, but he’s pointedly ignoring it.

“Not like you haven’t before,” James snorts.

A purposefully condescending smile, all teeth. “Everybody makes mistakes.”

“Do they make the same mistake five times?” James feigns surprise through his continued amusement. “Like, I know you’re all about breaking records, love, but…”

“I hate you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” James’ grin is far too smug, too proud of himself, despite the fact that it’s not what he actually wants to hear. He grabs his stick from against the wall and tosses it back and forth between his hands absently, dark brows lifting. “So are you coming?”

Regulus looks up at him for a long moment, deliberating. He tucks his thumb beneath the strap of his bag over his shoulder, gripping white-knuckled around it. It was a bath he’d been daydreaming about through practice, but a shower with James? That’s just as satisfying, isn’t it?

He runs the mental math of the time of day in his head —he goes home with James now, they shower and inevitably fuck around a bit, because god forbid they keep their hands to themselves when they’re alone. It’s dinner hour by the time they’re finally finished, James convinces him to stay to order takeaway. Then “what’s the point of even going back to yours, it’s so late already. I’ll make staying worth your while.”

Routine has been constant for Regulus all his life, but establishing one with James Potter was never in his plan, certainly never one he thought he’d come to enjoy so much, either.

And yet…

“Fine.”

#jegulus #jegulus microfic #imagine i just wrote the full oneshot instead of random out of context scenes imagine that #anyway here's this bc they won't leave me alone #and i love them so adjfkasdl damn much #kay’s microfics #kay’s writing #fic: put us on ice #<- the origins

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thecrazygamingzombie · 6 months

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How Viviziepop kickstarted the third wave of indie animation.

Okay, I've been seeing a lot of people talk about the tweet below and how Viv doesn't deserve to take credit for the success of other indie animation projects online but the fact of the matter is...she does, in an indirect way at least.

First, let's start off with a brief history of indie animation:

everything started out on a site called newgrounds, I'm sure you've all heard of it. Created by Tom Fulp in the 90s to show case some of his half baked game ideas. Which eventually evolved into a place where indie creators could post anything they wanted without fear of censorship; the rating system that automatically removed any posts that dropped too low being the only source of quality control.

This gave indie animation it's initial foothold online but without any way of obtaining a revenue stream it never really moved beyond a fun hobby done to practice one's art/coding skills or just screw around with friends online.

This problem got more significant as time went on and many of the teenage artists that gave newgrounds it's inital success, such as RicePirate and Tom Fulp, grew into young adults who needed a revenue stream. Luckily they found one in the form of youtube.

With these monetization policies, many indie animators were actually able to go into animation practically full time. Their pre-existing income bolstered by that of youtube and what followed was a golden era of animation, just an explosion of content across the board. You had stuff like Eddsworld, Salad Fingers, ASDF movie, and tons of other creators bursting onto the scene.

all putting their content out there on Youtube for the world to see. All bolstered by revenue coming in from Youtube...but the good times never last

See, back then youtube's monetization policies were pretty simple: the more views your channel got, the more money you'd make. Great for short form animators and also great for clickbait youtubers who abused the system with deceiving thumbnails and titles!

To combat this, Youtube changed it's monetization policies in March of 2012: instead of being rewarded on view count, monetization would instead reward the time watched during a video. Which created a system where longer videos with frequent uploads were rewarded

In theory this was supposed to stop clickbait videos as people would just watch for a few seconds and leave. But in practice? It meant that animators were put at a heavy disadvantage as now they'd have to put in significantly more work for the same result.

This caused a complete and total crash of indie animation online. Between an unfair algorithm and the rise of gaming channels, most indie animators couldn't gather the same level of funding they could before and had to either quit or scale back.

Only the big name animators who could coast by on brand recognition such as Harry Partridge and TomSka among several others, or larger channels with dedicated teams similar to tv studios such as Mondo Media and Rooster Teeth. Were able to keep going.

This started a brief dark age for online animation until the advent of story time animators. People like Jaiden Animations, Swoozie, and TheOdd1sOut who relied on simplistic art styles with minimalist animation that focused on content reminiscent of old vlogs where the animators simply share stories from their everyday lives that allowed them to put out longer videos faster; thus working around the monetization system that had put so many animators out in the cold.

While they didn't solve the problem, in some ways they made it worse by starting a trend that attracted countless copycats, they did help sustain an interest in indie animation online and ensure there was a consistent audience for such a medium.

Now it wasn't a total wasteland mind you, as I said there were still plenty of animators who survived the purge. There were even a few channels such as Shut Up Cartoons and Mondo Media, again, that helped produce dozens of animated series from indie creators.

But even at it's best, these series were still very amateurish. The passion was obviously there but these were still very simplistic flash or stop motion animations with low budgets and small teams, focusing more on episodic skits than any sort of overarching plot

This environment of amateur passion projects, where animated series were usually very small scale and never really escaped from the limited sphere of youtube, went on for several years and kept the animation community alive. Until Viv posted Hazbin Hotel and brought about the third wave of indie animation.

Unlike the previous examples, Hazbin Hotel was a VERY different beast from most indie animation. Not only did it have an extremely distinct visual style but the animation was so fluid, so professionally made, it felt like something you'd see out of a mainstream studio. It felt leagues above the average indie project in terms of quality.

Now Viv had already a decent audience from her Zoophobia webcomic, her speed draws, and the die young video. So it wasn't like she was starting from nothing. But there was no denying that this new form of animation caught people's attention and caught it FAST.

You all can probably recall the explosion of discussion that surrounded the original pilot and how it was all the internet was talking about for awhile. Viv road that wave and used the momentum to launch 'Helluva Boss' another indie production with a similar style.

This made her even more popular, especially when she started cranking out new episodes of the latter series with the same high quality as before, and soon her fanbase swelled to millions. A fanbase that was more than happy to crowdfund Viv's work through patreon and merch sales. Then other animators saw this and realized that there was a sizable audience for animated content; one that could not only sustain professional level animation, but was desperate for more content of this scale. Soon several other series started cropping up like MurderDrones, Lackadaisy, Monkey Wrench, and the Amazing Digital Circus. All of which followed Viv's lead of producing high quality, fluid animation with overarching plots that drew funding entirely from legions of online fans.

For the first time in a long time, indie animation was breaking out of it's original platform and reaching far more mainstream audiences than it ever has in the past on a scale never before seen and it's all because Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss kicked off this new animation renaissance!

Now I'm not gonna say Viv was solely responsible, the series we enjoy now have thrived primarily on their own merits and the creative minds behind them.

But as it stands, her work played a big role in setting the stage for other indie animation projects and creating the perfect conditions for them to thrive amidst the current digital landscape. Like it or not, Viv is the catalyst for modern indie animation. To deny Viv her rightful place in history out of spite is nothing short of historical revisionism.

Give the gal her due, she's done some amazing things for this crazy world we live in.

Here's the videos I got most of my info from, it's important to cite one's sources after all!

youtube

#helluva boss #hazbin hotel #vivziepop #animation #indie animation #long post #tumblr essay #Youtube

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enlightenedrobot · 29 days

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So here’s a project I’ve not advertised at all. No Requests: Live! From the Tavern is an Adult focused Edutainment series focused on discussing Art, Music, and Media. Each episode is broken up into segments that work together in a playlist including various other videos on Youtube. This means Music Videos, short films, and other video essays, curated together with extra commentary from the host of the show, Tavern Barz.

That’s a weird and unnecessarily complicated format, why are you doing this?

It’s really easy in this day and age to use Youtube videos as a replacement for other content. I mean, why watch a two hour movie when you can watch a 20 minute recap?

This is a bad habit. Critique is important aspect to a good media diet, but a diet consisting solely of critique misses the point completely. In order to talk about media, we must also experience it.

This format means we don’t directly compete with the art featured. Rather, Tavern Barz acts as a museum curator, and the other media in the playlists serve as the actual art itself. The original videos will get their view, and… as a nice little bonus, I get to avoid the copyright bots.

Why are you using a cartoon?

I mean, I’m an animator. I don’t know what else to tell you. Why does the Chocolate guy use chocolate when clay will last longer?

But also, I don’t really have any desire to host the show as myself. There’s a hundred and ten other Youtubers who will get on camera to talk about stuff, and like, I don’t have the room for that.

Besides, Tavern is a character distinct from me. As a writer, I have full control over the narrative I want to tell, and placing myself in the center of that just feels weird. Tavern’s allowed to act and be weird and hypocritical. Tavern is allowed to grow as a character in ways you can’t really depict through the lens of literal documentary filmmaking.

So that Cyclops character isn’t just your rantsona vtuber avatar?

I mean, in a very literal sense, Tavern is a Vtuber. They are a virtual character serving as the host for a real show on Youtube.

But Tavern’s also an OC with lore and a planned Story Arc. The pilot is admittedly pretty bare bones with all this, but I intent to incorporate more story elements as the series goes on.

Alright, so what’s the lore then?

Tavern Barz is the Cycloptic owner of the Tavern Barz Tavern, a fifth dimensional divebar thar exists all across Time and Space. After several eternities of service, Tavern thinks they know it all.

This is not true.

Is this project family friendly?

Not really. The main character is a bartender, so there's a lot of alcohol focus. Plus, a lot of the featured videos will also contain plenty of adult themes.

The pilot is pretty mild. There's some swearing, but nothing too serious. But the non original videos might have adult themes. I have some later episodes planned, including one focused on The Male Gaze, and in those cases, I can't in good conscience recommend these videos to minors.

All in all, I like to call the tone of the project comfortably adult. I'm not going out of my way to be edgy, but I'm also not censoring myself. If this were an actual TV series, it's probably be TV-14. Edgier than the Simpsons, not as edgy as Rick and Morty, so about the level of Futurama.

When will this project release?

April, 2024. As of the time of this writing, the first episode is basically finished except for the credits, but I also need sometime to compile my sources, write descriptions, and make some thumbnails, as well as advertise the project.

Follow Me on this Account if you wanna keep up with the project. You can also see my other links at https://norequestslive.carrd.co/

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locusfandomtime · 5 months

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Rating each hermit’s likelihood of being a furry

scar keeps getting furry allegations so i thought i’d make this post

Joe Hills - 7/10 he doesn’t really consider himself part of the community but he has a sparkledog sona and dresses up in his homemade diy fursuit sometimes. he respects furries deeply and does not tolerate hate towards them

Xisuma - 8/10 totally a furry he changes his skin all the time to dress up as the latest minecraft mob. he already has a “cringe” oc (evil x). he doesn’t even know what a furry is i think but he probably owns a fursuit anyway because he thinks its neat

Hypno - 3/10 he’d say no but give him cat ears to match with max and he’ll be wearing them every stream from now on

Keralis - 2/10 pretends to not know what a furry is but he does. he does.

Mumbo - 1/10 logically he would know of furries due to his young age and activeness online but i don’t believe he does, he has never heard of a furry and never will

Cleo - 6/10 with enough encouragement she’d wear a fursuit. maybe if joe made one for them. she’s got a vtuber avatar so this is just next in the pipeline i think

Jevin - 3/10 he isn’t one but he does have a non-human character which technically qualifies him as one. instead of a fursuit i think he’d have to coat himself in jelly or something

False - 3/10 she already dresses up as a banana on stream how far away is dressing up as an anthropomorphic animal you must ask yourself. plants and animals had their last common ancestor 1.6 billion years ago, keep this in mind

Tango - 7/10 his fursona is an evil ravager named “skadoodler evil the third” and mrs tango has a matching fursona and they do that furry couple thing of commissioning art of their ocs kissing

xB - 4/10 not one but I don’t think he’d be opposed to the idea of being a furry. i think ferks could be a furry

Impulse - 4/10 i was gonna say no but then i remembered the imp + skizz cat fursona thumbnail

Etho - 3/10 he isn’t a furry but he is a weeb. maybe he’d wear like a fox tail or something

Doc - 9/10 he has an oc which is half creeper half robot half goat and has butterfly wings and is an evil scientist. this guy knows cringe is dead and is living his life playing as his middle aged man Mary Sue fursona

Ren - 10/10 “ren the DOG” 🤨? this is confirmed his minecraft skin has fucking dog ears

Wels - 5/10 he is not a furry but i like to think he’s a LARPer irl and has a knightsona so he gets an honourable mention.

Iskall - 2/10 i could see him wearing cat ears, only as a joke though

Cub - 7/10 “cub”? “wolf pack”? furry cub just makes sense and he’d be an epic furry. the world isn’t ready for furry cub

Scar - 9/10 the other hermits call him a furry for a reason. his fursona is anthro jelly i guess. there are so many disney movies revolving around anthropomorphic animals this is natural

Beef - 3/10 he never truly becomes a furry but at night he daydreams about what his cool llama fursona would look like. he peaks a little at furry art but is never brave enough to venture further. in another lifetime maybe…

Bdubs - 8/10 he seems disproportionally offended at allegations he’s a furry and is incredibly obsessed with horses. furry with internalised furry hate i think

Stress - 2/10 i think she’d find the idea of furries cute and funny but wouldn’t be one

Zedaph - 9/10 you’d see him rocking up to furcon. his fursona would be a weirdass sheep worm hybrid

Grian - 4/10 i can see it. despite fan interpretation, i don’t think he’d be a parrot though i think he’d be a cat tbh

Gem - 7/10 she would have the cutest most cottagecore deer fursona of all time and it would have a beautiful design and outfit and bi flag. she’d get a vtuber model and a custom fursuit and art made. it is insane to me that this hasn’t happened yet

Pearl - 5/10 she isn’t but she does seem like the kind of woman who was obsessed with wolves at the age of 12 and has never outgrown that. also double life pearl deserves to be a beautiful silver wolf

#no hate to furries. I’m practically a furry. the furry community is great. cringe is dead. this is satire. etc.#as always though i am completely correct #inspired by the recent etho asking scar if hes a furry clip and bdubs saying scar is trying to make them furries #locus fandom time #hermitcraft #mcyt #hermitblr #put a readmore thing to stop this getting too long when people scroll my blog

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rei-caldombra · 2 months

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Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic Anime Episodes 4-9 Review - Rose is a 10/10.

Back for another post about Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic anime, covering episodes 4-9. I’m still loving this show and wanna talk about it more without waiting until the end. Spoiler warning. I edited the image used for the thumbnail, feel free to use it fellow Rose simps.

The greatness in episode 8 and 9 is the main reason I am writing a new post now and will be the bulk of the post, but I’ll talk a bit about the earlier episodes. Watching the three main characters slowly grow and come into their own has been nice to watch. I still enjoy seeing them have slightly different outlooks while still connecting on the basis of the crazy situation they were thrust in. They all needed different amounts of time and experiences to process things and make up their mind. Hopefully we will get some more great stuff from seeing them be together again for the big battle. We got some solid new characters

I didn’t mention how I feel about the OP in the first post, I think it’s really great. The music really gets you hyped. The art is great, everyone looks awesome and has very detailed and expressive looks. I don’t have too much to say about the ED, it’s fine but nothing notable to me. It does remind you of the life Suzu had before coming here, which at least gives some relevant purpose to the visuals.

A minor gripe is that as of now I really don’t see the purpose of the future vision that Usato was shown. I don’t really feel like it changed his way of thinking or his actions. I did not feel like he was especially cocky or not taking the situation seriously, and he already had Rose instilling in him (and us as the viewer) that war is terrible and that he will be responsible for keeping people alive. Maybe there will be more to it later but I do not think this did anything for me as of now. It may have just had the purpose to drive up tension but I do not think forcing it with something dramatic like this was needed.

Now onto the highlight of the middle section of the anime, episodes 8 and 9 which cover Rose’s backstory. Hearing my favorite voice actress Konomi Kohara in episode 8 was a welcome surprise. Her voice for Aul is probably the hardest to recognize out of anything I've heard from her as the tone is very different. I immediately thought about it upon hearing her talk but was not certain until her crying when she got punched convinced me. I’d know her yelling and crying noises anywhere. Kohara excels at bringing cute, cheerful energy that immediately makes you endear for the character.

I think the time we got with Rose’s original squad was well done. It gave us enough time to let us feel the bond, but not so long that we felt we were wasting time with characters we knew would be dying. Aul is the only one who gets proper focus, but for the purpose of the unit focus on all of them was not needed. We also did get a nice moment that helped us feel that the other members were all people with names and lives. The scene where Rose talks to the parents of Josh hits hard and got me genuinely emotional. It's great for the world to have the events of that fight have an impact on more than just Rose. Hearing such a positive spin on the death of a soldier really hit hard. I hope most parents of fallen soldiers can reach the point of healthy acceptance that these two did. This scene both helps Rose and for the point of this blurb, reminds us that even though the other members like Josh did not get focus, they have some more substance than just extra soldiers.

A criticism I have seen levied was that it took too long to get the war content that it’s been building up to. It did take quite a while to get some proper action, but the action delivers. It is by no means at the top level of anime action that we have gotten in recent times, but it is good. The art is pretty great while being fun and engaging, with one of the best moments of the show being her chucking trees. There was solid pacing too, with the action not being stopped for too long by exposition. I enjoyed this fight and hope the upcoming fights are up to its caliber at least.

I really appreciate the show bringing up how losing her eye in the battle made a big difference in the moment. A pet peeve of mine is how often shows degrade the impact and weight of a character losing an eye. Most of the time they just keep fighting the same as normal or acclimate way too fast. I love her mentioning specifically that her depth perception is off because of losing her eye. In a proper battle that would make a massive difference. And while losing an eye only takes away about 30% of your vision, that could also mean the difference between life and death when you have arrows and magical blasts aimed at you. Characters barely changing from losing an eye sabotages dramatic weight and breaks my immersion in combat. I appreciate that this show gave her losing her eye the gravity it deserves in the moment even if it was just a bit of dialogue. Just the proper acknowledgement of the issues losing an eye brings means a lot to me.

The battle ending with the demon commander being saved is also an interesting one. They’re clearly setting up here that the demons are not meant to just be evil adversaries. It also shows the strength of Rose’s character by not having her fall into a blind rage and completely flipping as a character. Even after seeing her friends be killed, she still saw the meaning in her adversary wanting to save someone dying on the battlefield. This hits Rose at the core of who she is. Both humans and demons have people they care about and want to save. Up to this point I honestly didn’t have anything to say about the demons as they seemed like your standard demonic adversaries, but this makes me feel positive that we will get solid substance from them.

I think Rose’s fall into depression and recovery is well done. I like how we got a variety of her thoughts rather than jumping straight to a strong reaction. She did contemplate suicide, but she is engaging in self-punishment and doesn’t believe she has the right to die. But what should she do with this life? She thought about going on a demon murder rampage and getting revenge, but she already recognized that is not the right thing to do. She spent over a month stuck in her depression rather than going back so we can infer she considered quitting altogether. Another great aspect of Rose’s emotional side of things is how she gave herself the pep talk based on her memories, rather than getting a stereotypical pep talk from someone else. It’s important to show how support from others is important for emotional processing, but getting over every emotional hump doesn’t come from someone telling you how great you are, and sometimes you do need to work through things yourself internally. The king and other knight checking up on her likely helped but this is clearly not written the same as a pep talk. Sometimes people can work through things on their own with enough time to process. And this isn’t from negative behavior like her not accepting help or having a bloated ego. The problem was all internal and there is no way anyone else could have properly related to her as no one else has the capabilities she does. I love that it took a long time for her to reach this. It’s important to note how long it takes to cope with your emotions. And to return to the pep talk point, sometimes those pep talks that make a person’s emotional state do a complete 180 make it seem like overcoming bad emotions is easy. I really like her growth comes from her thinking about their lives rather than about their deaths. It’s obvious that after a horrific event like she experienced, she would hyperfixate on their deaths. She already had the answer as Aul was dying, that she should not hate herself and to continue being the strong and kind person she is.

She was also told by Josh's parents that she should not be ashamed of herself and what she has done. But the severity of the moment muted the positive impact of those words. When she is able to think about what came before that terrible event, she realizes the proper way to think. By remembering what her squad said while they were alive, she was able to put her own life into perspective and find a goal. Knowing everything that happens, it feels like a logical conclusion for Rose to focus entirely on saving lives. As a character within the archetype of the tough brutal teacher, Rose feels far above the rest as a dynamic and fleshed out character who does not exist just to be hated. She does the usual drill sergeant type of thing while having proper motivation and emotional reasoning behind it. She’s not brutal just so the main character has to struggle, she is brutal because of her backstory that stands entirely on its own. Rose really is a fantastic character by all metrics and she alone makes this show worth the watch.

This show continues to have great characters and excellent execution. We did have to wait a little too long for some great action with overall slow pacing, but it was still enjoyable, and I see some value in the slow buildup. The buildup was very successful for Rose’s side of things, so I feel confident that the buildup will have been worth it for Usato’s side as well. Hopefully this anime will continue on strong through to its conclusion. Thanks for reading!

#anime #review #blog #winter 2024 anime #the wrong way to use healing magic #Chiyu Mahou no Machigatta Tsukaikata

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hammerbonk · 6 months

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Hi I’m gonna take a random person from each prsk shuffle au unit and tell you what their deal is. 3 2 1 go

(Also i think its worth mentioning that a lot of whats under the break will probably get retconned in the future) OK NOW 321 GO

An Shiraishi - The Rabbit Hole

Still saw RAD WEEKEND, which inspired her to get into music and aspire to surpass it

Started out in the street music scene like in canon, but was discouraged by everyone comparing her to her dad/accusing her of using her dad’s fame as a stepping stool

She then decided that she’ll surpass RAD WEEKEND another way - (musical) theatre!

While on disciplinary committee duties, she was telling off Rui for doing Rui things when she caught sight of a script for a play he was working on

Was immediately like ‘Dude. You. Me. Theatre troupe.’ And he was like ‘aight’

It took them a looong time to get more people

Were on the literal brink of giving up when Mafuyu and Shizuku joined (i just realised that this is just a THR backstory loredump whoopsie 💀)

Shiho Hinomori - Black/Clover

Never reconciled with the rest of leo/need :(

Became more and more of an outcast to the point of borderline delinquency

Worked part-time at a live house on Vivid Street (not sure if I should make it Weekend Garage) and stood in as a bass player/vocalist occasionally

Akito saw her perform one night and was like ‘holy shit she’s good’

They got talking and connected over their passion for music and strong work ethic

He told her about RAD WEEKEND and how he wants to surpass it and she was like ‘sweet. Can i join’

So they became a duo (name tba) then mizu and minori join yada yada yadaa

Saki Tenma - SUGARSMILE

Like Shiho, never reconciled with leo/need after getting out from the hospital :(

Still was determined to make the most of her high school days, so when Emu offered her to become an idol group with her she eagerly accepted

The first person to join Emu in the unit

Her chronic illness is still a pain in the ass for her when she’s practicing sometimes, but she doesn’t let that stop her

Until it does

Yeah i can imagine her combined passion for music and her determination to make up for lost time leads to a lot of incidents of her overworking herself

Haruka Kiritani - BREAKAWAY

After the whole ASRUN shitshow, she stepped away from the idol industry like in canon

Didn’t feel like completely separating herself from music though so she uploaded covers and a few original songs here and there under an alias online

Not sure if I want her to have joined the group through Kanade or Ichika but let’s go with the latter for now

Ichika, who’s still her classmate like in canon stumbled across her account and was like ‘hey wait i recognise that voice’

So one day Ichika came up to her after class and was like ‘hey ummm do u wanna make music online with me and these other people’

Or maybe they become buddies online and dont realise each other’s identities until later that would be funny

I think she’d be the last person to join the unit

Ena Shinonome - Sunset Days

Started off as an artist that uploaded her stuff to social media but also did streams on the side

To her frustration, her streams became more popular than her art

She mainly played the same game(s?) as Nene, so one day they got talking and became friends

Nene offered Ena to be her thumbnail artist, which she accepted

Ena then got Honami into the game and then Honami introduced Tsukasa to the game

The game? League of Legends (/j/j/j)

Probably the last person to agree to Tsukasa’s idea of doing singing as a proper group

#project sekai #prsk #pjsk unit shuffle au #unit shuffle au #prsk au #project sekai au #an shiraishi #shiho hinomori #saki tenma #haruka kiritani #ena shinonome

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gretel-moonlit · 2 years

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Mundane and Random Headcanons That I'm Inexplicably Really Attached To: Celery Edition

Because I miss headcanon posts and I wish more people would make them

You will not catch Celeste out of bed before 11am or asleep before 3am of her own free will. Because of that, she barely gets any sleep while she's in school and always ends up falling asleep the minute she gets back from class for at least a few hours

Kyoko will sometimes put her hair in a braid if it's really getting in the way, but other than that, she hates putting it up, so it's usually down unless Celeste styles it for her

Neither of them has legible handwriting. Celeste can write in a fancy style for her whole image, which she tells people is her actual handwriting, but it takes her forever, and Kyoko types everything she possibly can in order to avoid anyone finding out because she thinks it's unprofessional

Their apartment/house full of fancy furniture and antiques because Celeste likes to collect them. Technically a lot of it doesn't exactly match, but it all looks good together, even if it is alot of stuff.

Additionally, Celeste really likes to collect furnace and antiques and any interesting items she wins in tournaments, so her dorm room/apartment/ anywhere she lives always ends up looking like an overly decorated antique store. Nicely decorated, but kind of cluttered at the same time

Celeste loves sweet things while Kyoko thinks anything even remotely sweet is too sweet. She does like salty snacks though

also Celeste hates admiting it, but she has the taste of a child when it comes to food. She hates most vegetables and would much rather eat random snack foods than an actual meal. She probably also puts way too much sugar in her tea, royal milk tea is already sweet and she probably adds more sugar after she makes it

Kyoko gets insists on driving whenever they go anywhere because Celeste is a terrible driver. She never does anything super dangerous (not regularly at least) but her driving is bad enough that no one believes she actually passed her driver's test

Celeste really likes to talk, and if given the opportunity by she will go on and on telling various stories (real or fake depending on how comfortable she is with the other person) or talking about stuff she's interested in. She also has a tendency to over explain things, especially when she's nervous

Kyoko always insists on putting any bugs outside and not killing them or just leaving them alone, but Celeste will smash them with no remorse

Celeste draws semi regularly but refuses to let anyone know she can because all she draws edgy anime art (think like 2013 emo nightcore thumbnails) because got into drawing from reading manga as a kid

When they go to the grocery store, Celeste is always the one to make the grocery list and plan meals and stuff but they always go in the evening right before they close because neither of them like being in crowded stores

Also they always end up coming home with snacks they didn't plan to get because they both like them but are kinda too embarrassed to admit it to each other, at least for awhile

Celeste gets cold easily, but she still likes to sleep under a bunch of blankets in a really cold room. Kyoko thinks she's being ridiculous, but she can sleep pretty much anywhere, so she kinda just accepts it

Celeste likes to daydream and spends alot of time staring into space thinking about something unrelated when she's in class or group conversations or anytime she gets board, but she's really good at tricking people into thinking she's paying attention

Also she gets board easily so she ends up picking up alot of weird and random hobbies, especially after she graduates school and only has her gambling matches to go to

Celeste had a edgy vocaloid phase that she's still definitely in but she will deny it until the day she dies. She was definitely the kid in middle school that was super into Daughter of Evil and her favorite vocaloid would totally be Rin just because of that I don't make the rules

#if there's any spelling errors in here i apologize but not really #maybe I'll make an angsty headcanon post someday god knows i have those #im always embarrassed to post my headcanons on here but I'm trying to get over it because this is literally the cringe fandom website #like if im going to be cringe i should at least do it here #danganronpa #celestia ludenberg #kyoko kirigiri #celesgiri #dr1 #drthh #danganronpa headcanons

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davidmariottecomics · 6 months

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Tools of the Trade

Hello hello!

I'm *hoping* this'll be a pretty quick blog today because I have a lot of ideas kicking around my head and want to focus on trying to write some of 'em! But inspired by the new Creator's Guide to Comics Devices (we'll get to that in a sec), I want to talk about some resources that I've accumulated over the years that can help with everything from the fundamentals of comics storytelling to good reference to software and fonts and printers and distribution platforms and more!

As a disclaimer right up top, some of these resources I have not personally used--I haven't done a lot of crowdfunding, I haven't worked with some of these smaller printers, etc--though I will say that these are things that're coming recommended to me and I'm passing along that recommendation. If you've had a really bad experience with one of these, or know some dirt, let me know! I'm always happy to stand corrected on this sort of thing.

Lastly, a number of these things I'll point out specifically as an alternative to other software or expected resources. Alright, let's boogie!

Making Art Not being an artist, I can't speak exactly to what tools will work best for you! The good news is, as an artist, you probably already know that and don't need me to tell you what sort of pencils, pens, brushes, inks, etc work best for your style. However, I will say, I've seen some glowing recs for Eon paper. If you're working traditionally in any way (I know some people work hybrid), good paper is important.

If you are working digitally, I think the two sort of biggest contenders outside of Photoshop right now are Procreate and Clipstudio. Becca uses Procreate and really likes it. The downsides are that I believe it is Apple exclusive (and not on desktop) and while I've seen plenty of pages come out just fine that were in part or fully produced in Procreate, it does sometimes lack some of the functionalities for what you might need--I know folks who've had trouble doing clean flats, for example. I know a lot of folks use Clipstudio with great success, but I also know there's a bit of controversy around some of their 2.0+ updates including only working on a subscription fee if you want to use it on a tablet or non-desktop device (and/or want the updates they release) and something about like, it not working if you aren't on wifi?

I personally have had good experience with Affinity's Designer and Photo. But I am not an artist, so while I think they're good for doing some of the production side of art--I've used them for lettering and prepping files and making little social graphics and stuff--I can't speak to how helpful they are as a full art tool. I will also say, as long as I'm talking about Affinity, their Publisher tool is pretty good too and with the Affinity suite, you can get a lot of what you would want out of the Adobe suite.

Art Reference

Look, you're smart. You don't need me telling you where and how to find reference. It's all over. There are hundreds of books and websites and resources for artist reference. You can go find some live models or pose one of those weird little wooden dolls or turn around a toy or whatever.

But! With that said, here're a couple big ones. Blender is itself an art tool! It's a lot less common for comic art to be fully produced in Blender than, say, animation, but Blender can be a really helpful way to put together thumbnails or consistent backgrounds. You can build a room and move it around for what you'd need to see in a panel and have that as a base when doing your art. You can use it for lighting studies. Lotta possibilities!

If you can be cool, you can maybe get access to Fat Photo Ref. It's what the name says, an archive of photo reference by and of fat people, who unfortunately are often not included in your standard art reference collections and books. I'll also plug that the Morpho art book series has a very well regarded Fat and Skin Folds volume. Linking specifically to that one, but you can find the whole series from the link and get it from an indie bookstore!

And as someone who has long pointed people to things like Wally Wood's 22 Panels that Always Work and Steve Lieber's 12 point portfolio critique without even looking (which I riffed on for writers here and also talk about like... finding agents) and all the thoughtful analysis on the craft and creation of the medium from Scott McCloud (I'm not linking Understanding Comics... you probably already have it), I think that the aforementioned Creator's Guide to Comics Devices is the logical progression of all of that. It is a free collaborative resource about the way comics storytelling works.

Writing, Lettering, and Additional Craft

I believe I've shared this before, and have said it's not my actual preferred format when I write, but Steenz and Camilla Zhang created a standard script template for comics. I think this is very helpful for people who don't know what a script looks like and, obviously, if you find yourself wanting to modify it to better suit your needs, you can! But this gives a really clear picture of what the general form will look like for maximum sharability with your collaborators.

Comicraft and Blambot are two of my favorite font houses (and lettering houses)! They have fonts that you see in your favorite comics for reasonable prices, including often big discounts or fonts that are free for indie use (though obvs read the terms and conditions). They have packs including like premade balloons that can help ya get started easier. Both of their books on comic lettering, Comic Book Lettering the Comicraft Way and The Essential Guide to Comic Book Lettering, are excellent and should be considered the tomes they are. Sara Linsley's fonts are also great, particularly if you're doing more manga or webcomics inspired books. And if you don't want to be a person who has to spend a lot of time thinking about fonts and getting MainType or another font management software (I don't do a lot of it, but I've gotten really into teaching myself lettering and I do think it's pretty fun), do us both a favor and just hire a letterer.

But if you want to learn more about lettering, Todd Klein also has a really amazing blog!

Printing

There are a lot of professional printers that print comics. Many of them that are printing for publishers have a very high threshold for minimum orders. If you aren't printing 2K copies, they aren't going to print your book at all because that's how they have to ration their paper and run their business.

But I know of a couple of printers that do smaller print runs for indie comics. I've heard really good things about RA Direct and about Comix Well Spring. Something I'll flag right here and now is that whether it's one of these or another printer, early in the process--before you pay for anything--you should take some time to email the printer about any potential issues you might have. This can be anything from confirming your specs are correct and you've got the right overprint on your blacks to checking if the printer has any sort of issue printing 18+ sexual material or dismemberment or if you have anything that might be on the line of fair use. Like, it'll help you both out to get that sorted early and easily.

As a brief detour, I've also heard good things about both Alibaba and have used Vograce with Becca, if you're looking for merch for shows--y'know, keychains and pillow covers and pens and pins and whatever else you may want to create with your art that is not strictly comics themselves.

Distribution - Subscriptions

I'm talking specifically digital subscription platforms that are not webcomics hosting sites and that are subscription sites of any sort, not just stores/places your art lives. So no like Webtoon or Artstation or Shopify or whatever. Basically, your Patreons (you know Patreon, but you could sub to mine) and uhh... Substacks. But maybe better than those options...

I host this blog on Patreon, that's true. I also have it on Tumblr and on my website. And I sent it out as a newsletter through Buttondown! They are super friendly and concerned with making the service work! It's awesome and I highly recommend it over Substack which, as you may recall, I have some issues with. My Buttondown is free, but you can have paid subscriptions. I've also heard some folks say good things about Ghost as a similar sort of alternative. I can't speak to that the same as I can Buttondown, which, again, I really like, but I know some people who use Ghost.

In terms of Patreon alts, options are not great, TBH. Kofi has memberships (plugging mine which is membership-less). But I believe Kofi is also a lot stricter about what sort of content you can post and host--similar to the sorts of questions I was suggesting you ask a printer about earlier. Fanbox through Pixiv is something I see some folks use. I think it's largely international folks. I also, again, think it has some content restrictions though I'm not entirely sure how enforced they are. I feel guilty enough using Patreon (lol this being posted there), but I really can't recommend Subscribestar. I've heard good things about them as an alternative--like, I hear they're maybe the closest in practical functionality and are a lot more adult material friendly than some competitors, but I have a lot of the same problems I have with Substack and Patreon with them. Like, Patreon isn't perfect, but some of the more horrific elements of humanity that cannot operate on Patreon have found a home there and that stinks.

The one non-subscription option I will highlight is, and again, I don't think it's perfect, but I know people who have had good experiences with itch.io. If you're looking for a place to sell some digital comics outside of your own website, there are far worse options.

Crowdfunding

I think we've all ceded IndieGogo to the worst parts of comics. Obviously, Kickstarter is still the big one that people really think of and like many of these prominent versions of the service, it has its good and bad. There is name recognition and a track record of projects getting funded and paid and completed, and there are criticisms. But that's true of lots of things.

There are also a few options that're a bit newer in the space. Backerkit has been a part of a lot of fulfilment of Kickstarter campaigns for a long time and now operate their own crowdfunding platform. I know Iron Circus uses them. I've heard a little bit about Crowdfundr and am pretty sure I know some folks who've given that a shot. And I know one of the co-founders of Zoop and they've been helping get a lot of really cool projects made recently.

Final Recs

BLEH! This ended up taking a lot longer than I expected! Oh well. You don't know. You're reading this and it is not happening in the realtime it took to write it. So, final resources I'm going to throw your way as jumping off points for more!

1. Cartoonist Cooperative! Guess what, for basically everything I just said, they have EVEN MORE RESOURCES! They also do mutual promotions and support and are a really great community based initiative!

2. Creator Resource! Similarly, they also have even more resources! Their database/articles include a lot of stuff like more about finding agents and publishers and page rates and marketing and this that and the other thing. Between the two of those, you're going to have a lot of whatever you would need to get started and have not just a rounded out knowledge, but access to a knowledgeable community.

3. Curiosity's Corner from Wildstar Press! Wildstar's mission is really cool. They're an indie publisher that focuses on helping new creators get their first publishing credits and work they can share to get more jobs. And they've recently started a guide that's not dissimilar to this blog on how to get started on having a comics career.

4. This is just a general reminder. Make a website that has a way to contact you. Make an email that maybe can be public facing but that you're comfortable using for work and dedicate it to that. If you're going any place where you think you might make industry contacts, bring business cards. We live in the future and you can put your portfolio or samples on a QR code on your card. Find or make communities. I'm not great about it myself, TBH (and that's a little intentional because being an editor, working at a publisher, there are reasons on both sides to create this distance), but like... I dunno. Get on Discord or something. Have a group text. Like, have a way to reach out to your peers.

Like I said earlier, if you have corrections to be like "nah, this thing sucks, don't recommend it" or if you have additional recommendations, please share them! Don't DM me because I've been very bad about answering those because I am going to be shuttering Twitter soon, but y'know, if it's something you can share publicly, reply on post where you saw it or on the website (comments in a rare move are open on this unless something happens). If you want to share anonymously (or like... invite me to a Discord or something), there's always my contact page.

Okay, I'm off to write fiction now! And should probably reach out to some folks to draw it soon.

L8rs!

What I enjoyed this week: Blank Check (Podcast), Solve This Murder (Podcast), One Piece (Manga), Sonic Superstars (Video game), The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon (Book), Reverse 1999 (Video Game), Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Links (Video game), Last Week Tonight (TV show), The Simpsons (TV show), I said Thirsty last week, but I meant Steamy, the last book in the trilogy from Space Between, but it did make me go back and read Thirsty and Cheeky again too (Comics - Adults only), Five Nights at Freddy's was fine but like... I don't think I'm the target audience and we only saw it because we pay for Peacock and didn't give additional money to the bad man creator (Movie), Phantom of the Paradise (Movie), Scream 3 & 4 (Movies), Batman: The Brave and the Bold (Cartoon), Joe Pera Talks with You (TV show), Witch Watch (Manga), Halloween, Godzilla Day, Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion (Video game... well, until I got too spooked), wanting to write.

New Releases this week (11/1/2023): No new books from me this week. Don't worry, next week makes up for it.

Final Order Cut-Off next week (11/6/2023): Godzilla Rivals: Jet Jaguar vs. Megalon (Editor)

New Releases next week (11/8/2023): Godzilla Rivals: Round Two (Editor on most of it) Sonic the Hedgehog #66 (Editor) Sonic the Hedgehog: Knuckles' Greatest Hits (Editor) Sonic the Hedgehog: The IDW Art Collection (Editor)

Announcements: I might be done for the year? If you'd like to have me on your podcast, Twitch stream, at your convention, signing at your store, talking to your students, whatever, feel free to hit me up, but I don't think I have anything else public for the rest of the year, though knowing us, Becca and I will probably a local market or something.

Wanna support me? Visit my webstore, the previously linked Patreon or Kofi, or my eBay. And you can always visit Becca's portfolio/shop/Patreon/Twitch streams too. Streams will be returning soon. Been having technical difficulties of late.

And of course, things are bad. Call for a ceasefire and urge your reps to stop the Palestinian genocide. Fight back against whatever terrible policies are currently up in your local or national area--from trying to ban books to criminalizing transness to further criminalizing homelessness to whatever. Support SAG-AFTRA as they're still on strike, and support all the other strikes and union actions happening across the country and across the world. Just be kind to people.

Pic of the Week: It's my favorite green heroes, the Warrior Mans!

#comics #making comics #comic tools #comics editorial #warrior man #tmnt bootlegs #art programs #art reference #lettering #comic printing #comic subscriptions

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apples-of-apples · 9 months

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I can't even pretend this time I am going to just be talking about Digimon world: Dawn

Oooooouuugh I love digimon world dawn so much... It is such a fun game to play, and the pixel art is so nice, and the aesthetic of the digital world is so nice!!! (Yes I know that most of the assets are just taken from digimon world ds)

The game starts out by sending the player straight into battle with night crow (The rival team/the only reason there are two versions). And it's a tournament! You do back to back battles after chosing the starting team you want (Attack/defense/agility/Japanese(?)).

The battles aren't super hard, but they get players to start to understand the game mechanics (without having an hour long tutorial). After the tournament and some banter between the team leaders the main villain shows up!

He turns every digimon on your team's hub area into digieggs(Base form of digimon). You happened to live far enough away so your digimon were only degenerated to rookie/child stage. You then go into the hub area and run to Glare's(the team leader) office to find the floating skull. After finding the skull, egg, thing? you beat it with your weakened digimon and it dissapears.

Glare and his partner digimon ophanimon gets back on their feet because he was being corrupted by the skull, egg, thing(That will come back up). a few cutscenes pass and then you get sent back into the hub area. you then have to go up into the building outside the entrance of Glare's office to accept two quests and complete them to continue the main story.(It goes outer quest givers first and then the inner ones.) after completing the quests you go to the Seraphimon in the back most counter to accept a union quest(the main missions).

the first main mission is to go to login mountain and investigate it for the skull, egg, virus. then you have to rescue some of your friends you met during the tournament that went to login mountain because they wanted to show they were reliable. they are not. you find them being assaulted by an aquilamon that you have to save them from. after beating the aquilamon you find out the virus came through the area and made it evil. (sorry for the thumbnail image this was nicest image I found of the fight)

Then you repeat the quest process which I personally lime that quests are mandotory. I can understand why some people don't like it, but I feel like the quest make it feel like that time is passing, and that other things live in the world and are doing things in the world aside from you.

anyway then you go to limit valley to find the virus. you then find grimmon! the skull, egg, virus, thing that has digivoled! he sends out fodder for you to beat and then you fight him. it's not a hard boss at all, but it does a lots of damage so now you might realize how necessary healing items are in this game. buy them. you will not be needing money for anything else. and when you beat him he teleports away

the game then forgets about grimmon, and sends you to loop swamp. at the end of the swamp you find waruseadramon who is just kinda there. he gives you an item called the d-word!(It unlocks more of the hub area) then he asks for payment you can't give him the payment and you fight. his fight is a bit hard, but not terrible. you beat him you get the item the cycle repeats, you get it.

then the game forgets about this plot point and moves onto the fact that night crow has been attacking your team mates in resistor jungle. it's just some mini boss fights nothing to hard.

the quest cycle goes, and then you get a couple of missions about the waruseadramon and his company. you then find that glare has disappeared! Sayo from night crow helps you find him, and he is being held at access glacier. (Again sorry for the thumbnails people don't catalogue this stuff ig)

After getting glare back he send you on another mission to find Kowloon co. who is the waruseadramon's employers/company. Grandracomon is the boss of the company who asks you or your team for 100,000 bits (that you should have at this point) you give it to him or make your team do it. either way you have to beat their boss! (Who isn't that bad with healing items, really this game is not that hard).

this leads to the climax of the main story where Grimmon who had apparently infected the entirety of Night crow, has gotten them to try and take over your team and lead the digital world to darkness or something... idk. You find Sayo and waruseadrmon planning to go into night crow's base to save them from grimmon. instead you go by yourself because you don't need any help ig. you then find Julia(Night crow's leader) and her infected Chaos gallantmon

Again this fight isn't that hard if you have heals, and appropriately leveled mega/ultimate, or ultimate/perfect digimon. After a fight you free julia and chaos gallantmon from the virus and go to beat grimmon... by youself.

The next boss fight is the final one so be ready with digimon that have stats around the 300~ range.

he starts off with chaos grimmon who is... really easy. It's kinda sad honestly, but this is first phase so it's fine. Overall the only thing to worry about is keeping up with health and trying to keep as many heals as possible for phase 2. when you beat him he will digivolve into Exo-Grimmon and then almost basically kill you. but with the power of friendship(This is what actually happens, it's the best) you get back on your feet for round 2.

Then the fight... is actually kinda hard! it's mostly just because his attacks hit like a truck, but it's manageable. full repairs are great here because poison will probably make you lose the fight if it stays for to long. other than those two things it's really just hit it till he's dead. Once you finally beat him he makes a call back to the previous game's final boss and credits roll!

Tbh while this game can be repetitive I don't think I can do it justice through just talking about the story while having a few mentions of what I like about it thrown in. If this seems interesting at all please play it! the story is the most boring part of this game anyway. So idk just try it, it's fun and doesn't take that long if you know what you're doing.

#digimon world dawn #Like i do not know how to describe this game #I love it #but i kinda hate it at the same time??#whatever it's fun and the pixel art is beautiful #Honestly tho Lost Evolution is so much better #If you don't play this one play lost evolution #Just play any of the ds games they look so good and are really fun to play #(For me at least)#my rants

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portraitofadumbassonfire · 1 year

Text

I posted 10,956 times in 2022

383 posts created (3%)

10,573 posts reblogged (97%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@maurypovichofficial2

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I tagged 5,756 of my posts in 2022

Only 47% of my posts had no tags

#succession - 440 posts

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#video - 213 posts

#loml - 180 posts

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#prev tags - 158 posts

#films - 151 posts

#euphoria - 141 posts

#art - 106 posts

#music - 98 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#it's actually impossible to find a christian that doesn't respond to you telling them you're not religious by still trying to convince you

My Top Posts in 2022:

YOU WON'T BREAK MY SOUL YOU WON'T BREAK MY SOOOOOUL YOU WON'T BREAK MY SOUL YOU WON'T BREAK MY SOOOOOUL I'M TELLING EVERY BODY EVERYBODYYYYY EVERYBODY EVERYBODYYYYY I'M TAKING MY NEWWWW SALVATION BUILDING MY OWWWWN FOUNDATIOOON

See the full post

988 notes - Posted June 21, 2022

Antoinette outside hearing Louis & Lestat fucking:

994 notes - Posted October 30, 2022

See the full post

1,237 notes - Posted January 3, 2022

Thots On NOPE (SPOILERS)

I get why this is divisive, but, Jordan Peele has constantly described the themes of the film as dealing with Spectacle. He is 1000% right, but I personally think that the themes have even moreso to do with exploitation.

When it comes to Ricky or "Jupe" I've seen so many reviewers saying that subplot had nothing to do with the film as whole, but it did in a VERY haunting way.

When Ricky is talking about the SNL skit that parodied a traumatic time in his life, he recalls it like a well executed comedy sketch. Then it cuts back to him hiding under the table.

I've seen so many videos online that have some sort of attention-grabbing title, regardless if it's accurate to what you will actually see, but the OP is aware of what makes people click on what's to be supposedly promised in the title or the thumbnail. They know what will attract a crowd. Not to be too graphic, but even porn videos will do the same thing, anything to get clicks & clout.

When Ricky starts the show promising a spectacle, he's used to the reaction he gets, hence why he always does the show showing off the "aliens" at 8:00 PM. Or at least practices the show at night, but the reason he does probably has to do with the "aliens" showing up at that specific time, hence why it's the first time we see activity from the supposed "aliens". (When we see the lights from the show when the sun is down in the first few scenes of the film. We don't know if it's rehearsal or just another show of his.)

He's willing to risk the possibility of an attack from a wild animal like the supposed UFO because he dealt with the attack from Gordy. He was waiting for the other shoe to drop. (like the shoe standing upright, which could be the "bad miracle" OJ refers to) He truly thought he could handle the intensity of the "alien ship" since he survived the attack and lived to tell the tale. He developed some kind of God complex that he could work around the danger of a "trained animal". His wife even said "Even trained animals can be unpredictable."

The people on set with Lucky are a great example. Who the hell stands behind a horse as an adult? Who's the genius who had different chimpanzees for a T.V. show with 0 wranglers? There are still people whom are dumb enough to go to the zoo and go over safety barriers, taunt the animals, or even hold their children close from any danger.

It's ironic how people are very obsessed with the concept of aliens, but if too many people can't handle creatures from earth, what makes us think we can handle the ones not from here?

The stars of the SNL skit straight up mocked a heavily disturbing moment in his childhood, yet he's still profiting off of the moment where this kids dress up as aliens to scare his neighbors as a joke and an intimidation tactic. (notice how their alien costumes look also like ape costumes)

Plus he said he was getting paid by people to sleep in a memorabilia room referencing multiple violent deaths on a TV set. Even with Oprah herself, when she interviewed the woman who was attacked by a chimpanzee and got her face ripped off, people in the comments criticize her for exploiting the woman instead of talking about how she moved on from the spectacle of a tragedy.

For the Haywoods, they're trying to uphold a legacy, they're the only black-owned horse trainers and their great great great-grandfather is someone whom had not been credited for their work as the first motion picture captured. For Emerald to be the one who captured a picture of alien proof as the descendant is SOOOO symbolic.

The cinematographer, Antlers, a white man played perfectly by Michael Wincott, didn't like the lighting in the shot he took so he took the risk to get a perfect shot. The TMZ biker had a whole helmet that reflected everything around him because who else would be obsessed with getting all of the chaos around them than TMZ? (The same publication that somehow managed to know that Beyoncé was filming the music video for "XO" & announces celebrity deaths before the family even gets a chance to.)

I've seen videos of so many disturbing events before, during, or after the fact that I can see what Mr. Peele was going for in commentating on. There's an infamous tiktok showcasing someone in the middle of a near plane crash I've seen reposted on Twitter, there's footage of a bear and a cougar in a circus attacking their supposed "trainers", talk show footage of a lion going after a toddler & almost biting the poor child it was sitting next to, the frozen and preserved bodies of those who've tried do climb Mt. Everest, and I've even seen a man who documented himself after getting graphically attacked by two grizzly bears. Yet the views on those videos reach the millions.

There's so many times a fucked up or upsetting moment in time has been exploitated to the point where it can be made a joke, a traumatic scene, or a topic of discussion, and that for me is what NOPE was commentating on. Some will not catch on with one viewing, but I recommend a second, or even third watch to fully get what's being told.

Films like that, that have a longer shelf life are what inspire me. It's a rarity that a filmmaker chooses to give their audience a challenge.

1,705 notes - Posted July 23, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Lexi: *unsubtly mocks Nate's internalized homophobia in a play acted out to the entire public*

Maddy, Rue, Kat, and Jules in the audience:

6,395 notes - Posted February 20, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #this long ass post #i talk too much on this site

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rufoustee · 2 years

Video

youtube

Undating Nonsimulator Season 2 Episode 1: Meet the Humans

[Thumbnail description: Summer/RA-005 and LL-001 on the left, “S2E1″ at the bottom left and the Undating Nonsimulator logo at the top right. The background shows a city skyline at night.]

[Video description: Mock up start screen for Undating Nonsimulator. On the right there’s a soda bottle and a macaron. The background shows the planet. Text on the left: “Undating Nonsimulator” “New Game” “Continue”. Text, bottom right: “Rufoustee”. The opening tune plays.]

[White text on black screen: "Please wait. Loading new locations. Loading new characters. Loading new everything..."]

[A pixel city skyline at night, with two moons (one bigger than the other) in the sky. Music is playing in the background. Sounds of city traffic and people can be heard.]

[Some storefronts are shown. The sounds of the traffic and people are now quieter.]

Zucchini: "Finally! Some humans!"

Pitaya: "We've been walking for hours."

"Why was that door in the middle of nowhere?"

Zucchini: "I guess Ketchup doesn't want any visitors..."

Pitaya: "I guess..."

"So, what now?"

Zucchini: "Why don't we ask someone?"

[Zucchini runs out of the screen. Their footsteps can be heard.]

Zucchini: "Excuse me, what do humans do around here?"

[A figure with color white skin and short blonde hair. They're wearing a pink top and grey pants. They’re standing with their back turned. They’re drawn in a different art style; lineless with very messy shading. Ambient hum and reversed sounds of people talking can be heard in the background.]

[They turn around to look at you. The sound of their neck cracking can be heard.]

[The camera zooms into their face.]

"Suffer."

Zucchini: "A." [Silly music plays in the background.]

Pitaya: "Maybe we should just go back..."

Zucchini: "Go back? But we just got here!"

An unknown person: "Excuse me! Hi!"

LL-001: "Can we ask you a question?"

[LL-001 and RA-005 are feminine humanoid robots. They have grey skin. They’re wearing crop tops and skirts. Both of their clothes and hair are part of their robot body.

LL-001’s hair and clothes are a darker red while RA-005/Summer’s hair and clothes are a lighter red/pink. Their voices are the “clean guitar” setting, but LL-001’s voice is lower.]

(Author’s note: While they look kind of similar, these two are completely different models of different series of robots (as their names also suggest) Visually, RA-005’s model has softer, rounder edges while LL-00’s model has sharper edges. The models weren’t perfectly designed from the beginning, so the previous robot we met (the teal one from S1E2) was like a weird mixture of both models. Their voice also wasn’t the right instrument. This was a mistake, and isn’t canon. The teal robot belongs to the XL line, just like LL-001.)

(Author’s note 2: Also, LL-001 and Summer never introduce themselves to us, but that part was cut to save time. You’ll have to assume it happened off-screen. Summer’s model number is RA-005 but she prefers the name Summer, so we’ll refer to her as such from now on.)

Zucchini: "A question? Sure, what is it?"

RA-005/Summer: "About your arm..."

LL-001: "It looks identical to ours!"

Zucchini: "My arm? Really?"

Pitaya: "They're right! It really does!"

Summer: "Are you also some kind of robot or..."

Zucchini: "Oh no, I'm human!"

"I have no idea why they're so similar..."

Summer: "Really makes you think..."

LL-001: "So are you two from here?"

Zucchini: "No, we just got here!"

"We're here to meet other humans!"

LL-001&Summer: "And where exactly did you come from?"

Pitaya: "Wait wait wait!"

"You two are asking too many questions!"

LL-001: "Ah. Sorry about that."

Summer: "We're programmed to question everything!"

LL-001: "Hey do you two have a place to stay for the night?"

Pitaya: "Actually, we can just go back and-"

Summer: "You can stay over at our place!"

LL-001: "We have a guest room!"

Zucchini: "Sounds great!"

[A city plan is shown, with one building circled and pointed at with an arrow.]

Summer: "We live right here!"

[You are in an empty blue bedroom with a weird floating bed. It has two identical silver bedside tables on each side. The bed makes a weird wobbly sound as it ascends and descends.]

LL-001: "This is the guest room!"

"It used to be a kitchen but we don't eat so we turned it into a guest room."

[You are in a blue, black and gold kitchen.]

Summer: "But then we thought..."

"What if we have human guests?"

"So, we turned my bedroom into a kitchen."

[You are in LL-001 and Summer's room. The floor, walls and the bed are blue while their bedside tables are gold and silver. On the right bedside table, there is a vase with red flowers and three robot dolls. On the left wall there are small screens with Summer’s photos shown on them. On the right wall there are screens with Summer and LL-001’s photos together. They also have a weird floating bed, but theirs is old and used, so it makes a slightly louder and weirder sound.]

LL-001: "Which is a very complicated way of explaining why we share a room."

[Zucchini looking very confused about the weird house plan.]

[You are in the empty blue bedroom with the weird floating bed again.]

Summer: "By the way, we don't have regular beds, we have charger beds."

LL-001&Summer: "Because, you know, robots."

Summer: "I'm sure they're safe for humans!"

LL-001: You'll be fine! Goodnight!"

[Zucchini sleeping in the bed. Pitaya not sleeping in the bed. Music plays in the background.]

[Stick figure versions of Zucchini and Pitaya on the left, text that reads: "RUFOUSTEE" on the right. City skyline at night in the background.]

#undating nonsimulator #undating nonsim #video

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mindrole · 1 month

Note

OK this is utterly random but I was digging for references to draw Dita and something about him looks. Off? I don't have the databook so my only references here are the CoM profile image and the in-game sprite in Interlude but then I realized that his eye color is significantly darker than Fragments we're currently aware of?? Even Eigha's are more Fragment red than Dita's. I think I'm losing my mind. Surely he wouldn't wear different contact lenses?

I don't really have a goal here I just don't have anyone else to bother with my brainrot and you're chill so presumably up for someone else's brainrot. Cool if not tho

i got pretty curious, so i decided to see for myself. just to note, theodore has pure #FF0000 red eyes so i didn't include him, none of the others have anything like that. the databook makes sure to make a distinction when talking about hatsutori's eyes too (i.e. saying they're not pure red, that they're dark red. i assume the same applies to the rest too).

if you're curious, there is not really much on ditasword in the databook, there's a paragraph about it on shinano's entry that teases CoM's premise and the nature of the show, what it is, mentions miwa and gives a little information about him etc. i feel like the only thing that isn't mentioned in the interlude or other material is that eigha as a character appears in season 2 and 4 (so he isn't in season 1 or 3). there's a drawing in the databook that can be seen in thumbnail form in miwa's room. i think it's the poster with taka on it. it's a little hard to see tho. the poster with shiyo on it is based on the art on the CoM website with ryuu replaced with eigha. as far as i know there's no HD version of the half with eigha on it.

here is what i ended up with:

it's something like this. (sorry the pic isn't aligned neatly)

i compared in-game sprites. any inconsistency in other pictures, i think i personally rule out as just that, inconsistencies.

looking purely by value, ryuu's eyes are the darkest among the fragments, miwa in second, then izu, hatsutori, misumi. i included hair color too for some reason. i was most surprised that misumi has the lightest eyes. izu is weird because his eyes are more RED than anyone else. overall, there doesn't seem to be any pattern or correlation for why they're all different. my guess is that it's just a design thing. we say "pink" hair, but it's noted to be shades of magenta. so by the logic of design choice, it makes sense that miwa, who is a 60+ year old man who pretends to be 40 years younger and plays an anime boy for a living, has the pinkest hair (since it's cute). ryuu having a sort of muddy, ashy purple. hatsutori having probably the least blemished magenta since he's got an otherworldly cult leader sort of mood going on, etc.

my personal outlook on color variation for a while has been that not unlike a gemstone, there are different degrees of purity and such, and if you consider theodore the "purest", then the other fragments appearance suddenly start to make sense. something like this:

tho, idk if this has any basis in reality. it's just a funny thing i thought of... (yknow since fragments, rocks... etc)

as for eigha... his eyes are darker than ryuu's. i feel like that's consistent with someone wearing contacts over normal dark eyes. i do think this is a factor, because the contacts in miwa's bathroom are noted to be black, not brown. i think red would definitely look weird under brown contacts, since yknow that kind of thing does peek out a bit. someone would have clocked the deception pretty fast if they compared dita in the show and miwa out and about. of course it's a lot of show don't tell. you just find miwa's disguise in his bathroom. it's obvious the implication is "dita's look is what miwa actually looks like" but the vigilant might still consider other avenues. i'm lazy so i just go with the most obvious and probably intended implication. this is just an aside, but i honestly would have snapped, the fragments have lightly colored eyelashes and eyebrows, so on work days miwa would have to tint them to look darker going to the studio or whatever else, wipe it all off and get in dita costume, then put it back on to go back home, then go home and wipe it off again...

we don't know what either person who plays eigha looks like, but since it's the inverse situation... i guess it makes sense. (if shiyo really is actually a real harada, it'd be auburn dark red under there?!?!!?!! <-instant otaku death) he does have a sprite where his eyes are glowing, but since it's a 2.5D show i don't rule out special effects, post processing, etc.

since the game collaboration is based on the movie, i'm fully assuming it's shiyo, but there's really nothing saying it can't be taka...?? i have no idea!!! i think it's definitely shiyo though!!!

overall, i didn't observe anything abnormal about miwa compared to the other fragments, but i also have no idea why izu's eye color is so drastically different from misumi's. i expected them to be the same since it's misumi's fragment after all.

#anonymous #ask #im not sure what this does for you but i had a good think about it #thanks for the interesting ask youre always welcome to come to me for anything else <3

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ameliahutchinson-rmit-work · 11 months

Text

Self reflection

Assignment 1 - Video Edit

•How did you approach the relationship between the sonic and visual components of your edit?

Through the video, I connected the sound related to the video to create an ambience and produce realism in the clips. I also used a calming song to result in an engagement alongside the clips. The song's beat allowed me to edit the film to cut at specific times. This connected the sound and film to produce a connection.

•How did you decide on the footage that you used to shape your project?

The footage I used where of clips and scenes I see daily. From the process of waking up to I go to sleep, I wanted to show the true monadic life that I experience with glimpses of my passions and hobbies such as art and reading.

•What did you learn about the power of sound to shape emotional experience, and how did you apply this knowledge to your project?

The song was interesting yet repetitive. I applied this song to explore the emotional experience the audience might receive of melancholy. The non-exiting sound is meant to highlight that not every day of my life is fun and sad, usually just going through the motions of living.

•How does editing relate to the concepts of pacing and rhythm, and how did you use these concepts to shape your use of time in the project?

The editing of the film was used to explore and develop the sense of quickly having a glimpse into my day-to-day life. The rhythm was enhanced by editing the song alongside the song. The quick snapshots into my life were to further grasp that the mundane day of my life goes by quickly.

•Which parts of your personality, interests, past, and

potential future did you choose to depict in your portrait?

To highlight my personal interests and possible path into the future I included the imagery of my artwork. This work was in its own right a self-portrait through the complications and fears of my life. The work that was included showed my personal passion for art and visual design.

Assignment 2 - Graphic Icons

How would you summarise your idea behind the suite of icons, and why did you choose the theme that you did?

The theme that I chose to explore through my icons where dreams. The theme of dreams allowed me to explore a bright colourful array of colours and concepts to explore. The concepts I explored were the type of dreams, falling asleep and childhood connections of falling asleep (finding the monster under the bed).

Did you iterate through a series of approaches before settling on one? What changed across those iterations, and why did you choose the one that you ended up with?

The icons that I decided to continue with were interesting, creative and fun. Within these flat design icons, I aimed to illustrate a sense of excitement or fear that we experience through dreams. The icons I decided to proceed with specifically demonstrated this and allowed me to expand while in the development process.

How did you translate your thumbnail sketches into the final flat designs in Illustrator? Was anything lost in that translation, or gained?

I believe that the transition to Illustrator from paper enhanced the icons immensely. The flat design style allowed for the dream aesthetic to be conveyed as the bright colours resemble the creativity gained through dreams. If the imagery was meant to be explored through a different style the complicated and unrealistic imagery would be lost.

How did you use colour to create a sense of unity and visual interest in the icons? Why did you choose the palette that you did?

To produce a unification between the icons I included a main character who was seen throughout the icons. Her colour pallet stayed the same through the icons. The inclusion of this character was to aim to produce a collection of dreams that this woman is having as we follow her. I also ensured that I stayed with the same selection of colours if they were needed.

• How did the elements and principles of sound that you used in your audio design correspond to the elements and principles of design that you used in your visual design?

The sound design within the website where aimed to further tell the story of the woman and her dreams. They were also to further describe the setting and enhance the imagery.

How did you translate the prompt that you chose from an abstract idea to a set of concrete visual designs?

To begin the idea process I created a mind map to explore the possibilities of the icons. I started with different themes and then further explored and developed the idea by creating 5 different thumbnail sketches for each theme in total creating 45 concepts. This allowed me to choose a refined and carefully selected idea to continue to refine visual designs.

Assignment 3 - Virtual Environment

How did your experience designing and producing a three-dimensional environment differ from your experience designing and producing a project in two-dimensional media?

Creating a three-dimensional world was different to the production of a two-dimensional world as the player is not necessarily seeing exactly what you intended. Within a flat design, as the designer the audience can only view the intended perspective. This is contrasted with a three-dimensional design as the audience has the chance to look at and tour the world in their own specific way.

What was the role of the virtual camera in your project, and how was it similar to and different from the role of the camera in Assignment 1?

It was connected to the role of the camera as it is how the audience will view the world I am portraying. In assignment 1 the majority of the film was experienced in first person as if they are experiencing my world. This is similar to assignment 3 as the character is playing through my own experience and is taking my place in exploring the world.

•How did you use sound in your project, and how was this similar to and different from your use of sound in Assignments 1 and 2?

Sound within Assignment 3 differed from Assignment 1 as I did not use music to produce a rhythm or engagement to the game. Instead, it used everyday sound to create an atmosphere that was recognisable to the setting. This was similar to assignments 1 and 2 as the inclusion of everyday sound was used to connect the imagery and stimulate more senses. This was to draw the player in and create realistic gameplay.

How did you unify the different elements of your virtual environment under a certain theme or concept? How did your theme or concept evolve over the project’s development?

I connected the different elements of the game by selecting the imports to be of a similar nature to one another. They were low poly simple buildings and trees to unify the stages that the player experiences. As I based the environment on the streets of Japan I ensured that recognisable aspects would be seen within the entire game, such as blossom trees, strait signs in Japanese and traditional Japanese building structures.

• What did you discover through the process of play testing that you wouldn’t have discovered otherwise?

Through play testing, I was able to learn the empty spaces in the gameplay that needed development. The play testing also allowed for an understanding of how the player might interact with the space and how I could lead them and manipulate their possible movements.

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rei-caldombra · 4 months

Text

Shimeji Simulation Manga Review- A Strange and Sentimental Story.

This is a hard manga to talk about. Not because it's bad or anything, in fact I think it's fantastic. It's just hard to describe what it's about and put my opinions on it into words. And I actually think this hard to describe feeling perfectly mirrors the tone and subject matter of the manga. There will be direct spoilers for the story.

I first got into Shimeji Simulation after I watched and subsequently read Girls Last Tour (GLT). I absolutely love GLT, so I had to give Tsukumizu's other work a shot. By the way, to my knowledge Tsukumizu's gender identity is not confirmed by them so I will be referring to Tsukumizu as they.

The style and overall tone/vibe of Girls Last Tour carries over into Shimeji Simulation. Both stories focus on two young girls trying to find themselves in the world.

Tsukumizu's art style has not changed since her work on Girls Last Tour. I love this style. The faces of the characters are very simplistic but super cute. There is a lot of portrayal of buildings and structures, with them being incredibly detailed. I love this contrast. There is also a great sense of scale. Characters can go from looking small to large based on how they’re drawn. The style also has the look of rougher sketches. Like you can see in the thumbnail, lines are uneven, not always fully connected, etc. Hard to explain but I really like it. I think it fits the subject matter and something about it just looks very nice.

Shimeji Simulation is a true slice of life. The main focus is the girls just living their lives, with the world they are in being a very strange one. It's got a laid back but weird atmosphere. Things can be nonsensical at times, then very normal and casual. There's a lot of philosophy and poeticism. Topics can include the meaning of life, what people mean to each other, humanity, what objects can mean. One scene I really like that touches on this tone is the scene where Shijima and Majime talk about plushies. This also serves as an example of the manga simply being very cute.

They simply talk about plushies, like why Majime likes them and what nicknames she has for them. But you get this feeling that there is something deeper you can take out of this, even if you can’t quite put your finger on it. Shimeji Simulation’s writing strongly encourages people to think more deeply about normal things. To consider the meaning of objects and concepts. Shimeji Simulation is adept at making you think about and contextualize the world around you. And this theme is expressed and reflected directly through the story.

When it comes to the story it’s also hard to describe. It starts out with Shijima exiting her closet and getting to know people and the world. Some time passes and they meet someone who's kinda like a god. Then Shijima’s scientist sister alters the fabric of reality, making it so everyone’s imaginations directly change the world. What truly makes this story special is that this is not something that is a horrible issue that the story makes clear needs to be fixed. The characters have to live with this. You see the characters adjust to the new way the world works. Some people like it and some people don’t. And the world does not immediately descend into chaos or anything like that. The people change and keep living. Even in a world where reality can change with a thought, life ends up being pretty simple. There is something so special and grounded about this. I think this story is a beautiful representation of the mundanity and simplicity that makes up much of the human experience. While also bringing up how complicated our feelings and places in the universe are.

Later on, reality basically falls apart, melding into this strange amalgamation of everyone and everything. You truly don’t really know what’s going on, as do the characters. The girls get separated, stuck in their own mindscapes. You see how their worlds are very different. But what they both want is to see each other again. They do end up finding each other. But reality does not get fixed. Their wish and what all of this meant is not clearly defined. In the end, all that really matters is that Shijima and Majime end up back together. And what you make of that and everything that led them to that point is up to you.

There are a lot of takeaways you can have, particularly about what life means. I think life in this story can simply refer to being with the people you love. Life can dramatically change and throw things at you that make you uncertain and afraid, but you can push through it by sticking to what is important to you. Shijima and Majime’s love for each other allowed them to find each other amidst a chaotic world and be able to find happiness. As said before. I believe the manga encourages you to reconsider how you view yourself and other people. Everyone sees things from different perspectives and has unique ideas. We see this in the reality controlled by imagination, where everyone has different living spaces, objects, even bodies. And people generally seemed happy. Shijima is able to find Majime by exploring many different places in their world that are dictated by different people. By gaining new experiences and world views, she is able to recontextualize her own. Which enables her to realize her own feelings and get in the space that Majime is in.

I feel this is one of those stories where you can really feel the author's feelings and personality in the work. And despite that, it doesn’t feel like it’s trying to convince you of any particular worldview. Rather it encourages you to look inward and come to your own conclusions. I would love to hear how any of you have taken from this story.

To conclude, I really like this manga and highly recommend it to anyone who wants a bizarre story that encourages deeper thinking while also making you smile with wholesome antics. It truly is a unique read, there is nothing else quite like it. I really hope you check it out if you haven’t. I don’t think this is a story that gets ruined by spoilers. It seems like Tsukumizu has another project in the works, so let’s look forward to that together (I hope the next one continues the trend of the previous protagonists showing up in noncritical ways. I want to see our potatoes, mushroom and egg again). Thank you for reading!

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