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factual-fantasy · 25 days

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Heya Factual! Wanted to give ya a million pats on the back for the new art- obviously it looks great as always- but also I'm always excited for new Grimace lore! The monopoly gag was hilarious- I actually thought it was serious for a moment- and then I was ecstatic to see him finally evolve into a Gengar- now he looks even more like Grimace than ever before!

Seeing him evolve reminded me of an interesting fact that I wanted to tell you and Grimace- it's been recently confirmed that Gengar is actually the favorite Pokemon of Atsushi Nagashima, the game director of the entire Pokemon TCG! He said during a recent tour that that's the reason Gengar gets so many cards every year- is because he just likes him a whole lot! So anytime Grimace is feeling down, he can remember that he and his kin hold a special place in the heart of the man responsible for balancing their very existence- at least on the table top!

As for my usual Mario stuff- thanks again for answering my last batch of Asks- I think your implementation of Snifits especially will work quite well! And as for today- I just wanted to keep it simple, and ask for some clarifications regarding an already existing species in the AU, if that's okay, that being the spooky scary dry bones!

You've mentioned them a couple times I'm the past- I believe as creations of Kamek- but I don't think you've ever drawn them- any ideas what they'd look like in your style? Would they maintain any semblance of their former selves- or be mindless zombies like in the movie? What would be involved in creating one? And would the spell only work on normal koopas- or would it be used to raise other creatures- perhaps even deceased royal Koopas to create dry Bowsers!?

And also as a sort of side Ask- have you seen the Super Mario Bros Movie yet? If you have what did you think? I noticed you mention it in the last post regarding the Snifits- but I couldn't tell if you were talking about the trailer or the film itself...

(Oh, and as always, thanks for taking the time to answer all our Asks- hope you're finally over the hill and feeling a bit better!)

@neo-metalscottic (Monopoly gag post) (Gengar evolve post)

Thank you so much!! :DD I'm glad you had fun with those posts! XDD And that's so interesting! :0 I would have thought his favorite Pokémon was Pikachu XDD

Now for your dry bones questions...

As for the royal koopas thing.. When Kamek beings something to live/back to life. They are basically just a mindless zombie. They hold no memories of their old selves it seems.. so when a royal koopa dies, they just let them rest. Becuase bringing them back to life would just make them this mindless drone.. not only would it be disgusting and depressing, but its also probably seen as rather disrespectful. To bring someone of such high status back to life as a mindless slave is just.. not great. Hence why Bowsers wife was simply buried when she passed. There's nothing Kamek could do to bring the real her back..

As for the dry bones, I have a solid concept. Buuuut I'm not super sure how it fits into the AU quite yet..

I was thinking that however many years ago.. there was some kind of war or battle that the koopa kingdom was involved in. And they were losing. They were losing too many soldiers.. So out of desperation.. The current king and queen ordered Kamek to do the unthinkable. Bring their fallen soldiers back to life..

They won the battle. But at a cost. Now the majority of their army/citizens are these mindless zombies.. its hard to say how much of the original koopa remains in these dry bones.. since they don't seem to have any memories of their past life..

The remaining living koopas would eventually repopulate and grow in in numbers. They would also learn to live along side the dry bones.. But its always really disturbing to be a koopa and seeing your great grandfather's corpse mindlessly wandering the streets.. still wearing the same armor he was wearing when he died during the great war..

As for their appearance, I actually pictured them being rather large skeletons. A lot of them are missing limbs or have broken bones.. they are all wearing old timey armor that they had on during the war. They are rather mindless and unresponsive to most things.. Though I imagine when some kind of danger is spotted, they suddenly jump to life and become really animated. Rushing towards the threat and neutralizing it swiftly and violently. Just like the soldiers did back in the day..

Once the threat is neutralized, they slump their shoulders. And begin to slowly wander again…

There's a lot I would like to do with this. I wanna experiment with the koopas interacting with the dry bones. Perhaps covering them in flowers to pay respects but to also make them seem less scary to children..

Perhaps some koopa families find their relatives and guide them by the hand back home and have them participate in family gatherings. Maybe its their way of coping.. or they're just showing love. "No matter how far gone you seem or how long ago you died, I still love you. And you are still apart of this family." 🥺

Sometime I'd like to draw them on my pc. But as it stands I'm still rather unwell and cant sit at my desk for very long 😭💔

As a last note, I did finally watch the Mario movie! :D... IIIIt was about what I expected. <XD

Other than Mario and Luigi's relationship being spot on? I found myself rolling my eyes the whole movie. Its probably safe to say that I'm not the target audience and that most people had a lot of fun with it.

And hey! If I didn't like the movie, I can just make my own Mario universe. Which is what I did! XDD

#my response #super mario bros #thanks a ton for the ask!! :DD #dry bones

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ganondoodle · 4 months

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I was at first in love with totk, and I still think mechanical wise, its quite impressive

And when I collected all the tears and saw the "story" I genuinely got upset in a good way (at first), because man! Did they really got the balls to go that far? Is there nothing I can do for her? Now I MUST do all the temples, see how it plays out and --oh, I've got this cutscene already. Why are all the people so dumb about Zelda, I KNOW where she is, Link say something-- Link??

After finishing all the temples and almost falling asleep, I stopped playing the game, looked up the last boss and remaining cutscenes and went "Thats it?"

Watching other people (including you) being critically about so many things, both character and mechanical wise, I've almost startled myself with a realization what the gnawing feeling I constantly had, actually was.

Totk feels like a fanfic.

And don't get me wrong, I love fanfiction, I think its great and important, I adore fanfic writers, I love finding gems, I love reading self indulgent stories, see new spins and interpretation of characters. I love the casual, the passion, the creativity!

But totk gives me the same feeling everytime I am reminded that Fifty Shades is a Twillight fanfic.

The world is there. The faces I know and grew to love are there. But everything is ever so slightly different, uncannily so. Just how some characters talk, how they act, how they were placed in the story. The Zonai appearing out of nowhere, but no, they always had been there you see, they were these super magical advanced people but they all died, the king is so tragic. And you see, the king is super cool and powerful and-- oh I dont get to interact with him outside of the tutorial. Did they try to do another King Rhoam-- but wait, that only worked because we didn't knew he was a ghost-- totk wait stop why do you take him out of the story, why couldn't he be a companion, he IS ABLE TO TALK THROUGH THE ARM LET THE OLD GOAT COMMENT ON STUFF?? If you bring up all this ancient stuff and you still got a ghost lingering, let him talk?? (I never ended up getting Mineru but I smell wasted potential as well)

Im not even mad, I am disappointed. It feels like the devs saw what all the lore hunters got attached to and talked about and then just... took the "cool". All the Zonai stuff could've easily been Sheikah tech, but got just reskinned to look more exciting instead of being its own thing.

Like... at this point I prefer what fans are doing over what Totk gave us. The characterization of Rauru (and everything Zonai), projects like you do of what totk couldve been, the little nuggets of actual highlights and details of love fans find in the game. I found much more enjoyment in these concepts than I got from a 70bucks game. And thats depressing.

I love fanfiction. I dont love it when my corporate 70 dollar, six year development, console exclusive game feels like a story that passionate fan couldve written miles better in a week (and I've already seen much cooler and interesting rewrites and ideas).

Zelda has been a huge part of my childhood and its depressing seeing it treated like that. It always was about the story, the epic, its The Legend of Zelda for crying out loud. To be courageous to enter a dungeon, to be wise and solve all the riddles. To become powerful over the journey you embarked on. Zelda to me is the campfire story you tell to others and go into the woods or the beach and imagine what monsters you would slay. Zelda is not the sandcastle you build in the sandbox and then add dinosaurs and star wars ships because you didn't had any other toys, and just stumble into and over some story to entertain yourself until lunch is ready.

I'd have an oracle of seasons over another totk any day at this point. They should've just make the mechanics of totk its own thing, but I guess they were scared it wouldn't sell if it doesn't have a Mario or Zelda skin straped over it.

Anyways, sorry for the mini rant - love your art, love your thoughts and insights, and I am looking forward to see more of it - Zelda related or not (your original characters look amazing, I adore your style sm)

Hope you have a great rest of the day!

*nods along through this entire rant*

idk how many of my rants you have read but yeah ... yeah ... and the further you think about it the further it all falls apart, the wasted potential of it all and the goddamn audacity of them to do those interviews in which they make it EVEN WORSE is just

i know the expectation for a direct sequel to botw was huge and understandbly so but i really REALLY think it would not have been that hard to make it a good follow up even taking into account that totk was originally a DLC, pretty much all of botws aspects could have been developed further, i dont know what could have happened to make totk have turned out like this .. literally it feels like something had to have gone wrong, its like someone who doesnt know zelda nor botw at all was given a few prompts and then just made some generic fantasy story while the rest worked on ultrahand for 5 years

the technical impressive things ARE technical impressive, but i dont think it was necessary nor served the game well in any way (and i LOVE building games- however totk is neither a building game nor a story game nor a zelda game nor an exploration game nor a sequel imo) but zelda, this zelda, is not made for that and i cant help but think it was mainly to encourage people to make some ridiculous mechs so it can go viral on tiktok (not trying to discredit them, it IS cool what they are doing but i .... have my doubts if zelda is the right place for that)

ill stop there bc i have ranted so much about everything i dont wanna repeat it here again; it just doesnt feel like a real game (derogatory), it feels extra bad bc i was not really into zelda when botw came out and while i did get it as soon as i could (months after release since i just started a minijob and didnt have the money) i only over time grew to love zelda this much again, devouring any theories and anything about it bc i loved it so much- i was never into it like this when a new title was announced and dont own any special editions so i bought the totk collectors bc i was just so damn excited for it after the 2019 trailer dropped (god i want that time back ... it looked so much more like it was going to be an actual sequel) even if i was already worried it wouldnt be good at that point given how much i started to sense stuff i dont like about the newer trailers

i recently sold it at our local gameshop bc it was like a thorn in my side given how expensive it was and how dissapointed i was in the game, i genuinely think that, technical impressiveness aside, totk is the onyl zelda i truly cannot stand (for alot of reasons) and im genuinely worried for the future of the franchise

i bought an Oki (Okami) figurine for what i got back and i feel much happier with that :3

(also on a note, i did finish the game two weeks after release but stopped playing it right then and hadnt touched it since, i also streamed all of what i played and its still up if you want to see my slow descend into madness fjkdhkdhjk though its been a long while since then and i by far did not talk about everything back then, just what my most immediate frustrations were while still playing)

(also the gameplay isnt as good as people make it out to be, so much is so frustrating and punishing to use i am kinda baffled it got through like that and most people call that its best aspect ..... though i guess if the rest is so much worse even mid gameplay can seem good ooooooooh how dare i)

also thank you for liking what i do!!! <3 it means alot to know it is appreciated by someone :D

#ganondoodles answers #zelda #totk #ganondoodles rants #in my playthorugh i genuinely tried to be super open to what its offering me #but i think its pretty clear that i could see were it was going pretty soon and tried to fight my fear #and then i ended up being right #like i even went out of my way to get the memories and dungeons in turns so i wouldnt spoil anything #and still you can see me get sadder and dissappointed with each new memory i got #and the time it truly all started to crumble was when i discovered what they did to the shrine of life #pretty sure after i got all the lightroots and all i got was a you did it sticker i jsut gave up and went to the end #and after that i found the endfight fun so i played it a few more times #but the last few streams were mostly me ranting jkdfngvkjdfnhgjkdf #for this price its pretty bad #idk why so many people are okay with this tbh #zelda fans deserve better #i think the wasted potential and insulting treatment of both lore - botw and even the player is what frustrates me so much #sidenote i love the username bc there sure are words #alot of them even #(good)#i have done so much ranting it feels good to read someone elses rant about similar frustrations

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genopaint · 5 months

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having some art block so im goofing around with some marios to get back into it

Based on these concept sketches cause I ADORE how fun and silly Mario looks in this and I would love a new RPG where he looks exactly like this with this chaotic energy (x)

#super mario #super mario bros #luigi #princess peach #bowser #toad #fanart #sketches

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askagamedev · 1 month

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On the topic of generative AI, what jobs are game companies looking to replace with it first? I imagine that concept art is going to be one the easiest things to replace and I harass some games are using AI to fill out voice over work ( AI is a major sticking point between game companies and the voice actor union right now), but what other jobs are at risk of being replaced?

Honestly, right now it's actually rather difficult to replace entire jobs with generative AI. It's much more of a situation where AI would be used to augment and fill in small knowledge gaps rather than replace contributions from individual developers.

Recently, a development company called Keywords attempted to build a 2D game internally using only generative AI tools. Keywords is a well-established co-development studio that has helped out with development on many large projects like Alan Wake, CoD: MW3 (2023), Super Mario Bros Wonder, Mortal Kombat 1, Starfield, Madden, Diablo IV, Skull and Bones, Baldur's Gate 3, Elden Ring, and so on. After six months the Keywords team [reported on their findings]:

Whilst the project team started small, it identified over 400 tools, evaluating and utilising those with the best potential. Despite this, we ultimately utilised bench resource from seven different game development studios as part of the project, as the tooling was unable to replace talent. One of the key learnings was that whilst Gen AI may simplify or accelerate certain processes, the best results and quality needed can only be achieved by experts in their field utilising Gen AI as a new, powerful tool in their creative process.

This gels with my own experience with Gen AI - it's an expanded Dunning-Kruger situation. Gen AI can create all kinds of content or results but it requires actual expertise in the field in order to separate the wheat from the chaff. Without having the skills needed to determine if something is good or not, the Gen AI results aren't (yet) good enough to use to build something.

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#artificial intelligence #generative AI #working in the game industry

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miru667 · 1 month

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How do you manage to stay in a fandom for so long? I'm always mario jumping from fandom to fandom every 3-6 months

Oh, so many reasons. I think I've answered this before but in a much more concise way so idk what happened here when I tried to answer again from scratch but uhhh I wrote a lot lol?? Long ramble time. 😂

I found this fandom at a point in my life when I really emotionally needed it, so I got really attached to it. I stayed because of the friends I've made in it and because of the OCs I got invested in, both mine and other people's, and every so often something invigorated my interest like a new roleplay I got to join or new concept art that got discovered.

I'm also just a really dedicated person (for better or worse) and I still have ideas that I want to get out there creatively. I don't get a lot of free time, and I rarely have energy for hobbies after work so my time passes slowly in the sense that I may still be in the middle of appreciating a thing, meanwhile everyone else has already sped through and processed it and moved on.

So I've gotta be really careful about choosing what to spend my limited time and energy on. It sometimes takes me a whole month to draw a piece of art that I'm proud of. It would be a huge waste of my time to spend so much energy on a fandom that after 3 months I think I might not care about anymore.

And like, if it's going to take me a month to draw 1 thing, what am I going to choose? Fanart of a character from a show that I just finished that I might possibly move on from in 3 months? Or art of my darling Audrey OC that I've been developing for years and whom I know will always bring me joy for the rest of my life? It's not a hard choice! Like I'm sure it's obvious by now but I really love my oc. It's gotten to the point that I look for her in every media I consume. I like characters because they remind me of her, and I like plots because they remind me of her. When I watch a movie and end up loving it, I'm not going to be drawing fanart for that movie, I'm more likely going to be drawing Audrey Grace in some way that's consciously or subconsciously inspired by that movie. I'm sure other people with beloved ocs can relate to that, too.

Back to media consumption: I'm constantly watching new things, shows, movies, letsplays, and I'm able to love them just fine, but I never participate in their fandoms (unless you count reblogging fanart as participation. I personally don't). I just don't feel motivated to and I feel like it's unnecessary. I shouldn't need to prove anything. You can appreciate media without engaging in fandom. In fact, I encourage it, because a lot of what I see in fandoms these days is just stressful, at least to me. And I don't want that stress. I'm much happier as a person when I don't have to read other people's opinions, discourse and drama over some show's themes or ships or whatever. I can just quietly revel in my own enjoyment of the show without being tainted by anything else, and my love for it is not any less valid than the person who's livetweeting their loud emotions while watching the same show and putting out fanart 1 hour after every episode. Bless them, though.

And I guess that's mostly what I do these days with the Onceler fandom, too. Appreciating it more quietly these days, I mean. It's just that...I have a fandom related oc so I draw her. And I have friends here so we do stuff together and we reference fandom inside jokes no matter what activity we're doing. If I encounter art that deeply moves me personally, I reblog it, just like I reblog art for other media on my sideblog. When anyone has a fandom history related question, I'm eager to answer because I don't want the past to be misrepresented or misunderstood. And also, since it's been over a decade, this fandom has long ago become my daily normal. I can do whatever I like but I can't really "leave" this fandom unless I delete all my social media and cut off all my online friends. And delete my memories of the past 12 years of my life as well. Just become a completely different person.

So I guess I can reverse the sentiment: I can't relate to people who hop fandoms every 3 to 6 months. 😭 All the power to you, but that's just not the way I happen to live my life, nor the way I engage with the media I consume! The Once-ler fandom was the one exception. It was special.

But who knows, anything can happen in the future. I'm not so proud that I'm purposely blocking myself from looking at other fandoms or anything. I just go with the flow! Right now I'm slowly making my way through jjba, an omori playthrough, a Plague Tale playthrough, and urusei yatsura season 2 (the new anime). Probably nothing will come out of any it except for a bunch of Audrey inspos, but again, who knows. XD I'm also going to an idkhow concert soon, and I've bought merch from their store already. Does that count as participating in a fandom? Maybe not. But now that I think of it, even if I "join" another fandom, it doesn't necessarily mean I'd leave the onceler fandom either, so maybe it wouldn't matter haha.

Thank you for the ask and thank you to anyone who's read my entire answer!

#miruask #long post #lovestruck enby #i probably sound insane but o well #reference

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cali-kabi · 2 days

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~ I saw the new trailer of Paper Mario Thousand Year Door omg I’m even more hyped excited to play the game next month 😭🌟💫I didn’t expect the first concept art to ever see is Doopliss omg he looks like a menace I love it xD have some screenshots I took hehe goodnight💫🌈

#sydney speaks #sydney talks #paper mario thousand year door #i love how they kept Toadette dress orange like in the original :D #concept Doopliss also had a scythe too he looks scary xD #i played paper Mario 64 for the first time ever omg i love the characters and the story of the Star spirits <3 #lady bow and Bombette are my favorite partners from there #i love Vivian and Goombella their my fav partners from thousand year door I’m so excited to play it aaaaaaaaa I literally can’t wait x>

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quattroqunt · 6 months

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I read a summary of the story the other day and now I'm going through the script. I'll share interesting bits here since not many people seem to know about it. From what I can tell it's one of those "adaptations" that is basically an original plot with licensed characters slapped on top of it, like the 90s Super Mario Bros movie and a bunch of other anime/video game adaptations from back in the day. Char is Amuro's younger brother in this. Although I have to point out that this is a first draft. So if it hadn't been cancelled due to legal issues, maybe it would have been closer to the anime.

Back to the script:

Wait, is Kamaria's name meant to be written like this in English? Do Amuro's mom and Kamille have two variants on the same name? Hmm...

Spacequake... this is a cheesy 80s movie all right. I wish there was concept art of these flying machines, I'm having trouble picturing what they look like. Do they have literal feathers like a bird? Earlier there was a brief mention of kids flying with their pet sparrows.

Amuro's dad calls him pudding head!

The first of these 2 excerpts is from earlier but I'm putting it here for contrast. It looks like Amuro is better at computers while Char is better at piloting.

The Zakus are attacking, sent by someone named Ziong. Tem ("Tim") wants to take Amuro with him but he sends Char to find his mother. Yeah send your 13-year-old son through a war zone by himself, great parenting decision! I'm sure nothing bad will come of this...

And now Tem/Tim is dead.

I don't want this post to be miles long so I will make new posts for the rest and queue them. If you didn't know about this movie either, now you do!

#gundam #amuro ray #char aznable #tem ray #kamaria ray #gundam movie

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pianokantzart · 14 days

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If you would change anything in The Mario movie like dialouge changes, scene changes or adding new scenes or just in general improve the pacing, what would it be?🤔

I think we can all agree we needed more Luigi in the movie, and many of us are of the opinion that the loss of the "prison break" plot line hinted at in the concept art is tragic. However, as long as I'm only talking tiny changes to pad out the runtime, I think some more scenes of Luigi in the prison would've been good; chatting with King Penguin, learning more about the world, maybe even a short-lived escape attempt that highlights his resourcefulness? Just an extra sprinkling of Luigi.

I'd also add a little conversation between Mario and Toad over the course of their adventure. Toad petty much just looked at Mario and said "you're my best friend now" and Mario is like "???? Uh... okay???" and then at the end of the film they fist bump. The animation did all of the heavy lifting to show them forming any sort of bond, and while it doesn't feel too forced the end result is that we know nothing about Toad except that he's a friendly guy who's the bravest toad in his kingdom. What's his story? What's his background? Does he have any motivations beyond just a love for adventure? What's going on with that little guy?

Finally, the scene of The Mario Bros hanging out in their room after dinner could've used a bit of extra time. What we got was wonderful and sweet, but it was the only quiet moment between them before the plot kicked into high gear, and their conversation lasted literally 20 seconds. I would've like it if it was stretched out a little tiny bit longer. Just a quiet back and forth to better establish the bros mindsets, their hopes and dreams, etc. A nice moment to breathe and truly hammer home their bond before the ball got rolling.

The movie by no means needs to be dialogue heavy, and I don't mind getting to fill in the gaps where emotions/motivations aren't specifically explained, but I think a few more interactions between the characters now and then would've greatly helped the pacing.

#luigi1o27632 #askbox #Mario Movie #Mario Movie critical #super mario bros #super mario brothers #Mario #Luigi

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danganronpa96 · 5 months

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I know u mention how some characters in dr69 had a different take at first (like mario being revealed as not a good brother) but there was ever a moment u considered different survivors/mastermind or was it always the plan to have Luigi, PaRappa, Ayano, Nagito and the Conductor be the suvivors and Hatsune Miku the mastermind?

For the survivors, they were completely planned from the start alongside the death order. There is a reason why I wanted each character to survive, too.

Luigi -> Protag + development

Parappa -> I did not want to kill him. That's it that's the reason

Ayano -> lol wouldn't it be so funny if the girl knowing for killing does not kill? (also development)

Nagito -> let's let the DanganRonpa character who did not survive his killing game survive this killing game

The Conductor -> I was in a big A Hat In Time fixation at the time, so I wanted Mr. Conductor to live no matter what

However, there was a moment during the writing of chapter 5 when I sort of wanted to kill off Ayano due to whatever big allegations were going around about Yandere Dev at the time (not the recent one obviously I'm talking a few years ago), and replace her survivor position with Fluttershy. But I decided against it for what I had planned for the chapter 5 case between Fluttershy and Brian.

I still sort of wanted to kill off Ayano during chapter 6 in fact, as a sacrifice during the final execution. But again, I decided against it because it felt a bit jarring if she died then, plus it would only leave a survivor group full of guys. I really don't care what happens to Yandere Simulator or Yandere Dev, I just like my Ayano <3

Now, as for the mastermind, I'm going to put this stuff under the cut as it'll contain some images and I don't want to make this post very long on its own.

As mentioned in the post just before this, it wasn't originally planned for it to be Miku. I'm not going to re-explain who the initial one was here, but after I scrapped that one, I decided I needed to figure out a better replacement. I made this chart here about the potential characters (or duos) that could make for a good mastermind.

Looking back, I'm not sure why I was so adverse to mastermind Conductor. I guess I just wanted to keep him as a good person instead lol (funfact: there are actually fics about mastermind Conductor and mastermind Peter, and they're both really good, so, I guess I didn't have to do the work myself haha)

I really wanted to do Nagito and Parappa at the time for some reason. I liked both of them a lot, but I'm not sure how I was exactly going to pull of such a random duo.

Instead, I went for Miku and Teto, as it would make more cohesive sense while still being a mastermind I'd like to write for.

(these are all concept art I drew for the new mastermind ideas)

#so yea I had a major crisis about keeping Ayano alive and the mastermind replacement #but in the end it all turned out alright I believe #I personally like MM!Miku and Ayano's survival!

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20dollarlolita · 4 months

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im trying to phrase this in a way that makes sense and isnt too long but its not working so: if i had a zelda print jsk but coorded it with all non zelda themed stuff, would it be cosplay lolita? (and also does this apply to the AP x Mario/Sailor Moon stuff?)

(the jsk is/will be made using ur tutorials btw!! you inspired me to keep sewing and designing through my Problems™️ - plus this means it'll have good lace and the right shape etc etc, im just curious if you as a person i appreciate from across the world have an opinion on fandom references vs cosplay)

So I did a post specifically on adapting Zelda looks into lolita fashion back in 2017.

And back in April when I was still able to stand, I did a coord with a Zelda print. I made the dress back in 2016 as part of a school project, but the coord involved a lot of new lolita fashion pieces that I've obtained since then. The bottom part of the skirt is the opening graphics from Wind Waker.

The really short answer is a JSK made with a printed fabric can be lolita and isn't a cosplay, but you need to make sure that the print is suitable for lolita fashion. I did a guide on that too.

But there's plenty of dresses with Sanrio characters that aren't Hello Kitty cosplays. An interesting brand to check out with regards to this is Secret Honey, who has a lot of disney tie-in dresses. You can see the difference between a themed dress and a cosplay dress.

Cosplay is cosplay. It's the art of dressing up as a character. In many cases, that's about creating or recreating specific garments worn in the source material. In cases where specific garments aren't being used, it's about looking like the character, and wearing clothing that is like what they could have worn. A good cosplay is going to go beyond just the garment and be a complete look, a head-to-toe costume.

Different from cosplay is things like Disneybounding, of which I guess the non-Disney version would be stealth cosplay. Disneybounding is dressing up in a way that resembles or reflects a character, without wearing a costume. This comes from Disney Parks policy that adults can't be wearing costumes in the park. A Disneybound look can distinctly resemble a character, but has to be constructed of modern(ish), mainstream(ish) garments. The whole look cannot be something that would look out of place at a Denny's at 2AM.

Themed lolita falls much more into Disneybounding than it does cosplay. The main difference is that a Disneybound look is composed of mainstream fashion pieces that resemble or remind you of a character. A themed lolita look is constructed out of pieces that can stand alone as lolita pieces, but that all fit a larger theme.

For an example on my coord up there, the skirt is a themed piece. The green linen was chosen specifically to look like Link's traditional green outfit, and the print is images from the game. My ocarina necklace is also a piece that I would not normally wear with a lolita look. However, the blouse is from Innocent World, a lolita brand. The overskirt was made by a lolita brand and was designed to be a lolita overskirt. The headbows aren't Zelda-themed and can be worn with other coordinates. The legwear was just going for color balance and doesn't actually add to the concept of the coord and objectively speaking, the bottom half of the coord is too punk-themed to really work with the top half of the coord. One of the really great things about wearing lolita fashion is that you can look at past looks, recognize that you like them, but also see things to improve on in the future. This is great because it allows you to experience wearing the same pieces repeatedly without wearing the same outfits repeatedly.

Regarding theme, a lot of brands have recurring themes and characters (Usakumya and Kuma Kumya are a good pair to start your research on). They make a lot of elements that are themed after these characters, but those pieces are themed lolita pieces, and not cosplay. (If anyone has ever done an actual Usakumya cosplay, please let me know ASAP. I need to see that).

Many people who wear lolita fashion are also cosplayers, and so the community has really tried to stop using "cosplay" as a negative term to describe poorly done lolita. You'll run into "cosplay lolita" still used in context of characters like Wednesday or Misa Amane, where the author or artist decided that they wear "gothic lolita" and didn't actually do a ton of research.

This means that people who wear their source material's "gothic lolita" look are really wearing a poorly-researched outfit made by someone who didn't really know what they're doing. People will also use the term "cosplay lolita" to describe a poorly-researched outfit made by someone who didn't really know what they were doing, as if "that's the sort of outfit you'd see as a cosplay of a character." However, it's a term that's falling out of favor and really isn't very nice to cosplayers who often spend a LOT of money and time on their cosplays.

#20dollarlolita #cosplay lolita #cosplay #gothic lolita #zelda

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akfamilyhome · 4 months

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YouTube 2023 Year in Review

Welp! Guess it's that time of year again. I'm sure 2023 has been a...pretty interesting year to say for quite a few people. And for me personally, it's also been a weird little year that's great in some parts and could be better in others.

What have I been up to?

My life right now is kinda divided into three parts:

A) the "IRL" stuff, as in working on my editing day job and spending time with family.

B) working on YouTube videos which I still have the passion for,

and C) playing video games, collecting cool things and socializing with my online friends.

I've always felt that it's difficult for me to put equal attention to all three, and lately, it definitely feels like I'm focusing on 'A' and 'C' more. Of course, my day job is kinda how I make a living at the moment so that obviously gets priority, but that doesn't mean I want to ignore my YouTube stuff! It's just hard to sneak in a few lines of script-writing while multitasking at a day job, and only being able to freely spend time on 'B' and 'C' during night isn't the most productive way to go about things, especially with other things that aren't YouTube production. I also have games I want to play, art I want to draw, folks I'd like to hang out with etc.

And that's a fine, healthy way of going about things online for regular folks! But I don't want my YouTube channel to stagnate as a result of this, because I still love making videos! I have support from folks on Patreon, and I still hope to continue growing the channel so that it becomes more sustainable to do frequent updates.

Part of me has always thought about just quitting my day job once I have a decent amount of money saved up and just try doing YouTube full-time and rely on Patreon, even if there's a very low chance it'd be sustainable. Of course, that's a big gamble, and I'm not truly sure if that's really the best way to go about things. But those are just my inner thoughts and I've rambled long enough...

So, I apologize for the above situation sort of being the root cause of the recent slower pace of my YouTube channel! The pace of the channel this year is about the same as in 2022, if not a little slower. I didn't really get a lot of dormant scripts from 2020-2021 off the ground, but being true to what I said in last year's Year in Review, I did end up working on a lot of spontaneous ideas even if there wasn't a "big" core video! In fact, I think almost every video released in 2023 that we'll discuss below were spontaneous ideas.

I'll talk more about what's to come for the channel in the end of the post, but for now, as usual, we'll take a look at each video I made during 2023 and I'll share my thoughts and some fun facts about each!

A Trip to the Hong Kong Kirby Pop-Up Store

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Various things were put up on the channel from January to March, including a funny little short for Mario Day and a new trailer for a revamped Patreon, but the major thing I put out was a look at the Kirby Pop-Up Store in Hong Kong! This was my first time doing a scripted documentation of an in-person event, and Nintendo Hong Kong would eventually do more events like Nintendo Live 2023 Hong Kong, and I'll definitely be talking about them on my channel eventually!

As for fun facts...uhh...I suppose Patreon patrons get to see the full unedited raw footage I took from the event lol

Top 10 Nintendo Trivia You NEVER Knew

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This year's April Fools video...was also a last-minute sort of idea, if I recall correctly! The concept is simple: it's a parody of generic Top 10 trivia videos in terms of presentation, but the curveball is instead of just doing other blatantly obvious fun facts, the facts would actually be super obscure, inconsequential Nintendo facts that barely anyone would've known about, so in the end it's kind of a legit trivia video in a twisted way. The facts in the video were sourced from new research, me asking friends for suggestions and some of my old posts on Twitter, so there were a few 'fun' facts that were left on the cutting room floor, and here's a good place to share them!

In an early version of the GameCube instruction manual, Mario 64 was used as a placeholder game

The infamous 'black box' in Super Mario 64 DS is not a visual glitch as commonly believed, and briefly appears in E3 2004 footage

Prototype screenshots of Mario 64 have appeared in an early print of the game's box art...and on a Nintendo Monopoly board in 2006 (next to the ? Block on the right side of the board if you're looking)

The Onion in Hey! Pikmin has white and purple in its colors, even though white and purple Pikmin never appear in the game

The original 3DS had two separate sets of black & white colors, for some reason

And to finally come clean...yes, around 30% of the video's script was generated using ChatGPT, as part of the joke. Mostly the introductory bits at the beginning of each segment, since it definitely did not give me the results I wanted when I asked it to describe the specific details of each fact, so y'know, hopefully that's a sign it's not coming for my job of talking about obscure Nintendo things! And don't worry, this will probably be the only time I ever use AI in my videos.

The Better N64 Wavebird Experience

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This is a follow-up to a 2021 video where I also used the N64 Switch Online controller on an original N64, albeit with a different adapter! This actually isn't a case where I received a free product to do a review on, I just happened to read about a better alternative, pre-ordered it online, it arrived in April and I decided to knock out a quick review/comparison video in 2 days!

As such, this is more of standard informative review video, but in all honesty, I still really like this setup, and it's in my opinion still one of the best controller options for original N64 games. So much so, that I recently completed my NSO controller collection by picking up a Sega Mega Drive 6-button NSO controller to eventually use with my original Mega Drive! I'm still looking for the compatible 8bitDo adapter though, so maybe when I eventually do, that can be a quick little video on the Plus channel for patrons!

The Most Expensive amiibo

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This is my favorite video I put out this year! The Qbby amiibo has always been in my sights for a while, and I've gone on record saying that I'd make a video on it if I got my hands on one.

Back in 2019, I once saw a Qbby amiibo being offered on Yahoo Auctions for a relatively cheap price, but to afford it I asked for extra donations via Ko-fi. Looking back on it now there were probably better options I could've taken, but either way the listing got cancelled and I refunded everyone who donated for that. Then sometime later I saw another relatively cheap BOXBOY package in a local listing, but then the seller never replied and deleted the listing, so the amiibo has eluded me until now, and there seems to be no signs of Qbby stock going down any time soon. My hope for a Qbby reprint continues, and hopefully this video still serve as a little awareness boost for folks who are wondering why he's one of the most expensive amiibo around!

Some of the gag editing on this one got spruced up a little bit which I enjoyed doing, but you also probably noticed that I got a turntable specifically for those glamour shots! ...yeah, I'll probably get more use of that thing later on as well.

The Kirby Battle Royale online joke wasn't exaggeration: I couldn't find anyone to play online with! I suppose that is to be expected for, y'know, playing a mid 3DS game in 2023, but it's a shame that Kirby Battle Royale doesn't at least offer a option to play with friends, and from some experimentation, it seems that two of my US-based friends were able to match with each other online while I couldn't, which also suggested some region-based matchmaking was at play. Oh well! There are some better 3DS games out there that I'd still like to play online one last time before their servers shut down this April.

Tetris...on a McDonald's Nugget

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Continuing the trend of 'make video on a recent find' for the third video in a row, it's the China-exclusive McDonald's Tetris Chicken McNugget! For an unscripted Things of Interest video, it turned out pretty well, kinda like the Rhythm Tengoku arcade video in 2022! Compared to the first unscripted TOI back in like 2018, I've definitely gotten a bit better at rambling since.

I was kind of a few days late to the party, and some other videos about the Tetris Nugget from larger channels have racked up more views since, but that's not really the point! As a casual Tetris fan that happens to be in proximity to mainland China, something as bizarre as this is totally right up my alley. Covering China-exclusive gaming stuff just kinda reminds me that I have yet to do a video on the iQue Player though, which I really want to...

FlashBoy Plus: The $95 Virtual Boy Flashcart

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I haven't really taken a YouTube sponsorship deal yet, but I do get emails about doing reviews or ad reads of items on occasion, like new Switch gaming accessories from different third parties and whatnot. Unfortunately, that's not really the type of stuff I do regularly on the channel unless I find a great angle to tackle it from, so the only review offer I've done on the channel until now is a limited Switch physical release in 2020.

When I was offered to review the FlashBoy Plus, I was definitely intrigued despite having already previously covered the HyperFlash 32, a technically better option! Virtual Boy flashcarts are already a very niche thing, so I gladly took the opportunity to take a look at any new option out there, and even if it's not a mainstream topic at all it does kinda appeal to me specifically.

In the video, I mentioned the (very cool looking) clear cartridge shell was not a publicly available option yet at the time of the review, but looking at the order site now, it has been added since! So hey, good for them! It is honestly pretty sick to have a transparent Virtual Boy cartridge.

Playing PC Games with the SNES Mouse & Famicom Keyboard

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I started work on the next core video right after the FlashBoy Plus video (more on that in the last section), but getting sick during early December forced me to delay it, so for that month I decided to do one last spontaneous idea: a followup to the 2021 video where I used the Famicom keyboard and SNES Mouse on a computer...but this time on a proper PC!

A thing that was brought up in the comments was one setting in particular: when I was changing the mouse settings in the Control Panel, there was a 'Enhance pointer precision' option that I didn't uncheck, which presumably slows down the mouse for precise movements. There wasn't a super noticeable difference when I unchecked it during further testing, but when I coupled it with further increasing the mouse sensitivity in games that allow you to change it in-game, I was actually able to get the SNES Mouse to move at a decent pace in some games! Of course, that requires tweaking with additional settings that would normally be overkill for a regular mouse, so it's still not practical, but at least there was a setup that would alleviate some of my complaints in the video.

Akfamilyhome Plus videos

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Over on my second channel Akfamilyhome Plus, once again there's a variety of stuff! There's Mario Wonder memes, a new high quality video game rip album, archival footage and more. If there's one thing you should check out though, it's the supercuts of me playing Everybody 1-2-Switch with my Discord server. It's the best kind of chaos. Long live Kitchen Timer 4.

This year, 8 new unscripted bonus videos were released publicly! You can enjoy watching me:

Visit the 3DS eShop on its final day of operation

Check out the Nintendo DSi XL Demo Video carts

Look through gaming goodies on a Chinese second-hand market

Unseal Captain Toad Treasure Tracker for the 3DS

Read through the 2010 Nintendo Anti-Piracy Manual

Unbox a complete copy of the original GBA Play-Yan

Compare the two popular 3DS capture card models

And check out the Nintendo Power...rewritable cartridge!

And over on Patreon, 8 more exclusive videos are also available, featuring things like a slew of Nintendo cleaning kits, iQue DS games, the Chinese Mario Movie DVD and more! As always if you don't want to wait till some of them rotate into public availability, they're all available on Patreon for just $1 USD a month!

The fuuuuture

Okay, so what's next for 2023?

I mean 2024. Oh god the typos are already starting.

Right before the FlashBoy Plus video came out, in late June 2023, I did a video topic poll on Patreon, asking what idea I should do next. Out of the four options given, one of them is a continuation of a limbo project from 2021, and the other three were spontaneous new core video ideas I came up with and wanted to do.

Well, one of the spontaneous new ideas won the poll, so the next core video is...

A look at the camera and sound apps on both the Nintendo DSi and 3DS! I originally wanted to get this out in December, and you all know what happened to that plan, BUT the script is done, the VO recording is done, footage recording is well underway and I am confident I'll be able to get it out this January. I really like how the script for this one shaped up and am commissioning some banger thumbnail art for it (🐦), so I REALLY hope you'll look forward to it!

Afterwards, there are a few in-progress ideas that I also want to work on for quick videos afterwards. As mentioned above, I visited Nintendo Live 2023 Hong Kong which was hosted on November, and ALSO the Nintendo Hong Kong Pop-Up Store which is running from December to January, so both of those would make for a perfect video in a similar vein as the Kirby Pop-Up Store video last year!

I also went on a trip to Japan last August, and took quite a bit of photos and footage. I still want to share my findings and experiences of being in Tokyo for the first time that I could remember, so there will be a fun little piece about that going on the Plus channel in the future!

And don't forget, I'm making a video about every game I beat during 2023, continuing the thing I started last year!

And after ALL of the above is done, I still have the remaining core video ideas from the June Patreon poll I did, since I did say I'd eventually love to do all of them, and that desire still hasn't gone away. I don't know how the rest of 2024 will go for this channel but I'd say this is a fantastic starting point, and I hope it'll all go up from there, since I'd really love to be more productive on here, while trying to keep that A-B-C balance in check!

So yeah! That's it for the 2023 Year in Review. If you've made it all the way to the bottom, thank you for reading! Here's a 25-use invite link to my Discord server as a little something! Thank you to all of you who've supported me this past year, whether you're a viewer or a patron, and I hope to keep up the work this year and try to strive for better!

#akfamilyhome words #year in review #Youtube

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