thanks to my fucking computer deciding that SHUTTING DOWN after 2 minutes of activity is an acceptable sequence of events, i lost 5 hours of building :))) i was almost fucking done thr entirehouse.

UNDERTALE YELLOW MERCILESS ROUTE SPOILERS

ive seen a couple people here and there be upset over how the route ends, but i want to give my two cents on why i actually really like it

(btw this is not at all me saying people HAVE to enjoy it, or arent allowed to dislike it, just sharing my own take on it)

if youve clicked the read more im going to assume youve played through the merciless route and seen its ending, or dont care about spoilers for it

otherwise what the heck are you doing here

but basically, what ive seen people get upset over a lot, is the fact that clover kills asgore and flowey instantly, takes the human souls, and then just waltzes out of the underground and beyond the players reach (which is my personal take on why resetting goes back to floweys control, and clover forgetting, instead of to when clover unlocks the save ability, is its not clover or flowey resetting, but us. the player IS a distinctly separate entity in ut/dr after all)

but honestly?? what else COULD have happened?? asgore couldnt handle frisk at level ONE. he didnt stand even a FRACTION of a chance against an lv 20 clover, who might i add, has a giant laser beam, a degree of soul magic not even frisk obtains. you COULD argue chara uses soul magic to "kill" our save file at the end of undertales merciless route though, i could see that, but still, clovers laser is a much more direct and obvious show of it. (and just to be safe, before anyone tries to say humans dont have magic, no, thats literally the entire premise of the setting is humans used magic to create the barrier, its just less present in humans than it is in monsters, who are made of the stuff)

and undertale yellows merciless route goes the route of deciding that undertales version already said everything there is to say on the meta aspects and the whole "you can so you need to" mindset, so instead it just calls it what it is: its a power trip. its mindless slaughter for the sake of getting stronger, whether its the player demanding a different ending (like deltarunes coldhearted route(im not calling it snowgrave, but this is entirely personal preference)), or again just wanting to see whatll happen. but either way its to feel strong.

and what happens at the end of that power trip? youve reached level 20. youve surpassed floweys control. you have as much power as you could ever hope to achieve. so, realistically:

whats stopping you from just killing asgore and leaving.

nothing. so you do.

and it leaves you wondering: was the power trip worth it. was the pain and suffering you caused worth it to get such a blatantly, not just non-canon, but ANTI-CANON ending? (EDIT: and i mean this in a positive way, its the same kind of self-reflection over your actions that undertale pulls, just communicated in a more indirect way)

and it being so anti-canon is part of why its such a haunting ending for me.

there really wasnt any other possible way for it to end. lv 20 itself and the way undertale and deltarune characterize that increase in power, in retrospect it feels obvious that it would be anti-canon in a prequel. monster souls are weaker than human souls, even at lv 1. so against a human whos lv 20, and who got there by constantly persisting and trying over and over to get past whatever obstacle is in front of them, and refuses to give up on their conquest, theres nothing anyone can do, and that alone rips the canon of undertale into shreds.

even SANS realizes theres nothing that can actually stop you, not even him, so the best he can hope for is that he puts up enough of a fight to make the player give up and/or reset, same reason his final attack is a turn that never ends.

and having to face that by helplessly watching clover blast an asgore-shaped hole in the story is TERRIFYING to me, in a way i really love the yellow team for doing. idk if its actually intentional or if im reading too much into it, but either way,

for me, some level of trauma related to being the least-favourite child is directly related to playing videogames and boredom

growing up my younger sister got handed the SNES controller and i didnt. she played with my parents and by herself and i watched but didnt play. sometimes this was because i wasnt allowed and other times i thought it was a choice, even though, my choice was because i didnt know how to play and if i asked my mom would have said "really? you want me to start a whole new save file JUST for you?" and i would have quietly said nevermind, and remembered not to ask ever again

when we got a wii, for my sister's birthday she got 2 wii games. for my birthday i got decorations even though i was too young to understand what a decoration is and i just tried playing with them (emphasis on try). sometimes i would come home from school and my sister would have a random gift (something i never got) - another wii game! because it was on sale at blockbuster, and oh sorry Luna, we didnt get anything for you because they didnt have anything you would like.

by the end of our wii, i had 1 wii game that was mine - i chose whenever i wanted to play it, for how long, and if anyone else wanted to play it they had to ask. that was the rules, because it was mine. my younger sister has 11 wii games.

when i was in middle school, i was not allowed to get a better (real) console. it was too expensive. plus, we have the wii, it works perfectly fine, just play on that. m...my one game? that i've been playing since i was 9? that i've 100%'d 5 times? yes.

when i was in highschool i wasnt allowed to have money, especially not to spend online. "luckily" i met an internet friend who was a hacker and sold what he claimed to be abandoned steam accounts. he gave me one for free. i played stardew valley and oblivion religiously, because my laptop was built in 2010 and could barely handle the lowest graphics settings of a game several years older than it. it ended up getting double-hacked so after a year of using it, i once again had no more videogames

now im an adult and i just... cant play videogames. basically none of them. after abut 30 minutes of playing i get so anxious that i have to stop. i havent played stardew valley in about 2 years, my favourite game of all time that i used to stay up until 8am playing.

the game loads, and im anxious because i forget the controls. i walk up to an npc and get anxious because if i dont pick the perfect dialogue tree, im failing myself by not being perfect, so i'll pause the game and go on my phone for 10 minutes to find the answer (i HATE doing this.) i approach a puzzle and im anxious because what if im not smart enough to solve it and i fail again? i need to check if anyone's in the room with me now because if anyone is watching me play they'll know i'm a failure too so i should stop playing. but, videogames are communal (they must be,) i have only ever experienced playing them with someone else there (watching sibling/parents play, watching youtube letsplays) but if someone else sees me fail i'm the worst person ever. and i mean, realistically, how do you even play a videogame for more than 1 hour? how do focus on 1 thing for that long? sounds fake to me

but... i want to play videogames. i know they're experiences. and i want to have experiences. especially because as a disabled person my only other option is youtube. so if i'm not playing videogames, i'm bored out of my skull laying in bed, doing nothing, staring at my youtube screen watching the exact same video essay for the 6th or 7th time this week because the algorythm's only other choice is "perfect damascus steel knife blade DIY"

other than youtube, what am i supposed to do? i cant play videogames - i'm not perfect at them, i cant focus, and i just dont deserve them. there is nothing else.

Someone reminded me of my Oldies Au so i finally got to making this little comic:

So for further context, this is Luca! Shes THE FIRST sonadow child.

Similarly to Tails, after being saved by Sonic the hedgehog, Luca would follow Sonic around. This of course, caused Sonic to be a bit concerend.

Eventually, Sonic and Luca would go looking for her parents, only to find that she has none.

(They died due to the Badnik Event, and also she just wasnt a documented birth (yknow like what they do in hospitals), so ppl like Rouge w/ gov file access wouldnt even be able to find her. Its a whole thing on its own.)

Though its not drawn in the comic, Sonic eventually would give in to that parental instinct (its like.. the older version of sibling instinct that he got w/ tails when he was younger.) and just straight up adopt her.

(Then at some point when he was watching Luca just be herself i think the emotion he experinced was: 😢 because he got sad she had noone to care for her to then 🥹🥳 once he realized he could just straight up adopt her and BE the one to care for her.)

Also, NOBODY KNEW that he had adopted a kid. You wouldn't believe the reaction Shadow had when he finally put together that Sonic happened to have CHILD just out of NOWHERE

(Bro was flabbergasted and udderly shook. Took him a solid couple minutes to just process.)

(Whilst peeps like Tails, Amy and Knuckles weren't all to suprised. Lol.)

Hello hi, I saw you do commissions and wanted to know what. Pay style app so you recommend for people also trying to start on them

Hello! HMMM tbh im quite new at this whole comission thing so I just have some advices I can give

1- If your just starting a Paypal account (thats what i use to get paid in Ko-fi) its going to take a couple of weeks before they release the funds at first, its really annoying. In theory they can be released early with enough sales, but I wasnt able to do that and it was really annoying

2- NEVER EVER leave ur money saved up in ur paypal account, transfer it as SOON as you can, it takes a few days for that also (2-6 days usually)but at least the process is starting i think. Paypal is known to just close accounts from artists and take the money and not returning it because of the ''rules of the website'' or just random things, I recommend this video if u want to know about it more

3- I usually get paid in Ko-Fi and put some general rules in my Comission listing of how the art can be used, what do u want from the character, etc, but when i get paid in Paypal, I send the client an invoice. I recommend watching some videos about it because i do find it kinda confusing

I can't say i recommend Paypal but I am from Mexico, so some USA options arent really available, I would try to look for some better alternatives

Besides that, try doing a price sheet and what you do and you dont draw, set an email for just your art so you can communicate easily with your clients, always save up your art files in other device (even if theyre not completed) because life can be a bitch and bitlock your shit and you might lose everything :B

And thats about everything? I'm not the best at this but its what i know jeje, hope it helps

After Hours

Snyposis: After a long day at work all you want to do is go home and sleep, but your "husband" has another idea.

Tw: married to gojo, gojo is needy, nsfw, oral sex,penetration, annoying husband

~~~~~~~

You had a long day at work. File after file,case after case. You were a office clerk at Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School and the new case loads are insane. Ever sice that Yuji kid asorbed the king of curses Sukuna's finger, there have been more and more curse sightings and eliminations,and princepal Yaga was breathing down your neck to get the new case files completed.

You thought he was being ridiculous and unfair seeing as you were the only clerk employed to handle his files. All you wanted to do was go home and shower before your husband arrived.

You met him on your first day. He was charming and showed you places he wasnt supposed to. He even saved you from a random curse stalking you home. Other faculty members warned you that he had another side to him, but you found it hard to believe. During your time dating, he showered you in gifts. Even your engagement ring was expensive. It wasn't until after marriage that you seen what the others had warned you about.

He became incredibly annoying bragging about how strong he was. When he wasnt doing that, he was childish and had the attention span of a todler. Honestly, he drives you insane on most days, but you loved him either way.

It took a whole day and most of the night when you finally finished with the filling. The last one was on a new special grade with patchwork skin and the ability to morphe his body. You sighed and stood up to put the last file away and head home hoping your husband wasnt there.

it was 10 o clock in the evening when you finally made it home. The house was quiet so you assumed your husband was still at work. You sighed in relief meaning you didnt have to make dinner that night. All you wanted to do was just shower and sleep.

You went into the bathroom, removed your makeup, and took a nice hot shower. After you brushed your teeth, and put your faveorite face mask ( your husband got it for you after one month of dating and its been your faveorite since.)

After you removed your face mask and started to brush the knots out or your (h/c) hair, your darling husband walked in. "Im home," he called out. You responded "bathroom". He walks through and comes up behind you to pull you into an embrece,but you pushed him away. "Shower first," you said. "You smell like a wet dog."

Gojo went to smell his under arms, "its not that bad. Is it?" "Yes!" You screamed. "Shower first or your not getting in to bed and can sleep on the floor again." Last time you let him into bed smelling like that,it took nearly a gallon of laundry detergent just to get the smell out. Gojo started to pout looking like a todler throwing a tantrum. "Can you at least join me, Ive been away from you all day." "No I already took a shower and I dont need another one"

"But-" he started, and you cut him off by closing the door to the bathroom. You went in to the closet and put on a (f/c) negligee and matching panties and crawled into bed and closed your eyes.

After about half an hour, you felt the covers move and the bed dip a little and Gojo's damp naked body press up against your back. "You seriously couldn't dry off before getting into bed. Your hair is wetting my pillow."

Gojo laughed. He knew you hated when he got into bed not fully dry. "No. As I was trying to say before you rudly closed the door in my face, I missed you all day and I need to feel your soft body against mine."

You felt his hand sliding up your thigh moving your negligee over your hips. He tried to pull you onto your back, but you stiffened and fought against him. "Not tonight. I had a long day and Im exausted." Your words didnt stop him as moved his hand to your inner thigh. You went to push his hand away. " I said no Satorou. Im exausted. Dont make me kick you out of this bed."

"Just for a little while'" he said seductively. "You dont have to do anything. Let me feel you." As much as you wanted him to fuck you, you really were tired an had another early day as did he. "Satorou," you whined. "I really am tired and I want to sleep. You can do this tomorrow night when im off the the day after. "

Gojo stopped for a moment. 'Maybe for once he understands and will leave me alone ' you thought, but once again thought wrong. He pulled at your shoulder til you finally relented and lay on your back and he climbed on top of you. You looked at him in the eyes.

All argument left your body when you look into his peircing blue eyes... and he's fucking pouting. You roll your eyes. "Alright fine. But dont take too long, I really want to sleep."

Gojo's face lit up as he locked his lips with yours. He slid his tounge along your lower lip wanting entrance that you propmtly denied. Gojo slid his hand into your panties and began to gently rub your weeping pussy making you gasp. Gojo took the oppurtunity to slide his soft tounge into your warm mouth exploring every croner. He then broke the kiss the same time he slid a finger into your drenched hole, earning a soft moan. Gojo licked his lips and locked eys with you."For someone who didn't want sex, your sex is absolutly dripping."

Gojo sat up and pulled your panties off. He gently kissed your lips, then your neck, chest, and stomach. He paused hivering over your pussy and gave you one last look before he swiped his tounge across your clit.

You let out a soft sighs and moans as he started to tounge fuck you. "S- ah Satoru not so rough. P-p-pleas be more-ah-gentle." You stammered out. " (y/n), this is your punishment for shuttting the door in my face." "But-" you started, but he stopped you buy replacing his tounge with his fingers causing you to let out a loud moan. "Don't worry baby. Ill make sure you can walk again. I know you and I have work tomorrow. It wont be like last time I promise. But for now let me make you feel good."

Gojo started to pump his fingers at a medium pace. Your vision blured as he found your soft spot. You felt the pressure rise in the pit of your stomach as gojo started to suck on your clit while his fingers assaulted your insides.

The pressure in the pit of your stomach snapped as Gojo started to roughly suck on your clit. The plessure you recieved was damn near maddening. Your body began to spasm and you let out a series of loud moans as Gojo continued to roughly eat you out.

After a few seconds, Gojo released his lips from your clit and removed his fingers from your now soaking sex. He licked his fingers clean while moaning and looking you in your (e/c) eyes. "That tasted good baby. Ill never get enough." He said.

You wanted to reach up and smack him when he began to line up his twitching cock. You closed your eyes as he slowly eased himself inside til he bottomed out. " Damn baby after all this time being married, you pussy is soo tight. Your silky walls are gonna suck me dry." He then pulled out half way before slamming into your cervix earning another loud moan.

Gojo's thrust were hard and fast. You could do no more than whine and moan as you felt every muscle in his hard cock. Gojo used one hand to hold your hands down while the other wildly rubbed your twitching clit throwing you into another orgasm. At this point you were a weeping mess as your husbands thrusts got quicker giving you your third ogasm of the night. He was no better grunting and groaning like a wild animal.

You felt Gojo's thrusts become slopper and he started to twitch inside you. "Mmm baby im so ugh so close. Gojo started to twitch over you. He then threw his head back as he thrusted into you one final time realeasing his seed deep inside you. You felt the warmness of his cum as he released inside you making you cum for the final time tonight.

Gojo rested his forehead againt yours bofore giving you a gentle kiss on the lips and rolling off you.

"Try to contain youself babe. We both have work tomorrow and im too exaused for round two." Gojo went to embrace you, when he felt a kick to his stomach that sent him tumbling to the floor. "Don't worry babe. Have a good night on the floor."

I'm rewatching some episodes from cobra kai, and I just watched where it went wrong between Kreese And Silver.

It is fascinating to watch by just the expressions of these two alone.

When Kreese wanted Terry's help he came to his house after over 30 years, all judgemental that terry wasnt much of a fighter anymore. Terry, who worked on himself through therapy and long years of filing in his life with things that were non- violent and peaceful even.

Up comes kreese to crumble it, comes once again to ask terry to help him win this fight. To ask terry to put his life on hold, or in this case even expects him to turn off his whole life, for him. Because you owe me. Even when he doesn't say it, even when he pretends that isn't the reason, it is. He always plays with that thought. And terry knows it.

Does Kreese care how Terry's doing? Did he even thought of him in all this time? He only showed up when he needed something.

But terry owes him, and being triggered by kreese's words and his own guilt/loyalty/trauma he does go. He tries to play nice, to stay decent, but he falls back in his own ways.

But then the part I started talking about happened.

We see Kreese start to feel threatened very quickly. Terry shows up, energetic, charming, rich and the promise of better possibilities (better equipment, quality and promotions/ expensions). Already in physique alone he towers over kreese. Then terry starts speaking like an equal, with his own ideas, and Kreese does not like that! You see him looking everytime terry talks and it isn't mimicking his own words or actions.

It builds up and terry is unaware. Why would he be? They're friends, partners! Not enemies. But then the little bet was made. All in good fun right? Sure terry picks 2 weaker students at first.

But then kreese picks robby and terry unexpectedly chooses Kenny.

And kreese is amused. Poor Kenny, looked down upon again. He's new. He's still being trained by robby, he still scared and shy to act. But the fight starts and as terry expected, robby holds back to not hurt Kenny and Kenny uses it to his advantage! Just like Terry meant! Because this was a lesson about an opponent's weakness! And Kreese didn't really get that.

Terry wins and is happy, and Kreese...Kreese can't take it. Terry dared to talk about Kreese's weakness in front of the students, AND proves his point.

And then we get scene with the beer, where kreese comes to congratulate his buddy... by bringing up trauma and questioning (while silver is obviously vulnerable and reliving it all) his loyalty. Where he tells Terry that he isn't a friend after all, that he needs to learn his place. Beneath Kreese, always. They aren't equals, they aren't partners. Silver is supposed to be a lackey. Helpful, but never as good as.

(Then you get the next training scene where you see terry suddenly standing behind kreese, not next to him like he did before. It obviously had an immediate reaction in him.)

Which brings us to Terry feeling the need to prove his loyalty, to fix things.

He sets up Johnny, which is easy to be honest, but brilliant because it goes flawless. And terry starts beating up Johnny. He's so very happy to do so (it's both to show his fighting spirit, to show kreese his capabilities, and jealousy of the fondness kreese still has for Johnny), but he's stopped. By kreese. Who normally says no mercy. That there are no weaknesses.

Yet here he is. Helping Johnny. Saving Johnny. What a hypocrite! You stopped Terry proving himself and riding you off your weakness, for this loser?! Terry doesn't understand. He did everything right, everything kreese asked of him, and he only got it thrown back in his face, but kreese let's Johnny walk?

So he goes and gets drunk. And he's ranting to himself. Because everything he believed in was turned upside down. He gave up everything and he got bitten. He's mentally unwell here. He's thrown back into his ptsd, he's disillusioned by his friend who acts like he's the enemy, and his friend who just shown weakness he rejects in others. He's hurt, he's mad, he's lost. And then stingray shows up.

Poor stingray, at the wrong time and not very smart and very eager.

So when we get to the tournament and we hear kreese say this to robby:

And Kreese doesn't even know he's both the friend and the opponent, and he taught his lesson well.

What are some pieces you're particularly proud of?

This is a really great question and I wanted to give it a thoughtful answer so it took a few days.

I'm most proud of the art I made when I first started learning Blender a little over two years ago so I could do gamejams with friends.

Very early on, I remember thinking that I wanted to save and keep all my progress so I could look back on it one day -- so I saved more or less everything I've ever made, in chronological/numbered order, so it's easy to look back fondly and get a snapshot in time of what I was making and how goofy it was.

This is the first thing I made after fumbling with Blender's sculpting tools, and realizing I could make muscly-men-shaped things and also bird-shaped things.

I would try to keep sculpting things for a while and get super frustrated at my computer not being good enough to handle the files. Eventually this would nearly cause me to quit learning altogether, convinced that my computer was too underpowered -- not that I was working in absurdly high-poly without realizing it.

This attempted gimpsuit Bowser I tried making for a friend, for example:

75 million triangles!!!

400mb!!!!

Not really knowing any better, it took me a long time and a lot of trial and error doing gamejams and working with my smarter, more wizardly gamedev friends to start getting an understanding of poly counts and optimization. Eventually, with a lot of practice and models, I would get better at working in low-poly - a style I really like. By comparison, my last model was 33,116 triangles (7mb)

I can tell from looking at my pile of projects that something clicked after our third gamejam. I started having a better understanding of how Blender worked as software, and how 3D modeling worked conceptually. At some point, I started seeing misc art ideas on tumblr etc. and thinking "i think I know how to do that!", and some of the time I actually could (or at least, a bootleg quality version of it)

But the biggest turning point for me, and the closest I can get to answering the question about projects I am most proud of, were these two models.

I had started playing Dragon Quest 11 some time before I started learning art, got bored/burned out on it, and unknowingly quit right before the big mid-point events of the game. It wasnt until a year or so later that I picked it up again, and immediately saw it with the noobie "cube eyes" I'd been developing over the last few months.

I realized that the art style was beautiful yet simplistic enough that I could try and copy it, and was indeed able to make pretty decent versions myself (though unusably unoptimized it has to be said). It was also my first deep dive into Blender shaders, something which would take me another year or so to even scratch the surface of.

That moment not only empowered me a ton as an artist, but it also opened a whole new way for me to play and appreciate games that I had never experienced in my like 25+y of viddy gaming up to that point.

Honorable mention:

I went through a BOTW phase earlier in the summer when I replayed it looking for art to make. My eye crimes are buried deep in my #my art tag, but tldr I made a rito first, then zora, a goron... building up to the big man himself - whom I was afraid to try making because I was afraid I wouldn't do him justice.

Kass was easily the most complicated model I had ever made until that point - involving handpainting his colors and patterns, a complex rig for animating both the body and the accordion, and just a lot of decor and misc outfit accessories. I cut some corners from the original design, but I was still really happy with both the result, and myself for being able to have achieved it.

Thank you for the ask!!

Im still like a year later debating resetting my animal crossing save file but also I dont know if i want to since i have gotten so far and I dont really want to lose it but I also want to reply the game. I HATE how nintendo basically made the save system in the game as being one island per console. No matter how many save files you make you still have the same island unless you reset the save entirely! Why the fuck should I have to buy a new console to be able to keep my current island but also replay the game from the start? Its the same bullshit as we had with the old DS games where you had to get a new game cartridge, but at least for that it wasnt an entirely new game console! Even pokemon had the fucking courtesy to stop with the one save per game cartridge when it switched from 3DS to switch, and that was probably the best decisiok they have ever made! I love the games nintendo makes but it feels like they take a step forward and then three steps back with how they handle the save file systems they have. How can it be harder for the switch to handle two different AC Islands on one system over 5 saves per game for the pokemon games all with different levels of completion and different teams and shut like that? How can the switch handle 5 different minecraft save files, all with several different worlds that are randomized entirely and get new updates occasionally and also can have huge generated and player built structures, but it cant handle two different animal crossing islands, so it has to have the same island with the same progress and look and all that on all save files on the system, only you add a new house to the island per save file. Its so stupid. I hate it. I shouldnt have to get a whole new console to be able to play on a new island!

having been here from the very beginning i think my fave aru sekai series lore is that

• despite it very clearly being a series (it is. it IS i can prove it to u) hiiragi magnetite has never addressed it as such. the fan art tag on twitter is aru sekai bijutsuten However it was chosen via poll and was a listener created tag. hiiragima themself has yet to say anything about it being a series. if u ask them a question (for example when i asked if the charas have names) they wont correct u & know what ur talking about but nope. they dont talk about the content of the songs outside of the songs at all

• possibly not aru sekai but we'll see eventually- they decided to make a song thats one second for every like they got. theyre currently making a song thats 70,000 seconds long (like 19 &1/2 hours). they have the file name saved so that "seconds" is replaced with "illness" which sounds the same in jpn

• the content is so fucking specific every time i see other people try to translate it theyre like "this was so confusing". they are so right but also i promise u it gets 2% easier when u know the songs are related

• sena yuta does the art for the main aru sekai series songs. asa is the other illust. even tho asa tends to do art for nonseries songs (nadenna, uni, rasshaina) marshall maximizer & canon are absolutely part of the series & i cant believe i keep seeing people over look this. the motif is RIGHT THERE. canon says aru sekai de in THE FIRST LINE whats not clicking

• many songs have context as text flashed for a frame in the video background! as of right now aru sekai soushitsu, kyuuyaku hankagai, shuuen touhikou, unplanned apoptosis, marshall maximizer, canon (this ones in code) have text. oumen mokushiroku, kugutsu ashura, laboratory do not. (if u want to get technical oumen has the ou kanji to say its part of the aru sekai shoushitsu order but theres no new information in it)

• all of the songs except for kugutsu ashura & laboratory have the "nami no ne no yume wo miyou" melody from aru sekai shoushitsu worked in somewhere. if u dont believe me ill get u time stamps if u ask. those two songs dont have it but im telling u its thematic, they ARE part of the series, but i cant only really theorize on what it means until we get more songs & content

• hiiragima once said "if u dont know how to read the title of kugutsu ashura you can just call it ashura" this is especially funny bc they always put furigana for their titles in their descriptions.

• they actually do a good job of getting characterization across once u get past the technical language they use. some of them are a lot more obvious than others (unplanned apoptosis. i think this girls so funny bc its so different from everything else) but theres a lot u can get from the word choice/play once ur used to all the weird science (?) terms. sena yuta's art also does an AMAZING job of getting their characters down in a single drawing. u can tell so much from the art for real. this is a whole essay in itself im stopping here for now

• all the characters have names!!!!!! i would know i asked directly & they responded they said yes the characters have names but theyre waiting for the right moment to reveal them. every day this torments me both bc i would like to call her by name instead of saying tenshi everyday and also bc i know this means they have plot significance & im not ready to handle that

• so far all the charas in the songs are girls but if i remember correct the bg text in some songs (shoushitsu & maximzier i think? id have to double check) refers to there being at least one guy in there somewhere.

• this is just a personal note but none of these people have basic lab safety i mean look at their outfits. if the world wasnt ending they die anyway wearing that esp the laboratory chara but i digress

• in general the series is ur "the world is ending and we need to find a way to stop it from ending"typical story i guess. not only plays on destruction of the world but also destruction of the self. its not ur lighthearted easy to handle voca series if u want that may i suggest honeyworks or perhaps last notes mikagura school suite instead

• we dont have a timeline. i can tell u from context the songs arent being posted in chronological order. i have no idea what the order is ive made a guess before but its just a guess.

• theres a paragraph in shoushitsu about a swampman & hilarious as it sounds it actually describes exactly whats going on. both about how the world functions in that no two attempts are the same but also that people who lose their "self" are also The Same But Not. which is interesting to know its so thought out considering the time between songs & how hiiragima claims to just be doing whatever they want. its very cohesive. somehow.

• i have no idea why the english titles of the songs are like that on youtube. i dont know if they did that themself or not but i for one refuse to acknowledge that shuuen touhikou is called "blade" over there. girl what how did we get there u just lost soo much connotation doing that. i want to say the swords arent even a main part of the song but i dont think i can actually. anyway the "eng" titles on yt dont exist to me

• the theme used to be 5 kanji title songs were the main songs and katakana with the first repeating (ex MArshall MAximizer) were more like. sub or context songs. and then we have like canon & laboratory so idk if those are just another type of song along with the others or if they decided they didnt want to follow that anymore. i need more info but still something to note. the kanji songs also used to be sections of shoushitsu (kyuu, shuu, ou, fuu, mei, juu, mou, ei) but then, again, kugutsu ashura threw me off so [vague confused gesturing]

• rain. thats all i need to say really. very few songs that dont have rain or the color blue in it somewhere & that's absolutely intentional.

• i saw sena yuta say something about flower language in regards to the laboratory art but i never saw if they elaborated and my friend whos into flower language was having a time trying to pin point what flower it was so for now another mystery unsolved

I was looking throught some of my old art files (procrastinating lmao) and found this project I started back when Rift Apart came out

It definitely wasnt a way of self inserting myself into the plot or anything cough cough

Anyway I remember that the basic plot was something like this (this has ended up WAY longer than intended so sorry about that rip):

At the beginning, when Ratchet and Clank are falling through the broken rifts, one of them spits them out over a rural farm in [insert a country here] where a human is feeding the chickens in the evening. They see the rift and the figures falling through it, and run over to see whats going on.

"Ummmm,, are you okay?" They ask the aliens, although its seems like they either didnt hear them or were just ignoring them.

Ratchet, who had faceplanted the ground, peels himself up onto his hands and knees, still not noticing the human in front of him, groans, "Clank, buddy, you have any idea where we are?"

The little robot picks himself up and scans the area, seeing the human but paying them no mind past a quick glance, "We appear to have landed on a distant, primitive planet."

"Primitive?" The human exclaims, "that's a bit rude, isn't it?"

Hearing this other voice, Ratchet jumps up exitedly, "oh good, a native! Where's the nearest space port?"

The human looks confused, "space... port...?"

Ratchet and Clank look at each other, worried and annoyed, respectively. "As I said... Primitive." Clank muttered.

Before the human could refute this, sirens could be heard in the distance, growing closer.

Deciding to let go of their annoyance at the robot's comment, the human makes a split second decision. "Look, if you guys really are aliens, you'll need to hide somewhere. Those sirens are probably looking for you, and they won't be nice."

"Oh don't worry, we're used to running from the Law." Ratchet brags.

"Sure, just - we have a big barn round the corner, and a forest to the north, you can probably hide out there. I'll try to stall whoever comes here for as long as I can."

"Thanks, uh.. what's your name, by the way?"

They all exchanged names before the robot jumped onto the lombax's back and they ran off.

***

From this point I dont have a completely clear plot, just that it's the police and government who show up, the human denies any knowledge of what happened, claiming to have thought the rift opening was just lightning. The police then search the whole farm and part of the forest but dont find anything (not sure how - but r&c are stealthy so I'm sure theyll have thought of something. Plus the police are dumb and tend to half-ass things lol). After they all leave, the human goes to check on all the animals: the cows, sheep and chickens in the paddocks, and the horses in the stables. They check on the barn last, which is where r&c were hiding, giving the human a shock when they jump down from the rafters. They come to some sort of agreement that r&c can hide out there to build a new ship from scrap metal that the human takes from local tips and scrapyards. The government is on their backs constantly but somehow they manage to evade complete suspicion until the very last moments before the ship is finished. The human is taken by the government to be tortured for information, and r&c have to decide whether to leave straight away and avoid conflict, or whether to save their new friend and risk potential capture themselves (i think its obvious which option they'll take hehe). The cost of breaking the human out of the facility they're being kept in, is that they won't be able to live peacefully on earth anymore - the government would be able to find them no matter where they went, bc it would be a global effort since it has to do with aliens and such. So the human has to leave earth behind, and travels with r&c through the universe and more stable rifts, trying to get back to Kerwan. Since the ship is made of scraps, it eventually breaks down, thus flinging the three back to the start of the game, falling through rifts until they end up where they do.

I'm not sure if the human would end up with one of the two, or if they would end up elsewhere entirely. I literally only ever planned out the meeting and thought very briefly about how they would get off-planet. If anyone fancies picking this up, go ahead, just pls tag me bc I'd love to see it 🤠

(And dw, the farm animals would be taken care of by family/friends of the human; they'd have told their closest confidants at some point that they're hiding aliens from the government after acting suspiciously about all the scrap metal they suddenly have lmao)

Apple is so fucking anti-consumer and I don't even know why anyone still sucks on their dicks like its the best company ever

I have a mac, right, because adobe kept fucking destroying my old computer and I am required to have a macbook for my future classes. So I got one.

Here I am working on an assignment and I notice that it needs an update, obviously since I'm under time constraints I don't do it yet because I don't want to wait at most an hour if its a big update.

Next thing you know my art program continues fucking crashing. Mind you this is Krita not photoshop bevause I could use the adobe suite with no issue earlier today. Now why does krota keep crashing? It continues to crash while im working or while saving, having to rely on recovery files that lost time consuming chunks of what i worked on already.

It crashes again and this time I send an accident report. This is the only application open on my device. And finally after an hour more of this I go to help pop up to see what the potential issues could be.

In the middle of the fucking list is an update to the whole device. I'm sorry, but my prohrams were working 100% fine before i got the notification, but now you are forcing me to spend time I do not have on your fucking update because oh no apple can't work normally now because it totally wasnt working fine before

Shitty ass company, I have to skip class today to finish this now because my professor will be pissed because i didn't get to start the other assignment yet

My apologies for taking. So long to respond time literally slipped away from me. I simply thought school festivals were fake & made up. Can confirm snake bites are cool & i hope you can get them. My tattoo wasnt fully healed yet so its now mostly done & i have to return next month to finish it. For real it was raining here last week & now its like. Sunny & nice & im like. Pick a lane weather. The autism sure does affect. A whole lot & i wish it would like. Do less. Yeah sparkle like. Makes seele cracked. Or anyone really. Thanks! I havent maxed her talents yet but like. I now have all 3 versions of mei & am stoked. Robin actually sings during her ult ive heard which is cool as hell & i wanna try for her maybe? Still undecided but i know people who want boothill. The triple su drops gave me basically nothing for archeron & i am. Salty. I need to build pela & welt but also i have. So little time. Adventurine is actually a solid shielder but like. Idk. I dont have clara on main so im uncertain on his usage when i have so many others to work on. & genshin is taking my time more for arlecchino funds. I wish the game was that nice to me for clara i even have her light cone but not her. Best part of archeron in sim universe easy. Skipping so much bullshit. I finally was able to get ratio up to clear swarm & do gold & gears which i enjoy way more. Ah yeah that is her best set from what ive heard & both of them seem to hate giving me good pieces for her. So im operating on a weird mix until i get good stuff. Scuffed but works. Have you heard her line for joining a team with black swan yet? Ive uh. Been on a trinity of genshin star rail & ai the somnium files trying to like. Actually beat games in my backlog. Bartender event was so fun im glad they are doin solid on the events like the potion makin event for genshin was pretty good. Sorry for throwin off the equilibrium immediately its been. A time.

HI I AM ALSO VERY VERY SORRY...... i was in croatia for 2 weeks + school Got Me..... i am back though. AND YEAH REAL AS HELL i like unironically thought that was something made up for television. but it Is really great that they exist irl. tons tons tons of fun to work on it and then see the result hehehehe...... and thankies!!!!! i will defo in the future. and hey its been around a month so!!!! hows your tattoo!!!!!! also if i may ask what is it Of...... AND REAL LIKE. make up your damn mind. today especially was a weird day cos its cloudy but SO hot out. and godddd yeah. me when the neurodivergence makes my neurons divergent. but at least i get back on my meds Soon...... hopefully....... i have an appointment at least. and oh nice!!!! i am unfortunately seeleless but maybe i will get sparkle......... one day......... saving for firefly right now tho. shes so cool i love her. AND ALSO ISNT IS SOOO COOL THAT SHE IS ACTUALLY CANONICALLY MEI. its so cool its so cool. scratched my brain just right. tho i actually havent finished the trailblaze mission yet bc i failed the second dominicus fight JSHD. cos of the forced tb in the party. hell on penacony. and yeah she does!!!!! also how did your pulls go??? good luck if you havent gotten her yet. i wanted boothill before i found out that firefly is right next patch so. Rerun perhaps. AND YEAH SAME like. What was even the point. i need to get my bailu built better first tho..... Augh. one must imagine star rail players happy. I NEED TO BUILD PELA TOOOOOO and im unfortunately weltless But im planning to get him from the 300 on standard since i still havent hit that. somehow. and ahhhh yeah thats fair, tbf my clara team is just pulled together by. March 7th. but she does her damn job so who am i to complain!! and oh good luck with arlecchino!!!! i cant play genshin anymore, fortunately or not, but i Did get back into arknights recently so. theres that. and auugh i have the same with gepard [yes lightcone, no him]. AND YEAH SHE REALLY DOES MAKE SU EASY. god i love her. and hey congrats!!! yeah i like g&g more as well even if it does not like me. but ah what can you do....... also running chars on scuffed gear is just like. A canon experience i feel. and Yes i have......... augh. and ooh nice!!!! havent heard of the third one i think?? and yeah bartender event Was a lot of fun. also DONT WORRY AB IT as you can see. am Very Late as well.

writing out my thoughts on an astronomer/mermaid 0222 au (refer to my insane pepe silva sky/sea symbolism bullshit)

this is just stream of consciousness into the keyboard tbh it's just getting too long to fit on my google slide LMFAO

class a (the big 5) r on a marine research vessel looking for the reason why boats keep getting fucked up in this area despite no known dangerous organisms documented there (but th class e mermaids r there just hidden). gakuhou prob knows theres smth fishy (pun not intended) going on & is sending them on a wild goose chase ig. gakuhou is fully intending sinister bullshit but the big 5 dont rly know the whole of whats going on but they are still assholes.

mae is astronomer who got to tag along for plot reasons but hes focusing on the stars in the region where theyre sailing around instead of the water. mae is prob mistreated on the vessel cuz he got on it thru connections or watever & they dont Ljke him so they like fuck with his research n whatnot cuz it disrupts their own. idk. like they prob throw his files into the water and r like oops haha lol accident sorgy. (not accident not sorry).

umm well i cant decide if this instance would be like the big 5 throwing something off or class e trying to fuck up the boat (to keep ppl away from their home obviously cuz they dont wanna be discovered!!!) but mae falls off and iso saves him (typical mermaid au bullshit) but like mae only sees a flash of isos torso before he swims off OBVIOUSLY cus theyre NOT SUPPOSED TO LET PPL KNOW THEYRE THERE LOL but iso prob saved mae cuz he saw that mae wasnt one of the big 5. like he saw mae was getting mistreated n whatnot n couldnt let mae also be a victim.

regardless of whether it's just mae who falls overboard or if all of them fall their boat isnt fully destroyed and is fine to operate so theyre still there but now mae at least knows theres like. a person or something !?! so he starts to get more interested in the water along with the stars which makes the big 5 Suspicious 🤨 but they dont know the whole story either. then for plot related reasons they finally capture someThing (someOne) (it's Iso) in like some net or some shit n since mae is more interested in the sea now he ends up being the one closest to it n he sees iso there n they look at each other and mae is like Holy shit its that beautiful beast who saved me earlier. and he also has a fucking beautiful koi tail what the fuck. and isos like Hey man whats up lol im kind of in a pickle here. n even tho mae is like awestruck by this beautiful person (?) infront of him n he has so many questions he also knows the big 5 r gonna come asap so he makes the split second decision to fuck up the net on purpose so iso can escape n iso stays around in the water long enough to hear that mae takes the heat for it so that further enforces in isos mind that mae can be trusted u know what i mean.

i dont have any specific plot related ideas beyond this YET but i needed to get it all out before i died, badly. thanks.

101 Pinball World (Teyon, 2012)

who greenlit this and can i go back in time to get them to un-greenlight it

the game 101 Pinball World is a dsiware title that attempts to be 4 themed pinball cabinets from the comfort of your nintendo dsi. it fails at this. the word "game" is doing some serious heavy lifting also

it boasts 4 worlds with a total of 101 tables when combined, but every "world" is really just the same set of board with different coats of paint. your ball can get stuck in places it cant get out of without tilting (which entirely disables your flippers until the ball is offscreen) and its happened to me multiple times a game before. it has 3 save files if you want to subject your friends to it and promptly lose said friends over it. someone made a trailer for it and noted how you can get a slow ball, tilt the board, or even have Ball Immunity, the number one funniest thing about this title

the sound design is both lacking and overwhelming at the same time. but the worst part is the... music? do i call it music? does it count as music? does any of this matter? does it ever end? do we get some sort of retribution for the horrendous auditory crimes of 101 Pinball World? i can answer none of these questions. as if you can even hear the music over the atrociously-mixed sounds of flippers and bumpers and points screaming from the ds speakers

here is the "soundtrack"/torment, uploaded in a video by a definitely unremarkable person who definitely didnt make a game everyone was talking about in like 2018. no siree. never happened

mystmans commentary on the game is pretty on-point, speaking as someone who decided this game was a good thing to spend my precious dsi shop money on a decade ago. i still get the title theme stuck in my head from time to time, though, since thats like the 2nd best song in the game. theres only 5 songs in this entire 5-dollar game, by the way. and also it was 5 entire dollars

which means theres no reason to rank them individually /ref

5. wizard theme - hilariously garbage. "ah shit, someone killed the keyboard player." worst thing i think ive ever heard from the ds. its even worse in person believe me. this is not music

4. space theme - kinda bland? idk. its like one synth loop forever. could be worse though, wizard theme proves that real well. has a weird buzzing in the back that really makes my brain hurt. i like the little ascending-descending sounds! very fun i forgot about those

3. pirate theme - good song, but ABSOLUTELY not pirate music. this sounds more like a beta track from club penguin: elite penguin force. i bet if you changed the soundfont itd fit the penguin bill just fine

2. title theme - catchy but empty. its like how modern deco*27 songs feel to me: good melody and beat, hollow instrumental. used to be 7-year-old-mes jam though. BEAUTIFUL bassline. goddamn. just gimme this for the whole ost honestly. itd only get a little grating.

1. spooky theme - regularly gets stuck in my head, albeit a better version i thought of so im not tormenting myself forever. this is what a song should sound like. it feels like this was made first and then the devs started running out of time to get the game out. keyboard drones in the back kinda give me a headache. but tbf that happens with all of the music and this is just the one that does it the least

overall, this game isnt even worth it for the bit. do not play this. i have found few games that are worse. maybe ill talk about them eventually. one day 101 Minigolf World will have its day. not yet though. 101 Pinball World was a soulless shovelware cash grab and it wasnt even fun. what a waste of 5 bucks. shame on you tiny tadpole past gio

overall rating: 2.7 - Real Bad. has 2 good music tracks and the menu ui looks nice. boring, broken, and somewhat painful under the surface -- like broken glass hidden under a shitty old paper-thin rug. cost too much money on the dsi shop channel for what it is. Do Not Play.

Extension Days

Since I was granted an extension for my assessment, I was able to have more time to think more carefully about it and how I could make it.

I realised when I reopened my aftereffects file that the way I had done everything was incorrect, as I had done a 6x3 layout which didn't allow for a square within the tartan to be centered, which is what I was wanting so that the next part of the animation could work as I wanted it to. Because of this error I had to go back into illustrator and redo the tartan that I was using as a reference for the positioning of all my elements, so that I could paste it back into aftereffects. I then had to redo this first step of the animation, which wasnt too bad since it was just a lot of shape duplication and then arrangement of their positions, which I did very quickly last time.

Once I had them laid out I then moved to tinkering with the positions of their keyframes, so that I could have them all offset from one another and have more interesting overlaps. It was also going to allow me to save the center line for last, as once that one exited the space of the frame I was planning to have it be tracked and followed down and away from the rest of the tartan. Before I thought about that though I had to do the second part of the tartan, that being the squares that were going to go below these lines and finish off the tartan in full.

I began by doing a single square in the middle that I spent a bit of time getting it as close to the perfect size as I could, fitting over the whole tartan square accurately and on the edge of its margins. This was super important to get right as I was then going to use that rectangle as a source shape to duplicate from, going up and below it with squares that I dragged from that original one. Then, after having created a line of three squares, I duplicated those three across to the left and right to fill the rest of the lines. Once I had them all in position I could then adjust the keyframes I had added to the source square, moving them all around and placing them where I wanted them to be.

This allowed me to make them start and finish when I wanted them to. The keyframes I had set up on them earlier had them going from non existent to full size for this part of movement, which made for a super effective introduction to them. After sorting all this out I played around with putting the squares first and the lines second, and then vice versa. These ideas both looked ok, but not astounding as having them sequential made the process of the tartan forming take almost 10 seconds, which was way too long and slow going. I thought then about putting them together, having squares show up while lines went past, which when I initially put them together immediately looked much better. I did have to adjust all the squares though, as I thought it would’ve been even better if I had them show up after an intersection in their respective place by the lines above them.

This decision was a very good one, as it lead to what I thought was quite a satisfying animation, as it was very smooth and managed I think to not come across as massively busy despite the amount of stuff that was going on. Having done this first part quite well, I could then move to the next part of the animation, where the tartan would then move down in the frame, reducing to a single middle line.

This was comparably not quite as difficult to work out as the first part, as it was mainly about adapting existing content within the animation to make a new shape that I could drag down the frame, before stopping at some point after a couple of seconds so that I could move into the third part of the animation that would reveal the text that was so important to this animation. I think it turned out well, the movement of it down the frame was interesting and a good speed that made it look like it was moving quite considerably. The stopping part of the animation was also not too bad, it was slightly sudden but I felt it got into its position in a way that wasn’t too jarring and contrasting the smoothness of everything else that had come before it. Having set this up now I could move to the next part of the animation that was going to lead closer to the text.

I had the ending square of this line come to rest at the top of the screen, before enlarging out from the bottom and filling the frame. The lines on that square also moved with the square, although I chose not to scale them with it so that I could try and vary the otherwise constant scale. Once I had the square take up the whole frame and change its colour I then made the horizontal line of the tartan stop short before the edge of the frame, before extensions of the line came down.

This part turned out rather smoothly which was nice, as it was the part in the animation where the tartan was least like it’s normal shape and structure. It also allowed for me to move into changing the frame to another color again, which this time would involve the text the rest of the animation had been building up to for about the past 15 seconds of eventual video.

This transition was maybe my least favourite part of my whole animation, as even though it could look like the lines were filling up the frame in the way a liquid would, I felt it was a rather weak way to transition into the next colour, when I had plenty of opportunity to do something better, especially with the lines that I had: they could’ve had a more pivotal role in this change. I mainly did it this way because I wasn’t sure how else to go about the change in the frame, which had to happen since I was going to bring the text in in that next part.

For this I returned back to a more tartan resemblant idea, which involved lines coming from out of frame and going across it. I also had the text match the colour of the background, so it would somewhat look like the line was moulding it’s way around the type. I had this happen somewhat quickly so that I could then move on to adding the rest of the text, which was going to complete the sentence of that specific line of my pepeha.

I had these bits of text come out from within the line, which I felt was the most effective way to do it, rather than having it come from the side of the frame and take its position from there. This also completed the main part of the animation, while also tying together all the frames to the relation of this text.

Having revealed the text and not having much allocated time left in the animation, I moved towards adding credits and making a title for the project, which I did by first resetting the background colour back to white again.

I did this by making the WALLACE text and the tartan line it was on expand out and become larger, engulfing the frame. I chose the C in that word to be the focal letter for this zoom in, as it eludes very slightly and obscurely to the next part being about the credits. To bring the background back to white, I put a copy of the word on top of the original that would not only scale with it, but go from 0% opacity to fill during this sequence. I think this transition was the best out of all the others, since it had an edge of uniqueness the other did not. Once the background was fully white again I could then add the information I needed for the credits.

I first began by adding some lines going across the frame, as a reference to the start and also to keep the consistency of the focal theme right the way through. I then had the text come in from the side as it felt like the best way to do it in this situation, as I had made the colours different in order to stand out more against these lines.

I also added music right at the end to my animation, since it definitely needed something more to elevate it and give it an extra level of depth. I wasn't quite sure exactly what I wanted to do for that, although I knew I wanted it to have some strong connectivity to the subject of the animation in order to help support it. I figured going in the cultural direction would've been good, since there is a fairly potent connection between music and tartan, not just the Wallace one, in Scotland. I thought briefly about bagpipes but I felt that would've most likely been too exuberant for my animation. Still not knowing quite what I wanted, I ended up just searching for royalty free Scottish music and scrolling pages for a while, listening to samples of every song I went past. I ended up after not too long finding a flute cover of the song Auld Lang Syne, which is used normally in occasions like New Years, and now things like graduation etc.

It ended up working quite well once I implemented it into aftereffects and dropped the master volume. It also very slightly has its beat matching parts of my animation, which his a rather great bonus. Its softness complimented the smoothness of the shapes I was working with, tying the animation together quite well and making it something I was rather happy with, which is something I don’t feel very often for a lot of my work, especially when it’s been forced into a small window of time because of myself.

While I was working through this animation and all the work associated with it, I also made the adjustments David said for me to do in my specimen booklet so that it could improve and be less space hungry like it was. Even though it wasn't absolutely necessary to do so, I wanted to do those adjustments anyway since they weren't that major and resolved a lot of the issues that had come about in my first version of the booklet. Once I had both these assignments done, I was able to finally submit my work that came out of a super messy, poorly managed first ever semester of university, which surprisingly I felt didn’t turn out all that badly.