Wow, so umm... This looks bad, not only is it inaccurate due to using the wrong ink demon design [unless this is confirmation BATIM Ink Demon has been outright retconned... Which would make me pissed enough to make a new post just about THAT] but from an art standpoint this is just... Confusing and poorly done.
I wouldn't care if this was fanart, of course you should support young, indie artists... But for a Graphic Novel making sure your cover doesn't look like something Butch Hartman shat out in an afternoon is kind of important. Remember they're going to be asking us to give money to them to read this. The artist likely won't see any of that money and neither do the authors most of the time, not to mention this art screams of the artist being underpaid and overworked.
Like they Had to get something on someone's desk and their boss said 'good enough'. A concept Joey Drew Studios is very familiar with considering the allegations of poor working environments that Kindly Beast. Not to mention Mike Mood admitting in a Reddit AMA that they did in fact rush projects like Showdown Bandit. [Which they sold at full price]
He also says they can in fact say no or yes to designs involving their IP. Either Mike or Meatly had to say yes to this cover, according to his own damn words.
And do you really think this company in particular would care enough about its fanbase to not sell them garbage? They have done exactly that on several occasions. It's not like they care particularly about art either, considering their previous use of AI Art. There was no apology or even posts addressing it... Instead, they just rushed out an archives update to their game to get people to stop talking about it... Even forgetting an entire character in it. Again
This company is [or at least SHOULD BE] on thin ice when it comes to being suspected of misleading their fans or rushing out crappy products to them.
So with all that context in mind, I'm gonna talk about why this cover sucks ass.
The light sources are all over the place? Why does it look like someone put maces or knight armor on his shoulders but it's just flesh?? It looks both gross and weird [not in a good way either]
To explain more I'm going on a rant below but sadly this seems to have been confirmed to not just be a rough pass but the final cover and man... I am not excited about this graphic novel just at all. This felt like it really drained any possibility of it turning out good for me and I already had expectations low.
Okay first point, the light sources?? And there is no consistency here with the shadows or lighting, it looks like there's a hundred light sources all at once but none of them are even consistent!
the arrows here represent all the different light sources I can make out and yet the the shadow clearly implies there's only one. I understand wanting to use highlights to give the character a more clear shape but then just give him one or two lights behind him or in front of him? No matter how u follow the light sources, the highlights make no sense and the shadows make even less sense.
Why are the shoulders like that? Like on the legs it's a little understandable, at least those are clearly very heavily affected by perspective, for me I think they are so exaggerated it makes it look like one of the legs is either huge or one is small but that's maybe subjective.
However, the shoulders are unjustifiable, what happened there, what did they do??
I could pick on so much more honestly, how the color choices of piss yellow with no other colors being used, and the harsh pitch black being used for every part of his body is weird. How it looks straight out of Butch Hartman's recent crappy art. But to put bluntly bad start! Also what the HELL is going on with this background??
Seems once again the Bendy team is fine with sending out stuff thinking it's "Good Enough" for Bendy fans and honestly the people trying to tell me to "Be Grateful" for this are just proving that no matter how many times you betray your audience some of em will defend you!
Which is sad tbh. If anything we should be putting MORE pressure on the Bendy team to do better. Cause we deserve better than this, honestly we do. There are amazing artists in the bendy community who could do so much better for a cover. They've employed their fan artists before... Wouldn't it be great to do that for such a lore important book? The book that gives us the identity of one of the main characters in BATIM? The character you spend the entirety of Chapter 4 fighting to save? Not to mention will give several major characters their human designs?
But I guess this is... Good enough...
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Hello!!!!!!!! Hope you're having a nice day!!!! I'm insane about your SOMA au, it's so nice to see an au where Simon is spared from The Horrors
Your au has so much potential and I think that's really neat, was anyone there when Simon woke up? Imagine how scary it must be if you're a pathos employee just chilling and then one of the dive suits gains sentience and starts freaking out, I'd hate to be the one to explain to him that he's not human and he's 100 years in the future
You said in one of your posts that he becomes the poster guy for robot rights, what did he do to become that popular? I'm genuinely curious about what some guy at the bottom of the ocean can do to become a major figure in what sounds like a civil rights movement
*emerges from the salt marsh covered in conference presentation abstracts and barnacles* oml I haven’t thought deeply about my beloved Paranoid Android of Pathos II AU in too long… I’m so glad that goofy little concept has been fun for you too!
1. Was anyone there when Simon woke up?
Kind of? In my head the diving suit+scanner was an abandoned pet project of Catherine’s that was quite literally shoved in a closet somewhere when other projects began to take priority. (The world isn’t ending; research is just Like That sometimes.) The closet happened to have a structure gel leak which contaminated the suit and bam! Simon is Very Confused and concerned about suddenly being in a closet. Catherine is in her office at the time, so hyper focused on her work she doesn’t really hear him come out of the closet and when he asks where he is/what’s going on she kind of assumes he’s a technician that got lost until she turns around and promptly Nopes Out. Explaining to him that he’s not human and 100 years in the future is Ross’ job (AI psychologist - that’s kind of in his job title, right?)
2. Why does Simon have international acclaim for pioneering android rights?
I’m not gonna lie that was a joke based entirely on the crack premise of him getting arrested for stealing from the on-station Panera Bread restaurant (which is entirely my own ridiculous invention for silliness purposes). I guess the reason why the world would care is because like…you arrested a robot. Does the robot’s ‘creator’ get prosecuted or does the robot? I imagine the case was dropped because it was so absurd and had never happened before but it technically set the precedent that a) AI scans are independent of their physical ‘creators’ and b) are entitled to basic rights insofar as the legal system and its proceedings.
A bit of a stretch to call it a civil rights movement since Simon is the only scan that’s ‘awake’ although I’m sure the Carthage Industries Ethics Committee is having a hell of a time figuring out if they need to stop using such scans/should they try to make more androids like Simon for profit/etc. Bad day to be in the corporate offices.
…although I reiterate that factoid was born from the joke premise of Simon stealing from Panera. A restaurant on Pathos II. At the bottom of the ocean. Because Carthage Industries has taste. So this is all a goofy crack scenario anyway lol
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Quiet Bucky Who Doesn’t Live With Steve bc he’s still a little feral and WS-y sickfic
Steve didn’t like bad guys messing with New Yorkers, but he did like being able to protect his city. And for the last few months, there had been another reason to enjoy hometown missions.
“Tell our mystery pal thanks for the assist,” Sam said dryly as he finished his sweep to confirm everything was contained, which it was, in part thanks to perfectly aimed shots winging the two jerks at separate control stations directing the big insectlike robots. Clint hadn’t been available for last-minute sniper support, but Steve had said “I might know someone,” and everyone had sort of nodded in vague acceptance and ignored his possibly over-eager tone. The Winter Soldier was still officially at large, whereabouts unknown. Unofficially the search had petered out.
“Thanks for the help,” he murmured into his earpiece— set to an encrypted channel. “Specially on short notice like this.”
After a short pause the reply came, soft, “…You had ‘em on the ropes.” Steve barked a surprised laugh, unable to stop himself from scanning nearby rooftops though he knew he’d see nothing. “Was in the neighborhood anyhow.”
“Feel like sticking around?” Steve tried for casual. “Got nothing going on after this myself. It’s soup weather.” It was freezing, and drizzling in a way that looked light from indoors but soaked you if you were out in it for more than a few minutes. He bit back the words where do you stay, is it warm and dry enough there, just come home with me, but he thought them loudly.
A longer pause this time, but then, “It is, huh. Yeah. Yeah, alright Rogers,” and Steve couldn’t help the grin stretching across his face. Wherever Bucky was hidden, he was clearly in his sights, because he heard a husky chuckle. “Sap,” came the parting shot. “See you there.”
“Roger that,” Steve said, mock-serious, and won the sound of another laugh starting before the commlink cut out. He was allowed to be a little happy, he thought as he hopped on his bike and headed to his Brooklyn apartment. He hadn’t seen Bucky in over two weeks. Trauma and justified paranoia and unfairly dubious legal status combined to mean that Bucky couldn’t yet handle anyone knowing where he slept. For a long time Steve’s only contact with him consisted of mysterious sniper shots obliterating enemies about to get the drop on Steve and Sam as they hunted Hydra remnants down, but over the summer by tacit agreement they had both settled —for a given value of the word— back in New York. And now they talked on the phone, and sometimes Bucky provided don’t-ask-don’t-tell overwatch on missions, and sometimes he came by Steve’s place for meals and company. Steve worried about him constantly, and missed his steady physical presence as he had since before the ice, but Bucky was getting by the best way he had, and he would respect that, no matter what.
If Bucky hadn’t picked up his call or agreed to come over he probably would have spent the night staring at the cold rain out the window, but that was nobody’s business but his own. He opened the door to his apartment, nudged the thermostat, and began pulling out the ingredients for simple chicken soup, feeling warm inside and out.
Before long there was a soft breath of chilly air, the sound of a window closing, and a quiet throat-clear. He turned and there Bucky was, in the corner of the living room, looking a little tense and sheepish as water dripped from his coat. The sight of him in his apartment gave Steve the immediate sense of all being right in his world. “Hey, pal.”
Bucky gave a small smile in reply. “Sorry, I—” he cleared his throat again, “drippin on your nice floor.”
“Eh, don’t worry about it,” said Steve, hearing his accent come out stronger as it always did around his oldest friend. “I got plenty of towels. I’ll get you some.”
He came back with and armload of fluffy towels as Bucky shrugged out of his coat. “Warm in here,” he murmured, with a little shiver as his body adjusted to the cozy temperature Steve had set.
“Sometimes I’m still surprised at how I can just make my place any temperature I want,” Steve chuckled, “I sure coulda used that back in the day.” Bucky just nodded, a hint of wonder in his face as he took the towel Steve offered. “I pulled some clothes out for you, you may as well let your things dry out while you’re here.” Wet clothes had been one of Bucky’s favorite fussing subjects back in the day, he couldn’t begrudge Steve this.
He did go to change after only a moment’s hesitation. Steve went back to the kitchen area but just hovered there. He wasn’t eavesdropping, he just had super hearing. There was another throat-clear, a sniff, and a husky cough as Bucky changed behind the closed door. He came out a moment later, rubbing his nose absently, wearing the crew neck sweater and thick soft black pants Steve had left out, and quirked an eyebrow. Steve blushed as he realized he’d been staring at the door waiting for it to open.
“I missed you, sue me,” he muttered as he moved toward him. He looked so soft, and still cold. Steve telegraphed before going in for a hug, but Bucky just moved into it with a little sigh, pressing his face into Steve’s shoulder and rubbing a little. He seemed tired. Steve wrapped his arms around him with his own sigh. He was so glad he was here.
Suddenly the shoulders he embraced tensed up with a quiet but sharp inhale, and before either of them could react, a silent “mmp!” of a stifled sneeze was pressed into Steve’s shoulder. Bucky pulled back but only had time to blink once in surprise before his nose visibly twitched. “Dish!” This sneeze, tiny and only a little less held-back, went more or less into Steve’s left pec.
They stared for a second, arms still loosely wrapped around each other. Bucky sniffled, rubbed his nose, muttering “Jesus, sorry” at the same time Steve said “bless you” with a little nonplussed smile. Steve’s cheeks felt warm and Bucky was blushing. His nose was also a faint pink, and he looked pale, with a particular tiredness around his eyes. Steve tucked his damp hair behind his ear to see more clearly, and Bucky shifted under his scrutiny, clearing his throat again with a rasp.
“You sound like— are you sick?”
Bucky started to roll his eyes at Steve, but he had to sniffle, and then his breath caught and his expression changed from exasperation to mild surprise as he stepped back and lifted his bent arm to muffle a soft strong sneeze. “EHh-tschuhh!”
“Aw, Buck,” Steve tutted, sounding like his mother.
“snfff, It’s nothing,” Bucky tried for a casual brush-off, but after a moment under what Sam called his Piercing Earnest Puppy-Dog Gaze he deflated, rubbing his nose on his wrist like it still tickled. “It’s been cold and wet for a week,” he groused in explanation, “sff, guess it got to me.”
“And you were out on that rooftop for hours,” Steve clucked, moving to the kitchen instead of wrapping Bucky up again and not letting go, “siddown. Lucky for you I was already making chicken soup.”
Bucky sat at the counter to watch Steve finish throwing ingredients into the pot. “Ooh, the one meal Steve Rogers can cook? Lucky me is right.”
“I can make breakfast!” Steve replied indignantly. Bucky scoffed, which turned into a little cough and sniffle. “Fine, well, I can make oatmeal. And meatloaf!” He said in triumph.
“Sez y-you...heh,” Steve glanced over to see him blinking up at the kitchen light and scrunching his nose ticklishly, but the sneeze abandoned him at the last minute and he buried his nose in his sleeve to rub itchily with a little growl. It was all fairly adorable.
They kept up the banter as Steve set everything simmering and cleaned up. Bucky kept having to sniffle and rub his nose, which was turning completely pink, and he had to pause with hitching breaths a few times. Steve remembered the war and all the years before— you could always tell when Bucky had a cold and not just a tickle in his nose because he’d spend the first few hours being mercilessly teased by sneezes that refused to manifest and left him blinking pinkly and sniffling like mad.
Eventually Steve took pity on him and rooted around a drawer until he found his small stash of clean folded handkerchiefs. Bucky glanced at what he was being offered with plaintive eyes, trying to get the sneeze to finally come, head tilted up and his metal hand pressing gently on the bridge of his poor nose, taking big, hitching inhales, building up torturously, “ehhHehh…hehhhh…hehh—HEH—…...HEHdjtcschOOoo!”
He’d been unable to focus on anything but the sneeze, so it just got aimed at his wrist and ended up sort of everywhere. He snatched the handkerchief in the second he had before another tickly spraying sneeze overcame him, and caught this one in the soft cloth. “HIHHDtsschuhh! Ohhh, mby god.” He groaned dramatically and blew his nose with relief. Once he’d gotten cleaned up he slumped down to the counter.
“Alright fidne, I’mb sick,” he sighed. Steve felt sorry for him, but he was caught up in warm nostalgia as well. Bucky never held out long with the tough-guy act before getting a bit pitiful. His mom and sisters had loved to fuss over him the rare times he was poorly, and after token resistance Bucky had lapped it up. When he and Steve lived together the dynamic was always Bucky mother-henning him, but Steve had reveled in the few times their roles had reversed. Bucky acting pitiful and Steve coddling him in his sharp bossy way had been one of the ways they flirted when neither really understood what they felt.
Bucky sniffled and Steve could hear the building congestion. He continued grumbling, “ya happy ndow?”
“Well, not that you got a cold, but yeah, Buck, I’m real happy you’re here. No point in a swanky heated apartment if I can’t put you up once in a while.”
“Hmmb.”
“Now cmon, blow your nose again and eat some soup. It’s not Ma’s but it’s as close as I can get it.”
Bucky picked up the crumpled hankie, grimaced, chuckled, then quietly gasped into a smaller sneeze, “hhh-hhh-hHMptshh, ugh, this ain’t gonna last much longer.” He blew his nose thoroughly and it left him alone while they ate their soup, side by side at the counter, elbows and knees nudging.
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feel like the global tasks sweep strat should probably be nerfed somehow. my thought would be, give each team an individual ten minute overall cooldown on global task claims. that is to say, a certain team can only claim one global task per ten minutes. say, deliver gas masks, and then in ten minutes you're allowed to deliver tea, and then after another ten minutes you can claim hot chocolate.
another teams would be able to claim a global task for bananas during this time, and their own ten minute cooldown would start.
(the global tasks can either keep their individual ten minute cooldown [i.e. after tea is claimed no one else can claim tea for ten minutes] or a slightly shorter cooldown, say 5-7 minutes)
when a global task is claimed, everyone is notified, right? if not, in my hypothetical, they will be.
then, a team trying to sweep six tasks at once would actually take sixty minutes to do, allowing another team to swoop in and have a chance to stop it in cinematic, entertaining fashion rather than tubbo having to grind resources and then log out in front of the merchant to counter this, which is boring for everyone (including the person delivering). plus, if a team cuts it down to the last second and ends up getting delayed, they physically wouldn't have time to make a delivery, meaning even being a BIT of a nuisance could be a viable strategy, even if you can't manage to kill; if you can STALL you could still wreck their plans.
that's my dream anyway idk i'm not a game designer. just think it would be interesting for most players
(i elaborate under)
red team would have to shake up their strategies, which is fun since they're a team that kinda has to rely more on strategy than outright brawn (overall the team's pvp can't be relied on unless they have carre or phil, as seen today when pierre, bad, and etoiles attacked phil cellbit foolish and baghera, and cellbit and foolish both died to etoiles in the attack, despite it being a 4 on 1 at the time. baghera was killed by bad soon after. phil was the one to get the kills. the first day, when blue attacked [niki, tubbo, and bad as i recall] carre got both kills)
the other teams would then still have a way to stop a global sweep since a sweep would have to start earlier, allowing not only more time to arrive at global to pvp about it, but ALSO allowing another team to swoop in and steal the goal out from under the team again
i'm gonna use it in a scenario bc i'm badboyhalo and i can't stop myself from making examples:
so, tonight, if the proposed cooldown was in place, bad and tubbo would both still had roughly 17 minutes when red team would have HAD to start the sweep process if they wanted all six global tasks: 1 hour until the server closed at absolute MINIMUM. more for safety's sake.
therefore, in this scenario, there's a lot to happen
blue team could wait at globals, knowing red will probably try this strategy, and attempt or perhaps SUCCEED in killing red. if they kill red entirely, the operation is a wash; red doesn't have to gear to come back from scratch and take out blue team, and even if they could, the travel time to return to globals alone would mean they wouldn't get all the global tasks, potentially meaning they don't take the lead. if blue team is unable to kill red and dies themselves or has to retreat, but succeeds in delaying red, red would face the same problem.
if red sends in all of the task items on one person, and that person dies, even if the rest survived, blue could loot the items from that person and would be able to either use the items themselves, if green is currently the owner, or could run away with the items, effectively wasting red's time and again, meaning they wouldn't get all tasks claimed even if they were able to overtake the runner and reclaim their items.
i'm unclear what would happen if red divided the task items between them since it seems like the person claiming the task doesn't have to have all (or any? again, unclear) the items in THEIR inventory in order to claim so long as a teammate is nearby with the items in their inv (evidence: pac's vod "voltei... o que tá acontecendo no QSMP?!" at roughly 3:00:00; tubbo claims tea and tea is taken out of pac's inventory. i don't know the limits of this strategy)
blue team also has time to swoop in and steal a global task out from under red during this time. say, if red team had claimed the task for 10 tea leaves, upping the price to 15 tea leaves, and then blue team snuck in and claimed the task and set the price up to 20 tea leaves, (since the proposed 10 minute cooldown on claims would be TEAM LIMITED; red's cooldown applying to red only and so on). if red waited until the last second, they wouldn't have the time to reclaim this task even if they did have the resources, possibly forcing them to start their sweep earlier to counter this possibility, at which point team members who had logged on earlier and are out of time by the end of the night, OR members who live in time zones that don't allow them to stay up until server close, may have an easier shot at participating in defending against a global sweep.
all of this DIRECT CONFLICT would make for good audience entertainment and heighten the stakes of an attempted global sweep, since it would practically have to be one team defending globals for an hour while they pipe all their resources into it, knowing that if they die another team could easily swipe their task resources and use it themselves (along with the rest of their gear). it makes it more interesting, while still mostly viable.
plus it would force more strategizing for red team which is maybe just a personal plus, i just really like seeing people planning both in advance and in spur of the moment. it's really satisfying to see how a plan comes together and succeeds or fails; plus, since red team is the main team using this strategy at the moment and their main draw and strength as a team is cohesion and communication this would be completely fucking riveting for me as a viewer so maybe this is just a personal thing. but i really really think it would be fun
but again, i'm not a game designer, or a qsmp player, or a qsmp admin, or honestly even really a gamer? so maybe i'm off my rocker and out of my gourd and this isn't viable or balanced in any way shape or form but YKNOW what is this blog except putting stupid thoughts into the void and seeing if this time the void spits back hate mail so. i'm folding this into a paper airplane and throwing it into the abyss. hopefully it made sense.
k love you appreciate you getting this far, have a good week!!
(i hope your team gets a win in dramatic fashion and celebrates together!!! i hope they come together and unleash a plan so spectacular it takes the server by storm!!! i hope it's so good it becomes a vod you go back to even years in the future!!!! i hope you have a good week!!!!!)
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