#except now it's digital instead of traditional

[dangermousie]

Pusher post for Ja Myung Go (2009) - best period kdrama you've never heard of

It got zero votes on my poll probably because nobody has watched it, and it must be remedied.

In 2009, during the ratings reign of legendary Queen Seon Deok, another woman-centric period drama made its debut - Ja Myung Go starring Jung Ryo Won, Jung Kyung Ho, and Park Min Young back before she was a leading lady. Unlike QSD which became a huge success and extended its run, JMG had abysmal ratings throughout and ended up being only 39 episodes (a large number in abstract but a cut from the originally planned 50). Ja Myung Go took a traditional narrative - the forbidden and doomed love of Prince Hodong and Princess La Hee, heirs to enemy kingdoms, and disassembled it supposing what the story would have been like if Hodong had been in love with La Hee's sister Ja Myung instead.

Even though JMG is one of my favorites, its single-digit ratings (back when single digit ratings were baaaaad!) were no surprise - it took most period drama conventions of the time and even now and upended them. Proper royalty-based sageuks at the time after all centered around the progress and triumph of its protagonist - he or she may pay a great personal price but will triumph over rival factions/own shortcomings/bad background and emerge politically victorious - a great ruler to be remembered by future generations. JMG's rival Queen Seon Deok expemplifies that kind of narrative - Deokman is an outcast who, at the end, has lost the man she loved, but is a great ruler to be remembered forever and full of achievements. Yi San, Kingdom of the Winds, Jumong, etc - all follow this formula more or less. This is still the case when they make them nowadays, sadly rarer than they used to - GK War comes to mind. (Fusion-style sageuks which usually deal with 'common' people sometimes choose hopelessness as a theme - see Damo - but they have a different narrative thrust and vibe and we are not even getting into fluffiness of youth sageuks. People of JMG are miles away from that.)

But this is not the story of JMG. From the first episode it is clear that there will be no triumphant narrative. This is a story of the defeated - defeated Kingdom of Nakrang, defeated people. And, except for Ja Myung herself (cast in a traditionally heroic mold even if with enough flaws to make her interesting), her mother (a very minor character) and a few other other characters, most of the characters are not heroic either. They are either fascinating monsters (Muhyul, Wang Jashi (Ja Myung's stepmother), Muhyul's Queen) or people damaged beyond repair by their surroundings (Hodong, La Hee).

(Man is known as God of Battles, and not for no reason)

And even though I like Ja Myung, I confess that for me the drama is made by the clever, fascinating, monstrous Wang Jashi and Muhyul. Wang Jashi is a Korean Lady Macbeth - she is someone who is capable of poisoning her brother in order to protect her husband and her own power, but she is also someone who genuinely grieves over him. She is a wicked woman, but she is strong and irresistable. Muhyul (or King Daemushin, if we go by his throne name) is a counterpart for her (he rules a different kingdom, but I confess throughout the drama, I kept wondering what it would be like if they were married - they would rule the world). He is a capable, fierce ruler who has traded his humanity for success and rule - you see any remaining feelings leach out of him slowly during the course of the drama.

And so much of the drama is shaped by those two irresistible monsters - all the younger characters except Ja Myung are trapped and shaped and deformed by them. Princess La Hee, Wang Jashi's daughter, is not capable of truly functionally expressing her feelings - even though she likes Hodong, throughout their early meetings, she lashes at him over and over because brought up the way she was, she has no idea how express herself. And Hodong, Muhyul's son, is even worse off - at least La Hee had her saintly stepmother to love her growing up. Hodong has had his poisonous stepmother who desires his death (yet another amazing character - she is a horrible person but you understand and even sympathize with her) and Muhyul as a father (there is a scene later on where Muhyul gives an order that if Nakrang does not fall, Hodong is to be executed. Father of the year he is not).

In a way, that is why if it wasn't for his seduction-to-victory plan, Hodong would have never gotten together with La Hee even if Ja Myung did not exist - they are both emotional cripples and Hodong, at least, is smart enough to recognize that. I think that is a huge part of his attraction to Ja Myung - she is a breath of sane air (significantly she has been brought up outside palace environment). When I think of Hodong, it's the same emotion I get when I think of Jang Jae Min from Bali - he is twisted and deeply flawed but the wonder and the tragedy of it is that for his family he is not flawed and twisted enough. One of the last things Ja Myung tells him is that in their next life she wishes she would be his mother. I remember people thinking WTF but it made perfect sense to me - the thing Hodong lacked most and needed most was a loving parent - it is something he never got. (And of course it's also a show of love towards her sister - this way La Hee can have Hodong as a lover).

And this brings me to gender dynamics. Except for Muhyul, all the true movers and shakers in the story, every catalyst is a woman. Nowhere it is as evident as with Ja Myung and Hodong. I remember reading that Jung Kyung Ho was cast as Hodong and being genuinely puzzled. He has since gone on to be one of my favorite leading men and certainly terrifying and violent and feral enough in Cruel City to play the scariest warlord of them all if necessary but that wasn't the case at the time. I thought of him as the spoiled little brother to the angsty vengeance seeker of Sorry I Love You, or as a smart little brother to the amnesiac mob assassin in Time Between Dog and Wolf. Or, more likely, in his big break-out role as the male lead of Smile You. The thing is, in all of these, even Smile You, he is the quintessential nice guy (or as the term is in certain circles, "beta male.") He was about the last person I'd normally envision as a male lead in a period drama about war. But once I saw the drama, it all made sense and not because he was bringing his later Cruel City persona.

Because despite his undoubted ability to fight in battle, Ja Myung and Hodong are all about gender reversal - at one point she even becomes his bodyguard! If you think about it, they take gender roles usually reserved for the opposite gender - she is the proactive one, who sets the story in motion, the rebel leader. He is the one who conquered Nakrang through seduction of La Hee, something seen as a typically female method. His seducing La Hee into destroying the protective drum is a far cry from Jumong fighting through hordes single-handed or Dam Duk in The Legend taking on an army with a small unit armed with nothing but grit or even the Prince in Haechi or King in GK War outwitting his court enemies with balls and brains. And, as a typically female method, his way of victory gets him nothing but scorn - in the first episode, his stepmother calls him a whore to his face. It's the same with the relationship - Ja Myung can let go of him, but he cannot let go of her.

The women are uniformly fascinating and complex in this - even someone like La Hee does not just give in to Hodong's false sweet words - she genuinely believes surrender would save her country. The drama's respect for its female characters is summed up in a single scene - one of the characters is a widow of Wang Jashi's brother (the one she poisoned). Her 10-year-old brother-in-law marries her to save her from execution. 10 years later, they are still married and when she is doing the proper thing and helping him bathe, you see her experience and suppress her desire - because her husband is now a gorgeous gorgeous man. It could be a ludicrous situation - she changed the guy's diapers and she is not what you'd consider traditionally good-looking. But instead drama treats her feeling with respect and understanding. I loved it for that.

Oh, and I am just gonna leave this little father-son convo here:

Hodong: Your Majesty, what did you tell me before? You said if only you gain Nakrang without any blood being spilt, you would bestow leniency on them. Take pity on them. The other way there will be no end to rebellion and we will all die. Daemushin: Your own grandfather, King Yuri, killed his own two sons. I was young and I could not understand that. How could he? How can a father kill his own child. Unless he was crazy, how could he kill his sons? I finally understand him today. For a King, a son with other intentions is nothing but a political enemy. A political enemy that must be killed and gotten rid of. Hodong: Do you wish to kill me? Daemushin: [throws down a puppet of a woman] You must know who this wench is. Who is she? Hodong: It is Emperor Choi Ri's unknown daughter, Princess Ja Myung. Daemushin: Find her and kill her. Hodong: Father, I cannot do that! I...I...that woman... Daemushin: When you chop off the head of that woman Jae Myung, I will make you the Crown Prince. If your father is King Daemushin, who has expanded his kingdom, then you must survive and show all other nations how to rule that kingdom. Hodong: Your subject Hodong accepts Your Highness' command.

Parent of the Year indeed!

PS If you've watched enough sageuks, you will recognize that wily old monster Daemushin is actually the protag of The Kingdom of the Winds where he looked like this:

(I did a pusher post for TKotW before so won't repeat.) The funny thing is much as I adored the ML of TKotW, I can totally see him progress into that monster here. It would be logical.

Anyway, digression over, go watch JMG!

#kdrama #ja myung go #jung kyung ho #park min young #Jung ryo won

[lucss21a]

The Blue Pages: Yellow Pages for the Old Web

Go there now!

Overview

Hello there again! As you know, this site directory is now turned into it's own very site. Why? Because that's more cooler and somehow intuitive.

As I explain on the title, The Blue Pages serves as an old web counterpart to Yellow Pages, an item from the bygone era of traditional telephone where you open the book to find local businesses and services in your are to call in.

The Blue Pages serves as a much niche complement to both the White and Yellow Pages, instead of either providing a residential directory or a directory for local businesses, it's a directory of old web (and sometimes modern web) sites or platforms that you could visit or use nowadays.

But wait, isn't this Google?

Yes... and no. Yes, we are listing websites to search for just like Google, and no because I will do things differently.

See, even during it's 25 year old lifespan as a big tech company, Google slowly is becoming an advertising powerhouse and not only just only search engines. Google, Bing and other modern search engines rely too much on the algorithms, which is horribly being abused by mostly spammy websites, AI generated bullcrap and more than more often than not, Reddit is added to suffixes of most tech related search queries.

The Blue Pages differs by mimicking real life yellow pages. While yellow pages sites exists, it mimics the directories for something like hotels, so I decided to go with the same style as the physical yellow pages.

In this layout, while it is only alphabetical and categorized, it doesn't rely on algorithms, as it is already relevant to a particular audience. Much of the listings on the page are included by me or from submissions I saw on Mastodon, Discord or SpaceHey.

But how do I use it?

Easy! Go to the Blue Pages site, choose a category, and find which website do you want to visit!

How about putting my own site or my friend's?

Submit them to me! I'll review it myself and would put it there within days! You can send submissions on Mastodon, Discord, SpaceHey or Email, but I can\'t guarantee that I could read it immediately.

What if I put ads on it?

You can! But it's purely limited. I don't allow heavy use of JavaScript, server-side scripting or malicious code injected in the ad. Please send your code to me on a pastebin or in Codepen, as well as where to put it.

Available types

Inline - Put your ad as a listing only! Only uses text.

Single column - Occupy a single column.

Multi-column - More columns, more fun!

All columns - More^2 columns, more fun!

Why do this?

Because search engines are designed with a broader audience and this only aims an obviously smaller one.

It's cool and much more elaborate than a list only with descriptions.

Because I can.

To have something from the physical world to the digital, literally.

And, I could procrastinate for longer periods.

So what now?

The Blue Pages is open source, in fact I made it a specification so everyone could use it.

I wanted everyone to embrace it, and adapt it for their communities. The Blue Pages will connect sites together as the directory is relevant to your niche interests, but without the invasive stuff in it.

If you are wondering about the old site directory, then it would be archived but unlinked except for the sitemap.

By this, I hope that you could reflect onto what the internet was in ye olden days, and also to have fun browsing.

With the Blue Pages, you can Let Your Fingers Walk on Water. Quite literally. Yes, we literally downgraded from actual search engines but, do you even mind that? You are in your own anyways, so why not check out the directory.

As for those curious, you can see the directory here.

And as always, see you next time!

#yellowpages #bluepages #agr #oldweb #smolweb #neocities #web

[millieueu]

🌟 millieueu’s intro! 🌟

(Active only on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays)

Haven’t introduced myself sooo here we go!

Hi!! My name’s millieueu (pronounced as “mill-lulu”). I prefer if you just called me “Millie” instead. I’m a 14 year old introvert who suffers with low-self esteem and is an artist who’s trying to improve! <3

I’m female (pronouns : she/her). My birthday is September 12th. I have a non-identical twin sister!

In this blog, you’ll just occasionally see me reblog Danny Phantom and MLAATR stuff :p

I might even post my art here whenever I can! (Art tag : #millieueu )

I do both traditional AND digital art. My favorite kind of art is lineless art. I mainly draw fanart of cartoons I like!

Likes

Cartoons & Anime

Editing

Drawing

Family & Friends

Movies/TV Shows/Books

Danny Phantom <3

Tumblr, Youtube & Instagram

Pepperoni Pizza, Twisters from TGI Fridays

Etc!

Dislikes

Anti Gacha

The Gacha Community (neutral)

Politics

Silly drama

My sisters fighting over dumb things

School

Nickelodeon (They have good cartoons but they suck ass)

Cringe culture

BYF (BEFORE YOU FOLLOW)

Just so you know that I’m only active on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays due to school (unless if it’s a special day).

I tend to get in a really bad mood and act aggressive when someone tries to start an argument with me, so be cautious and try to treat me decently

I have low-self esteem. I care a little too much abt what other people think of me. Please remember to be nice when giving criticism.

I don’t mind adults interacting with me as long as they don’t say anything inappropriate to me or act weird around me

I block NSFW accounts

Please do not ask to vent on my page. I only allow close friends to do that. I’m not the problem solver for everything

Do not bring up the topic of “blackwashing”, I have no say in it

If you have a suggestion or tips for my drawings to be improved, please feel free to send me a DM.

DNI (DO NOT INTERACT)

Basic DNI Criteria (Why do I need to list them anyways? It’s common sense to know who SHOULD and SHOULDN’T interact with me)

Xenophobes

Islamophobes

Interested in politics

NSFW accounts

Pompous Pep (DannyxVlad) and BillDip (BillxDipper) shippers

Seiusa (SeiyaxUsagi) shippers and Usagi x Demande shippers

Anti Gachas

People who support cringe culture

People who know me irl (These people are exceptions though)

People who are part of the floptropica/floptok community (I’m sorry but their jokes make me uncomfortable. They aren’t funny at all neither are they are quirky for doing it. It’s very repetitive. Their “history” is made up nonsense too. If you’re part of that community please stay away from me or I will block you immediately)

DaBoyzz (They are just as bad as the floptropicans)

BLACKLIST

ClareLaBelleRose (Had an argument with her on my old account (Melonz 🍉), accused Naoko Takeuchi of being a “pedophile”. Falsely assumed that the Sailor Senshis are “white” *they are ASIAN*. Falsely accused Sailor Moon of racism *Toei Animation should be blamed for that, not the entire franchise*. Immature)

Fandoms! :D

Danny Phantom

MLAATR (My Life as a Teenage Robot)

Sailor Moon

Invader Zim

Supa Strikas

Kim Possible

ROTTMNT (Rise of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)

Hilda

LoliRock

Etc.

Comfort Characters <3

Danny Fenton/Phantom

Jazz Fenton

Valerie Gray

Sam Manson (Guilty pleasure)

Sheldon Oswald Lee (Guilty pleasure)

Rei Hino

Ami Mizuno

Usagi Tsukino

Chibiusa Tsukino

Anne Boonchuy

Examples of my art! :D

Fun Facts (Some of them aren’t that “fun” though :/)

I used to be a TodoDeku shipper 💀

I used to love Bakugou Katsuki, not anymore though.

I was a huge fan of DOAWK and used to simp for Rodrick XD

Drawing Danny Fenton is my coping mechanism <3

Strawberries are my favorite fruits

Fictional Crushes :

Rodrick Heffley (I was so down bad for his emo ass, I no longer have a crush on him though).

Katsuki Bakugou (Also another one of my old crushes. I hate him now >:( )

Danny Phantom (My current crush XD)

Social Status :

Green = Active

Orange = Semi-active

Red = Inactive

Youtube

Instagram

Scratch

Tumblr (You’re literally on here rn, XD)

TikTok (Permanently inactive due to my stress of being a multifandom).

(This can change sometimes!!)

For more info, please consider checking out my carrd

Feel free to ask to be moots/friends! ^^

That’s all, thank you for visiting my profile! :3

#meet the artist #art #artist #2023 #2024 #november #danny phantom #intro #drawings #mlaatr #my life as a teenage robot #cartoons #get to know me #tumblr #tumblr artist #artists on tumblr #digital artist #danny fenton #idk what to tag #millieueu

[dr-jem-nutcase]

I got bored so I made some MvA parenting HCs

Susan

Her kids are probably named after their grandparents and/or great-grandparents

From day one, her lock screen and home screen on her computer, tablet, phone, etc. are pictures of her kids

The best monster with babies

Does her best to be really gentle, considering her size and strength

Holds her kids when they cry (no matter how old they are) and puts together/orders their favorite snack if they had a bad day

The type of mom who lets her kids' artwork cover the fridge doors and later keeps them in a box in her storage space for all eternity and only throws away stuff like any food crafts that started growing mold

Lots. And lots. And lots. And lots of pictures and videos

Bedtime stories every night, no matter how she feels. And almost always from a book

If she has daughter, she LOVES styling their hair: pigtails, curlers (for stuff like Christmas pictures), hair clips, you name it

As a former fashionista, she loves coordinating her kids' outfits. But if they don't want to wear matching outfits, she'll respect that

Watches a movie first to see if there's anything she thinks is inappropriate and keeps her own streaming accounts under lock and key (albeit digitally). She wants to protect her kids' innocence while she still can

Handling the other monsters in occasions like their two visits to Modesto (in the movie & Halloween special) gave her plenty of practice for handling problematic kids

The teen years are hard because she's learning to give her kids some sense of independence and just the fact that they're growing up, as much as she always wants to be there for them. Just wait until they graduate high school and leave for college

B.O.B.

Everyone knows he means well but they know better than to leave him alone with a child. It'd be no better than leaving a toddler alone with an actual baby

Has a baby doll or animal plushie instead and takes VERY good care of it...until he gets distracted

So yeah, no different from a three-year-old with a baby doll

Link

More comfortable being the uncle type than a dad

The awkward but fun uncle who lets his nieces/nephews do a lot of the things their parents wouldn't allow like staying up past their bedtime, wrestling, driving his jeep before the legal age, having Twinkies and root beer for breakfast, etc.

He goes into a mild panic when he loses sight of them

He tells the kids embarrassing stories about their parents in their younger years

He'd also teach them "valuable life lessons" like how to give someone a wedgie or actually legit stuff like "follow your heart but for Pete's sake take your brain with you"

Ok, now to the parent part!

NOT fond at all of late nights or early mornings when it comes to babies and kids

Scared to death of holding babies, even if they were his own babies. Like he's gonna accidentally break them or something. Also he's also very uneasy when a baby cries in a close proximity, like he has no idea what to do, like how do you make it stop?

You know what? Be a dear and don't leave him alone with anyone under the age of two, just to save his poor nerves

Rarely calls his kids by their names. He calls them nicknames like kid, squirt, slugger, champ, etc.

Likes to roughhouse with his kids but has to remember not to be too rough. Lets them win in a wrestling match and then denies his defeat, playfully of course

Lots of beach trips and trips to anywhere without cold water. Those kids will learn how to swim before they learn to walk

Lets them turn up the volume on any music. Anything except classical, traditional country/bluegrass, 2000s-early 2010s boy bands, or anything that gets easily gets stuck in your head ("Let It Go" was the worst 3½ minutes of every day for at least 1-2 years)

Mess with his kid(s), and he'll knock you into next week

He would rather have his kids go after sports and athletics than chess, spelling bees, or piano lessons. He says, "how are those gonna prepare them for the future?"

Handles teenagers better than the other monsters. He's a cool dad

Graduations and sports games/competitions? Proudest papa there ever was

Dr C

We already got to see a bit of dadroach in the TV series, but let's add some more, shall we?

Measures their height and the circumference of their heads on a regular basis as they grow up, a nod to Marie Curie and her 2 daughters

Helps out with their homework, that's a no brainer [TV show h/c: Smarty is strictly forbidden to help, as much as he and the kids might try]

Sets curfews, limits their amount of screen time and junk food, works out a nutritious balanced meal plan complete with daily vitamins

Wants everything, from media to pastimes to outings, to be educational and intellectually stimulating but enjoyable, which he has to work on the latter

Posh and elegant upbringing. Girls are brought up as fine ladies and boys as refined gentlemen. Not that they can't be rambunctious or play tough sports or anything, but they're brought up to not slouch or put their elbows on the dining table

In the meantime, he has to try to remember to not be an overly practical parent. As Link says, "Doc, you gotta let a few of their brain cells rot every now and then"

Reads books on child psychology every night, albeit when everyone else is asleep. He's quite thankful for these

Nobody's allowed in his lab [area], not until they're in high school. Though one time 1-2 of the kids snuck into the lab when he was away. He found out about this later; he didn't say or do anything, no grounding or lectures or anything, but he installed security cameras around the area with a big warning note on the entry way

Has a really hard time with teenagers, probably the hardest time out of all the monsters or Monger

Embarrasses his teenage kid(s) to no end. Most of the time he doesn't mean to. The lame "dad" jokes (like "cat's me-wow") and the maniacal laughter are always gonna be the death of them

Graduations? He wants his kids to go on and succeed in colleges and universities but he has had to learn and accept the fact that it won't be the end of the world if they pursue something else besides a degree

(Criminelly! I really need to relearn to draw this guy again!)

Insecto

Two words: Mama Bear

Makes this soft purring sound as a means of comforting

Monger

It's kind of a sick idea to make a 90 y.o. man a father to children, so let's time travel to the 1940s-60s

His kids are early risers, no sleeping in

They wake up every morning to that same bugle wake-up tune from the military

Instills patriotism into them. They stand for the national anthem with their hands over their hearts, know the pledge of allegiance, etc.

Nobody gives an evil eye like Papa Monger

They eat whatever's set in front of them at the table. No ifs, ands, or buts

The upbringing and memories of his Mama Monger are his bible

The only lazy days are Sundays. He holds that old school/southern regard that Sundays are different from the other days of the week (he's not religious btw)

If he has daughters, they're going to get their hands dirty. No sense in get a manicure hours before working in a barn, so prettying up is for special occasions only

His sons are manly men and are taught how to treat a lady

After-school activities other than homework include helping out at the farm and extra PE

Thinks public school PE is inadequate and "for sissies". His kids might as well train for the army or a post-apocalyptic world: chin-up bars, rope climbing, the mother of hopscotch, target practice, survival skills, even parkour, etc.

Takes them camping every summer, and we're talking tents, campfires, etc. No glamping, let alone any electricity (except for flashlights)

The only pets allowed are herding dogs (collies, shepherds, heelers, etc.). They're not just pets; they're working dogs for the farm too. They get to sleep on the front porch, much to the kids' chagrin

Believe it or not, he gets pretty uneasy when it comes to a girl's time of the month. He hides it pretty well though. Shopping for female sanitary items and any food cravings is one of his worst nightmares

Probably the most intimidating dad to meet if someone wanted to date his daughter(s)

Nobody's allowed to use his jetpacks, though he does want to teach his kids how to use a parachute. They'll get one of their own when they turn 18 or 21

On their graduation or wedding day? so proud that he could cry...if he hadn't lost his tear ducts in the war

Invisible Man [my h/c is that he had 3 kids, so let's go!]

Was pretty stinkin excited and nervous about being a dad. He fell in love with it all on the day his eldest was born

His eldest, a boy, is an almost literal clone of him, minus the invisibility of course

The favorite parent hands-down

Waited until his kids grew up a little to take them on road trips or any special vacations because he wanted them to remember those experiences for themselves. "You can't take a six-month-old to the Grand Canyon." He told his wife. "They'll never remember it!"

The type of dad that hugs his kids and picks them up when he gets home from work

Best piggyback rides in the world

Didn't mind it one bit when he carried his sleeping kids to bed, even if they pretended to be asleep

Bedtime stories every night to the best of his ability. Most of the time, he'd ditch the books and create his own stories

The one way his kids could REALLY make him mad was by disrespecting their mom in any way, shape, or form

The warmest his heart had ever been was when one of his sons told him, "I wanna be just like you, daddy". That man was over the moon for quite some time

#monsters vs aliens #mva #dreamworks #headcanons #hcs #susan murphy #ginormica #benzoate ostylezene bicarbonate #link mva #bob mva #the missing link #dr cockroach phd #dr cockroach #insecto #insectosaurus #butterflyosaurus #general w r monger #general monger #the invisible man #lol Im bored

[moonlit-tulip]

There's a pattern I've noticed in several video games, over the past decade-ish, of putting their worst feet forward during their early segments. Starting out, over the course of their initial hours, with weak writing, uninteresting gameplay, or otherwise low-quality content, relative to what shows up in the later sections, then slowly ramping up in quality as the player progresses, in such a way as to make their opening segments' quality unrepresentatively low.

Traditional game design wisdom, as I understand it, holds that one is supposed to do the opposite of this. Start, in the beginning, with one's strongest content, in order to hook players and get them to keep playing. Devote more development effort to content more players will see, which tends to mean the content earliest in the game—before there's been much player attrition, and before too many different branching choices have been made—gets the most effort put into making it good.

(Tutorials tacked onto games' beginnings as an afterthought, with minimal development time put into them, are an unfortunate exception to this tradition; but they at least tend to be short, in most games where they exist at all.)

To the best of my ability to discern, the inversion of that common wisdom—the pattern where the earliest parts of a game tend to be the weakest—tends to be a product, not of deliberate developer choice to prioritize the quality of the later sections, but rather of specific modern development patterns. In particular: the move towards digital distribution as a default, and the resulting popularization of live-service games.

Back in the old days, games were released as largely-unitary things. A studio would develop a game until it was complete—or until they hit their deadline and had to rush out a release despite its incompleteness, in many cases—and then that would be the game. There would, potentially, be a handful of expansions released, for particularly successful games, but the only games which tended to receive routine content updates as far as I'm aware were MMOs.

Now, though, digital distribution is the norm, and it's considered routine and default for game developers to release a game initially in substantially incomplete state and then to slowly flesh it out over the course of many subsequent iterative content updates. One sees this most obviously in games following the Early Access model, but it shows up plenty even in games not following that model, as with the various gacha games which release with an incomplete story which then gets continued over many successive updates.

The thing about this change in development patterns, though, is: when the developers are releasing the game in an iterative fashion like that, it means that the early parts of the game will be the parts made when the developers were least experienced. And, while some development teams will go back and make major changes to bring the early game up to later quality standards—Terraria, for instance, has had extensive updates to its early game over the years—many development teams will instead prioritize adding new things over fixing old things, to better retain the interest of those players they already have.

What results, then, is a quality curve wherein, the later one is in the game, the better the game is, not because this is actually an optimal way to lay out a game from the standpoint of expected quality-of-player-experience, but because the developers were better when they were developing the later parts than when they were developing the earlier parts. And thus, in a pattern directly opposite of the traditionally-recommended one, the early game is the weakest part, and some fraction of the players who might well have enjoyed the game as a whole will be driven off by that relative weakness.

(Two examples of this which have particularly struck me are Arknights, whose first several story chapters largely failed to draw me in but whose event stories and later story chapters were very good once I stuck the game out for long enough to reach them, and Grim Dawn, whose first act managed to be such a perfect storm of weak level design, unengaging combat, and failure-to-show-off-most-of-the-game's-strongest-points that, despite my having gone into it on release very much wanting to like it, I only managed to take a playthrough far enough into it to recognize the game as genuinely good this year, more than six years after its initial release.)

#Archive #Video Games #Arknights #Grim Dawn

[drafthorsemath]

I gotta rant about the state of math education for a minute. I say this as a math educator with a math PhD who currently works to create digital math content and assessments (primarily for high school and college level). We have to do better for students and the way we're attempting to do that is mostly garbage because of publishing companies.

I currently work for two educational publishers who will remain unnamed. They're competitors and I think it's funny that I and one other person I know work for both of them.

Anyway, company M, who I primarily work for, is finding that students are using fewer of their tools and appear to just guess when they don't know an answer instead of attempting and getting feedback. Instead of figuring out what would actually help students, this company is taking a more bare bones approach to authoring math assessment tools going forward, firing authors (the team I was on used to have over 20 people at any given time and now there are 4 of us), and then complaining how we can't keep up with authoring new content. The problem is that they are not offering a wider variety of content for different types of learners, but they don't want to hear that. They write a textbook, make online homework and study guides for it, and call it good. That's not nearly enough, but they don't want to invest in getting better.

This week I started training for a new part time job at company C to try to make a little more money and they are trying to do a better job. They want higher student engagement, fewer assessments, and for students to explore a topic instead of traditional lectures. Great. Research supports a more interactive approach to learning. Except their idea of student engagement and interaction solely focuses on extroversion: reading, writing, conversing, analyzing, actively listening, group work, sharing with the class, and more. And none of it has the options of being done alone. On top of this, they do not address disabilities and are only just starting to realize they need different content for multilingual learners.

Some students can actually read and learn and do not need to interact. Some students are anxious to interact. I've seen it. I've had a student stuttering just trying to talk in class to ask a question, and making her come to the board? Why? For what purpose? Said student was already doing well in class and she simply wrote everything out. I had multiple students who were combat veterans; one in particular who had a brain injury and needed a lot of repetition. Having a lot of approaches in a 50 minute class would have been overwhelming for him since he needed clear examples and lots of independent practice. He thrived in my office hours. Forcing this model will not help these students. While I think there are some good things about this versus just using a digital textbook, I take issue with the approach because it is still forcing students to all learn the same way. It's a different way of learning than using a textbook, but there is no room for flexibility.

Look, I know that it's impossible to teach a classroom of students in a way that gives each enough time and resources to perfectly meet their needs. I taught at a university for 8 years. I've tutored students in grades 3-12 for over a decade. This is not me bashing teachers, lecturers, or professors. I know they are simply limited to what math ed materials are on the market and what they write themselves. (Thinking of Dr. Bell who wrote his own book for Modern Algebra because he hated every book on the market.) I just get frustrated when everyone (publishers) tries to push new teaching styles and tools, saying "there are multiple approaches to suit multiple learners." If each student must go through and master each approach, how is that any better than saying they must all master this one approach?

I'm just a frustrated math lady. Also, this has reminded me of the time many years ago when I had an anon who would ask for math homework help in my inbox because they had no where else to go. That was also before we had DMing on tumblr. Thinking of you today, Stats Anon.

#math #math education #about me #math publishing #so many educators out there trying their best and the materials they have to work with are just not enough #the answer to this is probably increase funding for education

[inkwell-and-dagger]

I love your art style!! How did you gain it?

WAIT OMG 🥹🥹 THANK YOU SO MUCH ANON!!!!!!!!!

okay so! hmm

I've been doing mostly traditional art for a good portion of my life now, so to be honest I'm kind of new to digital art. back then I mostly just drew profiles and faces and wasn't good at anatomy (but to be honest I'm still bad at it- I use Poseit to help me ;D!!) and I hadn't really touched digital art until around. last year to the year before that I'd say? I'm not sure. my memory is horrible

as I said, I now use Poseit to help with structuring my art, and my previous art style just looked a bit. strange with it I'd say? lemme find the first digital art I posted

foster! this one was made using a posing template I found on pinterest, not Poseit. I wasn't all that good about making clothes look like clothes, so other than the little creases in the shirt their clothes look a bit strange. I'm really iffy about the eyes and the way I shaded them, and back then the way I drew scars is really different to how I do now. I'm all for the clean look it has at the end, but I prefer my new style ;3 also I remember I immediately went in with doing lineart instead of sketching out what I wanted to do first? on the plus side, though, as I said the finishing style is clean, the lines are consise and their expression is definitely foster-y, and I actually don't mind the shading!

as previously stated, that was my first try at digital art. now let's take a look at my most recent one, aka my pfp (actually, I'll use two recent ones)

Rayan (left) and Ruaridh (right)!!

let's start with the rayan one! as with foster's, I stuck to having clean lines, except I think I did vary the sizes of the lines? I'm not sure. I've only recently begun adding things like blood and blush to my art, so I don't think I've mastered it just yet. idk, does that count as rendering? I'm not sure

god, bloody noses. I love bloody noses. I had so much fun giving Rayan a bloody nose it's insane. also, you can tell that the lines on the scars are slimmer compared to the ones on foster, but I think they'd look better more like. idk, wiggly? uneven? scarry? I'm not exactly sure

and then Ru, omg Ru. this was my first try making a background, and I used stencils from ibis paint to do the trees n leaves n whatnot. this was more of a chance to experiment than anything; using a textured brush was a really nice change, and I got inspired by @/befuddled-calico-whump (sorry I'm a big lurker around their channel I really like their art) and the way they sometimes show the sketches beneath the actual lineart in their own pieces! it allowed me to be more messy and make it look more candid (?) in my style. I didn't really go for too much shading other than the lighting of the moon, since I still don't know what I'm doing with shading 😭😭

anyway! I guess the simple answer was a lot of years spent tweaking my style, and sort of just experimenting and having fun until I settle on something I'm comfortable with. I'm still new to certain aspects of drawing digitally, but I'm glad that people like my art :3

thank you for the ask!

#am i gonna show you my traditional sketches of foster when i was first figuring out my style? probably not 😭 #those can be buried in my notebooks until im confident enough to show y'all lmao #whump ask #i hope i answered your question well anon! i tried my best #whump #whump asks

[brownheadedcowbird]

weird thing happened last night

For those of you who don’t know, I’m a third year vet student. I work in my school’s ICU, and have been in emergency and critical care for about six years now. Vets are a superstitious bunch in general, and I’m not really an exception-- not that I believe in jinxes or anything, but I think that our little rituals and traditions help us make sense of an unpredictable and heartbreaking job.

Emergency and critical care sees a lot of death, and I make a lot of paws: clay, ink, foam, anything. It’s something we do to help the pet’s family remember them. One of my superstitions is that I don’t make memorial paw prints while an animal is still alive. It feels wrong to me, borderline disrespectful to focus on their impending death instead of honoring their last moments with us. But last night, I made an exception.

“Chili” presented to our emergency department for prolonged seizures of unknown origin. A one-year old border collie, she had no history of epilepsy, and owners were unaware of any trauma or exposure to neurotoxins. I got to work right when she arrived, so I was involved in her initial intake. We’d stopped the seizures, but she was hyperthermic and tremoring, her lactate through the roof and her oxygen saturation in the basement. We intubated, and blood began trickling out of the endotracheal tube.

I was assigned to one-on-one care, monitoring vitals and helping doctors with treatment. Coworkers drifted in and out, commenting on the case. We’re used to seeing things like this, but it’s always sobering to see a young dog in such rough shape. We speculated on what could have put her in this condition-- rat bait, heat stroke, blunt trauma-- and we prognosticated, saying it would take a miracle for her to come out of this. “I’ve heard of ‘good things,’” I joked. “Would love to see one happen someday.” A few more jokes were tossed around about how nothing good happens in the ICU. No miracles in vet med, just euthasol and clay paws.

The resident on duty that night brought the owners back after a few hours of care with no improvement. Chili was obtunded, cardiovascularly unstable, and now hypothermic, with no further clues as to why. The owners cried for a while and eventually elected to euthanize. The resident nodded to me, and I went off to get some clay for a paw print.

When I returned with the clay, the owners were gone. Chili was on the table, taking the same fast and shallow breaths as she had been for hours at that point. Her people had decided not to stay for the euthanasia: it made no difference to Chili, in her comatose state, and they couldn’t bear to see their puppy like this. Understandable. The resident told me that they would like to take her paw print home with them. 

I wanted to wait, of course. I don’t like making paw prints while my patients are still alive. But, knowing that the owners were waiting, I nodded and molded the clay into a flat circle. I took Chili’s left front paw and pressed the metacarpal pad into the circle, then digit II. Digit III. Digit IV twitched before I could make an impression in the clay, and then the whole paw was being yanked out of my hand. Her whole leg jerked back. 

I looked up, immediately worried that I’d inflicted some deep pain, stimulating a reflex that only the worst neurologic depression could have suppressed. Instead, I saw two dark eyes looking back at me. Her head was raised. Her tail thumped. I called for the doctor. Chili lurched to her feet, and licked my nose.

I still don’t understand what happened. The resident ran to get the owners, and when they walked in, they saw their dog-- comatose just minutes before, seconds from lethal injection-- standing on the table like nothing had happened. I think we all cried a little, but nobody more than Chili’s mom.

I texted my coworker for an update after day shift today, and she let me know that Chili is doing great. No further seizures, eating and drinking well, pulmonary effusion resolving. Hopefully she can be weaned off of supplemental oxygen soon and go home to her parents. I’ve never seen a patient bounce up from the brink of death like that, and probably won’t see it again for a very long time. 

What if I hadn’t pressed her paw into the clay? Would she have continued to sleep, obtunded, rigid and tremoring, as the injections, white then pink, diffused through her circulatory system, stopping her heart? I can’t stop thinking about it. Did she feel us beginning to mourn, and realize she wasn’t ready to go? 

Did someone hear us deriding miracles and decide to show us something good?

I think that’s what I’m going with. I’m not religious, but I like the idea of a higher power saying that, just this once, the little dog gets to live a bit longer.

#not animal death but very close for anyone who's sensitive regarding that #vet #vet med #veterinary

[worldcatlas]

PIC: Remembrance

Please note: This article contains spoilers for ST: Picard 1x01 (and earlier events that you should really already know about by now).

Eighteen years after Nemesis, the first episode of Star Trek: Picard opens with our titular admiral playing a game of poker with his old friend Data, who wears the DS9 style of uniform he died in. It’s hard to tell, but it looks like the vertical lines on the grey shoulder area of this remake may have been made by pleating the fabric, rather than quilting.

Yes, our favourite robot is back from the dead, but can we talk about these seams?

Picard himself doesn’t wear anything particularly noteworthy just yet, which is fine, because this was all a dream. Sadly, I can’t say the same for the next scene, in which this cool Xahean guy’s awesome vest–

–does not prevent him from being immediately murdered.

Great lining on the vest, though.

Jean-Luc, awake now, strolls through the vineyards of Château Picard looking absolutely dapper. With a cane and flat cap, he is the very image of a peaceful, pastoral retirement. Somehow, this is the cottagecore content we all needed in our Star Trek.

Number One also looking very gentlemanly.

In a move that seems surprisingly self-important, Picard also appears to be wearing a pin of his own family crest while touring the grounds… but I think he just feels naked without a little badge there. I also appreciate that he has pinned it to – in true Trek fashion – an asymmetrical sweater.

Straight lines were banned in 2360.

Speaking of great sweaters, another member of the household who wears the Picard family crest is Laris, Jean-Luc’s Romulan housekeeper. 

The fuzziness offsets the pointiness.

Our plot needs a catalyst, so a mean reporter is introduced to bully Picard into action. Her outfit is fine – nothing particularly futuristic except the weird single lapel – but she accessorizes it with digital makeup. We only get to see this concept for a few seconds, but I’m sold, I want ten, and I wish she’d gone with the indigo lip.

And here I am using crushed berries and charcoal like a chump.

Back to moving the plot forward, important character Dahj shows up to the vineyard wearing what I can only describe as an elven cloak.

Good boys know good fashion.

This gorgeous coat appears to be made of a heavy green wool with black strappy accents, a big slouchy hood, and a very pointy hemline. The sides cross over in front instead of having a traditional closure, which seems like it would leave your tummy chilly, but does allow for greater flexibility.

Always buy a coat that you can wear in snow, wind, and combat.

I’m also a huge fan of the thumbhole sleeves/built-in gloves.

Next, it’s time to visit the Starfleet Archives, which means another rib knit sweater.

If you’d spent a lifetime in polyester uniforms, you’d make the same choice.

I know it makes sense that, in any century, most people will still just wear normal, everyday clothes. But it doesn’t quite feel like the future without, like, androgynous holograms in wispy all-white outfits made of sheer fabrics and angular lines, you know?

Oh, there we go.

After some unfortunate events, our hero finds himself speaking with one Dr. Agnes Jurati, whose lab coat is business in front… box cutter mishap in the back?

Maybe she Hulks out sometimes and needs a contingency.

And then, just when you thought we couldn’t possibly introduce any more characters, a dark and brooding Romulan makes a dramatic entrance.

I’m sure the outfit is great, but these guys REALLY like shadows.

#star trek #star trek picard #romulans #xahean

[nickgerlich]

Ad It Up

You only thought it was difficult to escape the marketer’s voice. From traditional media like outdoor, print, and broadcast, to a variety of ads littering our social media feeds, web pages, and search results, marketers have been seemingly everywhere trying to get our attention. And the more they tried, the louder they had to shout, because it’s crowded out there, and the decibel level—whether audible or visual—is increasing.

Except perhaps in stores and at the gas pump, where we felt like we at least had a few minutes of quiet. That, too, is changing rapidly, as in-store advertising has gone digital, to the point of it being called “broadcast-level scale.” Gas pumps too are now coming equipped with video screens to sell to us while we are filling our tank.

It’s all a mixed bag right now of ads, with gas stations able to deliver hyper-local advertising for third-party advertisers nearby. Inside the store, the campaigns are aimed at the masses instead of using an audience-of-one approach.

I see the day coming, though, in which advertising at the pump will be increasingly one-to-one (remember, you have to insert or tap your card first, which could then quickly allow them to access a profile of you).

And the same goes for inside the store, especially once retail formats like Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” technology are deployed widespread. Your presence and unique data would be detected wherever you go in the store as the system monitors your shopping basket, and messages could be directed straight to you when you ponder the pasta sauces or wherever you go.

We’ve come a long way when it comes to in-store advertising. The majority of what we have seen usually involves massive stacks of soft drinks, the red, white, and green packages from Coca-Cola cleverly arranged to spell words or form images. The same goes for snack foods and beer leading up to the Super Bowl. Otherwise, maybe some small shelf hangers might try to whisper a marketing message.

Now, though, there is the possibility of smart screens attached to the clear refrigerator doors, behind which beverages of all kinds reside. Stand-alone screens can also welcome customers as they walk in. The possibilities are limitless, because LCD screens are cheap, and can all be managed remotely.

All of which speaks to this emerging truth: the retail store and gas stations are now viable platforms for advertising, a rentable space little different from billboards, TV, and the internet. The battle for our attention just found a new place to stage that fight. It allows retailers to boost their revenues and bottom lines above and beyond just selling things.

It’s happening in the online arena as well. Have you noticed how many sponsored spots there are on any Amazon results page? Amazon scored $12 billion in ad revenues in Q3 2023 alone. That’s impressive, especially when you consider that Amazon’s total revenue that quarter was $143 billion. In other words, advertising made up one in every 12 dollars of its revenues.

I predict a similar such cascade of revenues for any retailer willing to parse out its interior—and exterior—space for advertising purposes. After all, why not? If you can hit people right when they are coming to spend money anyway, this is pretty simple.

Truthfully, I do not mind the ads, especially if they point me to things I might be interested in. Elevate it to audience-of-one capability, and it is even better. I know…some people will be creeped out by this, just like they have been with all the targeted advertising we see online. I would much rather hear and see ads for things I am likely to buy, as opposed to things I will never buy. Every time I hear that Tampax ad on one of my podcasts, I think about how they’re foolishly wasting half of their ad spend on men like me.

Others may see such ubiquitous advertising as further invasion of their private space, a harbinger of a dystopian society to come. Or maybe it has already arrived. To each their own, but there is no ad blocker yet for the brick and mortar world, and the best you can do is shut your eyes and ears, and walk on by.

Or out.

Dr “Talk To Me” Gerlich

Audio Blog

#marketing #in-store advertising #digital #advertising #retail

[clarks-letterman]

Wally anon: brainwashed fjdbdj VERY glad you convinced me to watch cause I really would've never anticipated it being so good otherwise. 😶‍🌫️ (I feel they should start doing that more often instead of interjecting with bs cause it reallyyyy made a big difference) Get ready for all the requests for him coming soon. 🫣 (but, yup, exactly. it's soooo strange h o w much emphasis they put on her when even Randy was not forced in 1/2 nearly as much, whereas Chad, by comparison, is such. a genuinely fresh & exciting character for the franchise, yet so little is explored with him)

Yesss. He's seeing the full. array of what a size difference can offer in the moment that you're completely wrecking him & he's soooo into knowing you being shorter than him but leaving hin feeling like THAT. Oh yeah, you start getting a little forceful with it & tell him he can't touch himself unless you say so. Possibly even holding his hands down so he won't be able to. 🥴

Will be looking forward to it when you do. 🥰 And he'll just keep getting better as long as he keeps getting more roles! 🙌

It doesn't even make sense either where the complaining even comes from when you see soooo many religious people/police officers/people in power/etc. (almost always straight) being the primary ones exposed+arrested for actually. heinous shit, but oh no dummies still out here using gays as scapegoats like gimme a fuckin break. 🧐 Them arguing about who's gonna carry you while you're still passed out is so dkfhdl. Such a deeply unserious pair.

I guess we could say this scenario specifically skews toward more traditional ghostly antics for the sake of it. AUs & all that. 😉

Will do. I'll leave a list at the end of this msg. 👍 (I think if they had expanded on his character a little to support his reasoning as a possible killer, it could've worked for sure. The vision is already there, they just needed to capitalize on it.) Oh, for sure, I'm right there with you. In general, I don't think enough people discuss how attractive Justin Long was & still is (except in It's a Wonderful Knife cause his character was ugly as hell in that dfkfhd). 😭 djdkdkd the 3rd really was. awful, but he was cute in it, I absolutely agree (& I really do hate how wasted Tommy was on ST when the actor discussed how he. felt Tommy was in love with Steve the writers fr can not handle Steve in a gay relationship smh). (lollllll don't remind me @ Marvel) but yup, definitely more an excusable situation than worse offenders. 👍 I have a veryyyy different Saw ranking. 🤫

Oh damn @ half of it being cut. Did he say why or was it just budget/time constraints? (omgggg please @ her. They fr did not gaf about her character if she's got this many issues) Yupppp exactly. I followed that production for the longestttt time & UD still. delivers after all these years. 🙌 Yupyupyup. Have witnessed some of this bs & it really does not make sense for me how difficult it is to just...properly tag things. Like, if the "x reader" is not void of any gendered emphasis so anyone can envision themselves in the fic, then it doesn't fulfill the classification!

Exactly @ practicing to improve. 👍 Had no idea you made digital art, though. How long have you been at it? 😀 But yupppp, he has had a t i m e with underwear that it's just more convenient to go without it most of the time (especially if he wants to tease you). Depending on the pants/shorts, it'll be extremely. obvious when he isn't wearing anything underneath. But he has nothing to be ashamed about. 🫣

Now, Xmas horror recs: the Black Christmasses (1974-one of the best slashers of all time, no queston, but very. much a bad vibes movie so might be best to wait to watch until you're in the mood for that; 2006-silly goofy gorefest remake, iconic cast, tonally the most streamlined but makes a lot of wild swings thay can. be offputting to some; 2019-controversial for its weird handling of politics/PG-13 rating &, to me, the weakest of the 3, but not completely without merit like some people discuss it as), To All A Goodnight + Christmas Evil 1980/Silent Night, Deadly Night + Silent Night 2012/Santa's Slay/Christmas Bloody Christmas (all varying in quality, but probably the best selection if you want slashers where the killer is. Santa/is dressed as Santa), Curtains 1983 (not really "Xmas," but the winter vibes are immaculate. & it is by far one of THE best, most underrated slashers; must go in as blind as possible), the aforementioned It's A Wonderful Knife (I know several didn't like it cause it skews in a more comedic direction, but I got a lot out of it + it's superrrr gay), Gremlins (arguable on this fully. classifying as "horror," but a PG rating in the 80s got away with a lotttt more than it does now + it has very similar vibes to Krampus), & Inside 2007 (less full-blown Xmassy as much as it is a veryyyy violent movie that happens to be set around the time; does not. miss with the gore, but it is absolutey visceral). There are others, but I wanted to try to limit it cause I've already gone on long enough lolllll. And, because it's already that time for me: Merry Christmas. 🥰🎄

my phone died while writing this so if these responses seem short it’s because i had to rewrite them sksjs😅

i’m glad you liked the movie!! can’t wait for the Ben requests because I love that loser sm🫣 Yeah I never got why Mindy was so obsessed with being in a Scream franchise, and that almost every line her character has is about movies/guessing the killer. It’s worse in 6 than it is at 5, mostly because she was supposed to be a killer in 5 if i’m not mistaken, so it makes sense but it’s also notably lessened. Chad is… interesting. He feels much different between 5 and 6, and I think it hurts his character a lot. also how does the dude keep getting up after have his shit rocked several times😭 like it felt comical that we basically saw his death scene and then “he’s alive!” Like… huh

Yesss he’s gonna be losing it over someone “that tiny making him feel that good.” (he sees anyone even a centimeter shorter than him as a midget sksjsj.) It does get to the point where he’s so needy and wants release the you do have to pin his arms down and even his hips because he desperately wants friction and to cum🫣😮‍💨

He’s gonna become an acting master by the time we’ve been through… (checking my notes… let’s see how many roles we’ve come up with so far…) 5,037 times!

Exactly, I wish there was more we could do about it😪 But they can watch me fuck/get fucked by a man atp… they need some exposure therapy to make it make some sense it their heads. I feel like they’d each carry half of you somehow, bickering until you can’t take it sksjsk. Super unserious

Yesss🫣 while it wouldn’t be much of an AU since it’s the same place with relatively the same rules besides how ghosts cum, it’s still a damn good alternate universe😮‍💨

I just wanted Ryan to be the killer because it would’ve been soooo hot. (Hotter than he already is 😮‍💨) Right!! Darry was my first horror movie boy crush and still ranks up there pretty highly (with Ryan being my latest.) I haven’t seen Wonderful Knife but hopefully it’s not too bad😂 You’re so right, I hate that we never got an inkling of gay/bi Steve because he definitely isn’t straight. He literally had a fight with Tommy where they looked into each others eyes?? Lovingly?? While they fought “about a girl”!! Seems like we have some homosexuals afoot.. Jkjk, but I do find it interesting that Steve/Tommy was such a tense pairing and then Tommy literally just went to be with the “new Steve” (Billy) when he came into town. Tommy/Billy would’ve been interesting to see for that reason, befriending someone because they literally are the worst (but maybe best, to him?) parts of his ex best friend. Plus the fact they’ve canonically seen each other naked with that one shower scene… where is some Psycho for the gays😪 (kidding) Oh, do share your saw ranking🤭 I wanna knowwww

Zach didn’t say why, not that I remember at least. I think it was probably deadline issues, though. Probably wanted to have it slated for a summer release to fit the theme and had to cut stuff. It’s a shame cause UD had years and an open development history to prove it. Exactly! I’m fine with x GN and x gender neutral reader being a thing to give it more specification, but I really hate that x reader automatically defaults to being for female readers. Whereas anyone else needs to have specific clarification on who it’s for. It’s annoying,

I’ve been doing digital art for a few months now. I’m still not good at it, but it’s such a big switch from traditional to digital. I used to be a fiend for traditional art, then I got an iPad months ago for my bday and for classes for more advanced notes and all, but I figured that the opportunity was there for me to learn, so why not pick up a new skill? Oh, if it was up to him, I could see wally forgoing any clothes at all because he really has nothing to be ashamed of. But you know, other ghosts could see him, so he wears the bare minimum. (Unless we’re talking another AU👀)

OMG TYSM🥹 this is too sweet and I’ll definitely be watching some today after Christmas festivities are over. We already celebrated with dinner here on Christmas Eve, so now it’s just the presents and stuff and then I’ll be free to watch some of these in my old bedroom!! Merry Christmas btw!! Hope you get Milo under the tree wrapped with a few bows😉 jkjk

#wally clark #wally clark x you #wally clark x reader

[gourmetprincipito-blog]

One of the weirdest and worst parts of being an artist in the internet era is the unavoidable commodification of something that was previously entirely personal. Trying to make a living as an artist means constantly pitching yourself to everyone all the time, it means conversations about how to transform your poetry and expression into more accessible and more lucrative versions of themselves. It’s a brutal and extremely intimate example of how capitalism infects everything in society.

As a young punk kid I was deeply inspired by bands like Bomb the Music Industry! and Defiance, Ohio, who proved it was possible to carve out a niche in counterculture without compromising your ideals. Free digital downloads of all music, spray-painted t-shirts instead of merch, and booking shows in all ages and inexpensive venues blew me away as a kid and I emulated it with my music career as well.

But even in these spaces - the most progressive and least commoditized I’ve seen in my life - the game of capitalism is still not really something you can withdraw from. In fact, trying to exist outside of the traditional structures just forces you to do *more* of what you disagree with. Independent artists have to be their own publicists, managers, agents, etc. and it so quickly becomes something entirely different than you set out to do.

Few pieces of art even approach this dilemma but even fewer do it with such clarity and profundity as “Side Projects Are Never Successful,” by Bomb the Music Industry! Perfectly expressing the begrudging acceptance of our situation with a tongue in cheek declaration that we are all born businessmen and all creations are products, illustrating how capitalism spreads itself over every facet of society - even its perspectives and philosophies.

“The glares on our windshields, we can’t even see each other’s eyes. Just McDonald’s cups and wrappers that they’re throwing at full speed. And yes, I long for a shadow, and yes, I always appreciate the irony that the only cool cover that allows us to see is a goddamn billboard! Yeah a billboard is the only thing preventing us from blindly crashing.

And we’ll never see a city not marred by advertisements, we’ll never see a future not working for these companies. It’s sure as shit not getting better so we might as well accept it now.

But that really shouldn’t cheapen anything because, baby, we’re all born to be businessmen. Every Fugazi record has a catalog number and a price tag, and every independent label is selling you another goddamn product.

But no, *we’re* not slaves to the music. No, *we’re* not slaves to the company, baby,

We do what we’re born and raised to do and when you’re creating something you’re producing something and the act of producing leads to the creation of a product.”

The song beautifully pairs this commentary on capitalism and art with another on the apocalypse and the futility of rugged individualistic and billionaire doomsday prepping, effectively shattering the concept entirely in a few lines.

“That orange ball, yeah that burning orb of fire in the sky is gonna explode and we’re all gonna die. Except for the privileged few who, quote unquote, “think ahead,” and drive their SUVs down to their bomb shelters. Complaining about no air conditioning because, baby, we ain’t got no more electricity.

They wanna rise with the sun, be a leader with a gun. Be a leader of what? Like a hundred and one? Fuck if, I’m gonna hang out on the rooftop when it comes.”

These two threads join in a hypothetical where, post-apocalypse caused explicitly by capitalism, capitalism still defines the social structure. It also parodies accelerationism and doomsday preppers again, effectively showing that the things these communities hope to achieve for themselves and society through apocalyptic scenarios are simply negative byproducts of capitalism. A punk rock reiteration of the famous Mark Fisher quote, “It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.”

“When it’s dark, it’ll be night time, baby, and I’ll get my ass on up out of this mess. The only stores that are open, baby, yeah, they’re gonna sell beer and they’re gonna sell ice cream and we’ll drink drink drink and get drunk drunk drunk. And we’ll talk talk talk about how much much much, how much fun we had, yeah, we were fucking the world.

When the sun drops you ain’t gonna be hungover the next day. When the comet hits there won’t be any bills to pay. When the bomb drops it’s gonna be a four day weekend, hey hey. When the sun’s gone I’m gonna feel great! Finally!”

Jeff Rosenstock, the songwriter behind Bomb the Music Industry! and now working as a solo artist, once stated his belief that, in a culture of disposable products and disposable people, cynicism and post-truth, obsessed with outrage, etc. the most punk rock thing possible is to build lasting communities and foster positivity. To remain hopeful and work toward something better.

That inspired me over a decade ago and I try to keep that in mind on a daily basis. We don’t have to wait for or cause the apocalypse to improve things for ourselves and our neighbors and our loved ones. There is still good to do, even in a bad system.

#capitalism #punk rock #music analysis #indie music #independent artist #propaganda #music review #bomb the music industry #jeff rosenstock

[booklovertwilight]

sketching people from references: my process

(This is mainly a long-winded reply to @ace-catboy-ryuuzaki's request for constructive critique on their art, because I didn't want to reblog their post with all this junk. But anyone else is welcome to reblog as well!)

When trying to improve at anatomy, I always work from photos or from life instead of off other peoples' art. That way I can be sure all the problems with the art are mine and not the original artist's.

So step 1 is to find a photo. As an example for this post, I found this pose reference on google images.

First thing I do is hold my pen/pencil up to the image to get a sense of where the lines are. How steep an angle is that pole at? What about the lines of the arms and legs? Think about the bones, rather than the actual outlines of the form, for this part. I'll start my sketch with these lines, and then around them, draw some cylinders to get a sense for the three-dimensional shape of the figure.

Here's an example of this step. But wait! That top arm doesn't look right. What I'll do is just erase it until it looks plausible again, look back at the photo, and maybe hold up my pen again, and then re-draw it.

There, that's better.

I make sure to use curved lines at the joints, to show the perspective.

Since I do digital art these days, after I've got this sketch, I tend to make a new layer and turn the transparency on this one down. But back when I did traditional pen-and-paper art, I'd just do this first sketch really gently, with very light pencil strokes, so I could draw over it easily.

After that I can go through and add some detail. NOW I'm thinking about the actual shape of the muscles. I'll pretty much draw in everything except the hands, feet, and face.

(Note those guidelines, though, at the halfway point of the head vertically and horizontally: they'll come in handy later.)

My process for hands is to sort of block them in with rectangles and then define the details afterwards.

I've got two trapezoids to show where the fingers are, and some teardrop shapes for the knuckles. The first thumb-joint is pretty much a cylinder with a pointed end.

After that I'll put in the fingers...

Then round them off and erase the extraneous lines.

Feet are just rounded off triangles.

Eyes are halfway up the head, and ears are halfway around the sides. With that information I'll use the guidelines I made earlier to draw in the facial features.

Finally I'll put the hair in -- hair is kind of a tricky thing but most of the trick is just to use light strokes and not worry too much about where your pen's going.

So here we are, a finished sketch.

#art #art reference #sketch #sketching from reference #drawing people #my art #tutorial #(?)

[bokunoartacademia]

Basic Info

BNHA Art Academia Au

No Quirks Au/ No real ship present/ Main character? I’d Like to give every character their own Spotlight

U. Arts-Universal Arts College

An au where the BNHA Students are artists in art school (College) instead of heroes. Like in BNHA all teachers are professional and accomplished artists.

Class 1-A: (Art Identity) A class dedicated to developing your art skills and encouraging interaction between artists of various focuses.

Home Room Teacher- Aizawa Shouta: Creative Writer- Got his claim to fame through his novel "Erasure". Specializes in themes of Man vs self, and Man vs Man.

Favorite Medium: Writing on his phone. Yes, he wrote an entire novel on his phone.

Toshinori Yagi: Comic Writer, Has lived every Artist's fantasy, self-published a comic, All Might, that later turned into a long-running animated tv series popular with all ages. His series has spawned tons of merch and awards. Now he just has to write an ending.

Favorite Medium: Traditional Ink and screen tones.

Midoriya Izuku: Comic artist (Superhero/Action genre), Great at writing and planning but always struggled with the fundamentals of art? Understands the fundamentals but putting ideas to paper is complex, never really developed a "style" for drawing.

Favorite Medium: Digital art

Bakugou Katsuki: Comic artist (Superhero/Action genre), Quickly grasped and applied the fundamentals of drawing. Though he's still a hard worker, has won contests as a child, and wrote comics for his school's newspaper.

Favorite Medium: Traditional pen and ink, + Markers

Uraraka Ochako: Concept Artist(Sci-Fi), Loves sci-fi or anything space-related, wants to become a concept artist for the sci-fi genre. Has a secret commission account where she'll draw Almost Anything for the right price. Favorite Medium- Digital Art

Iida Tenya: Technical artist, Planning to get an engineering degree to pair with his art skills. Likes drawing machinery and designing how they move. Enjoys building models too.

Favorite Medium: Fine Point Drafting Pens and alcohol markers

Kirishima Eijiro: Sculpture, Makes Sculptures by carving stone, terrible at making clay sculptures and pottery. Work part-time at a gym.

Favorite Medium: Stone, Hammer, and Chisel

Mina Ashido: Abstract/Graffiti/Performance Artist, Makes very popular videos on Instagram, however, has a terrible uploading schedule due to time management issues. Her videos features her dancing and creating abstract paintings through her movement.

Medium: Acrylic and Spray Paint

Todoroki Shoto: Hyper-realistic Oil Painter

A known child 'Prodigy', in reality, he's taken art lessons ever since he could hold a pencil, never got to experiment with different mediums, emotions, or styles, just paint what's in front of you exactly how you see it.

Favorite Medium: Oil Paint, for now

Yaoyorozou Momo: Multimedia Artist, Dabbles in everything, sculpture, painting, collages, etc. Doesn’t care for making digital art though.

Favorite medium: Everything except digital

Koda Koji: Photographer/Artist, Main subjects are Animals, makes scrapbook pages for his pictures.

Favorite medium: Polaroid pictures

Shoji Mezo: Dancer, Wears a mask so people focus on his movements and not the expression on his face.

Favorite medium: Interpretive Dance

Tokoyami Fumikage: Creative Writer, His writing falls into the drama and gothic literature field. Drabbles in poetry and short stories. Has an antique-type writer but it’s too heavy to carry around.

Medium: pen and quill

Sero Hanta: Multimedia, Makes art and sculpture using tape. It’s impressive what he can make out of tape and random parts. So far he’s made clothes, shoes, and a tea set. Always gets looks from other shoppers when they see his cart full of duct-taped.

Medium: Tape

Jiro Kyoka: Musician, Solo Popular musician on youtube, has opened for various musicians and has performed at festivals.

Medium: Vocals

Kaminari Denki: Musician/Influencer/model, makes rap, remixes, and pop music. When he’s not making music he actually models for some clothing brands and boasts on Instagram about “Chillin with the boys”

Medium: Turn Tables

Ojiro Mashirao: Sculptor, makes 3-d models in digital format, also makes sculpts of characters using clay.

Favorite Medium:3d Modelling Software

Mineta Minoru: Photographer, Mainly photographs/ draws women, honestly don’t know what I’m gonna do with him.

Favorite Medium: Digital camera,

Sato Rikido: Food Photographer, Loves cooking and posting his photos online. Yes, Cooking is an art and like Koda, he’s putting together a book with all of his picture. 

Favorite Medium: Digital Camera

Toru Hagakure: Fashion Designer, Loves see-through fabrics and hair accessories.

Favorite Medium: Vinyl Fabric

Tsuyu Asui: Children Books Artist, has been developing her book series “Froppy” since she was a little kid. Posts little comics online and has an online store where she sells stickers and pins.

Favorite Medium: Watercolor

Aoyama Yuga: Fashion Designer, calls his work “Flashion” everything is covered with glitter and sequins. Carries a bedazzler arounds

Favorite Medium: Sequins

More Characters to be introduced and more character details to be revealed in the future!

#MHA #BNHA #BNHAAU #Bakugou Katsuki #mha midoriya #todoroki shouto #uraraka ochako #iida tenya #kirishima eijiro #mina ashido #denki kaminari #fumikage tokoyami #hanta sero #koji koda #kyoka jiro #mashirao ojiro #mezo shoji #minoru mineta #Momo Yaoyorozu #Rikido Sato #Toru Hagakure #Tsuyu Asui #Yuga Aoyama

[gamersonthego]

GOTG Review: Echochrome

This is the fourth game in my Backlog Roulette series, where each month I spin a wheel to randomly select a game on my massive backlog that I must play (though not necessarily to completion). These wheel spins occur on the monthly preview episodes I co-host with my friends on The Casual Hour podcast.

You want to hear something super lame? Echochrome is all about your perspective. 

OK, maybe I should explain why that’s lame. Echochrome is literally a game about perspective. You rotate a camera to hide, reveal or alter the level’s geometry to coax a character you don’t directly control to navigate to specific areas of the map. It’s Lemmings in the style of an M.C. Escher. 

So when I say it’s a game about your perspective, that’s some on-the-nose, too-clever-for-your-own-good writer bullshit. Except that that’s not what I’m talking about. 

The perspectives I’m talking about are not within the game’s clockwork levels, but outside of them. In the menus. In the presentation. In your approach to the game as a player as you hold your PSP and look upon it. 

Echochrome does not function like a traditional game. You don’t go from Level 1 to Level 2. I mean, I guess you technically can, but good luck figuring out how. Because when you load up Echcohrome for the first time — after getting through its initial tutorial — you’re thrown into its main menu, greeted not by more expected options like “campaign” or “time trial” or “challenge.” Instead you’ll see the words “freeform,” “atelier,” “canvas” and my favorite “etc.”

Love it. No notes. Well, maybe just one note: What the hell do any of these things mean?

“Freeform” is the top option. Let’s try that. It dumps you into a puzzle. You solve it. You’re dumped into another puzzle. You solve it. Maybe this is a traditional game after all. But then you notice a letter and a number shown at the beginning of each puzzle. B4, F6, D1, C3. But you don’t think much about it. That is, until you reach a puzzle you can’t solve. One in which you realize the game has a 10-minute time limit per puzzle. 

This is B8. I'm too stubborn to look up the answer, but I just can't figure out how to get the last echo. I hate it.

Cool, cool. While I think on that puzzle, let’s go back to the main menu and check out “atelier.” There’s no Ryza or Sophie to be found though, only a 8x7 grid of level options. And now the codes you saw on freeform make sense. Those were level identifiers. Row B, stage 4. Which means freeform is essentially a randomizer, whereas atelier presents them in the game’s natural order, of which you’re free to tackle any of the 56 stages however you wish. You go back to the one that stumped you before — B8. But after five minutes elapse, the failure bell rings. You only get half the time to complete a level in atelier mode (I guess because you chose the level yourself?)

And then there’s canvas — a neat little level editor to make your own stages — and etc., where the options, saves, credits and a replay of the tutorial go. 

The game itself? Oh, it’s pretty cool, I guess. The perspective mechanics can feel a little inconsistent, requiring very digital outcomes through an analog control scheme. And the time limits feel rather pointless (if the game is already tracking your time on each puzzle like a score, then what’s the need for a limit?) in a game that should be as pleasantly relaxing as doing the daily crossword or sudoku. And it is equal parts frustrating and funny when the soothing disembodied lady voice says “oops” every time you let your Escher lemming fall off the world. 

But more important to me is how the game bucks traditional names, rules and conventions to do its own thing (as the late Sony Japan Studio was wont to do with all their games), giving it a novelty and charm that endures to this day. Echochrome II though, requiring both a PS3 and a PlayStation Move controller to play, ages quite a bit worse unfortunately.

#game review #backlog roulette #psp #echochrome

[etes-secrecy-post]

Hi, before I explain my post, I want to say something important.

• What you see my blog has become a major overhaul. And despite the changes, I decided that my 2nd account will be now my artwork blog with a secret twist.

⚠️NEW RULE! (W/ BIGGER TEXT!)⚠️

⚠️ SO PLEASE DO NOT SHARE MY 2nd ACCOUNT TO EVERYONE! THIS SECRECY BLOG OF MINE IS FOR CLOSES FRIENDS ONLY!⚠️

• AND FOR MY CLOSES FRIENDS, DON’T REBLOG IT. INSTEAD, JUST COPY MY LINK AND PASTE IT ON YOUR TUMBLR POST! JUST BE SURE THE IMAGE WILL BE REMOVED AND THE ONLY LEFT WAS THE TEXT.

⚠️ SHARING LINKS, LIKE POSTS, REBLOG POSTS, STEALING MY SNAPSHOT PHOTOS/RECORDED VIDEOS/ARTWORKS (a.k.a. ART THIEVES) OR PLAGIARIZING FROM UNKNOWN TUMBLR STRANGERS WILL IMMEDIATELY BE BLOCKED, RIGHT AWAY!⚠️

😡 WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT EVER LIKED & REBLOG MY SECRET POST! THIS IS FOR MY SECRET FRIENDS ONLY, NOT YOU! 😡

Okay? Capiche? Make sense? Good, now back to the post…↓

Title: Cuteness Members - Caramel & Okai Chan

Hello, my secret friends. Here’s another pay commission artwork for my friend, Romulus907.

• You know, I can handle two or three Cuteness Mecha members in one fitted digital or traditional artwork canvas instead of individual, and these two we're no exception. Caramel & her parnet Okai chain, both of which we're Romulus' Sonic OCs. 🙂

I’ll provide some links down below for their Cuteness Mecha Armors & infos about Caramel & Okai Chan: ↓

• CARAMEL THE RABBIT (REMASTERED VERSION)

• G ARCANA PERFECT FORM

• OKAI CHAN THE CHAO

• OKAI BEARGGUY

• CARAMEL'S CUTENESS DEFENDER UNIFORM (WITH OKAI CHAN'S UNIFORM) (2022 VER)

Well, that's all for now.

Previous:

• Cuteness Member - Hiro Ryuku V2

• Cuteness Member - Jem V2

• Cuteness Member - Moki Katsu V2

•  Cuteness Member - Ark

• Cuteness Members - Tyler Waltz & Zero V2

• Cuteness Members - Kai & Kale V2

• Cuteness Member - Fuse V3

Caramel & Okai Chan (Sonic OCs) - owned by Romulus907

Armors (Gundam Reconguista in G & Gundam Build Series) - Gundam Series © Sotsu, Sunrise