New Kid On the Block

[ot3]

admittedly I'm basing this opinion on a very low sample size because I try to avoid having to see the contents of vivziepops work as much as is humanly possible. but I think a unique creative voice is just not something the woman possesses. nobody but hirohiko araki could write jojos bizarre adventure. I think pretty much anyone on the planet who has seen at least one or two adult cartoons could write hazbin hotel.

[sweetdreams-aremade]

It's absolutely the product of a unique creative voice lol. It's still shit.

The thing about Araki is that he's absolutely aware of and concerned about living up to conventional metrics of quality, and the reason for his success is less any arbitrary sense of him having a more singular voice than any other artist than the boring answer of practicing from childhood, which includes learning which ideas have to hit the cutting room floor and how to compromise your own desire for indulgence for the sake of making a work that coheres.

See also Mandy, which is as singular and self-indulgent a work of art as it gets and shit.

[ot3]

admittedly I'm basing this opinion on a very low sample size because I try to avoid having to see the contents of vivziepops work as much as is humanly possible. but I think a unique creative voice is just not something the woman possesses. nobody but hirohiko araki could write jojos bizarre adventure. I think pretty much anyone on the planet who has seen at least one or two adult cartoons could write hazbin hotel.

[our-lady-of-haymakers]

I love how Westerners will be like, "Japanese VNs are filled with one-dimensional fantasy Anime Waifus who have no depth and are all homogenous- even a 30 hour visual novel with multiple branching routes where you have to delve deep into the trauma and secrets and insecurities of a character is just Wish Fulfillment Slop! Check out my quirky subversive Queer visual novel that spans two hours, has characters that fit neatly into clear boxes of gender identity across an arbitrarily defined list of categories as advertised in the trailer, provides realistic and authentic romance wherein characters joke that this isn't a dating sim and recite their backstories to you in a coffee shop after 1.5 conversations, and provides Cutting Social Critique like, "Damn dude, Capitalism Sucks, but I guess we Still Gotta Love".

[sweetdreams-aremade]

I mean. Those 30 hour VNs are artless slop.

[studentofetherium]

[sweetdreams-aremade]

Seriously, if the peak of that side of the medium is artless slop like Full Metal Daemon Muramasa, then yes, the 2.5 hour coffeeshop AU vns have more artistic merit. It's kind of incredible that there are things more artless than that.

[our-lady-of-haymakers]

I love how Westerners will be like, "Japanese VNs are filled with one-dimensional fantasy Anime Waifus who have no depth and are all homogenous- even a 30 hour visual novel with multiple branching routes where you have to delve deep into the trauma and secrets and insecurities of a character is just Wish Fulfillment Slop! Check out my quirky subversive Queer visual novel that spans two hours, has characters that fit neatly into clear boxes of gender identity across an arbitrarily defined list of categories as advertised in the trailer, provides realistic and authentic romance wherein characters joke that this isn't a dating sim and recite their backstories to you in a coffee shop after 1.5 conversations, and provides Cutting Social Critique like, "Damn dude, Capitalism Sucks, but I guess we Still Gotta Love".

[sweetdreams-aremade]

I mean. Those 30 hour VNs are artless slop.

[zinaanqar16]

We are more exhausted than you can imagine. We have suffered more than you could ever witness. We die a hundred times each day, yet the slaughter continues. Enough killing... enough silence... enough war. Stop the war on Gaza.

Our children's bodies are no longer able to bear this. They are skeletons standing on the ground, unable to even walk.

Have mercy — for the sake of our little children, who have known nothing of life but fear, hunger, and destruction. Please if you can able Donate here

[akajustmerry]

I know Israel has attacked Iran and vice versa, but please don't forget Gazans need help. Jamal Hossam Al-Dahdouh is an 18-year-old young man from the Gaza Strip. He was born under siege and all he wants is to raise enough money to escape Israel's genocide of Gaza. Israel has cut off internet and electricity. there is no food, water or aid entering the Gaza Strip and they're still being bombed indiscriminately by the iof. Jamal's home and belongings were destroyed in a single airstrike. every dollar gets Jamal and his mother, father and 4 siblings (the youngest is 4 years old) closer to safety and being able to rebuild their lives. ( VETTING: #647 by Gazavetters). His campaign is LOW ON FUNDS: LESS THAN $500 USD/$20,000. Please, share and/or donate. Remember the people of Gaza, no matter how much the world wants you to ignore them.

[smoqueen-deactivated20251108]

you werent a gifted kid. those little weirdos from akira now those were gifted kids

[hateusandseeifwemind-deactivate]

[lapithae]

I get that no one wants to hear it, but it's really funny that the Hassans are called that .Like, Hassan-i-Sabbah isn't an intimidating assassin name, it's a regular person name.

The point of Hassan-i-Sabbah is that it's a title that signifies that the bearer is a deadly assassin

Which doesn't come across when it's a regular name

It's like naming a line of knights Kevins as a title.

The Old Man of the Mountain works better as a nickname because it's frankly way more intimidating and much more of an actual nickname than Hassan-i-Sabbah

I don't think this is a 'no one wants to hear it' as much as you're sort of fundamentally misinterpreting some things.

Firstly, people have done a 'line of Kevin's' thing before. For example, Europeans did that constantly with their royalty. The French had like 16 'King Louis'. So that already does and has happened in real life history. Names are passed on, especially when they're associated with someone important. If there was a 'Kevin' that led a knight order that people in said order venerated said Kevin that fiercely, we probably would hear about an order of people passing down the name 'Kevin'.

Secondly, 'The Old Man of the Mountain' is the 'Assassin' name. It's an epithet for Hassan-i-Sabbah. All of them are Hassan-i-Sabbah, all of them are 'The Old Man of the Mountain'. They're all both.

Thirdly, 'Hassan-i-Sabbah' isn't meant to be intimidating as a name, it is an intimidating name purely by being associated with the head and founder of an incredibly prolific organization of assassins, but that's a benefit of taking the name, not the entire point.

The Hassans take the name because it is a name granted as a sign of loyalty and devotion to their organization. They give up their lives, their families, their faces, their own names, and their individuality outside of their one specific skill, in order to keep 'Hassan-i-Sabbah' alive and lead the Hashshashin. As long as the Hashshashin exist, Hassan-i-Sabbah exists. They don't call themselves 'Hassan-i-Sabbah' to be scary, they call themselves that to show that they're fully dedicated to filling in the role that the previous 'Hassan-i-Sabbah' occupied.

That was a core part of Cursed Arm's characterization- he gave up everything to be 'Hassan-i-Sabbah', and only realized in death that he had fully erased his individuality for the sake of keeping that name alive, and so wanted to use the Grail to re-assert himself as an individual rather than 'Hassan-i-Sabbah'.

[sweetdreams-aremade]

This is correct. Part of me wants to dispute the reading that Hassan-i-Sabbah would be automatically intimidating for being associated with the founder of an assassin sect, but then I remembered that there are ordinary names in the real world with a fearsome reputation because they're tied to fearsome people.

Mostly this came to mind because I was talking about the title "Hassan-i-Sabbah" with someone and she thought it made no sense because the name Hassan had "nothing to do with assassins." She was also of Persian-Kurdish extraction, so she knew what she was talking about.

[toskarin]

touches my demon blade sensually and accidentally severs a piece of my soul

[sweetdreams-aremade]

Wait you've read Philip Craig Russell's Elric comics?

[bringcal]

fuck killing a victorian child by making them listen to hyperpop all you gotta do is make a white tumblr user listen to rap

[pc-nk]

LMAO

[capelanchett]

the jokes write themselves

[lelouch]

[3liza]

[gendertaliban]

-_-

[pissmoon]

Average tumblr user flexing how underground and weiiiiiiiirddd their music taste is

[goldenteaset]

Highly recommend reading the Boogeyman quest story, it's short but powerful. ;v;

GBF said "You're going to cry SO MUCH today but we'll give you this awesome suit" and I replied "Thank you"

[sweetdreams-aremade]

Oh shit a Desperado reference

[wibbleburger]

What do you think of the Venture Bros' visual style?

i think its among the best western cartoons have ever looked

[sweetdreams-aremade]

I'm torn on it because it has truly spectacular art direction mixed with (IMO) somewhat weak storyboarding and shot composition.

[ash-tea]

Happy International Women's day y'all

[surmayah]

Remember.

[ph-cutie]

disco elysium was ahead of the curve they managed to make a man so magnetic he seduced three quarters of the player base despite the fact he's canonically a dude highly prideful of having a big obnoxiously loud car

[ph-cutie]

he's a french cop whos so politically passive he can't even identify as a centrist and he has the worst car on the continent and when you tell him his stupid car gave you a migraine and scared off every bird in a 20km radius he's like "heh... oui i suppose thats ze price of my kineema's unmatched engine power" and three quarters of the player base wants to marry him

[shuttershocky-deactivated202512]

Why are hack 'n slash/spectacle fighters so popular among Chinese developers to the point where a plurality of Chinese games (HI3, Black Myth Wukong, Phantom Blade Zero, Lost Soul Aside, Tides of Annihilation) are in the genre, given that most of those games were until recently console exclusive?

I don't know! As a character action / spectacle fighter / hack and slash / whatever fan it's something I would love to know for myself, because if you're like me and lamenting how Soulslikes have almost completely wiped out pure action from the face of the Earth, indies and Chinese games are basically our last surviving bastion.

(I mean, look at Punishing Gray Raven being a better DMC style mobile action game than Devil May Cry's own mobile game.)

If I had to guess, it's because Chinese gamers have a long and storied love affair with all kinds of action games from Monster Hunter to DMC (take a shot every time a gacha character takes something from Vergil's DMC3 moveset, or don't because you'll die) and in this current climate where Western AAA keeps actively killing its own devs even when they succeed (such as with Hi-Fi Rush) and Japanese AAA is infamously restrictive, Chinese developers are the only ones willing to risk it right now.

___

Now that I mention it, I remember I linked an article here a while back about how Japanese developers say Chinese game development is a whole different beast, willing to spend money on risky ventures and that they're unafraid to just implement a crazy idea that someone in the team suggests.

That bit is important, because going for pure action compared to Action RPGs and to Soulslikes is NOT playing it safe, from both a commercial and design standpoint.

There was a very, very big essay here that I just deleted because I counted 9 paragraphs and it still wasn't done and it's not like I was saying anything any Bayonetta/Ninja Gaiden / DMC / classic God of War etc fan hasn't already said. To cut straight to the point: pure action is harder to develop, harder to get right, sells less, and turns off a vast majority of gamers because without the builds and stats of an Action RPG, their only metric of progression is the vague sense that they're getting better at combat.

If you're doing pure hack and slash action nowadays, you're doing it for pure love of the game, and it seems only Chinese devs have the funding to go beyond indie (even then, Black Myth Wukong and Phantom Blade Zero clearly have Souls elements baked into them, they're just faster and flashier).

ALL THAT BEING SAID we're getting a new Ninja Gaiden and a new Onimusha from Koei Tecmo and Capcom, while Action RPG titles like FF7 Rebirth have found great success implementing more features from classic hack and slash such as air combos and juggling. Maybe a combined effort from the old guard with the new blood Chinese devs making titles like Tides of Annihilation (or that one solo beast of a developer making Lost Soul Aside, ive been following that project forever) will be enough to revive the genre. I sure hope so, because Dante sure as hell isn't coming out of retirement to save us anymore!