Âmesang

My grandmother's cat, Raymond, passed away today at 3:51 EST. Seemed like the most appropriate song for the occasion. Gonna miss ya, Little Boy…

Fusion Ellipsis' title and Professor Ludwig Von Drake avatar perfectly some up my reaction to this latest piece of artwork. Penders is in desperate need of a professional editor… and a few more art classes couldn't help, either. (And I'm saying this as someone who's own art isn't very good… but I can at least recognize that my artwork isn't good and still needs improvement.)

So now I'm looking at that picture of Goofy and I'm not sure if I should read that expression as genuine shock… or deeply pondering which brand of milk would be best served when cooking his son, Max. I just… I-I don't even… I mean I expected the guy to say the occasional foolish comment that'd appear to lack insight or understanding or just plain sound ignorant in the right context… and then there's that! …then again I'm a fan of Dragon Ball where members of the main cast have eaten intelligent creatures (see: Yajirobe and one of Demon King Piccolo's offspring), but the eating of their own offspring …I don't think that's something anyone wants to think about regardless of intended demographic.

Oh! Oh! Something that came back to my mind that I wondered about and then forgot and… ah… anyway… …about that CGI Lien-Da …why are her cybernetics glowing? Did she attach little LED lights on them? Did whomever grafted the cybernetics onto her do that? Why did they do it? Is it dark in the Twilight Cage and they can't be bothered to carry flashlights? Do they turn them off when they sleep? That's just been bugging me something fierce about her—why are they there? I mean there's "Rule of Cool" and then there's "Rule of Practical." It's why I didn't like Black Widow's costume in Avengers: Age of Ultron—how does she expect to be a sneaky spy with glowing blue lines on her costume? And there's your Pointless Question of the Day.™ EDIT: On a similar note, is Future Knuckes'/The Praetorian's cybernetic eye always in that angry slit? Does seem like it'd give him a lot of visual acuity or anything; I mean that eye can't really look up or down, right? Just side to side, really.

So I just pasted that image into PaintShop Pro for a close-up and, using the crop tool for measuring, I can't find a difference in the width or depth between Sonic and Shadow's torsos; the only "difference" I can see is that Shadow is more angular than Sonic, though Sonic does appear to have a slightly longer tail.

I believe the Advance still had shoulder buttons which I'm used to after playing Street Fighter games on the PS2. Honestly my only problem with SSF2TR (besides that ridiculously long name) is that, at least in the Western version, if you successfully performed all of the requirements to fight Akuma the game would crash… and not only that, it would subsequently glitch out all of your records.

I really need to get back to finishing Sonic Advance 3… swallowing my pride and confessing I should use a guide to track down all of those gosh-durn'd Chaos Emeralds. Aside from the Advance series my only portal Sonic would be Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on my tablet. …is it possible to connect a 32X to a Nomad? I really miss playing Knuckles' Chaotix.

"Super Sonic strongest one there is!" I can't imagine being super is an entirely pleasant experience; not that he'd be in wracking pain, but he does have phenomenal cosmic power surging through his body—at the very least I imagine him in a somewhat "restless" state.

Darn, part of me was hoping that Ubisoft or someone had snatched up the rights to the old Ultima series from EA. Reminds me that I'll have to check and see how "Shroud of the Avatar" is coming along.

And here I am still rocking The King of Fighters '98: Ultimate Match on my PS2. Granted if my 360 still worked I'd still be hooked on SoulCalibur V, and the big reason that I'm playing the former is because I can no longer play the original at the arcades (not that there are any arcades where I live). With that said I'd certainly wait before purchasing an update of an update of an update of an… sure, I bought the mobile version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but that came with a full, "new" level (Hidden Palace Zone) and it only cost me 'bout $4. Remember Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival on the GameBoy Advance?

Ha! First I was going to suggest Rosario + Vampire (I ♥ Mizore), and then I was going to ask if there was ever a manga adaptation of Tenchi Muyo!

I did it. I read it all. Every page. Every post. What the Fuckles indeed. Can I get my time back, please? In the time it took to read through this thread I could have written, drawn, and published my own comic book (which, actually, is something I need to get back into!). … …but in all seriousness, this has been a mesmerizing read for a number of reasons. The phrase, "Dis guy… is un-fuckin-believable!" comes to mind. Now I practically grew up with the Sonic the Hedgehog series, having owned a SEGA Genesis as opposed to a (Super) Nintendo. Hell, I even bought the damned 32X add-on (and I still laugh at the fact that 32X Doom's credits end with a C:\DOOM>_ prompt). So, being an American fan it wasn't long before I started watching The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), and read Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comic book series (beginning with issue #¼ that I received as part of a promotion for staying at a Howard Johnson's). I only received a scant handful of comics until convincing my parents to get me a subscription… that was right around the time Endgame was occurring and I was hooked; doubly so when Knuckles received his own spin-off series! So, it's safe to say, I was a big fan of Penders in my youth… at least at first. While I enjoyed the first dozen issues or so, with "Moses Knuckles" being my favorite story in all truth, I honestly can't remember anything beyond that. Like… anything. I think that was around the time Manny Galan stopped illustrating the issues?, 'cause that was also a big reason I was a fan—loved the art. That's why seeing Penders reduced to… this… is so depressing. What happened? Now I'm not blaming the guy for wanting credit and royalties and such for the characters he created; it's natural to want recognition for the hard work you put into something. It also doesn't help that Archie was so terrible at backing up their contracts, apparently (at least more so than a mere photocopy, I understand?). Likewise I can't blame the guy for wanting to do more with those very same characters that he's made. …but this is so not the way. He needs to sever all ties he had with Archie and Sonic, give himself a fresh start, not hang so desperately onto the past. Look, when I was in high school I made Sonic fan characters… well, mostly it was just the cast dressed as characters from other games, like Knux Lao (Knuckles as Kung Lao from Mortal Kombat 3), Ruby (Fiona Fox as Jade from Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3), Sal-Li (Princess Sally as Chun-Li from Street Fighter II), and others. I even used to have a GeoCities website (and Lithium and later ProBoards forum) called "MK-Sonic's Hidden Forest" (Sonic as Smoke from UMK3, though I never could come up with a better name combination; as such his super form was "Ultimate MK-Sonic"). It was all in fun, but the difference was… I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL!! Now don't get me wrong; there is a world of difference between a professional writer/illustrator and some punk kid in school doing this for fun… except that's not what I'm seeing here. What I'm seeing is no different than your typical amateur-hour Sonic fan art. Hell, going through this whole thread I've seen imaginative reinterpretations of Penders' characters that go above an beyond mere Sonic expies—when other people can draw your characters better than you can, there's something very, very wrong. I mean it really doesn't help when a character is basically "Knuckles in a wig" or "Knuckles' Darth Vader cosplay." It's also not helping him when hey's laying claim to "original concepts" like "Evil Sonic" or "Robo-Robotnik." Hey, Ken, question—if you took Sonic the Hedgehog out of Evil Sonic the Hedgehog, or Dr. Robotnik out of Robo-Robotnik, what are you left with it? That doesn't mean he has to abandon everything, though; just ditch the ties to Sonic and Archie, like the "Princess of Acorn." Or if you have to have her, don't make the name sound so damned blatant! She could be the… "Matron of Artisia," thrust into a position of power and responsibility with the loss of her mother in the last, great war. She may not be ready but she'll damn well give it her all to aid her people in their time of need. There. You take Princess Sally, strip off what identified her as "Princess Sally," leaving just the bare-bones concept of a young political/royal figurehead living in times of trouble, and build something original off of that! She doesn't have to be a princess, per-se, her kingdom doesn't have to be called "Acorn," and she certainly doesn't have to be an anthro-chipmunk. From what I've heard, 50 Shades of Grey started off as a Twilight fan fic. Now I've never seen the film but from what I can tell the author's done a good job of distancing the story from its source material, so the idea of taking his Knuckles' characters and creating something unrelated to its source is not impossible. With that said, don't make them furries! You want them to be aliens, Penders? Make them aliens! Don't pull this "oh they just coincidentally happen to look like Earth animals" bull shit! Or if you have to make them furries, and considering his desire to give them more human-like proportions (relatively speaking), drop the Sonic aesthetic! You're not helping yourself by making your damned "Echy'dnyas" look like SEGA echidnas. "But they're not echidnas! They're aliens… named 'Echy'dnyas." Fuck you! Stop trying to pass off Future Knuckles as your damned "Praetorian." "K'nox" my ass! You really couldn't come up with anything better than that? Even the damned hat's not original, considering it originated with that Sonic anime movie. "What?, they're not using it!" Look, I'd be amiss to say that I've never referenced other work in my own artistry. I gave a (then antagonistic) character yellow eyes because Skut Farkus, the big bully from A Christmas Story, had yellow eyes; but that same character, Morgan Powys, has her own history—an heir to a prestigious family who's parents left the stuffy atmosphere and overbearing grandfather figurehead to start life anew, brightening their home with twin siblings… only to have her lose her parents at a young age, leading her to effectively raise her siblings as a surrogate mother, making up for her lost childhood by becoming a party girl (so now less of an antagonist for another character of mine, and more "she's not bad, she's just drawn that way" type). Yeah, the pressure and responsibility gets to her, and while she's imagined what it'd be like without having to take care of her siblings… in the end she wouldn't give them up for anything. Or a little closer "on-the-nose" is a cutesy devil girl of mine, Karen 'Akamu, who was heavily influenced by Kelly Kapowski from Saved by the Bell. Her appearance is still somewhat familiar, albeit taller and much, much curvier, plus she has a cheerful, bubbly personality and has a very late 80's/early 90's New Wave fashion sense… well, that's also why I've considered the character to be a bit on the one-dimensional side and so has been reduced to just "for fun" drawings now and then. ……okay, that was a bit of a tangent, but I think my point was there's a difference between a reference or influence and a blatant copy/paste. Penders, keep your Praetorian… just strip Knuckles from it. I believe he's gone on record (in at least one of his Tweets, anyway) saying that the Praetorian's personality and demeanor are different from regular Knuckles, being a father and a figurehead in a war-torn age. Fine! Use that! Just slap that onto a more original design! Don't just make it look like "Knuckles fan character #23849 …but he's different 'cause he's got a backstory!" Speaking of backstories, it wouldn't kill him to give his characters some flaws, make them more believable. I'm a fan of Dungeons & Dragons and while I don't care too much for 5th Edition I will applaud it for dedicating part of character creation to personality traits, ideas, bonds, and flaws—they're often just one or two sentences long, but that's often enough to get a good feel for what the character's like and how well-rounded that character can be. Say, Geoffrey St. John is certainly skilled but he's a stubborn hot-head that makes him difficult to work with! I was thinking about how he could handle the first story—Lara-Su is a brash teenager who grew up in a relative paradise, never knowing the harsh realities that her parents had experienced, and thus doesn't give her responsibilities the care they deserve… to the point that she bets away her "praetorianship" …and loses! Not only is this a huge wake-up call for her, but as it turns out the one she bet against, the one she lost this responsibility to… ends up no worse in the position than she might have been. So she leaves, goes on adventures, helps people in need, grows as a character, grows to be the "praetorian" she should have been… and perhaps down the road some cataclysm strikes her home and she's called back, offering her aid and showing her family and friends how she's changed. Maybe the rival praetorian passes the title back to her and maybe she accepts or maybe she doesn't, but I'd like to think that's enough of a story base to work off of (fuck, and here I stopped working on my own ideas because I have a hard time starting a story). Well, I think I've run out of gas for this post and have said probably all I could say without going over certain points in more detail. I'm keeping my eye on this thread to see what'll become of Penders and his work in the future. No joke, I actually considered buying one of his Praetorian iPhone cases… and I don't even own an iPhone! I'd just look at it and be reminded of what not to do. Don't do what Donny Don't Ken Penders does!

I've thoroughly enjoyed Dragon Ball Z: Abridged over the years ever since watching the first season episodes on… Revver, I think it was? Been getting a kick out of these Cell Games clips (especially Sonic & Knuckles, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Fist of the North Star), and while I don't like to be that guy… …what happened to that progress meter they used to have that gave an inkling of episode progress? Even if progress is only at 1% due to other matters in their lives coming first, it'd be nice to get an idea of how things are going. Or is it there and it's just not loading for me anymore for whatever reason? Ah, well… just means I've more time to rewatch Broly and Hellsing Ultimate: Abridged.

Is it bad that it makes me think back to Man of Steel and wondering why the Kryptonians couldn't terraform Venus? Besides the fact that there'd be no conflict, I recall reading several proposed methods such as (and correct me if I'm wrong, please) bombarding Venus with comets to both jump-start its rotation speed (strengthening its magnetic field) as well as "cleansing" its atmosphere—pumping it full of oxygen in an attempt to balance out the carbon and methane levels and alleviate the atmospheric pressure, in turn cooling the atmosphere and surface as well. Further cooling would require redirecting or otherwise storing the abundant amounts of solar energy its constantly being struck by. There was a lot more to it, but it was all well within the realm of (eventual) possibility; but, no, the Kryptonians apparently weren't capable of doing that with their advanced technology… but they were able to increase the Earth's mass using SCIENCE!! beams. Because comic books.

So late last year I finally picked up The King of Fighters '98: Ultimate Match for the PlayStation 2. I played the original at the arcades like crazy back in the day and I'm not sure why I didn't pick it up before now (I had like, what, eight years?!). Still, played through every mode, unlocked every character, and played around with the character color edit option—attempted to make Omega Rugal look like God Rugal from Capcom VS SNK 2, attempted to make Takuma look like Akuma from Street Fighter, gave Goenitz a magenta costume to match the Orochi Team… and gave my favorite gal, Blue Mary, a tan, pale blonde hair, a black top, faded blue jeans, and Terry's brown jacket… among other, similar character color changes. Actually makes me wish the game had an online mode… but considering its age and outdated platform there's no way it'd still be active. …granted if my Xbox 360 still worked I'd probably be playing SoulCalibur V right now since I love the intricate (if not always balanced) fighting styles of the characters and the character creation options of III, IV, and V. I'll also be a little saddened that Seong Mi-Na was dropped from V's roster; she's been my favorite ever since the series began, and I likewise highly enjoyed Talim and Zasalamel. Still, Viola is a nice (and potentially broken) edition, but I wish she, Z.W.E.I., and… well, and most of the new characters had gotten more fleshed out during the game's story mode. As fun as V was, it definitely has an "incomplete" feel to it and after so many years I fear we're unlikely to see a SoulCalibur VI any time soon. Ah, well, I'm happy I was able to use Viola's style for a sorceress of mine, Quintessa, whom I had originally created in SoulCalibur III and later Dungeons & Dragons: …speaking of old games, another title I picked up last year was Giana Sisters DS for the Nintendo DS, a remake/sequel of an old PC sidescroller called "The Great Giana Sisters." Ironically Giana's sister doesn't actually show up in the new game, but it's a fun little Mario clone with its own bit of flavor, very simple and easy to get into, and for a series with such a sordid history with Nintendo I find it amusing to see it published on a Nintendo platform (and I believe a friend of mine bought the sequel, Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams, for his WiiU so I'll have to ask him how it is). My only "new" game in recent years has been Pokémon Moon and… I just can't get into it. I bought it during a midnight release event but I think after twenty years and "catching 'em all" game after game I might be a little burnt out; it doesn't help that, despite constantly improving technology and compatibility with Pokémon Bank that Pokémon transfers are still one-way. Having some amateur background in computer programming I kind of wonder just what are the games doing to the Pokémon files that make them incompatible with 6th-gen games—I mean I can take a Pokémon I bred in Y, transfer it to Bank, transfer it to Moon, transfer it back to Bank without making any changes at all and yet it can't go back to Y because… reasons. Gen I and Gen II allowed for straight-up trading between them so long as it was only old Pokémon with old movesets, so why do these new games have such a problem with it? I guess the problem is that I'm too attached to Y because, what with the increased length of trainer names, I decided to name my character using my surname with my nickname as his nickname (and having a trainer ID of "13666" just seemed too amusing to me), and using the customization option to make him resemble myself to a degree (and an old, custom LEGO minifig I've had since I was a child) I just don't want to abandon the game to the mists of time, almost forgetting it exists just because it's no longer "new." I caught Yveltal in Y and Y is where it should remain, dagnabbit! Another aspect of that problem is that I don't like giving my characters the same name since they're from different regions and go on different adventures and, well, I consider them different characters. Ah, well… one of these days when I find the time I'm going to hunker down and try to plow through Moon, but it might just end up being the last Pokémon game I get for awhile. We'll see. Until then I do have some other older titles I need to get back to; some years back I picked up copies of the DOS classics, The Bard's Tale I, II, and III. Haven't quite finished the first yet (at least not until I get around to making sure my map of the sewer's first floor is complete), but I did a partial start of the third game; see, the first allows you to have a party of up to six characters, all male, all of whom I named after famous figures from history—the third allows a party of seven and introduced female characters, so I created such a character, leveled her up, got her some nice weapons and armor, and she'll be awaiting the other party to go on one grand, big adventure. Also after picking up my first desktop last year I finally got around to reinstalling SimCity 2000 and am considering drawing up a new, "hi-def" .ico file to display on the desktop (a sort of personal homage to my school days when some of the computers there ran the game and had the icon on their desktops… or whatever the Macintosh equivalent was called). I only have one saved city, however, and the only reason I stopped playing was because I couldn't decide how to lay down the subway or where else I was going to build in the very hilly terrain—honestly Silverstream's got a healthy 80,000+ population and is self-sufficient so aside from aiming for arcologies there's not much left for me to do with it. ❖ ❖ ❖ With all of that said (can I go off on a tangent or what?!), most of my gaming time has been spent playing Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition—currently a retread of Out of the Abyss until the newest adventure book drops sometime in April (I think?). I've been having fun with a dark elf antipaladin/assassin named Variolus of House Baenre, but she's really the only thing I have been having fun with; I "grew up" with 3rd Edition and I won't call it perfect as it was definitely rules bloated… but I guess with my background in web design, computer programming, and radio electronics I've become used to rules and used to having fun seeing what wonders I can create within those rules… essentially taking these limitations as a fun challenge. As such I find 5th Edition to be too simple and too easy, especially with the life and death mechanics—fights can still be difficult, but as long as you survive with 1 hit point and can rest for eight hours and you're back to full strength as if nothing had happened, and you can even take a "short rest" to give yourself a bit of recovery. Earlier editions felt a lot more gritty in comparison because even resting after a fight you barely survived didn't guarantee you'd be at full strength so you had to plan a bit more tactically and not just rush in mindlessly. I'd be amiss to say it's all bad, though, because the classes do feel a bit more "balanced" compared to earlier editions and being able to (eventually) make multiple attacks and a move action in a single turn is a big boost to non-spellcasters… but then again I find that the "balance" often came not by making one class stronger but by making every other class weaker, such as only fighters being able to make more than two attacks via the Extra Attack class feature or only sorcerers being able to alter their full spell assortment via Metamagic. The group I've been playing with is solid though and while they can be overly silly and while we've had some disagreements I have no regrets regarding my participation… I just wish the game didn't feel like so much handholding at times. Well, I should put this post to bed considering I've blathered on far too much as it is……