Continued thoughts from Guilty Gear Xred Rev 2?

I'm even more fond of it now. As much as I miss Testament, Raven is a good substitute for "Creepy Goth Dude" and I love his fighting style. Jacko? She's friggin awesome too and reminds me just a bit of Rob Zombie's wife Sherry Moon for some reason. (Her name also makes me think of the band "Jack Off Jill".) I think her outwardly playful personality is to substitute for the absence of Bridget whom we will hopefully see in the next GG game.

The only bug seems to be there's some slow down on Answer's stage with the big canopied raft going down the river. Yeah, it's a beautiful battle ground but seems no more graphic intensive than the others. (I mean one stage is a friggin clockwork train with moving parts as a young witch flies by! That seems more "graphic intensive" to me!) Oh well, it's not really worth bitching about. My competitive "tournament days" are about ten years behind me so these days I play fighters mainly for the story and the characters who are fun to use. (And unlocking "art" for the gallery is something I've become increasingly fond of! As an illustrator I greatly appreciate that kind of stuff.)

The game is almost perfect though many of the endings are cliff hangers. I can definitely recommend this one for people who enjoy "less conventional" anime/character inspired fighters like Blazblue central-fiction, Skull Girls,Melty Blood,Dark-Stalkers, and Samurai Shodown. Anyone who is a fan of magic clashing with technology,weapon based brawlers, and the supernatural mixing with science will be blown away by GG Xrd Rev 2! It really is like "playing" a fantastic anime or a fantastic manga. (Also, that new Dizzy theme is poetry to my ears. Just saying!)

Tales Of Berseria

Tales of Berseria is a tale of "broken people" healing thru their relationships with each other. Sure, there's some hooplah that could "change the world" but things are not as black and white as they are in other J-rpgs. If you want to play a Tales Of Game thats a few shades darker and a few shades more mature "this" is your game! Granted we get the usual eccentricities of the genre. Some of the monsters look so friggin adorable you feel terrible combo-ing them into oblivion. Despite the "edgy themes" almost everything has a bright pastel color palette that will instantly remind you of friggin Easter! But if you stick with it you're in for a real bittersweet treat.

So who is the best waifu? Tis a difficult quandary as Velvet,Eleanor,and Magilou are all wonderful. I'd go so far to say this is one of the few J-rpgs I have bonded with "all" the characters and even Laphicet (The kid character) is not annoying. Each and every quirk and strange mannerism expressed by the main cast is based upon their life experiences. Whoever came up with these character concepts and the story in general should be rewarded!

"The obligatory Newgrounds forums bubble-pop! Welcome to reality! This is not directed at "everyone" just the obvious suspects it applies to!"

+Your personal tastes are not "Big Brain"

+Newgrounds ain't your personal domain. It's everything by "everyone".

+All that furry yiffing,loli-gagging,hentai,lewd fan-art,robot romping,and butt blasting you despise in the art portal probably gets more traffic than your avant garde snooty-fruity bullshit!

+A university degree doesn't make you smarter or "super lit"

+Newgrounds never had a gilded golden age of intellectual circle jerking! We always came here for the animated parodies poking fun of video games,pop culture,and anime. Oh,and some good music, tongue in cheek flash games, as well as "the lewds"!

+ When you say "We don't want a community of assholes here" what you really mean is "We don't want "things" here WE dislike! Outsiders bad! They not apart of our leet tribalist inner-circle! Ooga booga!"

+Tom Fulp welcomed the artists who were cast out of tumblr and off twitter. Take up your grievances with him.

+Tom Fulp probably realizes the internet loves Rule 34. Aka Rule 34=Lucrative business opportunities and more traffic!

+It's fine for art to deviate from the usual tropes,trends, and styles but that doesn't mean those tropes,trends,and styles are "somehow wrong" or "lesser".

+If you don't like something Newgrounds has options to filter it out of your search results so "truly" there's not much of a reason to bitch and complain!

Derpclaimer: The below is not sentiments shared by "everyone" in the newgrounds forums,just one particular interesting conversation thread I stumbled across between an assortment of members with various levels of seniority! Obviously I'm using the term "boomer" in a joking self aware context! I mean I'm 42 now and joined newgrounds way back in 2004,I'm as prehistoric as they come!

So in Newgrounds forums those wacky boomerz (trademark!) are raging because of the twitter/tumblr influx. Aka,because us artists who lost territories came here now the quality of stuff has dropped according to their skewed point of view. Never mind I remember Tom Fulp welcoming us cast-aways in the first place or I recall even "back in the day" there were awful animation attempts,pixelated stick-man art,and music that sounded like a hammer hitting pots and pans! But that's the thing, I always thought Newgrounds was about "new talent" starting out humble and getting better.

I really don't get what these supposed veteran members want. Naturally if a place is underground you're going to have entertainment genres tweaked into doing unconventional things thus not all of it's going to be sterling silver according to the normies! Additionally I noticed some of these old timers really hate erotic art (Including hentai) so even words like "anal" are on their hit-lists as far as general searches are concerned. (They obviously don't know about shad-man or Zone-Tan. Wow,that's some major disconnect!) Oh,I get it to some extent. I'm not the biggest fan of "fetish art" (Vore,inflation porn,etc) and straight up furry stuff. The difference is I don't think I have a right to say such illustrations shouldn't exist and artists who draw these things should be shadow-banned and remain undiscovered. My philosophy has always been "Do what ya want,just don't be a PRICK-STICK whilst doing it!"

Boomer-mods I hate to break it to you but you're not gonna purge the collective internet of its' weirdness,grit,opinionated memes,or unconventional desires. While it's justified to keep stick figures,crayon scribbles,rough unrefined sketches,and very rudimentary bad art done in MS paint in some sort of "beginners circle" (So long as that art can still have an audience and comments too. No one improves within a total void absent of interaction.) you should remember themes and fetishes are very subjective and just because you do not approve of something (Or someone if you have a personal grudge),that does not necessarily make such material "lesser" or unworthy of having fans.

Look, I cannot stand a lot of cartoons that have come out over the last 10 or so years. "But" I have to resign myself to the fact they have audiences and should be available for those audiences. It sucks when you like a certain era of animation or certain era of art only for trends and time to change things to the point you have to face-palm or scream! It's even okay to be angry about it! Yet when you are in a position of power it's so easy to put down the hammer on "things you don't like" when they're not necessarily "wrong" or "bad". Once more,I bring up the duality of subjective tastes versus objective critique. Ever remember the difference!

Newgrounds has always been a mix of awe struck nostalgic wonder,kinky shenanigans,and complete cringe so do tell me,what has really "changed" from this influx??

PS: I'm sure someone will come at me with "Why so serious" or "Pfft,that was just us joking" and this is exactly why edge lord culture fucks itself up its' own ass. If every post is "sarcastic" or "ironic" what is truly being communicated when "no one" has a clue,has an actual idea, or is being sincere? It all just becomes a pretentious circle jerk between conceited assholes!

My art has always been partially for therapy and partially to communicate with other people. It was so bad I used to carry my portfolio around with me just so people would ask about it so I'd have the convenient excuse to show them my work! The logic was if they liked what they saw we'd get along but even if they didn't find anything to their tastes at least it all would have been better than not starting a conversation at all! Of course this happened to be during a time my therapist had me on a cocktail of pills that was hurting my mental well being more than helping it and all my art could be classified as the "Edgerton McEdgy collection". I'm sure to most people I just came off as weird and kind of obnoxious but I was young,dumb,full off cum,and wearing my heart desperately on my sleeve for any kind of validation or attention.

Even now I'm "more sane" in the present I admit getting a little attention is nice but I've come to realize I enjoy drawing so much I'd probably still do it anyway if there was no audience and no profit to be made from it. For me art is its' own reward, a catharsis similar to how some people with self-harm issues snap themselves with rubberbands! I feel kind of fortunate as many people with depression issues who live right at the poverty line resort to drugs or alcohol to deal with their internal demons whereas all I have to do to sate my pyschosis is brain-storm up a new character or draw two fictional beings banging the fuck out of one another!

But it doesn't mean there was no price paid to do what I do. You gotta be careful with being an artist and balance it with other things or it's easy to become hopelessly introverted and anti-social. Artists that have jobs interacting with people are more blessed than they realize as it keeps that metaphorical "socializing muscle" greased up and well used. It always helps to be able to not only talk to people but come up with topics they actually find interesting!

I'm not as "terrible" interfacing with people as I used to be but it's still an uphill battle getting beyond those usual polite pleasantries and simply commenting on bland mundane tid-bits like the weather. I guess you could say I know how to make a good impression on people but I do not know how to sell myself to them as "interesting" or "alluring". By now many of them know I draw but it's difficult for me to elaborate on just "what" I draw and "what" I'm trying to build. We live in a time people are so easily offended I'm often left feeling like the safest most milquetoast responses are best even if the honest and risque responses would let someone inside to get to know me better.

I'm not special in this regard. I'm sure everyone feels as if they're wearing a mask. I just hate how that sensation is amplified with restraints at play such as political correctness,bureaucracy, and just how repressed our civilization is when it comes to talking candidly about sex and attraction. This is why when I'm asked "How I feel" by the usual suspects paid to ask such questions my answers to them are never entirely truthful. "The truth" frightens and many human beings fear what they cannot immediately relate to or understand. Beyond that, who has the right to steal another person's secrets thereby leaving them vulnerable and naked to the judgement of others? Opening up should be a choice. Of course it's easier to do that with a friend or a lover than a random paid shrink or social worker. Even today there are aspects of psychology that make me scratch my head. What I speak of here is some of my qualms with that institution!

Anyway I'm done. Sorry for the melancholy, I'm just a wee bit more lackadaisical during the winter months,especially when it's close to my birthday. Thanks for putting up with me dear readers!

The only time my art gets "dicked" is when someone "favorites" it. I admit it's the ultimate irony and kind of hilarious! Suddenly I get all these low scores from ass-hats that don't even leave comments. So is it possible to despise a work while simultaneously loving the fuck out of it? I imagine the person who favs a piece of art sincerely enjoyed it but the trolls have to have their "reee" by pissing on all that positivity. Regardless I'm not quitting. Art is my therapy. Ya'll don't have to like what I do but I find it disingenuous I never get comments. Just seems like low tier haters that don't wanna get in trouble by posting actual asshole replies so they "down vote" instead. I mean you can bring up stuff I KNOW is whacked. Aka, I'm not the best at backgrounds and rarely draw them. Not all my hands or feet are perfect but I make the attempt and have gotten marginally better over the years. Maybe my penises look weird? Okay sure, I admit I don't have an innate fascination with male genitalia so my penises aren't perfect tens! Lastly I know a lot of my art has a left over "rough sketchy quality" even after the colors and shadows/lighting are added not everyone will take to. (But I like that "grit" as it shows the authentic work that went into each piece though I do some touch ups here and there.)

Yo, I'm sorry I can't live up to your fickle biases fam-a-lam! Believe me, I wish I was some hawt college co-ed cutie with a great rack or a bishounen looking boy-band man-lad too! Alas,cursed testosterone flows throw my wizard veins making me tall,bearded,and mean! I WILL hit you with my staff due to built up mid-life crisis frustrations if you don't remain 3 feet away at all times!

It really seems like today artists have "become" another product. Once a creative person gets famous their audience expects them to be appealing,charismatic,marketable,always gracious,always humble,and some sort of moralistic monolith for the community. Fuck that! I'm just a foul mouthed sinner stumbling in the dark like almost everyone else! Don't expect me to tell you something that will change your life forever. Don't expect me to be the dad you never had. I'll certainly treat you with decency,compassion,and respect but only so long as you do the same for me. By the way,if you look in my closet there will be a few skeletons there. Welcome to reality!

Guilty Gear is the Metal Gear of fighting games! Seriously,I just logged near an hour viewing the anime story-line in REV 2 and there's so much "timey whimey" "PHILOSOPHY" and "meta physics" going on simultaneously my head is on the verge of exploding! As someone who writes convuluted plot-lines myself, this is akin to me facing some sort of karmatic retribution. (You like it DEEP Ben?! Do ya?! Then take it hilt deeeep you degenerate ball-gagger!) Oof! Guess I derped myself straight into BDSM laden whip-me spank-me jail!

Ribbing aside, I've had fun so far! I've never been "great" at Guilty Gear but I always was endeared to the outlandish characters and exploring "the meaning of life" thru this weird Heavy Metal inspired fisticuffs jamboree. Still, sometimes you just like to "fight",y'know? I love "lore" but there is over-doing it a tad and both Guilty Gear and Blazblue are kinda known for "rambling on" whilst haphazardly adding new characters and not exactly going anywhere in particular. I liked the simpler days when GG simply stated "Ey,we figured out magic in the future and did all sorts of wacky experiments with it. This lead to the creation of "gears" bad-ass super life-forms whom betrayed their makers thus declaring war on mankind! Eventually a holy-order of equal bad-asses was recruited to stop the gear threat and that's exactly what they did! Oh,some gears proved to be wholesome waifus and shacked up with kawaii smitten holy order husbandos. The end!" If you strip away all the "fat" that's mainly what Guilty Gear was about. Sure, you had a few other fractions with their own shady goals and supposedly something called "The higher will" is the Evangelion-esque plot device that keeps trying to wipe out the current version of humanity. Which is precisely why after awhile you kinda get this deja-vu sensation you are watching the major plot archs found in "other" manga/anime. Guilty Gear certainly isn't the only creative work "guilty" of this and no,it never outright plagiarizes. Yet you soon find yourself yawning between over elaborate cut scenes and speeding thru a friggin bible-sized collection of "extended world building".

As someone who originally championed the story lines in fighting games I feel like a hypocrite berating GGXrdRev2 for catering to me with such gusto. A part of me "does" very much appreciate it but a part of me misses the sublime simplicity of its' earlier entries. (That were still "story driven" and "character driven" but not nearly to this try-hard extent!)

So how's the fighting? A bit "floaty" and slower than I'm accustomed to. Keep in mind one of my favorite fighting game franchises is King Of Fighters which is the "speedster" of the genre. That means even when GGXrdRev2 processes and runs "perfectly" there's still that feeling you are exchanging blows while on the moon. Aka,lotsa high jumps and air dashing similar to the Marvel vs. capcom series as well as some attacks that are very fast mixed in with ones that have extended "wind up" animations or have a delay before they fully do what they're suppose to. It can take a bit to get used to but adds much more strategic layers than its' more straight forward competitors. Of course the game looks like friggin "hawt sex". Both the characters and backgrounds are vibrant living and breathing pieces of art. The soundtrack and audio likewise "slaps hard" too!

I hope I get more satisfaction out of GGXrdREV2 as it truly is a masterpiece. I'm merely left with the quandary if I'm "still" the target audience. It definitely has "pieces" of all the things I love yet it was the way those pieces were stitched together that left me a little lukewarm.

So,it's come to this. I'm not going to play innocent and I'm not asking for any admin to undo my forum ban. I "did" argue with moderators but in my defense they were not exactly "fair and impartial" in the way they handled things or the way they interacted with me either. Honestly as a mod I would simply try to refrain from posting my own political points of view or ideals. I'd let "members" debate that among themselves and only "step in" if someone got really aggro. (To the point they were threatening to hack the site,dox personal information,etc.) Members should be allowed to express their opinions but I always thought a moderator should be more of a referee, watching for "illegal moves" from the side lines but otherwise staying neutral and impartial.

Sadly the newgrounds politics section is far from that. There's an obvious bias and in the end my only points were "I really don't think Blaire White is a Dark souls level threat to the trans community" and "People who laugh at others getting milk-shaked have no right to complain if they get milk-shaked themselves". So on one hand I'm probably seen as an alt-righter because obviously Blaire's MAGA hat makes her alt right! On the other hand I was defending a trans person's right to disagree with other trans people. Really newgrounds, is THAT so unreasonable? Is anyone beholden to "kiss the ring" of certain movements or political parties just because they are apart of certain demographics? Heck,isn't that even bigoted and condescending? Haven't we worked hard to create an America where racial minorities,gays,and other underrepresented fringe-folks can speak their minds and vote for whomever they damn well please? Seeing these groups as single-minded hive collectives with no diversity of thought within them is a grave injustice and just plain ignorant. Two black people or two trans people can hold different opinions from each other. That shouldn't be a fact that "offends" anyone.

Regardless,I'm an illustrator first so maybe being banned is the best thing that ever happened to me. My life could certainly benefit from "less" political bullshit and less tribal witch hunts! I miss the 90's!

I'll put COPPA like this. Imagine you own a toy store. While you have things that appeal to children you also have things that appeal to adult hobbyists. Even your videogame selection ranges from E for everyone to M for mature. Likewise you have Transformers,Pokemon,and My Little Ponies but you also have figurines from popular anime with more adult themes. In walks COPPA.....

COPPA: I see you have kid stuff here.....

Store owner: Not exactly. I mean we have merchandise that kids might like but some of our selection is geared more towards teens and adults as well. We try to stay versatile to get more customers!

COPPA: So,kids can just waltz in here and buy anything!

Store owner: Uh,"no" they can't. Not unless their parents specifically buy them mature rated games,mature rated comics,or mature rated figurines. I suppose "then" we cannot really do much about it.

COPPA: These are really bright colors on your sign....kids notice bright colors.....

Store owner: "Everyone" notices bright colors......

COPPA: This cardboard cut out of Master Chief is something kids would find to be "very cool".

Store owner: Kids find a lot of things to be "very cool" that adults incidentally find to be very cool as well. But minors still cannot buy a copy of Halo unless they're the appropriate age or their parents make an exception.

COPPA: Here's your gazillion dollar fine for "tempting the children" with your unholy merch!

Store owner: The fuck you just say?!

COPPA: Die by fire heretic! (Brandishes the napalm!)

PS: Just substitute "mom and pop toy store" with youtube. They're interchangeable! I'm tired of clown-world. Please end me!

So, back in the day "hard" was used to describe anyone who lived a tough life. Anyway, I'm watching this youtube vid. Just some random artist working on this really bad-ass tattoo looking design. As she fills in the impressive details painstakingly by hand she simultaneously describes this incident where she was at Walmart looking at plants when some guy every bit the stereotype of a ridiculous try-hard pimp began taking pictures of her assets with his mobile device. Eventually her boyfriend arrived and scared off "Pimp-God-Desperado" and his naughty i phone! The way the woman told the story it was supposed to be this harrowing experience and she very specifically used the words sexual assault. I had a brief disconnect when I realized not only did I not care but I found the situation "comical"! Don't get me wrong, any of us would feel awkward if some random dood snapped off a few pictures of our rear posteriors! But fam,it wasn't rape or even some nasty pervert grinding up on this woman. My mind was like "Oh,what will you do?! Some neet perverts on teh internetz are gonna fap looking at your shorty shorts and thong! Oh,the humanity!" I mean is this really what counts as a traumatic experience today? I have ex girlfriends online right now that have pictures of my dick. I mean I took those pictures for them of my own free will but just the thought of random anons seeing my painfully average cock doesn't fill me with a single iota of dread! Even if I saw comments like "Kinda small" or "He came how fast?" it would just make me laugh uncontrollably! Does this make me "savage" and "hard"? If so it's ironic as I always perceived myself as a boring motha fucka who lived a boring life!

Yeah, I had some fucked up things happen to me that may have messed up my head a bit but I was never a gang-banger,drug dealer,car thief,or even some dumb kid who got addicted to "the smack" for awhile. I was just an introverted metal-head bipolar emo asshole who liked to draw a lot as opposed to actually paying attention in class! I saw the ends and outs of a few mental wards when I had to be omitted for suicidal tendencies but that's a far cry from going to the state penitentiary. Additionally I've been homeless but nothing too terrible happened to me beyond having to deal with a few rude drivers shouting obscenities whilst cursing my very existence! My worst more recent experience? I had a meth-dealer living across from me in the adjacent apartment for awhile and the people who came around were all "shady" and smelled really terrible. I don't know how this guy got his place without a criminal background check but those few months were complete hell! Luckily he was such a terrible tenant that when the land lords did catch on he was "out" as fast as desert drought!

Anyway, all these posters recanted how "stunning and brave" she was for sharing her "terrifying brush with pimp-lord and his porn-tooth-snap-2000" and all I could do was roll my eyes. Posters continued to "ham it up" with such posts as "This video made me cry!" and "When I was such and such age THIS HORRIBLE THANG happened 2 ME!" Most of these "shared tales" just came off as bullshit lies and cries for attention. It's as everyone was competing in some sort of deranged victim pageant.

Regardless, I hate to seem so callous and cold. I can't help but to think I should have felt at least a pang of empathy but I ain't got "nothing"! Not a single tear to shed! I'm afraid I'm becoming a less charismatic less skilled Ron Swanson!

PS: In the youtuber's favor she is a great artist regardless of how I think about her "situation" that took place at Wally-world!

So to celebrate Halloween I'm breaking out my monster and creatures collection! There might be a "part 2" in the future!

Remnants: Remnants are manifestations of negative emotions and traumatic events given form my negative spirit essence......