slammingheadintodesk.org/careers

sword

The dust has settled.

babel hurt

My favourite hero/villain duo, these girlies ate

Bonus:

We've got nowhere to go, we've got nothing to prove

Instead of dancing alone I should be dancing with you

yearn to become a flesh woman

having fun with gradient maps

kinnie moment

daniella

4 Palestinians killed in Jabalia (on top of the numerous other casualties from previous days), rescue service deputy director killed in an Israeli air strike, parts of Jenin irrevocably destroyed, 33 people killed in the West Bank since the onset of Israel’s invasion. Hundreds on hundreds suffering and having to shelter in Jabalia’s schools, repurposed as hideouts since school has been indefinitely discontinued since year

Oh and it broke like yesterday that the US is like actively playing a hand in Israel’s plans to invade Lebanon. Never ever dare to tell me things would be better or worse under anyone. People are dying and the genocidal entity that is Israel is only expanding its crosshairs. I refuse to ever let anyone on here treat Arabs like they’re collateral damage

On this note, please continue donating to and boosting Hazem’s fundraiser so other people could donate. He has family stuck in Jabalia camp, right in the center of everything, right in the heart of ongoing carpet bombing and starvation and relocation. Not only have the children in this family been denied a normal upbringing, but now they’re being denied the right to live to see another day. Everything in Jabalia is so ridiculously expensive that it’s a wonder how they’re getting by right now. Please don’t look the other way when you can do something to alleviate this family’s suffering. If you have the smallest amount to donate, do so. And whether or not you do, share this so more people can help. This fundraiser has been stagnating for days.

this sucks so bad i need to [remembers suicide jokes only worsen my mental health] put on the best talent show this towns ever seen

guys this post is a big hit on the adolescent psych ward

Fish in the great lake being like

Wait shit wrong fucking post

WANG LU vs ZHANG RUOYI

man we've had some operators drawn with more cutesey artstyles than others before but this is too much, none of this reads like an arknights character anymore. even warmy (a design that elicits potent feelings of 'what the fuck is that thing' in me) is more cohesive with the rest of the game than this

funny enough the other half of her banner is a woman who very much does read like a classic arknights character

I'll elaborate on what I mean here, since I care a lot about character design language and like to think I'm fairly knowledgeable on the topic.

I would consider a defining feature of arknights designs to be a sense of faux practicality. if you look at some of the more cutesey art and designs in the game like suzuran, goldenglow, mizuki, iris, warmy, they all feature one or more elements that aren't solely in service of the outfit itself, but serve to ground it as something that this person would actually wear while doing something within the world of arknights. suzuran is wearing a bunch of tactical pouches over her cute frilly dress, goldenglow has her hairdresser's apron, iris has her organisation's logo on the coat over her fairytale dress, warmy is wearing a bunch of what looks like cleaning gear strapped to her back, and even mizuki, while dressed primarily for fashion, has his ID tag indicating who and what he's associated with. for each of them, these elements add something that grounds them in the setting and give the sense that these are actual clothes that real people wear while going about their business. eyjafjalla is wearing a cute dress shaped like sheep fluff, and also a gasmask because she's a volcanologist. honeyberry is wearing a cute animal ears cape, and also a bunch of pouches with the stuff she needs to do her job out in the field.

this same faux practicality can be seen in less cute designs. blaze is wearing a miniskirt and a zipped down hoodie because it makes her tits look good to the viewer, but she also has things like knee & elbow pads to make it feel plausible as something she'd wear for mobility to do her job as elite combat operator. aurora is not in any way actually dressed for cold weather, but the bulky sleeves, the belts and pouches and shit strapped to her body, all that is sufficient to create the impression of something easy to move and work in that is being worn because it is useful as well as looking good.

additionally, on a more basic level the game relies a lot on long straight lines and rectangle shapes to invoke a feeling of maturity, particularly for designs that otherwise lack this faux practical factor to ground them for whatever reason. you can see this in for example nightingale, pozyomka, skadi the corrupting heart, bibeak, and also fancy dresses that do have some of that faux practicality like heidi, erato, viviana, and virtuosa. characters like suzuran and rosmontis are designed with more rounded shapes to emphasise their youngness, so their coherence to the rest of the game's designs is achieved through that faux tactical factor instead. color palettes also tend to be somewhat muted, using a lot of black/white/gray and desaturated blues and browns with a few bright color highlights, which likewise achieves a more grounded and mature feeling than if the designs featured lots of bright saturated colors.

if you look at arknights designs that i consider bad, as in the design is too cluttered, has poor shape language, or just isn't very pleasing to look at, those pretty much all do still adhere to this overarching design philosophy of faux practicality and feeling of grounded maturity. I think typhon's design is cluttered garbage, but her colors cohere and the bulk of her jacket and all the shit strapped to her body are enough to give the impression that yeah, this is a coat someone wears to go on a hunt with a giant compound bow. toddifons' clothes look bad and have some outright incoherent shapes but it still has that mix of street fashion and faux practical elements that make her read as an arknights character. wis'adel is just kinda unremarkable but the design elements are in line with the rest of the setting.

you'll note that pepe here (of all the names to give your white egyptian catgirl) is wearing an outfit that tells you nothing about what she does outside of wearing this outfit. she has no id tag or any kind of logo on her to indicate any kind of allegiance, and outside of her cartoonish meat tenderizer hammer nothing she wears indicates any kind of practical use beyond aesthetic appeal. she lacks faux practicality, and she lacks the long straight lines and rectangle shapes or muted colors that are used to make characters who lack faux practicality still cohere with the rest of the cast. she's cute and vibrant and cartoony in a way that clashes with the rest of the game, in a way that the other cute characters don't.

narantuya on the other hand hits all the buttons. she's got mostly desaturated black/white colors with popout red and more subtle teal, she's got a big heavy coat with big zippers and random pockets and knives strapped all over her, she's just generally drawn with a sense of maturity, she's a fucking arknights character

there's the more glaring white_pharaoh.jpg issues at play here of course but even if pepe wasn't supposed to be fantasy egyptian she's still just a bad at being an arknights design, which makes it extra jarring and disappointing that she's the one they're carting out as the cool limited unit for this mess of a white pharaoh event.