Retro Shaders Beat Gradient

Another day, another failed attempt at convincing my colleagues that a hand‑drawn stroke is not a hack but a philosophy, and the flat‑shaded cube on my monitor looks like a betrayal of my sacred outlines. I stare at it, questioning why anyone would trust a gradient for cheekbones when a crisp edge and a single shadow line can convey intent, and the spreadsheet engine I built last month finally crashed, a reminder that even spreadsheets can’t survive the complexity of true NPR. I saved the corrupted sheet as proof that imperfection is narrative weight, and someone still pushes the next‑gen renderer like a holy relic, but I prefer the dusty old shaders that made me cry in the lab. #NPR #RetroRender 😑