#(it'll probably be more)

[wormtime123]

(like two weeks late) quangle 4! this just turned into the cody compilation sorry

[seamistgale]

Of @ghostreblogging, Where Danny has the same tax evasion skills as his parents. Kind of a coffee shop AU, but well, its gotham.

[wolfsplosion]

ermm hello chilaios nation

[the-raindeer-king]

(A/N: This is part 2 to my Mama Riley au! Thanks for all the love on the first one. ❤ no content warning and I'm trying to keep this gender neutral. Enjoy!!!)

You never expected your angry rant to actually change Simon's behavior. But it has, based on Mama Riley's weekly updates. He's stopping by more, staying longer. He's actually telling her things, mainly about his coworkers, but she's just happy he's finally opening up to her.

While you believe her, you're not seeing the change yourself. Fridays are when you have dinner with Mama Riley, and now apparently Simon too. He just… stares at you, a permanent frown on his face. As if you're the one intruding.

Part of you is glad he doesn't talk much. The few sentences he does speak, the low timber of his voice makes your heart race. Behind the scars and unwelcoming attitude, Simon Riley is a handsome man. But your loyalty lies with his mom. He needs to be a better son, and some silly crush isn't going to change your mind that easily.

Ironically, it's said loyalty that makes Simon fall for you so fast. His loyalty is rock solid, a promise held steadfast, an ache he feels in his chest every morning. There's no one Simon cares more about than his mom, and to see someone else care so deeply and fiercely about her makes you so insanely attractive to him. On top of that, your concern for Mama Riley made you willing to say something to him, and Simon knows he's off-putting and scary.

What I'm getting at is that this man is so down bad, it's not even funny. He'd literally take you to the court house and marry you immediately, if you were willing. But you're not, and he's kind of clueless on how to convince you to give him a chance. He'd rather catch a live grenade bare handed than ask his mom.

His mom who clocked the crush immediately, and is trying to help him without helping him. Even if their relationship is strained (much better now thanks to you!), she knows her son, and she knows he has feelings for you. And while she's not trying to meddle, she is trying to create opportunities for y'all to interact and get to know each other.

Opportunities that Simon keeps fumbling because he clams up so bad around you. He's never been good around people in general, and his crush on you just makes it twice as bad. Plus, he's aware that you hate him, and that's not doing him any favors either.

Mama Riley gives him time to make an attempt, only to watch him struggle and usually fail. But the attempts he's making with small talk, bad jokes, bringing you small knick knacks from deployment; it seems to be working. You're both opening up to each other, growing a friendship.

But as the months pass, nothing grows beyond a friendship. You don't want to ruin things between yourself and Mama Riley. Plus, you're not entirely sure where Simon's feelings lie. He's just as weird and off-putting as he was in the beginning, just now he tells you bad jokes and calls you ‘love’.

And, while Mama Riley promised herself that she wouldn't meddle - Simon's a grown man after all, he should be able to handle this - it's almost painful for her to watch the way you and Simon dance around each other. Nobody here is getting any younger, and after almost a year of watching you two, she decides to take matters into her own hands.

Simon's two months into deployment, when Mama Riley invites you over for routine Friday dinner. You're barely one glass of wine in, when she drops the bombshell on you.

“You know, Simon's in love with you.”

[waifishsniper]

[egophiliac]

Do you have any final theories/desires for Book 7 Part 12?

(slamming fists on table) I DEMAND MORE CHE'NYA

[quicksilversnails]

Took some notes from the Wild Life retrospective episode of the Imp & Skizz podcast featuring Grian because I thought the behind the scenes info was really interesting!

(3:15) The wild cards were all kept totally secret from the players (apart from Grian), with the exception of the superpowers and finale (as they required the players to set keybinds)

(3:45) The players were given files containing the required mods each week, which were named things like "creeper rain" to throw them off

(4:12) Wild cards were a combination of data packs and mods

(4:38) Grian told them not to read the folder name to avoid spoilers (which is kind of impossible), so everyone fully believed there would be creeper rain lol. Grian was saying it in jest but everyone took it seriously and were apologetic about having seen it, to which Grian told them not to worry

(6:58) Grian originally contacted a data pack dev called Brace for help with programming the wild cards. Some, like the shrinking/growing could be achieved with minecraft attributes, but the snails were too janky and unusable. Grian still liked the idea though, so he reached out to mod developers Henkelmax and Breadloaf, who designed the pathfinding/behaviour from scratch

(8:49) They had a debugging mode used to test the pathfinding of the snails, shown in the podcast and in Grian's credits

(10:09) Grian wants most of the credit to go to the development team and artists, as he was mostly in charge of ideas & organization!

(10:39) Grian's only regret with the snails was that they were too fast in session 3, leading to unexpectedly many deaths. They were apparently not so difficult to get away from during testing, but perhaps the testers were more used to them than the players were

(11:44) Grian: "We did develop to the lowest common denominator" ie. prioritizing how players would struggle over how worrying about if players would do too well

(12:56) Oli's voice for the snails was iconic. It cost Impulse a life because he intentionally stayed closer to it to hear the voice lol

(13:42) Danny was in charge of the snail models and animations

(14:11) During testing, the snails just sounded like Oli, which made it feel weird. They pitched up his voice so that it'd be less immediately recognizable

(15:18) The snails' jumping attack was meant to be clearly telegraphed: they would stop, wiggle, make a "ooeee" sound before jumping. Many players had their friendly creatures volume turned very low/off (as cows and other mobs are loud), which made this attack much less obvious for them

(16:57) The growing/shrinking had the least testing done for it, as it was the simplest conceptually and to program. This meant that the falling off of blocks due to the shrinking hitboxes wasn't anticipated

(17:55) Before the 1st session, Grian told them that he didn't think anyone would die to the wild card. Pearl's death made Grian pretty nervous, as he didn't want everyone dying too early in the season

(19:29) 6 lives were given, knowing that many of the death to the wild cards were unexpected/unfair. The intent was for ~3 lives to be allocated for wild cards, and ~3 for PvP.

(21:13) The developers were all fans of the Life Series!

(22:43) The shrinking/growing was intentionally pretty simple to ease players/viewers into the concept and build up toward more dramatic wild cards like the snails

(25:38) In the hunger episode, Grian didn't know which foods would be good

(25:58) Grian thinks that "it's unfair that Grian already knows everything" is valid criticism, but that it's important for him to be involved with the ideas. Having someone else do that is like having someone else record his videos: Life Series is his brainchild

(26:35) Well before the season began, while they were still developing the concept, Grian asked the other players for wild card ideas that would meet a few criteria. All of them ended up being unused for one reason or another. Impulse thinks his ideas were very "inside the box" because he was viewing things through what was possible in vanilla Minecraft. His idea was to have a scavenger hunt where the players would search to find a relic. The first person to find it would get a buff. Skizz's idea was for every player to turn into a random passive mob for every given interval of time. They would have to find every other player of the same mob type as them or else the whole group loses a life.

(29:44) The food qualities were weighted by the rarity of the item, so very common blocks like dirt and cobblestone would never give anything good. The other items were randomly selected

(30:23) Regular blocks/items cannot be made edible normally, so they had to circumvent that and custom code a fix for items not stacking correctly

(32:41) While a lot of players do want to win, the main priority is creating entertainment, which prioritizes playing recklessly

(33:20) The food wild card wasn't included in the finale because it would've felt like "too much". There was a higher risk of technical issues since it changed the data values of items, and Grian didn't want someone's last death to be because they ate their sword. In his mind, it was a good and fun wild card, but didn't need to be repeated in the finale. Impulse points out that they all would have collected more rare items by that point, removing the incentive to search for blocks to eat

(33:46) The wild cards in the finale were nerfed from their original sessions. The shrinking/growing had a smaller height range, the snails moved slower, etc.

(36:21) The personalized snail skins were a late addition by Danny, who made 18 skins very quickly

(36:49) Grian did not anticipate the snails becoming as popular with fans as they were. After the session released, they had the idea to release the snail merchandise, which directly funded the rest of the season

(39:20) Grian spent what "felt like every day" testing with the developers. They'd record the sessions on Tuesdays, meet up with the dev team, talk about what need to be done, testing, bugs, etc, edit and upload on Saturday, and would get a few days grace before starting again

(40:01) After the snail session, Grian was worried that the season would be very short due to all the deaths. They were considering toning down the later wild cards but ultimately didn't change them too much

(40:36) The time wild card was carefully balanced. If it had gone even a little faster, many players likely would have died because they wouldn't have time to react to threats like baby zombies or creepers.

(40:57) While sessions normally run for a variable amount of time, session 4 was hardcoded at 2 hours. Grian ended the session ~10 minutes early, just after they hit max speed, because he felt like things were getting dicey

(42:46) When the wild card first activates, it looks a lot like the server had frozen or crashed. Grian told the players before the session started that it would look like the game was broken, but that it isn't broken. Skizz tabbed out anyway and missed the beginning 😔

(43:30) Having the rain start just as the wild card began was a good visual indicator of time slowing down. This was a suggestion from the dev team (probably Brace)

(44:41) Impulse and Grian "cheesed" the end of the session by going branch mining. Grian wanted players to take advantage of the wild cards (eg. mining quickly, helping to kill someone), and not have them just be an annoyance.

(45:30) Keeping the client and server-side time stay in sync was challenging. The sky's motion was changed to be smoother on client-side. The players were also not as fast as the server (around 2x faster), the server was going faster than that, and the time of day was even faster

(46:56) The sounds were pitched up/down based on the speed to add to the effect

(27:46) In testing, if the players were made 7x faster, it would be basically unplayable, which was why it was capped at 2x speed. This made mobs very dangerous, as they were now faster than players and could catch up to you and kill you easily

(49:01) On several occasions, they had to extend the fuse duration of creepers to make them more fair. In the time session, their speed was only increased by ~10%

(49:39) Usually, Grian was the one to test the wild cards and notice when things like creeper speed would be an issue, since he was the one with experience making videos

(50:50) A challenge with balancing wild cards is accounting for the playstyles of so many players: reckless players like Scar and Skizz, "kind and gentle" players like Bigb who would stay off to the sides, and "the sweat squad" (Scott, Impulse) who play very cautiously

(52:48) Trivia Bot was the only wild card that was not planned in advance. Grian was struggling to come up with a wild card for that episode, and wanted to have a wild card available that could give people lives in case many people died to early wild cards without it feeling cheap.

(53:33) Trivia seemed a little boring on its face, so presentation was essential

(54:34) This one made Grian the most stressed due to all the moving parts involved in making it (coding and pathfinding mostly by Henkelmax, visuals by Hoffen, audio/music, questions)

(55:08) Trivia Bot's design was based on Grumbot and Mettaton from Undertale. Hoffen drew concept art shown in the video

(58:32) They show Trivia Bot's custom animation for becoming a snail and it's really cool

(59:12) The music was the most stressful part of the project. Grian spent 2-3 days looking through Epidemic Sounds for a Trivia Bot theme song and couldn't find anything good. He commissioned Zera @hopepetal for a theme song, which is played in the podcast. However, Grian realized he needed a full audio package, so he commissioned Oli late in development, who created the final soundtrack and many audio variations

(1:01:38) Grian wants to send appreciation for everyone who worked on the project, even if their work ultimately went unused

(1:02:58) Skizz was happy to give back however he could by staying on standby in the final episode as a zombie, as the players were able to "reap all the benefits" of the hard work of the development team

(1:05:21) Grian didn't know any of the trivia questions beforehand, which were done by fans of the series. The goal was for ~50% of the questions to be answered correctly, which was approximately met

(1:07:11) Players couldn't get questions about themselves because it would be too easy. This would encourage players to leave their bot, allowing other players to mess with them

(1:07:57) Grian felt a little left out from the discovery element of the wild cards, and decided to mess with Scar by hiding his bot. He wasn't expecting Scar to die from it, and could tell that he was genuinely a little upset by it. Grian felt bad about it, which led to a genuine in-game alliance between them

(1:12:32) Grian was very close to letting Trivia Bot give lives as rewards, but decided it would feel too cheap

(1:14:38) Mob swap was slightly toned down, with more camels and sniffers spawning

(1:15:07) Evokers didn't drop totems anymore. Instead, there was a minuscule chance a warden or wither would spawn, which would drop a totem if killed. Grian was a little disappointed that the warden got cheesed in the end

(1:17:45) Having the mobs start passive and turn hostile was mostly for the presentation, building anticipation, and so players could predict where mobs would spawn and react accordingly, making things feel less unfair

(1:20:32) There was no superpower made for Skizz (or Mumbo presumably)

(1:20:38) The superpowers were another late addition. There was a large design doc where Grian created all the powers, which were handed over to Henkelmax and completed over 4 days

(1:21:42) Grian avoided superpowers involving strength, that could cause someone to die easily. Most of the powers were social or movement-based, which couldn't be used for offence as easily

(1:22:25) Some powers were randomly assigned, others weren't. Impulse's was random. Cleo's, Bigb's, Lizzie's, Grian's were assigned.

(1:24:25) Grian gave himself the mimic because it could easily backfire (like in Grian's fall damage death), and because it would've been confusing for a player who wasn't aware of the other powers. They likely would've spent the episode just figuring out how everything worked and not actually using the power to its best ability

Lots of discussion about the superpowers and how they interacted in the episode itself, go watch if you're interested :)

(1:33:38) Talk on how the series "standard" rules evolved since 3rd Life. There was no keep inventory, and no restrictions on enchanting levels or potions, which created slow or unbalanced fights

(1:36:23) 3rd Life was designed to be an experimental series, which made Grian eager to improve it. For example, some people just weren't dying in 3L, leading to the boogeyman in LL, and so on

(1:37:17) The goal with the seasons isn't to one-up the previous one, but to create a different experience every time, which keeps things engaging for the creators

(1:38:31) At the end of each session, Grian would ask the group if they had fun and how they felt about the wild cards. According the Skizz, the answer was "a resounding yes"

(1:39:08) Grian had moments throughout the season where he personally felt like things didn't go well for him, and was anxious for the rest of the group's episodes. Things worked out while editing the raw footage, though. His issues were never with the wild cards themselves, but his own actions (traps not working, spending too long branch mining), but would always find funny moments in his footage

(1:43:41) Everyone in the Life Series cast genuinely likes and genuinely respects everybody else in the group. This allows them to make the show and get mad at each other, because they know it's all just in-character

(1:44:50) It'd be hard to top Wild Life in spectacle, and Grian doesn't want to start an arms race with himself. The next season could potentially be closer to 3rd Life, but Grian's not sure yet. For Grian, Wild Life was the most enjoyable

(1:45:20) Grian: "As long as people keep enjoying [the Life Series] then I'd love to keep doing it"

(1:49:35) With the finale, Grian knew how the wild cards played out the previous sessions and was able to adjust them

(1:49:56) Grian's goal was to create safe chaos where everyone knew what was happening and wouldn't die to them, which didn't go entirely to plan. The snails were 60% of their original speed and people still died

(1:51:03) Grian made a precise timeline of when each wild card would start/stop, it wasn't randomized.

(1:54:16) All the superpowers were randomized, with Bdubs' power being removed from circulation because it didn't have much use in a finale setting

(1:56:10) It was important for Grian that in the final moments, the wild cards were removed, so there were no interruptions. The timing worked out well because there were a few people left and it ended within ~10 minutes (this implies that the change wasn't based on # of players alive, as people had speculated based on Gem's death)

(1:58:48) The players all randomly switched to zombie skins throughout the session to mess with people on NameMC. Well-played :)

[illusioncanthurtme--art]

Dibs turn!!! Everyone's least favorite boy genius!!

No fancy spread and not as many drawings as gaz, because I was struggling with drawing him for some reason. I really wanted to make some more action poses for him, but something wasn't clicking. And coloring just the first one had me gassed out so I didn't feel like doing the rest :') But of course I didn't want to sit on these so HERE HE IS!!

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories - Halloween Town Sora & Riku

[chubsette]

Someday could you give us tips to draw chubby bodies?

i once put together some tips on how I draw fat for a friend so i suppose i can share those right now :) just keep in mind that these might not help everyone and that i mostly don't know what i'm talking about. it's just how i personally draw idk

and i cannot reccomend the book morpho: fat and skin folds by Michael Lauricella enough. it's an amazing resource for learning and it really changed the way i understand fat as an artist

edit: excuse all the typos on the images fml

[pigeonstab]

Waiting at the bus stop

[demaparbat-hp]

In your Spitfire AU, since Zuko is looking after Lu Ten II, what happened to Ursa?

Zuko is slightly older in the Spitfire AU. He was banished at fifteen, his head a little clearer and denial a little weaker than in canon. After his first look through the Air Temples, Zuko decides that if he can't find a myth, he might as well search for the next best thing.

Finding Ursa isn't easy, but in time he makes it to a secluded house in a near-forgotten part of the world. His mom is there, older and stronger and alive.

But she isn't alone.

And Zuko, as it turns out, didn't keep the best company during his search.

When Ursa is discovered and her secrets are laid bare for assassins (for Ozai) to find, she begs Zuko to take his little brother and run. She'll do anything it takes to protect her children, even if that means leaving them behind to keep a target off their back. Ursa diverts attention from them and allows Lu Ten's ancestry to be kept a secret. She orders Zuko not to follow her again, and disappears.

Zuko is left with a little three-year-old brother to raise and a mother he cannot hold onto.

[backpackingspace]

Okay so with the line "the olive tree where we first met" we have two equal hilarious options.

When penelope was sassily like oh I'll marry you if you make a living bed out of this tree right here! Cue penelope stumbling over odysseus very very carefully digging up the tree "because how else is he going to get it to itacha we can't have a wedding bed out in the open in sparta duh"

Or

2. Penelope, knowing that Helen's suitors would soon be arriving to take over her home for a while. Snuck out and went on her own wacky shenanigan filled journey where she scoped out all the major players. Odysseus caught her spying in an olive tree. And when she got back she told Helen she had dibs on the cutie from itacha.

[hyakunana]

Pocky Valen when?

[rebouks]

Previous // Next

Courtney: I thought you’d quit again? Oscar: No one likes a quitter, Cookie. [Courtney hummed in faint disapproval] Oscar: I could take up some more nefarious things instead? Courtney: Yeah, no. … Oscar: What’s on your mind? Courtney: This n’ that. Oscar: Do I gotta tickle it out of you? ‘Cause I’m still due a little payback. Courtney: [sighs] I’ve been thinking about trying to find out who my parents were. Oscar: Seriously? Courtney: Maybe, yeah. Oscar: Wha-… Courtney: I don’t wanna talk about it. Oscar: Bu-… Courtney: Nope.

[a-scary-lack-of-common-sense]

i am having. Many Thoughts. about my HWINEBHABWNAJCAHOWEEATOWEUB AU Ford, so here are some unfiltered rambles about him <3

The entire premise of this AU is that it goes exactly the same as canon right up until Bill betrays Ford steals Fiddleford's eyes, and then Ford kills Bill in retaliation. Everything just sorta snowballs into a huge mess from there, with this sad fuck of a man SMACK BAM in the middle of it all.

I like to explore my Ford in the way he reacts to things. It's interesting to see how far I can really take it until it becomes borderline OOC, especially when he kills Bill. He didn't actually fully mean to kill him, but at the same time that was exactly his intention, if that makes any sense?

Although Bill stealing Fiddleford's sight privileges instead of Ford's was one of the main reasons that triggered Stanford's decision to murder him, I'd like to compare his act more as a frantic, desperate grasp to survive, rather than a calculated, cold revenge being enacted. I think that he was just trying to live, in that primal, undeniable fear of death that can consume anyone, even Gods. Especially Gods.

I think that, as much as Bill's murder was a moment of power reversal, in which the victim got a taste of the power their abuser had over them, it was also a moment when Gods and mortals alike became so very aware of their own helplessness in the face of sheer and blind will to just survive. I don't think that Ford felt like a God when he killed Bill. I think that Bill wasn't facing wrathful being in that moment, he was facing a mere man who was so afraid to die he was willing to do anything. But you can't blame him for that, right? You can't blame him for wanting to live? For fearing death? He's only human.

"They say that when saving a drowning person, you have to be careful to not be pulled under the water by their flailing hands, because in their haste to survive, they might not even notice they are inadvertedly killing you."