#I found this on an old post (the screenshot) and it had 0 notes so posting again bc I find it funny

[seduceme-lovestruck-thearcana]

We do, queen. We really do.

[wavesmp3]

some of my fave rbs or asks or comments ive received... thank you all :) - no need for anyone to respond or anything to this, just really wanted to put this together more for myself - i doubt most of your remember these but i do heh [more under the cut, and perhaps lil notes too depending on the comment]

the first three!! major huge moments for me. from sha (@dinoshaur) one of the first comments i received on a work that wasn't fanfic exactly. meant the world to me then, and still does now. | from @redevenir the very very first comment (i believe) i ever ever received on the sea is yours to take,, it's been nearly 4 years since i first posted that piece and people still somehow find it, and it all started with that rb | and from choco ! @chocosvt one of the very first comments/rbs i got when i started properly writing on tumblr in 2020, this got the ball rolling on what became (and still is) such a dear passion/hobby of mine (also also can you believe i still use the mlist banner that choco oh so kindly made for me ages ago LOL its beautiful, i'll never get rid of it as long as this blog exists

and moment of silence for my old url :0

the first one... when another line of mine is quoted in another piece of mine's comments... head in hands forever. 2/3 of these were left by @gracefulweather (one for sure is, and i think the uquiz comment was also left by them but not sure) but thank you either way sherri!! | the second sc tbh i don't remember who left it but it was on tsiytt and it made me feel like i achieved something in crafting that world. although i may never revisit that world in writing, i revisit it often in my mind.

flower anon your comments meant so much to me, i hope youre still out there somewhere doing well :) | and to the other anon that left the second one, i was speechless and honored to reach that ask

@hhjs amal's comments have always made me feel like im doing something otherworldly which isn't true at all but i will forever love rereading their tags. also just amal's mind in general, i wanna pick your brain forever

n! i already made an emo missing n post but here are some comments from them lol. and the last one!!! me and water <3333 when people starting associating me with water/ocean/sea/waves too <333333

@heavenlyhaechan zahra!!! there were so many ones i could have put here but this one seemed to sum it all up. you get me :p if you see this, i hope you've been well :))

@dapingu the first and third one are just ones that make me giggle still LOL and then the second one is one that i hold so so close to me cause i had absolutely no idea if anyone would read that piece but then you did ! and you left this comment even after the fact too! i was so touched. i feel like i should personally apologize for making no moves to continue the series (and probably also for deactivating the gifts and sins blog) BUT thank you nonetheless. and as a added bonus you never failed to make me laugh so thank you also for that

@thepixelelf ursa!!!! the first one is horribly cut off but is prob one of my fave notes you ever left on a fic of mine (battling also with that one sunwoo recovery files style inspired drabble) and then ofc i couldn't not mention the 'boo you whore' comment :D also so glad to have you on this site still and to have your friendship and to look at bees and bears and think of you :) you mean the world to me

@kabira manx i think the fact that there are so many screenshots here speaks for itself like... i just simply could not bring myself to pick one !!! i am so lucky to have found you on here. i think in a way you helped me find out what i was good at and what i liked about my own writing before i even figured it out myself <3

@sagescaffeinemania the first one made me laugh and the second one makes me emo. feels like a declaration of love in way but i don't mean that in a weird way LOL i think your support on oasis singlehandedly introduced so many others to that piece, how can i ever thank you for that? and i apologize if i haven't even attempted a thank you yet

@cuppasunu KYU your bulleted comments on my silly long fics always meant so much to me ,, i know its been a very very long time but i hope you've been well

@blossom-hwa lina! best for last some might say. i mean you must know how much that oasis rb meant to me right? because it means the world. i think you calmed every doubt i had about that piece and lifted even higher everything i loved about it too. and the first sc esp, i couldn't have said it all better myself. that scene felt like i risk when i was writing it and im so glad it played out the way i was hoping it to and not the dreadful other way lol | and as for the second screenshot. really i think i love that comment because of how you wrote it more than what you said about the piece if that makes sense. one can tell from that little paragraph alone what a writer(!) you are. i love rereading that comment but i think i mainly just love reading your writing lol (dont think im not making my way through worn out soles)

[iatrophilosophos]

(Lmk if you don't want me screenshotting ur tags/saying this next to it i just think this part is important. All future "you"s in this post are @ a general hypothetical reader, not @ you previous poster specifically.)

Neuroleptics is a huge frog boil. I think for a lot of ppl there is a wave of initial relief with the prescription cuz like, most people do get on these meds when they're feeling super fucked up & i think there is a ton of value in the like, neurological shake up to get into a different bodymind frame and start functioning different. And then, for me and a lot of ppl I've talked to, there's the numbness but there can also be 0 emotional memory: i.e. when i was on neuroleptic medication, every feeling was the *only* feeling i had ever felt. I had extreme lows in my daily life, at school, etc but in my nice quiet psychs office, I had nothing to report. Then, there's the fact that these medications cause withdrawals, plus feeling anything again can be super overwhelming. So you get the really classic loops and spirals/"unstable psycho behavior": hate ur meds, build up a bunch of antispsych thoughts, go off, don't process withdrawals well, get into a hole, get hospitalized or face pressure from family/friends/society at large, go back on, feel better for a little bit, start defending psychiatry really hard...rinse and repeat.

So! Alternatives and ~harm reduction~:

If you or someone you know decided you do want to take neuroleptic drugs, it's a really really good idea to set intentions to monitor side effects OUTSIDE of your relationship to your prescriber. Note when you feel like shit, note when you feel HAPPY, make a low effort chart with checkboxes for every day/incident, short form journal, long form journal, make a drawing every day, take a picture every day--whatever is easy and you can look back on to actually assess if this relationship to this drug is doing something you actually want in your life.

WITHDRAWALS ARE REAL. If you're currently taking, have taken, or are considering neuroleptic medication: your experience when you first go off meds or miss a couple days Is NOT "who you are" or what you can expect from baseline w/o the meds. It is an EXTREMELY GNARLY WITHDRAWAL. There's an OK harm reduction guide to coming off psychiatric medication i can send a PDF to if anyone wants to dm me their email (the only actual link I've found for it is paid :/). It's more oriented to antipsych 101 than actual medical info/support but it's ok.

Consider: trying almost anything else before taking neuroleptic medication. There is not really anything that's guaranteed to make you stop hallucinating, which can suck. However; that doesnt mean you will forever feel like shit, or that you can't make changes such that hallucinations are either a lot less likely and/or a lot less intrusive. The now mostly-defunct mad liberation movement has generated a bunch of wonderful narratives and discourse around this topic i highly reccomend delving into to find ideas and practices that might be good. you can search for archives of "mad liberation" "psychiatric survivor" and "anti psychiatry movement" newspapers which are also just super cool to read; you can look up the archived old website for the Icarus Project (search "icarus project archive" sry I'm on mobile); and Project LETS is an extant us college-centric group that might have useful resources. On the materials and practices side:

I'm an herbalist so I'm p much always gonna head towards herbalism; but i think there's some real benefits here in that herbs are 1) cheap 2) not controlled substances (unless you're in aeoteroa, apparently?) 3) many have extremely low if nonexistent potential to cause withdrawal (notable exceptions: kratom, kava) 4) most are metabolized very quickly (within an hour) and wear off within several hours; giving you a large amount of flexibility and control, and 5) there's a lot of good evidence even if youre science-only (kinda an L but you do you.) The Psychpharmacology of Herbal Medicine by Marcello Spinella is a somewhat dated but solid source you can find a free pdf of by Googling or looking on libgen or Anna's archive; find preparation directions in James greens Home Medicine Makers Handbook available in the same databases. It is important when assessing chemical tools like this to think outside the box and more granularly about what kinds of effects might be beneficial situation to situation in Your Specific Life than seeking some sort of "herbal antispsychotic", which does not exist.

Other good options: ruling out vitamin B and D deficiencies, introducing variation in your life or making major life changes (that might sound weird but IMO, starting a long term relationship with a powerful, withdrawal causing psychoactive drug Is In Fact ALSO a major life change!), dropping shrooms or acid, literally just start walking around where you live and see where it takes you, stay at a friend's house for a little bit and learn to navigate a new environment, uhhh in the past when I've been super fucked up in my life I've Literally just gone to like dollar tree and gotten as many foods that I've never eaten before as possible and it helped a lot more than it might sound like it would

Like basically do whatever you want forever and if any of this sounds stupid or terrible like...don't do it... but don't let the establishment fool you into believing your options are suffer with drugs or suffer without them and DEFINITELY don't accept the narrative that it's better to be numb, miserable, and riddled with physiological side effects but managable-for-society than it is to feel alive while insane, abnormal, and unable to live a normative life.

what is your opinion on anti-psychotics then?

that's a misnomer; neuroleptic drugs don't combat a singular biological state of 'psychosis' because there is no such observed or biomarked state. neuroleptics don't have good evidence for their efficacy in actually improving patient outcomes, and are known to cause a range of serious short- and long-term (including permanent!) side effects ranging from metabolic dysregulation to movement disorders (neurological damage) to sedation (they have previously been known as 'major tranquilisers').

on principle i think people should be able to use psychoactive substances of their choosing; in practice i think this is basically a moot point in regards to neuroleptics because the side effects are so common and severe, and the benefits so minimal. these are drugs that continue to be popularly prescribed because they make patients more 'compliant' -- ie, because our current social–economic situation is so profoundly hostile to variation in perceptions of reality that we render people more 'functional' when dangerously medicated into submission.

i also collected a few readings on this here.

[tryslora]

If I'm lucky, all errors have been caught before posting this year, and I have properly accounted for all variations needed for removing a leap year. Man, leap years are killer to deal with in terms of tracking down tiny changes to formulas! BUT. I think I actually did better this year than last year. Can we not discuss the things I screwed up? Anyway. I really did doublecheck pretty much everything that goes back to the Wordcount sheet.

ANYWAY.

For those who have been waiting for this spreadsheet, here it is! Sorry to be so late. For those who haven't seen this before, please take a look, use if you'd like, and share if you want to. All I ask is that if you make changes and spread the changed sheet around, please credit me as the original inspiration and link back to the original as well.

2021 Word Tracking Spreadsheet

Instructions and explanation are behind a cut/read more to save your feed/dash. This spreadsheet was developed because I found that it helped me keep myself moving forward from year to year, and I've been using it since 2012. I've been sharing it after folks asked what I was using to track my words, and it has evolved over the years into the version below. The instructions include screenshots from the 2021 spreadsheet and have finally been updated because a few things have changed. So. I guess I should update the instructions!

This spreadsheet was designed to allow you to set monthly goals for your writing, and easily track your words on different projects each day. It totals up your words for the day, your words for the month, and your words for the year. As you carry it along year to year, you can even track trends in your writing habits (for example, I’ve learned that I really suck at writing in May/June/July).

I’m going to go through this tab by tab to show you what’s what, and how to set yourself up and work daily.

We are actually going to begin with the second tab: Monthly Totals. This is where your totals are tracked, and where you set your goals. You can either set all your goals ahead of time, or month by month.

On this tab, you can fill in your pledges per month, and your goal for the year in the cells marked in grey. The monthly pledges (see column D) will transfer to other tabs as needed, and will be used to calculate a daily expected word count for each month. If you set an annual goal (you don’t have to!), you’ll be able to see how close you are to making that goal, and whether your pledges add up to the annual goal.

New: You can see your words to goal, and average needed per day to get to the goal.

You can see my usual pledges here. I've lowered my goals recently because I've found that around 500 words expected per day actually encourages me to make more, and doesn't make me feel bad if I make fewer.

The Actual column (B) is calculated automatically for you based on what you fill in on the Wordcount sheet, so let the spreadsheet do the work for you!

===

The next tab we need to take a look at is the first one. This is where you’ll be doing your work, on the tab titled Wordcount.

It may look complicated, but I swear it’s not! It calculates pretty much everything you need, as long as you just keep copying information from row to row.

It’s set up so it’ll work whether you start a brand new project of 0 words, or carry forward a WIP that had words before the new year started. All you have to do is put in the title, the purpose (fest, community, this is all just for your notes), and the due date, then put in your starting word count. When you add a new project, make sure to fill that starting word count (0 or otherwise) down through ALL the prior days so that your totals stay consistent. The way I do this in Excel is to select from the starting total down to the current date, then choose Fill Down. All rows MUST be filled in or else your words will go negative (see above, where the cell G6 has a value, even though the word count did not change that day).

When a day begins, it’s easy. Just copy down the prior day (except January 1st, just start with the one in place) by selecting from column F through the last column after your current WIP and then copy it down to the next row.

For example, if I were ready to start Jan 3rd, I select from F6 through I6 (one after my last project) and copy those cells down (I do it by using the little square in the bottom right to drag it down, but you do what's best for you.

When you finish working on a project, enter its current word count.

Now, let's take a closer look at what's above.

I started two projects on Jan 1st: Title and Title2

Title started with 0 words

Title2 came in from last year with 20 words already written

On January 1st, I recorded 100 words for Title and 1200 for Title2, and the sheet calculated that I wrote 1280 words that day

On January 2nd I didn't do anything on Title, but Title2 inreased to 1300 TOTAL words (NOT new words), so I added 100 words that day.

On January 3rd, I added Title3 with 0 words to start, and I made sure that every row in my new column showed those 0 words.

The sheet color codes for days where you are below target or above target in the Actual Words/Day column. It’ll be white on zero days. You can see at a glance your trends for writing.

It also marks projects that have been added to as green on that day in their column, which is nice if you do a weekly or monthly round up. Again, you can see at a glance which projects you've worked on, versus the ones still waiting.

When you finish a fic, simply hide the column (do not delete it). That’s why copying the entire row from F to after last down is important, so you copy the hidden columns too.

Some information about the other columns.

Target Total is where you hoped to be that year by that date. If you’re not there, don’t worry!! Zero days are OKAY and give yourself a chance to catch up another time. If you need to adjust your pledges, go do that on the Monthly Totals tab and everything will update.

The Daily Target is the total you are hoping to reach to stay on target toward the Monthly Pledge for that month–it’ll be different each month depending on what you pledge.

===

Now let’s move on to some of the fun tracking pieces. Next up are Daily Graph and Monthly Graph, which are exactly what they sound like. I’ll show examples from my 2017 spreadsheet (note, the daily graph will look very up and down–that’s OKAY! Again, let yourself have zero days…).

Daily Graph

Monthly Graph

Please note that the monthly graph has changed slightly. The pledged words are a line, but the actual words are now an area graph so you'll be able to see that fill in, and see your pledge as a line over it. That will give something good to look back on at the end of the year, but I don't have a new example yet!

===

There is a weird little blank tab for tracking AO3 stats, if you want to do so like I do. Feel free to modify as you need, based on your own person fandoms. I just carry data through from year to year so I can see how things change.

===

The last two tabs are my favorite! The Annual Comparison tab becomes useful after you’ve been using the spreadsheet more than a year, because by keeping track of totals year to year, you can start to see what your writing tendencies are. This tab has changed this year!

In the main data, I have added a Range (difference between the current month and the average) and a Median. In both cases, it won't calculate (just like the average) until you're actually in that month. Prior calculations are against the prior year's data.

Just copy in your data from prior spreadsheets, then let the new column for this year calculate on its own. No work needed once you've put in the old data!

Sample data included solely to be able to make it make sense. It won't be in the sheet you download.

The chart has changed! The area chart is your average across all your data. The colored lines are all the years. The current year is in black, with markers, to make it really stand out. So you can see both how you are doing against your prior years and your typical average per month.

And the last tab helps you track your progress toward your pledges. This tab is why I created the spreadsheet in the first place. I did NaNo back in 2011 and realized that being able to see my progress helped keep me writing. I like visuals! It lets me see at a glance how I’m progressing toward my goal each month.

You don't need to fill in a thing on this sheet! It pulls in the pledge from where you set it on the Monthly Totals tab, and calculates your wordcount based on that sheet, and does everything for you. Just sit back and enjoy the charts. Red columns are the expected totals, and blue will be your actual progress. You can see whether you're ahead or behind (and DON'T WORRY if you're behind, it is OKAY).

Yes, that’s my actual horrible progress December 2018. It was a rough month.

Anyway, that’s it! Hope you like it, and if you’ve used it before, thank you for coming back. Feel free to ask if you have any questions!

2021 Word Tracking Spreadsheet

[gallickingun]

basic manga cap tutorial || ibis paint x

I got a request on how I color my manga caps (you can check them out in #morgan-colors-bnha and #morgan-colors-hq), so I thought I’d do this step by step tutorial that walks you through my process!

I color and draw on my phone (Samsung Galaxy Note10+) using the stylus provided with the phone, however you can use your finger. For manga cap coloring, I use Ibis Paint X, which you can find HERE for the Google Play Store, and HERE for the Apple App Store! It is a FREE app, and actually really helpful for a number of reasons, which I’ll show you down below! It does go without saying - there are a limited number of brushes that you get with the free section, but I haven’t found them to be too limiting, however I’ve only done basic manga cap coloring. You can watch short ads (I haven’t watched any, so I can’t vouch for the obscenity of them) to use the non-free brushes for a short period of time, though. 

The first part of this tutorial is going to be showing you how I took THIS SUGAWARA manga cap and turned it into the one you see HERE (both as pictured on the header image). The second part of this tutorial, attached at the bottom, is a timelapse video where I show you how to turn THIS BOKUTO manga cap into the one you can find HERE. 

Alright - without further ado, let’s get into the tutorial! As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to drop by my ASK BOX! Hopefully this is in depth enough without being too confusing. ❤

I’m doing this in steps so it can be in depth and informative enough, but I know that can become a little confusing, so I’m going to do my best to explain each step. I’ve also highlighted using little yellow boxes where I’m referencing, as pictured below. 

To start, here are the ways I usually find manga caps: 

1. Google searches, Pinterest searches, etc. Sometimes they’re already transparent, other times they’re not. I’ve found that I’m able to use the non-transparent ones because of the tools that are within Ibis Paint X.

2. Tumblr blogs - there are some blogs that are meant purely for transparent manga caps. 

3. Manga scans. I, personally, haven’t used manga scans, but I know others that use them! They usually require some extra clean up, which can take extra expertise. Removing speech bubbles, backgrounds, etc. 

Please remember to provide credit if it’s requested from the original poster!

Step #1: Open IP (Ibis Paint - I’m not going to say it every time because WOW that would get repetitive) and click on “My Gallery”.

Step #2: This is your gallery - as you can see, all of my prior caps are here, and this is where you will either open an old cap and keep coloring, or start a new one. In the bottom lefthand side, you see I’ve highlighted the “+” sign. This will bring you to the next screenshot.

Step #3: This is where you can choose if you want to create your own canvas, or create a canvas based off of the imported photo. Since I don’t do many “official” manga cap posts where I create a full image set from them, I usually just click on “Import Picture”, and go from there! However, if you want to create an image canvas, and import the picture once you’ve gotten the canvas open, please see Step #6 for how to import the image once you’ve already created a canvas!

Step #4: This is the screen that should pop up every time you import an image. When you’re doing manga caps especially, you’ll want to hit “Ok”.

Step #5: I believe these are the automatic settings, however if they’re not on your app, these are the settings I use when selecting how to extract the line drawing. Black at 0%, White at 100%, and Middle at 50%. This will remove the background from the manga cap, and only leave the dark line art remaining.

Step #6: This is what the layer should look like once you’ve extracted the line drawing. See highlighted the “+” button - this is how you will add new layers. I chose to add a new layer, which you can see in Step #7. However, if this is where you want to add an image, see the highlighted camera button. This will let you choose an image from your camera roll and import. The “Extract Line Drawing” option will appear each time that you import an image, so don’t worry about triggering it! It will trigger itself!

Step #7: Here is the new layer! I cut out the screenshot from before, but each new layer shows up on top, so I had to use the three little lines on the righthand side to drag it beneath the layer of the Sugawara manga cap layer.

Step #8: I used this new layer to import a photo of Sugawara in his uniform from a quick google search. I actually end up grabbing another one just to make sure I know what the bottom half of his uniform looks like, but I don’t show it just yet. Because the layer is behind, it shows up underneath Suga’s face. I end up erasing the parts that interfere with the cap here in a bit. 

Step #9: When you click the brush button down at the bottom, this selection screen comes up. There are a ton of brushes to choose from, but for the base colors, I use “Dip Pen (Hard)” at 100% opacity. I’ve shown it highlighted here!

Step #10: Now we’re going to create our color palette. Sometimes I will find color palettes online And import them, but for the sake of simplicity, I’m going to use this photo of Suga along with another one that I nab later to create the palette. The way you use the “dropper” tool (if you’re familiar with Photoshop) to select the colors from another portion of the image is to press down rather hard, and then this circular selection tool will pop up. You can keep the pressure and drag it to the specific spot you want to pick up a certain color for. I’ve found that it’s best to do this with my finger instead of my stylus. I’m not sure if it’s because the heat of my finger and the change in pressure is easier to pick up, but that’s what works for me! 

NOTE: It is important to note that if you have the eraser tool selected instead of the brush tool, you won’t be able to use the color selector. This might come as second nature to some of you, but it STILL makes me screw up from time to time, haha. 

Step #11: Using the dropper/color selection tool from Step #10, I create a small color palette, as you can see in the upper lefthand corner of the image in this step. I grab both the lightest and darkest shades from the different things I’ll need to color in for the cap. I picked up the highlights and shadows of Sugawara’s skintone, eyes, hair, and jersey. I just draw in little overlapping circles so I can switch back and forth between the colors 

Step #12: I added an additional layer in the very back of this image, and colored it in completely using a blue shade. This will allow me to make sure that I’ve filled in all of the space behind the manga cap. It’s important to note that in order to color the line art in later, you’ll actually need to “overdraw”. We’ll touch on that more later. 

Step #13: As I show here, I have a layer where I use the singular skin tone shade and color in behind the manga cap, filling in all the spaces where Sugawara’s skin is showing. I usually use a different layer for each different shade/color just in the event I need to do a bunch of erasing, or if I need to change the layer style later. 

Step #14: Here is where I show how I “overdraw”. I’m not sure if you can see it very well here in these screenshots, but the way that these manga caps are drawn, sometimes the line art isn’t “clean”, it looks more shaded/scratchy. So, in order to combat white space, I usually overdraw and then go back in with an eraser. You can see in Step #15 the size brush I usually use - somewhere between 2.0-4.0, but most of the time I use a 3.0 size brush. I’ll go back in with the eraser with a similar size on the easy parts, and then all the way down to the smallest size - 0.3 for really close quarter erasing. 

NOTE: It’s important to realize that the smaller the eraser, sometimes the circumference of the eraser can be really light in opacity as well. You can help this with the intensity of the pressure that you use with your stylus/finger, but I’ve found that sometimes using a really small eraser can be counterproductive. There are times where I’d rather “over” erase in which I actually erase into the cap and then redraw using a small brush size. You’ll have to play around with eraser/brush size and such to see what works best for you!

Step #15: Here is the skin all colored in! You’ll notice I colored in his eyes and mouth, which are going to end up being white in the end. I do this because usually it’s easy to forget that you need to color things in white if you’re doing it against a white background. I oscillate between the colored background and the white/transparent one because sometimes it can be tough to look at that bright color all the time. I’ve found that this is more of a tip/trick for me to be able to remember to color in his teeth and eyes and even sometimes the brow or other features! In the end, this just works for me. You don’t have to do this step!

NOTE: As I stated in Step #14, using pressure can change things. The same goes for this specific pen type - the dip pen. I use about size 3.0 most of the time, but I can actually do really detailed work with this size pen (see Suga’s ears, the spaces between his hair, etc.) by using lighter pressure. I do have a stylus, so this is a lot easier for me. The pressure was a little tricky for me to get down in the beginning, but once you realize how soft/hard you need to press down, you can use bigger brushes for even smaller areas. I find that makes it a lot easier for me, since I don’t have to keep changing the brush tool - which you can do using the sliding bar at the bottom of the screen labeled “Thickness”. The thickness of a brush is the circumference it has when you are using the hardest version of pressure you can muster, so keep that in mind!

Step #16: Here is where I do the basic coloring for the skin, hair, and eyes. These colors will be relatively the same as the colors from the palette, because there is not a “gray cast” caused by the line art sketch from the manga cap. This means that the skin color that is showing in the manga cap that I’ve colored is pretty close to the original color from the screencap from the anime/the palette that I’ve got in the upper lefthand corner. I do FLAT coloring for this - aka NO SHADING YET. So I only use the LIGHTEST shade for the hair and skin - the ones farthest to the left on the palettes for each section. I do use the DARKEST shade for the eyes, but that’s because usually the lighter shade is the one you use most sparingly, where as with skin, the darker shades are used for shadows only and aren’t used in excess.

NOTE: As previously stated, I do a separate layer for each different color. At this point there should be six layers, as follows (from the bottom up):  Layer 1: Background Layer (Mine is blue, but for the sake of easy viewing, I made it white.) Layer 2: “Notes” Layer - this is where I keep my notes, as in the reference photos, color palette, and any other things here and there.  Layers 3-5: These are the colored layers - skin, hair, and eyes.  Layer 6: Manga Cap Line Art

Step #17: Here’s where I’m showing the two different orange tones. This is what I meant in Step #16 - The original orange shade is the lower part of Suga’s collar - as you can see, the line art shading makes the color a lot more muted. I used the color wheel to find something brighter, just for a comparison shot. I still choose to use the traditional palette that I pulled from the anime screencap. 

Step #18: Now that I’m ready to color the manga cap pieces that are skewed by shading (i.e. his jersey here), I usually turn the manga cap down in opacity, so I’m able to recognize where I need to fill in! This is where I fill in the blue of the jersey, the orange of the collar and other accents, as well as the off-white shade for the number and the line accents. 

Step #19: Using the eraser and smaller brush sizes, I fill in all of the flat colors. No shading yet!

Here comes the time consuming, nuances...

Step #20: I’ve turned back on the colored background layer - sometime between when I started and now, I changed it from blue to pink. If you can zoom in on the image, you’ll see the boxes in white contain “errors”. This is areas where there are “holes” in the coloring, or where I’ve gone outside the lines. I’m going to go back in and clean this all up with the eraser and some more brush work. 

NOTE: This is very important, especially if you’re trying to make this a transparent image, or if you’re going to do the extra steps and color in the line work. Any holes, overdrawn, or underdrawn areas will make the final drawing look a little funky.

Step #21: Here is the shading! Honestly, this cap kind of shaded itself, haha. Some manga caps have “built in” shading, as you can see on Sugawara’s arms and neck. I added some shading to his hair and face, trying to use the anime caps as a reference. I’m not very good at shading yet, but I wanted to show it here so you guys could see!

I used the darker shades from the palettes on the eyes, hair, and skin. I didn’t do any shading to the jersey because the manga cap lines already skew it so much, that it didn’t really seem necessary. This can be a really hit-or-miss time, both with areas that you choose to shade, as well as the colors that you use. I would really suggest searching for skin tone palettes if you’re not using the anime screencaps for reference!

Step #22: For my shading, I actually use “clipping” effects. As you can see, the two layers that are highlighted are clipped to the layers beneath. This means that the coloring on the clipped layer will “attach” aka clip itself to the layer beneath and that layer only. So, for the shading of the skin, hair, and eyes, I chose to clip the shaded parts to the base coloring, that way even if I over drew, the colors wouldn’t bleed together. 

I did more of what’s called “cell shading” for this manga cap, as well as the Bokuto one that I do in the timelapse video below. What is cell shading? This wiki page explains it pretty well, but basically it’s more “harsh” shading where there’s not necessarily an airbrushed quality to it, it’s more blocky. You can see I only chose to use one color of shading, which makes the contrast much more stark. IP does have several airbrush tools, I’ve used them in my Bakugou manga caps for his gauntlets, and they work really well! 

I brought up earlier that it’s important to color your base colors all the way to the edges of the manga cap line art. This clipping effect is why. On Suga’s neck and ears, the darker shade that I used for his skintone goes to the edge and actually underneath the line art of the cap, because it is clipped to the base skintone layer beneath. Had I not made sure to go all the way to the edge of the line art, this would be much more choppy, and there would be white space between Suga’s ear and his hair! 

Step #23: Here is the extra step - line art shading! This can be tricky, depending on the complexity of the line art, the shading, etc. Usually, in choosing a shade to color in the line art, I grab the darkest shade for that section, and then grab something even darker. As seen in Step #18, there is that drop down box that is currently listed to “Normal” - this will need to be set to “Screen” for the current line art coloring layer. You’ll also need to “clip” the layer you’re using for the line art color to the manga cap, meaning it will need to be on top of the manga cap layer - and therefore, should be the highest layer in the image.

For this image, I only did line art coloring on Suga’s face, hair, arms, and neck. I was really satisfied with leaving the jersey alone so far as coloring. I did this mostly because of the sketchy quality of the cap, the line art would be really involved and complicated, and it just wasn’t worth it to me (so sorry lol), and I liked how it looked with the darker color outlining it anyway. 

Also, I added little details like making the sweat on Suga’s face outlined in white! And yes, I do know that missed Suga’s beauty mark, but we’re going to pretend I didn’t just do that. I love you, Koushi, please forgive me. 

And that’s it! I’m sure there are easier ways to do things, or better ways, haha. But this is my beginner tutorial (as in I’m the beginner, lol). I hope that this helped anyone whose doing it for the first time! I stated this before, but if you have any questions, please feel free to hop into my ASK BOX and ask me! I’d love to help anyone out! And I’ll do my best! 

See below an additional manga cap coloring - Bokuto Koutarou this time! I thought doing a timelapse video of me actually coloring in the cap would help you guys out! 

PLEASE BE AWARE: This video is in 2x speed so it could not be forever long and really boring lol. With that being said, I do spin the screen around several times while coloring in the cap - this could make you nauseous, so please beware of that before you watch!

Here is a link to the time lapse video on YouTube! 

A special thanks to @cutesuki--bakugou​ who helped me a lot while I was coloring my original caps, and also to @writeiolite​ who nudged me in the direction of finally starting to color manga caps! And a little thanks to @rouge-heichou​ since I bugged her about a couple of things as well. And then as always, a huge thanks to @candychronicles​ because she keeps me sane. Also a special mention to @pixxiesdust​ because she does really cool gifs and has done a wonderful job in the bookclub of trying to share her knowledge with everyone else.

Disclaimer: I’m no artist, this is just for fun! I’m sure my shading and line art can use some work.. but I’m not focusing on that! Instead I’m just going to keep playing around and having a good time ❤

[dru-reblogs-stuff]

Check in tag!

Thanks for the tag @corkytheguar :D

1. Why did you choose your url?

My main is DruidX, which has been my handle on nearly every single platform ever since.... well, since the World Wide Web became a feasible thing to have in one’s home ^.^; Because this is the blog to which all other random interesting things are thrown, I thought I’d keep in theme with “Dru reblogs stuff”, for I am Dru... and I am reblogging stuff XD

2. Any sideblogs? If you have them name them and why you have them?

Technically @/dru-reblogs-stuff is a sideblog already. It gets more personal stuff, and also everything I like that’s interesting to me. I keep thinking I should narrow it down further though, and make seperate fashion & star wars blogs, because I rb that stuff on the regular...

@/druidx is my main, and is my Writeblr blog, for, well, all my writing, other people’s writing, and writing related advice/ resources.

@/dru-plays-starbound is the blog I used to rb Starbound stuff, and also post my starbound builds to. I haven’t updated it in a while, thought there’s lots of stuff still to post... I just haven’t had the inclination to fight with a graphics program and screenshots.

@/nine-blessed-hero breaks my naming scheme sadly, but this is now my dedicated Elder Scrolls blog, for art and fanfic. It’s also not as well kept as I would like it to be (I’ve got 600 items in draft to read though and comment on, so it’s slow going).

Finally there is the essentially abandoned @/things-my-rm-says-to-her-lego. This started as an out-of-context quote blog for things my roommate muttered while sorting/ building the old Lego her parents dropped off ~October 2020. I have no idea what to do with it now said roommate is no longer saying strange things to her Lego...

3. How long have you’ve been on tumblr?

I’ve just passed my one year anniversary, 18 May -- or at least, the anniversary of my first post which I’m sure was made only a week or so after I joined. Basically I joined up not long after the Lockdown was made official in the UK.

4. Do you have a queue tag?

Yes! It’s just “q”, because I am both lazy and basic.

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place?

As mentioned above, I joined not long after the Lockdown was made official in the UK. Because I had more time, I was looking back at old works and wanting both to share them and to get advice on how to get better. I’d heard somewhere that Tumblr was to writing as DeviantArt is to art, so I figured I may as well join and see what I could get out of the experience. Again, because I suddenly had more time, I bought TESIV: Oblivion on Steam and started to get into TESblr as well as Writeblr (which incidentally, is how I met the wonderful Corky ^.^). 

6. Why did you choose your icon?

I wanted something that reflected my interests (boy do I love Tea :D), but also wasn’t fussy, so I found a site filled with free SVG icons and picked this one out. I’ve had a lot of complements on it, so clearly it was a good choice ^.^ I’ve tried to keep the theme of teapots over all my blogs.

7. Why did you choose your header?

I don’t think any of my blogs have a header because I just couldn’t find anything I liked?

8. What’s your post with the most notes?

Across them all, it’s a “Last Line Tag” game one, posted Sep 22 2020 with 328 notes.

9. How many mutuals do you have?

28, across the board.

10. How many followers do you have?

I feel that’s somewhat defeating the point of not having them public. Let’s just say I have enough.

11. How many people do you follow?

181; just enough to keep things interesting, but not enough to be overwhelmed.

12. Have you ever made a shitpost?

No; the most I’ve done would have been an incorrect quote.

13. How often do you use tumblr each day?

I’m currently working from home, so it’s a permanent fixture on one of my background virtual desktops, ready to be flipped over to when work is dull or when I’m procrastinating writing.

14. Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? Who won?

I think someone tried to insinuate I’d offended them once, but they hid in the tags and I could never work out if it was my tags they were arguing against, or the post in general (it was a rb). But generally no; I’m Internet Old and just done with the Drama so I don’t engage.

15. How do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?

They can jog on. If I think it’s important, then I will chose to rb it, but telling me I’m a horrible person if I don’t? That’s a surefire way to ensure I dislike you and your cause, and will ignore you out of spite.

16. Do you like tag games?

<Points to this post> I fuckin’ love tag game, my dude. I’m bad at doing them sometimes, but I honestly adore when people are thinking about enough to say “You know who’d want to do this? Dru!”.

17. Do you like ask games?

Slightly less so, because again, I’m bad at keeping up with these things, and a full askbox hangs over my head like the sword of Damocles. But that you chose to poke me with a question about me or my writing that you’re curious about, well; it does warm my heart.

18. Which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

im-a-seraph-winging-it, rewrit, adelinewriting (though she’s no longer on Tumblr) maybe? idk ^.^; I guess not knowing is one of the nicer things about Tumblr; it makes everything a little more personal.

19. Do I have a crush on a mutual?

Yes. I’m not saying who (it’s sort of embarrassing to be the age I am and have a crush), but they have a unique and exquisite writing style, and I care for it very much.

20. Tags?

I’ll do my usual bods: @aquadestinyswriting @alias-levi , but I’m also curious about @homesteadchronicles @writtenbyrain and @scribeofred (0 pressure tho! I know this is an unsolicited tag)

[chaos-in-deepspace]

I am not only appalled by the fact that people are letting this "author" (and I use this term lightly) get away with what they did, but also disgusted by the responses to the others involved in this situation. I'll be going over this "apology", and why I personally think it's absolutely bullshit and manipulative, under the cut. If you don't wish to read about triggering topics such as: Death Threats, Bullying, Plagiarizing, Online Discourse, Manipulation, or just any drama for the LADS fandom, then please skip over this post. I'll also be adding a new hashtag "#Hare's Fandom Discourse".

Anything related to drama in the fandom that people might not want to see will be put under that hashtag. Again, I encourage any of my followers, as well as anyone seeing this who doesn't want to be involved to go ahead and block that hashtag so you won't be seeing any future statements on your feed. Your mental health is the most important thing and if seeing things like this will negatively impact it, do your best to curate your experience on this website.

So with that out of the way, let's continue under the cut!

I enjoy keeping my points as organized as possible, so I'll be breaking this up into categories so it's easier on my brain, as well as other people who read things in the same fashion as me. Also I will be referring to Umi using She/Her pronouns, however if this is incorrect please let me know.

The Plagiarism Issue and AI Allegations

Plagiarism is a huge fucking issue in any writing community, but this one...this fandom takes the cake. I have been in fandom spaces since middle school and I'm now 26 years old. I've been here for over 10 years now at this point, and I have never in my life seen something as serious as plagiarizing somebody else's work be swept under the rug because of an "Apology" they stated.

This is a serious thing. An author put out their writing for free for the entertainment of others, and then had it stolen. And for what? Clout? Notes? I don't know Umi's motives, nor do I care. Stealing someone else's work is absolutely vile.

People seem to be forgetting that Umi isn't a minor. Umi is a 20 year old adult who has probably been told her entire life that plagiarism is bad in school. She even had one of her finals get flagged for AI in college before and stated how scary that was, so she should understand the issue with plagiarism isn't to be taken lightly. This isn't naivety, this is a full grown adult who understood that what she was doing was a horrible thing, but did it anyway. Again, we don't know the motivation here, but we can at least understand from a moral standpoint as to why it's so fucking wrong.

Umi knew what she was doing. This isn't some "insecure writer" as she's trying to play the sympathy card. I was once an insecure writer as well. I am still very insecure about a lot of things I write, but I would never even fathom stealing from someone else and claiming it as my own. "Writing has become a joy for me." guess what, you actually need to write in order to enjoy it.

As for the AI allegations, hello, hi, that was me. If you've been following my blog, this shouldn't come as a shock. I had read the Zayne CNC fic (or at least tried to) and noticed the writing was severely off. Shockingly, my first line of figuring out if something was written by AI is using my own eyes and reading comprehension. After I had suspicions I continued reading and found a few key elements that had me run it through an AI checker (one that I have done countless experiments with on generative AI, mainly for chatbots. This AI checker doesn't even pull up for ChatGPT generated things, but oh boy can is clock Janitor and C.AI within a second, and has never popped up for original writing for me or anyone else that I've run it through with permission).

I even recorded a video of me doing it, and it popped up as 66% AI, and the ending of the fic showed 0%. So I gave the benefit of the doubt. Here's the screenshot of exactly what I had said. I won't put up the video as this post isn't about calling someone out for AI:

Mind you this is a private server so I did not call out Umi to a whole server of people. It was me and one of my close friends only, who will stay anonymous as I doubt that person wants to be involved in any way with this situation. Mind you this was back in October, before any of this came out.

I don't accuse people of using AI lightly, and I will not say with definitive proof that Umi used AI for writing the start or aspects of her fic because I simply cannot prove that, especially with how so many things were deleted from her blog recently. I will state, however, that I would not put it past somebody who stole an entire aspect of their fic from another writer to be above using AI. In my opinion, stealing is so much worse than using AI.

Anyone can take this however they want, but I did want to state this as Manika was painted out to be a villain for commenting on this. It was me. I brought it up to her. She didn't run anything through an AI checker, nor did she clock AI was being used. When she made her post she was simply showing things she had received on the situation because of all the damning evidence against Umi (which those allegations turned out to be true). And if anyone thinks I'm insane for thinking people use AI in posts, I have found several people, and I have privately messaged some of them to inform them that I know they're using AI, and have had people admitting to it. However, this is neither here nor there because this isn't an AI post, this is a plagiarism post.

Umi's Response

In this post, she said she was an insecure writer and that she only plagiarized because of that. She started this shit in August. This wasn't some long journey of discovering yourself, you started posting and stealing a handful of months ago.

Then if you realized you could write, then why didn't you say anything then? The only reason you had to make a statement was because people found out. They realized you were stealing. You would've been so content just sitting there and building your platform off the hard work of other people if nobody discovered it. You're fucking vile for that.

I also love how you never mentioned the person you stole from trusted you. From what I've gathered, not only did they consider you a friend, you were their beta reader for the fucking fanfic you stole from. They trusted you, and you stole their work with no remorse.

I even commented that if you were sorry then you'd have deleted the entire fic (which should still be there in the comments at this point in time, if not, then I do have screenshots of the entire interaction). You claim they didn't expect you to take down your fanfic, probably because they realized you wouldn't. You "built" a story that someone else had to sit there and think up, happily got a following and tons of people loving "your" work, and then when you got caught you just said "Opsie, sorry I'll rewrite the chapters, my bad."

Just because they don't expect you to take it down, isn't the greenlight to keep it up. They don't expect you to take shit down because they probably didn't expect you to show any form of respect for the god damn craft. If you can suddenly write now, and you're no longer insecure, then you can come up with a new plot. You can come up with a new fucking story. Instead you're content in keeping the plot lines and story that someone else worked for because it's easier. Those aren't the actions of someone who's remorseful for what they did. That's the action of someone who just enjoys the attention.

Manika-Whims

When I say there was absolutely no fucking reason to bring up Manika in this post, I mean it. Congratulations, you managed to make an "apology" post and make someone else to be the bad guy. You said you weren't, but you were.

You repeatedly said you were keeping Manika blocked from your blog to really solidify how much you dislike this person, as well as mentioning that Manika apparently egged on her audience to send you threats.

First off where's the god damn proof? I saw nowhere that Manika was condoning any form of bullying. People are allowed to be upset when you're shitting on their favorite character all the time. I know plenty of people who find comfort in the characters in the game, and they will get distressed when someone is being dicks to them. People are allowed to do it. They're allowed to state their opinions about you shitting on something they love.

However claiming that she's one of the reasons you got threats? You've painted her as a bad guy. You've diverted the attention of you stealing stuff from a friend of yours and claiming it as your own, and made the person who brought it to the public's attention as the bad guy. You painted her as the antagonist in your own little fucked up sob story.

I had been messaging Manika when she made the original post about you stealing things. I mentioned the anon you got. She agreed that she doesn't want people sending death threats or baiting to someone. That was never her intention. She didn't send those people after you. You can't even prove that the people who sent those even followed her. They could've seen the post in the tags and decided to go to your blog themselves without even knowing who Manika was, and they decided to stir the pot.

You didn't need an entire section of your "apology" to be about Manika. You did it to garner sympathy and give people a new target to hate on. She's also received anon hate because of this situation, did you know that? I bet you didn't because you're too busy throwing yourself a pity party and basking in the fact that everyone is willing to turn a blind eye after your fake apology post where you illegally plagiarized another's hard work.

Manika did nothing wrong. She rightfully brought it to the public's attention that you were riding off the backs of others. You were never going to make a statement. You're not sad about plagiarizing, you're sad because your ass got caught.

Death Threats

I, in no way, shape, or form, will ever condone things like death threats or doxing someone. I believe if someone has something to say, then say it to their face. There's no reason to hide behind anon to be disgusting and do these things.

I will say in this post, however, showing these threats is a clear way of manipulating people. This was supposed to be an apology post, but instead by showing these screenshots of anon messages she has now painted herself out to be a victim. I won't say these didn't affect her mental health, I'm sure it did. IN a sense, she definitely was a victim to hate and bullying. Getting messages like that is horrible, however it has no place in an apology. It was simply trying to be:

"Hey I know I did something horrible and actually illegal, but people are being worse than me so pity me."

Of course this is an exaggeration, but in my mind, this is what's going on. Again, it's horrible. I feel for Umi, nobody deserves to have their blog overrun by messages like this, but this does not belong in an apology post. If you wanted to make a post for people telling your followers you've been receiving such threats, then so be it, but not when you're apologizing for doing something wrong. It's manipulative, and just is the fucking cherry on top for everything you've been doing.

I also want to make note: We don't know who sent these anon messages. It could be anyone. Some people see discourse going on in a fandom and decide to stir the pot. I'm assuming this is what was happening. If you block a single anon message, a lot of times almost all, or most, of those messages will be deleted because it was sent from the same IP address. This was probably one or two people who decided they wanted to cause more drama and ruin someone's day.

Another thing to note is that Umi wasn't the only one receiving threats. People who spoke against her also received threats and hate. I had someone on Anon message me about it because they has said something and got threatened to be doxxed for speaking out against Umi. Are we just going to ignore everyone else who rightfully spoke out, were correct in what they said, but still received hate?

Moving Forward

I see so many people forgiving you, forgiving you for stealing from friends, lying to them, building your entire platform off the lies, and then apologizing only when caught. It's sad and disheartening.

I see so many phenomenal writers out there who do spend time creating their own plots, their own stories and worlds for characters they love. Those people don't even get the same interaction as your stolen posts. Those people who worked so fucking hard to write their own things with ideas they had to come up with themselves.

Knowing that moving forward you're just going to rewrite something that you stole...you stole the plot babes. You stole everything. None of this was your own work. At this point you're just rewriting a fanfic and changing the characters. And people are fine with this? Why, because nobody else is writing super dark themes for them?

You said to me that we're all entitled to our opinions, so here's mind.

I think you should lose your supporters. I think you should delete your fanfic and your blog. I think you should truly consider what you've done and why it was bad, instead of blaming others for being "mean" to you. I think the people who are still supporting you through all of this should truly consider why they're doing so. I think those who support Umi should think more about those who were stolen from and consider their feelings over it. The poor writers who had their works stripped from them and rewritten by someone who they trusted. I think the people who don't want to choose a side need to realize there isn't a side to take. There's someone who's plagiarized and built a platform from that. That in itself is wrong. There is no side to take. That's what I think.

"People can change."

This isn't someone who has changed. If Umi had truly seen what she did wrong, it wouldn't have come to this. At any point in her blog she could've made a post explaining what she did. Instead she only came forth because other people found out what happened. She was caught, and had to make a statement. This is all that's happened. With all the evidence, it would've been pretty damn hard for her to ignore the allegations, so she had to say something on it.

Someone who is sorry would've been sorry. They would've messaged the people they stole from, apologized, and deleted the entire work.

This is just a single opinion though. Others are allowed to have their own, but I stand by everything I've said today. Don't send this person hate, don't send death threats or threaten to dox them.

If you don't want someone plagiarizing in this community, then stop supporting someone who's done it. Support the writers who were stolen from. Support people who are worth supporting.

My first and only statement on all the accusations

Hello, I’m sure most of you are aware of the accusations about me and some of the stories I posted on my account. This post is not only an apology post, but an accountability post that details everything that happened from beginning to end. Everything will be here, so I will not be making more posts about this unless it’s to direct to this one.

Adding a tw now for suicide baiting, death threats and mentions of razors. So sorry but it must be included.

First I just wanted to say, no I wasn’t avoiding any of this. When this all started I was still in the middle of finals week, and I don’t live on tumblr 24/7. I had to focus on my finals to ensure I can get my degree and graduate. That was my number one priority. If anyone was blocked or comments were restricted during that time, it was my mostly my irl friend ensuring I wasn’t consumed by tumblr and could focus on my finals. I was already under a lot of stress and she offered to take over until I was finished with finals.

I was also getting death threats (people telling me to skin myself I alive and to jump). So she was ensuring that when I returned to my own blog, I would not see such triggering content. I have a history with suicide attempts and this was necessary for my mental health. The appropriate people were unblocked and remain unblocked to this day.

I always intended to make a statement, I just prioritized my real life first. It also took time to craft the post you are seeing now. I wanted it to be authentic, no misinformation, and well written.

So, as far as plagiarism goes, yes I did plagiarize specifically 3 of zombiekillerbiceps stories. I can’t actually remember the names of them and the author has removed their account from the site. But on my end specifically “Getting Closer”, “Edge of Control” and “Thrills” were not my own writing. Before they deleted her account I had already reached out via dm and apologized. We came to an understanding. I do not know why they deleted their account but they essentially said in DMs they accepted my apology and wanted to put this behind us but they were very hurt that I had copied them.

Edit: I found the post she made calling me out and will attach it.

As far as His Watchful Eye goes, the only plagiarism that took place was specifically the first chapter of it and only the first chapter. The first chapter of Something Permanent and His Watchful Eye are very similar. The remaining 13 chapters are my own writing and ideas. I have already reached out to @explorevenus and apologized. She has responded and made her own statement regarding it if you want to go and read it.

The only reason it was in anon is because this account (dollgxtz) is my side blog. I couldn’t figure out how to send a non anonymous message without exposing my main blog, so anon was the best thing. I didn’t want people sending death threats too that one too. I should’ve put my username in the anon, but it was already very late for me and I hadn’t slept in about 26 hours. I just wasn’t thinking very clearly and for that Venus I am also very sorry.

@manika-whims (the person that first wrote about all this) will remain blocked and some of her followers because I do suspect it was that group of people telling me to die. Manika wrote a very long post as she was upset that I “mischaracterized” Xavier in His Watchful Eye, called me a bitch and a loser because of a fictional man in a fictional story, and I will not entertain such immaturity. Full stop.

One of the anons that sent the suicide bait also called me a bitch and a waste of space. It was just too similar.

I also got this one. It’s too graphic to show the entirety of it.

I apologize for the plagiarism. But I will never apologize for writing characters the way I do or for writing dark content. It’s just not that serious. After she posted that I started getting these death threats and more.

You had every right to call me out for plagiarism Manika, but I stand my decision to keep you blocked. It had nothing to do with plagiarism accusations or me hiding from them, but I do believe you egged on your audience to come attack me over a fictional story and for that reason you will never be unblocked. I’ve attached screenshots below of the entire exchange. This is not to deflect from my own actions. This is simply to explain why she is blocked. She will say it’s because I was trying to hide from this but that is not true. I am just very sure the death threats came from her or her audience. This isn’t to say that she absolutely did but just in case, for my own mental health and safety I had to have them blocked.

Now that that’s discussed, I would like to address my readers and any future readers of mine. The plagiarized stories “Getting Closer” “Thrills” and “Edge of Control”. have been deleted and will remain deleted. Those of you asking for copies, please do not. They are not my writing nor my own works. Any remaining single work story on my blog is my own work and 100 percent my own ideas. My masterlist has been updated to reflect this as well.

When I first made my blog and posted those stories, I was a very insecure writer. I did not think I was truly capable of writing or making a good story. I did those things out of insecurity and not feeling good enough. But as time went on, I began to create my own stories and realize that I can write if I put my mind to it. These are not excuses, only explanations. Nothing excuses my behavior.

If you want to defend me, that is your own choice. I ask that you do not though in terms of plagiarism because I ultimately did plagiarize and that is 100 percent wrong of me to do. But in terms of AI usage accusations, these are not true. I have never and never will use AI to write.

I have spent countless hours writing chapters for His Watchful Eye, pulled all nighters, and even lost sleep making this story. I have timestamps in google docs that show me editing and writing my own story. I didn’t even know AI had advanced to the point that you can write fully blown novels. But make no mistake, Ai checkers are not reliable. I had an incident in my first year of college where a paper I wrote got flagged for 77 percent ai generated content. That paper was written 100 percent by me over countless hours and still got flagged. It was a very scary time in my life and for that reason alone I will never use AI.

If you want to unfollow me, please do so. If you want to block me, please do so. I would never hold that against anyone and am not mad at anyone for doing so. Just don’t come in my anon box telling me to jump, don’t message me rude or disgusting messages telling me to die. I am a human, I am a real person behind the screen. What I did was wrong but you are no better telling someone to kill themselves. Please just block me.

All in all thanks for reading. If you unfollow, thanks for being here. If you don’t, thanks for being here. If you want to be removed from any taglists, please just message me. You will not be blocked. Just removed from any future taglists! I have vowed to only post 100 percent of my own content from here on out, so if you stay I can promise you will only be reading my own work.

I am no longer the insecure writer that I once was, I now know my abilities and am confident enough to make my own stories. I have a 240,000 word fic out right now, I genuinely am still shocked I have done that. Writing has become a joy for me and I will not stop now. I should’ve never been afraid to make mistakes or be bad at it. I’m sorry to the people I hurt, my readers, and anyone reading this in the future. I am still growing and learning from my mistakes, and this has been the biggest lesson I will never forget.

Plagiarism is wrong and hurts authors. If you are reading this and have done so as well, please rethink your decisions and take them down, just as I have done.

I love interacting with you all, when you send me asks and messages about HWE or any of my original single fics. It is amazing getting to explain stuff or gush with you guys over the things that I have truly written. I truly love being an author and want my future as one to be honest and communicative.

The comments on this will be monitored, but not restricted. Voicing your thoughts is okay as long as they are respectful and not a direct threat to me or anyone’s life. Questions are okay as well and I will answer to the best of my ability. Please no:

insulting me or any of the people mentioned in this post (manika, venus, zombie, etc)

death threats or suicide baiting anyone

I want this to be a mature and honest discussion, and that can’t happen if I allow such comments. Despite what has been said about or to me, I do not want to replicate any insults/drama on my own blog. You can voice your displeasure or opinions without name calling.

Same goes for any messages or anon box messages you all may send to anyone involved here. We are all real people with feelings. Keep that in mind please before you message anyone.

We all make mistakes. Without mistakes, we cannot grow as people. It’s what we do after we make those mistakes that truly attest to our character. And this is what I’ve chosen to do. Lay it all out for my readers and the rest of the LADS fandom to see, apologize to the people I hurt and only write my own stories from here on out. Thank you to the readers and friends who approached me with kindness and encouraged me to keep writing authentically. And thank you all for reading, I wish all of you the best in life 🤍

-Umi ૮꒰ ˶• ༝ •˶꒱ა ♡

[cinnaminsvga]

stuff i noticed in the “on” mv

this is by no means a theory post, but i just wanted to point out some things that caught my eye when i was watching the mv... and also, please note that bighit is notorious for using imagery from a myriad of media, so most of these references might not even be right!! i’m just utilizing my own stock knowledge of literature/history and connecting them with the mv that i think closely associates with them!!

the drummer boy in jimin’s scene: in war, there were people known as “drummer boys.” they are usually (but not always) young boys who played the drum to serve as military music. it was also used to help the soldiers communicate with one another, as well as to keep them marching in sync. the number of drums behind jimin could very well mean the death of dozens of drummer boys, as only one boy remains with him. the boy is also wearing striped pants, and this is only interesting to me because it might mean that he was, well... in a concentration camp. (if you’ve ever watched/read the book “the boy in the striped pajamas,” you’ll understand what i mean.) might be a bit of stretch, but it’s there lmao

in relation to that, seokjin’s opening scene: clearly, a war or battle had taken place just before the scene. casualties lie around him, with one other person in the bg, possibly another survivor. the dead dove shot by an arrow could represent the death of hope. in many forms of literature, doves have often been used to symbolize love, peace, messengers, and hope. it’s death is poignant in this scene, as it represents seokjin’s hope having been killed along with the death of his friends. 

jungkook running with his thorn restraints: this... was a little trickier. what struck me the most was the short second where the camera pans (0:48) and you can see the walled city behind jungkook. this could mean he had been a prisoner of war, or perhaps just a jailed citizens who managed to escape. thorns are very notable in catholic imagery, as jesus had been crowned with them during his death and crucifixation. jungkook might have been on the brink of being sentenced to death and had managed to escape. 

the blindfolded girl and taehyung: this is the one i’m not as sure of. it could be related to lazarus and his resurrection. when lazarus had been raised from the dead, he was still covered in his bindings, but that doesn’t really explain her being “blind.” the other association they could be making is with plato’s famous “cave”

“Plato has Socrates describe a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them, and give names to these shadows. The shadows are the prisoners' reality.”

BIG BRAIN EXPLOSION AWOOOO LMAO

this also explains the wall that they are in. this walled society is where they know as their reality. when jungkook escapes, he is the first person out of that “cave” and he finally sees the world outside of their little wall. but then....

jungkook faints (GASP!): but notice that when the camera changes to hoseok, he is no longer in the same place. note the lack of trees in the first photo versus the second photo. what could that mean?

jin has rewound time: aaaaand we’re back to that hyyh bullshit LMFAO jin still has time powers!! amazing!! and this is even more apparent by the dead dove he had caught in his cage. the dove, which had been killed previously, suddenly moves in the cage (covered in cloth by the way... in lazarus’ resurrection, no one actually sees Jesus resurrect him. he just comes out of his grave by himself) and you can also see in 1:47 that jin looks out of the window, possibly bc he sees that the world outside has changed

namjoon and his ark: i think everyone knows this one... noah who?? namjoon is standing in front of a wrecked ship, surrounded by animals. the ship looks pretty old, so perhaps this signifies the time waaay after the great flood, but then why would the animals be there? inch resting

yoongi and the church: the first thought that came to mind immediately was that this was a funeral service. the candles are a big giveaway... and then notice the crowd he’s with. they’re all women. way back during war, there was no place for women except to stay at home and wait for their husbands, brothers, and fathers to return home. these women are the remaining survivors, holding vigil for their fallen brethren.

BACK TO TAEHYUNG AND HIS LIL GIRL: i also need to mention this little screenshot as well...

when the girl stands, staring ahead as if “seeing,” this could signify that taehyung’s eyes have “opened” as well. in the beginning of the mv, he had been casually laying about, perhaps okay with the way he was living despite being literally trapped inside a cage. but what strikes me is the way taehyung follows the girl’s line of sight, as if noticing the wall for the first time. and when he removes her blindfolds... it turns out she was never even blind in the first place. she had blinded herself for no reason at all.

jungkook and his conch shell: WELL OKAY THIS ONE GOT ME EXCITED BECAUSE!! THE WATER!! okay water has always been a symbol of “cleansing” right? in catholic imagery, john the baptist used the river to cleanse people of their sin... if jungkook had “escaped” the prison and found himself in, say, paradise... he sinks his hands into the water while bound by thorns, and pulls up a... conch shell. he’s free, and he has a conch shell!! A CONCH SHELL

conch shell: i first thought about lord of the flies... how it represented civilization, power, authority... but i could also represent courage, truth, and reawakening. RESURRECTION. he escapes his prison, and so... why would he need resurrection? unless, of course...

jin returns... with a crowd of people: JIN REALLY ACTUALLY TURNED BACK TIME THE ABSOLUTE MADMAN... they head to the wall, where they find the wall open. there is a whole world out there.

jungkook blows the conch shell: the trees regrow. the mountain burns, just like in the bible when the bushes burn when moses is given a revelation by God on the mountain. jin releases the dove, just like how noah released a dove as a messenger to see if it’s safe. 

namjoon leads the way... to this new world that has been opened to them... jungkook rushes to the apex, excited. they’ve been reborn, now filled with a dream to live fully. 

[sibyl-of-space]

I’m on an adventure learning the basics of Nintendo DS ROM hacking/modding because there is a very stupid, very self-indulgent, very spoilery ROM hack/mod I want to implement for Ghost Trick. It has been a journey and I’m going to be recapping my adventures on here with the tag #leo-tries-modding-ghost-trick so it can be blocked as desired. Anything pertaining to the actual in-game spoilers down the line will be posted under a readmore.

Now.... for “progress” I’ve made so far, if you can call it that. The first thing I need to figure out is whether I can implement a talk sprite-swap. So I set out to try and isolate the talk sprites.

I started by checking out the Ultimate Nintendo DS ROM Hacking Guide, which seemed as good a starting place as any. I also downloaded the big zipped file with all the referenced programs, but as I found out later, some of the programs didn’t zip properly so I had to procure them elsewhere.

At any rate, I tried to open up the Ghost Trick .nds file in CrystalTile2, and that much was a success.... and just about that much only. Ghost Trick doesn’t use the file types referenced in the guide. There are .xml.lz files and .bin files. I didn’t know what to do with these yet, so I decided to just mess around in the tile viewer and see if I could find anything. After some aimless scrolling, I did find something that gave me hope that I was in fact looking at meaningful data:

(don’t mind the windows 7 and pesterchum and malwarebytes this is my old 2011 laptop from undergrad, it just so happens that a lot of tools for NDS hacking work great on windows 7 because shit’s old)

That right there is very unambiguously the Ghost Trick logo. It gave me a glimmer of hope. And CrystalTile lets you highlight a selection of tiles and export them as an image:

rearranged in mspaint to:

My rudimentary knowledge of How This Works tells me that it obviously needs to reference the right palette for the colors to be right, but whatever, this is CLEARLY IMAGE DATA so ALL IS NOT LOST.

...but, for a while, that was about as far as I got. Some googling brought me to this thread, where OP states that allegedly the “cpac_2d.bin” contains all of the sprite data in the game [this is Capcom standard, it seems?], but having trouble actually accessing said data. Viewed as-is it’s a jumbled mess, haven’t been able to make heads or tails of it in CrystalTile although this could certainly be because they’re out of order in a way that’s not obvious. It is really, really difficult to just parse like this.... it’s a massive portion of the ROM, too, so even figuring out what general area of this I should poke around in is quite an undertaking. [looking w/ tile form GBA 4bpp as that is the only tile form that gave me a visible image for the logo above]... although I found some things which look promisingly like visual patterns, and might help me figure out how to re-order these tiles so i can maybe see something approaching an image. I uh... haven’t figured out how to customize the tile ordering in CrystalTile (like column widths) very well, that’s next on my to-do list. This one in particular I may come back to later:

(^Viewed at offset 4AD9E0)

There are plenty of others but this is among the more promising as far as likely actually being uncompressed visual data. There’s so much besides just this one though that I would be here all day posting screenshots; At any rate, there are patterns that may be worth looking into, but the sheer volume of data corresponding to this “.bin” file is going to make that REALLY tedious to try and comb through with any sort of reasonable efficiency. This could also be a fool’s errand, as it could be the data is compressed or out of order somehow and it is necessary to extract the true files hidden within that “.bin” to actually make proper sense of them. I don’t know. If I haven't made it clear, I'm a newbie at this and don't really understand what I'm working with yet.

So I briefly tried another approach. I thought, heck, I have the dev version of DeSmuME on here, let’s boot that baby up.

(oh boy did it chug.)

I learned some neat stuff.

First, I learned that for most of the game, the “main screen” is the bottom screen as opposed to the top screen, which makes complete sense if you’ve played it. Just goes against convention which is interesting. Except for during the title screen, where it is the expected order, for... reasons?

Anyway, I first tried isolating what layer the talk sprites were on on the “main” screen, which was unsuccessful but interesting. This is with every other layer turned off on the bottom screen (tools -> view layers, toggled off all except for “Main BG 0″)...:

It looks like a lot of things are on that same layer. Now we know.

(Worth noting that if you isolate just the “Main BG 3″ layer you get a nice view of the backgrounds!)

My next task was fiddling around in the tile viewer in the *emulator* to see if that got me anywhere. And, well, it did... I think! I don’t know what it means just yet but launching the tile viewer (tools -> view tiles) and selecting “LCD - 0x6850000″, at the 0x140 tile there is a very clear image of the current talk sprite. And this image DOES update when the sprite changes, so whatever this tile is pulling from is where I want to be.

...Unfortunately, I’ve more or less hit a roadblock here and am calling it a night. I have absolutely no idea how to figure out where that tile is getting its information from, and I don’t understand enough about NDS files to know how to parse the information in CrystalTile any better at the moment. I tried using this tool by Luigi Auriemma to dive into the .bin file after exporting it but it spewed out a billion .dat files that are no easier to make heads or tails of than the original.

That's all I got for the time being. If anyone reading this happens to know any directions they can point me toward I am all ears, otherwise I will continue to just poke at this from various angles until it decides to succumb.

[annakie]

An Annotated Mass Effect Playthrough, Part Eight

List of Posts: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

I accidentally messed up the numbering on part Seven’s link to post six, so if you missed post six (or yesterday’s part seven), the numbering up there is correct.

Wherein we get back out into the galaxy, explore, help some people, and kill some others!

So now that we have Liara, it’s time to really dig into the galaxy.  We have a few people we talked to on the CItadel who need help, and maybe we’ll stumble into a few more things along the way.

First of all, let’s check out the galaxy map...

Hey wait a sec, what’s this?

Petra Nebula!?  Oh hey, another new addition by the ME1 Recalibrated mod.

Gorgeous map, only one system available.

Heeeey we recognize this place, we’ll get to go there in.... two games!

Can’t land there (or anywhere in the system) but it’s cool that it exists! There are a couple of other neat little things in the system I didn’t screenshot so that you can have a cool new experience yourself if you decide to use the mod on your next playthrough.

What I really miss from ME3, by the way, is the % markers which note when you’ve fully explored a system or if there’s more stuff to find there.

Anyway, my PLAN had been to take a screenshot of each planet or spacecraft before I entered it to help orient the playthrough better, and then the non-screenshotting couple of hours happened, so we lost some of that along the way, sorry.  

Still, let’s see what kind of trouble we can get ourselves into.

I love this planet.  The lava juuuuust below the surface, peeking out.  Just some of the coolest terrain in the game.

What a great view, let’s get a little clo--

OOPS.

I meant to do that.

Wide open spaces with no fears of a thresher maw living in the lava! ...I hope?

Ah, here’s our objective, a distress signal being sent from this location, let’s see if we can help...

FUCKING GETH AMBUSH.

Aw yeah, jumping over those explosives like a pro!

...most of the time.

Well this planet was a bust.  Let’s see if we can actually help someone.

Another planet, scanned a few things, not sure what we’re doing here but hey, I found a lone building!

Ah yes, a prefab which is totally different from all the prefabs we’ll enter because the creates are stacked in a different configuration.

Honestly they should have put one of these prefabs in ME3 for Old Times Sake. (The ones that actually look like homes/labs/whatever make so much more sense.)

Annnd we’re being attacked.  Not sure why, but here we go!

Awww yeah, Throw!  And Ash and Kaidan managing to be useful I think?

Except they let a guy slip by us, but luckily there’s a convenient explosive nearby.  That got ‘em.

OK back to facing forward OH FUCK A KROGAN.

Kaidan’s biotics and my shotgun, a favorite combination.  Now stay down!

Sweet, level up!

And that fight’s over, time to explore this pla...

Whew, thanks Kaidan.

This guy thought he could sneak past me.  Well me, my shotgun and my 20 shield strength sure showed him.

ME1 combat is so... messy though.  I mean, I honestly still enjoy it, but I’m in the camp that agrees combat gets better every game, Andromeda included.  Of course, I just REALLY LOVE Vanguarding in ME3... charging into a group of enemies, hitting Nova, spamming charge again praying that I’ll find a good target to charge to in time.  ME1 combat is basically all just... spam abilities from cover and hope your companions are doing something useful.  Being a Vanguard is more about style over substance in ME here.  I mean you do get some really useful abilities, but your shotgun isn’t that much use unless things get too close.

Which, you know, they do pretty often.

Anyway, remember... I WILL DESTROY YOU!!!

FUCK I hadn’t been back to the Citadel to pick up Nassana Dantius’ quest yet.  Let’s just reload the quicksave from outside and we’ll... come back and do this the right way later and see the entire quest.

I do this more often than I care to admit.

Also no screenshot for this but... I also found Wrex’s personal quest planet and recognized it only when I saw the building, since it’s in a pretty memorable location.  Still, grabbed everything else off the planet so it’ll be quick when it’s time to go back and do that quest.

Well let’s go back to poking around the galaxy.

Message coming in.  Patching it through.

Ah, yeah, hey Hackett.  What’s that?  You’ve got some dirty work you need me to do for you?  Cool, be right there.

Before the ME2 DLC Arrival came out, Hackett was one of Mass Effect’s biggest mysteries.  Who is this guy?  Why is he telling us to do things?  Does he have some secret agenda?  Why is he so sketchy?  Our Shepards seemed to trust him but WOW he sure did send us on some touchy missions.  Speculation was all over the place on what he looked like and what he was really doing.

Turns out, he’s just a pretty cool guy who wants you to take on all the secret spy missions the Alliance doesn’t want to take credit for.

I wish I’d saved it, but just a week or two ago I saw a pretty great post circulating about Hackett.  He IS the guy that’s going to make sure a job gets done, even if he’s not going to do it himself.  He’s the back-room Admiral with the squeaky clean image up front.  He’s the Gus Fring of the Alliance.

Also getting Lance Riddick to voice him was great.  Just a real authoritative, steady guy who you actually want to trust.  

And it turns out he looks basically exactly like most people thought, but maybe with a few more scars. (I mean, he really looks a lot like Lance Riddick, tbh)  But we don’t know that yet.  For now, let the mystery be.

Time to actually go help someone.

Ah yeah, Chairman Burns, we do negotiate with terrorists, in this case.  But they needed negotiating with.

Maxing out the Paragon-meter is worth it for moments like this.  These guys have probably suffered and it’s no surprise that no one has really listened.  Sounds like a lot about the galaxy hasn’t changed since we got out there.

This is also an excellent moment for Kaidan.

Being able to let Kaidan reason with them is fantastic.  Although he probably ultimately doesn’t make a difference mechanics wise, it’d be nice if maybe the check is easier if he’s here.  I don’t know.  But Kaidan knows, even if he’s one of the “lucky” ones who “only” gets migraines.  

One of the grossest posts I’ve seen about Kaidan are people who argue she shouldn’t be on the team because of his implants and since he has a “disability”.  Or that it’s “kinder” to sacrifice him on Virmire.  That’s some real gross ablism you’ve got there.  

Anyway, I love being able to keep this situation under control. Burns actually comes through if you do, even if those guys probably go to prison for awhile for terrorism.  Better than being dead.

Time for... another planet!

Again, didn’t take a screencap of this one but... there’s a missing survey team? I must have picked this quest up in the elevators, because normally you get it on Noveria.  Anyway,  Let’s go find them on Trebin, I’m sure they just can’t broadcast anymore or something.  It’s cool

FUCK. SHIT SHIT SHIT.  FUCK!!!

I probably could have actually used Warp or Throw or even Barrier there but... too late now!  We lived!

I was all ready to blame this on Cerberus, but creepily, there’s no explanation for who huskified them or why.   I’m still going to blame Cerberus, seems like something they’d do.

Well, time to move on.

Honestly, I can’t believe anyone who says ME1 isn’t beautiful.

And driving the Mako is FUN in places like this!

Oh there’s a camp up ahead, we’re here to find the remaining crew of a crashed ship for our new friend in the Citadel Tower.  

Again, no footage/screenshot but eventually you find where the mercenaries tracked down Willem (the brother) and killed them.  Shit.  We were too late.  I actually tear up sometimes telling Garoth that his brother died.  They held out for awhile, too, but we were too late.

It would have been nice if, say, if the very first thing we did after leaving the Citadel was to come here, we could have saved him, but I guess this quest is another way of Bioware telling us that sometimes, there’s just nothing you can do to change things.

One more quest this update, then we’re stopping back off at the Citadel next.

Presrop, one of the most well-known of the sidequest planets. (OKok, technically it’s a moon.)

One of my favorite landing sequences, just because the stars make it so... dramatic.

I mean DAMN.

Klendagon's most striking feature is, of course, the Great Rift valley that stretches across the southern hemisphere. What is most fascinating about the Rift is that it does not appear to be natural. The geological record suggests it is the result of a "glancing blow" by a mass accelerator round of unimaginable destructive power. This occurred some thirty-seven million years ago.

It took a solid three minutes of Flycam flying to get that closeup shot, btw.  I actually flew all the way in the first time I came here, and didn’t take screenshots.  Took about six minutes.  The updated texture is impressive.

Well, Hackett sent us here, let’s deal with Major Kyle.

Being nice and non-threatening gets you into places.

I’ll admit, before I came in here, I decided to cheat in enough paragon points to max out Paragon already.  For me personally, I’m trying to make sure this is an “ultimate” playthrough, a save file I can just use over and over from here on out.  I want everything to import into ME3 the first time around with all the plot flags set how I want them without messing with Gibbed’s Savegame Editor, so making sure I can convince everyone how I want them to is important.  So hey, Major Kyle, stand down.

I don’t think I’ve ever played as a Ruthless Shepard in ME1, or if I have, it’s been so long I’ve forgotten how it goes.  But he was the commanding officer at the battle of Torfan, and your CO if you’re Ruthless.  He’s also a reminder of how serious PTSD can be, and what it can do to a person.  

I also love this tidbit from the Wiki, which I didn’t know since I’d never done these particular choices before:

(In Mass Effect 2)  If Martin Burns was not saved in 2183, a news report on the Citadel will announce that Kyle is trying to form an all-biotic community as the reparations were not given to L2 biotics and they have become even more alienated from galactic society.

I really liked that if you reason with him, he doesn’t give you any trouble and turns himself in like he says.

Hey, this negotiation thing is easy when you’re the best person in the galaxy at it!!

[unexploredcast]

BEHIND THE SCREEN: GM Prep for Deliverance, OH (Mystery 1)

Thank you so much to everyone who left a review of our show in February! I’m so excited to be able to share my GM notes and a little bit about how I prep for our sessions with all of you, which are contained in quite a long post beow, and I’m more than happy to answer any questions that come up, so send them my way and I’ll get to them as soon as I can!

Fair warning: this post contains spoilers for... the entire first eight episodes of Deliverance, OH, quite literally, so if you haven’t finished listening to the first arc, it’d serve you best to listen to episodes 00-08 before reading my notes. I don’t think there will be any other spoilers for future episodes, but if there are I’ll be sure to mark them with plenty of space for you to stop or skip reading them.

Thanks again for your support, and enjoy this little walk through my brain on Monster of the Week! 

-Christine

ORGANIZATION

I do the majority of my GM prep for this game in one big google doc I call “Session Outlines” which I store in a folder that has all of my worldbuilding notes, monster ideas, intro scripts, alternate playbooks, etc. I like having everything in one place so I can cross-reference with old arc while I work and on the fly, and this is as close to organized as I get.

The “Session Outlines” document’s got a handy table of contents with links that I can follow to quickly get where I need -- the breakdown is based on the Mystery prep system that Monster of the Week gives, so each arc has it’s concept, hook, monster, minions, bystanders, locations, and countdown. I’m going to go through each of those, but this is what the outline/table of contents looks like on the first page of my doc:

As you can see, I give each arc a catchy, stupid name that no one else ever sees, just to entertain myself. 

Also in this doc, right at the end, I have the countdowns for various long-term arcs so that I can reference them when those intersect with things happening in smaller mysteries:

I’ll get a little deeper into countdowns further on in the post for anyone who hasn’t run Monster of the Week before, because they’re my absolute favorite part of prepping for this game. 

PRE-MYSTERY PREP

Now, the first mystery in Deliverance was the first time I’d ever run Monster of the Week, so there are some aspects of prep that I’ve altered a little as I’ve learned more, but let’s just go through each page of my original notes from that arc.

The first page of my notes is always where I put the high-level thematic stuff that I want going on. The Concept for the arc -- in this case, a complicated question of morality, responsibility, and control that comes up when you find out that the monster that’s killing people is just a kid that doesn’t really know any better. I knew that with this arc I wanted to immediately set up the season with the question of: can we say that a monster is intrinsically evil, and if they are not, how does that effect our moral responsibility in re: trying to stop/hunt them? 

Some of that came from my own agenda coming into the game, and some of that came from our episode 0, with Andrew flagging an interest in this strict anti-monster sect with rigid morals and absolute obedience, and also with Roman flagging an interesting in the nature and morality of monstrosity by choosing the Monstrous playbook. I figured a question like this would instantly give them both a strong agenda, and build an interesting tension between two of the four main characters if I could get them to butt heads about it.

The hook is pretty straightforward: what direct action or effect of the monster’s presence are they going to notice first, what’s our “opening shot” so to speak. I’ve been reading the essay collection Dead Girls by Alice Bolin lately and feeling guilty about having killed Delaney off before she was ever even on screen, but at the time I chose what felt like a trope-y establishing shot for the season so that it would become very quickly apparent where I was attempting to turn certain other tropes on their head. Anyway, someday we’ll be returning to Deliverance again and all I can say is that we may or may not have seen the last of Delaney Chapman... but that’s all stuff for later. 

I also always put Chase’s start of mystery move on the first page of each mystery’s notes for a few reasons -- mostly so I don’t forget to ask him to roll it, but also because his result will, in part, develop the tone that mystery’s going to have. If he rolls a 10, this is going to be a mystery where the Kindred is working closely to solve the same problem, but if he rolls a 9 or below, the group is going to be more splintered, he’ll have fewer resources on hand, and on a 6 or below, they’re going to be actively obstructing him in some way. In play, I bold the result he rolls on this page so that I don’t forget, weeks and weeks later when we’re recording the third session in the mystery, what it was that he rolled, and so I can look back later and remember the progression of his relationship with the sect. 

Anyway, after all of that’s set in place, I move on to firming up the details of the monster -- powers, attacks, weaknesses, all of that good stuff. Most important is the MONSTER TYPE, which is one of my favorite things about Monster of the Week.

For anyone who hasn’t taken a look at the Keeper preparation sheets for Monster of the Week ( HERE! ) I’ll put in a screenshot of what I’m talking about so that it makes sense.

The first thing I do in creating each monster is pick its type/motivation. Some of them are really obvious, but sometimes having the opportunity to pick an unexpected or non-traditional motivation for a traditional monsters is even better. I’ll elaborate more on that some day when I do one of these posts for a later mystery, because Clara is pretty straightforward in terms of monster type. Here are her full stats:

Now-- I’ll admit, at the end of the day Clara maybe wasn’t the monster in this arc. I went back and forth a lot on how to frame this arc in terms of monsters and minions, because the crew was never actually meant to fight or kill this kid. But, again, I was so interested in setting them up immediately against someone that made them question their internal concept of “monster” that I went with it. She was for me, ultimately, the central focus of the arc: the cause of the conflict, the motivation for the other involved characters, etc., even if she didn’t end up being the climactic conflict of the whole arc. 

Clara didn’t appear on screen nearly as much as I expected her to: I’m not sure I ever got as far as her physical description as written here. I picked her type as BEAST because, in her uncontrollable werewolf form, that was what she would do -- so if they hurt her, and she transformed in response to that injury, that was what she’d do.

I also write this neat custom move for werewolf bites, but then none of the PCs got bitten by anyone. Still, I stand by the possibility of time-pressure and tension inherent in that 7-9 option.

As for weaknesses, my understanding of the werewolf healing process changed a little bit in play as I started to describe it happening to Evelyn, so between sessions I crossed out the original idea. I honestly have no idea, in retrospect, where I was going with the second bullet point, but thus is the fun of digital ephemera, it still lives in this google doc even though I have clearly ignored it for the rest of forever.

That link about mercury, for the record, goes to an instructables page I found for “how to kill a werewolf” -- Andrew still gets mad at me that “quick silver” not being literal is the reason he has to clarify whether anything I say is a metaphor or literal, but I thought it was way more interesting than Chase’s already having the perfect weapon (his silver knife) on hand. 

Minions are up next:

As you can see, most of the heavy lifting here was in picking their Bystander Types since all three of them were werewolves with basically the same ability. I even copy and pasted from Clara to the point where I forgot to change the pronouns in Henry’s “supernatural powers” section. You can also see the little copy-and-paste checkboxes I use to represent harm on Henry’s stats -- there was so much happening at the end of that battle that I never fully caught up with filling those checkboxes in, and I think I also had them in my paper notes (which we’ll talk about later in this post). 

The big motivation here was to differentiate Evelyn and Henry as two sides of the coin: both doing “bad” things to protect their sister, but going about them in different ways, with Evelyn -- who has an investment in this town, a life here she needs to protect in addition to protecting her sister -- being subtle, less destructive, really focused on protecting more than on doing whatever it takes, where Henry -- who has just moved back, and has no attachment to Deliverance itself except his family -- was going to do anything it took to get people off Clara’s scent, killing anyone who got suspicious.

You can see that I’ve face-cast Evelyn, here -- I do this for maybe 25-30% of the NPCs I make for this show, either ones I think are going to be particularly important or ones where an image of them just immediately comes to mind. In addition to Evelyn, I think I have actors in mind for Damaris, Van, Larkin, Blanche... Maybe that’s it? I also originally had one for Remedy (blonde Zoe Kravitz) but some incredible fanart has swayed me to having at least 3 different mental images of Remedy. 

I should note that my actual writing process for these notes is not in the order they appear in the doc: at this point, I usually try to at least sketch out the countdown because I’m in the mindset of thinking about the monster and what they’re going to do -- and then I fill in the bystander and location details to suit the countdown, making any adjustments to the countdown that I need to to accommodate new ideas. 

But, in my notes Bystanders and Locations are next, so: 

First thing of note: somehow, Sheriff Commander-Jones’ wife, the medical examiner, never made an appearance. She is just chilling in the background of this show, waiting for someone to need to talk to a coroner at the morgue, happily married to a very overwhelmed Sheriff. There are a ton of details here that never came up, and one of the things I learned from this first mystery is that I’d over-prepped the hell out of it. My bystander notes these days are a lot simpler: name, pronouns, age, brief physical description, type/motivation, and a one-word trait usually is about it. 

(Melissa was going to be so good, I’m still so sad I’ve not found another way to bring her into things. Maybe someday...)

You can also see here the common symptom where I leave something (Yasumoto’s trait) blank to come back to and then instantly forget about it and it just stays blank forever. Also, I don’t know why the hell I wrote “charming” in Jason’s description. He was never truly meant to be charming. 

I keep the little Keeper list of bystander types/motivations in the doc below all of my pre-made Bystanders in case I need to come up with some on the fly, but more often or not I forget to write them into the notes. Evidence: Remedy is missing from this document after I made her up on the fly when Chase needed healing. 

Locations are notoriously my least favorite part of prepping. I’m not good at coming up with interesting locations so I struggle through outlining the important places. I spent a lot more time on it with this arc than I do later on in the show, but my go-to is a few keywords describing the feeling/appearance of the place, and what information they might come across there. 

After that, we get to my favorite part of designing a mystery: the Countdown. 

For those who haven’t read or run Monster of the Week, the Countdown basically represents the steps of what the monster would do if the hunters didn’t interfere, and it gives a sense of direction as to how things will progress. It’s broken up into 6 steps, and the story can move from step to step when the heroes take too long or fail rolls, etc. Here’s my countdown for the first mystery: 

This one was super concrete compared to some of the ones I’ve written. A recent countdown ended “And then the world ends” or something like that, so this one was a nice, concentrated countdown for a first foray into the game. 

I italicize countdown lines in my notes as they happen in play: when people stall for too long early on, or when they fail and I get to make an off-screen hard move. I think the shadows line here was activated when they took the time to take Chase back to the farmhouse to get healed, which meant they wouldn’t be able to find the information I had for them in the morgue. The rest of the countdown was altered by their decision to go after Evelyn -- because Evelyn couldn’t go after Damaris, Henry did, and thus didn’t go after the police.

I hang out on the Countdown page while we play, until I need to reference something else: it gives me a broad overview of where things are going to go, so switching back and forth between that and the list of Keeper moves on the Keeper reference sheet helps me improvise my responses to failed rolls and decide what’s going to happen as the characters go to specific place. I like keeping this focused outline of what the monster is trying to accomplish in the front of my brain at all times, because it makes it easier to decide what conflicts might arise and what threats are out and about. 

The last section I prepare before we start the first session for the mystery is a broad mystery information section, which isn’t necessarily in the outline of Keeper prep that Monster of the Week provides. For some mysteries I use this a lot, for others it’s just a line or to, but it’s my catch-all space for any information I can’t fit anywhere else but think I might need. 

In this case, it was both notes about werewolf transformations and also a sort of CSI-esque explanation of what had actually happened with Delaney and Jason the night before:

Again, most of this information didn’t get used -- and I’ve sense balanced out my over-prepping problem, but I almost always have something I want to remember that doesn’t fit in any of the other prep, so that’s what this section is for. 

I think the biggest thing to note here is that a lot of this information is in flux: I’m always playing with what things will work, what things won’t, what will make for interesting decisions based on what the PCs are doing, and adjusting my information and planning from there. Less kill your darlings and more let go of cool ideas when better ones come up, but it’s all about being able to adapt on my feet when things aren’t going to plan. I try really hard not to imagine the full arc of the story and how I think it might go, because when I do they inevitably go in the opposite direction. My focus is more cementing the ideas and themes and questions I’m interested in so that I can find ways for those to come up no matter what the players decide to do. 

Now, that’s all the prep that I do before the first session. But most of our mysteries for Deliverance take 3-4 recording sessions, so what do I do during and between?

DURING AND BETWEEN SESSIONS

During sessions, I tend to make notes on paper because it makes less noise while other people are talking than typing does (I am, as anyone will tell you, a notoriously loud typist), so write some brief notes from the session on a page for that session, and then another page of notes of whatever I’ve scrawled down immediately after we finish recording where I make note of where I want the next recording to begin -- what hooks there are for each character/group of characters, what needs to be addressed, what they’ve been in the middle of, etc. 

I dug through the pile of papers I brought back with me when I moved back to the US this summer to find my scratch page notes for the first mystery (recorded August-October 2017), which are below -- a few handwritten, and one pre-game section that I decided to type because, if I remember correctly, I was making these notes during a lecture because I had procrastinated until the last minute. Major apologies for my oft-indecipherable handwriting; I’d translate, but most of the time I, too, have no idea what it says. 

This one below was my post-session 1 notes, along with my general on-hand notes during the recording of the first mystery -- I’ve got harm checkboxes, Andrew’s description of the farmhouse for reference (which, admittedly, I have not looked at again until just now), and then some notes about where people are headed and what they’ve encountered and/or promised.

Looking back at those harm checkboxes, I think I nerfed Henry’s harm-count because I was pretty sure I was going to kill Chase if I didn’t. I was very much still getting the hang of how much harm monsters can do vs. how much harm hunters can do.

No, I don’t know what those numbers on the top are. I want to say that was Jason’s iPhone password?

This one above is pretty typical for what my pre-session notes look like in the middle of a mystery -- each character or character group and then a quick note about where they are/what they’re going to be doing. This looks the most like the notes I take these days, now that I’ve been playing the game for a lot longer. They’re fairly sparse! Basically enough to give me an opening introduction as we start recording and then ask “what do you do?” and go off of whatever their answer to that is. 

Another important note: much of this NEVER HAPPENS. “storm begins, takes them back to the station” who????? The quickest lesson I learned with this game is to not hold on to anything too tight because better things come up so quickly that you can’t afford to hesitate before abandoning ship and jumping to them.

As you can see, sometimes these notes are a “here’s what happened” or “here’s a thing you need to remember” note, sometimes they’re a “this is an interesting place to start” note, and sometimes they’re a “how the fuck am I going to get them back on track” note. Usually, I’d say, it’s that last one, with this particular group of characters. QUESTIONS are huge, in these notes -- “Where are you going now that Zeke’s kicked you out of the farmhouse?” is, I would say, the ideal kind of note for me to start off a session with. 

Anyway, all that to say: for me, the real work of Monster of the Week is asking the right questions. Having a monster is important and having some idea of setting and bystanders is important, but if I had ten minutes to prep a Monster of the Week mystery, I would have: monster, countdown, and a strong hook, and I could probably improvise it all from there. 

[wolfie407]

A Statement

Hello everyone!

You may have come here in curiosity of what I posted on the Moon Guard Secrets Tumblr in regards to Niklos Adamant and “my involvement” with the horrific situation that has been brought to light recently.  First and foremost, as you can see, I generally do not use Tumblr so please so forgive my formatting.  Secondly, I must express that I am saddened, angry, frustrated, and just about every negative emotion in the book every time I think of this story.  To have me tied into it makes it all the worse.

As I said on the MGS post, I am Nevari, though I have been also known as Redmayne (whom Niklos has named me as being involved and yet again, not a shroud of evidence backing such claims) but more importantly, Janessa, the former GM of the guild, Whispers of Windrunner.  These current days I am pretty much off playing other games or being involved with different communities because of the results I suffered from the malicious slander I have endured from Niklos along with several other people.  This post is to simply back my own words up and well, hope that the community finally realize how scummy these people are.

Now, I will state this situation was about 2-3 years ago to my recollection.  Around that time, I was playing my death knight, Redmayne who unfortunately was a part of the Remnants of Lordaeron guild.  Ultimately, the guild was not a fit for me and I wasn’t in it for very long at all.  The situation that is currently being discussed at hand, well, I wasn’t even around for that.  In fact, I did not even hear about situation until my guild was targeted and sabotaged last year.

As Janessa, I was the GM, creator, etc of Whispers of Windrunner the day that void elves were released.  I took it as an opportunity to build something great for the community while giving myself a fresh start, looking forward to the RP to come.  I built and practically slaved over my guild from the ground up almost entirely on my own.  I did not expect to have my guild immensely popular and in demand right out the gates and I wasn’t prepared for it at all.  

While the numbers and popularity of Whispers grew rapidly, I knew I needed help and sought out officers who were willing to take on officer responsibilities.  Among them were a couple whom I thought I could trust and whom I felt I related to.  This couple is known to be Elysiae and Shandor/Mordren.  I never knew them, never heard anything about them, and I really enjoyed their company.  They supported me and showed they wanted the guild to succeed and throughout some of the growing pains, Elysiae gained my confidence.

This was short lived however.

Not long after I decided to make her my Co-GM, she had caused a LOT of drama with other members of my guild on ooc spectrums. I also over time lost faith in my officers because they suddenly became inactive or not around as much without notice.  I was literally slaving over the guild, prepping guild events, making a website, talking with other people to get RP going, etc etc.  When I am being pulled 16 different ways at once, it’s taxing and there were some days, I just wanted to do an RP away from everyone else as a break.  Apparently that isn’t allowed.

Anyways, an IC situation had happened with my own character against Baldassar who is known to be a member of SLP.  It later escalated where Maxen was involved along with many other people.  Everything that was happening was completely IC and I had even messaged Maxen during the heated RP if he was ok OOCly because I am constantly worried about OOC/IC crossing.  All seemed well and was fine.

Apparently not.

The next day, Elysiae and Shandor get Galmone involved, saying that I should step down as a GM because of the RP and the fact that I am, Nevari, and despite all the work I’ve done, me being GM isn’t good for the guild.  I believe the term they used was a “GM Wash.”  I dunno, this was a year ago.  Anyways,  I was absolutely outraged by this and said flat out it wasn’t going to happen.  No sooner did I end my Discord call with them, they went to undermine me and sought out to degrade me in unspeakable ways.

I have a recording of them doing this in the act.

Immediately Shandor/Mordren says that I was kicked out of Remnants of Lordaeron because I rp’ed raping a 12 year old to death.  At this time, it had been 1-2 years since I had even been a part of that guild... but neither here nor there needless to say this allegation was beyond shocking and hurtful to me.  Upon investigation where Shandor had heard this from, it was found out by my partner at the time it stemmed from Rennali.  

It doesn’t end there.

The recording had circulated.  This was my biggest mistake.  At the time, I felt I needed to defend myself by circulating it to show the extent people will go to bring someone down.  It backfired because people didn’t look at the context of my guild’s situation but the context of the rumor itself.  

With this allegation looming and the recording now spread, it of course reached “big boy” ears.  I adamantly fought the allegations, proclaiming my innocence to no avail to Maxen about all of this yet I was still punished for something I had no involvement with.  I was removed from all of the RP groups because of this even though there is not a single screenshot in the world that can even remotely link me to this incident.  Of course after Shandor and Elysiae’s antics, I immediately removed them from the guild.

I was punished because of the testimony which came from Berenal and Niklos.  Berenal came to Niklos asking about the situation and Niklos gave damning testimony which was 100% false and complete slander.

See following screenshot:

All of this caused huge rifts in my guild.  My friendships were torn apart, people left because of the controversy, my Rp partner at the time gave up on it and left.  After all of that emotional trauma I endured, I couldn’t move on and I relinquished the guild to a worthy member who offered to take the reigns.  I was beyond devastated and hurt in ways beyond imagining.  To be frank, I ended up having to go to therapy over this.

I do have regrets on how I handled the situation but I can’t exactly change the past.  What was done is done. 

Now, as far as the actual situation goes.  Supposedly Rennali heard this rumor from someone named Hranu but I have 0 clue about that side of the story.  Regardless, without a shroud of evidence to the claim, she chose to continue to spread the lie by talking to other people who ask about it “because she was told this therefore she can talk about it.”  Though this isn’t a post about my conversation with her afterwards, this is more about Niklos.

Niklos knew I wasn’t involved 100% and he took it upon himself to come up with a narrative to damn me.  Just recently, he posted yet again I am STILL involved with this situation yet I have multiple statements from various witnesses and people involved that I had no hand in it whatsoever.  

I also would like to point out the following discussion with Niklos.  Please note the following things:  1.  He approached me out of the blue because we had a mutual discord server.  2.  This conversation was during the hectic time and before my conversation with Rennali.  I put this in an imgur because I wasn’t sure how Tumblr would format it.

https://imgur.com/a/t3BjU4c

Anyways, why this didn’t come out about his enabling and defending of these individuals back when I was being wrongfully persecuted is beyond me but I am glad that there is a sense of justice in all of this.  I haven’t even been around much these days but what I find hilarious is that I logged on a character he knows me for and within literally 5 minutes, he was talking ill about me to a friend of mine, another screenshot I have mind you.

Though yes, I am glad to have Brady and others clear my name and I do hope Niklos gets everything that’s coming to him.  If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask me on my Discord Wolfie#0156.  I seldom check this and felt that this needed to be said so I have my own peace of mind.  

[ryouverua]

A Certain Lab, Reprised

lab get lab get lab get lab get LAB GET

Everything around us is either exploding or on fire so Sweetcheeks and I are going to retreat to our space safe, investigating

am I talking about the school exploding or tumblr

we just don’t know

Speak of the devil!

“I AM HERE!!!”

“K1-B0 THeRE WAS AN OPEN WINDOW OH MY GOD, THERE’S GLASS EVERYWHERE, OH NO -”

“OH YEAH!”

Didn’t really wait at all tbh 8′D

Actually all jokes aside Sweetcheeks is right, it was hella cool - and also thank god he was in the hallway and far away from the window! K1-b0 keeps asking if Shuichi is okay but is being incredibly reckless at the same time - what if Shuichi had been showered with that glass? He wouldn’t come out of that unscathed. Was that just K1-b0 taking more of his uncorked anger out on the school?

... Hm, though I guess calling it ‘anger’ isn’t quite right. Or, at least, K1-b0’s fluctuating between ‘anger’ and sort of... more... ‘grim determination’.

Yeah, he didn’t even flinch at being complimented. He’s got serious tunnel vision right now.

Damn.

LMAO SHUICHI’S SCREEN -

There’s only one other place I can think of that qualifies...

DON’T YOU DARE SHUICHI WE FINALLY GOT HERE AND I HAVE QUESTIONS

Oh thank god I want to satisfy my curiosity about the library as much as you do but RANTARO’S TALENT FIRST

Again - damn, K1-b0.

Whoa -

..... This has a very YGO Season 0 vibe. Sorry, that’s a weird comment. Maybe the better way to describe it is that the words ‘punishment game’ immediately come to mind? Some sorta wheel/puzzle thing in the back, cards hanging from the ceiling, some sort of... table...? Kinda reminds me of a poker table, though there’s no center to it... Maybe he... really did specialize in death games...?

Actually, if Celeste had an Ultimate Lab, I feel like it would have a similar aesthetic ~

IT’S HIS SOUL ROOM WE’RE IN RANTARO’S SOUL ROOM

“Yeah so I never shared with you all, but part of the Ultimate Detective status includes the ability to shoot spirit energy from your finger like a gun -”

I don’t think that’s completely wrong but I feel like the actual talent name is going to be x100 times more ominous. 8′D

MAN end-game Himiko is so different than early-game Himiko! Nice to have you onboard - wait, I just realized we’ve got a magician sidekick helping us in an investigation. Is this the right time to make an Ace Attorney reference, or -

Okay, huh. There’s actually way less to click on than I thought there would be. WHAT IS WITH THE MOST CRYPTIC PEOPLE HAVING THE LEAST INTERACTIVE ROOMS, COME ON DRV3 -

Okay, that laptop first:

Empty laptop.... okay, let’s set that aside for now.

Here’s the real question - what came first? The K1-b0 we knew for the first five chapters or this K1-b0? Which one should we consider to be the ‘true’ K1-b0? I think the game is implying that this is the real K1-b0, and the one who we knew up until now was a ‘controlled’ version of him - but at the same time, if the antenna was built in with him, could it be considered part of the original design and therefore part-and-parcel of K1-b0?

omfg I just realized the implications of a white-haired boy hearing a voice (that he literally calls ‘voice’) in his head who may or may not be controlling him behind the scenes be still my heart you’re getting distracted

WHELP THERE’S REALLY ONLY ONE OTHER THING TO CLICK HERE SO -

Like a safe?

......... Omfg it says ‘B’ and ‘A’ on them and it has pictograms on them. Is... this going where I think this is going...

Okay Himiko is being our in-game tutorial and noting that the zodiac is on one side and astrological signs are on the other but honestly I’m fine to skip all past it tbh because there it is, there’s our fucking ‘horse a’ and ‘twin b’ is gemini, Kokichi himself was a gemini, this was where we were going with those hints??? Rantaro’s lab?! idk I just don’t find puzzles like this hard I kinda thrive off of symbolism and mythology in general 8′D

Wait.... doesn’t that mean Kokichi couldn’t have been the one to leave those messages behind?!

Okay this was pretty cute so I left this in ~ but straight up two minutes later it was just a string of KACHUNK KACHUNK KACHUNK until I got it open immediately -

.... the symbols are weirdly cute though, hehe ~

Don’t worry Sweetcheeks, the only life-threatening time-waster we’ll spend all of our time on is fluff text!

Aaaaaaand done. Thanks Kokichi!

MAN I LOVE THESE TWO SPRITES TOGETHER FOR SOME REASON

Ah, so they’re talking about the stone with ‘horse a’ written on it - which... does make me curious, honestly. I think the existence of this safe pretty much confirms that he didn’t write the original message... right?

When did the letters start appearing aside from ‘horse a’? Chapter 3? Was that around the time he concocted that particular plan, then?

H-Hey now, he’s also the reason we found the second clue. 8′D I mean, it wouldn’t have been terrible to go through 12 different combinations with ‘horse a’ determined, but it wouldn’t have been ideal.

i bet you can buy that, that is literally perfect DR merch

IT’S

THE VIDEO

THE VIDEO!!!!

yeah I’m totally going to pull up my old post to see what matches and what doesn’t

“Oh god I forgot how absolutely stunning he was.”

OH I thought that was an abstract red background, silly me - 8′D well, that was probably the point. It might give away the game if we saw something more concrete behind him way back in... what, Chapter 4?

Anyway, more importantly, Rantaro shouldn’t have had access to this place... except he clearly did. So... he... must have been here before. And he knew more about the killing game, or seemed to intuitively know more, than anyone else. He... must have done this before. Except he had made it all the way here last time??? So there is a loop of some sort? Though it can’t be an outright time loop because otherwise there would be no need to record a video (unless like I considered it’s a ‘simulated’ time loop, aka VR-style like last game)...

This makes me wonder how we saw the video the first time. Was it just another flashback/tease like the meteorites were, before we saw the flashback lights?

I mean, I guess it’s kinda hard for recording!Rantaro to prove, but we’ll have to take him at his word here I suppose. 8′D

OH

OKAY

WE’RE JUST GOING STRAIGHT INTO IT THEN

are you telling me you were the protagonist in the last killing game

DIDN’T YOU HAVE LIKE, TWO AHOGES TOO

Man, what an asshole move??? Like, okay, Monokuma’s creating the puzzle of the safe which would unlock this video. Fine. But almost half of the class would have to be dead in order for him to get to it! There’s no way for him to even start the puzzle at this point, because he wouldn’t know it existed! What a huge handicap!

......... Something.... he had.... since the beginning............. Hm. I’m drawing a blank. I don’t remember anything in particular that stands out....

My dead boy, that is an understatement.

AHAHAHA ABOUT THAT....

Now this makes me wonder if he is the only one repeating it or if anyone else is? Well, maybe the mastermind - but like, maybe everyone is repeating it, but only those who ‘won’ were able to have better memories, or were just able to retain the memories of the last game better than the others?

Or, hell, if I want to go along with my previous theory about downloading the memories of students, maybe... Rantaro can remember more about his real self? Or something? But everyone else can’t?

And if he’s really someone who won the previous one (along with one other person, I suppose), then he knows that for a fact.

???!?! Aaaah this part got cut off last time too - so it was actually cut off in the video, and not just in our flashback?!

“You’re also dead, which may make things a little bit more difficult, but I still believe in you!”

That at least I expected -

WHAT

OH GOD THERE ARE SO MANY LAYERS TO THIS

like the dramatic irony I’m sure the fandom has done to death, for example

What about the second person??? Is there a second Ultimate Survivor???? I guess there can’t be since everyone else knows their talents but -

wait, if you’re the Ultimate Survivor because you won a killing game, who were you in the last game????

Does this really give him an advantage though??? I guess the information would have been nice but I mean, it obviously didn’t do him much good because he got taken out so quickly!

Man this makes me wonder if Kokichi had any inkling of this...

jsyk since I have the screenshots side to side, his expression is different in this video compared to the last one

~ fun facts ~

Yeah, see, the ‘he wanted’ part is throwing me off. He participated, sure, and he didn’t say he wanted the original one, but he came back for round two and said he wanted it.... but why???? That implies there’s a purpose to it, and he was okay to gamble his own life - but also, as a person without his memories of this, he wanted to stop the game. If the chip he bet is his own life, the reward must be huge, right? He won these supposed perks for this game, but what did he win for his life outside the game? .... Assuming there is anything outside the game? Is there anything for him outside the game?

HIMIKO DON’T BE RUDE

Yeah, she didn’t know the identity of her target. 8′\ Also I’d be sad if it was Kaede in the end. Second also! I know that she ended up being the first chapter killer and I’m one of the people got taken by surprise by that, but we were in her head for that whole chapter! Her motive made sense - but for her to end up being the mastermind now? That wouldn’t make sense, based on what we know of her, memory shenanigans aside!

That would require the mastermind to have knowledge of Shuichi and Kaede’s plan then, right? So they would have had to draw Rantaro to the library somehow, so he would get caught in Kaede’s trap...

It... should be one of a kind, considering the circumstances...

Yeah I’m still wracking my brain and not coming up with anything there. Could it have to do with his necklace? It did make me think of that ‘soldier tag’ present, about remembering someone who they lost. That would be an incredibly appropriate, if not cruel, ‘survivor’s perk’ present for someone who survived a killing game.

Man are we going to get a new flashback for every place we investigate???

OH SHIT IT’S BACK

FLASHBACK LIGHT!!!

you can pry the flashback light animation from my cold dead hands

?!?!?!

Immediate thoughts - generic students. But, are they? Is there any chance that they look generic on the face of it, but are actually representative of people in the class? I don’t see anything that could be an immediate match (Korekiyo = masked guy, Kokichi = small guy with similarly shaped hair/short stature/face, Kaito = tall guy, maybe), and they seem to have different VAs - hell, is that Jounouchi (or for the proper DR character, Munakata)’s seiyuu?

...... or the guy with the sick mask could just be sick lmao

Ah, so this is from when the virus began to ravage the population...

That seems like an understatement 8′D But at least we know for sure when in the timeline this takes place! Shuichi doesn’t seem to know they’re going to be the only survivors yet, but they’ve already been presumably screened for the Gopher Project which means it is well under way.

Calm down Sigma Klim -

Shuichi hasn’t told them he swings both ways, huh.

OH GOD RIGHT IN THE KAITO

DO YOU GET IT YET SHUICHI, YOU ARE THEIR HOPE

Don’t mind me, just wanted to make sure Shuichi didn’t miss the cryptic message left for him in these memories -

Not only that, but these aren’t memories meant to act as a reward for completing a stage like the other ones or even one they found - this was literally forced on them. It’s supposed to be Monokuma’s weapon against them. So... similar to the motive from the last trial, it’s trying to make them take action...?

And it’s clearly working!

... Maybe it isn’t the necklace then. I mean, he was wearing it when he died right??? And his body is gone...

Oh man unless just like everyone else there were copies of it along with the rest of it in his room - except there are 15, one for all the participants for the last game or something -

It might be 50/50 right now??? There’s something screwy going on, I just don’t know what.

[duggardata]

What Do We Know About The “Special Friends” Phase?  (Part 1)

Also, all the data we’ve got about pre–marital relationship length—from Pre–Courtship (“Special Friends”) to Courtship, to Engagement, to the Altar.

Recently, I got this Ask from an Anon—

Lucky you, Anon, because you get a two–part answer.  In Part 1, I’ll share all the data I have about Duggar and Bates couples’ pre–courtships.  After that, in Part 2, I’ll analyze that data, and try to tell y’all when to expect the next suitor.

Part 1... After the jump.

As the Anon points out, the Duggars and Bates seem to ‘court,’ in a way, before the official courtship.  Kelly Jo famously called this being “special friends.”  (She seems to have coined the term in 2013, after Alyssa became interested in John Webster.) The Duggars don’t use the term ‘special friends,’ but they too refer to a “friendship phase,” which apparently involves “fellowship,” “get[ting] to know one another,” and simply “talking.” 

Wanting to ‘get to know’ this bizarre concept of “special friends,” I scoured The Internet for information on the Duggar and Bates couples’ early relationships...  

Couples w/ No Concrete Pre–Courtship Date—

Josiah + Lauren

Zach + Whitney

Alyssa + John

Tori + Bobby (?)

First, the bad news... I couldn’t find any solid data on any of the above couples’ pre–courtship or “special friends” phase.  Often, I was able to find a vague time period—e.g., Fall 2012—but nothing specific.  Here’s what I did find...

Josiah + Lauren   |   ???

We don’t know when Josiah and Lauren met.  We don’t know when they started courting.  We don’t even know, for sure, when Josiah proposed.  So... yeah.  It’s no surprise that their pre–courtship is a mystery.

Personally, I suspect that they started talking when Josiah reactivated his IG in August 2017, but I have no concrete evidence of this—just a hunch.

Zach + Whitney   |   ???

Literally all I could find about Zach + Whitney’s early relationship was this post, on the Bates’ old blog.  Here’s a screenshot of the relevant part—

So, Zach ‘courtposed’ on July 1, 2013, after meeting Whit at Sonic in 2012.  As for whether they had a “special friends” phase before that, I sadly have no idea.

Alyssa + John   |   by  March 24, 2013

On Bringing Up Bates’s Season 7 premier (“The 4 Cs: Carat, Clarity, Carlin, and Courtship,” at 5:10), Alyssa says Gil + Kelly “wouldn’t even let [her] talk to John until she was 18.”  (Note—That would’ve been November 9, 2012.)  Kelly scoffs at this, suggesting it’s not really true, but I also wasn’t able to disprove Alyssa’s version of events...

John met Alyssa via his brother, Jordan, who apparently met the Bates during a mission to Romania in November 2011.  In this clip (at ~0:54), Alyssa states that John called her father, Gil, to ask “if he could start talking to [her] and getting to know [her]”—but she doesn’t say when this happened.  Basically, after lots and lots of searching, all I know for sure is that Alyssa + John were “special friends” by March 24, 2013, when the Bates posted about going on a “date” with them and Erin + Chad.

Tori + Bobby   |    by  Valentine’s Day 2016

So... Before this, I’d heard that Tori + Bobby began ‘dating’ on Valentine’s Day 2016.  Supposedly, he asked her to be his girlfriend after the Bateses’ “I Love You Day” party.  But when I tried to verify this, I couldn’t.  I thought it has been shown on Bringing Up Bates, but the 2016 I Love You Day episode (“A LOVEly Day”) doesn’t show it.  So I really don’t know.

Bringing Up Bates introduces Bobby in “A LOVEly Day” as Tori’s boyfriend—so we know they were together by Valentine’s 2016.  I just don’t feel like I can put down 2–14–16 as their definitive “special friendship” start date, without a good source to cite to.  (Do any of you guys have a source for this?  Help!)

Couples w/ A Known Pre–Courtship Date— 

Jill + Derick

Jinger + Jeremy 

Michaela + Brandon

Carlin + Evan

Now, for the good news... We’ve got precise data, meaning a specific, verified date, for each of the above couple’s pre–courtships.  Let’s check it out—

Jill + Derick   |   August 17, 2013

Jill + Derick first ‘met’ in March 2013, when Jill happened to walk into the room while Jim Bob was on the phone with Derick.  (Remember, Derick and Jim Bob were prayer partners during Derick’s mission to Nepal.)  Apparently, they didn’t speak again until August 2013, when JB encouraged Derick to contact Jill, and get to know her better.  Jill tells the story on the Dillard Family Website—

So, I guess it was “love at first Skype.”  Based on comments like this, I feel like Jill + Derick’s relationship began with that first Skype call.  Luckily, we’ve got a solid date for that from Jill’s Instagram—

Long story short, Jill + Derick started pre–courting on August 17, 2013.

Jinger + Jeremy   |   December 11, 2015   

Like Jill + Derick’s, JinJer’s pre–courtship date comes straight from the horse’s mouth.  On JingerAndJeremy.com, Jeremy writes—

Since asking Jeremy formally asked JB’s permission to “get to know Jinger” on December 11, 2015, I consider that as their pre–courtship start date.

Michaela + Brandon   |   November 29, 2013

Again, I’m going to cite to the couple’s personal website:  Under “Our Story” on BrandonAndMichaela.com, Michaela wrote—

So, we know that on November 29, 2013, after Brandon asked Gil’s permission to “get to know [Michaela] better,” Gil + Kelly spoke to Michaela, and gave their blessing.  This is similar to what happened with Jinger + Jeremy, so I consider it the start of the Keilens’ “special friends” phase.

Carlin + Evan   |   September 17, 2016

No surprise that Carlin, the perpetual Instagrammer, shared some pre–courtship details on her favorite social media platform—  (Here’s the post.)

...and Evan posted about their ‘one year,’ as well—

This one’s pretty clear.  Carlvan have been “special friends” since September 17, 2016.

Couples w/ An Estimated Pre–Courtship Date—

Josh + Anna

Jessa + Ben

Joseph + Kendra

Joy + Austin

Erin + Chad

Josie + Kelton

For these couples, the exact date isn’t known, but there’s enough data to guess a specific date—i.e., September 8, 2017, rather than “Fall 2017.”  My reasoning follows—

Josh + Anna   |   c.  June 15, 2007

Thanks to @keepingupwithfundies​, I found this record of Josh + Anna’s “Love Story,” from their old website.  While it’s a very long, rambling story, but here’s the gist of it—

They met at the Big Sandy ATI Conference in 2006.  I tried, but couldn’t verify the 2006 conference dates; however, I’m fairly confident (~90%) it was May 2–5, 2006:  Until 2009, the event always started on a Tuesday, and ended on the first Friday in May.  (Click here for past dates!)

A “few weeks later,” the Kellers visited the Duggars in Arkansas.  The day they left, Josh told Jim Bob that he felt Anna was ‘the One’ for him.

Skip ahead to Big Sandy 2007 (May 1–4, 2007).  After seeing the Duggar Family again there, Anna felt God was guiding towards Josh.

“A few weeks later,” Anna’s father asked Anna (for the first time) if “God had been speaking to [her] about” the man she might marry.  When Anna  admitted interest in Josh, Mr. Keller said “Joshua was the one for [Anna],” and told her to “pray for [Josh] and his family every day.”

“About a week later,” the Kellers had “special company,” as Anna put it. Josh came on his own (?) to Florida, spent time with the Kellers, and told Anna’s parents how he planned to provide for Anna.

Finally, in January 2017, after yet another visit to Florida, Josh sought Mr. Keller’s permission to court Anna, which was granted.

So, looking at this, I’d say Josh + Anna began pre–courting when Anna told her father of her interest in Josh, got his blessing, and was told “pray for [Josh] and his family.”  That was “a few weeks” after Big Sandy 2007, which ran from May 1–4, 2007.  That puts us in early June 2007, but let’s just say June 15, 2007—a nice, round data, that also adds in a bit of time for Josh’s first visit.

Jessa + Ben   |   c.  May 12, 2015

My sleuthing turned up several versions of the ‘How Jessa Met Ben’ story—one by Jessa, one by Ben, and one by Michelle Duggar.  Michelle’s version differs in significant ways from the other two—notably, by claiming that “Jim Bob was the initiator,” who set Jessa + Ben up.  So, let’s just look at Jessa and Ben’s stories; after all, it’s their relationship.

In this Seewald Family Blog post, Jessa states—

She first met Ben at church on a Sunday.  They had a brief conversation about her new iPhone.  He was 17 Years old at the time.

“Three weeks later,” the Seewalds again visited the Duggars’ church.  At the end of mass, the Duggars invited the Seewalds to “have supper with [them].”

“After that,” Ben visited the Duggars “just about once a month.”  Jessa + Ben talked during his visits, and “text[ed] a lot” between visits.

In a different Seewald Family Blog post, Ben adds a few details—

On the day he first met Jessa, the Duggars invited the Seewalds “to a conference just a few days later.”

The Seewalds end up attending the conference; while there, Ben sought Jim Bob out, introduced himself, and asked for J.B.’s phone number.

After this, Ben begins visiting the Duggars “every month and a half.”

Ben also says:  “I talked to [Jim Bob] about getting [Jessa’s] number not long afterwards and we began to text.”  It’s not entirely clear what event Ben is referencing when he says “not long afterwards.”  (Damnit, Ben!) 

Combining Jessa + Ben’s accounts, it seems that their “special friends” phase began after the Seewalds and Duggars had supper:  That’s when Ben’s regular visits began, and when Benessa started texting.  Per Jessa, the fateful supper occurred “three weeks” after she first met Ben.  She also said he was 17 then, so we know this was before May 19, 2013 (Ben’s 18th Birthday).

Now, what about this conference Ben talks about?  I think it was Big Sandy, as Ben talks about the entire Duggar clan being there with an RV.  Big Sandy 2013 ran from April 22—April 26, 2013.  If the Duggars invited the Seewalds to come “just a few days” before as Ben said, that means Jessa + Ben’s met on April 21, 2013.  Jessa says the fateful supper was 3 Weeks later, so that’s May 12, 2013.  That’s the date I use as their pre–courtship start date.

Joseph + Kendra   |   c.  September 8, 2017

JoKen revealed their courtship to PEOPLE on March 8, 2017, just one day after Joe ‘courtposed.’  Accompanying the PEOPLE exclusive was a TLC video, shot the day of the ‘courtposal.’  In that video, Joe said—

“We have been talking for about six months, and ... right when we started talking we really hit it off really well.”  

Later, on Counting On (“A New Courtship”), Joe repeated this fact.  Just before he ‘courtposed,” he told producers—

“I’ve known Kendra for about five years now and we met at [the Caldwells’] church.  We’ve been talking for close to six months.  I guess we would call it more of a friendship stage.”

Clearly, JoKen got to know each other for ~6 Months.  While Joe never gave us the specific date, we can easily estimate it by subtracting 180 Days (~6 Months) from March 7, 2017—i.e., the date they officially started courting.  When we do, we get a ‘ballpark’ pre–courtship date of September 8, 2016.  (Note—Probably a coincidence, but... They got married September 8, 2017.  Just saying.)

Joy + Austin   |   March 2, 2016

On Joy + Austin’s “At–A–Glance” post, I speculated that JoyStin started ‘getting to know’ each other in Spring 2016.  My evidence for this comes from Counting On (“A New Baby”), when Austin asks Jim Bob’s permission to marry to Joy.  In the scene, which you can watch here, J.B. mentions giving Austin permission to get to know Joy about a year prior.

(Side Note—If anyone’s savvy with public records and figures out when Austin’s fifth ‘flip’ was listed, that would be super helpful, since we know he asked J.B.’s permission to marry Joy right before listing that house!)

Since I don’t have the property records, let’s just estimate this by subtracting 1 Year (365 Days) from Austin’s proposal date (3–2–17).  That gives us a “special friends” phase start date of March 2, 2016.  Admittedly, it’s a rougher estimate than what we have from some other couples... But it’ll work!

ETA—Initially, I had the Forsyths in the “no concrete data” category.  I moved them over here because I realized that what we have for them is basically the exact same as what we have for JoyStin.  I think it’s fair to put them over here.

Erin + Chad   |   c.  April 30, 2011

Erin + Chad met at the 2011 Institute in Basic Life Principles’s (IBLP) Valentine’s Day Banquet, which was held on February 11, 2011.  (The Paines describe how they met in this video, but don’t specifically say it was an IBLP event.  However, it’s clear that it was the IBLP Banquet, based on this post, in which the Bateses say that’s where they met the Paines.)

According to Chad (in this clip, at ~1:35), he saw Erin again “later on that year,” at “a conference ... in Texas.”  When I heard that, I immediately suspected that that event was, in fact, the 2011 ATI Conference in Big Sandy, TX—a suspicion that the Bateses’ blog quickly confirmed.  Per Chad, he got to know Erin better at Big Sandy and, “from then on, we kinda pursued a relationship.”

Sounds like a pre–courtship to me!  In 2011, the Big Sandy ATI Conference ran from April 26–29, so—taking Chad at this word—the Paines have been ‘special friends’ since April 30, 2011.

Josie + Kelton   |   c.  October 31, 2016

In the latest Bringing Up Bates (“Another Beautiful Season of Blessings”), Josie + Kelton finally gave us a hint about when they got together.  When asking Gil + Kelly for permission to court, Josie and Kelton say (at ~32:05) that they’ve been “talking” for “about a year” (Kelton) and “over a year” (Josie)—after a time spent apart, slowing things down, at Gil’s request.  (If you count that time, they say it’s been “about three years” of special friendship.  I don’t think it makes any sense to count the period spent ‘broken up,’ though, so I’ll only count the 1sh Year.)

For me, when Josie + Kelton said it’s been “about a year” and “over a year,” the Bateses’ October 2016 trip to Florida immediately came to mind.  (You know... That’s the trip where Bobby + Tori started courting!  It’s featured in the Bringing Up Bates episode “I Donut Know What I’d Do Without You.”)  Josie came along on that trip; it would make perfect sense if that’s when she and Kelton rekindled their relationship.  So, let’s go with that... It was a Fall Break trip; Crown College had Fall Break 2016 from October 27–31, 2016.)  Based on that, I feel confident enough to guess that Josie + Kelton started pre–courting (again) c. October 31, 2016.  

Wow, that was a long post.  In Part 2, we’ll try to make sense of all this data!

[tryslora]

2020 Word Tracking Spreadsheet

[NOTE: The link to the spreadsheet has been fixed. Sorry for the error while posting last night]

If I'm lucky, all errors have been caught before posting this year, and I have properly accounted for all variations needed for a leap year. Man, leap years are killer to deal with in terms of tracking down tiny changes to formulas!

ANYWAY.

For those who have been waiting for this spreadsheet, here it is! Sorry to be so late. For those who haven't seen this before, please take a look, use if you'd like, and share if you want to. All I ask is that if you make changes and spread the changed sheet around, please credit me as the original inspiration and link back to the original as well.

2020 Word Tracking Spreadsheet

Instructions and explanation are behind a cut/read more to save your feed/dash. This spreadsheet was developed because I found that it helped me keep myself moving forward from year to year, and I've been using it since 2012. I've been sharing it after folks asked what I was using to track my words, and it has evolved over the years into the version below. The instructions include screenshots from the 2018 spreadsheet (and are copied from then) because I need to get this out and the sheet has not changed.

This spreadsheet was designed to allow you to set monthly goals for your writing, and easily track your words on different projects each day. It totals up your words for the day, your words for the month, and your words for the year. As you carry it along year to year, you can even track trends in your writing habits (for example, I’ve learned that I really suck at writing in May/June/July).

I’m going to go through this tab by tab to show you what’s what, and how to set yourself up and work daily.

We are actually going to begin with the second tab: Monthly Totals. This is where your totals are tracked, and where you set your goals. You can either set all your goals ahead of time, or month by month.

On this tab, you can fill in your pledges per month, and your goal for the year. The monthly pledges (see column D) will transfer to other tabs as needed, and will be used to calculate a daily expected word count for each month. If you set an annual goal (you don’t have to!), you’ll be able to see how close you are to making that goal, and whether your pledges add up to the annual goal.

You can see my usual pledges here. I always try to reach high and pledge higher than I think I’ll make.

The next tab we need to take a look at is the first one. This is where you’ll be doing your work, on the tab titled Wordcount.

It may look complicated, but I swear it’s not! It calculates pretty much everything you need, as long as you just keep copying information from row to row.

It’s set up so it’ll work whether you start a brand new project of 0 words, or carry forward a WIP that had words before 2018 started. All you have to do is put in the title, the purpose (fest, community, this is all just for your notes), and the due date, then put in your starting word count. When you add a new project, make sure to fill that starting word count (0 or otherwise) down through ALL the prior days so that your totals stay consistent. The way I do this in Excel is to select from the starting total down to the current date, then choose Fill Down.

When a day begins, it’s easy. Just copy down the prior day (except January 1st, just start with the one in place) by selecting from column F through the last column after your current WIP and then copy it down to the next row. When you finish working on a project, enter its current word count. In the example above, I ended day 1 with 1 words on TITLE and 1450 words on OLD FIC. The spreadsheet calculated that I only wrote 1 word total for the day. I copied that row down, and the next day I had 2 total words on TITLE and 2500 on OLD FIC, and the sheet calculated that between the two, I wrote 1051 words for the day.

The sheet color codes for days where you are below target or above target in the Actual Words/Day column. It’ll be white on zero days. It also marks projects that have been added to as green on that day in their column, which is nice if you do a weekly or monthly round up.

When you finish a fic, simply hide the column (don’t delete it). That’s why copying the entire row from F to after last down is important, so you copy the hidden columns too.

Some other columns. Target Total is where you hoped to be that year by that date. If you’re not there, don’t worry!! Zero days are OKAY and give yourself a chance to catch up another time. If you need to adjust your pledges, go do that on the Monthly Totals tab and everything will update. The Daily Target is the total you are hoping to reach to stay on target toward the Monthly Pledge for that month–it’ll be different each month depending on what you pledge.

Now let’s move on to some of the fun tracking pieces. Next up are Daily Graph and Monthly Graph, which are exactly what they sound like. I’ll show examples from my 2017 spreadsheet (note, the daily graph will look very up and down–that’s OKAY! Again, let yourself have zero days…).

Daily Graph

Monthly Graph

The last two tabs are my favorite! The Annual Comparison tab becomes useful after you’ve been using the spreadsheet more than a year, because by keeping track of totals year to year, you can start to see what your writing tendencies are. And there’s an average line (the curvy one) to bring those years together.

And the last tab helps you track your progress toward your pledges. This tab is why I created the spreadsheet in the first place. I did NaNo a few years ago and realized that being able to see my progress helped keep me writing. I like visuals! It lets me see at a glance how I’m progressing toward my goal each month. The pledge column is filled in automatically, based on what you pledged back in the Monthly Totals tab. It calculates the expected daily word count, and what you need to write. Then you can see the comparison.

Yes, that’s my actual horrible progress December 2018. While I’m not far from my annual goal, I’m having a really rough month of very few words (can I count these instructions???).

Anyway, that’s it! Hope you like it, and if you’ve used it before, thank you for coming back. Feel free to ask if you have any questions!

2020 Word Tracking Spreadsheet

[freyayuki]

Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia May Faire Campaign Banner 4

This is yet another one of those old drafts I finally managed to finish editing, so it’s now ready to be scheduled for publication.

The last banner for the May Faire Campaign was just released in the Dissidia Final Fantasy (#ad): Opera Omnia (DFFOO) mobile game. The campaign features banners that will only be available for 72 hours. For 3 days, the first draw on these banners will be free.

Furthermore, if you get a 5-star weapon from the campaign banner, it’s guaranteed to belong to any one of the 3 featured characters.

Two of the featured characters have all 3 of their weapons (15cp, 35cp, and Ex) on this banner while the third only has their 15cp and 35cp. Both Ex are Realizable.

The 4th and last May Faire Campaign banner features the weapons of the following characters:

Deuce from Final Fantasy Type-0

Golbez from Final Fantasy IV

Eiko Carol from Final Fantasy IX (#ad)

Both Golbez’s and Eiko’s Ex are on this banner. 

I found this banner way more interesting than the ones that came before it simply because I actually don’t have either of the Ex that are available here. 

I have Deuce’s 15cp and 35cp MLB. While I have a copy of her Ex, it isn’t MLB. I have Eiko’s 15cp and 35cp MLB, but I don’t have her Ex. For Golbez, I only have his 15cp with 1 limit break. I’m missing his 35cp and Ex. 

May Faire Campaign Banner 4 Free Draw 1

For my first free draw on this banner, I got 2 golds. Initially, I thought I had gotten 2 35cp since the weapon’s background featured the character’s portrait. 

However, it turned out that what I had actually obtained were just 2 copies of Golbez’s 15cp. Ah well, at least I haven’t MLB that weapon yet. 

May Faire Campaign Banner 4 Free Draw 2

My second free draw on the 4th May Faire Campaign banner went much, much better when compared to the first. 

In fact, this pull was one of the really good ones since, not only did I get 4 golds at once, I also managed to get 1 Ex.  

I got 2 15cp, 1 35cp, and 1 Ex. The 15cp belonged to Eiko and Golbez. The 35cp was Golbez’s and the Ex was Eiko’s. 

Seeing quite a number of golds with one being an Ex was a pleasant surprise, especially since 2 of the weapons I got were ones that I didn’t have before.

While I’m happy to have obtained Eiko’s Ex, I now find myself at a loss as to what to do with it. Should I spend the Power Stones needed to MLB it? 

Should I give her a Book to Realize her Ex? Should I give her Ingots? If so, how many? Or should I just Purple her?

I don’t know. I'm having trouble deciding what to do. If resources weren’t so scarce in this game, then I would gladly MLB Eiko’s Ex and Purple her. But since resources are limited, I have to be more conservative. 

It’s important to really think things through so you don’t end up wasting precious resources and regretting your decision. So, for now, I’ve decided to leave Eiko’s Ex as-is while I think about what to do.  

May Faire Campaign Banner 4 Free Draw 3

My 3rd and last free pull on the 4th May Faire Campaign banner was terrible and disappointing. I got only 1 gold, the guaranteed 1, and it was nothing more than a 15cp weapon.

To be more precise, I ended up getting a copy of Eiko’s 15cp. Sigh. I was hoping to get a copy of Golbez’s Ex and maybe even more copies of his 35cp. 

Ah, well, I suppose my second free draw from this banner more than makes up for this crappy draw.  

Conclusion

So, what about you? How did your pulls on this banner go? Did you do more than the free draws? What do you think about the characters featured on this banner? Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions by leaving a comment below or by reblogging this post.  

Notes:

pics are from Amazon.com; links shown above

screenshots are from my Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia game account