#NP Progress

[dru-plays-starbound]

New Protectorate - in progress

As promised, some screenshots of the in-progress build of the New Protectorate.

There's a little more above - the Archive and the Shadow Delegate rooms - but my computer was starting to cry so I left it at this. Also none of the images have been neatened so they overlap, because it took me longer than I'd like to remember how to take lol-big screenies.

But it's there! and it's big! and I made that since Feb of last year!

And it's still not finished 🙃️😆️

[reputayswift]

My weekly prize on Neopets is worth 20 MILLION Neopoints but I won’t be able to collect it until after July 1st when the prizes may or may not switch out…

[djherbs]

(Jason Parsell)

[urgentkettle]

an excellent addition!

Does Tumblr know about the travesty that is the optimal (as far as we know) configuration to pack 17 squares in a larger square?

[futurefind]

//Smth smth and idk how easy it is/nt to notice but smth I really like abt Sa is her avoidance of using Names [to their owners face].

Like. Yes it's a matter of emotional distancing/protection, but also just... she's lost her social skills and charisma and it's way easier to succeed at 'snarky but rough' than 'nice and awkward'.

More importantly, you can roughly gauge/map out her relationship someone, at least on Some axis, based on how she refers to them

ie (broadly speaking): [lack of personal address] -> [snarky pseudo-nickname] -> Rank/Title -> Last Name -> First Name -> [affectionate nicknames/personal address]

[autumnrory]

called to schedule my appointment with the rheumatologist and the woman had to call their department bc i guess she didn’t have access to their schedule which like. then why wasn’t i told to call that department directly rather than central scheduling but i could hear her leave a message telling them to call me but then it said to press whatever to send your message and i didn’t hear the beep indicating she did so and it just replayed the outgoing message from the rheumatology department a few times and she never came back on to tell me she left a message on my behalf and since i didn’t hear her press any button i’m like did it even go through?? i just hung up bc i was like i guess she’s not coming back but at the very least central scheduling has my number but i have no verification that the rheumatology department does so like...i guess i wait

but i don’t want them to call back when i’m not at home bc i need access to my mom’s calendar when i make the appointment so i know i’m not interfering with any of her appointments because i’m sure as shit not going by myself ya know, so i’m very annoyed lmao

[shadow-schemer]

oH GOD GALAHAD IS GONNA KICK MY ASS ISNT HE??? HES THE SURPRISE FINAL BOSS IN THIS SINGULARITY ISNT HE? HES GONNA KICK MY ASS I HAVENT SEEN HIM AND NOT ONE MENTION OF THE KNIGHT WHO FOUND THE HOLY GRAIL IN THE MYTH GOD HELP ME I WILL DIE HERE

[transit-fag]

I don't care about the article or anything silly like that, I just find the image of a progress pride flag with a NPS Logo and the Words "Stonewall National Monument" in bold font to be hilarious

[accio-bagel]

WIP Tag Game

Thank you for the tag, @theladyofshalott1989!

I have already shared this WIP, but since he's still in-progress here is an update on Fallen Angel Sebastian: he has acquired arms and I made his hair a bit messier too.

Ahhh I don’t know who has already been tagged, so anyone who wants to post, please consider this an open invite! NP tags, feel free to ignore if you already did this or don’t want to: @kemiichi @dom1re @tiarpopdind @mm-yy @lyworth @rednite-dork @keri-mcberry @trappezoider @littlejonyy

[livelaughlou]

Snippetsgiving

tagged this morning by my lovely friend @desert--moonchild. I've been sick with a cold for most of the week so I haven't been able to put in a ton of work on bridge fic but I did make some progress over the weekend. This will hopefully make more sense when I post the whole fic lol.

Buck—Then ”So, you just...do this when you’re bored?” Buck says as he perches himself on Tommy’s kitchen counter, watching him as he kneads flour. Tommy shrugs. “I mean, sort of. When I was at the 118 under Gerrard, I was so...I was an anxious mess. I needed something to relieve it when nothing else was working. I was having an insomnia night when night, caught one of those baking shows and got an idea. Is it lame?” Buck smiles, sure he looks as besotted as he feels. “No. I think it’s great. I mean, I’m a pretty good cook, but don’t bake much outside of helping Chris with school bake sales.” “It’s meditative,” Tommy explains. “I’m not sure how to describe it. I usually take whatever I bake to work with me, share it with the weirdos I work with.” “I’m sure Lucy loves that,” Buck says with a laugh. “She’s the worst weirdo,” Tommy says with a grin. “Sounds right,” Buck agrees. Tommy looks at him, soft and fond. He’s also got a small spot of flour on one of those cheekbones that Buck has become so fond of. He reaches forward and swipes it off with a thumb.

np tags: @rosyhoneydew, @cjlouwho, @talktonytome, @aringofsalt, @louisferrignojr

[olympeline]

Gonna post my thoughts on the Hetalia Nations Revealed AU. Always a fun one to chat about. (￣▽￣)

We call it an AU but it’s actually pretty accurate. The part about nation-people not being a secret, I mean. I recently reread the webcomic and canon leans into NPs being public knowledge. Obviously their bosses are aware of them, but there’s lots of strips where NPs interact with members of the public as well. There are strips starring humans who don’t recognize their NP (that one soldier in France, Lisa, Davie, etc.) but they’re fewer in number. We all know Heta-canon is flexible so, for this post, I’m coming down on the side of “people know.” Here’s how I headcanon it all working:

Nation-people are common knowledge to the extent it would be really weird if you met someone who wasn’t aware of them. It would be like talking to a guy and he says he’s never heard of religion. Like, any religion. In the whole world. Not even the concept of it. You’d be all: “Whaaa?? Man, how?? Did you grow up under a rock?” It’s like that for NPs.

NPs are more than human and so aren’t too bothered by us. In a nice way. They still love their citizens but it’s not a relationship between equals. More benevolent demi-deities existing alongside the mundane. This is where I differ from some interpretations of this AU, I think. I can’t see the NPs as being weak and helpless around their people. They’re partially representations of the Earth itself and nature is much stronger than humanity. Like that panel where Francis was getting harassed by historians? Only happened because he allowed it. NPs let humans get close to them when they choose, but they can lose them if they wish. That’s what France did when he’d had enough. The historians blinked and he was just gone. Slipped away like a breath of wind. Leaving two very disappointed academics to continue their argument, lol. The only exceptions are their bosses. NPs have to obey any direct order given by them.

Have to, have to. Compelled in the old fae-like way. NPs are completely under the control of whoever’s running their country. The one who has the final say is the head of state, but they can and do delegate if someone else holds the true power. Kiku directly obeys his emperor, for example, but the emperor obeys Japan’s Diet. So the Prime Minister gives Kiku his orders through their symbolic ruler. If a country’s government is overthrown then that control passes to the new ones in charge. NPs don’t get any choice in the matter, sadly for them. When an NP starts obeying the “other side” then the writing’s on the wall that the regime change has succeeded.

They aren’t considered fully human and so don’t have the same rights and privileges we do. I’d imagine there’s been many high profile court cases about stuff like this in the modern era. Just what an NP can be ordered to do by their bosses before it becomes abusive, how culpable they are for crimes committed by their nations, etc. “The Nation of [x] vs. Nation-Person [y] in the case of Historical Crime(s) [z].” I don’t think much would have been accomplished over the years, lol. No country is going to let their NP go to a foreign prison. Plus the NPs always have the “magically compelled” defense to fall back on. So no progress, just lots of debate. NPs are considered somewhere between guardian deities, ordinary people, and “things” in the broader public consciousness.

Yes, they have social media. No, it has not always gone well. I bet after a few instant-major-historical-event cases of careless and/or hot-tempered NPs calling their bosses assholes on twitter, NP accounts were mass nuked. They were reinstated only after their bosses gave them loooong lists of subjects they weren’t allowed to talk about. Afterwards their posts were all fluff about hobbies and personal interests. Doesn’t stop foreign governments, economists, gossip channels, NP enthusiasts, and curious people combing through every tweet, post, and video to try and guess what the NPs are “really” talking about. So many conspiracy theorist channels, oh god. Even thinking about it is making me tired. 😂

NPs have two homes: a work address and a personal one. The former is usually located in their capital and is either where their boss lives or close by. So Alfred has a home at the White House, Arthur has one on Downing Street, etc. However most NPs don’t consider these their real homes and only spend time there while doing government work. Ordinary, if nice, houses and apartments out among their people is where they like to live. These can decorate them to match their personalities the way they can’t official residences. They use their power over the land to make sure no humans can find these sanctuaries unless the NP wants them to. Stops NPs being swarmed by paparazzi, tourists, and fans 24/7.

De-anoning to say it was me that sent @forsoobado137 the money ask. So just repeating what I said there. All countries put their NP’s face on their money. Along with the state’s name, the NP’s human name, and a picture of the actual land they represent. The money can have other famous people on it too, just on the other side. Governments have been doing this since money was invented and some of the only surviving visual records of ancient NPs are pictures on coins.

Any human being knows an NP and the country they represent just by sight. Unless it’s somewhere they’ve never heard of. Then all they know is that they’re looking at a nation-person. I imagine it would be considered a huge faux-pas to let it slip you don’t know an NP’s country name. Like telling a Holywood A-lister you don’t know who they are at a red carpet event. 😭

NPs have many default jobs, mostly related to their governments. One of them is being in their nation’s armed forces. They’ve always done this ever since the first age of empires. They even led armies and were seen as good luck charms in the past. Soldiers tend to make up the bulk of the humans the NPs remember most fondly. The relationship between Francis and Joan of Arc is one of the best known historical examples. Whether an NP actually enjoys their time in the military depends on their personality. Which is in turn influenced by how warlike the actual country is and has been. If your NP falls in battle, it’s one of the worst war omens possible.

Speaking of death, I headcanon that NPs can die from illness or injury. Or at least their human bodies can. They’re tougher than we are, but not unkillable. They’ll come back so long as the nation itself survives. True death for an NP is reserved for when the civilisation they represent stops existing. If an NP dies in a foreign country, they’ll crumble to dust and regenerate somewhere deep in their heartlands. The place they were originally “born” from the earth. Only a select few very high up in government know the location of their NP’s birth/rebirth place. This also happens if they die on home soil and their body is destroyed. If they die at home and their body is okay, they’ll heal and wake up after a few hours. If the country isn’t doing well it takes longer for its NP to come back.

Speaking of countries not doing well: NPs get sick either when their economies go bad, or when there’s an epidemic among their citizens. A lot of European NPs can chalk some of their early deaths up to the Black Death. When an NP get “depressed” it’s code for a financial fever. Nothing can be done but keep them comfortable until the economy picks up.

Hetalia is so fun to post about, my god. Such a prime series for theories and headcanons. You feel me, gamers?

[dru-plays-starbound]

New Protectorate progress update

Despite not being able to take massive screenshots anymore 😮‍💨️ I still wanted to show off my progress so far in one big image, so I've hacked together the previous massive image I took with shots of the individual rooms completed recently:

Water Treatment Plant

Memorial Hall

Teleporter room

Rendezvous cafe

Recruit Dorms (proper post later today)

Classrooms (proper post tomorrow)

The gap between the utilities and the memorial hall is going to be half storage (above the water treatment plant), but I'm not sure what to put on the other side.

The gap below the recruit dorms is going to be half training rooms and half lecturer apartments.

I still don't know how I'm going to make the central assembly hall...

The delegate rooms for Human, Hylotl, Novakid, Penguin, and Frogg are all still to-do.

There's another layer above the archive and classrooms, which I'm blanking on ideas for at the moment, and then above that is the garden dome which is still to fill with grass and trees and nature.

Also I discovered the Elithian Races mod has background doors that can be linked together, so I'm strongly considering replacing all those stairs with linked doorways to save on climbing...

[diazsdimples]

WIP Wednesday

Thank you to everyone who voted on my poll last week! I'm delighted to say that the Disaster Date fic (Buddietommy) won so I shall henceforth be progressing with that until it is completed! In honour of that, here's a snippet.

Tommy brushes a kiss over Eddie’s eyebrow as the lifeguards double check they’re in the right position. It’s a good thing Tommy’s EMT training is second nature to him now, because his body operates as if on autopilot as Alex braces Eddie’s neck while Richard keeps his hips in place, allowing Tommy to slide the board just under Eddie’s arm, and angle it up 90° from the ground. His brain, however, wants him to stop and protect Eddie from any more pain. To wrap himself around Eddie’s injured form and snarl at anyone that comes near them. “Ready?” Alex checks, glancing at Tommy, Richard, and then Eddie, who gives a listless thumbs up. “Okay, 3, 2, 1, roll!” Eddie lets out a guttural howl as his body is turned, first onto his side and then his back as Tommy presses the board against his spine. The sound rips into Tommy like a jagged blade, tearing at his heart and twisting in his gut. Tears prickle at the corner of his eyes, threatening to spill over, and Tommy blinks rapidly. “How you doing, baby?” he asks, hands pressed to either side of Eddie’s face. It’s sandy on one side, and a lone tear tracks down, forging a path through the stubborn grains. Tommy gently brushes Eddie’s cheek, removing the worst of the sand.

np tagging @theotherbuckley @hippolotamus @wikiangela @bigfootsmom @spotsandsocks

@thekristen999 @aroeddiediaz @bidisasterevankinard @bucksbignaturals @crashthatcopter

@bi-buckrights @tommykinard @monsterrae1 @dorkydiaz @actuallyitsellie

@perfectlysunny02 @screaming-universe @buffaluff @slightlyobsessedwitheverything @saybiwithme

@wolffnichols @eddiespornstache

and anyone else who wants to participate bc I always forget who likes this fic/ship lol

[yourstrulynameless]

SCP Shipnames I’ve made for fun!

Clef x Kondraki - Magnificent Bastards

Reference: "Incident 239-B"

Kondraki x Clef x [NP] - Reckless Trio

Reference: They're all trouble for the foundation

[NP] x Clef - Process Crashers

Play on Pending and how the two seem to stop progress and party crash others with their own party

Kondraki x [NP] - Metamorphosis

Reference: The process of transforming

Gears x Iceberg - Cold Coffee

Reference: Neither of these mfs sleep lets be real, also iceberg's coffee's gone cold because he's dea-

Glass x [NP] - Marlboro Duo

Reference: A fic I made called "The Routine"

I’ll probably be taging future posts with these + the common shipnames :3

[neopianbiologyproject]

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to The Neopian Biology Project!

This blog is an offshoot of a series of posts started on my main account. It is run by me, @asterixcalibur, in association with Happy Lab Accidents on @cabletwo. I'm an artist and funny person by trade, but a biologist by tragic BDGilbertian retribution.

The goal of this project is to identify all of Neopia's unique species, categorize them by kingdom and region of origin, and find an ideal specimen for each that can be put into a natural history museum (my gallery on Neopets). As of writing, the project has identified over 2000 unique species of Neopian wildlife.

Our main methodology is scouring item descriptions for helpful information. This process also involves researching and standardizing the taxonomical, ecoregional, and evolutionary timeline terminology of Neopia.

Longer term goals are to obtain the ideal specimen of every identified species for the museum, and renovate the museum into a simulated museum experience through careful application of visual assets and CSS/HTML. Maybe one day we can shoot for the Gallery Spotlight?

On Neopets

My account on Neopets is classypotassium. Feel free to ask to be NeoFriends -- just tell me who you are here!

The Neopian Biological Sciences Natural History Museum itself is here.

Ways to Contribute

1. Donate a specimen

If you'd like to donate or loan a specimen to the museum, contact me so we can discuss attribution and collateral!

The gallery's JellyNeo wishlist is here. It will be continually updated as specimens are identified, so consider it a work in progress. As of writing I also haven't checked anything off even if it's been obtained, so double check the museum before offering donations!

2. Donate Neopoints

You can also "donate" by buying a Plushie Fungus from my shop! These are intentionally overpriced so that the change can be considered a charitable donation.

3. Interact here!

A lot of the posts that end up here are going to be asking for people's thoughts on origin, kingdom, uniqueness, and so on, through polls and direct questions.

You can also submit items, images, links, art, specimens, fossils, documentation, scientific papers, primary sources, etc. and so on, for consideration by the Project!

You don't need to know anything about Neopets to put in your two NP (or cents USD). In fact, sometimes it's better to get a perspective grounded in normal Earth biology, because, speaking as a biologist here in Neopia, I can very well say oh ym god please help ohhhh my god you don't even know

Conclusion

You don't need to be into Neopets to enjoy or contribute to this blog; I'll try my best to write posts so that they can be enjoyed by anyone aware of but not necessarily into Neopets. In my experience, explaining Neopets to someone entirely unfamiliar with it is always fun. This shit runs deep, dark, and as spaghetti as its code. Best part of Neopets, to me, is that the site rewards you for exploration, and some of the most consequential but by far weirdest lore can only be found by happening upon a page six links deep into a chain of site features that have gone untouched since 2009, as part of a philosophy of interaction that runs the entire site and is entirely against modern website design principles.

Anyway,

Thank you for visiting!

Science awaits!

[ddwcaph-game]

Update Previews!

Today's update post has three new changes/additions:

New Character Development Variables for F6E

New Difficulty Settings

Trait and EXP Updates

Before I show the previews, I just wanna say that after this update, I'll try to focus more on the story, and less on the gameplay stuff. I've actually gotten a bunch of breakthroughs with the story recently, so look forward to the introduction posts of the other two crush options soon!

New Character Development Variables for F6E

I'm thinking of adding a second set of character development variables for F6E! While the primary purpose of the first set of variables is to determine how major story branches will play out, the second set is intended to be less impactful, and only affect flavor text and dialogue.

New Difficulty Settings

Instead of the starting twin relationship traits secretly modifying your NP cost and NP recovery stats, I decided to add new difficulty settings to the last choice in the prologue.

Here are the difficulty modifiers:

🟢 Slice-of-Life Difficulty: +10% Overall EXP, +25 Max NP, +12% NP Recovery, -20% NP Costs when retconning stat checks, Stat Penalties from 🤯 [HEADACHE!!!] are capped at 25% 🟡 Adventure Difficulty: Normal EXP, NP Cost, and NP Recovery modifiers 🔴 Superhero Difficulty: -10% Overall EXP, -25 Max NP, -12% NP Recovery, +50% NP Costs when retconning stat checks 🔥 Apocalyptic Difficulty: -33% Overall EXP, -50 Max NP, -12% NP Recovery, +100% NP Costs when retconning stat checks, Stat Penalties from 🤯 [HEADACHE!!!] are 25% Worse

It's important to note that the difficulty settings DO NOT change the stat check requirements, so this wouldn't really affect you much if you don't use NP very often. Your Max NP is now also tied to your Total EXP gained (you gain 1 Max NP for every 2,500 EXP gained instead of gaining Max NP every chapter), so that's why the settings give EXP Bonuses/Penalties. Of course, these are all subject to changes later.

Trait and EXP Updates

As I've said before, I'm reworking the "bucket list" idea to be much simpler. Some traits/passives will now give a small amount of EXP when you pick certain choices.

I'm adding these bonuses to make picking traits more impactful, make gaining EXP more meaningful, and to add a sense of progression/character development for your MC. For example, Troublemaker MCs will now gain a small amount of EXP when picking Sensible/Disciplined choices.

Here's the full list of additions:

The EXP bonuses are minor enough (most choices will only give around 10-30 EXP), so you won't really miss out on much if your Troublemaker MC wants to keep causing chaos anyway. The bonuses do stack however, so we'll see if the numbers need adjusting in the future.

The EXP Notification won't appear if you gain EXP this way, so don't worry about extra clutter! Speaking of, I actually found a bunch of bugs that made certain Traits give more/less EXP all the time while coding, so whoops! 😅 It's not really game-breaking so I'll just include the fix with the next update.

Anyway, that's all I got for now. Let me know what you think of the new changes!