#but in this game its a lot easier i think. they made pieces that work together a bit better i find!

[woolieshubris]

please excuse my dreamy angel swag <3

[kromato]

Hey what's up it's me with a special interest in weapons and I wanted to share my thoughts about Nikto's machete (no that's not an innuendo for once)

Had a bit of a solo-mandela effect going on because for the longest time I thought it had a modified 'billhook'-like feature on the back of it for whatever reason (but smaller than what would be considered a traditional billhook, more like a hoof pick blade).

I kind of enjoy still HCing that it does have it because a) it looks kind of cool and b) a terrifying thought to think this man whips this giant intimidating blade out, flips it deftly in his hand to the hook side, just to sink it into flesh and yank people back in when they try to run. Also it allows me to think about a scenario where, resident karambit knife enthusiast Sebastian Krueger, can teach proper blade hooking techniques to our beloved plural man. Anyway back to the knife - It's like a cross between a coup coup and a bola? But has a cool flare like a Tapanga for his newer mwiii model. Also like a vintage Senegalese french machete, which were known for their high quality (might technically be the same thing as the coup coup, just with the locale specified I think, both entrenchment machetes). That curve also kind of reminds me of parangs but it's not particularly drop-pointed.

I HC Nikto as a very brutally pragmatic but particular man, so it doesn't feel too far off to think that he went out of his way to acquire something niche like that. Some kind of custom-made machete that fits his needs just right. The length of it, as well as the curved, ergonomic grip makes me think he's gotten it to do some serious chopping, so it's also probably heavy and weighted forward to make that easier when swinging. I don't see him as a flashy fighter personally, and though maybe it was a stylistic choice for the game devs/artists, I think it's a neat feature that speaks to his character. I do think it's made of hefty steel; weight is important in chopping knives, and though steel rusts, it's sturdy compared to a lot of other metals. Not to mention - I feel like oiling and caring for his weapons, machete included, would be a ritual source of peace for his sometimes loud and chaotic mind. Grounding when he can feel the weight and texture where his nerves aren't completely damaged, smell the oil, have tangible proof that it's reality when he sees the maintained blade even after he becomes unmoored.

Now this is just me WAY reading too much into it, but it gives me a little giggle - The hole at the end of the handle is for a wrist lanyard, so you can loop a piece of paracord rope to secure it around your hand. It's an important safety feature just in case the machete goes flying out of your hand while chopping, lest it hit people in your vicinity (accidentally...?). In his 19 model, he doesn't have the paracord rope attached; Nikto says "Fuck your safety" but also huge ego of "I would never accidentally fling my knife!!"

Could also be because it gets caught on stuff if it dangles off his hip though - he's got one on his newer model where he wears the blade on his shoulder, which looks like a place where it's less likely to snag on things. Could also be because he's been increasingly featured in larger factions, so he works with more people and was asked to have one on hand maybe?? I don't know. In either case the knot in the middle of the rope makes it too small for his wrist which could also be read as a passive-aggressive "Here's the fucking safety rope it's on there ALRIGHT" and yet he's also made it nonfunctional for its intended purpose lmao Okay that's all byeeee

[disabilityreminders]

Tips for Cleaning

Cleaning is one of those tasks that a lot of us find exhausting, overwhelming or just overall daunting for a number of reasons. It could be related to executive dysfunction, disabilities or just feeling overall burnt out. 

While it’s a good reminder that your space not being clean doesn’t affect your worth in any way, sometimes being in a mess makes us feel worse and we really want to fix it. The question is, where can you start when it’s already so overwhelming? 

Please keep in mind that a lot of my suggestions might not work for you personally. And if that’s the case, that’s really valid but hopefully they can help you come up with your own ideas! 

This might be more overwhelming for some, so don’t do this if you think this wouldn’t work for you. But for me personally, I like to go into a room and make a list of that room. This list might include wiping things down, sweeping, moving garbage, etc. I do this for any and all rooms I have the energy for. Having a written list makes it feel less overwhelming to me. I can just pick an item and cross it off. I tend to cross off the quicker/easier items first because making my list look smaller makes it seem more manageable. You can break the tasks down as much or as little as you want. I personally like to have “wash dishes”, “put away dishes” as two separate tasks while others might just want to put “dishes.” 

If you can’t think of things to put on the list, I find that googling some generic cleaning lists helps me get started and reminds me of what tasks to include. 

Now I’d like to share some general tips for cleaning when it’s overwhelming that help me! 

Break it Into Little Steps

There aren’t really any major rules for cleaning. Things got a lot easier for me when I realized I don’t have to do it all at once. When I’ve had the dishes pile up in the past beyond a point of manageable for me, I made a deal with myself. Every time I went to use a new dish, I had to wash that dish and one other dish (or a couple utensils). This ensured that the pile gradually got smaller each time I used a dish but made it a manageable amount for me. 

The same can be said for things like folding laundry. I would fold a piece anytime I walked into my bedroom. I would pick up garbage anytime I walked by it and toss it. Over time, it felt like it looked more manageable and I was able to just focus and get it all done. Sometimes we find this helps us jumpstart the task because for me, starting is the hard part. But once I start, I’m able to keep going. Telling myself I only have to do “two dishes” or “dishes for 5 minutes” made it seem a lot more manageable to look at it as a small thing. But often I’d find as I got going that I was able to keep going. 

Combine it With Something You Enjoy

For me, cleaning while doing something I enjoy has helped a lot! I love to fold laundry while I watch my comfort show. It’s one of those tasks that I can do while still doing something I love. I find I don’t focus so much on the folding and the pile is getting smaller before I know it. 

Some other ideas of things you can do: 

Listen to a playlist that makes you feel pumped up (maybe even have a dance party if you're up to it.)

Listen to an audio book or podcast

Have a show playing in the background that you enjoy

While it’s considered its own thing as “body doubling” sometimes, having company helps. Even if that’s just talking to a friend on the phone, or even texting with a friend while we both clean our own spaces. It’s kind of like an accountability buddy and leaves me feeling like I’m not doing it alone. 

Make cleaning a game! This might include things like picking a colour and then only dealing with things with that colour like only folding blue clothing, washing blue dishes, etc. This might include rolling dice and assigning certain tasks to certain numbers. Or it might be something silly like cleaning while pretending you're your favourite character or even something like a robot. You could use mannerisms or phrases that they would use and react to things how you think they would. (It might be fun to pretend to be a villain having to do your own chores because your "minion" disappeared for the day. How unimpressed would they be? What would they say while they folded laundry?)

Adjust the Tasks to be Easier for You

One thing that holds me back from cleaning is I’m in a lot of pain usually. Things got a lot easier for me once I realized that I can make adjustments as needed. For me, even though I can’t do it all at once, I found sitting to sweep was really helpful! 

Other ideas:

Use disposable cleaning wipes. There are even disposable options for toilet wands and things like that! I found the act of filling up a bowl with hot water and cleaner to be the thing that would freeze me. Just grabbing a wipe, or using a spray and paper towel was a game changer for me. 

While a lot of people do this already, I’ve heard others that don’t but I definitely recommend soaking your dishes in hot, soapy water. It makes them significantly easier to wash. 

Get a duster with an extendable handle so you don’t have to get up on chairs or things like that. 

Invest in a grabber tool. This is a tool that can be used to grab things in hard to reach places, or if you have difficulty bending. 

Get a chair that's easy to move around. This can allow you to do tasks like sweeping or wiping stuff down while sitting. I personally have a rolling chair!

Some General Tips 

If you’re finding it too overwhelming to start, try setting a timer for something like “10 minutes” and then see what you can get done in 10 minutes. You could start by grabbing all the garbage, or clearing a table or something that’s straight forward and can help you start. 

Don’t overdo it. It’s okay to pace yourself. In fact, you should. Take your time getting caught up, and once you do, try to do something small every day rather than trying to cram a lot into one day. 

It’s okay to just do one thing. This kind of ties back into how I caught up on my dishes. My friend has to pack to move and she’s having to organize her things into what she’s packing, donating, or discarding. She made a deal with herself that each day she would handle a set number of items. (A number like 5, 10, or 15). If you need to de-clutter, planning on finding just 5 items a day to get rid of might be a good place to start. 

Find some structure. I personally like printing a cleaning planner that breaks down my weekly, monthly and sometimes tasks that are every few months. It also helps me because I’m not sure how often I should be doing things like cleaning out my fridge, or bigger tasks like that. Having a check list and when I should be doing it helps a lot. 

It’s okay to ask for help! I know that we often feel ashamed of asking for help, or showing someone our space if we don’t think it’s clean enough. But it is absolutely okay to ask a friend for help. My friend regularly found laundry exhausting and overwhelming. When it fell behind on her, it paralyzed her. I would go and fold her laundry for her. And it helped her feel less bad about that when she’d do me a favour. (For example, she loves to cook and I’m often too drained to, so she made me some meal prep.) 

Find products you like! I love using certain scented products and while I never get excited about cleaning, there is something I enjoy about smelling them! 

Focus on one room at a time if you can. When it’s overwhelming, I even just pick a corner of the room and work my way out. 

Reward yourself! This might not work for everyone, but I love doing this. If I do this one task, then I get to do something fun. I’ve actually assigned tasks certain point amounts because I love seeing my “points” climb up and then I get a bigger reward at bigger numbers. (Also I always recommend cute stickers for your lists!) 

Take a before picture or video. Sometimes, we find that we can’t see progress despite being at it for awhile. It’s easier to forget where you started and seeing the progress can be really motivating! 

You don't have to follow a set of rules! What I mean by this is it's okay if you don't put away your dishes. Just because you've been taught that's a part of doing dishes doesn't mean you have to put them away. If it doesn't bother you, it's totally okay to leave the clean dishes in the sink and use them as needed! Try and get it out of your head that you need to follow a certain set of rules and do what's right for you.

Cleaning is overwhelming. While a cleaner living space can make us feel better mentally, I do want to remind you again that living in a mess is not a moral failure. You aren’t less worthy if you’re in a mess. You are still worthy, valuable and enough as you are. 

[utilitycaster]

re: the WBN talkback show excerpts I've posted and will probably continue to post re: running games well/playing well that are, let's be frank, part of the ongoing "C3 was, in retrospect, uniquely weak actual play" thought process:

yes, that is part of it, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't, and this blog has long been a place where I talk about actual play at large, including what works and what doesn't.

I hesitate to suggest this because it does cost money (bonus content on Patreon) but WBN and NADDPod's talkback shows genuinely are a very enjoyable way to learn about actual play as storycraft; because they are smaller casts and podcast only (and often recorded remotely), they tend to be less chaotic than, say, 4SD or Adventuring Party and more focused, though there's certainly some goofy tangents.

I think it is so immensely bad faith to assume that people who disliked C3 and liked Divergence are just mindlessly jumping from Matt to Brennan that I wasn't going to even acknowledge there were people so horribly cynical (or in deep denial that there could ever be good faith criticism of their blorbos, I suppose) as to do it. However I think it couldn't hurt, so: speaking for myself alone, C3 played to Matt (and much of the cast's) weaknesses the way Neverafter played to Brennan's, and in fact I think Matt would have done a way better job with Neverafter than Brennan did, given time and resources. Part of why I've focused on WBN is that I'm binging it; Brennan tends to talk in very quote-ready phrases; there's usually transcripts; and NADDPod is currently doing a Jake-helmed work and Jake is a new DM and therefore not confidently making statements the way Brennan (or Murph) might. I also think the fact that Aabria is a cast member on WBN does a lot since there's some DM to DM conversation, even though she is a player in the campaign these are in reference to. I would also add that the planning and the tpk line are true to Vox Machina and the Mighty Nein's campaigns, and so again, I know CR can pull this off beautifully. The point is not "Brennan is perfect and Matt fucked up" (and fwiw WBN does have some interesting to consider flaws of its own) but that these excerpts are illustrative and also great advice.

This came up in some side discussions of my Nein rewatch as well but the Nein campaign in particular does an incredible job of developing its pieces; the war, the Luxon, Lucien, and the general geopolitics of the world are all on the board by episode 18. I didn't post the whole conversation re: developing your pieces but actually Aabria asks Lou (Passport Jones...it's a running joke) about a very cool move he made in-game based on a previous funny thing he did, and Lou says that if you throw enough bread out eventually you'll make a trail, and Brennan notes that it's easier to throw out tons of bread than predict what your players will do. I think that, at its core, is why C2 works and C3 doesn't. You need a DM providing tons of opportunities; but you also need players making tons of choices. Some won't pay off! But if you don't throw out any bread then you never get cool moments from what bread you did throw out. You have to take those risks and burn those spells.

[ganondoodle]

Hey there, just read your concept for how you would replace building in TotK with Hookshot mechanics and it sounds really cool!

Like, sure Building was fun, but as you said before, it really doe not fit this game/world and just broke to many parts of it.

To get to my actual question, would the Hookshot be aimable in slow-motion while falling, similar to how Bow & Arrows work?

Because I am now imagining Sky-Islands surrounded by lots of small floaty rocks, some of them so far from each other (or moving) that the player has to hook to the closest one, climb up, get a run up, jump, glide towards the next one, and then let go of the glider, whip out the hookshot, and hook onto the next rock.

Heck, you could have an entirely airborne Gleeock Bossfight this way, similar to som of the Bosses in Twilight Princess!

Thanks as always for sharing your ideas with us!

yeah! its not too hard to imagine right? and i feel like it would have fit so well and be much easier to balance for botws world

maybe you have seen it before but i did make an ability concept for it before (some info on this wouldnt be for the botw2 style rewrite im focusing on now bc i made this originally as part of the villain rauru idea, but the abilities and how they work remains the same)

maybe the way to pull yourself towards somethign or it to you wouldnt be a single button press but instead a holding one, so if you wanna hook and immedaitely be pulled there you can just streamline it via holding the button until you are there (i know holding down a button can be rly straining but botws control scheme doesnt have a lot of it so i think using it here wouldnt be too bad .......... less painful thatn the totk arrow menu thats for sure lol)

(can i just say i really like the the infusion idea for abilities too, like ... wouldnt it be so cool to find broken shiekah tech and using it just because and then it WORKS, like theres a guardian wreck and you get on top and use infuse and it springs to life to move out of the way of a doorway for example, other structers you could use similar to twilight princess copy-staff but in a more modern interpretation??)

the building jsut breaks the game too much, and imo not in a fun way like cheating in a way definitely not intended or glitched, its like a 10 piece picture puzzle but you are also given a button that assembles it for you and you get the same reward anyway, that doesnt count as multiple solutions like it worked in botw, its like they gave up and just gave you (multiple) skip buttons, since not only rocketshields but also the 'move thing and reverse it' are like that, and you cant tell me they didnt realize that (also id argue that even without skipping puzzles, alot of them arent fun either, like its mostly either insultingly simple building tasks the game tells you outright what to do .. or just hands it to you .. or you know what to do immediately and the puzzle part comes from you having to deal with clunkily glueing stuff together until it works, which i found pretty frustrating)

ANYWAY thanks for liking what im doing!!! if i wasnt so slow and art blocked so much id have way more to show already, and text alone usually isnt that interesting :,)

[quirekey]

MATCHUP FOR @eldritchsp00ks

You have got FIXIT RID2015

[ Transformers x Human!reader ]

INTRODUCTION

You were a friend of Denny Clay, a pretty close one at least. You both have pretty differing opinions and likings but you both like to embrace that, it’s easier to make conversations and debates with it anyways. Over time, you guys got closer and you both were unstoppable.

After a usual while, you saw Denny pretending to be a famous adventurer, stopping cars from going over the bridge. You went up to him and saw some massive robots of various sizes, colours and patterns fighting off another bunch, you were obviously worried and asked Denny what in the world was going on.

“Denny, what in the world are you doing?”

“Don’t worry about me right now, Nex… I got some work to do- I’ll explain later! Just stay by me!”

You complied and stood by him, trying to stop the other cars yourself.

When the battling stopped and seemingly the loud, clanking metal had reached its end, Denny gave it a few minutes then opened the bridge back up, leaving into the forest. You followed behind him and were understandably confused but you didn’t question him till you guys arrived at his junkyard. Oh boy, you haven’t seen this piece of… this masterpiece in a while!

Denny lets you in the junkyard with hesitation and you see the whole crew of massive robots. They seemingly don’t see you because they aren’t reacting, until Denny coughed loudly to gain their attention.

They were understandably surprised but friendly enough for you to get along. They all varied in bubbly personalities and you enjoyed their company. Bumblebee, Strongarm, Sideswipe, Drift, Grimlock and Fixit, then the two cute ones, Jetstorm and Slipstream.

One of them seemed very needy and friendly around you, they were really clingy and always wanted to talk to you ever since you met them. Fixit. The ‘mini-con’ that was seemingly the engineer and technician of the group. He definitely made it obvious that he gained feelings for you almost immediately.

You accepted his feelings but didn’t date just yet, you two were more like friends with romantic tension, why not give him a chance?

HEADCANONS

Either platonic or romantic:

- You like to talk to Fixit about your love of aliens, how freaky and cool they look! You show Fixit most of the alien merch you own and Fixit is definitely confused. Aliens are interpreted as these weirdly headed guys, cartoony looking limbs and just have a strange aura, at least the typical alien does. Fixit does feel a little insecure but also thinks it's hilarious that humans see aliens like that, but you are able to reassure him.

- He loves to run his mouth to you about his stories and says a lot of dumb crap that makes you laugh. He likes to tell stories that relate to the things you like, like aliens, horror, cats.

- Fixit sometimes over-does his talking and you definitely run out of social batteries. Fixit isn’t a guy to push so if you do mention that you are tired, he will leave ya alone. He understands boundaries!

- When Fixit goes on the tablet to just play a game or something for a break, sometimes you like to scare him and download those iconically old games like granny or something.

- You really enjoy Science so Fixit and you really like to do simple and dumb experiments in your free time with the random chemicals and items you both find in the junkyard. Sometimes there are explosions…

Romantic only:

- You like to watch horror movies with Fixit and seeing a scared mini-con shiver on the couch while covering his optics is amusing. He usually grabs you and puts you in front of him, he’s pretty scared of basically anything. Or he would hug you and shove his faceplate on your shoulder. Nuzzling himself against you while you watched the movie silently.

- Since you guys are very similar in height, Fixit really likes it when you give him little head scratches and pats, it feels funny on his metal. Though you don’t like scratching the metal on his head, patting it was okay with you. If you don’t wanna scratch, he usually says a simple kiss would do for cycles!

- When you daydream, Fixit likes to admire you no matter where he is. He won’t look for long because he feels like it’s wrong but he will admire your face for a bit.

- Fixit really likes your little space buns and when you guys are cuddling, he loves to just bury his face into your shoulder while squishing the little space buns. He describes it as those stress toys that those kids like.

Ngl I just wanted to point out that your love for aliens is so large that you even have space buns dude, pop off ✨ — to eldritchsp00ks

[666writingcafe]

Life and Blog Update

So, there's going to be one more post, and then that will be the end of season five of my Obey Me rewrite (which is season two of the Nightbringer mobile game).

I think what I want to do next is to go back through my version of Season One and write proper entries for it, because a fair chunk of it is essentially author's notes, and while it served its purpose at the time, I want to actually make one long-form story out of it. The ultimate goal is to post my work on AO3 so it (somewhat) resembles a book rather than a bunch of posts grouped together. Plus, it might make it easier for people to save my work for future and repeated consumption.

It will also allow me time to figure out how I want to go about rewriting OG's Season Four and NB's Season Three, especially with the recent news from Solmare. I know that I want OG Season Four to come before NB Season Three, but I'm not sure if my version of NB Season Three will serve as the absolute final conclusion of this rewrite series or if I essentially create new content out of thin air.

Plus, a goal I have for 2025 is to dip my toe into my desired career by volunteering as a digital transcriber for the Smithsonian once a week during one of my days off work. I have my Bachelor's in English (I know, shocker /s), but ever since I was a freshman in high school, I wanted to get a Master's in Library Science and become an archivist of some kind. However, freshman year of high school was a whole ass decade ago, and a lot of life can happen in that time. So, I'm using this as a way for me to figure out if it's still something that I want to do as a 25 year old (because in this American economy, I'm not about to spend money on something that won't bring me personal contentment, especially when it comes to further education that doesn't have nearly as many scholarships as an undergrad program does).

The point of all this is to say that it may be a while before you receive any fresh content from me, and what does come will come slowly and in pieces. While I will try to do something once a week, I don't want to fully commit to that and work myself to exhaustion and/or miss real-world opportunities to connect with people outside the confines of my job and the internet. That isn't to say that I don't value the connections I've made with you guys, because I do; I'm just trying to maintain a reasonable balance. I've experienced burnout twice before in my life, and it's an experience that I don't want to repeat if I can help it.

So, yeah. That's the general direction things are going for the foreseeable future.

Taglist: @lost-in-time-wanderer, @fuzztacular, @dianedancer18, @sweetbrier2908, @flare-love, @completelyshatteredbrokenmschf, @thunderlightning351, @l3v1chan, @anxious-chick, @5mary5, @expressionless-fr, @tenkobitch, @budbuddnbuddy

[decks-writing-blog]

Campfire Fest Day Seven: Free Day - Tubular

For @outerwilds-events Campfire Fest event.

[A/N] This isn't the thing I'd originally written to upload for the free day. That piece is long, could do with some more editing, and might be getting a chapter 2 so it will be posted as its own fic later. I wrote this in the meantime though as a desperate attempt to pretend the Tubular achievement is as fun as it sounds on paper. As of earlier today I did *finally* get it, freeing me from my wave-based torment. I took that as a sign to go through with posting this instead; I wasn't sure if I was going to go with my original piece or not at first so I edited this as a just in case I decide the other piece needs more work.

The setup they use in this fic is the same I used in game but I took creative liberties in making it easier to stay on the raft and for the raft to stay with the wave because ugh, the amount of times I almost got it but either wasn't on the raft or the raft didn't stay with the wave long enough drove me up the wall. So we're pretending it's more consistent. I also wanted a little bit of drama for fun.

~

“Gabbro!” Auri shouted with a raised hand as they rushed out of the tunnel and over the hammock. “You have to come and do something fun with me.”

“Have to, huh?” It had been a few loops since Gabbro had last let Auri drag them off Giant’s Deep so probably they were about due for another adventure.

“Yes, you have to. So c’mon, let’s go.”

Moving deliberately slow, Gabbro sat up and hooked their flute into its spot on their belt before standing. Auri shifted impatiently but didn’t complain. They never did but it was fun to watch them squirm with barely held onto patience.

“You should bring your jet pack too. You’re gonna need it.”

So it was going to be that kind of adventure, huh? Though what ‘that’ might be was unclear. This was the first time Auri had suggested Gabbro bring their jet pack. And so, as much as they hated carrying the thing around, they obeyed.

“What exactly are we doing?” they asked as they pulled it up onto their back, still purposefully taking their sweet time with it.

“Hmm… my first thought was to surprise you with it but actually, that might be a bad idea. You know the Stranger with its river and the dam that breaks like halfway through the loop? Well when it breaks, it releases a big wave of water.” Auri lifted an arm to mime a watery motion, ending with the promised big wave. “If you position a raft just right you can ride the wave like halfway around the ring. Maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration but it can take you pretty far and it’s a lot of fun.”

Jet pack securely on now, Gabbro began leading the way towards Auri’s ship. “Sounds dangerous.”

“Oh, it is. The first few times I tried it, I got bashed into rocks and stuff. I know what I’m doing now though. I wouldn’t insist you come do it with me if I didn’t think I could keep you safe.”

It still didn’t sound like a particularly good idea but if Auri was confident they could keep both of them from serious bodily harm then Gabbro would choose to trust them. Such a stunt didn’t sound like their idea of a fun time but they were open to trying almost anything at least once. The time to try dangerous things would be when trapped in a time loop that made at the risk of physical injury and/or death less of an issue.

~

Auri beached the raft on a piece of land uncomfortably close to the dam. They’d barely gone anywhere from its starting point. They then set to pushing it even further back towards the dam because, “If it’s positioned poorly, it’ll bash us into that cliff side over there which is never fun.” Their gesture was so vague it was unclear which cliff side they were even referring to.

Leaving them to it, Gabbro stepped back to look up at the dam. They were close enough that Auri’s Little Scout was still visible where they’d shot it onto the side to monitor the dam’s structural integrity. In other words, way too close for comfort. Turning around, the first of the ship’s village areas was almost immediately downriver. The wave hit hard enough to wipe that village out so ramming into any of its buildings wasn’t likely to be something one could easily walk off.

How had Auri come up with this idea? And why, after having apparently been bashed into ‘that cliff side over there’ probably multiple times in addition to who knows what else, had they persisted in doing it until they figured out how to do it ‘safely’? They were truly something special. Gabbro couldn’t not admire their bravery even if it did maybe border on stupidity at times. Lucky for them, they had the time loop to undo their mistakes.

“Have you always been this much of an adrenaline junkie?” Gabbro asked as they turned back to face Auri. “Or did you get this way because of the time loop?”

“Uh… I think I was always kinda this way but the time loop made it more of a thing. Like, getting hurt and stuff sucks but you get used to it after a while so the risk of it isn’t as much of a deterrent. If we ever get out of this loop alive, I’m probably not gonna survive for much longer.”

If that ever happened Gabbro would have to extract a promise from them to be more careful and would have to keep a close eye on them to make sure they kept it. It was tempting to tell them that right now but the topic of their dwindling self preservation instincts didn’t need to be brought up when it would only bring down the mood. Besides, Gabbro had all but agreed to do a stupid stunt with them. They could back out and faced with the actual prospect of what exactly they were up against, it was certainly tempting to. But they’d pull Auri into rest and relaxation, teaching them how to mediate and breathing techniques to calm themself in general, it was only fair they get to return the favor the other way around at least once. Besides it might be fun, Gabbro wouldn’t know for sure until they tried it.

~

Waiting for the dam to break and the wave to come naturally gave more room to foster doubt about how wise this was. Gabbro pushed those thoughts aside though, trusting Auri’s claim that the raft was positioned perfectly, all they had to do was stay on it which Auri would also help with. Instead they settled into the wait, chatting idly with Auri until finally the lights flickered and the whole ship groaned. Gabbro had been here before and so wasn’t surprised but it still wasn’t a pleasant sound to hear from the spaceship one was currently aboard.

“It’s almost time,” Auri said. “Scout readout says the dam’s structural integrity is at eighty-four percent and dropping.” Despite that, they remained seated.

“How long does it take to reach zero?”

“’Bout an hour and half. I’ll keep you updated.”

From there, they waited in mostly silence, their conversation idle and interrupted by Auri’s occasional update on the dam’s structural integrity reading. Every passing minute dwindled Gabbro’s opportunity to back out. It was still tempting. Getting bashed into rocks or a sturdy wooden building didn’t sound like a peaceful way to die. But, even if that did happen, the time loop would undo it so, it was fine… sort of.

If they could be fine with being tossed into space by a cyclone of water, they could ride a big wave of it without fear. It felt different though. Like it was somehow more dangerous. They had more control here so it should be less. That opened up more room for error though. Trusting the hammock and maybe a small adjustment or two to ensure they landed on it was all it took to survive the cyclone. This required balance and proper use of the jet pack, easy things to mess up.

Maybe the opposite feeling was why Auri was fine doing something like this but still got nervous about the cyclones. They liked being at least partially in control of the risks whereas Gabbro preferred just letting whatever was going to happen, happen. Learning something new about oneself was always fun.

Eventually Auri stood. “Ten percent.”

Gabbro stood with them, placing themself on Auri’s right. Last chance to back out. Not that they were going to. They took deep steady breaths, easing the seed of fear inside themself.

“Right before the wave hits the raft, engage the jet pack’s thruster. It’ll raise up to meet us. After that, don’t worry about steering, I got that covered.” Auri had said that earlier but the reminded wasn’t unwelcome.

“You’re the expert.” Maybe it was foolish given their growing lack of self preservation instincts but Gabbro trusted them to keep both of them from getting bashed into anything by the wave.

From there the waiting got even more tense. The occasional glance back revealed that the dam was leaking steadily more and more with every passing second. Last time Gabbro had been here with Auri, they’d cautioned against being in the river when it broke. And now here they were, directly in its path, right in front of it, waiting for that exact thing.

“Three… two… one… and zero!”

The silence held for a beat as Auri all but vibrated with excitement before the dam broke. This close to it, the crash of splintering wood was almost deafening. Suddenly free, the water that had been held back in the reservoir rushed forward in a massive wave.

Following Auri’s lead and advice, right before the wave reached the raft, Gabbro gripped the trigger that engaged the jet pack, sending them up. Too high and too fast. The raft did indeed raise up on the wave of water beneath their feet but Gabbro was almost certainly going to land behind it. Already it was ahead of them even as it straightened out.

Welp, they were about to find out what it felt like to die via being bashed into a wall of rocks after all. Damn it. Hopefully it’d be fast.

Mere seconds before their thrust ran out, sealing them to that fate, a hand grasped their wrist and yanked them over so that they landed on the edge of the raft instead of off it. How Auri had managed to keep track of themself and realize that Gabbro needed help was a mystery but Gabbro could’ve kissed them right then and there if the situation were less dire.

Not missing a beat, Auri tugged them back into the center, facing them both forward. Better balance and probably easier to steer from there. Gabbro linked their arms through Auri’s, though was careful not to cling to hard lest that mess up their steering. Their little near mishap had lasted mere seconds but it felt like an eternity had passed.

Below them, the water rushed forward with a mighty roar. It hit the buildings, the splintering of wood adding to the deafening cacophony. Bit and pieces bobbed up around the raft, several large ones barely missing hitting it. Was Auri’s steering to thank for that? Maybe because they were certainly doing something, casting their flashlight onto the poles, subtly changing the raft’s trajectory even as it hurdled down river. Gabbro could only cling to their arm while also try not to get in the way as much as possible.

It carried them over the first village then over a cliff, barely missing bashing them into a wall of rock right before it. Possibly the ‘cliff side over there’ that Auri had pointed out before. Past it was the second village area. Wide enough to spread out the wave’s energy, easing it noticeably. Or maybe that was just them losing it as it continued forward, leaving them merely floating on the river. Not quite halfway around the ring but pretty far indeed.

“Woohoo!” Auri lifted their free arm in triumph. “That was amazing, huh?”

Gabbro forced themself to let go of Auri’s arm and step back. Their heart still raced and their hands shook. Daredevil stunts still weren’t their thing even with the time loop providing a cushion of safety. It was good to see Auri had had a fun time though and it had been worth the effort to experiment. “It sure was something.”

“I’d say ‘let’s do it again’ but we sadly only get one per loop.”

“Well, if you decide to go again next loop, uh… maybe leave me out. I don’t think I’m cut out to be an adrenaline junkie. Too much action, you know?”

Auri froze. “Oh! That wasn’t bad, was it? You did seem kind of… You’re okay, right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. It was fun… sort of. Thank you for inviting me. It’s just not my thing. This though,” they gestured around them, indicting the raft floating down stream, almost lazily now that there was no light on any of the steering poles, “is rather nice. Not as nice as the rivers back home and the rapids aren’t great but still nice.”

Auri nodded. “Good, okay. In that case though, we can spend the rest of this loop relaxing around here.”

“That sounds like a great time.”

[hivefleet-hellbender]

Out in the desert, no one can find you... (Hex Tiles 1)

A sharp wind whistles through the desert dunes, bringing no reprieve to the travelers following the thin paths left out in the sand. Don't drink from the river — the plants that grow along its shores contain toxins that could leave a grown man coughing up blood, and chemical spills float through the current. A faraway road carries the rare drone-tank, long abandoned from any sort of human use.

My newest hobby, to distract myself on months when the purse is a bit too tight to be buying plastic crack from Games Workshop, is to build modular hex tiles! It's super easy — I pick up a hundred of these wooden MDF tiles from Amazon for $10 (they're advertised as 2", but they're 1.75" from tip to tip, and each side is 1"), grab any spare craft supplies I have lying around, and get to work! They're super quick (this first batch of one hundred took me around a week) and they open the door to a lot of cool experimentation. A lot of this is inspired by the work of u/Marcus_Machiavelli over on Reddit, who makes these fantastic modular hive city components that I hope to someday be able to emulate. 

I'm making these for two purposes, neither of which I've put in practice yet but I'm hoping to get to do at some point. They're for:

Any mass-battle games played at 6mm. This could also work for Adeptus Titanicus or the upcoming Epic reboot that Games Workshop is working on. 

Tactical TTRPGs like Lancer that are played with large beings, who can operate on a 6mm scale.

Once I get some games in with them, I'm sure I'll encounter future problems and reassess how I approach them. But for now, this is what I've got!

I Hate Sand

The first set of tiles I made, to serve as the backdrop for the rest of them, are these sand tiles. I chose to make this a desert (and thus make a bunch of sand tiles) because I already had some sand lying around, and because it's really cheap and easy to work with. Be careful though! Anakin was right; sand sucks. Try and pick up a finer grain than what I went with, apply the sand in a more-controlled location than I did, and secure it better than I did too. But here's how I did them:

Coat the surface of the hex with a mix of PVA glue and water.

Sprinkle on a light dusting of gravel or small rocks.

Apply a thick coat of sand on top of the gravel.

Knock off excess sand and recycle it for next time.

Spray with 1-2 layers of varnish. (I would recommend a sealant instead, but I didn't have any at the time)

For the ones with little paths on them, I painted the path on with White before applying the gravel or sand, and it shows through well enough! The paths are unnecessary — they're a fun experiment, but I don't think I'll be making more of them in the future.

The Gurgling Creek

Making the river tiles was a bit more involved, but still pretty easy. The method I came up with I think looks a lot better than just painting on water, and is a lot easier to work with than resin or water effects. 

Use some kind of texture gel to build up the riverbanks, trying to have them end around 1/4" on the sides of the tiles where you want your river to connect.

Paint a strip Black where you want the river to flow, running from one edge to another.

Apply sand as before, everywhere except where you painted the black. (If you're worried about fucking this up, you can swap the order)

Varnish (or use sealant) as before. 

Take some gloss mod podge and mix it with a light blue paint, and apply in large goopy quantities everywhere you want water to be. Leave overnight to dry. (If you want the river to be less cloudy, apply many thin coats of mod podge instead, letting each layer dry before applying the next)

As an extra, stipple green along the edges of the water and use a dark green wash to create patches of vegetation.

The river pieces are my favorites, and I'm the most proud of them. The tiny bridge was a thin strip of balsa wood, painted white and then washed black. It turned out fine.

I did a solid mix of straight river pieces and curving river pieces. If I was going to do it again I'd make more curving pieces than straight river pieces, because the curving ones make more sense for how rivers work.

The Road To Nowhere

These road tiles turned out really well, perfect for a run-down highway in the middle of nowhere. Here's how I made them:

Take a piece of corkboard and cut it down to be 1.75" long and 1" wide.

Glue it on a hex with the two edges of the corkboard touching two sides of the hex.

Go at the edges with a knife, making it all worn down and busted up.

In some of these spots, I fucked up and glued the corkboard on wrong. To fix that, break off a chunk and reposition it so it'll connect correctly. This will look like a big fat crack in the middle of the road, which is perfect.

Coat in a layer of mod podge or PVA glue. Leave to dry.

Once dry, paint the cork entirely Gray.

Drybrush White onto the corkboard, focusing on the edges and exposed spots.

Paint two thin yellow lines along the middle of the road. (These are optional, but they do a lot to make the 6mm scale convincing)

Apply sand, as before, onto the ground and up the sides of the road, so it looks like the road is emerging from the sand. Maybe apply some sand in a couple spots in the cracks to make it look like the sand has gotten in there.

Varnish and/or sealant, as before.

Apply a Black wash to the road. (There's a lot of tricks here! If you want the yellow stripes to be more vibrant, you can only paint them on after the first black wash. You can also target spots of sand on the road to make it look like it's asphalt runoff, soaking black into the cracks.)

Apply a second Black wash to the road. 

The bridge was a bit more complicated, and took some finicky positioning and a trip to Kung-Fu Tea.

Take a boba tea straw and cut it into 1" segments, then cut them in half, gluing them to the middle of the hex as culverts.

Take corkboard and glue it over the culverts, bending it so it meets the two edges you want the bridge to run along. If it breaks, that's okay — this is a crumbling, middle-of-nowhere bridge.

Use texture gel and spare corkboard to fill in the gaps.

Use texture gel to define the steep edges of the river. Apply a little bit in between the culverts.

Do all the road steps to the road part of the bridge, and all the river steps to the river part of the bridge.

I'm exceedingly proud of the bridge hex. It turned out perfectly, and feels very emblematic of what I want this project to be like.

Why You, Too, Should Make 6mm Terrain

6mm terrain is amazing to make. Mistakes look like part of the landscape or the brain smudges them over due to the small size, and small changes look like fascinating little details. It really opens the imaginative space and I absolutely adore working at this scale. Plus I'm developing a ton of experience with various materials I've never worked with before, so I get to enjoy the triumph of carving foam or corkboard. It rules! I might even try to make a 28mm bridge after the success I had making a 6mm one.

My future plans for this project include cliffs, craters, 3D-printed shantytowns, and overpasses. But all that is for a later date — for now I'm gonna rest on my laurels, and spend the rest of the evening reconfiguring various tile combinations and cackling like a mad scientist.

[rosegardenofeden]

As creative tools grow in usability and ease, it's easy to think that we're going to lose "true artistry" on the way, technology replacing humanity or whatever. But I fundamentally don't think that's true! These tools allow a lot of artists to work faster, easier, and create some truly impressive stuff, and I think tools like synthesizing software, brush stabilizers, or engines like Game Maker or RPG Maker making art more accessible for those who don't have the time or mind for every aspect of creation is only a net positive.

But I don't think we're ever going to fundamentally lose the wonder of something crafted lovingly from scratch! Even nearly two-decades on, the fact that Cave Story was made basically from scratch by one man working over the course of five years while working an office job, being so dedicated as to make his own music software for the soundtrack, still impresses to this day. There's a reason it's basically the forebearer of the modern retro indie game. Cuphead has been one of the most remarkable games of the last decade on the back off its beautiful hand-drawn animation!

I grew up with a mother who is a professional oil painter. She spends months making even one painting sometimes, putting excruciating detail into every leaf and piece of bark. Her works are genuinely breathtaking, and all the more so for the effort put into it. People are regularly shocked when I show them the work and tell them it's a painting. They think it's a photograph. I think we as humans see and know effort as something valuable, and that can lead a lot of people to fear new technologies. People fearmongered about cameras, and said it would be the death of art, but that's hardly true. It just created new forms of art, and I doubt anyone today would say cameras were a net negative to the world.

[hawkogurl]

Ok, I know I get on insomniac a lot because I think a lot of their writing is deeply flawed and I'll no doubt eventually end up critiquing this one scene that singlehandedly made Insom Harry go from "good!" to "fine" in terms of writing quality for me, but! I would like to sing the praises of one scene I think is genuinely really well executed to me.

Coney Island.

I know a lot of people see it in largely a ship lense, which is fine and valid, but there are so many aspects of it that I think make it go from good to great that I never see talked about. And "If nobody else is going to do it, I will" is basically my ecological niche in the harry community. So here I am.

As a general plot beat, it is perfectly timed as an early game moment before much of the main plot begins. I don't think it could work anywhere but there. Part of the reason it functions so well to me is because it is the calm before the storm: It is a very well done moment of quaint existence before the plot of the game, which, if done the best it could be, would leave this moment as a piece of normalcy the characters cannot ever truly return to.

I think what I mean by this will be more clear when I get into it more, but I also think the fact that it is specifically Coney Island. I don't think any other location in New York would work so damn well. Coney Island is pretty much a theme park, but it's also a theme park specifically made to draw off of the motifs and vibes of a carnival. Carnivals are normally brief events, most local ordinary carnivals will only last a couple weeks at absolute most. Coney Island is basically a permanent carnival, an indefinite version of an event normally designed to be brief by nature. I hope I don't need to get all flowery about how carnivals sort of cannot last by nature while Coney Island has made itself a permanent version of a normally ephemeral concept for my point to get across.

That's not the only reason I think the setting is so vital here. While Coney Island is itself the sort of thing kids and adults are both allowed to enjoy, the concept of amusement parks and carnivals as sources of entertainment are things that, especially in the modern age, are connected more heavily with kids as a demographic. It's the sort of thing that many people are going to consider childish or see as more of a nostalgic memento of their childhood. Connecting it with youth, nostalgia, and easier, more innocent parts of life experienced before adulthood is also pretty vital here. This is a point in the story very soon after Harry re-enters Peter's life. Harry, a person in his life who he was connected to most in his youth, particularly his high school and college years. While college itself is normally very much a part of adulthood, it is often still sort of viewed more closely with youth. If I recall correctly, Harry also disappeared from Peter's life at a point very close to Peter's more "official" transition to adulthood: leaving college and entering the workforce. Especially because Peter's arc in insomniac is in a lot of ways connected to adulthood and learning how to be an adult, I find that in this regard Harry can be a very effective symbol for youth and parts of Peter's life he might be nostalgic for before the constant stress that being a self sufficient adult brings.

I could probably get a lot into how a lot of my favorite moments of Insom Harry's writing as a character are moments where he functions as a symbol. I swear to god its a good thing.

Getting back on point, while their emotions are very much a lot more complex than that, the moment of nostalgia and normalcy that this story beat provides something very useful. If Harry gets to symbolize youth and Peter's (and MJ, I have a lot to say about her) want for a more normal, quaint life his responsibilities as Spider-Man--and as an adult--mean he can't have, you're having a moment where the personification of Peter's nostalgia for simpler times brings him and MJ to a location that represents childhood and youth to experience the sort of normal, stress free life they will never be able to live. But I think on a mental level, MJ and Peter engage with this moment in a very different way than Harry.

MJ had a more chaotic childhood than Peter or Harry did. In the sort of spectrum between the three I am about to try and express, I think that fact is important to remember. Part of the reason she can handle Peter well as a romantic partner is because she has been used to instability and chaos since she was a kid, her father and the numerous issues that plagued her household basically training her to be able to handle the instability that Peter will always bring to her life. Even if I don't doubt that for her, Peter is very representative of freedom from that and the sense of peace and power that adulthood has given her, being away from her unstable childhood and having the power adulthood brings to choose what chaos she's going to allow in her life, Spider-Man still causes instability in her life. Her complicated feelings on this aren't really something I have time for in this post but... *motions to Scream*. With that being said, if it isn't already super clear I have a lot of love for what Harry symbolizes here, Harry still is very much connected to the parts of her childhood that WERE good. Being her friend and disconnected from her family, for her there's no doubt a massive connection between him and the pieces of that time that were peaceful and that she can look back fondly on. She isn't immune here. But she's also got a much lighter tint on her rose-colored glasses: I think she does want normalcy and that she does wish for simpler times like that, but I also think that how many painful times were associated with her youth have done a lot to make sure her nostalgia can't overcome her. She is the person here best equipped to know that things were not as great as the three of them want to think they were before they became fully realized adults. And I don't think she'd be willing to give up the life she's built if it meant she could have something peaceful. She knows that things weren't as great as nostalgia paints them and she made her choices as to what she wants in adulthood, as rough as they might often be. I don't think she'd give that up for the world.

It should be obvious Peter is the middle point here. Much of his arc is symbolic of coming of age, adulthood, and maturing. His character beats often include things that either draw on the imagery of or are metaphors for various aspects of maturing and becoming an independent adult. But this is only the second game out of what seems like will be three, and very early on at that. Peter has experienced the disillusionment of realizing idols and mentors will often fail him and the loss of innocence that comes with losing May, his parent, something that I like to see as symbolic of becoming truly independent as an adult--especially because he had to make that choice himself, out of maturity rather than the childishness of trying to cling to her. But many of those beats are very painful: becoming an adult is in a lot of ways, it can feel like losing a lot of yourself to let go of childhood. He's on the path there, but he's at a point where a lot of him resents that. Spider-Man is responsibility, is maturity, is adulthood. He has matured enough to know he can't reject it, to know the consequences it would bring, but he would yearn to live a normal life--feel that nostalgia for simpler and more peaceful times--much more than MJ does. When he looks back on times without Spider-Man, on his youth, most of the painful and hard times are going to be connected with Spider-Man, our metaphor for adulthood here, rather than his youth itself while MJ's painful memories are far more connected to childhood itself. MJ feels pain towards childhood and sees being an adult as freedom from that. Peter sees adulthood as painful and sees youth and nostalgia as his potential freedom from that

As I have no doubt nailed into your heads, Harry and Coney Island are both heavily symbolic of just that. Harry comes back into his life when the weights of Spider-Man are at their worst and when he would be wishing he could have normalcy more than anything. Peter knows that he can't have it. He's much more resentful of that fact than MJ is, but he does know. And as much as he knows that, he is repeatedly and constantly attracted to parts of his life he feels like will give him that. MJ seems to see this moment as a briefer indulgence, much like most people would see any sort of weekend lapse from the stresses of life. She is happy to have those on occasion, as a treat if you will, to bring her joy. Peter knows he cannot have it forever, but he hasn't accepted that he can't ever go back to that place, so much of the early game, especially moments with Harry, shows Peter seeming to chase after moments of nostalgia and normalcy as a method of running from the fact he can't go back. I think if it was best executed, the plot would have resolved with something relating to that very idea: It's hard, it's painful, it's never going to be easy, but you can't go back, and maybe the things you yearn for aren't as perfect as you remember them.

So MJ has accepted and come to terms with her metaphorical adulthood, Peter is on the path to accepting it but still yearns for and chases it, so what is Harry? Well, where is he in this moment in a narrative sense? Prior to his time in stasis waiting for a cure, assuming my memory serves me correctly, Harry hadn't actually experienced all that much independent adulthood. And what adulthood he had experienced was, when not plagued by the stressors of his terminal illness, also tethered to his rich father. I think enough people have dissected the weird writing of billionaires in insomniac games, but I think there's still an argument I could make about the fact that having the amount of money the Osborn's do can serve as a sort of barrier from the earliest, most stressful, and most rapidly maturing aspects of early adulthood. I don't intend to discredit the stress of chronic illness whatsoever, but a lot of aspects of Harry's life would delay much of the development that happens in a person emotionally in early adulthood without even getting into the two years he lost. I do think we need to remember Harry is a grown, adult man, considering that my least favorite moment in the game is a sudden moment in which they write Harry to not behave like an adult man when he was not established to behave like that, but that is off topic. Harry has been deprived of a lot of the normal experiences of youth and early adulthood by chronic illness, his father's sheltering, etc, but has had the experiences of early adulthood diluted enough that he can't entirely see that the way he thinks of things is unrealistic and overly idealized. While he very much behaves like an adult, a lot of his optimistic view of things can read as somewhat childish in a way.

All that to say that in the sliding scale of MJ-Peter-Harry, Harry has lost so much of his chance to experience a normal life and has lacked the normal maturing experiences most people have enough that he wants the normalcy and nostalgia ridden ideals of life that MJ and Peter yearn for, seeing regular life with the same rose colored glasses Peter does, but unlike Peter, still thinking he can achieve that. Peter and MJ are, at least in some capacity, aware of the fact they can't ever go to the place they yearn for and it would be hopeless to try--but Harry doesn't think like that. And alongside that, MJ and Peter all will, by nature, have a better relationship with that ideal because they both, in some regard, got to choose the parts of their lives that are chaotic and painful. Harry lost a lot of his youth to chronic illness in many regards and then lost more of it to Norman's hollow, desperate promise he could cure him if he was willing to give even more time up. MJ and Peter chose the chaos of Spider-Man, each in different ways, while Harry doesn't get to choose the chaos that terminal illness brings. The combination of that barrier from maturing experiences, idealism, and the fact he never got to choose result in the fact that Harry will pursue his ideal and is willing to give up so much more than MJ or Peter to achieve it, to "heal the world" and achieve that existence because he never got to choose that. And hell, because it's terminal illness, it would cut his life short if he wasn't willing. MJ and Peter will always have the reassurance of the existence of the rest of their lives being waiting. For them, normalcy gets to be an indulgence, something they only get to partake in on occasion, while Harry wants that to be their norm and is willing to pursue that with his everything. They are, even if it's more complicated than that, willing to let it be the exception and not the rule, while Harry wants it to be the rule and assumes they want the same.

As I referred to prior, this moment gets to be the calm before the storm, a moment symbolic of those mentalities and how the characters interact with that theme in the other moments I think are best executed. Peter slowly walks the path to accepting that he can't go back and reconciles his adulthood, while Harry consistently clings to it. Hell, a lot of my favorite uses of Harry are uses where I really get to see the value he brings narratively as a symbol. I think, if they couldn't commit more fully to his character in relation to chronic illness and venom and let go of the pieces of his character they've already written out, they should have committed to this idea. Hell, in an ideal world I would get both. And I know it conceptually sounds off putting, but I swear that Harry functioning as largely a symbol more than a character is actually a really good thing and really good for his character as it stands, that's not an insult. I am genuinely enthusiastic about that idea.

[centrally-unplanned]

Wack question but do you think an increase in artworks from AI that aren't necessarily that creative or original results in the overall diminishment of creativity or originality we as a species have?? To me it seems the bar would remain the same?? Talented people will keep creating good/original works regardless of whatever tools (AI or not) they're using innit.

I would first say upfront "way too contingent to tell!" - the technology is too new, and the pipelines for "art" too insanely diverse, for anyone to make an actual, solid prediction. Not to mention the word "creativity" doesn't have a single meaning. Just getting that out of the way.

To provide some ~thoughts I think things will probably be fine because of a sort of "conservation of effort" that goes into things; when you find you can radically reduce the time it takes to do one part of a job, you do often reduce the amount of net time on the job; but just as often you increase effort in other areas because now you can. So if we make some arbitrary assumptions about AI art getting better and more controllable in its output, you would almost certainly see a higher % of "images of art" on your feed or w/e being AI art. Based on your definition, that might be less creative than the past. But you will almost certainly also see a net increase in the number of webcomics! Combinations of many pieces of art & text, with the art in particularly being very time consuming to make, now much easier to do so your previously "eh if I get time" webcomic idea can now surface. Again based on your definition that is a definite increase. Dynamics like this will abound in creative industries - from that lens art will shift but not reduce.

However, I do think there is an argument for a creativity reduction. Commercial art is generally made by large teams of creatives & non-creatives, and this comes with a lot of compromises by everyone involved as they push and pull. And a lot of times the financial side of things would ideally want to make "the most marketable thing", but can't really implement that vision because they need the creatives who execute on board and they have their own zany predilections as artists. You can very frequently see in "new" artistic fields that early on, some really crazy shit gets funded because only like 50 guys can make video games or anime or w/e, and you just sort of have to do what they say. Over time that fades as production grows and lots of new trained staff emerge and the people involved become relatively "replaceable", and so balance shifts to the financers. All relative ofc, other dynamics are going on here as well.

Here you can see AI art as a sort of accelerant of "optimized" art - by making the art much easier to make, commercial ventures can more effectively "force" a production to be exactly what they want it to be. It lowers the bargaining power of artists, who typically do want to do more adventurous things. Again relative ofc, plenty of indie arthouse business types and staid, workhorse artists exist. But still, I could see a world where commercial art becomes more predictable as production pipelines get better at "tamping down" on the human variation in the product.

Again do I think that will happen? No clue, tech is way too young, and a bunch of other stuff will happen too. Just some ideas to watch for.

[manysmallhands]

Top Albums Of 2024: #20 - #11

The second post of my albums of the year! The first post also exists!! More will follow!!! Now read on!!!!

#20. Fred Thomas - Window In The Rhythm

Indie rock

It’s been 6 years since his last proper album and much has changed regarding how much I bother with DiY indie, but I go back a long way with Fred and so I’ll always be excited when he brings a new record out. And all told, Window In The Rhythm is really very good! Most closely resembling 2015’s All Are Saved of his many previous albums, it consists of 7 largely lengthy art rock grinds that take the minutia of relationships and picks away at them remorselessly (there are one or two softer songs in there but most of it is pretty unforgiving stuff). The appropriately titled “Hours” is a bit of a drag but everything else here sounds fantastic and works very well for drifting away to on the grim winter afternoons. Given how the songs kinda melt into each other, I tend to engage with it all as a series of classic Fred set pieces, with my current faves being the way the gentle, ringing guitar arpeggios of "Season Of Carelessness" at first gradually and then suddenly give way to its fizzing, intense electronic coda, and also the bit in opener “Embankment” where Fred does his fast talking about 90s acts party piece, singing  “I made you a tape - withthesamesquarepushersongonitfourtimes - but not in a row” and I know that my favourite indie dude is back for real.

#19. Aespa - Armageddon

K-pop

I tend to struggle to focus on k-pop - i can never remember who's who, partly a function of not being able to buy them here on CD - but mercifully Aespa did a cheap retail version of Armageddon and i've managed to give it more time than most things. And their first full length album turned out to be a game of two halves: the first five songs feature a harder, hip hop influenced sound, full of drama and flash but with a hint of Britney here and there, while the remainder takes a lighter, more girlish tone, with "Bahama" coming off like a kind of k-pop "Kokomo" (which is good, not bad like you think) while "Live My Life" goes full pop punk but with a characteristic, slightly restrained quality that makes it all the more charming. A strong debut and an entertainingly distinct calling card that'll make it easier for me to distinguish them from their peers from now on.

#18. Beabadoobee - This Is How Tomorrow Moves

Indie rock; Singer-songwriter

Bea’s third full album was recorded in LA with Rick Rubin and often seemed as in thrall to America as that would suggest, with the guitars rocked up for a 90s alt vibe and her accent set to a mid Atlantic twang. "Take A Bite" and "Beaches" were both terrific anthems that confirmed her status as burgeoning indie icon but it was her more delicate material that came off best, as "Girl Song" and "This Is How It Went" showcased her huge talent as a singer-songwriter of the old school mode.

#17. Doja Cat - Scarlet 2 CLAUDE

Rap; RnB

Last year’s Scarlet was a terrific album but one where its massive hits failed to carry it to general success. Continuing the era is a brave move but one suspects that this might be a final hurrah for Doja in the rap game before going back to paying the bills. The tone is similar on Scarlet 2 but perhaps a little more lowkey, with songs like "MASC" exuding a melancholy rarely seen on the more bravado infused OG record. But there’s still a lot of fun to be had here too, like on the poppier "OKLOSER" where Doja uses that cute, mocking voice that she does so well and takes it all to some hilariously petty places

#16. Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department

Pop/rock

“How much sad did you think I had in me?” Taylor sings after about 20 minutes here and ngl, there’s quite a lot. Her 11th album has been divisive and understandably so: there’s a sense in which the Antonoff and Dessner partnerships feel a bit played out and its often lugubrious and downbeat tone can get a bit exhausting at times, especially when you tie in the 15 (count 'em!) bonus tracks (which I have mostly tended to avoid). But once you warm to its themes a little, Taylor is still a terrific songwriter and "I Can Do It With A Broken Heart", "But Daddy I Love Him" and the sparkling title track are among her best in what’s largely a strong set, at least til the occasionally lacklustre final third. At heart, TTPD knits together an engrossing narrative which plays on the loneliness of breaking up when yr the most famous woman in the world. Whether you have much sympathy for that is yr own call but for myself, I still think it’s pretty fascinating

#15. Remi Wolf - Big Ideas

Funk pop, rock

I came to Remi Wolf’s second album for the funk bangers but stayed for the hooky indie rock tunes too, at least after I’d gotten over how much i wanted there to be more funk bangers. The most immediate material here is definitely in her sunshine RnB pop style, with "Cinderella", "Pitiful" and "Frog Rock" being some of the catchiest songs I’ve heard all year. But, given time, the rockier "Alone In Miami" became a huge favourite too, with Remi’s diaristic lyricism adding a dimension beyond the hooks and riffing. Big Ideas is comfortable reaching across the stylistic spectrum, being the first record i've heard for a long time that takes in both Prince and Daniel Johnston as notable influences. In summary: there are two Wolfs within this album and both of them are good!

#14. Jessica Pratt - Here In the Pitch

Singer-songwriter; Folk pop; Retro

Her third album Quiet Signs felt a bit hazy and nebulous at times but Here In The Pitch returned to the strong melodies of Jess’s earlier material, a mid century pop record that frequently feels like a warm summer night somewhere in Latin America circa 1962. Tho it’s sometimes as minimal as its small hours vibe might suggest, Here In The Pitch contains plenty of pop energy, full of Spectorish rumble and swaying bossanovas as well as being as packed with hooks as any of this year’s big sellers. While the atmosphere does sometimes tend twds eeriness, Pratt's distinctive babyvoiced coo always feels welcoming on an album where she sounds like she's really enjoying herself.

#13. Tyler the Creator - Chromakopia

Rap; Hip Hop

I’ve never managed to connect much with Tyler before but Chromakopia really blew me away. I'm a sucker for the kind of upbeat funk and soft soul beats that he tends to use here, but his extremely in yr face, percussion heavy approach is also a big draw and the way this album comes at you right out of the gate is hugely impressive. Lyrically, there’s some of the usual bragging that I’d expect but Tyler also gets into the kind of awkward personal and moral quandaries that make up life's grey areas too. Songs like "Hey Jane" and "Take Your Mask Off" have a real depth of character to them, exploring issues like unwanted pregnancy and personal disillusionment in a thoughtful way that doesn't look for neat answers.

#12. Lizzy McAlpine - Older

Singer songwriter; Folk-rock; Retro

Lizzy’s third album, while coherent enough in its focus, finds her stylistically split between a Laura Marling type singer songwriter vein and something more obviously retro focused. In all truth Older is rarely a cheerful record - a young woman’s odyssey thru a time of change type of thing - but it is beautifully rendered, either in rich Fleetwood Mac-esque arrangements or spare, delicate solo accompaniments which reinforce the desperation at its heart. I’ve struggled a little with some of the final third, where the backing tends to drop to a bare minimum and that’s probably kept this out of the top 10 here. But the strength of the melodies and the real character and power of her delivery are getting me now to a point where I’m more consistently enjoying all of it: it’s just the kind of record where some parts of it take a little longer to come into full focus than others. This sort of folky, soul bearing singer songwriter is not always the kind of thing that i can get along with but, far more than most albums of its kind, Older is an absolute gem.

#11. Halsey - The Great Impersonator 

Pop/rock

The Great Impersonator was largely inspired by Halsey’s struggles with life threatening illness and much has been made of her “main character syndrome” by some, regarding the way she places her fears and trials at the centre of the record. In truth it can feel quite jarring at times - and occasionally exhausting - but what it actually made me think of is the way that I, as someone with long term disabling illness, often don’t bring things up, in fact make myself small and don’t talk about the basics of my life, for fear of not being heard or accommodated. So when Halsey talks about her issues here, then it really does feel genuinely moving to hear someone making that space for herself and refusing to be silent.

None of this would matter much if The Great Impersonator sucked but - lucky for us - it’s absolutely fantastic. The multi-decade concept feels a bit hard to parse but generally you can just ignore it and focus on the songs, a clash of genres to rival her masterpiece Manic but with an even greater depth of emotional turmoil to draw upon. Aside from illness, there are the usual self hating bangers like "Ego", and a mix of the two is often welcome too: “Dog Years” especially bristles with fury as Ashley growls “they say all dogs go to Heaven / well, what about a bitch?” and indeed the record is well stocked with good one liners throughout. It's fair to say that the consistently downbeat focus can make for a grim listen and also that the returning "Letter To God" songs can come off as a bit repetitive and boring. But there’s sweetness here too as well as harsh reality - especially on the glorious, featherlight title track - and I suspect a bit more time with this would have shunted it into the top 10.

And that Top 10 is coming soon! i have actually written the posts! Maybe starting tomorrow! Bye for now!

[onslaughtsixdotcom]

Heartbreaker vs. Craphack

The difference between a heartbreaker and a craphack is, you think a heartbreaker will be finished.

I started using the word "craphack" a few months ago to talk about my in-progress fantasy d20 elfgame. (This is a separate project from CRAWL, which has entered a process of hibernation. Its no longer in active development.)

I had a lot of names for this thing. It really started when the OGL shit hit the fan and I was already seeing how affordable low-run booklet prints were. The idea of creating a booklet with a bunch of my house rules and favourite tables, and getting it printed, became a kind of cool idea. Simultaneously, WotC quickly jettisoned a bunch of the coolest ideas for 5e 2024. Initially I was like: well, let's compile those ideas and I'll make a home game out of what I liked.

I called this document 5e Killer. This stems from a phrase I said in early 2023: If you are a major TTRPG publisher and you aren't already working on your 5e Killer for release in Fall 2024, you're fucking up.

I am not a major TTRPG publisher. But why not do my own? At least for my home game.

Somewhere I got pissed at the limitations of "sticking to 5e." I also realized I was just tinkering with it. I did finish a version of this doc. We are playing my 5e game with it now. (I do not like the changes 2024 5e, or any other base ruleset, has implemented. I like this setup enough.)

But, this wasn't "done." Many core problems I had with 5e were still sort of there. Unsure of how to solve them, I backburnered it and began looking at other systems. Perhaps I would find someone else's heartbreaker and be able to modify that, or find a perfect beginning point I could launch out of.

I spent most of 2024 experimenting with other ideas and doing other projects, including converting my Dungeon23 megadungeon to OSE, writing it up, and running the Kickstarter. I spent a month and a half making an OSE house rules document and compilation in anticipation of printing that out, both for home use and convention play. While doing this I actually started to solidify some more ideas about what I liked and what I wanted out of...all of this.

While doing this, little bits and pieces have always come into focus. I now have a canonical equipment list for basically all fantasy games going forward. I have a d100 magic item list and I'm slowly working on d100 spells (although Skerples may yet beat me to the punch). And, I found Outcast Silver Raiders, a game I initially called my "forever game," about three weeks after I made my first document compiling info for the latest version of my craphack.

The craphack doesn't exist except in my head. There are like 8 versions of half formed thoughts, in Discord self-messages and Affinity Publisher projects and Google Docs. They are, if anything, a dialogue with myself, wherein I repeatedly ask: What do I want out of the game?

I like the idea of hit die as damage die; weapons shouldnt have variable damage.

I like the idea of saving throws existing separately from skill checks, existing separately from attack rolls.

I like having lots and lots of classes and ancestries. About 10 each is a sweet spot for me.

I like games where you always roll high to succeed. I am not a fan of roll under.

Likewise, I like the DM being able to set a difficulty class/target number for the player to hit, even on skill checks. Some doors are harder to open than others, some locks are harder to pick than others. (The Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic exists and is brilliant, but I prefer to use it for situational bonuses: this is an objectively DC15 check but if you do a thing you can have advantage to maybe do it easier.)

I like monsters having simpler statblocks than players do, with their primary stats being hit die and number, AC, and what they can do on their combat turn. I can make them do anything I want outside of that. I'm the DM.

Somewhere I have a table of every monster "type" and their average 5e stats and I want to expand on that to create basically a monster Rosetta stone for this game, combined with established and working power sets, so that I could easily create monsters on the fly during sessions without having to prep them.

I don't mind even the most mundane classes (like fighter and thief) having a few "special abilities," like 5e Action Surge or whatever. But IMO 5e gives you far too many of these, and worse, has too many options. (For my "forever game," I don't think I want subclasses.)

I like OSR vibes for mechanics, but people played heroic games with these same systems for 15 years, and anyone who says otherwise is fucking kidding themselves.

I like and use miniatures but also sometimes use theater of the mind for some encounters, especially against solo non-boss monsters. The system should easily support both.

I like individual initiative. I think there's still some improvement on my "everyone rolls a d6, if the monster beats any players they roll first, btw lower is better" system. I also wish I could use the Initiative Clock but I think it's a little too fiddly.

We don't need bonus actions or minor actions or anything like that. Too much design. You can move and do one other thing.

I like having a defined list of spells and at least semi-Vancian magic with spell slots. I am open to not having spell slots, but spellcasters should still pick from a list of pre-defined spells. No Knave, Cairn, bastards.-style "combine these random words to make a vague spell and work with the DM to figure out what it does" nonsense.

It's REALLY easy to see where all of these ideas sort of overlap and become relevant to how I imagine playing the game and the flow state that I desire. It's rules that don't get in the way and give all players an equal amount of cool shit they can do on their turn besides attacking. It's also easy to see how many games are outright thrown out by what I am imagining: no Cairn, Knave, OSE, Shadowdark, 5e, Five Torches Deep, etc. etc. (The only one that actually does hit the mark is, appropriately, Outcast Silver Raiders.)

So, where does this all coalesce? As I move around pieces and think about this, it might never coalesce. When I was on Take Flight, Cat and I talked about the idea that you might never finish The System, and That's Okay. It can be the old car that your dad tinkers with in the garage every other weekend and says, one day I'll get it all fixed up, I swear. It's his hobby, the same way game design can be your hobby--even if you are also a professional game designer with other projects that definitely are moving forward, being published, that you're doing the work on.

But my craphack exists and I swear one day I'm definitely gonna finish it, for sure.

[eachuisge-cc]

How to make regular TS4 clothing compatible with DigiLegs: PART 1

This tutorial assumes you're converting for my digitigrade mesh used in my DigiLegs and werewolf override, but it should also apply to any other funky-shaped legs you might want to do this with. Useful either if you want your digitigrade sim to be able to wear a piece of vanilla maxis clothing, or for converting cc (please get permission from the creator where applicable before doing so, especially if they make their own meshes).

I'll do my best to make this tutorial accessible to relative beginners, but I'm assuming that you already have some basic blender knowledge. If you don't, there are a lot of good tutorials that explain its clusterfuck of an interface better than I could, so I recommend finding a few of those and familiarizing yourself with the software before you continue.

You'll need Sims 4 Studio, blender, and potentially an image editor like Gimp or Clip Studio Paint (anything that can handle transparency) depending on the clothing.

This first part will cover shorts and anything else that ends above the knee (along with some extra s4s stuff like category settings and CAS thumbnails that I do to make them look better and behave properly in-game); next section will cover long loose pants which is a somewhat different process, as well as cuffed pants, skintight leggings, and other things that might require some heavier editing and altering of the shadow map, UV, and textures.

Getting Started

Base meshes are available for download here. Please don't reupload them unaltered, and don't alter the edited part of the leg mesh (knees down, basically) or it may mess up their ability to match up seamlessly with other digitigrade parts. The most effective way to use them is to append them to the project you're working on and frankenstein them onto your mesh as needed rather than modifying the blend files themselves, especially if you're making WW parts since these don't include Turbodriver's rig.

Mesh Editing For Shorts

Shorts, miniskirts, and anything else that ends above the knee are great because you don't need to do much, if any, actual sculpting, and once you know how it's relatively quick to do.

To start, export the mesh for the shorts you want to convert the same way you did the legs, all LODs. If you're converting cc, it's possible the original creator won't have made proper LODs (some don't because it's incredibly tedious, but it's good practice and improves visuals and performance in-game), and if that's the case you might want to make some LODs, but I won't tell you how to live your life.

For this, I'll be using these base game vanilla shorts, since I need to convert them anyway. Because when I think of satyrs, obviously I think of khaki shorts.

Yeah.

Append the digitigrade mesh via File>Append. navigate to where you put the legs, pick the mesh you want (make sure the one you're importing is the same LOD and frame as the mesh you're altering), select the object folder, and import s4studio_mesh_1.

You'll end up with a situation that looks something like this. Do not be alarmed.

I don't know why it imports these things along with the mesh (there's a non-zero chance someone will yell at me for doing it wrong and it's not supposed to be like that) but in my experience you don't need any of it, so deselect the mesh and delete everything else that imported.

At this point, to make things easier on yourself, you'll want to hit numpad 3 for orthographic side view, set viewport shading to solid, and hit alt+Z to toggle x-ray view.

Take note of how many objects make up your mesh. For most maxis shorts (and probably a lot of cc ones) there are three that divide up the legs, and it's important that you maintain that number and don't remove/replace any of them, otherwise the mesh will be broken once you import it to S4S. It's finicky like that.

Select the digitigrade legs and go into edit mode, then select everything up to here:

Separate this bit into a new object (P>Selection), then go back to object mode. Select the separated lower leg bit you just made, then SHIFT+select the lowest piece of the vanilla leg (select them IN THAT ORDER, very important), and hit ctrl+J to join them into one object. Go to edit mode for the newly joined leg bits, and delete the vanilla part, leaving only the lower piece of the digitigrade leg. If you've done everything right up to now, your mesh list will still look like this.

or whatever it looked like when you started, plus the one appended mesh.

Now go back to the main digitigrade mesh and select up to here:

separate it and repeat the process you just did, replacing the next leg segment up.

Now go into the topmost part of the vanilla shorts, and select only the leg part and delete it (it's almost always detached from the shorts in vanilla clothes and very easy to select, but with cc this might be a mixed bag and could take more time/effort to do). At this point you should have only the digitigrade leg and the shorts themselves.

You now want to go back to the uppermost section of the digitigrade mesh and delete most of the top part of it, trimming it down so that the leg ends just inside the shorts.

For a lot of shorts and skirts, especially shorter ones, this is all you'll have to do, but in this case I'm going to move those very top/front vertices back a tiny bit, just to make sure there won't be any clipping during animations. I also like to switch viewport shading back to material preview mode at this point to make it easier to see if there are any bits poking through that shouldn't be.

At this point you join the upper legs and shorts like you did with the other two segments (again selecting the digitigrade mesh first and the vanilla shorts second) and by the end your objects list should be back to this:

Now you're done, you can save and import to S4S. the digitigrade legs are already weight painted and have their UVs set up and everything so you don't need to do anything more to them, they'll just work, and as long as you don't edit the mesh or uvs they should blend seamlessly with all the hooves/paws just like the naked leg.

Now do the same thing for the other three LODs. Maybe while singing a sea shanty to stave off the tedium (personally I like listening to podcasts while I do batches of these, it's kind of like knitting for people who love eye strain take breaks from your computer, kids).

S4S Categories/Thumbnails

The three main things you want to do with any digitigrade conversion are disable it for random, restrict opposite frame, and uncheck all occults. That should prevent any broken leg situations. Don't forget to apply to all swatches any time you make a change (I say this because I forget about 30% of the time and end up having to go back and fix it).

At this point, you don't have to do anything more. The clothes will function as they should in-game. If you want nicer looking thumbnails though, and you have the digitigrade werewolves override, there's one more thing I like to do.

Make sure all the thumbnails are blank and check only the werewolf occult in the categories tab, then save and load up the game. Find the clothing you just made in CAS (it will probably show up by default on werewolves of whichever gender you made it for) and cycle through all the swatches to generate new thumbnails that look like this:

instead of this:

Once all the thumbnails are generated, exit the game and export them all (if some of them appear blank, restart S4S and they'll usually show up), uncheck the werewolf occult, clear the thumbnails again, and re-import the werewolf ones. This ensures they won't randomly switch back to the human ones. And it's way faster and easier than making your own custom thumbnails with screenshots and cropping/editing, which is important if you're doing a large amount of these things.

And voilà, you've got your own DigiLeg-compatible clothes. I'll be updating the tutorials as needed for clarity/any information I forgot to include, so please message me if something doesn't make sense or I need to go into more detail on something, and I'll edit it with more/better info. I also entirely learned this through trial and error, so if there's a better way to do any of it that you happen to know, tell me that too, this is just the best way I've worked out to do it.

[ninjapaste]

dude your art is so GOOD!!! Do you take any classes or have any tips to share? that resource post you reblogged the other day was helpful but i've felt so stuck in my art. I don't know if you have anything u learned that just made something click for u or anything like that?

Tysm anon!!!👍

In terms of your questions, I apologise i advance for the long answer im about to give and possibly things you already know haha:

I guess in terms of what classes i take, Ive gone from GCSE to A level Art and design (Fine art), and both courses have helped me to learn the importance of observation studies.

However, its moreso all the art i practice in my own time that has played the biggest part in my art improvement journey. I adopted art as a big hobby around 2018, and really ever since then I tend to draw/create for myself every day, however big or small it may be.

I guess my first tip would be to indulge in a 'sketchbook' or space to work in freely, it could be any form but the importance is that its personal and can be picked up whenever. I find that having a sketchbook to draw in has really helped with productivity and creating new ideas. I think you can go into a sketchbook space with any mindset and it can work wonders, like for example if you wanted to focus purely on challenging yourself, you can do that! If you just, want to doodle without thinking, go ahead! After all, its a sketchbook for you and nobody else, so go wild!

My next tip would definitely be, when you are feeling stuck in art, to take inspiration from a wide range of different things be it in real life or on the internet, a building or a really cool tree, since I find it defintiely fuels the creation of new ideas/concepts that can provide a path out of that creative rut. I guess to an extent there may always be periods where you have that 'I have no idea what to draw!' Feeling, and thats okay! Sometimes its refreshing that helps the most. But I often see that the solution to being in a rut is usually REFERENCING, wether it be trying to accurately draw the anatomy of an arm or if I just saw a cool design/pose/style on Pinterest and i drew a bunch of wacky characters from it. In fact, I find that places like Pinterest or Resplash are such good resources to hone imagination and generally most art skills by looking at and drawinf from all the cool images (and get some of that inspo!). And if im not using Pinterest, im usually using an art book as reference! (The itsv and splatoon art book helped me so so much lol)

On the topic of REFERENCING, its mega important! Depending on imagination/memory feels pretty good at times but its always beneficial to have image references in your process when you find its good to have them. I woudl always recommend having a reference when drawing poses/expressions/anatomy because the more you use them, the more you learn about how an object like a face muscle, a torso or even light behaves and looks and the easier it is to draw/depict them.

The next tip is uh YOUTUBE, or any account/person who's art inspires you in particular. I found that certain channels like Ethan Becker, Marc Brunet, Marco Bucci and more have helped me the most to gain confidence in drawing and learning how to practice it better. Of course, theres a lot to learn from a plethora of other channels too, even ones that dont specifically promote themselves as teachers! Also, if theres a certain style/art approach or an artist that appeals to you, study it in any way you like! Analyse an artist's work or ask/find out about their personal process (or even watch a speedpaint/art stream)! Sometimes it can be a big inspiration booster and skill boost to do just that (plus the 'artist' could be any piece of media/thing too!! Like a game or something).

Ok ok last paragraph haha, on the topic of your last question. Thinking back, its hard for me to define any specific moment or thing that gave me a 'click' moment. Its more like a process of growth that starts with learning and understanding a new thing, then familiarizing myself with using it successfully/'correctly' by studying and practicing, so that eventually its like muscle memory or easier to use in my work.

Hope this helps!!! If theres anything else you want to ask, dont be afraid to dm or send another ask!!