#but the production quality is so low. they don't even have light

[seafearing]

watching the second season of the dragon show now

and their love for the grey filter is going strong. i keep thinking i need to adjust the brightness but it's maxed out

[justpoliteconversations]

Apple Merchant [BOTW!Link x Isekai!Reader] (Part 1)

In which Isekai!Reader becomes a merchant, and unintentionally Link's benefactor.

Even more self-indulgent trash. The usual.

PART: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6

Alternate Extras: Embrace

Masterlist

TW: Nothing worth mentioning.

Disclaimer: Don't own The Legend of Zelda franchise.

---

Being transported into a video game was not as dramatic as the media had led you to believe. For one, there was no bright, all encompassing light nor the feeling of a thousand worlds ripping themselves asunder. Instead, you had taken one step out of your door and crossed the threshold into an endless field of tall grass.

Panic should have taken hold by that point, but it didn't. You'd later learn it was just postponed by the shock of it all. At the time though, you'd simply taken stock of the situation, scanned the horizon for civilization and started in on the first plumes of smoke you found in the distance.

You'd been lucky. So incredibly lucky it had been a village that you'd landed near and not something more sinister. That you had decided against going near the waterfall or towards the forested area where a clear path was etched into the hillside.

You hadn't known that yet though. Instead, you'd taken the most direct route and hiked up the steep grassy slope heading towards the plumes.

Near the top you'd taken a short break beside an apple tree, admiring the perfect shape of the fruit hidden throughout it's low hanging branches. How large they were, and how brightly colored.

You'd taken one, struggling to pull it from it's stem. You were surprised by just how heavy it was when it finally did give way; more akin to holding a watermelon than an apple and as large as a grapefruit.

It was strange, but you figured it was just a variety of apple you were not familiar with, or perhaps you were heading towards a farm that was working on a new type of apple for the market.

You decided to save this one for later, in case the place you were heading didn't have resturants or take card payments. The surrounding land looked pretty rural, so you wouldn't be all that surprised if they didn't.

As soon as you'd thought it though, the apple disappeared. No light or sound or anything to indicate the unnatural occurrence, just popped out of existence.

It should have startled you, and it did, but you didn't panic. Not yet. That would come later. Right then, it was almost like you were dreaming.

In the top left corner of your vision a flicker of red came into existence. A simple line of words ended in an explanation point that pinged at your subconscious.

[New Item!]

And you'd thought, 'What a strange dream.'

---

Four years later, and you knew this was most certainly not a dream. The panic had passed, the initial pain of loss and separation had eased. The confusion of a new language and culture had settled into smooth integration.

The easy acceptance of the Hateno people helped a great deal with that.

Honestly, it helped that the population was as small as it was. While some cultures would shun outsiders upon contact, the scarcity of new blood had made your arrival quite the welcome event. Even if you were a human.

Perhaps even because you were a human. It was hard to tell sometimes. Your round ears were equal parts admired and awkwardly avoided in polite conversation.

You tried not to think about it too much.

The bottom line was that you had been transmigrated into Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Your head now contained the equivalent of the Sheikah slate and the differences in product quality here and your world was, to put it frankly, wacked. The metabolism and durability of the region's residents was even more so.

The apple you had picked up the first day had lasted you two days. Each bite was equivalent to eating two apples. Eating a whole apple was enough to make you sick. You'd watched a hyrulian child munch down three of them with no issues, and then ask for dinner.

Your conclusion; Magic. Hyrule was very similar to your own world, but the addition of magic had fundamentally altered the biological makeup of it's inhabitants.

It wasn't a difficult conclusion to come to. Hell, one of the farmers had even given you a brief rundown on the magic quality in the soil once, explaining the emergence of Hearty foodstuffs. It was an eye opener for sure, though a welcome one.

However, things got complicated in your case. The addition of gamer like attributes seemed to alter the world around you to an alarming degree. Nothing too noticeable thankfully, but still noteworthy.

Things you picked or put in your inventory had a way of coming back within a few days. This, you'd learned, was not the norm. A harvested field stayed harvested until it was replanted. A picked apple stayed gone until a new one grew from another bud.

Things did not just reappear after enough time away from them. Hyrule did not have that type of magic, though it would seem you did. Which, honestly, was fine by you. It helped you make a living at the beginning.

Food, you found, was a precious commodity. The game made it seem easily accessible, but in reality it was a hit or miss depending on the season. Late spring through early fall was bountiful, but the rest of the year was downright miserable.

People here lived on what could be grown locally. When things stopped growing, people started struggling.

Not to say most residents starved, but the cost of a bale of wheat went up drastically in the winter. Nevermind the cost of fresh fruit, meat or anything not pickled or preserved.

The game never showed this side to Hyrule. The part where these magical people with their high metabolisms suffered during the lean winter months. How they worked and saved all year just to break even through the cold season.

Winter might have been the time of hardship, but it was your golden goose. It was how you made a living, how you came out ahead.

Anything stored within your mindslate stayed perfectly preserved, untouched by time nor the effects of decomposition. And added to your unusual effect on the world, it allowed you to amass a literal shit ton of resources.

At first you'd make daily trips around the village gathering enough materials to ensure a place at the inn every night. Anything would do. Wheat, crickets, apples, the occasional fish, even fairies.

(Strange that one, how your mindslate just stored living beings like that. They were the one thing you didn't mess with. Just let them sit in there, as far from your mind as possible.)

You cut grass with your rusty sword, hacked down small trees with your equally cheap and rusted ax, roamed the nearby woods for mushrooms, beetles or lizards. Occasionally, you'd even find a more unusual item. Like a sword or shield just laying in the grass.

You'd try not to think of how it got there.

You gathered resources for a living, and the shop owners came to know you as the Apple Merchant. It was sweet actually, and it seemed to endear you to some of the residents.

Perhaps they appreciated that you were trying to make a life for yourself among them, not just begging for handouts. Or maybe it was pity for the foreign human who didn't know hyrulian common well. Hard to tell.

When winter came that first year, is when you realized the full breath of your situational advantage.

One year. That's all it took. One year to become one of the wealthiest people in the village.

And they didn't even realize it.

A bundle of carrots purchased cheaply during the height of harvest season sold for five times that amount in the winter. A bundle of wheat, nearly seven. And meat was something else entirely. Rare enough during the warm season, it became worth its weight in gold the moment winter set in and creatures ventured to warmer regions.

Winter was a literal Godsent.

And the next winter was even more profitable. Now armed with the foresight of experience, you planned your life around it. Bought overflow harvest in bulk, bought out traveling merchant's wares without a second glance.

You prepared, and you thrived. Your bare threat clothes became wool, your worn shoes became comfortable soft leather. You bought a horse, then three, a wagon. Hired guard detail.

Became a merchant. The Apple Merchant; written in clear hyrulian script across your wagon.

By the third year, you were in Lurelin, Kakariko, and every stable and small settlement in the southern reaches of Hyrule. Damn near made it to Gerudo too, before the logistics of such a trip set you back.

You made it though, on your forth year. Reaped the benefits of being a well stocked merchant in an inhospitable place like Gerudo desert. Never made it to Gerudo town though, but the outlier villages more than made up for that.

Life was good. It was profitable. You could even say you were happy.

Then it happened in the early spring of the fifth year. The Shiekah towers rose.

It was nothing that should have concerned you. Link had finally awoken from his 100 year slumber as he was meant to, and his story would continue on without you. Your paths would probably never cross. You were just one of the thousand's of merchants making a living all across Hyrule.

You were nobody in the grand scheme of things. You were someone completely removed from the big picture.

Until you weren't.

And it started with a missing apple.

---

Now I return to the shadows to rest.

[empty-movement]

May I ask what scanners / equipment / software you're using in the utena art book project? I'm an artist and half the reason I rarely do traditional art is because I'm never happy with the artwork after it's scanned in. But the level of detail even in the blacks of Utena's uniform were all captured so beautifully! And even the very light colors are showing up so well! I'd love to know how you manage!

You know what's really fun? This used to be something you put in your site information section, the software and tools used! Not something that's as normal anymore, but let's give it a go, sorry it's long because I don't know what's new information and what's not! Herein: VANNA'S 'THIS IS AS SPECIFIC AS MY BREAK IS LONG' GUIDE/AIMLESS UNEDITED RAMBLE ABOUT SCANNING IMAGES

Scanning: Modern scanners, by and large, are shit for this. The audience for scanning has narrowed to business and work from home applications that favor text OCR, speed, and efficiency over archiving and scanning of photos and other such visual media. It makes sense--there was a time when scanning your family photographs and such was a popular expected use of a scanner, but these days, the presumption is anything like that is already digital--what would you need the scanner to do that for? The scanner I used for this project is the same one I have been using for *checks notes* a decade now. I use an Epson Perfection V500. Because it is explicitly intended to be a photo scanner, it does threebthings that at this point, you will pay a niche user premium for in a scanner: extremely high DPI (dots per inch), extremely wide color range, and true lossless raws (BMP/TIFF.) I scan low quality print media at 600dpi, high quality print media at 1200 dpi, and this artbook I scanned at 2400 dpi. This is obscene and results in files that are entire GB in size, but for my purposes and my approach, the largest, clearest, rawest copy of whatever I'm scanning is my goal. I don't rely on the scanner to do any post-processing. (At these sizes, the post-processing capacity of the scanner is rendered moot, anyway.) I will replace this scanner when it breaks by buying another identical one if I can find it. I have dropped, disassembled to clean, and abused this thing for a decade and I can't believe it still tolerates my shit. The trade off? Only a couple of my computers will run the ancient capture software right. LMAO. I spent a good week investigating scanners because of the insane Newtype project on my backburner, and the quality available to me now in a scanner is so depleted without spending over a thousand on one, that I'd probably just spin up a computer with Windows 7 on it just to use this one. That's how much of a difference the decade has made in what scanners do and why. (Enshittification attacks! Yes, there are multiple consumer computer products that have actually declined in quality over the last decade.)

Post-processing: Photoshop. Sorry. I have been using Photoshop for literally decades now, it's the demon I know. While CSP is absolutely probably the better piece of software for most uses (art,) Photoshop is...well it's in the name. In all likelihood though, CSP can do all these things, and is a better product to give money to. I just don't know how. NOTENOTENOTE: Anywhere I discuss descreening and print moire I am specifically talking about how to clean up *printed media.* If you are scanning your own painting, this will not be a problem, but everything else about this advice will stand! The first thing you do with a 2400 dpi scan of Utena and Anthy hugging? Well, you open it in Photoshop, which you may or may not have paid for. Then you use a third party developer's plug-in to Descreen the image. I use Sattva. Now this may or may not be what you want in archiving!!! If fidelity to the original scan is the point, you may pass on this part--you are trying to preserve the print screen, moire, half-tones, and other ways print media tricks the eye. If you're me, this tool helps translate the raw scan of the printed dots on the page into the smooth color image you see in person. From there, the vast majority of your efforts will boil down to the following Photoshop tools: Levels/Curves, Color Balance, and Selective Color. Dust and Scratches, Median, Blur, and Remove Noise will also be close friends of the printed page to digital format archiver. Once you're happy with the broad strokes, you can start cropping and sizing it down to something reasonable. If you are dealing with lots of images with the same needs, like when I've scanned doujinshi pages, you can often streamline a lot of this using Photoshop Actions.

My blacks and whites are coming out so vivid this time because I do all color post-processing in Photoshop after the fact, after a descreen tool has been used to translate the dot matrix colors to solids they're intended to portray--in my experience trying to color correct for dark and light colors is a hot mess until that process is done, because Photoshop sees the full range of the dots on the image and the colors they comprise, instead of actually blending them into their intended shades. I don't correct the levels until I've descreened to some extent.

As you can see, the print pattern contains the information of the original painting, but if you try to correct the blacks and whites, you'll get a janky mess. *Then* you change the Levels:

If you've ever edited audio, then dealing with photo Levels and Curves will be familiar to you! A well cut and cleaned piece of audio will not cut off the highs and lows, but also will make sure it uses the full range available to it. Modern scanners are trying to do this all for you, so they blow out the colors and increase the brightness and contrast significantly, because solid blacks and solid whites are often the entire thing you're aiming for--document scanning, basically. This is like when audio is made so loud details at the high and low get cut off. Boo.

What I get instead is as much detail as possible, but also at a volume that needs correcting:

Cutting off the unused color ranges (in this case it's all dark), you get the best chance of capturing the original black and white range:

In some cases, I edit beyond this--for doujinshi scans, I aim for solid blacks and whites, because I need the file sizes to be normal and can't spend gigs of space on dust. For accuracy though, this is where I'd generally stop.

For scanning artwork, the major factor here that may be fucking up your game? Yep. The scanner. Modern scanners are like cheap microphones that blow out the audio, when what you want is the ancient microphone that captures your cat farting in the next room over. While you can compensate A LOT in Photoshop and bring out blacks and whites that scanners fuck up, at the end of the day, what's probably stopping you up is that you want to use your scanner for something scanners are no longer designed to do well. If you aren't crazy like me and likely to get a vintage scanner for this purpose, keep in mind that what you are looking for is specifically *a photo scanner.* These are the ones designed to capture the most range, and at the highest DPI. It will be a flatbed. Don't waste your time with anything else.

Hot tip: if you aren't scanning often, look into your local library or photo processing store. They will have access to modern scanners that specialize in the same priorities I've listed here, and many will scan to your specifications (high dpi, lossless.)

Ahem. I hope that helps, and or was interesting to someone!!!

[artcherontia]

People who like super seriously neg post about genloss are so funny to me. Like this is the project of like a 19 year old streamer with no previous acting experience full of other people with no acting experience, that is literaly like 90% live improv, and ppl on here will watch it and then be like "wow the lighting is like so amateur and some of the props are not realistic and their acting is bad" like sorry did you expect a movie?? Your suspension of disbelief is so low, do you watch an ameteur production theater play and think "everyone in this theater needs to watch better plays" when they clap?

Of course we can see that there are some bad acting moments, that there are some moments that miss, that it may be too brightly lit or could use some more creative lighting in some places, and that the vibe isn't quite it in some parts, but you can say that and be so normal about it, like uhh, me right now. But it's still a HUGE achievement, and shows you can push the quality of content on twitch, I think you forget. Yeah. This is a fucking twitch show. It's not one of the mainstream movies or shows or books you recommend, and it's stupid to compare some like 19-20 year old streamers passion project on fucking twitch to literal horror classics.

"dsmp fan syndrome" have you concidered we just like fun. If you didn't like generation loss you shouldn't have watched it. "sorry you were lied to" no. Ranboo, Charlie and everyone who hyped the show up were right. This show may not be the best work, and one day it might not even be ranboos best work, because its just the brginning of something awesome, live high quality productions on twitch are going to get insane, Jerma has already set the bar very high with dollhouse, and I think Ranboo is doing a great job.

[sailtomarina]

I don't like it

Hermione could feel the burn of his stare in her back from the moment she’d sat down. How that could be true despite several rows of students between them as they all practiced their tortoise to trumpet transfiguration, she wasn’t sure, but the ever-pressing stare was there in between her shoulder blades like a hot knife sliding into the slotted space.

She refused to turn around and meet the steely-eyed gaze with her own. She focused entirely on her tortoise as it happily munched on a strawberry. She beamed with pride as Headmistress McGonagall praised her silver trumpet in front of the rest of the class. She even managed a few toots on the mouthpiece for good measure.

“Please bring your work to the front of the class. Three rolls of parchment discussing the theory and application of this spell are due next week, including special emphasis on your own work today as an example. Make sure to evaluate every angle of the process that resulted in your final product.”

As Hermione dropped off her instrument and turned to gather her belongings, she finally crossed paths with Malfoy as he walked up with his own silver trumpet in hand. Of the entire class, theirs were the only ones matching in color and quality, the rest being variations of gold, bronze, and tortoise-shell. 

She couldn’t help the slight rise in her brows, and his lip twisted up in acknowledgement.

“Meet me after class,” he muttered in a voice just low enough for only her to hear as they brushed by one another.

The fluttering in her stomach turned into outright flips as she struggled to keep her composure.

This was new.

She lingered as she stacked her books and carefully slipped her quill and ink jar into her stationary pouch. Each move was painstakingly slow as she waited for the classroom to empty.

“Good show today, Ms Granger,” Headmistress McGonagall said fondly as she, too, walked out, a trail of trumpets floating in her wake.

By the time Hermione flipped her bag strap onto her shoulder and turned to follow, only her and Malfoy remained. He looked to have been ready for a while, sitting as he was on top of his desk and flipping his wand in lazy twirls.

The eyes of the two golden cat statues flanking the doorway seemed to watch as she approached him one step at a time, silent as she’d learned to be when on the run. Despite her efforts, her breathing sounded heavy in her own ears. Desperate.

She didn’t stop until her hands brushed his hip. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath—pine, woodsmoke, a hint of fog.

She let it all out as a touch, almost too light to be felt, traced her jawline to her lips.

Her eyes opened to find him directly facing her and coming in closer.

She could step away. She could stop him with a hand to his firm chest. 

She could…let him.

His lips brushed softly against hers, as tentative as his fingertips had just been, but then pressed more insistently when she fisted his sweater. Their heads tilted and mouths slanted against one another, finding purchase and drinking each other in with gasps and a sliding of tongues.

The flipping in her stomach had stilled, and now Hermione simply felt warm, as if she’d been floating aimless and finally touched down onto the earth, only Malfoy was her landing pad. He grounded her in a way she’d never expected, but now craved with a voracity that left her twisting in her sheets at night.

He broke their kiss with a hand clenching the curls at the base of her neck, twisting just so until she panted up at him, her dark eyes wide in anticipation.

“I don’t like it, Granger,” he muttered, eyes roaming her face, an indecipherable expression contorting his features.

The fluttering was back, nervousness clawing her insides. “You don’t like what?”

“Waiting.”

This time it was her turn to blanche as she tried to pull away. His fist tightened, and she grunted at the force keeping her in place.

“What do you want to change, then?” she forced out behind gritted teeth.

Please, please don’t say you want to end whatever the hell this is.

Silence filled the space between them as his brow furrowed and his pretty pink lips parted. 

She readied herself with bated breath for his ultimatum. This little thing of theirs had started suddenly without any premeditation on her part. One moment, they’d been yelling at each other in a deserted corridor, and the next they’d been entwined, snogging and rutting like animals in heat. He’d brought her to orgasm pinned against the stone wall, then left her alone to smooth down her skirt and catch her breath.

She thought it had been a one off.

Then it happened again, and again.

Before she knew it, they were sneaking off a few times a week. Always in secret. Never in sight of others. In public, they acted like they always had—sniping at one another every chance they could, unless they were ignoring one another.

Hermione slept better at night than she had in the months leading up to their return to Hogwarts. Her nightmares were mostly gone unless something triggered their return. She knew he felt the same, if the disappearance of the circles underneath his eyes was any indication. 

She didn’t want to stop meeting him.

“I want more.” He basically snarled the words into her face, eyes flashing. He maintained his grip on her hair, but the other hand came around to roughly grip her hip and pull her up against him.

“So you want to fuck? Is that it?”

They hadn’t actually gone that far…yet. They always stopped just short, and she’d been fine with that until today.

At her words, his hold loosened and he simply held her in place with his palms open against her. The scowl disappeared, and the lines wrinkling his brow smoothed out.

“That’s not what I mean.”

She could almost throw up with how forcefully her innards twisted in on themselves. Was it terror or hope tossing her into disarray like this?

“Then what do you mean?” she asked.

“When I said ‘I don’t like it’, I was referring to the way you and I sneak around. It was exciting at first, but I’m over keeping how I feel about you a secret. I want to touch you like this wherever and whenever I please.”

Hope, it was definitely hope filling her to the brim, with perhaps a thin layer of fear.

“Does that include your house mates?” He shrugged at her question. “What about your parents?”

The hand at her hip moved up and he cupped her face gently in both hands, bringing his forehead down to press against her own.

“As far as I’m concerned, they no longer have a say in what I do or don’t do. Not after everything. Not ever in regards to you.”

She didn’t resist when he kissed her so sweetly that she felt tears welling up beneath her lids. She allowed herself to be wrapped up into his arms, clutching the soft wool of his sweater and not wanting to ever let go.

She thanked the stars above for whoever it was that had decided to send them all back for a final school year. It had seemed pointless, at first, someone’s optimistic attempt at rewinding time and expecting the pieces to fall into place. It hadn’t at all been peaceful at the start.

She wasn’t sure when it started, but as the structured days passed—filled with classes, coursework, individual and group therapy sessions, and encouraged co-mingling of houses—that optimistic attempt became reality. People exploded, yes, like she had with Malfoy, but they seemed better for it afterward.

If she had refused the mandate, had accepted the Ministry’s offer to begin work and ventured out on her own, then she very likely would still be alone.

Instead, she was here with Draco Malfoy, and she wanted to stay that way.

“Okay.”

WC 1352

Twitter prompt from DramionePrompts

Cross posted on Tumblr and AO3

It’s been a bit since my last update, and when I mean a bit, it’s been maybe just once this week? I’ve been a bit overwhelmed with a few fest projects I picked up this season and am still working on, which resulted in a drop off of daily exercises like this one. I hope you like it!

[genshingorlsrevengeance]

(Genshin Impact) Ayaka, Ei, Yae, and Lisa with an author S/O

Ayaka understands S/O penning their name anonymously.

Having that much attention on you is potentially dangerous, but most of all it's just tiring. Ayaka honors her vow of silence to not tell anyone who writes one of the best selling light novels.

Ayaka doesn't get to read for pleasure often, so out of curiosity she picks up their light novels.

She's usually the first one who gets rough drafts of S/O's current works. Ayaka is quite the fan!

Though sometimes, she can tell S/O wrote a character after her likeness, which gets her all kind of red in the face.

But it's strange. They produce some of the best works, yet are always lazing around, not doing anything.

(Ayaka) "S/O, are you not writing tonight?"

(S/O) "Eh. Maybe later."

That's the usual answer she gets. Perhaps writing motivation comes in bursts?

At this point she suspects that the reason they stay anonymous is so they don't have to exert more energy than they have to.

S/O uses the excuse of cuddling with her and falling asleep, which she doesn't hate, but it's not exactly the most productive thing they could be doing.

Ei is quite curious about S/O's writing. Not only is it her lover's light novel, but it's also a glimpse of what the people of Inazuma are currently into.

She doesn't quite understand why S/O wants to remain anonymous. Wouldn't you want everyone to read your works?

Ei won't bring it up if S/O doesn't.

She always has S/O close by to explain the things she doesn't understand.

(Ei) "Why are so many people interested in being transported elsewhere?"

Ei also notices S/O tends to stick with her a lot longer when they have something to write.

She doesn't mind, but it's a little weird.

(Ei) "S/O, should you not be writing?"

(S/O) "I can do that later. I need to answer all your questions after all."

(Ei) "Very well."

Maybe this is how authors this day and age act. How considerate.

Yae completely understands wanting to not deal with the people of the Light Novel community while being low energy at all times.

She lets S/O loiter around to keep her company and talk about whatever new series has come out recently to poke fun or talk its praises about.

Her publishing house of course publishes their novels. But not because S/O is her lover, but because they actually deserve to get published.

If their works falter even in the slightest in quality, she refuses to put the rubbish out there. But she does find it really funny though.

It depends on her mood if she indulges S/O or gets them off their butt to actually write their current work.

(Yae) "Have you noticed this transporting to another world genre has been on the rise lately? I know fads come and go, but it is remarkably stubborn this year..."

(S/O) "Frankly, I don't get the appeal."

(Yae) "But you don't normally see the appeal of most things, S/O. Working for instance.-"

(S/O) "Shush."

Lisa loves reading, so when S/O told her that they wrote light novels, she was ecstatic to read them.

She had read pretty much everything in the Library, so adding a few new ones to the shelf was a welcome change!

Something she's quick to notice is how tired S/O is, and they usually try to sidestep doing their work.

Lisa half gets it though. Why do it today when you can do it tomorrow?

She'll try to lightly encourage S/O to get the novel over with so they can get back to relaxing faster. It's what she does when she has work after all.

But sometimes it can't be helped. She'll get a chair and cup of tea ready to let S/O procastinate in the library.

(Lisa) "Oh, look at that, it's raining. You don't want to get the pages wet, right dear? How about you keep me company for a while?"

(S/O) "It'll be raining all day."

(Lisa) "Then looks like we'll be together all day. A shame."

(S/O) "Hah, what a shame indeed. Pass the sugar?"

[samejimachich]

My impression of GLAZE and Nightshade

It may be a bit long post I guess.

I tried to use GLAZE and Nightshade, so I'll show you how the images are changed.

Nightshade

Here is the latest UI.

Render Quality is all slowest, because they didn't look different from Faster to Slowest.

Intensity: Low

Intensity: Default

Intensity: High

GLAZE

Here is the latest UI.

By the way, if you want to use both GLAZE and Nightshade, you must use Nightshade first.

So at first I'll show you the images only use GLAZE.

I only show Intensity: Default ver./Intensity: High ver.

Render Quality are both Slowest.

Because the lowest intensity in Glaze is Default, and I guess Default is the recommendable setting from official.

Render Quality: Faster

Render Quality: Medium

Render Quality: Slower

Render Quality: Slowest

Next, Glazed after Nightshaded ver. Intensity: High Render Quality: Slowest

(Green texts are Nightshade settings.)

So, if you want to use both, it depends which look you like tho, but I recommend both settings are Intensity: Default/Render Quality: Slowest.

But IF you want to use both and furthermore using the effect as watermark, I recommend both sittings are Intensity: High/Render Quality: Slowest.

The following sentences are just my opinion and how I post my art from now on. so you don't have to read more if you don't care about what my art will do.

So, from today onwards, I'll post my art as Intensity: High/Render Quality: Slowest nightshaded/Glazed ver.

Because, once, my fanart ha been unauthorized reproduction on Youtube, and long ago, my arts have also listed in the "Maybe I'll review it one day on my YT channel" box on DA. Of course no contact to me. I didn't feel anger but disgusting, and the alert to the stealers was so tesious. Seriously, I think my art never be stolen from "Al artists" but I no approval that someday Al steal Mike Mignola-ish art and someone praize for them like "Wow, it's really Mike Mignola!!". I believe Al and Al artists never understand the skill of the lighting, at least in a few year. But IF someone try to, I don't know how angry I'll get.

Sorry to let me change the subject slightly, I don't think Al Tim Burton-ish arts are not even Tim Burton-"ish" arts. (It's JUST my opinion tho, I love Burton's sketch.) They just picked up the "Burton-ish features" like spiral, stripe, twig-ish neck, morbid looks, brah-brah-brah. But I was shocked many people saw them and praized.

So, this is the one of the opinion of mine.

Second, I think the artists need more protect our art from network. Once, (I only know Japanese artists tho) social medias were the gratest places for commercial of art, even for non-famous artists. We wanted to show their art high-def and we tried many times how we can post our art without dull. But we had to notice, we were too open. Our posts were like setting up the unattended store on the side of the road in a slum area. Inside the store, there was no security buzzer but just free mercandise. Finished product, not a sample. And a flyer on the side saying "If you like my art, please give me some tips or a job."

Once again, I believe my art will never be stolen at least from Al. This is my worthless action, but some artists need I think.

If you want to see my proper art works, you need to buy my book or join member ship on ko-fi. Thank you for reading this long sentences.

[heybaetae]

hii i love ur gifs so i have been wondering if u know how to low down the size of a gif without losing its quality?? i hate when i want to post a certain gif and it being 13MB but if i cut it it's ugly 😔😔😔 sorry for my english 😔

hi, thank you 💕 i think i have answered similar questions before in my gif help tag, but i can offer some more (hopefully) helpful tips and things you should consider to help keep your gif under 10mb.

1. crop size & amount of frames

the two go hand-in-hand. big cropped gifs with a large number of frames will result in a big file size. if you're making a 540px wide gif, you're either gonna wanna make the gif shorter in height or use fewer frames. for a square gif, i try to keep it between 50-70 frames, but sometimes i still have to trim it down depending on how bright or colorful the gif is (i'll get to that in the next points).

however, making the gif a shorter height like 350px or 400px might give you a little more room for more frames without having to delete any. i like big gifs if i have a great quality file. 600px tall is as far as i'll go (though it's rare) and in that case, i try to keep it limited to 40-50 frames.

basically:

540px wide gifs = fewer frames or shorter height

268px wide gifs = more frames, more potential

tip: for the sake of convenience, i really recommend making presets of all your go-to crop sizes by selecting "save preset" in the drop down menu next to your chosen dimensions. note that mine are all set two pixels more than i need because some photoshop versions leave a transparent border around gifs. when i use my convert to frames action, it deletes those two extra pixels for me and my gif will have the proper tumblr dimensions before i export.

more tips to get rid of extra frames:

delete frames with camera flashes, you will rarely notice a difference.

always check for duplicate frames.

original footage is slow motion? it's got duplicated frames. delete them.

2. sharpening

your sharpen settings can also increase the file size. here is a great post with examples of when to know when your sharpening is crossing into unchartered territory and how to avoid it. manually adding noise effects can also increase file size, so keep that in mind when you're doing it for aesthetics (i personally love noisy gifs too!).

3. brightening

adjustment layers that handle the "light" in a gif such as curves, levels, and exposure can all affect the file size in different ways. darkening the black points using these tools in your gif helps reduce grain as well as the amount of colors in the final product.

curves: use the white and black eye droppers to find the lightest and darkest points in the gif, thus adjusting the white balance of the footage if needed.

levels: move the left and right sliders inward to balance them out even more and bring back more details.

exposure: my favorite trick EVER to lowering the file size if it's over 10mb when i go to save for web is moving the "offset" slider of an exposure layer slightly to the left. it will darken the black points even more and add some contrast to your gif and it can minimize the file size by quite a lot.

3. coloring

you want to be able to save your gif with 256 colors without reducing the number manually in order to get it under 10mb (we've all been there). sometimes you can get away with doing that without losing much of your quality, but it's always ideal to NOT have to do this. selective coloring and color balance are your friends when it comes to enhancing and/or getting rid of tones you don't want. i can't give you a whole course on coloring alone, but i can say that ONCE AGAIN, darkening the blacks under the black tab in selective coloring will help. i usually go up to about +5 or more if i need to. neutralize your reds and yellows for skintones, especially when giffing idols. don't go too overboard with the vibrance if you use it. be conscious of colorwashing. experiment with photo filters or gradient maps if you're aiming for a cooler or warmer look.

i hope this helps, i am not a magician but i do think a lot of these key details help me a lot when my final gif is over 10mb and i need to go back and make adjustments.

[sweetmariihs2]

The search for content about my childhood Sofia doll

I have this Sofia The First doll from when I was a little kid. I got it during easter in a easter egg chocolate, of course, around 2016/2015 as fas as I can remember.

her amulet used to light up when we turned the switch. I don't remember how it looks like anymore, not sure if it only lights up or if it has any kind of pattern or what, and I'm curious. I wanted to open the screws and add new batteries, since the same batteries came with the toy are still inside of it, but I don't have that specific "screwdriver". It's a triangle shape.

Since I couldn't change the batteries I wanted to find videos of how the doll used to be like whe it worked, cuz I don't remember.

The basic info: behind the doll we can see that it's a licensed product through the word "Disney" written in it, it was produced in china, in 2015, made by Arcor (chocolate brand in South America), and according to my own memories, sold in Brazil. So I searched with words like "princesinha sofia páscoa ovo arcor 2015" (sofia the first easter egg arcor 2015) and after searching for a while I found some results.

That was the packaging (ohhh me now as a scrapbook artist would have loved to still have the packaging. I remeber I used to keep packagings with my favorite characters because they were cute, but my mom always threw it away. I have a vague memory of having that round sticker at the front in my hands):

That's one of the only images (the only one that I could find) of that chocolate egg. There were other Sofia chocolate eggs sold in Brazil and they're the ones who have more images and recordings when I search for that topic; which means that seemingly the stuff about that doll is almost lost media.

I was searching for it on YouTube and I found a low quality video of a little girl showing how it worked. Thank you Nicolle! (it's the name of her channel) (be careful she talks a bit loudly)

(at the end of the video she tells us that the doll's light looks even more beautiful when it's wet, but you have to be careful because you can only wet it 5 times, when it reaches 6 it breaks lmaoaoao)

With the light on it looks even more beautiful than I remember! I don't remember the dress shining. I remember that the light isn't very strong though, it looks like a night light but doesn't light up the room.

And I also found some people selling the doll too.

Someone's even selling her for 5 reais, that would be around one dollar. How crazy.

[canmom]

Annecy photodump 2 - museums

On Sunday, before the festival began, I went to a few of the museums around Annecy! Starting with the Palace de l'Îsle, then on to the Chateau d'Annecy and the Museum of Animated Film!

Probably the most iconic Annecy Building, it is presently a museum to both the building's own history and the industrial history of the town, which flipflopped countries a few times before becoming an industrial centre after the French rev. The Palace itself has been at various points a mint, a courthouse and a prison.

The museum is mostly captioned in both French and English. The industrial history gets a bit dry, but the downstairs section on the history of the building itself is cool.

My ticket got me into the castle too so I went up this absurdly picturesque little path...

...to be rewarded with the town skyline. Probably not quite as the dukes of Savoy saw it.

The castle doesn't tell you a lot about its own history for the most part, but it does have a couple of art galleries.

I saw a version of Peter Brueghel the Elder's Massacre of the Innocents - though apparently there's a whole bunch of different versions and this one might not be the real one? Art history is funky.

Much of the lower floor of the gallery had these big romantic nature paintings. And when I say big these are really fucking big, like very much 'this would be the whole wall if we weren't in a literal castle' big.

One thing that is really interesting to me here is that the panorama with its cylindrical projection seems to actually predate panoramic photography. Although I can't say whether this is strictly a cylindrical projection, the insanely wide aspect ratio seems to suggest it would be.

Here's a closeup, showing how a tree breaks down into individual dabbed brushstrokes which suggest the texture of leaves without getting lost in noisy detail - the 'painterliness' so beloved of shader designers. It's fascinating seeing these paintings up close like this!

I'm fairly sure this kid is a chimneysweep? Unfortunately I managed to frame this photo so the painting gets perfectly bisected by the corner of the glass box. I'm not quite sure the relationship of the sculpture and the painting.

They also have a bunch of furniture from the castle, if you like wooden boxes. They built things well chunky back then.

The upper floor of the castle was devoted to contemporary pieces. I don't seem to have taken many photos of these, but here's a bike wheel with bits of broken glass which look like mountains when a projector shines through them:

Later in the week I would go to the Museum of Animated Film! It's a bit of a walk from the town centre but well worth the trip. They had various 1800s-era gadgets that form the precursors to animated film...

...though sadly in the low light of the museum, not all my photos came out good. It's remarkable how well these devices work though! The narrow 'shutter' created by the slots works perfectly to make the images appear animated rather than spinning around. Also the illustration quality, and even general sense of motion, is remarkably sound! Like honestly they could give today's animators a run for our money!

The rest of the museum had production materials showing the full range of different animation techniques: storyboards, key drawings, cels, backgrounds, stop motion puppets, pinscreens etc. They covered the history of animation pretty damn well - go figure, it's the animation museum in Annecy of all places.

They also had a special exhibit on showing drawings from Regina Pessoa, whose films I saw as part of the Portugese animation block. These are so cool to see up close. I'm still not entirely sure what techniques she used to make this film, its style is unique.

(My main camera didn't do great in here due to the low light, but I'm learning how to control ISO to get that exposure time under control. My phone actually did a lot better.)

One thing I didn't manage to photograph was the intro panels to the museum where they defined animation. After various definitions based around e.g. constructing frame by frame, they eventually resorted to a negative definition - animation is basically any film that isn't live action. It was pretty funny reading them struggle to pin down such a broad but intuitive concept.

Next up: more movie related stuff!

[kelseytheballerina]

Based on your blog I'm sure you've been asked this a million times, but do you have any practical advice for bettering yourself when you're starting at a really low point?

I've always WANTED to be better but I never follow through. I don't do anything impressive (I get up, go to work for 8 hours, come home, rest and try to recover from the day, sleep, repeat) but I'm so exhausted all the time anyway that adding extra effort to my routine feels impossible. In my free time I do basically nothing, I don't really enjoy anything except sleeping and I usually feel brain-dead tbh. I hate myself but even when I try to use that as motivation I flop every time.

I see all these people who do so much all the time and I want to be like you, but I can't imagine being able to do it. Where does your discipline come from and how do you maintain it when it's so difficult?

Keep in mind that the more you do, the more time it requires of you. Definitely don’t compare yourself to unemployed people like me or those who make a living being productive for social media. You work 8 hours, not to mention the commute, not to mention getting dressed and undressed, not to mention feeding yourself and taking care of all the things required to keep the house running and lights on. Add in dating, family, friends, grief, hard times, yeah it’s understandable why you are exhausted. You may see others in the same boat as you who also manage to muster up the energy to work on a degree and take care of their kids but not everyone can do the same things. We all have our limits. Our limits may change over time, but as of now your limit isn’t theirs and that’s okay.

What I think would be best is to not attempt to overload yourself if you don’t have to. Pick literally just one thing to put your remaining energy into for the time being. Let’s say that’s hitting the gym. Make that your thing for a while and ignore other stuff. Who knows, 6 months from now you may find that you can also squeeze in a cooking class once a week.

Obviously I’m someone who loves productivity and trying to maximize the days with all things learning and skill building. But I don’t think that everyone needs to live like that. Take care of your responsibilities first and have even just one thing on the side. You’ll feel better about yourself and you won’t be forcing yourself to be the biggest productivity slave. Bc if you aren’t even enjoying it, then what’s the point?

As for where my discipline comes from, I’d say that my mom instilled good habits in me when I was young (no tv until xyz is done, if you do it wrong I’ll wake you up and make you redo it so you might as well do it properly the first time, do these things bc you deserve to look good/live in a nice environment/reach your potential instead of just bc you “have to”) but also bc I went though a phase of uncertainty and unstructured living that made my life very difficult and I felt no pride in the way I was conducting myself, so I made changes to never feel that way again. I’ve seen what life is like when I don’t ‘parent’ myself and instead just run amuck and it’s not fulfilling, it’s not high quality, it’s not a life I am in love with. So in order to avoid that, I do the work and I absolutely positively love the results. That’s a priceless feeling.

[libbee]

🌞 sun in 7th house placements and low self esteem 🌞

self esteem = how we value and perceive ourselves. It's based on our opinions and beliefs about ourselves

why is self esteem important = it impacts our

academic achievement; happiness; satisfaction in marriage and relationships; psychologists call it a personality trait

It is easy to spot a 1st houser in a room, they are out there being the host, pulling attention to themselves, they act like insecurities don't even exist, they are all about their persona the mask they show in the world and identify with it

and it is just as easy to spot a sun in 7th houser in a room, they are out there being a doormat, overly agreeable on everything, hesitant to voice their opinion and feeling powerless, they act like they have all the insecurities in the world

this is especially the case if a 7th houser has an empty 1st house because the native does not know who they are, how to be assertive, how to put themselves out there. sun is your ego, identity, where you shine, how you identify yourself, how you see yourself with respect to others, it is your energy, vitality, productivity, confidence, competence; consider yourself like a plant and sun is what gives you life; we feel so down and sleepy in winters because sun lacks presence

7th house is the house of other people. 7th houser or not, everyone perceives the world because of their projections. it is impossible to exist without projecting. just like it is impossible to see without reflection of light from an object, image formation in eye and your ability to recognize the object because of your familiarity, it is similarly impossible to live in the world without projecting archetypes and your shadow content on others, your ability to recognize what you are projecting and your familiarity with it. for eg, in this diagram you can recognize the tree because you are familiar with this object and concept. but if you were to see an object that you have not seen before and not familiar with, you will not recognize it. this is how we identify ourselves, by psychic projection. for eg. "this person has a quality of being funny"... "feels familiar because i also have this quality" or "this person is a liar?... i could not recognize it because i usually dont lie"

what we see in others is the reflection of ourselves, both good and bad, and that is how we form opinions about ourselves

Donald Winnicott, a psychoanalyst, said that"true self" is sense of self based on spontaneous authentic experience and a feeling of being alive, having a real self with little to no contradiction. While he called "false self" a sense of self created as a defensive façade which in extreme cases can leave an individual lacking spontaneity and feeling dead and empty behind an inconsistent and incompetent appearance of being real, such as in narcissism. sun in 7th house are prone to being narcissists because their self image is not visible to them, they don't feel respected enough, they don't feel like they are seen and valued by others

sun in 7th house are prone to living with a false self because their identity is weak, ego is weak here in the 7th house, ego is repressed, identity is hidden. this can happen because of a number of factors like their parent being more attention seeking and so they were cornered, they had to comply to the wishes and expectations of their parents, being neglected or a combination of other placements in the natal chart that can indicate trauma and abuse. when the native's ego is not fully developed, they are living with a false sense of identity, that is, they might think "this is me" but it is not really them because this false self is just a hand crafted image to please people and that is why it changes in different environments with different people

let's understand with an example:

you see how the sun is behind native's back? he can't see his own sun but he can see the sun in others. since his sun is not visible to him, he feels like it does not exist, that he is not competent, confident, valuable. in another way, the sunlight from behind is directed at others and he can see all the good and positive qualities in other people but he cannot see them in himself. in another way, his ego is in his shadow and unconscious to him, it is not fully developed and also impossible because how can he change his natal chart? so in that case, the native gets into relationship with someone who has a confident, assertive, strong willed, bright personality and really values their partner because they derive their energy, power, confidence, identity from their partner

this is why these natives are prone to losing themselves in their partner and engulfing their personality and identity, also always being in relationship because their batteries are low otherwise when they are by themselves

time for funniness:

so, i have no advice for these natives other than figuring out who they are, withdrawing their projection, accepting what they cannot change about their life story and learning to live with their sun in 7H

when the native has matured though, they can then begin to explore a larger Self, their inner personality, their shadow, self reflection

note: this same experience can be felt by sun in sign of libra, sun in 7th house from natal moon as well

Bibliography and for more read:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_self_and_false_self

to be continued

[thedawningofthehour]

Ok I have a lot of questions and I have to break this down into parts.

Actually, on the revealed page of the new comic, you can see Casey jr in one of the panels, and he looks the same as he does in the movie, which would confirm that the deaths of donnie and Raph were actually recent.

Wait, what's going on with the gay laws in china? Last I heard, china was actually tightening their laws regarding anything remotely queer, because of that many danmei (chinese gay genre) productions who already had experience working around censorship were having problems to the point where they didn't know if they could release. Even the genshin impact company was having problems over there, because one of their male characters was too feminine for their standards.

Aw, I got the impression from Casey Jr that he had never met Raph. He was really comfortable with Donnie and April, but much stiffer with Splinter and Raph. I always took that to mean Raph and Splinter either died before he was born or when he was too young to remember much. And you know Raph would have dadded any child that displayed even the slightest need for dadly guidance.

The way I have the order of death plotted out in my own headcanonical world, the death order went: Raph on invasion day -> Bella dying to save Donnie -> Splinter doing something stupid in a 'it needs to be done and it might as well be him' scenario -> Cass doing something unimaginably badass and cool and probably screaming "WITNESS ME" -> Donnie sacrificing his life to take out the Technodrome -> Draxum going on a suicide mission to destroy one of the main three Krangs -> Big Mama and April as we see their bodies at the beginning of the movie.

I will not be amending this whatsoever in light of the canonical material.

No but for real, I kind of enjoyed that the fandom had so much leeway to really do whatever we wanted with the post-apocalypse storyline. And I'm going to admit it now, I don't like Donnie's overalls. I like the ones other people have drawn on him and maybe it's because the sketch we saw was pretty low quality, but it doesn't do anything for me.

I said Chinese attitudes, which...in retrospect, means a lot less than it really should. Jesus Christ, I literally said that on the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

My understanding of what goes on in China is-well, for one, it's just not something I'm super informed on, I had literally one semester of world history in high school and we didn't even really get to east Asia, we started with Africa and moved east but got stuck in the Arab world because this was 2011. (use your imagination on what was said there) Literally, everything else was American history with the occasional Ancient Greece unit thrown in. No shit, I am literally Raph, I didn't know the Holy Roman Empire was a separate thing from the original Roman Empire until I was an adult. (I also thought nobody was Jewish anymore until I read 'Are You There God? It's Me Margaret' and realized that the Jews didn't all convert in Jesus' time) And what we did learn about modern China, we learned it through a...very anti-red lens. Which isn't to say communism good and all criticism of China is red scare propaganda, but educating yourself post-indoctrination involves actively challenging and unlearning the shit you were indoctrinated with, which can interfere with actually learning about shit with an open mind.

What was I talking about? Right, gay stuff in China. There's been little victories on that front, but from what I've read they've mostly been pretty performative without real underlying change, like with women's rights in Saudi Arabia. Which is its own problem, but progress is progress? But yeah, the censorship is getting worse. Which is worrisome.

Maybe it's kind of wishful thinking on my part, but I also think a shift in official attitudes would be the most logical thing for China right now. A lot of Chinese people support LGBT rights, and that number is only going to swell as older, more conservative people die off and young people enter adulthood. (and people get exposed to pro-LGBT viewpoints and content and realize homophobia is dumb) And the rest of the world is becoming more and more gay-friendly, the only exceptions really being Russia and a few Islamic states, and, uh. China is not really...endearing itself to the Islamic world right now. We'll leave it at that. It's going to get to a point where the UN is pressuring them and their own people are pressuring them, and either they give in on that issue or it comes to conflict. That's how it works.

I'm hopeful that things will change in China in my lifetime. I'm just very worried about how much blood it will take.

[gretchensinister]

Writing Game: Last Lines

Thank you @marypsue for the tag! This seems fun and I am procrastinating, so let's go!

Last lines from the last 10 finished works I posted:

The list goes from oldest to newest:

“T—time,” he stammers, his voice low and rough. “You give me time.” As much as I want, his vampire tells him. More than you’ll ever understand.

(all I ever do around you is want, Rise of the Guardians, Pitch/Sandy, vampire AU)

“Well, with new, shorter ceremonies, it will be a very, very long night,” Sandy says, though the last word is mostly lost in a gasp.

(Shortday at Fountain Square, Rise of the Guardians, Pitch/Sandy, bonus fic for my epic fantasy AU A Draught of Light)

“No mask?” No mask!

(Yellow/Gold, Rise of the Guardians, Pitch/Sandy, eldritch AU)

And with a little more clumsiness than the night before, but perhaps no less real grace, they drew each other down onto the brilliant, fragrant rainbow of one of Thra’s wonders—and soon lost themselves in another.

(Incarnation, The Dark Crystal/The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, SkekGra/UrGoh)

Then, you’d find out even more about what Moder had given you, and how much you’d really been changed.

(Clearing, The Ritual, Moder/Reader)

Don’t worry! We will whistle up our song.

(Something Wicked Is Me, Something Wicked This Way Comes, poetry collection.)

Humanity test 1 begin. No recording. No protocol. No re-test. No deliverable product.

(New, Improved, Guaranteed Quality, erotic sci-fi dystopia (I have trouble describing this work) original work that exists because of Pitch/Sandy)

“I…trust me that I feel what love of yours is mine to feel. And whatever happens…I wish you all Thra’s strength and luck as you labor to keep us whole.”

(To Keep a Body Whole, The Dark Crystal/The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, mystic focus)

Why not, when he could trust that waking would be wonderful?

(Abundance, The Dark Crystal/The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, SkekGra/UrGoh)

(Gohan: That is very annoying)

(The Sleepover, Dragonball Z, LMAO okay this is the most recent thing I have posted on Ao3 BUT ALSO the oldest work on the list by far. The Archive is an archive! So when I found a notebook with a DBZ fic my friend and I wrote in middle school, I put it in the Archive for, well, archival purposes! I believe in academia they call this juvenilia. Anyway, you don't get anything else on this list without this one babey! But Gohan is right. It is very annoying.)

What have I learned from this game? I have been reminded that I feel like I struggle with last lines--at least ones that can be excised from the story that led up to them.

If you write, I invited you to do this! It's fun but I don't know who's writing these days that hasn't already been tagged.

[ideahat-universe]

TimTams

So I've been playing emulated games for a few years now. Loving it honestly. My pattern is playing a Pokemon Romhack and then a RPG that is not Pokemon.

Sometimes it's another monster tamer/collector but not always.

What it is, is constantly exciting and fun and there's no shortage of games to play. But that doesn't mean I'm not interested in adding more to the queue. One of these days I'll be able to afford the Steamdeck and when that happens I'll be playing some Monster Tamer games that Steam has on offer.

So I went shopping. I found the ones people mentioned during the Palworld toss up, Nexomon, Coromon, Monster Sanctuary.

I get to Temtem, and I see this.

What the heck happened???

I thought this game was good? A better alternative to play than Palworld which was a cheap knockoff that didn't deserve our time and attention?

Did any of that sound familiar?

Those seem familiar too.

It almost seems like people make Monster Catcher games and if it's mildly popular it gets compared to Pokemon and is called a "Pokemon Clone" and after the hype dies down everyone goes back to playing the latest Pokemon game, they don't even bother playing any other Monster Catcher game unless some Youtuber asshole makes a video about it with the label "it's Pokemon but better!"

I made that article where I said Palworld was mask off Pokemon and I stand by it and I can stand by it because Palworld is basically everything Pokemon doesn't really want to be, but secretly was for the years the devs couldn't figure out just what should and shouldn't be canonical in the Pokemon world.

But I just want to make the PSA that you shouldn't call things the X killer. Because that basically never happens. Franchises kill themselves. They don't typically get killed by a competitor.

A competing brand does something that the standard is lacking but the leading brand is also delivering a low quality product that people are discontent with and willing to move on.

Not to get political but the Bud Light effect that conservatives wear on themselves as a badge of honor is really more about how beer sales in general have been on the decline

Don't believe me? Here's an article from 2019 that more or less says that Domestic Beer sales were starting to slip.

People still drink beer though. In doing this research I noticed a rise in Craft beers so what's really happening is that leading beer brands that were the face of cheap, shitty beer that everyone drank because it was ubiquitous were now being reconsidered and the end result was that Bud Light was already a beer that people didn't like, they just used the boycott as an excuse to stop drinking beer, drink different leading beers (and liking it more than Bud Light!), or indulging in craft or different types of alcohol altogether.

So if we circle back to the beginning where we talked about "Pokemon Killers" the reality is that Pokemon can only kill itself and it will kill itself once there are poor sales resulting from being the face of mediocrity that everyone is willing to jump ship from.

The problem being is that even with Pokemon being mediocre it's not bad enough for people to rebel from the brand.

Look at the people in the comment section of that video. Does that look like an audience of people who are ready to stop drinking Bud Light?

I don't think so!

Really think about that trailer, no game play so it's worthless beyond telling us what the setting will be, Mega evolution will probably return but Mega Evolution is a controversial power up given that depending on the Pokemon, you could be subjecting them to an immense amount of pain just to win a fight (and competitively only a couple of Mega Evolutions really matter and you never need Mega Evolutions to win a fight in the campaign).

And lets be honest. If its just the same turn based system with very little else added on the side for flavor, you won't be getting out of this new game that you wouldn't get from a Pokemon Romhack (That includes Mega Evolutions).

Except, ya know. The Romhack is free. If you're a poke-maniac you own physical copies of gen 1-5 so you have the legal right to dump your game and patch it however you like.

You can do that or maybe even buy Palworld, or Nexomon, or Digimon, or TemT- Wait. Maybe not TemTem.

I mean that Magnakamen video does a decent job at explaining why a poke-maniac will never abandon Bud Light, but how about me?

What do I think?

Well, I don't play MMOs and given that this game came out as an MMO at around 2020 is ridiculous, because by 2020 it was already evident that MMO is a reaper genre. Most games in that genre die, forever.

Hey, you came up with a really cool idea for a Four Swords style game. You made it an MMO? DEAD FOREVER.

Hey, you came up with a really cool idea for a snowboarding game. You made it an MMO? DEAD FOREVER.

Hey, you came up with a really cool RPG that is like WoW but with a bunch of quality of life stuff in it. Wait, it's a WoW killer? DEAD FOREVER.

When you make an always online game that needs to have other people playing it for it to be fun you are asking for the game to die forever someday.

Ross Scott is going to court over this but that's a subject for another time, but the fact that the Temtem devs made a Monster Tamer MMO is actually quite dumb.

I get why they wanted to do that though they wanted to make a balanced competitive scene. Competitive Pokemon but not rife with cheaters and overburdened with hundreds of Pokemon that are unplayable in anything above RU, but making a game that is designed with competitive players primarily in mind is like making healthy cereal.

Just eat an apple forehead.

If you make a game with competent AI or possibly AI that can be modified by the player to suit their tastes, you don't need strong competition from some stranger who hacked their team together. You would play competitive for fun. You'd get your favorite creatures and then you'd pit them against your friend and his favorite creatures. Not a stranger, someone you know. When you play a competitive game with friends that's when those games are fun.

When you play competitive games with strangers. You become Tyler1.

That looks like fun right? Just sweating profusely over every little thing someone is doing in a competitive match and just ranting about the game balance and how the game is being ruined by the players, the devs, or both? And then if we aren't having this eternal struggle about how the game is being balanced the game is just dead?

Yeah, that's what really did TemTem in. Not the semantic bullshit that Mangakamen was complaining about that only someone who isn't ready to give up drinking Bud Light would come up.

What really killed TemTem was that making an MMO is a bad idea and making a game based around fostering a competitive environment is also bad.

It's okay though! TemTem is also becoming Vampire Survivors with TemTem Swarm. Not making a good single player TemTem, just making a spinoff TemTem.

Hm, we won't be adding TemTem to the queue.

[takadasaiko]

There's something very off about the Coruscant scenes in Mando

When I watched 3.03 with Dr Pershing on Coruscant, it felt like an entirely different show was dropped in the middle of a Mando episode. Even when Din showed up in BoBF, it didn't feel as jarring as our visit to Coruscant that included a five-year-in New Republic (presumably finding Mon Mothma and Leia with high ranking positions in the government) that was really nothing more than the Empire Lite. This new government is already bogged down by a severe lack of imagination that doesn't fit the scrappy rebellion that won the war, but instead acts as if they just usurped everyone left over from the Empire that was willing to fake it and keep on like nothing had happen. Can you see Leia Organa standing for that? I can't, and I certainly don't think that as involved as she and other high-level Rebels would be at this point we'd see the depths of bureaucracy that look like it's piled up over decades and suffocating the innovation of a relatively small group of people willing to face off against the the dreaded Empire. We have the lights and the buildings of Coruscant, but the people that fill them don't make sense.

Then there was the acting... or the writing or the direction. I never could pin it down, but Elia Kane was clearly setting Pershing up the whole way with no subtly to be found. With the exception of the bookended scenes with Din, Grogu, and Bo, the episode felt misplaced in the Mandalorian.

I watched 3.04 the following week and things were back to normal. Okay. Even excellent shows have fluke episodes. It wasn't until 3.05 dropped that I started thinking it was intentional.

The production design for Mando has been fantastic. The planets, the aliens, the costumes… all very well done. When they’re sneaking into Imperial locations, it’s sharp and cold, but in the caves of Mandalor it’s dark and broken, shadows leaving all the dangers hidden until the last second. The design teams use the sets and the costumes and the lighting to elicit the appropriate emotions out of the scene. We’re there with Din. We believe, if only for that time, that we’re in a galaxy a long time ago and far, far away. It’s lived in and it fits the world that so many of us have loved since childhood.

Then we get back to Coruscant. It's not like we haven't seen it before. The Clone Wars did an excellent job of showing the contrast of a planet we only skimmed the surface of in Episodes 1-3. We saw grand chambers in the Prequels, and there are plenty of those, but in that series we were introduced to the lower levels. The citizens that often didn’t work directly for the government. It felt gritty and real, but it fit the world, even when introducing something new.

Then we had Andor which also had a high production quality. While TCW showed us the governing class and the lower levels of the city-planet, in Andor we were introduced to what is likely the middle class - the lower level bureaucrats, the everyday people on the surface that filled the endless positions of paper-pushing - lived and worked. The colour was sucked out of their world, but it still fit the galaxy far, far away.

But then we have Coruscant in Mando and it just feels wrong. From the cubicles (much close to what you'd see in a real, modern office space than what you see above from Andor)

to the colonel's cheap costume with noticeably poor quality rank badge

to the way they speak and the utter lack of subtly in their dialogue that anyone on Coruscant with half a braincell should be able to pick up on, yet only Teva did. Only someone outside of the Coruscant bog.

It’s so jarring and so fake that it drags you out of the story entirely. You’re no longer in the galaxy of heroes and villains, Jedi and Sith, Rebels (or even the New Republic) and Empire…. You might as well be watching a low budget scifi film of some different story.

So is that done on purpose? The more I see it, the more I question that. Having been spoiled on the slow build by storytellers like Timothy Zahn post-RotJ, I'll admit to having an extreme bias against this Coruscant and especially this New Republic that they're painting here, but we'll see... Is there something else at play? I suppose only time will tell.