#but when a majority of your art stuff is on your computer then its a struggle to try posting them

[blind0raven]

Hello! Lately I've been fighting to make sure I won't be getting sick (sadly taking a day off cause tomorrow is a busy day for Valentine's day)

However I wanted to update you guys on the 100th Followers Celebration!

We're on the coloring stage for the 1st part and everything is going ok! Grim is"fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine" cats always land on their feet :)... maybe

Anyway! This lil baby will be finished up soon so I can get started on the 2nd part of the Celebration!!!

[physalian]

In Defense of Fanfiction (Or the perfect starting point for your original novel)

Fanfic gets a bad rap pretty much everywhere except Tumblr. It’s misunderstood and misrepresented by its average works, seen as juvenile and cringey, or a banal point of contention between a famous person or piece of media and its fans.

Outside of fanfic that writes about real people, especially smut fics of real people, I support the art wholeheartedly. Fictional characters are one thing, but personally, caricaturing a celebrity’s life for public consumption and writing or drawing them in compromising content without their consent is a little weird. You do you. Don’t like, don’t read, as they say.

Fanfic is the perfect starting point for a few reasons:

It places you in a creative box and forces you to work within those constraints

It does all the worldbuilding and character concepts for you

It lets you write way outside your comfort zone

When published and receiving feedback, it boosts your self-confidence

It's incredibly flexible

It’s practice. All practice is good practice

—

Behold your creative box

When I was little I had no idea the majority of fanfic was shipping fics. I always pictured and looked for canon-divergent alternate universes. Like, what if X happened in this episode instead of Y? What if this character never died?

Fanfic demands you work within someone else’s canon, whether it’s an OC in the canonical world, or the canonical characters in an AU. These are like little bowling bumpers saving you from the gutter, but also keeping you on a straight-ish path toward the pins.

The indecisiveness of too many choices can be too intimidating when you’re first starting out. You want to be a writer but you have no idea where to begin, what genre to pick, what characters you want to chronicle, what themes you want to explore.

Even if it sits on your computer never to see the light of day, you still got those creative juices flowing.

Pre-packaged worldbuilding

Sometimes all we want is to get to the good stuff. Maybe I want to write a story about elemental magicians but Last Airbender already exists and I just want to play in a pre-existing sandbox. So I write some OCs into that world and have a free-for-all.

I don’t have to come up with my own lore, world history, magic system rules and mechanics, politics, geography—any of it. I get to just focus on the characters.

Even if you’re writing an AU, like say a coffee shop AU, you don’t have to think about brand new characters, you can just think “What would M do?” and go from there. The trade-off is your readers will expect canonical characters to behave in-character, but I think it’s worth it.

Stretch beyond your comfort zone!

Do you hate writing action scenes? Go practice with a shonen anime fic. Need work on dialogue? Write some high-fantasy fic, or a courtroom drama. Practice a fistfight by watching fistfights and writing what you see, and do it over and over again until what you read makes you feel like you're watching what’s on screen.

But beyond that—practice genres that you aren’t super familiar with. If you’re new to fantasy, write fantasy fic. Or a mystery novel/show, thriller, comedy, satire, adventure, what have you. The nature of fanfic still gives you those “guardrails” and you can get some brutally honest feedback on how you’re doing.

And, of course, the realm of M-rated romance and smut fics. I haven’t because I think I would die of embarrassment if I tried and I never intend to include sex scenes in my works anyway, but if you do want to, use the internet as your test audience. Post it on a throwaway account if you’re nervous.

Build that self-confidence!

The fandoms I used to write for are super dead, so it’s insane how I still get email notifications that so-and-so liked my fic to this day. Comments are as elusive as ever, but random strangers on the internet telling me they liked my work is a magical reassurance that my writing isn’t actually awful.

Random strangers on the internet are, as we all know, beholden to no moral obligation to be kind to your little avatar face, or be kind to be polite. So a rando taking the time to like my work or even leave a positive comment can feel more honest than one of my friends telling me what they think I want to hear.

I tend to avoid the more present aspects of fandom like online communities, forums, social media, what have you, so I get a delayed and diluted aspect of any given fandom through completed works. Which means, in general, I get to avoid the worst and most toxic aspects of fandom and get to sift through positive feedback and critique.

Even if your fanfic isn’t written with stellar prose, it’s fanfic. We don’t expect Pulitzer-prize winning content. And if your work isn’t up to snuff, people are more likely to just ignore it than put you on blast (at least in my experience, I never got a bad comment or a “flame” in the old FFN days).

Fanfic doesn’t care about the rules of published literature

On the one hand, try not to practice bad habits, but with this point I mean that your layout, punctuation, formatting, paragraph styles, chapter length–all of it is beholden to no rules. I get as annoyed as the next reader with giant blocks of paragraphs, or the double-spacing between pages of single-sentence paragraphs, but if the story’s good enough I might ignore it.

There’s more than just straight narrative fics, though. People write “chat” fics, or long streams of text and group chat conversations. The scene breaks can come super rapidly–I’ve seen fics with a single sentence in between line breaks to show the passage of time. And without the polish of a traditionally published novel, I’ve never seen a purer distillation of author voice in any medium more than fanfic.

All practice is good practice

Even if it’s crack fiction, or a one-off one-shot, or something meant to be lighthearted and straightforward and free from complex worldbuilding and intricate plots. It really helps break writer’s block when you can shift gears and headspaces entirely and you can get relatively instant feedback to keep you motivated.

Beyond that, the “guardrails” help you stay consistent as far as character growth and personality if you struggle with designing rich characters.

The most recent fanfic I wrote was just a couple years ago, for a dead fandom I didn’t think would get any traffic whatsoever. It wasn’t my original works, but the feedback on that fic gave me the kick in the butt I needed to get back into writing more seriously.

—

In short, I support fanfic. I may not be proud of my earliest fics' prose now, but I am proud that they walked so I can now run.

[kisses-soft-like-sunshine]

Would you? - Oneshot

Fluff w angst, Han x fem!reader, best friends, Uni AU, both are clueless idiots, 1.5k words. Content warning: none.

Han Jisung was the first friend you made at university. You were not in the same major but the few classes you shared brought the two of you together. Art museum visits and creative writing assignments had led to the blooming of a close friendship like you had never had. You could tell each other everything and anything. You could trust each other and read each other like an open book. It was strange how someone who once had been a stranger two years ago was now a kindred spirit you could not fathom not having in your life, but neither of you questioned it.

This year was your third and last. You shared less classes together, and you felt isolated from the peers you had in the courses you went alone. Yet Han being by your side was enough to make it all go away. He was different, though. Giddier than usual, almost on edge. You would have brushed it off as stress from the upcoming exams but you knew him well enough to understand. He had a crush, which wasn’t unusual. The weird part is, he told you nothing about that person. The weirder part is how irritated you were, seeing him so flustered and silly. You had always been the first to tease him mercilessly when it came to this, giggling along whatever nonsensical plan you’d both come up with to help him out. It rarely landed anywhere. He was popular, you knew that since you often passed him with groups of people you knew nothing of, but his flings rarely lasted.

You were supposed to meet him at his place tonight, having to work on an essay together. You were anxious and you hated yourself for it. You didn’t understand why you were behaving like this. No, you didn’t want to understand. Your voice was nesting in your throat as you made your way up the stairs. You were always so comfortable around each other, why did you have to make it like this? You even started to avoid him. He didn’t seem to notice… You sighed before knocking on his door, hoping the bird in your throat would soon take flight and not choke you with its feathers.

“Hi Y/N!” he said, cheerfully welcoming you to his familiar home. 

“Hey” you said, your voice muffled with detachment. Keep it together. You perked up your lips into a fake smile so as not to raise any suspicion.

You dropped your stuff by the door, hanging your coat next to his, and made your way to the sofa. His computer and notes were scattered all over the coffee table. You sank in the cushions trying to find some sense of comfort. You picked the computer and sat it on your lap, intended on focusing on work instead of him. But his fidgeting behind you was plucking at your ears like the faint whisper of a confession in a quiet church. It was enough to rile you up but you kept your cool. Whatever was going on with you, with him, you weren’t willing to sacrifice your friendship for the sake of your anger being released. What were you even angry about? You let out a pointless sigh.

“So… Do you want something to drink? Coffee?” he asked from his open kitchen.

“Sure.” you answered, still focused on your shared assignment.

You could hear him hum as he poured water in the kettle. As much as you wanted to focus, you couldn’t help but follow his every move. You didn’t like it when your heart commanded your brain. He moved to a large cabinet where he stored his record collection. He carried on a tune while musing through the albums and singles. Get it over with, dude! You were being mean to you both now. It made you feel pathetic. He finally put on one of your favorite EPs. Soft, melodic sounds filled the room allowing you to quiet your mind a little. He was still restlessly pacing behind you when you decided to break the silence.

“What’s with you these days?” you said, a grin softening your blank expression. Yet, you did not turn to him.

“Me? What do you mean?” He was acting like you were both fools but it was part of your little games. You chuckled and shook your head, his bright smile piercing through it. You were right.

“Oh, I don’t know… You’ve been especially agitated and erratic these days. Well, more than usual at least.”

“Hey!” he shouted, amused. You weren’t as much.

“So what’s their name?” you asked, your heart sinking at the bottom of you.

“Ah… Is it that obvious?” he giggled faintly and you could feel yourself shiver. He’s too cute. 

“Yeah, I mean, for me it is. But if I’m being honest here, you probably look like a mad dog to other people.” You teased him and the kettle whistled as though it was laughing with you.

He went to prep your coffees and set the cups in front of you once he was done. You couldn’t help but avoid looking at him, pretending to be absorbed in whatever it was you were supposed to work on tonight. He sat next to you, further than he normally would. You wondered if he could feel the tension you had brought with you and you felt guilt coating it.

“I’m not even sure she likes me that way anyway…” he exhaled.

“Why wouldn’t she?” you reassured him, still entertaining the pestering you shared.

“It’s complicated…”

“It really isn’t.” Was your patient wearing thin, or was it hope? You resented your voice for giving in to the feeling.

“Would you?” he asked, his tone both serious and coy.

“Would I what? Ask her out for you? I mean, sure, but you’re a little old for that.” 

Your mockerie had turned into a coping mechanism more than a game for two. The record scratched in the background, signaling the last song had ended. He stood up to put the needle to the side. 

“Would you like me that way?” he said, approaching you in silence. He wasn’t playing but you felt like you had lost regardless. His voice was too sweet, painted by a saccharine rhythm. 

“You’re being mean, Jisung.”

“What do you mean?” he chuckled lightly above your ear, his elbows burrowed in the cushiony top of the sofa. You felt shivers grow all over your skin. You swiftly turned to him, locking your eyes into his, making him realize you had not looked at him directly all evening. He blinked, flustered and confused. Your face was unreadable, which you made sure of, but your stare was so straightforward. 

“I’m not just some girl you can play pretend with whenever you feel like it. I have feelings too.” You gave in to the frustration.

“I know that.”

“Do you?” The fire in your eyes held his captive. You only turned your back on him when you felt tears bubbling up.

“I’m sorry.” He could tell you were hurt and didn’t know what else to say. Instead of words, he sat back next to you, closer this time. Your thoughts were thick as morning fog. He was looking down at his hand before carefully toying with your fingers laying on the sofa. You gingerly looked at what he was doing, caving in and offering your hand to him. He slowly traced the lines on your palm before intertwining his fingers with yours. You felt a burning heat grow from the depth your heart had sunk.

“I supposed it wasn’t that obvious…” he said, breaking the silent tension. Your eyes met with his, kind and glowing. He looked so soft in the evening light.

“I’m sorry I behaved like this. I think I was… jealous” you confessed at last.

“I know. I know you.” he said, smiling tenderly. “Better than myself, better than anyone, really.” You both stayed quietly in the presence of the other. You felt comfortable again. The realization hit you and you flew into his arms. He closed his eyes as your smell embraced his face. You were like honey to him, sweet and bitter, rich and simple. He loved every bit of it. Why would he ever want anything else? You caressed the side of his face with yours, feeling the warmth of his skin melt into yours. Your lips found the plump redness of his cheeks with ease. You peppered him with little kisses, mushy and intoxicating. One on the tip of his nose, one below his left eye, one under his right ear, one right next to his tender lips. He gently tucked your face with his hands as you left the last one, and delicately kissed your lips. You could swear the sofa was floating. You both smiled as he let go. You felt yourself relax in his arms as he held you close, leaning on the sofa. Not much work was done that evening but, God, the denouement was worth any consequences.

[motherofdragonflies]

The Elevator Game: A Choose Your Own Adventure Fic

Written by: @motherofdragonflies / bexgowen

Art by: @xfancyfranart

Rating: Explicit

Word count: 95,000

Tags/Warnings: Major Character Death, Choose Your Own Adventure Style, Psychological Horror, Canon Divergent, Post 15x03, Case Fic

Summary: 

The game is simple.

Get in an elevator, alone, and follow the rules. If you follow them correctly, the elevator will rise and when the doors open, they will open onto a world that is not your own.

When his brother goes missing after investigating the death of a teenage girl in a hotel in St. Louis, Dean Winchester is dismayed to discover it involved an internet legend called “the Elevator Game”.

He’s even more dismayed when Castiel—who walked away weeks ago and hasn’t been returning Dean’s calls—shows up, also looking for Sam.

Dean doesn’t want to work with Castiel, and Castiel doesn’t seem thrilled about working with him, either. Can they put their differences aside when  they discover that Sam disappeared after playing the Elevator Game? Will Dean and Castiel play the elevator game and travel to the Other World themselves? Will they find Sam before it's too late? 

The choice, dear reader, is yours. You are in control of the story.

But choose wisely, for once you play the Elevator Game, things may never be the same again.

Excerpt:

“Where did Ali hear about the game?” Sam’s voice asked. 

“She, uh, she loved scary stuff. Horror movies, urban legends, that kinda thing. I think she found it on reddit, in one of those scary story subreddits? I don’t know, I don’t…I don’t like that kind of thing. But, um, she was always talking about wanting to try it but you need a tall building and we’d never been anywhere anyway tall enough until…”

“Until that night. Did you tell the police?”

Lilah scoffed. “I told them. They didn’t believe me.”

“Lilah…what do you think happened?”

“I... I think…I think it worked.”

The audio file ended, and Dean sorted through the rest of the papers from the envelope Lilah had given him. The first page was a print out from a true crime subreddit: Dean recognised it as one that Sam checked constantly. His brother had highlighted a post on the page, one consisting of a single line that was posted four days after Alison and the others had disappeared:

Ali Bleaker played the elevator game.

Frowning, Dean turned to the next page and found that it was an article from a website called “The Ghost In My Machine”, titled “The Most Dangerous Games: The Elevator Game Revisited.”

Dean snorted at the title but read on:

"Some people know it as ‘Elevator To Another World’. For others, it’s the ‘Elevator to Hell’... But no matter the name, this peculiar…game, I suppose—although there’s nothing playful about it—it always said to have the same outcome, as long as you follow its rules to a T: By riding an elevator alone, visiting a handful of floors in a particular order as you go, you can transport yourself to another world entirely."

Dean stared at the words on the page.

Another world.

“Jesus, Sam, tell me you didn’t.”

Once upon a time, Dean might have dismissed the claim of ‘another world’ as something out of a science fiction story. But having visited several other worlds, Dean knew that alternate realities, multiverses—whatever you wanted to call them— were real. He doubted that something as simple as riding an elevator could take you to another world, but the idea wasn’t as far-fetched as he once would have believed it to be.

Snatching up his computer, Dean quickly pulled up the phone tracking site that he’d bookmarked and searched for the location of Sam’s phone. 

He was not at all surprised when the map showed Sam’s phone was at The Millennium Hotel, where Alison Bleaker had died.

Going up at @deancashorrorfest this October!

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

More to Me

Pt 2 of Glaciated Memory AU | Master Of Ice Art | My Dearest Friend... (pt 1/prequel)

1k

When Zane found the blueprints in his father’s old lab, showing his design and revealing what he was, he thought it would be the last major discovery about himself that he would find.

Oh how wrong he ended up being.

He always had dreams. Prophecies. Memories. Not quite to the degree that Lloyd began to have them, but they came all the same.

When they needed to discover more about the serpentine war, they became all the more vivid.

He was fighting. For his friends. To defend them. Ice wrapped around him. His dark hands, the only exposed skin he had reached and pulled his friend to their feet. “Watch your step,” he told them. The man who looked up bore a resemblance to Lloyd in a distant way. His hair was a similar colour and he had a serious expression set on his face in a similar way, too weary to be on the face of someone so young, just like Lloyd.

“Thank you. We must hurry.”

The sounds of battle crept up behind him slowly as they ran. He used his powers to create ice walls left and right to keep their assailants out. They were heading somewhere. They were trying to get to something but what--

Dreams were a funny thing when you did not sleep. Even stranger was waking up.

Zane did not need to recharge. He had a self-sustaining power source. Still, sometimes he would still need rest if he overused it, not unlike his human counterparts needing sleep. Sometimes he would close his eyes and other times he would lay down and stare up at the stars or relax and read. Sometimes his eyes closed on their own, and although it was not sleeping, it was very close to it.

In this case he woke up with something in his chest pulsing, not unlike a heartbeat he thought. He didn’t need to breathe but he breathed anyway. In and out. Long and slow.

In all honesty he had never wondered. But now, it was time to ask.

“I’m gonna be totally honest with you, dude,” Jay said. “I have no idea what this is.”

Zane sat on the metal table in their little room set aside for experiments on the bounty, his chest compartment open, wires and things clipped and plugged inside and hooked up to the ship’s computers. His power source pulsed like a heartbeat as it always did, its bluish white light reflected in the color of his eyes. He contemplated Jay’s diagnoses.

“Nya and Pixal could not explain it either.”

“Oh, I was the last person you came to, awesome. Love that. I feel very appreciated and properly utilized.”

Zane smiled. “I did not wish to interrupt your gaming.”

“Sure, sure,” Jay waved his hand dismissively. “You don’t have to lie to me. I’m not real active with this kinda stuff anymore anyway.”

“Do you regret not being involved in it?”

“Eh,” said Jay, “I’ve got other stuff to fill the time now.”

“You can always come back to it.”

Jay paused to stare down at the wires and pliers in his hands for a long while.

“Maybe.”

Zane smiled. “I am sure Nya and Pixal would appreciate your company.”

.

Pixal was always very digitally focused. Despite being a nindriod himself, Zane had never felt the same pull towards technology that she did. He always operated off of instinct.

When they discussed it one time, Pixal had been intrigued about how he interacted with technology because, in her words, it seemed as though he operated things through feeling rather than numbers or calculations. Which was a funny thing to hear considering he was known by the rest of the team as the most calculating of the bunch.

Zane connected with technology the way he connected with his elemental power. Instinct, practice. He didn’t know the logistics of how it worked behind the scenes, behind the instinct and feeling. It had been that way since his first days training with Master Wu. His ‘sixth sense’, they called it. Now there were numbers that flashed across his vision when he calculated certain things, when he felt who was close and who was far. Then, it had been nothing but a feeling.

What a silly and confusing thing it was to not be human but to operate off of feeling.

“You’re different, Zane,” Pixal told him.

“Well,” said Zane, “I am a nindriod.”

“So am I,” Pixal told him. “And you are still different.”

That sat with him for a few days. He pondered on it quite a bit. Turning it over in his mind again and again. He was different, wasn’t he? Even in the body of a young adult without his memories he had always acted older than his counterparts. He had attempted to imitate and enjoy things with them and he truly had, but it had taken some practice.

Still, what he was remained a mystery. Not even Wu could comprehend what powered him.

“When I look, what I see is the element of ice, contained within you.That is all.”

Which, in and of itself, was a curious thing.

How was it possible for a vessel of technology to hold an element? How was it possible for the element to dwell in that vessel when it was passed from parent to child, through destiny and fate rather than human engineering?

“I guess we could try taking it apart,” Nya said. “But we don’t know what that would do to you.”

His core wasn’t what it used to be. There wasn’t a piece of it that he could spare. When the original source was destroyed by the overlord--when he had been destroyed by the overlord--the only piece that remained belonged to Pixal, who Chen’s men had dismantled to retrieve the remaining piece of Zane’s core from and place it into Zane’s new titanium body. That piece now resided in Zane’s chest as before. Small and there was no telling what would happen if they split it another time or if they chose to experiment on it, so what it was would remain a mystery.

For now.

Zane kept dreaming. He kept seeing a battle, feeling urgency. He kept seeing his father’s face, younger than he ever remembered witnessing.

In the end what he chose to do was visit the site of the battle that he kept dreaming about.

It was in an eastern area of the Birchwood forest. A distance away from his father’s original laboratory in a still snowy but warmer climate. He placed his hand on the frosted over birch that felt so familiar. He felt as though he had woven through them before despite never having set foot in this area of the forest. His father had never explored this far nor bothered to leave the lab.

It was curious. That it felt so familiar. Curious that he felt… no, he knew he’d been here before, but according to Pixal no one had set foot in this forest since the war had ended.

He scanned his surroundings. He could feel when his titanium skin started to frost over after being there for a few hours.

“Have you found what you are looking for?” Pixal inquired, her voice settling comfortably inside his head as it had when she had no body to linger elsewhere. It was something that was familiar too. Something that was a memory that he knew he had experienced himself.

“I am not sure,” he confessed. “It’s a strange feeling, is all.”

“What will you do?”

“I will come back home.”

And he did just that.

“Find anything?” Kai asked him when he landed on the deck of the Bounty. He was sitting on the steps leading up to the control cabin.

“Nothing but old graves, I’m afraid.”

“Too bad. You’ll figure it out eventually. Just let us know if you need anything.”

“Thank you, Kai. I will.”

There were curious things about himself he could not put his finger on, but he would always have his friends there to help him discover and support him if what he found was not what he expected.

“I heard you’ve been having dreams.”

Zane glanced to see Cole leaning against the doorframe of his room. “Yes.” He watched as Cole entered, taking his response as the invitation it was. He came to sit next to him on the bed Zane didn’t need but still used.

“Have you talked to Lloyd about it?”

“Not yet. I was attempting to investigate first of all. If I were having visions of the future I would have initiated discussion with haste, but to my knowledge thus far they are things of the past.” Saying what he thought they were--the previous master of ice’s memories--felt inaccurate somehow. Saying they belonged to someone else didn’t feel right. And if Zane had learned anything from his time living, it was that his feelings often allowed him to see while logic blinded him.

He closed his eyes and breathed for a moment despite the fact he did not need to.

“What do you feel like it is?”

When he opened his eyes Cole was watching him. He was the first person to ask him that. Not what he thought it was. What he felt.

He remained still as he thought for a minute. “Something. I feel it is something.”

“It’s not nothing. It’s something,” Cole repeated.

“Yes.” Zane said.

“Okay,” said Cole. Zane could hear in his tone that he believed him. “So what next?”

“I follow where I feel.”

“Like always then,” Cole smiled.

Zane smiled slowly back. “Yes. Like always.”

It was comforting to know Cole trusted his instincts. That his family trusted his instincts. At times he did not feel he deserved such intense trust, but he was grateful for it nonetheless.

Like Cole said, whatever this was, he’d figure it out.

He was Zane, Elemental Master of Ice. Titanium Ninja. And possibly, if his theories were correct… something more.

[elekinetic]

What are your hcs about the Stranger Things characters’ futures? Like concerning their careers, where they wind up living, pets, colleges, or anything else that you want to talk about!

ohhhh i’m torn. i want them to all end up in the same place. i don’t think this is the canon answer but this is what makes me happy:

the party ends up in california for college. they all go to uc santa cruz, cause they didn’t get a chance to do the whole college application thing while saving the world and owens pulled some strings. el and max are roommates. dustin mike and lucas get put in a triple, but if mike starts staying at a certain party member’s single most of the time…..that’s none of their business. max starts as a neuroscience major until she fucking hates it. she’s at the arcade one night and watches someone repair a broken machine and is like, oh shit. that’s kinda cool. she switches to computer science, then to computer engineering bc CS is for nerds. (dustin does CS.) lucas came in as a political science major, but he realized he was way more interested in helping max with her neuroscience homework. he ends up doing a double major in political science and human health sciences. mike majors in communication cause it’s a compromise between getting a business degree like his parents insist and studying something he’s actually interested in (this is the problem. mike has no clue what he wants to study). will is a visual arts major obv. el switches her major about seventeen different times (zoology, religion, international relations, mechanical engineering). she ends up graduating w mike in communication bc its the easiest to apply her various credits to. el and dustin get really into improv. el also does theatre, and mike ends up getting dragged into the tech scene. lucas plays club basketball and gets involved in student govt. he sets up a lot of food and blood drives. the party goes to a board game club, but will goes EVERY week and makes a bunch of great friends. max learns guitar and starts playing at open mics (el is the only one who knows. and lucas, a little later). they all join the college radio station. first its dustin helping a mutual friend fix radio tech, then its will filling in for a mutual friend’s missing cohost, then it’s will and lucas starting an advice show, and el and max starting a show where max makes the tapes and el just talks about whatever she wants, and mike fucking around in the background of all his friends’ shows and shouting out unsolicited comments. when they all move off campus, mike and will, dustin and lucas, and el and max get their own apartments respectively. lumax starts talking abt moving in together and el is like “i love you both but i am not trying to third wheel in my own home.” thus, henderhop house is born. these two were BORN to be roommates. they become such good friends and are so respectful of each others space and are so so communicative! and they both love to cook. henderhop lives together for like, six years post college. listen, they have two cats together. they don’t want to traumatize them with a divorce. mike and will get a dog when they’re older (late 20s, early 30s). they used to catsit for their neighbor, but mike is crazy allergic. it always sounds like he’s going through puberty again. the party ends up in southern california. el becomes an archaeologist and travels a lot. dustin lives in pasadena and works for JPL. max does some work with him, does some contacts for a few different companies. she eventually becomes a professor and spends her off time doing research. lucas becomes a pediatrician. later in life he serves on city council, then turns to non-profit work. will get a job as an illustration intern at a comic house straight out of college and works his way up from there. mike bounces around office jobs, does some time at a publishing house, and goes back to school for a creative writing MFA. he sells some original stuff but he ends up mostly writing comics for IPs with will. they make a name for themselves in the Star Wars EA and actually get invited to a couple comic-con panels. dustin flips his shit.

[salted-anime-takes]

Sword Art Online (S1 & S2; dropped after that)

Author: Reki Kawahara, originally light novels

Studio: A-1 Pictures

Genres (Listed by MAL): Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Romance (vomits), Love Polygon (kills you)

Premiered: Summer 2012

Anime vs. Manga?: You couldn't pay me less than $100 to consume additional content to this series. I'd also need a large margarita.

Salted Genres: stereotypical teen boy fantasy, loser cardboard male mc, harem of women too good for him, jesus christ they had a torture dungeon for main girl in S2 by some grown man obsessed with her???, jesus FUCKING christ they gave Kirito a cousin who is into him but reasoned it off not being totally blood related, why did we let this series get so popular

Major Trigger Warnings: that weird sex dungeon thing in S2, almost incest, shitty writing, shitty love polygon garbage

Can I Watch It Around My Parents?: Just don't watch it. The cultural context isn't worth it. Do yourself a favor and stop thinking isekai will be family friendly when the main audience is incels.

Artstyle: That moe-esque style without any personality and makes all the main characters look 12, and many side characters look ridiculously older.

Personal Review: I will never forgive SAO for kicking off the isekai genre in anime so hard. Fuck yourself, Kirito. Every other anime lead in isekai is just you. Fuck this garbage pile for the isekai boom. Fuck my life

Context: This is the real reason you're here, aside from the scathing remarks you've probably heard a billion times. Why the fuck is this show even relevant? Let's go back to the early 2010s, before half of tumblr could pretend to read. (This is mostly from the Western perspective, so please add anything else happening in the world with this wild popularity jump, because I'd LOVE to hear additional takes.) Several factors were going on. Firstly, Netflix was finally a full streaming service, and most people were starting to subscribe. You didn't have to hope it was on Toonami or go to whatever sketchy websites had anime illegally available (and get every virus known to computer-kind) to get your fix anymore. Well... for a small starting selection. Secondly, while the isekai genre was already a fully developed thing, it hadn't broken into the majority Western anime viewership circles, which barely ventured outside of Toonami at the time. Then along came SAO. Netflix got the rights to the entire first season, and suddenly, it was not only insanely accessible but also something most Western fans had never seen before. You die in the game, you die in real life?! Incredible!!! (Sorry Tron, you weren't high fantasy enough for this crowd.) Thirdly, gaming was finally mainstream, and watching streamers was a new norm. The timing couldn't have been better for its release. And what with the insane levels of ignorance and assumptions most Western anime watchers had at the time of anime tropes, most red flags discussed were merely looked over. We let too much slide in the early 2010s, and SAO was one of the biggest culprits. Fourthly, if you needed a gateway anime? SAO didn't require any sort of understanding of Japanese culture to get, which appealed to a lot of people who didn't want to think outside their box, as was the early 2010s. Despite it all, SAO was easy merchandise. Hot Topic (apologies for the American chain drop) was venturing into nerd culture and including some nice trinkets for the little nerds that hung out with their goth besties, and anime merch- including SAO- was some of the first big hits. After that? It's history. I don't know if anyone who still claims to like SAO actually is banking on nostalgia or just never gained tastes beyond a lameass horny 15 year old boy, but that boom it created gave so many light novel writers the ticket they needed to get isekai as a major genre in today's seasonal anime lineup.

Favorite Character: Asuna deserved better you motherfuckers. She actually did stuff until you get thrown into the most unnecessary slice of life arc where they begin the Sexualization. S2 cour 2 they gave her a genuinely interesting opportunity to be a lead, AND Kirito wasn't there. Still not worth watching.

Fandom: you couldn't pay me ANYTHING to check this.

[enchantedanimal]

first off: i saw your mothman coaster art and it's very cool :D

second off: you mentioned it was for a class you're taking? is that part of like a larger major for attraction design? i have a family member who has always been interested in that kind of thing and i didn't know there was something like that out there!

Tysm!!

In short: Yes, it's what I'm studying! People's reactions when I tell them are so funny bc no one has heard of it

As for a better explanation, I'll try my best to keep it from being horribly lengthy but its kinda complicated rn so bear with me (I also do not mind answering more questions about it if I know the answer)

So, my major is technically called Computer Graphics Technology/CGT, which is a digital design based major that has multiple things you can choose to concentrate in, kinda like a major within a major! I chose to concentrate in Themed Attraction Design (sometimes I just say that I'm majoring in that bc CGT tends to go over people's heads more), which is unique from the other concentrations in that it has a minor and a certificate if you don't want to take the whole CGT major. You also don't have to be into illustration/concept art- that's the role I've fallen into, but just in my group for this project we also have modelers, story writers, engineers, graphic designers, etc! They'll push you but let you work to your strengths.

I chose IUPUI (Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis) bc it's one of the very few colleges that offer it! However like I said things are weird rn bc IUPUI is splitting itself into the two separate colleges after this semester (we're literally going through an academic divorce ✌️😞) so I'm on a teach-out plan of study which is likely different than students starting fall 24' since it'll be under Purdue Polytechnic and yada yada all that fun and confusing stuff. With the many changes, Purdue should still be keeping TAD as an option.

BUT ANYWAYS from my experience so far it's really interesting! You get a good amount of exposure to the themed attraction industry, such as yearly trips down to Florida for the IAAPA convention, WDW (we took some Imagination campus classes), and Universal in November (I went last year, it was really fun), as well as getting to listen and talk to industry professionals such as imagineers and ppl at universal creative (as well as museums, zoos, etc). It's definitely unique and going to theme parks with the excuse that it's for education is a bonus lol

[lorei-writes]

Hi Lorei!

I hope I got here in time... saw your post just as my computer decided to update itself. Happy Weekend Party!

5 of your positive qualities,

I try to be kind

I am smart

I have a decent sense of humor

I'm loyal

I'm diplomatic

5 of your negative qualities,

I am messy (not dirty, just ... chaotic)

I am a picky eater

I can fixate on minor issues

I am a worrier (ok, I am anxious)

I procrastinate

up to 5 of your likes,

Reading

Autumn - and taking long walks when the leaves are crunchy

Mountains

Learning, researching, investigating interesting topics (don't ask to see my browser history!)

Visual arts - film, television, theater, museums

up to 5 of your dislikes,

Horror

Mushrooms

The smell of freshly cut grass (allergic)

[I'm going to leave this blank, but it's about politics, so I'll spare you the rant]

Pollution

your pet peeves,

Getting interrupted while I am in the middle of something

Getting told that something I dislike is "good for me" and therefore I should do it anyway

relationship deal breakers,

Possessiveness

No respect for personal boundaries

Excessive drinking/drug use

Lack of interest in personal growth

Cruelty to animals and people

(optional) up to 3 wild cards of your choice

I am introverted and need a certain amount of alone/quiet time to recharge.

I'm a mediocre cook but a great baker (but a terrible decorator)

I love snow

I hope I got in in time! Have a great weekend!

Hello!

Whew, those updates always arrive at the most convenient time, don't they? Luckily, all worked out this time!

From the thoughts diary...

I am a worrier (ok, I am anxious)

Ah. Welcome to the court. ~ Signed, Court Overthinker

--

Thought #1: The yandere trope would be a really poor fit, same as "he drinks to drink away his sorrows (broodingly)". Add "villain who needs love to reform himself" to that list.

Overall, I'd lean towards more mature characters, who have their stuff (mostly) sorted out. Not the constant-walking-festival-slash-soap-opera-of-a-person, not oh-convince-me-i-am-worthy-of-even-existing-(we-are-going-to-spend-the-next-15-chapters-pretending-i-don't-love-you), and probably not the i-am-your-boss-but-also-a-major-major-BRAT.

I think it'd lean towards characters who'd be ready to settle down, and who'd be competent enough to live on their own. They should know what is important to them, why exactly that is the case, and what compromises they may be willing to make. Generally, I think it'd be better if they had rather balanced approach towards most things -- after all, given all its complexity, it is hard to see the world as purely black-and-white.

+Emotionally mature, with good understanding of the fact that relationships are both give and take. +"Love is a choice that needs to be made daily" sort of mindset - good idea on why effort matters (and that effort doesn't necessarily need to be some grand gestures).

Suggested Characters: Shingen (IkeSen), Sasuke (IkeSen), Comte (IkeVamp), Theo (IkeVamp; maybe? He has some potential), Leon (IkePri; maybe? He does lean towards "boyish" on the charm scale...), Rio (IkePri; maybe? As before).

Weekend Party

[dastardlydandelion]

a 2024 update

i keep circling back to the idea of deleting my tumblr. i’m not as active as I once was, my schedule changed (and workload intensified) in the time i began this blog to where i am now. the AI is really freaking me out but that’s not just a tumblr problem, (it’s everywhere 😱) so much less of a factor in my contemplation because i know i can't avoid it.

i’m also not the same as i was three years ago and euuugh, some of my early stuff makes me cringe so hard i want to delete just to distance myself from it!!! but like, evolution and change are just natural in the process of existing as a human being. in another three years, i’ll be even more different (albeit my pre-frontal cortex will remain fully developed so the changes will potentially be less pronounced). soo what am i gonna do, reset every three years like a robot getting a new computer chip??

this is going to get longer than i expected, so explanation continues under the cut:

nah. i may not be as active as i used to be and my opinions/interests may have shifted/evolved, but still, so many of my friends are here and there’s all this cool art, and gifsets, and what have you.

since this was and remains mainly a fandom blog, i’ll briefly summarize my major attitude shifts regarding fandom:

on the yellowjackets front, a significant decrease in hostility toward one travis martinez. like…okay I still don’t love that ben sent travis out alone hunting with nat after he pointed a gun! at her fucking face! and I still don’t love the portion of fandumb that straight up ignores that travis pointed a gun at natalie’s face, and yes it was kind of frustrating that the male characters in general got so much screen time in a show that’s supposed to be about female characters but like. none of that is travis the character’s fault— actually ykw, that’s one of my problems generally that i noticed, that i want to grow from— i keep letting fandumb (and content burnout) influence my perception of and response to characters/plot lines/ships rather than organically formulating my interpretations separate from that influence. i mean fandumb generally, not just YJ. blah blah blah, anyway, i apologize, travis martinez. you had to eat your baby brother. you sank your teeth into his freshly carved out raw heart. i want to both examine you from a more organic angle going forward and hug you now.

okay, okay, i was gonna break down my notable shifts in opinion by fandom, but going off of the aforementioned pattern that i have, maybe i should...no, no, let's keep going by fandom, i have that problem in *every* fandom, so.

ST! I FINALLY WATCHED IT. holy cannoli, okay, @lucdarling and @foxgirlontherun are buds that i remember telling for sure, but i know for sure i didn't tell all of my ST pals so i'll touch on that. watched it over the holidays with my grandma, who had been trying to get me to watch for some time and i finally caved.

1.) we get more glimpses of the demogorgon in the first season than i ever gave it credit for. myself of...however many years ago was just too damn impatient waiting to see the whole damn monster. we get a claw here, a growl there, a moving shadow, etc. its introduction was actually well done, so. years-ago me, you were WRONG. WRONG, I TELL YOU, WRONG.

2.) eleven does not have pyrokinesis. i knew she was telepathic (to a degree) and telekinetic, but for some reason, in the past i *also* believed she could set things on fire with her mind. i just thought she used that power less because fire is so destructive. well...now i know she doesn't have pyrokinesis at all!

3.) the byers do NOT live in a trailer. this i did actually learn before watching the show, i learned in 2022 when a bud sent me like, a pic of their lego byers house and i was like, oh. neat. that's not a trailer. 🙃 so that i did become aware before watching, but seeing it onscreen reminded me that i knew.

4.) billy has more canon depth than i had given him credit for, previously having just watched scenes for fic-reference out of context. i apologize, billiam (i don't attribute a shred of that depth to the duffballs, but that's a different rant). i think since i entered the fandom side of things long before watching, i got certain portions of fanon and canon confused. also-- much like with travis and some other examples i'm going to get into-- i let too much fandumb influence my response to him + impression of his role in canon.

5.) steve is nowhere nearly as irritating in canon as i thought he was. the things that i find irritating about steve are-- once again, see above examples --not really anything that has to do with the character himself! i'm sorry, steve!

on that note, sorry hairygrove friends!! i love you guys and it's been a gift getting to know each of you over the last few years, but i was pretty damn mean to steve sometimes! i should've been nicer to steve...and maybe bill, for that matter, but i mean, i'd written so much from his POV i think it goes without saying that i've always had affection for the latter, even if i probably should've given him more credit for canon characterization and been less presumptuous.

obviously having seen the show, i have more developed thoughts on ST overall, but i think those are just...the main differentiations between opinions formulated in the early days of this blog versus where i'm at now. friends of mine who watch ST, if you want to talk about it, i'm happy to! but please DM me personally and don't send asks about it. i don't want to answer asks because those get posted on the main blog. on the main blog the algorithm reads what's posted and sends you suggestions accordingly.

certain parts of ST S4VOL2 make me *extremely* uncomfortable. i scroll past gifs, art, edits, etc, of those parts on occasion already since i have so many ST friends and the algorithm suggests related content. and it's fine...but i don't want to give the algorithm more reasons to show me even more things that make me uncomfortable, you know what i mean?

guess that's it for ST.

so let's revisit the scream franchise!

might as well go ahead and get the biggest change out of the way: i no longer hate dewey riley!

good lord, for years i was just the stabbiest damn crab at that character. 🦀🔪 opinion officially evolved, evolved BIG time. i was once so irritated with dewey i straight up celebrated when he got killed off . the glee at his demise pushed the ghostface that killed him right up to the top of my ranking.

BOOOOOOOOO. BOOOOOOOOO ME.

...okay. i. i'm sorry, dewey.

once again, here goes me with this pattern that i need to stop. me raising up my hackles at fandumb and components of the character that are not *the* character. i don't like the hero cop trope. i don't. the copaganda of it all...but. a character's mere status of falling into a category of trope or cliche shouldn't discourage thorough examination of them, their personalities, role in the story, or other traits. that's a very small way to interact with fiction, isn't it? i've since moved on from that knee-jerk dismissal.

i also was also a huge flipping grinch when it came to romance for a long ass time (will touch on this later) and so much of dewey's story is about the romance between him and gale. which is...actually a pretty solid romantic storyline, i realize after multiple earnest re-watches of the franchises. dewey has a solid arc! gale has a solid arc! their romance has a solid arc! should not have complained about this nearly as much as i did. maybe it's because of the chemistry between the performers, but all their banter throughout the movies that i once rolled my eyes at...it...it works! okay, it works, they made it work.

i no longer rejoice that dewey is killed off (albeit the scene itself is still pretty freaking cool). amber definitely *isn't* my ghostfave. she's NOT at the bottom of my list but NOT at the top. actually-- wait, no, that can wait, i'm not done with dewey yet...or am i, do i have anything else to say about dewey?

okay, he's not my favorite character, but. he's a classic and he's lovable and i won't fight it anymore because of petty irritations or my personal issues with a trope that in no way makes up the whole of his character.

since we're on scream, whoa, GHOSTFACE RANKING HAS EVOLVED 11/10!

yes, oh, that is so much different than where it was when i started this blog! also very different after recency bias + initial script + the dewey kill scene undeservedly shot amber to the top of my ranking in early 2022.

i'm not going to detail my ranking in this post. that could easily be its own post with its own thorough dissections of which ghostface takes which slot and why. but i will bring up another scream character whose opinion of mine has greatly changed over time: richie kirsch.

i was so irritated by this guy before. couldn't stand him! and you guessed it, for the wrong reasons! i was put off by a lot of the outpouring of the horny focus on him in fandom. not shaming anybody for their preferences by the way! look, i have my own villain crushes (see beth, who is at the top of my ranking again although we'll save the details for another day). it's just...it was kind of frustrating back then to want to gush about the carpenter sisters and mostly find myself surrounded by risque white male centered content instead. i hope that's understandable. so i got burned out on richie content and dismissed the whole character. i was also VERY put off by radio silence's interpretation of their ghostface duo in 2022 but that's a different conversation and again, not richie the character's fault.

richie is funny! okay, he's funny, yes, the "boner pills" line is still irritating, but now...now when i re-watch 5cream i can appreciate him more and the humor of richie *mostly* lands for me! i also think scream VI made me appreciate richie more, because his family is so underdeveloped and wayne's actor made...choices with that performance. but again, that's something i would get into more if i were to detail the evolution of my ghostface ranking.

i think that's it for the major changes in my scream feelings...what other fandoms...

okay, cobra kai? how have my opinions evolved there?

ykw, that one might be mostly the same. the show got worse. it got so bad. it's so bad now, it just bums me out. the one thing i truly wanted from that show was for tory nichols to get the screentime she deserved and for the show to deliver on her hidden depths alluded to the first three seasons. my wish was granted in sheer monkey paw fashion, because they finally did that and pretty much the rest of the show went to shit, go figure. 💩

um...hmm...SHIPPING.

oh, okay, shipping. yeah, let's talk about that. not fandom specific, just um. okay, at the time i started this blog i was never what the kids call 'antis' in that i have some moral beef with fan content of fictional characters falling in love or doing sex things. no, no, that's pretty silly. BUT what i was, was a huge grinch!!! just the mention of romance made me scrunch my face. wouldn't read/write/engage with any shippy things beyond some extremely particular F/F content.

as someone who prefers F/F because it's what i relate to, i know at some point i was just burned out on everything fandom being so heavily M/M focused and everything canon being so heavily F/M focused. i also have feelings about the way M/F is portrayed in canon media due to misogynistic tropes and storylines. but even where F/F was concerned, i was so picky. picky as a damn porcupine.

i believe a combination of things has finally let me to loosen up when it comes to shipping and romance in general.

1.) limiting my engagement with it, allowing me to recover from the burnout.

2.) getting over personal romantic issues IRL that tainted my engagement in fictional romance.

3.) YELLOWJACKETS. i have many complaints with s2 but nevertheless, YJ has given us so many complex, rich female characters with interesting dynamics. and the exploration of those dynamics is abundant, varied, and so thoughtfully explored in YJ fandom that i am hooked! i feel more invested in expanding my F/F pool and i feel less overrun by the greater amount of M/M and M/F content because these fascinating characters and the earnest effort fandom puts into depicting multilayered relationships between them just...evens the playing field, i guess, if we're gonna make a soccer pun. ⚽️

4.) watching romances + romantic subplots with women behind the camera. turns out, the less misogyny involved, the more genuinely i can enjoy an M/F ship. go figure, huh.

anyway, i'm not such a stab crab about romance anymore. i know i have many fandom friends who *are* interested in shipping and i apologize if i was ever cramping your style or bringing you down when i would express my disgruntlement. i hope you can forgive me, i promise to be less of a grinch now. 💚

🦀🔪 fandom opinions that have not changed:

1.) THE BLACK PHONE. waited a year, paid $30 to watch ethan hawke put plates on the floor for an hour! NO! i want a refund!!! WASTED POTENTIAL. GONNA HOLD THIS GRUDGE FOREVER.

2.) the CAOS finale was absolutely disgusting! it was never a great show, sarah rees brennan who wrote the tie-in novels should've been in charge of the screenplay, imo. the novels did so much, so much better, but i digress...mediocre show or not, that fourth season took bad to a whole new level. 🤢

3.) ALEX SAXON CANNOT ACT. i appreciate nancy drew (2019) presenting to me F/M ships (namely fanson) i could actually get into because of the way the dynamics were written but the nace obsessions baffles me when the acting in MTV scream was oscar-worthy compared to this man's sheer lack of ability to emote.

...unless....unless the editors of the show hated alex saxon and only used edits they knew were bad in the finalized episodes in order to sabotage his career going forward. but i have no proof, it's just a possible conspiracy theory. 🤔

non-fandom relevant blog thoughts:

i love interacting with my friends, building connections, and admiring the creativity people put out into the world in various forms. i want to be more focused on that, online and offline, than negativity. i also don't want my apprehension surrounding AI to prevent me from engaging with the digital world and the wonderful human people i've gotten to know through it.

i want to think about nature more than the things that make me so angry, so beyond my control. i want to share animal facts and pictures of forests and funnily shaped rocks. i want to spend more time making people laugh than spiraling into personal insecurities...i don't think my blog was ever a *particularly* negative place, but oh boy, i could certainly be a crab with TWO knives...

there's plenty to be afraid of and be angry about with the expansion of AI and its grip on the digital world. i guess the whole purpose of this post was just to express 'these are the things that have changed and my priorities have also changed.' with that, i really want to focus more on creative things, fun things, funny things, and share more joy than anything else.

there's only so much time. i want to spend the bulk of it cherishing the connections we make, more than anything else.

[alltimefail-sims]

I’m the simmer which EA account got banned.

Yes the only exception is that it’s because of the cc. Because all my sims have a lot of cc. I’m very sad I spent a lot of time creating them….

So, if I'm understanding correctly, you can still go into your game and play, but you just can't post sims on the gallery? Or are you completely locked out of your EA account and can't even play your game at all?

Read More ↓

I'm happy to help! Usually they send a warning before outright banning, did you receive any warnings to your EA account prior to being banned? You can login into your EA account online and look under "MY BAN HISTORY." This should tell you when you were banned and give you the option to dispute the ban. Here's a Reddit thread I found while looking into your problem that shows some screenshots that illustrate what I'm talking about.

That's why I personally don't upload anything that isn't "Vanilla" to the gallery if I can help it. There have been some issues in the past with inappropriate and outright racist content, and the gallery has undergone major changes in the last couple months in an attempt to avoid this. My guess is that whatever filter/algorithm they're using to find inappropriate content might have a harder time with sims that use a lot of custom content, and it might be more privy to flagging those, unfortunately. It sucks, but it's the sims team lol. They are bad at fixing problems, but very good at making them. The gallery has always had its issues and, especially if you're using cc, it can be very unreliable IMO. That's why if you're creating sims with the intent/hopes to share them, I really recommend making a Simblr and sharing your sims on here by uploading them to a free host like Google Drive, Mediafire, Patreon, OneDrive, etc. Like I said, I'm happy to create a tutorial for that if you're curious! I'm not tech savvy, but I upload sims on here all the time and haven't had any issues with my methods - it's not as complicated as you'd think once you get the hang of it, and you don't run into issues that come from the gallery.

and YES, absolutely just save your unfinished sims to your library. I have 5 copies of "Vatores - In Progress" in my library right now lmao because I know this game is always playing around in the worst way and I don't want to lose my sims or my progress. I only ever save sims and builds that use CC to my personal library, never on the gallery, and then I use Tray Importer to grab their tray files and cc to share them. It's actually easy-peasy!

You are not stupid! I totally get your thought process with the spawning. That is a pain and there's no perfect solution to that other than just deleting the unfinished townie if they happen to generate in your game.

SUPER IMPORTANT QUESTION: you still have your game installed and therefore have access to your Sims 4 folder, right? If so, you can back up your tray and saves that way you don't lose anything.

I'm using a Windows computer, so I'm sorry if you're using a MAC... I don't know much about their Operating System. For me I can do this by simply copying both folders and storing them in a folder on my desktop, but you can even use a separate flash drive if you prefer.

I go to Documents -> Electronic Arts -> The Sims 4. You use mods, so you're probably very familiar with this but here's a screenshot just in case:

The two folders I have highlighted - saves and tray - you should keep backups of before you update your game, put new mods in your game, etc. because if something gets corrupted, you'll always be able to save the important stuff if you have to uninstall your game, move to a new PC, and etc.

That's what my folder looks like on my desktop - the last copy I made of my tray and saves was on October 17th.

That's the inside of the folder.

Important note while we are here: you can also delete anything inside the cachestr folder (but not the folder itself), anything inside the onlinethumbnailcache folder (but not the folder itself), the avatarcache.package file, and the localthumbcache.package file. Especially do this after removing any mods or cc from your game!

If you can still go into your game and access your sims in the gallery at any capacity, you should go ahead and save your favorite sims to your library. You can do this by going into CAS, adding them to a new household, and saving them like I showed you in the last post. Save your game and then, if you haven't backed everything up before, I would recommend doing that.

If you can't access your gallery at all any more, with the exception of your library, but some of the sims/households you liked have spawned in your game, you can also add them to your library by editing their household from the neighborhood bin. Just open them in CAS and save them to your library the same way you would a totally new sim. This way, even if you may not be able to access everything you've uploaded to the gallery, you might still be able to salvage some sims this way.

Also, if you made a family in CAS and then moved them into a house right after, good news - a copy of them is already saved in your library! So there's definitely some hope?

Lastly, I believe this was also you:

I don't know what mod this could be, but I've seen people complaining about this issue in the past. I've never personally ran into this issue, but it's likely a script mod. Hard to say: I don't know what cc and mods you have in your game. You might just need to clean out your mods and CC folder until your find the culprit (50/50 method). If you don't have everything organized into subfolders, this would be the perfect opportunity to do that. I'll do some digging though, I'm sorry I can't be more helpeful with this.

Please don't feel stupid or feel bad for asking for help. I'm happy to help you as much as I can. That's what I'm here for! I had to learn a lot of this on my own, so if I can help someone else, that makes me happy! Hopefully there is something in here that works out for you. I'll be sending good luck your way!! 🖤

[satoshi-mochida]

Dungeon Travelers: To Heart 2 in Another World for PC launches February 14, 2024

Gematsu Source

Dungeon RPG Dungeon Travelers: To Heart 2 in Another World will launch for PC via Steam and Johren on February 14, 2024 for $19.99, publishers Shiravune and DMM Games, and developer AQUAPLUS announced. It will support English, Japanese, and Traditional Chinese language support.

Here is an overview of the game, via Shiravune:

About

Recruit a huge cast of friends from four different base classes that branch into over a dozen variations, and always build the best party for the job! Explore one long, twisting dungeon that only gets more perilous the further you go, with plenty of optional quests and side areas to unlock! The original Dungeon Travelers game takes place in a separate world from the others, drawing characters instead from the fan-beloved world of the PlayStation 2 anime classic To Heart 2.

Prepare at the Guild – Whenever you stop for a respite from exploring, you can identify your new gear, reequip and restructure your team, or even upgrade your characters’ classes along branching paths!

Explore the Dungeon – The Auto-Map function will fill in the grid with each step, letting you know where you are and where you’ve been. Be careful, though! Don’t try to go too far at once…

Battle and Collect Monsters – The deeper you delve into the dungeon, the more dangerous the monsters will become. You’ll need tactics to counter each new threat—and what better way to get to know your foes than by weakening them and sealing them into your book for study?

Strategize and Win – With every battle you’ll amass more gold, EXP, and items. It’s up to you whether to press on, or to head back outside to power up for later!

Story

When I awoke, there was fantasy stuff everywhere… What kind of adventure could be in store? And will there be any way home when it’s all said and done?! It all started after class in the student council room. Takaaki and all his friends had been gathered to test some unquestionably suspicious if not downright dangerous game—or “full-body immersive RPG experience,” in the words of its inimitable creator Ma-ryan. The play-test was only questionably voluntary. The game started to launch. A bright flash filled the room… When Takaaki opened his eyes, he was somewhere he didn’t recognize. His friends Konomi and Tamaki were kitted out in full fantasy gear, and when he looked more closely, he realized he was too. Were they in the game? Forget that—how would they get out? Only one lead presented itself. “In the depths of the dungeon located nearby, there lives the god who created this world…” But who could it be? In search of more clues and hopefully some answers, the party set out into the dungeon…

Characters

Konomi Yuzuhara (voiced by Yurina Hase) – Takaaki’s childhood friend, one year younger, who lives next door. She’s fond of fortune-telling and food and has a dog named Genjimaru. Likes to look after people but isn’t much good at it.

Tamaki Kousaka (voiced by Shizuka Ito) – One year older than Takaaki and Konomi, she was always the boss of their motley crew. The heiress of an old family, skilled at cooking, cleaning, martial arts, and academia. Her hobbies include antiques collecting and historical dramas. Very bad with dogs.

Manaka Komaki (voiced by Noriko Rikimaru) – Takaaki’s classmate and class president. Formerly the class vice president. As a big snacker, she’s turned a certain storage area into a secret tea room. She isn’t very assertive, but has been friends with Yuma since middle school.

Karin Sasamori (voiced by Saki Nakajima) – A girl who loves paranormal phenomena… and also egg sandwiches. Blessed with boundless curiosity and energy, but doesn’t look before she leaps. The founder and fearless leader of the Mystery Club. Join today!

Sango Himeyuri (voiced by Sayori Ishizuka) – Ruri Himeyuri’s older twin sister. One year under Takaaki. A genius at computers and a major fan of red bean butter bread. Lives at her own pace, doing what she wants, when she wants.

Ruri Himeyuri (voiced by Konami Yoshida) – Sango Himeyuri’s younger twin sister. One year under Takaaki. Emotional and unacademic, she practices jealousy and stubbornness as art forms. On the other hand, she’s good at housework, and loves Sango more than anyone.

Yuma Tonami (voiced by Hitomi Nabatame) – A girl who sees everything as a contest: You can win or lose, and she wants to win. She’s constantly challenging Takaaki, but almost never comes out on top. She must have been born under an unlucky star. Most things she does backfire.

Lucy Maria Misora (voiced by Rio Natsuki) – A space alien from Planet Luu, the third planet orbiting 47 Ursae Majoris… or is she? She’s certainly an odd girl, with her own language and the power to get drunk on soda. Attends classes only when she feels like it, but no one seems to mind.

Yuki Kusakabe (voiced by Rina Sato) – An old classmate of Takaaki’s who thinks everything “seems like fate.” Never seen without the fancy notebook that she seems to carry everywhere. Likes black tea, though it burns her tongue. Seems to be primarily nocturnal?

Sasara Kusugawa (voiced by Ryoko Ono) – The student council president, formerly the vice president under Ma-ryan. Afflicted by a strange condition that causes her body to reject food made with love. An unabashed aficionado of soft and slimy animals.

Ma-ryan (voiced by Ema Kogure) – Real name: Unknown. Age: 14 forever in her heart. Moonlights as a voice actress. Even post-graduation, she comes and goes in the student council office like she owns the place. The definition of a troublemaker. Full of mischief and mysteries.

Harumi Kouno (voiced by Kotomi Yamakawa) – A girl who transferred in one day and started calling Takaaki “Darling.” Her true name is HMX-17b Milfa, and she was previously in the body of a teddy bear. She’s always arguing with her little sister Silfa.

HMX-17c Silfa (voiced by Harumi Sakurai) – The youngest of the three maid sisters has a distinctive speech impediment. With a phobia of human interaction, she hides in a cardboard box when she’s upset. The maid uniform she always wears comes courtesy of Yuji.

Chie Yoshioka (voiced by Kaori Ota) – Konomi’s close friend, nicknamed Yocchi. She’s known Konomi since middle school and Michiru Yamada since kindergarten. Bright and cheerful—and also weird and kind of nosy, but a good person at heart.

Michiru Yamada (voiced by Akira Kasahara) – Konomi’s close friend, nicknamed Charu. She’s known Konomi since middle school and Chie Yoshioka since kindergarten. Normally collected and wryly witty, but her family’s work is weighing on her lately.

Ikuno Komaki (voiced by Chiro Kanzaki) – Manaka Komaki’s little sister. She normally uses a wheelchair. Always worried about her sister’s trusting nature, she’s keeping a close eye on Takaaki, whom her sister is fond of. Cynical and often bitingly sarcastic.

Nanako (voiced by Kayo Sakata) – An innocent girl who loves Takaaki, or “Takky,” like a big brother. She’s also more of a go-getter than you might expect: in the past, she’s roped Takaaki and others into a quest to find a magic user.

Haruka Yuzuhara (voiced by Chieko Honda) – Konomi’s mother, and a sort of second mother-figure to Takaaki. She looks and acts considerably younger than she is and has a wealth of hobbies. Specialties: Killer Curry, thorough discipline, and loving her husband.

HMX-17a Ilfa (voiced by Emiko Hagiwara) – A maid robot whom Milfa and Silfa can call their big sister. Specially equipped by Sango with software that gives her a people-loving heart. Normally she seems sweet and demure, but don’t make her angry!

[cervidaedalus]

RE: GSHADE MALWARE DISCOURSE

They locked the channels down, but I managed to grab some screenshots of the conversation shown in the crucially lacking in context Twitter screens. I'll share the screens in a reblog because Tumblr keeps breaking when I add them.

So, we all hate art theft, right? We hate when people use our or others' hard work even in bits and pieces (like AI art training) without any credit to us or the artists? We hate when people say "it's online so NYEH" when an artist asks people to respect their work, right? Okay, good.

Gshade is an "improved" version of the Reshade overlay program that makes it super easy to adjust, make, and switch between presets in the game, as well as simplifies the installation process, and adds a few extra features.

However, there was some Twitter outcry about a week ago due to how updates work in Gshade (which was, admittedly, annoying). Another dev decided to break GShade's EULA regarding assets usage because they didn't like some of Gshades functions like the updates.

In my own, personal opinion, both parties aren't great people. If you read the other person's blog post on all this, it's riddled with cockiness and your garden variety internet kid arrogance and seems to boil down to "I don't like Gshade, it sucks, I can do better." They link an archived Twitter where a popular preset creator politely asks for their presets to not be used for this project, they push back against this creator's request, the creator makes a vague and innacurate legal reference in an attempt to try and convince this dev "hey, I said don't use my stuff". The dev mocks this person in their blog post claiming that they're allowed to use the presets because they're in a GitHub repository.

In order to prevent plagiarism of any of Gshade's assets (INCLUDING the presets themselves), the dev added a "killswitch" essentially that, when any attempts were made to access Gshade, its installer, presets, etc without the dev or preshade creators' knowledge or permission, would cause a force-restart. For anyone who doesn't really use Gshade- I feel the need to add that some presets use original art assets and overlays so it isn't just people playing around with sliders. This is actual art that some artists have politely requested doesn't get re-used elsewhere without permission. And no- this isn't like major game companies like Ubisoft implementing DRM, which in context is about big rich corporations trying to prevent piracy. This is like online game anti-cheat software except instead of bans you get a restart.

You cannot trigger this force-restart with Gshade on normal use, it will ONLY happen when trying to run something that accesses and utilizes Gshade or its assets (again, including people's presets). Likewise, from the sounds of it, the killswitch was already regretted and removed in a patch on Saturday- two days before this whole thing blew up today- and it was changed to a line of code that just closes the program.

There is nothing within Gshade which will harm or remain on your computer. There are no keyloggers, other spyware, covert mining, or anything else that remains on someone's computer with the express purpose of doing harm to it. While you can argue semantics here, imo "Program does bad thing if you go out of your way to use it improperly" isn't "malware" or else World of Warcraft and any other online game with an anti-cheat could also be considered Malware.

If you don't want to use Gshade because of the moral implications of the dev taking such a grandiose measures, that's a personal choice. It's 100% understandable to see this as a breech of trust-

-but please stop spreading word that the app intentionally has Malware intended to affect the common user. This was literally an anti-theft measure taken way overboard. To summarize: -Cocky dev personally dislikes some of Gshade's functions and wants to make their own version of it, but use Gshade assets including presets (some of which contain original art) they don't have permission to use using the same busted "well it's on the internet" logic people use to justify art theft and plagiarism. -Gshade devs try to stop this, other dev self-admittedly "trolls" them for a while and ignores preset artists saying "hey I don't consent to using my stuff". -Gshade dev includes a line of code to force-restart the PC of anyone who tries to access any Gshade assets, specifically to fight back against this user. Regrets it and removes it. -Two days after its removal, word gets out that Gshade has this force-restart command. -Gshade dev admits in the Discord that yes, this command was in there briefly. A single screenshot of this admission makes it to Twitter, and the entire program is branded as Malware.

I'll repeat again, neither side was perfect in this, and to add such a harsh command line even if it was targeted at one person in particular was a gross misuse of power. It's perfectly understandable to not want to use Gshade anymore if you don't trust the program, but it's also important to release this overstep wasn't made purely in impulse, and was an attempt to stop someone who was actively trying to disrespect artists and preset designers. I think that's the huge part of all this that's being missed and it's resulting in a lot of people zero'ing in on the Gshade dev and Discord mods as if they're the defacto villains in all this and need to be harassed and ousted from the community.

[dausy]

Anybody else have the most unorganized filing system on their computer? It drives me crazy but also the attempt to organize drives me crazy. Mainly what happened on mine is back when my computer was misbehaving ages ago I ended up trying to move files over to a different section of the computer and ended up with a lot of duplicates.

But I had to reedit and reorganize a large chunk of my print files and its taken the majority of the morning. Primarily the smaller illustrations that were in my 4x6 sketchbooks. Making those print-able when I didn't do it the first time because I didn't think anybody'd want those as prints...well now I'm just mad at myself. I only also got some stuff uploaded to inkblot and I'm still toying with signing up for furaffinity. I am honestly sick of staring at my art.

I also had to take a test for the Board of Nursing in Texas. Which I was also not happy about. I've been having issues with my compact license so now I'm just becoming a Texas citizen (ew). They did issue me a temporary Texas license but its still ew.

I did get a few scrub caps in the mail so now I don't have to wear ugly bouffants anymore. I have zero idea what happened to my old ones. I know where they were in the previous house. No idea what happened to them or my other dog backpack.

We went on a 5 mile hike yesterday and thankfully before we moved I had put one of the dog backpacks (to literally carry my dog in, not a dog designed backpack, its a dog carrier) in the trunk of my car. I kinda wanted to bring the other one (thats missing) because it transforms into an actual backpack (to carry my things if the dog wants to walk). The dog enjoyed the 2 mile walk up but didn't feel like walking down so we ended up carrying her. I learned. Get a dog backpack. Saves you some frustration (though maybe not your back).

Other things that are happening. Theres a formal ceremony I'm supposed to go to with my husband on Friday and I'm new at my job and told them about the ceremony and took Friday off. Apparently in classic military fashion they may move the ceremony to another day. Love it. Also, apparently theres a military ball in March? so now I'm trying to find a formal dress to wear. Husband is supposed to leave for the entirety of February for work. I also got another job offer but for 10$/hr less than what I'm getting paid at the job I did accept so I declined it.

But I think I'm done with all my other stressors in life at the moment? All my certs and licensures are up to date. I'm working. When my husbands gone I guess I'll be spending it doing art and God of War.

[dan-drest]

T hink about how easy it is to make people believe conspiracy theories, context and fact checking make most of them fall apart but it takes more time and energy to verify what your being told than it takes for you to make stuff up that sound right on the surface.Now we have programs that can make stuff up really fast. I remember seeing something about an AI generated news article a few years ago, or that viral image of the pope in a puffer jacket. We are at the stage where “AI art” is still pretty easy to spot when you look, but you do have to look and it’s so much easier to flood an online space with generated images than it is to go through each one and identify if it is AI or not. Our tools for spotting AI also have to keep up with the current level of AI.

Go search up the blurry pictures that make people genuinely believe in the lock ness monster or big-foot or extra-terrestrials. Those people want it to be big foot so badly they won’t care how blurry or obviously fake it is, it is now evidence for their belief. Now lets have some troll generate a photorealistic picture of big foot, for no more reason than they can. They had generative AI cook it up so they know it’s not real but if our big foot beleivers wont question a blurry picture of a guy in a suit why would they question an image that looks like a photo and has had all credit and context removed?

That's my big issue with generative AI, it destroys credit and context, the things needed to take apart false narratives and also the major issue artists have with companies stealing their art to train their machines on.

I’m assuming you could train a generative AI using only legally procured data, public domain or free use images but they didn’t and that’s the part that people using the service and calling themselves AI artists either don’t understand or don’t care about. It’s not like the computers went looking to do it either, human beings made the decision to steal images to train their computers, hence the slow and expensive legal battles going on.

To finish this hopefully coherent train of thought; There are more insidious things than big foot. Conspirational thinking (the ways people convince themselves and others in a fictional conspiracy) is often used harmfully. Anti-vaxxers, Q anon, white supremacists and people who use the word woke all have their big foot.

*finally got my thoughts down after seeing a comment and had to make this post as it wouldnt fit in a comment*

for context, its from a post talking about generative AI images.

[addgg-taylor]

I Was Wrong About AI

It's a morning like most others. I wake up and lay in bed for about half an hour, scrolling through my phone to check my emails, Discord, Telegram, FurAffinity, and Tumblr. I don't have the Tumblr app though, and FurAffinity doesn't have an app, so I open up Chrome. There, you get a feed of news tailored to you by Google based on your interests. That's when I see it; AI has invaded the creative space in a game I was interested in playing, The Finals. The creators received approval to use an AI announcer in their game. While AI might be usable to lend more authentic (procedurally generated) responses than scripted audio bites from a real actor, that's a job lost. It's just one, yes, but that's what I needed to finally start noticing what was really happening.

Since I clicked an article on AI, more AI controversy started rolling in (of course). This issue wasn't limited to one game; it was far more widespread than I thought, and I was about to be hit with a right hook from tech news hell. Soon, if you're a Windows user, you won't be able to avoid AI in your daily life. There will be a dedicated key on your keyboard for it, and eventually, dedicated hardware in new computers for it. Not only is this bloatware a lot of folks (like myself) aren't interested in, but it's not the kind that can just be turned off (or potentially removed by some Windows variant); it'll be an integral part of your computer, and even if you remove the AI entirely, you'll have still paid for the tech to be put into your device.

It's at this point that the stuff hit the fan for me, and I start digging deeper. The creators of ChatGPT being legally challenged for allowing free access to paid content. Bing forcing you to engage with Copilot when you scroll up too far. Google injecting AI into its YouTube app. Hollywood folks considering AI movie scripts as a serious solution to the writer's strike. Several major AI art controversies in recent months. Creators I used royalty free music from using AI in their music. It made me look back and realize that I was wrong.

I originally stood as a devil's advocate for AI. "If it accidentally scraped up content it wasn't supposed to, could it really be blamed when it was told not to?" "Is it really stealing art from people who don't want their art used?" "If I use it for personal projects and have no intention of calling the generated work mine, is it a big deal?" These are actual questions I raised, and in retrospect, I was just ignoring red flags. Now, two years after I started supporting AI, I'm against it.

Why Are You Posting This Here Instead Of Your Main?

Normally I'd keep controversy to my main, taytay-the-gaybertooth, but this is actually related to the TCG scene. It's actually been rocked by a few AI controversies over the past couple of years, and my MTG Fan projects have used AI in the past. These fan works will no longer use AI.

We can't do much as average citizens to push back against AI besides just not using it, and even then there's only so much we can do. We can't just stop using our phones, computers, and for some, even their internet and tvs to oppose companies using AI. Small companies can't afford to replace all their Windows machines with Macs, and even if they could, there's parity problems they'll inevitably encounter. Shareholders will keep pushing for AI because it's a buzzword, it's sensational, and technology will always be cheaper in the long run than humans. However, we can do something, and even if it's something tiny, a lot of tiny things can add up to be overwhelming. Even if the message falls on deaf ears and ignorant minds, we can still send a message.