#filtering on tumblr is super effective

[hookshot18]

Drew @spacy-luna's OC

They're more active on twitter, go give them a follow on there!

[choccy-milky]

Hello there!

I've been a huge fan of your art of Seb and Clora here on Tumblr for quite some time now. Maybe a year? Idk time is weird aksbjs. Anyway, I'm an artist myself, and I was just wondering, put simply, whats your art process? Like how you shade and color and stuff.

Anyway, have a nice day! And uh- sorry if this is awkward sksbdn.

DAMN youve basically been here since day 1 THANK YOUU😭 im glad you like my stuff!! and ur not awkward at all!!🥹💖💖 and i actually posted a timelapse of my process on twitter not that long ago, so ill post it here as well!

as you can see seb takes me the longest LMAOO hes such a menace for me to draw still...and i dont even think seeing my process helps since its just so much trial and error and warping until it looks right BAHAHA (this is from like a month ago and i ALREADY think seb looks off here too 💀) but my process is super simple, i just colour and cell shade on multiply and then i add a grain texture on soft light 10% at the end. i dont rly do anything fancy for colouring, bc i used to over-render my art and make it really complicated, but now im a fan of just having it look kinda...flat? if that makes sense LOL. i like it aesthetically AND its also easier. OH also something i add to the end of almost all my pieces is this auto-action from clip studio assets which basically adjusts the hue/saturation/brightness. here's an example of what the original flat colours look like vs. when i add this filter:

even if you dont have clip studio the same effect could be achieved with just manually tweaking with the hue/saturation levels afterwards, but i like this filter just cuz its easy and makes the colours more how i like them HOPE THIS HELPS💖💖

[shsl-leader]

friendly reminder to reddit migrants that filtering tags you don't want to see is super easy on here! it's in the settings. on that same note, it's the norm to tag potentially upsetting content. if your post has flashing, or paranoia inducing content, examples of bigotry, or something you could get in trouble for looking at at work/h*rnyposting, etc. please tag it! tagging works similarly to flairs in this case. for example, "tw unreality" or "tw paranoia" will prevent people who have filtered those tags from seeing your post, much like a spoiler. the usual tag for nsfw content is "nsft" (not safe for tumblr) or plain old "nsfw". usually it's best to just tag both.

the tagging system as an effective way to filter out triggers or unwanted content relies on people using it! it's the norm here.

have a safe trip!

[thereigning-lorelai]

Hello!! First your Tumblr and edits are so gorgeous! Second I was wondering if you were willing to share how you did the second gif of this edit please? Have a great day! (Or night)

https://www.tumblr.com/thereigning-lorelai/713794704750362624/usergif-1-year-celebrationshuffle-challenge?source=share

hi nonny, thanks for the nice words! really appreciated. ♥️ so, you're looking for this grid effect:

you're starting off with two gifs. i'd recommend choosing scenes that are not too close up because otherwise they'll overlap too much and you won't be able to delete enough parts to make the most of this effect.

so, here's my base gif that i just did in black and white with some minor purple brush strokes set to screen:

i then chose my second gif and coloured it with a purple gradient map and a purple colour fill set to multiply. the colouring of the gifs is entirely up to you and what you think looks best. so here's my second gif, still without the grid:

this is where the fun part starts - the grid layout. i created that with a new guide layout. this is a super neat tool in photoshop that helps you align shapes or selections on your image. the guide lines basically float over it and help you set up symmetric shapes or layouts. you can define how many columns and rows you want to have and then photoshop creates the guide layout for you. for this gif i chose 4 columns and 4 rows:

with this set up, i started creating the rectangles to make the purple gif visible on top of the black and white one. this is my final layout for my shapes:

you can move around the shapes to your liking and what works best with your gifs. i didn't want to cover too much of my base gif but also tried to make their faces in the top gif all be in the gif as much as possible.

this step is just a lot of moving around your shapes and seeing what looks good tbh.

i then grouped my shapes and clipped my top gif (including all layers for the colouring) to my shapes group:

looking good so far. the only thing missing are the lines for the grid. this is where your guide layout comes in again. i just reopened it and then traced the guide lines with my line tool to create the white grid overlay:

(for editing purposes i turned all of the line layers into a single smart object at the end. this is why you only see one layer for all the lines in this screenshot.)

finally, i used a gaussian blur (0,5 px radius, 100% fill for the filter, 40% fill for the overall layer) on the smart layer to make the lines a little bit smoother and softer looking. this is totally optional and again, up to what looks best to you.

added some text et voilà:

[preydatorydied]

Note , I plan on remaking this .

Here's that tutorial a lot of you were asking for ^ ^ I do everything on Ibispaintx as of right now, which means everything you'll need is free! I've provided all of the effects and knickknacks I use on there (Tutorial below cut)

Before anything else, here's this website. It'll remove (simple) backgrounds from just about any image for you, no pay required

-

Tumblr banner size 1664x936

Tumblr icon size 2048x2048

Tumblr replycon size 1500x500

-

This part is pretty self explanatory I think. Get on Ibis and test out some of the filters shown here to get comfortable with how they work! Layering the outer stroke effect is my savior

-

The following section is for how I do my coloring. I start off with a color, darken & lighten layer and add from there!

Layer types such as overlay can create a huge difference in how your coloring turns out in the end. Here is a few examples of that, with the 1st image just being the base layers shown above

-

And honestly that's about it. Websites like Pinterest can be super helpful for resources, search keywords like rentry or carrd along with whatever you're looking for so better results show :3 @c0ldhues Ok bye

[slushiesandshowtunesat3am]

Even as a pale, white, petite, always pink, and female myself which seems like all they seem to insert into these fics…. I freaking HATE reading that in a x reader fic. Because all I see then is those basic asș AI generated girls who all look the same, it becomes a joke. And the stupid description of pale snow skin and everything being pink, and I do mean EVERYTHING is freaking vomit inducing. We’re all asking for the bare freaking minimum.

1. Tag properly (Keep to who the main people are, side people not needed. That can be added to the author notes.) The goal is not to flood tags and having people endlessly scroll.

2. x Reader - No actual descriptions of what this person/character may look like (I would also say if the description of the clothes aren’t important to the scene, that can be left out. This might just be a me thing. Why the F are these people always just wearing a T-shirt, leggings, and a freaking messy bun… 🫤 cozy but EVERY SINGLE TIME! )

3. x OC / x Named OC - Go ham! Do all the descriptions, outfits, etc. No one should bother you then since you let them know in advance. It’s even super cool if you give an advance notice of what said character will look like.

4. Please edit your stuff. Even if you’re a beginner (nothing wrong with that, everyone starts somewhere) edit as best as you can. Storyboarding is so great too, to help remember things and look back.

5. PLEASE PUT YOUR AGE ON YOUR TUMBLR!!!! Especially if you write mature content!!!!!

We’re all well aware (like that racist POS, who I hope you blocked said..) that anyone can do what they want and how they want, but if you want people to read your stuff and start engaging then going about it in a smart way will do you wonders!! I think decline started once the cesspool of Twitter started coming here. People have become straight up asșholes on here. You can feel the shift. I miss old tumblr and even AO3 isn’t the same (and I refuse to ever go on wattpad… the horror ☠️).

Oh, I love you. Tens across the board with everything you said, and thank you so much for expressing solidarity with your opinion. You're amazing.

It didn't even occur to me that sometimes even white individuals can't relate to this content because not all of them identify as women, or look like the women who are often displayed or described in this content, which is very much catered to a pretty, perfect, docile, very much so male gaze esque ideology.

I really really agree with the shift. I could write a whole paper on this, but since Twitter has merged with us, I've seen a rise in dub-con/infantilization/overall inconsiderate culture. And I know it's out of left field, but I truly think this is all connected.

Almost all of the content now is not only incredibly drenched with smut, but also flooded with unhealthy dynamics where women are not only heavily degraded and taken advantage of, but made to fit this very, I had to say it, child-like dynamic. I mean, I had to block an author the other day because in the tags it literally said "sexualization of the word kiddo and I don't give a fuck."

All this to say, this archetype that more fanfics are leaning towards, submissive and cutsie, often fit this ideal of innocence and purity that people of color have never been included in.

And we're beginning to see this level of exclusion more and more. Not just in smut.

I get it. Everyone is in to what they are in to, and everyone can filter what they don't like.

But we have to face the fact that there are some serious issues effecting the fanfiction community on this app.

Still never going back to Wattpad, though.

[bioethicists]

Do you perhaps have any resources on a harm reduction approach to disordered eating? it's been tough to find specific of this online and conventional websites only offer "talk to your loved one about what they feel" or either going to the GP. Certainly haven't found resources to help when you are not someone's parent/teacher/etc

the search function on this website is abysmal so i can't find the post but @transmutationisms wrote a very detailed summary of harm reduction tactics for disordered eating!

@librarycards has an entry in the psychiatric survivor zine called "Refuse!" which touches on the themes, as well as going into how to reduce your own fatphobia while still engaging in ED behaviors

Saving Our Own Lives has some chapters on it but i don't find them to be super comprehensive, quite honestly

there is some useful info in this Filter Mag article, as well as some background on why harm reduction is pushed back against in the ED field

Gloria Lucas' nonprofit Nalgona Positivity Pride has this as one of their focuses

while i wouldn't necessarily suggest seeking them out (at least evaluate what is/isn't going to be detrimental for you), the first place i ever encountered harm reduction for anything was in "pro" spaces (don't really want to type it out + get this post flagged). i wouldn't trust any information about nutrition you see in those spaces, but there are often threads about safer purging, specific scenarios, signs of common health effects + how ppl make them more manageable, etc. unfortunately, barring individual blogs on tumblr, these are the only places i can think of that you would be able to ask extremely specific questions + get a serious, non-condescending reply in a timely manner without being banned or reported (you are welcome to ask me specific questions + i can answer based on my personal experiences)

[likeadevils]

welcome to swiftie tumblr here’s a style guide

are you afraid of people making judgements about the way your profile looks but you don't know enough about tumblr to tell what people might judge you about? then this post is for you!

this is mostly gonna apply to specifically swiftie tumblr, and even then like. you’re totally free to present yourself however you want, but these are just the dominant cultural norms

URLS

album and song titles are the most sought after

lyrics are also very popular (the shorter the better)

dashes are considered a bit cringe but slight misspellings or adding an s to words are fine

adding your name to your url will make people go 🫵 twitter user 🫵

PROFILE PICTURES

you should have a pfp chosen before you start following people, otherwise people will go “oh fuck a bot” and automatically block you

pictures of yourself will also make people go 🫵 twitter user 🫵

gradient/one color backgrounds behind a picture of taylor are still very common, but plain pictures of taylor are also a vibe

if they have that one particular pale pink-ish with a bit of grain filter people will go 🫵 twitter user 🫵

displaying your pfp in a circle format on your mobile theme is more common but if you have it square people won’t judge you

BACKGROUND IMAGES

there’s lots of acceptable ways to do this but something unique to tumblr is playing with the border between the background and the rest of your blog

a few years ago it was super popular to add a ripped paper effect to the bottom, and that’s still hanging on

a curved border (either a wave or a bowl shape) is also fairly common

making the picture smaller than the borders has started to gain traction (i started noticing it becoming popular like, mid pandemic)

hiding the pfp from your mobile theme to make your background flow more is super common but the color schemes should still compliment each other

MOBILE THEME

you can use this handy dandy tool to make your background/text color match a color in your background/pfp

i’d say white or black backgrounds are still the most common but i’ve found the colored background with white text to be making a strong comeback

there’s not a ton of judgement about this, as long as it all matches

BLOG TITLE

blog titles can really be whatever but in general keep it short (less that one row)

a short lyric, a word, or an emoji are the most common options

DESCRIPTION

i’ve found getting on a computer and going to yoururl.tumblr.com and clicking on the little painting thing on the top right corner to be the best way to edit text but the mobile app works fine too (unless you’re adding links then you have to go on a computer)

in general 2-3 rows are the most common, and ideally it’s not just one big wall of text

general format is name (this is where you link your caard/about page) / age/age range / pronouns in the top row and a (short) lyric you like in the bottom

another popular format is everything being a lyric and adding links to stuff on important words

if you like to make edits/art/some other type of original content feel free to add a link in your description

you can add links (again only on desktop) like this

MISC BLOG SETUP STUFF

if your likes/following are visible (especially if both are visible) people will go 🫵 twitter user 🫵

some people show their most popular posts, some people don’t, to my knowledge there’s no judgement either way

your pinned post can be whatever you want it to be but it’s super common to have it be a short about/navigation page

most people have a tag they use for personal posts (“name speaks/rambles/etc” is probably the most common) but you don’t have to if you don’t want to

INTERACTIONS WITH OTHER PEOPLE

follow for follows are not super common. it happens (if you follow someone people it’s common for that person to check out your blog but not in any way a guarantee) but for the most part being tumblr mutuals is a higher bar to clear than “oh this person follows me.” if you want to get peoples attention i would recommend this method, but even then the person can chose not to follow you without it being an insult to your character

blocking is more common than it is on twitter and not an insult to your character. repeatedly starting shit with other people will cause your followers to block you. if you want to start a fight with someone just block them instead

feel free to reblog old posts and spam like

while the mechanics and terminology are very similar, in terms of the way they are perceived a tumblr like is not equal to a twitter like, a tumblr reply is not equal to a twitter reply, and a reblog is not equivalent to retweet

likes are generally utilized as a little hello or bookmarks

reblogs are closer to twitter likes than anything else

replies have a fairly unique function in tumblr interactions but i think the closest way to describe it is like a semi-public dm to the op— chances are no one else is going to see it but the op (except if you replied through a reblog, then the reblogger will see it, but the reblogger will still likely read your reply as intended for the op)

if you have a comment put it in the tags. you know those old screenshots of tumblr posts that have a million “oh my god this is so funny”s breaking up the content of the post? that’s widely considered not only cringe but a bit rude now, please don't do that

if you like someone’s tags, reblog from them and say “prev tags”. every few weeks you’ll see someone from a different corner of tumblr say “prev tags is dead!” but on swiftie tumblr prev tags has never died and doesn’t show signs of dying in the near future

@-ing taylor in a post (edit: unless it’s a joke, @-ing taylor as a joke is very funny feel free to do that) will make people go 🫵 twitter user 🫵

again you can present yourself however you want, tumblr is the home of cringe, these are just the dominant cultural norms that i’ve noticed on swiftie tumblr specifically

[mspaesthetic]

I recently discovered this tumblr and it's been super useful for me since I'm making a fanventure! One thing I'd like to know, though, is how Hussie made the panel on Homestuck page 4801. I find the "gradual shift in focus" very cool and was wondering how the blur effect was done.

Glad you've been finding it useful so far!

For that panel, he used a Gaussian blur filter. Recreating this panel would be fairly straightforward. First, the background and subject would have to be three separate layers: one for the foreground subject, one for the background subject, and one for the actual background.

I've grouped them together as you can see here, and duplicated it four more times. The gun starts off with a strength of 4 pixels, and for each subsequent duplicate layer, the strength of the Gaussian blur filter is reduced by 1 pixel for the foreground element, and increased by 1 pixel for the background element.

Decreasing foreground element's blur

Increasing background element's blur

I believe the background was done differently, however. Instead of increasing the strength of the blur, Hussie duplicated the background layer on top of the original background, blurred it by 4 pixels, and increased the opacity of the duplicate for each frame of animation.

Here's my recreation:

And here's the original panel:

Here's the PSD for my recreation, too. It has information in it that can only be editable in Photoshop, though.

Sorry if I glossed over anything. If you still have any questions, please feel free to leave any follow-up ones!

[oviraptoridae]

steel towers grow like corals at the edge of the end of the world

detailed process breakdown under the cut:

this is a location from silversea, the (inhales) work-in-progress troika-compatible post-apocalyptic science-fantasy TTRPG slash worldbuilding project i'm developing + running for a few of my friends. i've posted a drawing of this landscape before! someone asked for me to go into my process for digital collage in gimp, so i made sure to document the creation of this piece.

usually i start by gathering a bunch of images from wikimedia commons and by searching on duckduckgo images & filtering for creative commons licensed images. i wanted to start with a surreal landscape that looked more wrong the longer you inspected it, so this time i started by generating a background with commoncanvas (the stable diffusion model trained entirely on creative commons images, more on that here)

this was the final result. i didn't tweak it too much because i wanted the geometry to look unrealistic and warped. through the upscaling process it lost some of the early cgi look, which was sad, so i'll have to work more on trying to retain that.

interesting tangent: at 20% desert and 80% coral reef, a smooth cone briefly turns into a pyramid.

anyway, i decided i wanted it to look like you were on the edge of this environment, not in the middle, so i made some terrain in blender:

this was just a plane that i subdivided a bunch, pulled some vertices around with proportional editing to make dune shapes, and then decimated the faces to get back to a low poly look. i prefer that method to staying low poly the whole time, i feel as though i have more control over the shape.

the texture is a free tiling sand texture i found online, recolored and scaled down to make it pixelated, and then blended with vertex colors to add a little variation. it's very simple and took me maybe 30 minutes of actual work (the rest of the time spent trying to remember how to use material nodes).

this is the point where i took it into gimp and flipped & scaled the terrain until i liked the composition. i'm not bothered about the shadows not matching up, it just adds to how out of place the surreal terrain looks.

next is color correction, but i forgot to take a screenshot of that before adding the next part. gimp has a little fractal generator hidden in the filters tab, and i used that to make a swirling pattern that i overlaid over the sky, masking it selectively so it looked like it was getting thicker with distance. going for an "annihilation" look to the whole thing.

at this point i'm happy with the image and i go on to post processing. this is the part where tumblr's image compression is not doing me any favors, but oh well. when i make glitch art, there are a bunch of filters that are my favorite, but i don't usually use all of them on an image.

first off, i scale the image to 50%, add dithering (3-4 colors per channel looks nicest to me), then scale back up to the original resolution with no interpolation.

then i add "wind" (under the "distorts" option). it makes a cool pixel-sorted effect. at high levels it looks super cool...

but i keep it pretty subtle for this one.

the "video degradation" effect makes the image either too bright or too dark. i like the lcd screen look though. so i use a mask to turn it into a vignette.

i also added bloom at some point during the process, but i don't remember when. i also took the original image before all the glitch effects and overlaid it with the "chroma" blending mode to bring back some of the color that had been lost.

this was a pretty simple collage, but i didn't want to make the post too long. most of my collages involve a lot of moving things around, testing different compositions and images before i decide on a final product.

this image took like 8 hours to make, for example. most of it was spent perfecting the grainy filter.

other gimp effects i didn't use here but i like include deinterlace (which you can use on a non-interlaced image to add deinterlacing artifacts), sample colorize (lets you use another image as a color source to gradient map onto an image), alien map (can't explain. just use it. move the sliders very slowly if you are sensitive to strobing lights), and value propagation (like a very small radius blur that you can tweak in interesting ways to soften an image without losing graininess or pixelated-ness)

i hope this was helpful/informative!

[silverfoxphil]

Hi :)) I love your edits and song choices. They always seem really cohesive, like strong theme. I want to make an edit for the first time but I'm kind of overwhelmed by the scope/not sure where to begin. I'm curious if you have any tips for getting into editing, and also wondering what editing software you use. in other words: editing tips?😳

omg editing tips 🫣 under the cut because they got too long 😳lololol

first of all thank you so much :)!! I'm happy to know that you enjoy my edits<3!!!

answering the software question is easy: I recently started using capcut, it's free and I like it a lot! (I used to use clipchamp which has less features, but is maybe a bit more straightforward)

getting ideas is the hard part lol. I think I only have lame answers :/

for normal compilations I usually have a clip (or a few) and a theme/joke/vibe/meme I really want to use and i do some research(search it on Tumblr) or rewatch the videos (or look through the clips I have already saved) to find other moments that follow the same theme. (I try to make them funny, I'm not sure it works, but they are funny to me lol)

for song edits i usually have the song and at least one clip that are already linked in my brain lol like rush by Troye Sivan and the poppers jokes, they just go together lol. sometimes I read the lyrics and try to remember or search for clips that work with them. idk it's something that just clicks in my head lol. this sounds so 💀💀💀 I'm sorry lolol.

so idk the only advice I have is:

1.if you're using a song, working on it first makes things so much easier (cut it/choose the parts you want/read the lyrics) and then add the clips

2.adjust the audio levels (even if there's no song) (especially if you're using clips from dystopia daily lol it's super quiet for some reason)

3.try to build some kind of database of clips, so you don't have to go back and rewatch the videos a million times to find a 2 seconds clip (speaking from experience) (save them or make a list idk) (also I screen record and don't download, I know someone from another fandom that says that screen recording is bad but personally i never had any issues w it lol)

4.follow your heart, follow your brain, look at the software's filters, transitions, effects and sounds and text and use them all lol. I think ultimately most people have their own style and their own humour and sensibility. there's no right or wrong, so try to find what works for you, what you find funny or pretty or interesting, you know? it's kind of a bad answer but that's all I can think about, you need to find what you enjoy first and then build on it

I'm sure phil was better at giving editing tips lmao, but I hope this helped in some way! I never get to talk about editing, so my thoughts are all over the place lol.

let me know when you start posting or if you need help with the software!

[cidthesquid]

Mecha Break (Beta) | Character Creator Chat

[Previous Post]              [First Post]              [Next Post] Contains: mild suggestive content(Think D.VA/Zero Suit Samus gear)

So I think giant robots are 'pretty cool', I'm not some Mecha super fan But I have seen a few gundam anime, and really Enjoyed G-witch I've played some mech games too, and really enjoy ones that let you design your own mech, and customize to your liking! But this is the first I've tried that offers pilot detailed pilot customization as well! So let's take a look at what they have to offer!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Just as a bit of a disclaimer: this is just really my (mostly uninformed) views on design and character creation, I'm mostly doing this 'for fun'! And will mostly just serve as a 'snapshot' of my current views and perspectives. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(This is still a beta, Aug3-13, so may be subject to change) Like usual, This is not a review of the game or character creator, I'm just going to try to recreate my style savvy avatar, and give my thoughts on the options on offer.

---- The starting outfits are about what you'd expect, You start in the typical 'bodysuit' style attire the genre's known for, i Featured in pretty everything from Metroid to overwatch.

They do a fair bit to "spice it up" with belts and lights, but I'm sure while reading this you already know how you feel about the style. So let's move on..

Alright, quite a few options right out of the gate! We can't change our outfit just yet, so let's look at the avatar options. First up is skin tone:

A pretty decent selection in my opinion, but I really think the tone jumps quite a bit in the last (darkest) tone. I think an extra inbetween would have really fit what I was looking for.

They also have an 'advanced' section for skin with a few skin textures Along with sliders to adjust the effect levels.

This is not really something I've thought much about, The smoothness slider seems less like your typical 'beauty filter' and more like a glossiness option. Roughness controls the skin texture. Already this is going to be a bit difficult, Style Savvy's art style changed quite a bit from entry to entry, but they stayed cartoon-y

But this is a beta anyway, so I'm sure my progress will be wiped, may as well just keep going. Next up is face shape:

6 Face presets, and a tone of sliders in advanced mode:

Honestly, it's a little overwhelming, I often get lost in a sea of sliders and tweaks and end up making an alien if I so much as touch them. So I'll leave these a lone and stick with vanilla 'face 4'. Next up eyes:

8 presets, but they only effect the eye shape, any tweaks to lids or brows requires digging into the super dense 'advance menu':

Because of this, I started touching the sliders, and now I'm trapped here, help! Next Up is nose options:

A few good presets, Less advanced options this time. But this time they're not broken up into tabs, so scrolling is required Also, I'm not a huge fan of how the face morphs with each change:

It honestly makes every choice look a little weird... Ok, I'm about halfway to the Tumblr image limit, so let's speed this up. The last 'face option' is for the mouth:

And this is why I generally just try to recreate my style savvy avatar, I literally never know what to do with these options sometimes! What makes a good nose or mouth? I like creating characters, But I can get a little self-conscious when there are too many options. Next up is “personality” as I understand it, this is just your default facial expression:

4 presets, they all look very similar, (and of course now they don't have advanced options, haha) I picked the 4th, I think it looks a little more mature and confident.

Next up makeup, Here's where we get 'advanced' settings for colors

We have quite a few options here, Contouring, Facial markings, Blush, Eyebrow (trim), Eyelashes, Eye shadow, eyeliner, iris style, and lip makeup. Ok, so I simply have to select the default iris style and change it to green, right? Well...

Nope, no color presets. You need to set 5 individual color settings, Each with full hue, brightness and saturation settings. Again, I love that the people who want to, can tweak every small detail, But the trade-off is that smaller changes take a ton of work for us casuals. I really feel like the advanced options should be just that, “optional” Not required to change basic features of your character. Hair is handled in a much more manageable way:

Base color is really all you need to set, and the rest compliment it, and are easy to set. Next up are 'body' settings... I was a bit disappointed to see the four presets are pretty much just a simple butt/breast slider, (with very minor height differences.)

I'm glad advanced options give you more gradual control. But again, a wider range of presets would have been nice. Also, most the games I've tried don't even feature a “butt slider” But somehow this game has four? (Size, height, width, and uplift) When switching presets, it becomes very notable why, As the game features jiggle 'psychics' for both the chest and rear.

(This is just the 'main body' tab) It's a bit of an odd choice, as you'll never actually see the character in battle, But I'm going to assume upon release there will be A LOT of cosmetics! We still can't change our outfit, but we do get to adjust the colors a bit. 8 color channels, (4 base, 4 accent) and we have 8 paint cans to work with, each with their own attributes

But you can't change how the outfit looks, so unfortunately if you're not really comfortable with the skin-tight look, they don't offer any compromises until later in the game, (and you can only turn down the sliders so far) After that we get the option to choose our voice, and we're ready to get started!

So I can confirm, there is actually gameplay! It's very fast-paced, and frantic, however this boss from the prologue you see the rest of this game is currently PVP only. A bit sad to hear, I though the boss fight was pretty cool! Oh well, maybe they'll have co-op vs ai fights with more bosses in the future. ...Anyways after you finish two pvp practice fights, (as part of this beta), they dumped a TON of credits on me, so let's see what outfit options we have!

I'm not really a fan of any of them, but I'm sure more will be added. You could argue they were going for a racing/mechanic theme. But I really think there should be more variety in starting outfits, let along these 'premium' options. Here are the male outfits for comparison:

You can also buy ear rings, glasses and hats in the shop, and annoyingly, hats currently come with a forced hairstyle:

So final thoughts I guess, This game has one of the most detailed character creators I've ever seen. But at the same time, I find it very cumbersome to use. They offer the player a ton of choice in some areas, but little to none in others. And it feels like Fanservice was much more important than player freedom. As mentioned in the past, I'm not against fan service in games, But when you offer the player like 5 different sliders just to tweak the breasts, but zero to tweak the hairstyle. (length, volume, etc) It feels a bit unbalanced. I'm 100% for allowing people being able to create their character how they see fit, so I'm not even arguing that some of these features or “psychics” need to be removed. Maybe just make some of it optional Maybe just put 10% of that crazy “advanced mode” energy into adding more variety and sliders in other areas too. Also, the presets and starting outfits, really need more options as well. But at the end of the day, I had fun messing around in the character creator. Here's my final comparison: (got a bit lost in translation)

And here are two alt colors I made for the costumes:

(Currently there is no way to save color presets) Next CCC: Animal Crossing ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for reading! I had a lot of fun making this, so I hope you had fun reading it as well!

As always, all comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome! (I'm also looking for feedback on this new style, how's the formatting)

You literally can't bother me, (unless you go out of your way to be a jerk), so post whatever you need to say!

[bard-llama]

WiP Thursday: Extras from the Spirits Made Them Do It Series (AKA Seeds of Change)

Okay, I'm late for WiP Wednesday, but I figured I'd share a few things for the Seeds of Change 'verse. This is gonna be a long post, so I'm sticking it all under a cut.

First, here's the WiP for the next part of Taking Root. (Forgive the formatting - tumblr still sucks on that front)

Zuko knew his day was going to take a downward turn when Zhao’s ship came to harass them, but it was even worse than he’d thought.

Father had made Zhao an Admiral. Father had put Zhao in charge of all operations related to the Avatar. Father had given Zhao the authority to steal every hope Zuko had ever had.

“Don't give up yet,” Uncle murmured, trying to comfort him. “You can still find the Avatar before Zhao.”

“How, Uncle?” Zuko asked despairingly. “With Zhao's resources, it's just a matter of time before he captures the Avatar.” He shook his head. “My honor, my throne, my country,” he paused before he could impulsively add my lover. “I’m about to lose them all.”

“You must not give up hope,” Uncle said softly. “As long as the Avatar remains free, there is still a chance.”

Zuko nodded, but his hopelessness remained. Zhao was going to steal everything from him, he just knew it. So how could he stop it?

He still didn’t have an answer hours later, but they did receive official word that Zhao had captured the Avatar. He had the Avatar locked up tight in the most impenetrable fortress in the Fire Nation – which meant it was all over. It wasn’t like Aang could escape from Pohuai Stronghold, not on his own.

Zuko paused, thinking about that. If – if he needed the Avatar to be free… maybe the answer was to do something unexpected. Something reckless. Something that might end with the Avatar in his grasp.

He swallowed hard, trying to convince himself that he was only going to do this to save his prize. Helping Aang wasn’t his angle, it was a mere side effect. Right?

He’d always been a terrible liar, even when the lies were aimed at himself. Nonetheless, he pretended to believe it. He wasn’t helping Aang. He was just going to ensure that the Avatar was available for him to capture. If it meant fucking Zhao over in the process… well, that was a nice bonus.

—

The escape went great – until it didn’t. Until suddenly Zuko was fighting Fire Nation soldiers. They were trying to kill him, he knew – but nonetheless, he couldn’t bring himself to use lethal tactics. Not when these were his people. 

He still fought hard – but it was kind of looking like that wouldn’t be enough. And then – and then Zhao ordered his men to hold their fire because he needed the Avatar alive, and Zuko was moving before the thought had even occurred to him, crossing his swords in front of the Avatar’s neck.

He tried to ignore the terrified gasp Aang let out, holding steady and glaring at Zhao through his mask.

“Open the gate,” Zhao ordered, the growl in his voice showing his displeasure.

They backed out, Aang shuffling along under his direction, trapped between his body and his swords. It was slow going, but it was starting to look like they could really escape– 

And then something hit his right temple and everything went black.

When he woke up, the blinding pain in his head meant it took him several moments to figure out where he was and what was going on. There were trees above him, faint moonlight filtering through the branches. He was laying on something soft, his torso slightly elevated.

And, he processed belatedly, someone was stroking across his scalp. Which was super weird, but also felt kind of nice, and he was hurting enough that he needed to feel something nice.

“Are you awake?” The Avatar’s upside down face appeared in Zuko’s line of vision and Zuko could do nothing but stare. 

Aang continued to stroke over his head. Why?

…maybe he was dreaming? That seemed likely. Why else would he wake up in the Avatar’s lap?

He was in far too much agony for this to be a dream – but he determinedly ignored that, closing his eyes. If he didn’t acknowledge it, then it didn’t exist, right?

Aang’s gentle touch remained steadily present, and after a moment, he asked, “are you okay?”

Zuko didn’t really know how to answer. He grunted noncommittally. 

“Thank you,” Aang said quietly. “I couldn’t have gotten out of there without you.”

Zuko also didn’t know how to respond to that. He stayed quiet, eyes closed. Aang continued to touch him.

Why?

“I didn’t know you knew how to use swords,” Aang said, “but you were really cool out there, wow!”

Zuko frowned, brow wrinkling in bafflement. Why would the Avatar compliment him?

Why would Aang do any of this?

“How long have you been training with them?” Aang asked. Without waiting for a response – perhaps correctly assuming that he wouldn’t get one – he continued, “I’ve never used swords, but at the Air Temples, we train with staffs. Not for fighting, though, since we’re pacifists. It’s more of like… a dance, I guess?”

Zuko hummed. He’d actually known that from his research on the culture next in the Avatar Cycle. “Like your circle walking,” he found himself saying. 

With his eyes closed, he couldn’t see the surprise on Aang’s face, but it was audible in his voice. “Yeah,” Aang agreed. He was quiet for a moment, then added, “I’d never actually fought before you, you know? I never needed to before getting frozen.”

The sudden sadness he exuded tugged on Zuko’s heartstrings, but more importantly – “frozen?”

“Oh yeah,” Aang huffed a humorless laugh. “Um. Apparently I somehow got frozen for a hundred years?”

Zuko opened his eyes to stare. “You – what?”

Aang just shrugged. “I dunno. I – I was born a hundred years ago. I lived a hundred years ago. And then…” he trailed off, looking away.

Frowning, Zuko considered that. Of all the possible theories about what had happened to the Avatar, frozen for a century had never crossed his mind. 

“You really are an Air Nomad, then.”

“Yeah,” Aang nodded. “I – I was frozen before my people…”

“Ah.”

They fell silent, words unsaid hanging thick and tense in the air between them.

“How’d you know that?” Aang asked eventually. His fingers had fallen still, just resting against Zuko’s scalp. “About circle walking?”

“Oh.” Zuko flushed. “Um. The – the next Avatar was supposed to be born to the Air Nomads, so…” 

Aang tilted his head in confusion. “Why does that matter?”

Opening his mouth and then closing it silently, Zuko tried to think about how to answer such a bizarre question. Of course it mattered. It was about the Avatar, and the Avatar was the only thing that mattered.

“I’ve… been looking for you for a long time,” he finally settled on.

“How come?”

Again, Zuko had no idea what to say. 

After a long minute, Aang dared to ask, “why do you chase me, Zuko?”

Zuko blinked, not really understanding. “I have to,” he stated the obvious.

“Why?”

“That – those – those are the Fire Lord’s orders,” he managed to say. 

“What do you mean?” Aang asked softly.

Just thinking about that made the pain in Zuko’s head spike and he closed his eyes with a groan, bringing a hand up to rub his unscarred temple. 

Aang caught his wrist before he could reach, and his eyes popped open again to glare.

“You’re badly bruised,” Aang explained. “Your mask deflected the arrow some, I think, but…”

“...arrow?”

“That’s what knocked you out.”

“Oh.” 

“How are you feeling?” Aang asked, and there was real concern in his voice that made no sense.

“Why do you care?” Zuko had to ask.

Furrows appeared over Aang’s arrow. “Why wouldn’t I care?” he asked, sounding genuinely baffled.

Zuko… really didn’t know how to answer that. No one had ever cared before, not except for Uncle. Not without an ulterior motive.

“I like you, Zuko,” Aang said simply.

“Why?”

“Why not?” Aang countered. 

The question left Zuko oddly stumped, and the throbbing behind his eyes made it very difficult to figure out an answer.

Aang’s fingers resumed stroking over Zuko’s head, and it was still super weird, but it was also really, really nice and Zuko couldn’t help but lean into the touch. 

“Can–” Aang started, voice cracking slightly. He paused to clear his throat, then began again. “Can I make you feel good?”

“What!?” Zuko bolted upright – which was a bad move in every way, because oh jeez, his head was not happy with him and the dizziness was not helping things.

“You’re in a lot of pain,” Aang observed, solemn and serious. “I don’t – I don’t know how to help with that. But – but I could try to make you feel good. If – if you wanted.” 

He was flushing by the time he finished speaking, and Zuko couldn’t help the part of him that admired the color on Aang’s cheeks, even as he gaped.

Aang reached out with clearly telegraphed movement to cup Zuko’s cheek, and Zuko wasn’t really sure why he let him, but he did.

Aang’s slow smile in response was beautiful, and the way the calluses on his thumb dragged over Zuko’s skin made Zuko shiver. 

When Aang leaned close, Zuko abruptly found that his breath control had deserted him.

Aang stopped half a millimeter from Zuko’s lips, asking, “can I?” 

The words fluttered over Zuko’s face and he swallowed hard. “Why?”

“Because you haunt my dreams,” Aang whispered. “Because I want to make you feel good.”

Zuko’s breath hitched in his chest.

“Can I?” Aang asked again. 

“Yes,” Zuko whispered before he could stop himself.

The bright joy on Aang’s face in response made his chest do something weird and jumpy, but then Aang’s lips were touching his, and suddenly, that was the only sensation he was aware of.

--

Now, separately, I wanted to share the floorplans I made for the Jasmine Dragon and Zuko and Iroh's Upper Ring House in Ba Sing Se.

First, the Jasmine Dragon.

Here's the whole place, walls up and down:

Next, the 'kitchen' and dining area:

Fun fact: this is now an actual cafe in the Sims, so I can have sims go here for a nice cup of tea any time I want lmao

Next, their house in the Upper Ring.

Here's the full house and backyard:

(The backyard is very spacious so that Zuko can spend time practicing with his swords. He doesn't dare try practicing his firebending, but at least he has room to play with his swords.)

Living Room and Kitchen:

Iroh's Room:

And finally, Zuko's room (and the guest bathroom)

That's all I got. Hope you enjoyed!

[thisischaostragic]

anti-AO3 discourse (on Twitter, mostly) is so weird to me because, like… just say the actual thing you’re critiquing? it is legitimately valid to be like “you shouldn’t circulate non-con RFP about minors” but to take that and make it an argument about how AO3 needs to have stricter censorship policies is ridiculous to me.

I saw some ppl say that the “underage” and “non-con” checkboxes encourage people to write that, but it’s actually the single most effective filtering measure I’ve ever seen a site take. a person needs to ACTIVELY decide to lie if they’re posting something with either of those topics.

and it’s for that exact reason that I’ve never been surprised by something triggering on AO3, which is the sole website on the internet I can say that about!

if people are afraid of their work getting taken down because they tagged accurately, it’s not really gonna discourage work with those themes. it’s just gonna make people tag it wrong, which would make it *seem* like there’s an “uptick” in dark fics when in reality they’re just harder to filter out.

also, as a SA survivor, darker AO3 fics have been massively healing for me. I’m admittedly not in a super ridiculous corner of the internet, but most (95+%) of the non-con fics I’ve read are more about the realities of recovery than they are about romanticizing assault. obviously the latter group exist, but if it’s about fictional characters, I do often feel like it’s still about some sort of authorial processing. but also… it’s fictional writing. it’s not a reflection of the author’s beliefs or actions.

when you start censoring all “morally bad” writing, you make it significantly harder for survivors to carve out those spaces. you also have to determine the line for “morally bad,” and that’s… complicated. and I don’t trust anyone to do that. I *do*, however, trust *myself* to read a fic summary and decide whether or not to engage.

I do not think the people who make these arguments understand / recall the rabid online censorship of queer and trans people, sex workers, and survivors after SESTA-FOSTA and subsequent content bans on various sites (Tumblr included). it doesn’t achieve the end you think it does, and marginalized / criminalized people are going to be way more likely to preemptively silence themselves than the people actually circulating fucked up content are.

if you have a valid critique of particular topics or kinds of writing (which you can!), that’s the actual thing to discuss.

[starryknightwrites]

Does anyone else think the Miraculous writers let a few loud minorities impact their writing to the point of stunting it?

*Leak Spoilers Ahead*

I think there's a reason why Season 1 and 2 are more beloved than the rest. The showrunners let their audience get into their heads and they took all the wrong advice- in the last two seasons especially. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it's difficult to ignore at this point.

A part of the fandom thinks Marinette is a creepy stalker? Let’s explain that away with an unnecessary but sympathetic backstory we never alluded to before, stretch it out for several episodes and make what used to be comedic teen girl hijinks super traumatic so no one can ever interpret it in bad faith again.

 A part of the fandom thinks Chat Noir is an entitled sexual predator who is a brat to Ladybug? Let’s cut his screen time and make sure he never disagrees with her again (unless he’s under a spell we can blame it on) so that he’s the perfect love interest and no one can ever interpret his normal human reactions in bad faith evermore.

A part of the fandom thinks Adrien is so passive he needs to replaced? Let’s have him apologize for his compassion first method and maybe throw a chair or something to prove himself. In the name of love.

A part of the fandom is harassing us about redeeming Chloe? Let’s make it painfully clear how evil she is in a glorified salt fic so that no one can ever interpret her in good faith again.

When people misunderstand your intentions, you don't scramble to "fix it" and try and make things black and white for easier digestion. You stick to your "problematic" guns, dammit. In trying to be perfect and play to everyone, you appease exactly no one.

I think this is partly an unfortunate side effect of the social media era of television. Showrunners never used to interact this much with fandom. Public forums like Twitter are a double edged sword because nowadays they’re a necessity for marketing, but everyone has access to you on there. Every Tom, Dick and Jane with an opinion and no boundaries can rage at you to their heart’s content at all times of day. And it’s easy for us to say “Well, why didn’t they just walk away/delete Twitter?” but even Tumblr users with 80 followers will lose themselves a bit on a bad anon day. I can only imagine dealing with that hundreds and hundreds of times over while also having the pressure of writing the trajectory of a worldwide acclaimed television show on your shoulders that EVERYONE has an opinion about that they are more than happy to rant at you. I think more of us might crack than we expect. And TA cracked.

People with a following have spoken time and time again about how they were unexpectedly affected severely by public ridicule and toxic parasocial relationships on social media. It’s terrible for anyone’s mental health and I think the Miraculous show runners are no exception. The pressure and the push and pull got to them and I think we’re seeing the results of that here. It’s good that TA is stepping away from the show- at least in part from what I gather- after Season 6 because I don’t think it’s healthy for Miraculous or him if he stays onboard. He’s seeing the show now through a filter of all its criticism, of a hundred random takes, and it just comes across incredibly stunted, unnatural and resentful in his writing. Like walking on eggshells and being bitter about it the entire time.

I understand they want to take input from their audience and feel pressure to write the show "correctly", but sometimes fandom ideas- especially the saltier ones- are worse. Sometimes you should just ignore criticism, no matter how loud and long it’s screamed at you, do your thing and hope for the best. At least you'll reserve your energy and passion that way and someone's going to bitch regardless. Sometimes you should write that salt fic just to get your frustrations out and then delete it.

[star-anise]

Bit of a long-winded ask, but I'm in the process of trying to find a new mental health professional and one of the prospective ones specializes in person-centered therapy. It's not a process I'm super familiar with, and wanted the opinion of a professional; how likely is this to be effective in treating anxiety and obsessive compulsive tendencies? I'm already a deeply introspective person, and so I'm a bit skeptical about a technique that (to my uneducated perspective) is only reflecting my own thoughts albeit filtered through the perspective of another.

Any insight you might have would be greatly appreciated.

I can do that!

If you've been through counselling before, you know how much of a difference it makes to say stuff out loud, so that no matter how introspective you are, it always hits different to have another person in the room. So we're not discussing this approach vs no therapy, but vs other kinds of therapy.

Person-Centred Therapy (PCT, also known as Rogerian or Humanistic Therapy), is basically the foundation on which psychotherapy as I was taught it rests. You can get counsellors who didn't get Rogers as a base, especially in places like Europe or Latin America where Freudian techniques are still quite popular; but Carl Rogers is like the anti-Freud, someone about whom we are taught very little but of whom Tumblr would probably greatly approve.

So, before I get ahead of myself: The most important thing is whether you, individually, feel like the person who is counselling you is someone you can trust to really listen to you and take you seriously, and that you are in agreement about what your collective priorities are. The technical name for this is "therapeutic alliance" and absolutely nothing is as much of an influence on whether your therapy will succeed as that. Therapeutic style, number of degrees, or years of experience all bow at the feet of therapeutic alliance.

I realize that's not a the most useful thing to hear if you're looking at a web directory of counsellor profiles and trying to pick one. It's often something that needs to be tested out by actually meeting them, and that's a giant pain! I'm sorry about that. Many counsellors offer free initial consultations, which might help.

PCT is a bit of a wildcard because it's got a very very solid grounding in therapeutic alliance, but can vary a lot in actual content. Some therapies that have very rigid techniques and agendas can sometimes feel rough and impersonal, where your therapist seems to be audibly thinking as you talk, "Which worksheet should I cram this one onto?" On the other hand, you have more certainty that they will probably hand you one. PCT relies a lot more on what you bring to the table—Are you a worksheet kind of person? Do you use worksheets to hide from your feelings? What would be better? Frankly, being introspective means this might be a better approach for you than others; the biggest failing of PCT is when clients don't have enough ideas, tools, or insight to spot problems and generate possible solutions, so they need more tangible forms of advice or instruction.

But to address the biggest question: No, the counselling process isn't just your therapist parroting your own words back at you all the time. It's a lot more complicated than that.

Being good at PCT rests on a tripod of three things: Warmth, empathy, and genuineness. They form a complicated dance depending on what's needed at the time. Empathy is just being able to accurately understand and state what another person is feeling; you need the warmth that says someone gives a shit about you and thinks you're okay. Warmth and empathy on their own are often just bullshit without the genuineness that provides honesty and discernment.

That warmth, empathy, and genuineness can include expressing different thoughts and opinions from yours, bringing up contradictions from experience or education, or emotionally reacting to what you've said. Unconditional positive regard (another PCT touchstone) doesn't mean uncritically approving of everything you say and do, but rather, having faith if you're treated in a positive manner, without being shamed, blamed, or punished, you'll work to get better than where you are now.

I hope that's enough of an answer to help. Trust your own instincts when it comes to the person themselves. Good luck!