#hope the tags work this time

[lalalychee]

closer than you know

i've been working on this painting for over 3 months and i am exhausted 💀 so excited to be done with it. i'm really proud of it though!! it's definitely the most detailed painting i've done in quite some time.

(please be sure to zoom in to see all the little details i worked so hard on!)

[hinamie]

in spite of everything, I had fun <3

[remxedmoon]

(You don’t know how much longer you can do this.)

hi the wip for this was absolutely not supposed to blow up. why does that have 1k notes. horrifying. anyways!!!! it’s update time baby!!!! 64 new assets this time around!

so that’s what the caption was supposed to be. this update was already pretty damn big and took a ton of time to make!!! and i was finally done!! but then my hand slipped and now we’re at 143 new assets. super sorry for the delay! That Was Not Supposed To Happen.

i’ll go more indepth below the cut, but this update encompasses all menu/profile art for both isat and sasasaap, battle portraits for sasasaap, every single pixel icon in isat (to my knowledge anyways), the dialogue skipping animations, and a few miscellaneous additions.

also i spent too much time on these to put them below the cut so Please God Look At My Icon Resprites I Spent 16 Hours On Them. enjoy!

okay first things first. why the hell is this batch 143 assets. so. i HEAVILY underestimated how many times the menu drawings are used in the games. even removing all of the custom art, it’s still ≈30-40 variations! that’s a lot! and once i finally finished everything, i got Posting Anxiety and somehow convinced myself that attempting Animation And Pixel Art (two things i haven’t done in YEARS) would be easier than writing a normal post. so here we are.

the custom art here is pretty much par for the course at this point. extra menu art for bonnie, extra expressions for the party in act 5, we’ve done this enough times that it’s expected. i am aware that bonnie’s custom menu art gets completely covered by the ui. i kept it in because it’s really funny (and also i didn’t feel like extending the sprite (but then the sasasaap version forced me to extend the sprite anyways so Whartever)).

once again, provided a spritesheet for sasasaap’s battle portraits! i do intend to cover both games, it’s just a slightly lower priority atm. unlike isat though, i’ve got Less (read “No”) experience with sasasaap, so there might be more issues with those assets?? apologies if there are, i’ll try to fix any issues that come up!

the Miscellaneous Additions i mentioned above are the sprites used on the teleport map and the loading screen, which is just a tiny version of the skipping animation. they were pretty small, so i figured i might as well get them out of the way!

not actually much to say about the 75 icons surprisingly! i haven’t done pixel art in about 5 years?? and that’s a Travesty actually these were super fun to make. i did make mockups for the overworld sprites earlier, but they aren’t Officially part of the redraws (yet) so they’re getting posted seperately

and also!! some exciting news!! this project might actually become a Proper Published Mod pretty soon!! i’ve been in contact with someone who’s willing to help me get everything set up, and i’ll be getting a Usable Computer around the end of the year!!!! it’ll still be at least a month before it’s up (i’d like to get the enemy art finished beforehand wauaua) but!!! still exciting!

okay, i think that’s everything relevant to the update!! i Definitely can’t fit all of the relevant assets here lol. but i’ll try my best ! please enjoy !!

[forgettable-au]

FORGETTABLE-AU (Page 61-64)

* I-I don't think we were talking about the same thing...

[BEGINNING] [PREVIOUS] [CONTINUE]

[xxplastic-cubexx]

[right to left]

finally finished This Wip from Ever ago and so now i ask you ever look into another dudes eyes and suddenly want to do whatever he wants

[hyunpic]

daily gifs until hyune day: king of hair styles — “if you like my long hair, pls love me until it grows out. if you like it short, pls love me until it's gone. then, i’ll only receive love”

[mossy-paws]

these fuckass robots that I hate /aff (Ultrakill x PHIGHTING!)

the girls are PHIGHTING! again

[yes-asil]

Going Home

Also I have a Youtube Channel now??? It's just to post Animations and Speedpaints on for now so yeah!!

[khaoala]

gmmtv's girls kissers hall

AYE SARUNCHANA and RAISARAT PRINEE in FRIENDZONE 2 (2020) JAN PLOYSHOMPOO and PEARWAH NICHAPHAT in P.S I Hate You (2022) JAN PLOYSHOMPOO, JESSICA PASAPHAN and SILVY PAVIDA in The Warp Effect (2022) LOOKJUN BHASIDI and NONNIE PITCHAPORN in Only Friends (2023) EMI THASORN and BONNIE PUSSARASORN in Us (pilot trailer, 2024) MILK PANSA and LOVE PATTRANITE in 23.5 (2024), Whale Store xoxo (pilot trailer, 2024), Girl Rules (pilot trailer, 2024) VIEW BENYAPA and JUNE WANWIMOL in 23.5 (2024) JUNE WANWIMOL and MEWNICH NANNAPHAS in Whale Store xoxo (pilot trailer, 2024) VIEW BENYAPA and MIM RATTANAWADEE in Girl Rules (pilot trailer, 2024) NAMTAN TIPNAREE and FILM RACHANUN in Pluto (2024-2025), Girl Rules (pilot trailer, 2024) KAPOOK PLOYNIRA and PIPLOY KANYARAT in The Trainee (2024) KAPOOK PLOYNIRA, CIIZE RUTRICHA and EARN PREEYAPHAT in Pluto (2024)

[clarionglass]

here we go :) part one of three, updates to be released weekly!

---

sam says 4 (game master cinematic universe, part 3)

Ruby was at her mum's for a family dinner she couldn't miss on pain of death, apparently, and the Doctor was many things, but a family dinner kind of guy wasn't one of them—particularly when Carla had already slapped him once in the short time he'd known her. He thought he'd broken his streak of bad luck with mums, but… well, seemingly not. So he was companionless for a few hours, and while he could wait for her to get back, maybe catch up on his reading—what was the point of waiting when you had a time machine? 

He ran his hands over the TARDIS console, marvelling at her clean lines and metallic flourishes, the way that even now she felt brand new but familiar, and paused. He’d just pop off for a quick adventure, nothing too dangerous, but—where to go?

He could scan for a distress call nearby, and pitch in to help. He could drop in on Donna and Shaun and Rose, beautiful Rose, and see how they were all doing. Or he could just hit the randomiser button, and jump in feet first wherever he ended up.

He remembered a conversation from a long time ago, when he wore a different face, and his gorgeous TARDIS wore a face too, for the first and only time.

“You didn't always take me where I wanted to go.”

“No, but I always took you where you needed to go.”

He grinned. Who could resist an offer like that? He pressed the button and whooped as the time rotor spun into action, ready to see where the universe would take him.

---

Apparently, he was needed pretty close to where he already was. Earth, 2024. Huh. Same planet, same time—within a few months of where he’d left Ruby, even. The main thing that had changed was the location: he was now in the good old US of A. California, to be more specific, and Los Angeles to be more specific still. And to really narrow it down, the Doctor discovered as he poked his head out of the TARDIS doors, he was in… a broom closet. Not bad, as a parking spot—a bit squeezy, but out of the way. And as he poked his head out of that door, he could finally see he was in the backstage corridors of a studio of some kind. Film or TV, if he was to hazard a guess, it was a different vibe from Abbey Road.

With a shrug, he decided to go exploring.

It couldn’t have been more than a minute before a young woman wearing the full-black outfit, headset, and permanently stressed expression of a production assistant came running up to him.

“Are you the fill-in Sam organised?” she asked breathlessly, and honestly, seeing the look on her face, the Doctor didn’t have the heart(s) to tell her no. And really, what was the Doctor, if not a professional fill-in? This, this was why he had a randomiser button on the control panel, because whatever he was about to get himself into was going to be fun.

“Sure!”

“Oh, thank god,” sighed the production assistant, relief dawning across her face. “When Ally tested positive this morning, I thought we were sunk for the record, because we called around and we couldn’t get a hold of anyone. But then Sam said he could get someone in, and, you know, here you are, and just in time, so—ah, yeah, if you could follow me this way?”

Smiling all the way, the Doctor followed his guide through to hair and makeup, looking around as they went. The studio seemed to belong to a company called Dropout, according to the branding scattered around, and things seemed, at least on the surface, to be… well. Fine. He couldn't tell why he'd been brought here yet, which meant that when he found the reason, it was going to be particularly tangled. He couldn't wait! 

And then he looked back at his guide, still engulfed in a miasma of anxiety, and realised he'd been too busy looking for clues to notice the person right in front of him. 

“Hey, it's cool, you've found me,” he started with a gentle smile. “You can relax. Hi, I'm the Doctor. What's your name?”

“Oh!” she said, startled. “The Doctor, yeah, of course. Um, hi, I'm Kaylin. Look, sorry, it's just that I've been so busy this morning, I'm so distracted… Shit, and I would've completely forgotten to get your details too. There's paperwork to fill in, but you can do that later. Um, just for now, though, can I get your pronouns?”

The Doctor thought for a moment. “He/him, for now.”

Kaylin nodded, making a note on her phone. “Okay, cool! And do you have any socials?”

“Not me, babes,” he replied. “I'm hardly sitting down long enough to be able to update, you know?”

“On a day like this, I know exactly what you mean,” she said. “That's okay, Lou didn't have socials either for the longest time. Right, so if you go through there, the team will get you sorted, and once you're done, someone will take you up to the greenroom. All good?”

“All great,” the Doctor replied. Kaylin flashed him a quick, relieved smile, then hurried off.

Hair and makeup was a fairly quick process, the sound mixer fitted him with a microphone, and before too long, Kaylin was back to take him upstairs. 

“This is the greenroom,” she said, pushing the door open. “The rest of the cast for the episode are already here—they’re great guys, and they’ve both been on the show a lot, so they’ll be able to help if you’ve got questions. And if you need anything else, just come find me or any of the other PAs, okay?”

The Doctor nodded, beamed at Kaylin, and walked in.

---

The greenroom was small but comfortable, and its occupants, two men around the same age as the Doctor appeared, looked up as he entered.

“Oh, you’re new,” the taller of the pair said, clearly giving him the once-over.

The other sighed with a mixture of fondness and exasperation, just as clearly used to his friend’s antics.

“Hey, I’m Brennan,” he said, levering himself up to standing from his perch on a chair arm, and holding out a hand. “That’s Grant.”

The Doctor took it warmly. “The Doctor. Just passing through, and happy to help.”

Grant’s eyebrows quirked. “Doctor… something?” he prompted.

“Or is it just ‘the Doctor’?” Brennan asked.

“Just ‘the Doctor’,” the Time Lord confirmed cheerfully. “You’ll get used to it, everyone does.”

Grant didn’t look convinced, but—

“Copy that,” Brennan shrugged, and settled back on the arm of the chair, returning his gaze to the door.

Grant, in turn, looked at the Doctor and rolled his eyes in a clear expression of ‘no, I don’t know why he’s like this, either’.

“Okay,” the Doctor said after a moment of watching the watching. “I wasn’t going to ask, but now I think I have to. What’s up with the door?”

Brennan huffed a laugh. “Well, the last time there was one of those up—” he pointed to the Out of Order sign stuck to the bathroom door, “—we got locked in here for the game.”

“He’s paranoid,” Grant interjected.

“Well, yeah, maybe,” Brennan retorted. “Or just cautious. Because Sam’s been acting weird lately, and we’re coming up to the last few records of the season, so he’s probably planning something way out of the box for the finale. And the original cast was you, me and Beardsley, so…”

He shrugged one shoulder meaningfully, and Grant nodded, conceding both the point and the potential for chaos.

“So if Sam comes in to give us the briefing, rather than waiting til we’re on set,” Brennan continued, “or there’s anything else weird going on, I’m gonna know about it right from the beginning.”

He turned to the Doctor. “The only reason I'm not quizzing you is because I know for a fact Beardsley was genuinely scheduled for this, so you can't be a plant by the production team. No offence.”

“None taken,” the Doctor smiled. “That sort of thing happen often, does it?”

Grant and Brennan exchanged a look. 

“More than you'd think,” Grant answered with a grimace. 

“Alright,” the Doctor said slowly, then brightened. “So what is it we're actually doing?”

Grant gave him a disbelieving glance. “You don't know—?”

“Very last minute fill-in,” the Doctor said breezily. “But don't worry, I'm a quick study.”

“Well, you're not that much worse off than the rest of us,” Brennan said encouragingly. “You know about Game Changer, obviously, if you know Sam, and we only find out the rules of the game once we get on set. Hopefully,” he added, with a dark look back at the Out of Order sign. 

The Doctor nodded. No, he didn't know Sam, and he didn't know Game Changer, but he could work out the situation from context clues. This was a game show. And with the Toymaker banished, and Satellite Five not coming into existence for another 198000 years, give or take, he found himself smiling. Maybe third time would be the charm. 

“Mmm, hopefully they aren't going to throw you in the deep end,” Grant said. “Because Brennan might seem lovely now, but as soon as we get out there, he's a whore for points. He'll stab you in the back and won't even blink.”

Brennan barked with laughter. “Yeah, and you wouldn't?”

“Excuse you, I'm always a goddamn delight,” Grant replied, the very picture of injured dignity. 

“Oh, absolutely!” agreed a new voice. The Doctor turned to the now-open door to see a bearded man in a pinstriped suit smiling broadly. “That's why we keep inviting you back!”

Grant bowed sarcastically. “Why, thank you, Sam. Good to know I'm appreciated by someone here.”

“Always,” Sam replied, gently but firmly ending that particular path of the conversation. He scanned the room, and his eyes lit up when they landed on the Doctor. 

“Ah, you must be the Doctor!” he said with obvious delight, walking over with his hand outstretched. “I'm Sam—thanks for filling in for us, you've made sure we're going to have a good show. Seriously, it's a pleasure to have you here.”

“Aw, cheers!” the Doctor smiled, shaking the offered hand. “Glad I could help out, I'm really looking forward to this!”

“Well, great!” Sam exclaimed, then took a step back, regarding all three players in turn. “Now, folks, I'm just letting you know that we're just about ready to start the record, so if you can start heading down, that'd be great.”

Grant and Brennan nodded—Brennan, the Doctor noticed, with relief. 

“See you down there,” Sam said, smiling. “Have a great show, and—”

His eyes caught on the Doctor's for a second, twinkling. 

“Good luck.”

---

Backstage, the Doctor, Brennan and Grant were marshalled into podium order and given a final briefing from the crew. And then, with a thumbs-up from Kaylin, that was it.

Showtime.

“Get ready for a Game Changer!” came Sam's voice from onstage. “Tonight’s guests: he can shoot off a monologue with laser accuracy; it’s Brennan Lee Mulligan!”

Brennan, his back to the camera as the curtains opened, spun on his heel and, with a stone-cold expression, pointed finger guns straight down the barrel, before letting the facade crack open. “Hi!” he exclaimed, and walked over to the leftmost podium.

“It’s his first appearance, but he’s already on fire; it’s the Doctor!”

The Doctor leant against the archway to the stage and flashed a broad smile towards the camera, then in a few skipping steps, had bounded over to the next free podium. What the hell, why not make an entrance?

“And even in the toughest of mazes, you’ll always be able to find him; it’s Grant O’Brien!”

Grant dipped his lanky frame into an approximation of a curtsey, spreading his arms wide, then sauntered over to the closest podium with a grin.

“And your host, me!” Sam announced, a ring of manic white showing around his irises as he beamed down the barrel of the camera. “I’ve been here the whole time!”

“This,” he continued, pushing his microphone shut and stowing it in his jacket pocket, “is Game Changer, the only game show where the game changes every show. I am your host, Sam Reich!” 

As he said his name, he looked at his hands, front and back, as if he was pleasantly surprised to be himself, then gestured towards the three podiums.

“I am joined today by these three lovely contestants! Now, you understand how the game works.”

“Of course not,” Grant started. “You know we don't.”

“We can't, Sam, that's the whole point of the theatre you've set up here,” Brennan said over him. 

“Not yet,” was all the Doctor said, anticipation starting to drum a tattoo of excitement against the inside of his ribcage. 

“That’s right!” Sam said brightly, shooting finger guns at the camera. “Our players have no idea what game it is they’re about to play. The only way to learn is by playing. The only way to win is by learning, and the only way to begin is by beginning! So without further ado, let’s begin by giving each of our players fifty points.”

The Doctor, biding his time, watched the reactions of his fellow contestants. Grant looked at the front of his podium, checking the point total, and nodding approvingly when he saw that yes, it was sitting at a round fifty. Brennan, on the other hand, was starting to frown.

“Players, Sam says: touch your nose,” Sam began, and Brennan sighed the sigh of someone who wasn’t happy to be proved right.

“Oh, no,” he groaned. “Oh, you son of a bitch. Wasn’t one this season enough?”

He touched his nose anyway, as did the others, and Sam smiled encouragingly. “Sam says: touch your ear.”

When they all did, Sam nodded. “Touch your other ear.”

Everybody held still, fingers on the ears they had originally touched.

Sam beamed. “Easy, players, right?”

“You say that now,” Brennan said darkly. “Which makes it worse, because all you're doing is setting us up for failure.”

Sam gasped, pretending offence. “Would I do that?”

“Yes,” Brennan and Grant replied in unison, which drew a grin from the Doctor and set Sam off chuckling.

“And I'm not having it,” Brennan continued, leaning his elbows against his podium and pointing at Sam with the hand not touching his ear. “You better watch yourself, because I know how this game works, and you're not going to get one over on me.”

“Strong words, Brennan!” Sam said, clearly delighted by this response. “Okay, then, let's start making things a bit more interesting!”

The game continued as per Sam Says usual, some rounds done as a group and some individual. Points were won, sure, but lost slightly more frequently, and even the Doctor found he was having to concentrate to avoid getting caught in the host's traps. 

It was fun. Genuinely, it was like playing a game with friends, and the Doctor felt himself leaning into it. There wasn't any sign of danger—maybe there wasn't a mystery to solve at all, and the TARDIS just decided he needed a total break. 

Well, probably not. But the way things were going, he was able to let himself hope. 

“Alright, players,” Sam said a good few rounds in, just as pleasantly as he would start any other question, and the screen behind him dinged as a new prompt popped up. “Survive the death beam.”

For a second, everything was frozen perfectly still. 

And then came the crash, the explosive noise of heavy machinery moving relentlessly through a drywall set.

The Doctor was already moving. “Everyone down!”

“Duck!” Brennan yelled at the same time.

The two of them hit the ground within milliseconds of each other, but Grant was still paralysed in the face of the giant, science-fiction type laser cannon that had just ploughed through the wall. 

It whined ominously, screaming its way to fever pitch. And then a sharp pain in Grant’s ankle made him stagger, pitching forwards onto the carpet behind the podiums as the Doctor rolled away to avoid getting pinned.

“Sorry, babes,” the Doctor whispered. “But it was either kick you to get you down, or—”

A hideous metallic screech ripped through the air, and all three of them could feel the crackle of ozone as a beam of energy swept across what had, moments ago, been neck height.

“…Or that,” the Doctor finished with a grimace.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Grant breathed, suddenly very conscious of every inch of his 6’9 frame. “Thanks.”

“Well done, players!” Sam exclaimed delightedly from above them. “But… sorry, I didn’t say ‘Sam says’, so that’s a point off for everyone.”

“What the fuck!” Brennan snapped.

“Are you actually insane?” Grant demanded at the same time, his voice overlapping with Brennan’s.

In response, Sam just wheezed with laughter. “You can come back to your podiums,” he said, cheerfully ignoring them.

Nobody moved.

“Very good!” he acknowledged, and even without seeing his face, the grin was obvious in his voice. “Okay, Sam says: come back to your podiums.”

Although the words were innocuous, and his tone was just as light and breezy as usual, there was nevertheless an edge hiding just underneath the surface. And while the death beam loomed large in the minds of all three players, it was impossible to consider disobedience as an option.

Slowly, they stood, returning to their places. Now they had the time to look at it properly, the death beam was even more sinister, and Brennan and Grant both kept flicking nervous glances its way, ready to move if it looked like it was charging up again.

The Doctor, however, was focused purely on the man standing in front of them. Unbothered, Sam met his gaze like a challenge, a mischievous smile playing about his lips.

“Oh, you’ll love this one,” he said, and the screen changed. “Sam says, starting with Grant: say my name.”

Grant frowned in confusion, but answered quickly nonetheless. “Sam Reich?”

The man himself shrugged tolerantly, moving on. “Brennan?”

Brennan just stared at him coolly. “Do you take me for a fool?”

“Well caught, Brennan!” Sam said happily. “Sam says: say my name.”

“Sam,” Brennan replied, suspicion clear in his voice. “Samuel Dalton Reich.”

He nodded, still with a hint of indifference. “And lastly, Doctor.” His smile broadened. “Sam says: say my name.”

It was easy. Too easy. And as the Doctor looked into the eyes of the man calling himself Sam Reich, he felt his hearts stutter in recognition, because something had changed. He wasn’t hiding himself anymore, and while the face was different yet again, the Doctor would know the shape of that soul anywhere. It was impossible. It was inevitable.

“You can’t be,” he breathed. 

Sam smirked, leaning in across his podium. “Oh, but Doctor… I’ve been here the whole time,” he stage-whispered with a wink.

“He said you lost,” the Doctor said, shaking his head, looking wrong-footed for the first time that Brennan and Grant could recall. “You lost, and he trapped you.”

The other two watched, uncomprehending, but Sam just smiled, drumming his fingers against the podium with an audible beat, fast but distinct. Four taps, four taps, four taps. “I’m waiting.”

The Doctor took a slow, deep breath. Set his jaw. 

“Master.”

---

missed an installment of the game master cinematic universe?

original idea by @ace-whovian-neuroscientist: x

art by @northernfireart concept: x scissor sisters sketch: x sam and his doppelganger: x

writing by me (!) part one (escape the greenroom): x part two (deja vu): x part three (sam says 4): you are here!

[ughidontevenknowwww]

Hello Warhammer fandom

[feelo-fick]

chilaios telepathy compilation. btw.

also these ones arent telepathy i just think its fun that they defend eachother + are on the same page about alchohol :

[mammoth-clangen]

D’you perchance have any thoughts on the morphological (for lack of a better word?) dire wolves that Colossal Biosciences just revealed to the public? 👀

Oh my god Aenocyon, you can't just ask someone why they're white!

"Morphological dire wolf" my ass. Which is coincidentally where Colossal pulled the white coats from…

Give me an example of a modern temperate/grassland predator that's white*, I'll wait. *Excluding white lions, which are an uncommon but resilient morph resulting from leucism.

I based my Aenocyon design off bushdogs and dholes. They are called Masked Wolves in Kindred's setting, because I enjoy a good pseudo hyena niche uvu-b

Extremely extremely long 'thoughts' below the cut lol c':

Preface: in this discussion the term "dire wolf" has too many meanings, as such I will be referring to them as follows:

Thrones' wolves: for the huge, white, fantasy animals from Game Of Thrones GMO wolves: for Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi, Colossal's creations, Canis lupus Aenocyon: for Aenocyon dirus, the true, extinct dire wolf known from fossils across North America

----

Part 1: That's not a dire wolf-

The first question everyone has been asking is "So, are dire wolves de extinct now?" The answer is an emphatic "NO!" from anyone with knowledge of genetics, palaeontology, or taxonomy.

Aenocyon dirus were actually not wolves, nor dogs, but a secret third thing.

They are canids, but last shared a common ancestor with grey wolves and their lineage some ~5.7 million years ago.

For context, this paper suggests a similar divergence time between genus Homo (humans, Neanderthals and co) and Pan (chimps and bonobos); animals that look and behave markedly differently from each other.

The genomes of Canis lupus and Aenocyon dirus being 99.5% similar may sound like a lot, but again, humans share 98.8% with chimps, and 99.7% with Neanderthals, and yet are very distinct from both.

Skeletally, behaviourally, in soft tissue, etc, you could tell any of the three apart; the same goes for Aenocyon and Canis members.

Additionally, Colossal made 20 changes in 14 genes.

The grey wolf genome has 2,447,000,000 base pairs. Does that maths seem a bit off to you?

That's not even enough to change a grey wolf into a domestic dog, let alone an ancient outgroup!

This would be akin to modifying a lion to have bigger teeth and saying you resurrected Smilodon fatalis.

Or editing a Asian Elephant genome so they retain their juvenile hair and calling it a Woolly Mammoth.

It's a bold-faced lie.

Beth Shapiro says "they look and act like dire wolves" but that, too,simply isn't true.

Visually, the GMO wolves simply aren't what Aenocyon would have looked like. It's what a Thrones' wolf looks like.

Hmmmmm, funny about that, seeing George R R Martin helped fund the 'dire wolf project'...

As with many fossil animals, we don't know much about Aenocyon's behaviour.

You can't say the GMO wolves (who are also still pups) act like Aenocyon, because that's based off nothing.

What we do know is Aenocyon were likely pack animals (from the sheer number found in La Brea Tarpits), and crunched more bones than modern wolves (from their many broken teeth).

Also, crucially, they had Wild Sex Lives (from the many, huge, broken and healed bacula... youch).

Colossal is also being colossally shady by: doubling down on their bs use of the outdated "morphological species definition", blatantly misleading the public with their use of the words 'cloning', 'dire wolves', and 'de extinction', and refusing to share their methods in a peer reviewed paper before going public with a clickbait headline.

Do not trust them with your Red wolves either. They're using coyote hybrids and considering what they deem 'close enough' for a dire wolf, I wouldn't put any money on the quality of their GMO red wolves either...

Also can I just say, whatever genes they modified to "make the skull larger" clearly didn't impact the lower jaw...

No, I'm not sorry for this image uvu-b (But for real look at that poor pup and his overbite jfc)

Part 2: -and if it was, that wouldn't be good either.

I fundamentally do not support de extinction.

No, not even for the Thylacine, not even for passenger pigeons, nor the dodo. Even my beloved Homotherium should be left in the past.

This might be an unexpected stance because I am, surprising no one, a big fan of extinct animals, megafauna and otherwise.

But the thing is, I'm an even bigger fan of actual, living animals.

The animal ethics of de extinction are dubious at best.

The surrogate dog mothers of the GMO wolves likely won't live good lives.

I wouldn't be surprised if they were destroyed after being used, because their bodies could contain feto microchimerisms and Colossal absolutely doesn't want their special wolf genome getting out.

I doubt the GMO wolves themselves will live a full life before they outgrow their hearts, like Ligers.

This would likely be the case for any modern animal genetically modified into megafauna; a body not adapted to deal with the increased size.

Purely conjecture, but I also wouldn't be surprised if Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi have vision/hearing issues from their white coats.

White coats in wolves are associated with hearing impairments, so the gene used for these animals was from domestic dogs. Meaning Colossal has created a very expensive wolfdog.

Again, what kind of life are these wolfdogs supposed to live? As awful pets for the rich? In a zoo? Released to pollute wild wolf genomes? (assuming they're fertile; I hope not)

Regardless, it's not looking good if they ever planned to have them be 'wild animals'

Even true clones (which the GMO wolves are not) tend to have health issues.

Celia the Pyrenean Ibex (bucardo) was cloned, but the clone died after 9 minutes from a deformed lung.

So in 2003, this made the bucardo the first species to go extinct twice, yippee?

There's also the problem of genetic diversity.

How many intact genomes do you have on hand?

For dire wolves the answer is Zero!

To my knowledge, we don't have the full genome coded from one individual, just Frankenstein-ed from many. Which is fine for sequencing the canine family tree's relatedness, but not for cloning.

The absolute minimum individuals to survive a genetic bottleneck is said to be 50 in larger species. Called the 50/500 rule, it states that 50 is enough to survive, but 500 is required to prevent genetic drift.

To which I say, good luck!

Even with well preserved permafrost species (such as woolly mammoths), you'll have a hard time finding 500 individuals with prefect genomes.

And then, where will you put them?

If you were to, somehow, make a breeding population, where are they going? A national park? A zoo? Is their old habitat still available to them?

In Aenocyon, the answer is simply "they don't have a niche anymore".

Unlike the Thylacine or Dodo, humans did not directly cause the extinction of Aenocyon dirus. And even if they had, it was 10,000 years ago!

Would making room for a de extinct species impact the habitat/niche of another species?

Regular grey wolves fill Aenocyon's role as a canine mesopredator, with Puma as the apex (alongside bears as an apex omnivore).

With the loss of megafauna to prey on, a de extinct predator would just compete with other, also endangered species.

Animals also change the environment they life in.

Mammoths will clear trees like modern elephants. This would recreate the Mammoth Steppe, but those trees making up the taiga and boreal forests are themselves crucial habitat.

Other species have moved in since the mammoths' extinction. Siberian tigers, lynx, muskoxen, brown bears, elk, moose, and so many others; many endangered.

Trees also prevent erosion, which is already happening at unprecedented rates due to agriculture and deforestation.

Crucially: What's to stop an extinct animal going the same way it went out last time?

Ask yourself this:

Would the average American appreciate "flocks of Passenger pigeons big enough to darken the sky and whiten ground with their guano"?

Would people suddenly be okay with lions in Europe eating their livestock, when they are champing the bit to shoot Iberian wolves again?

Would Tasmanians suddenly feel the same about the Thylacine, when farmers in Australia still happily kill dingoes and eagles for lamb predation? [citation, I am an enviro technician and have had farmers tell me they shoot Wedge-tails, knowing I'm a toothless lion to stop them.]

I doubt it

At what cost?

Are we going to find 50 thylacine genomes?

If so (doubtful), how much will cloning and/or modifying a relative into a thylacine cost? Now that x50?

Wouldn't that money be better spent on quoll reintroduction?

What about finding 50 gestational carriers for mammoths?

Are you going to use their closest relative; the already critically endangered Asian Elephant?

Wouldn't that time and effort on those elephant mothers be better used making more elephants?

And the social cost:

If extinction isn't forever, what's to incentivize lawmakers to fund conservation?

Really, it comes down to this:

Why bring back the dire wolf when we could put this money into protecting the Iberian and Red wolves?

Why bring back the thylacine when their cousin is dying of a transmissible cancer?

We've already seen the impacts of "extinction isn't forever anymore", with those in power already trying to cut funding to conservation, because you can "just bring them back".

But as we've seen time and time again: there is no Planet B. There is no De-Extinction, not really.

Maybe what was gone should stay gone, so we can focus on what we still have.

[quicksilversnails]

Took some notes from the Wild Life retrospective episode of the Imp & Skizz podcast featuring Grian because I thought the behind the scenes info was really interesting!

(3:15) The wild cards were all kept totally secret from the players (apart from Grian), with the exception of the superpowers and finale (as they required the players to set keybinds)

(3:45) The players were given files containing the required mods each week, which were named things like "creeper rain" to throw them off

(4:12) Wild cards were a combination of data packs and mods

(4:38) Grian told them not to read the folder name to avoid spoilers (which is kind of impossible), so everyone fully believed there would be creeper rain lol. Grian was saying it in jest but everyone took it seriously and were apologetic about having seen it, to which Grian told them not to worry

(6:58) Grian originally contacted a data pack dev called Brace for help with programming the wild cards. Some, like the shrinking/growing could be achieved with minecraft attributes, but the snails were too janky and unusable. Grian still liked the idea though, so he reached out to mod developers Henkelmax and Breadloaf, who designed the pathfinding/behaviour from scratch

(8:49) They had a debugging mode used to test the pathfinding of the snails, shown in the podcast and in Grian's credits

(10:09) Grian wants most of the credit to go to the development team and artists, as he was mostly in charge of ideas & organization!

(10:39) Grian's only regret with the snails was that they were too fast in session 3, leading to unexpectedly many deaths. They were apparently not so difficult to get away from during testing, but perhaps the testers were more used to them than the players were

(11:44) Grian: "We did develop to the lowest common denominator" ie. prioritizing how players would struggle over how worrying about if players would do too well

(12:56) Oli's voice for the snails was iconic. It cost Impulse a life because he intentionally stayed closer to it to hear the voice lol

(13:42) Danny was in charge of the snail models and animations

(14:11) During testing, the snails just sounded like Oli, which made it feel weird. They pitched up his voice so that it'd be less immediately recognizable

(15:18) The snails' jumping attack was meant to be clearly telegraphed: they would stop, wiggle, make a "ooeee" sound before jumping. Many players had their friendly creatures volume turned very low/off (as cows and other mobs are loud), which made this attack much less obvious for them

(16:57) The growing/shrinking had the least testing done for it, as it was the simplest conceptually and to program. This meant that the falling off of blocks due to the shrinking hitboxes wasn't anticipated

(17:55) Before the 1st session, Grian told them that he didn't think anyone would die to the wild card. Pearl's death made Grian pretty nervous, as he didn't want everyone dying too early in the season

(19:29) 6 lives were given, knowing that many of the death to the wild cards were unexpected/unfair. The intent was for ~3 lives to be allocated for wild cards, and ~3 for PvP.

(21:13) The developers were all fans of the Life Series!

(22:43) The shrinking/growing was intentionally pretty simple to ease players/viewers into the concept and build up toward more dramatic wild cards like the snails

(25:38) In the hunger episode, Grian didn't know which foods would be good

(25:58) Grian thinks that "it's unfair that Grian already knows everything" is valid criticism, but that it's important for him to be involved with the ideas. Having someone else do that is like having someone else record his videos: Life Series is his brainchild

(26:35) Well before the season began, while they were still developing the concept, Grian asked the other players for wild card ideas that would meet a few criteria. All of them ended up being unused for one reason or another. Impulse thinks his ideas were very "inside the box" because he was viewing things through what was possible in vanilla Minecraft. His idea was to have a scavenger hunt where the players would search to find a relic. The first person to find it would get a buff. Skizz's idea was for every player to turn into a random passive mob for every given interval of time. They would have to find every other player of the same mob type as them or else the whole group loses a life.

(29:44) The food qualities were weighted by the rarity of the item, so very common blocks like dirt and cobblestone would never give anything good. The other items were randomly selected

(30:23) Regular blocks/items cannot be made edible normally, so they had to circumvent that and custom code a fix for items not stacking correctly

(32:41) While a lot of players do want to win, the main priority is creating entertainment, which prioritizes playing recklessly

(33:20) The food wild card wasn't included in the finale because it would've felt like "too much". There was a higher risk of technical issues since it changed the data values of items, and Grian didn't want someone's last death to be because they ate their sword. In his mind, it was a good and fun wild card, but didn't need to be repeated in the finale. Impulse points out that they all would have collected more rare items by that point, removing the incentive to search for blocks to eat

(33:46) The wild cards in the finale were nerfed from their original sessions. The shrinking/growing had a smaller height range, the snails moved slower, etc.

(36:21) The personalized snail skins were a late addition by Danny, who made 18 skins very quickly

(36:49) Grian did not anticipate the snails becoming as popular with fans as they were. After the session released, they had the idea to release the snail merchandise, which directly funded the rest of the season

(39:20) Grian spent what "felt like every day" testing with the developers. They'd record the sessions on Tuesdays, meet up with the dev team, talk about what need to be done, testing, bugs, etc, edit and upload on Saturday, and would get a few days grace before starting again

(40:01) After the snail session, Grian was worried that the season would be very short due to all the deaths. They were considering toning down the later wild cards but ultimately didn't change them too much

(40:36) The time wild card was carefully balanced. If it had gone even a little faster, many players likely would have died because they wouldn't have time to react to threats like baby zombies or creepers.

(40:57) While sessions normally run for a variable amount of time, session 4 was hardcoded at 2 hours. Grian ended the session ~10 minutes early, just after they hit max speed, because he felt like things were getting dicey

(42:46) When the wild card first activates, it looks a lot like the server had frozen or crashed. Grian told the players before the session started that it would look like the game was broken, but that it isn't broken. Skizz tabbed out anyway and missed the beginning 😔

(43:30) Having the rain start just as the wild card began was a good visual indicator of time slowing down. This was a suggestion from the dev team (probably Brace)

(44:41) Impulse and Grian "cheesed" the end of the session by going branch mining. Grian wanted players to take advantage of the wild cards (eg. mining quickly, helping to kill someone), and not have them just be an annoyance.

(45:30) Keeping the client and server-side time stay in sync was challenging. The sky's motion was changed to be smoother on client-side. The players were also not as fast as the server (around 2x faster), the server was going faster than that, and the time of day was even faster

(46:56) The sounds were pitched up/down based on the speed to add to the effect

(27:46) In testing, if the players were made 7x faster, it would be basically unplayable, which was why it was capped at 2x speed. This made mobs very dangerous, as they were now faster than players and could catch up to you and kill you easily

(49:01) On several occasions, they had to extend the fuse duration of creepers to make them more fair. In the time session, their speed was only increased by ~10%

(49:39) Usually, Grian was the one to test the wild cards and notice when things like creeper speed would be an issue, since he was the one with experience making videos

(50:50) A challenge with balancing wild cards is accounting for the playstyles of so many players: reckless players like Scar and Skizz, "kind and gentle" players like Bigb who would stay off to the sides, and "the sweat squad" (Scott, Impulse) who play very cautiously

(52:48) Trivia Bot was the only wild card that was not planned in advance. Grian was struggling to come up with a wild card for that episode, and wanted to have a wild card available that could give people lives in case many people died to early wild cards without it feeling cheap.

(53:33) Trivia seemed a little boring on its face, so presentation was essential

(54:34) This one made Grian the most stressed due to all the moving parts involved in making it (coding and pathfinding mostly by Henkelmax, visuals by Hoffen, audio/music, questions)

(55:08) Trivia Bot's design was based on Grumbot and Mettaton from Undertale. Hoffen drew concept art shown in the video

(58:32) They show Trivia Bot's custom animation for becoming a snail and it's really cool

(59:12) The music was the most stressful part of the project. Grian spent 2-3 days looking through Epidemic Sounds for a Trivia Bot theme song and couldn't find anything good. He commissioned Zera @hopepetal for a theme song, which is played in the podcast. However, Grian realized he needed a full audio package, so he commissioned Oli late in development, who created the final soundtrack and many audio variations

(1:01:38) Grian wants to send appreciation for everyone who worked on the project, even if their work ultimately went unused

(1:02:58) Skizz was happy to give back however he could by staying on standby in the final episode as a zombie, as the players were able to "reap all the benefits" of the hard work of the development team

(1:05:21) Grian didn't know any of the trivia questions beforehand, which were done by fans of the series. The goal was for ~50% of the questions to be answered correctly, which was approximately met

(1:07:11) Players couldn't get questions about themselves because it would be too easy. This would encourage players to leave their bot, allowing other players to mess with them

(1:07:57) Grian felt a little left out from the discovery element of the wild cards, and decided to mess with Scar by hiding his bot. He wasn't expecting Scar to die from it, and could tell that he was genuinely a little upset by it. Grian felt bad about it, which led to a genuine in-game alliance between them

(1:12:32) Grian was very close to letting Trivia Bot give lives as rewards, but decided it would feel too cheap

(1:14:38) Mob swap was slightly toned down, with more camels and sniffers spawning

(1:15:07) Evokers didn't drop totems anymore. Instead, there was a minuscule chance a warden or wither would spawn, which would drop a totem if killed. Grian was a little disappointed that the warden got cheesed in the end

(1:17:45) Having the mobs start passive and turn hostile was mostly for the presentation, building anticipation, and so players could predict where mobs would spawn and react accordingly, making things feel less unfair

(1:20:32) There was no superpower made for Skizz (or Mumbo presumably)

(1:20:38) The superpowers were another late addition. There was a large design doc where Grian created all the powers, which were handed over to Henkelmax and completed over 4 days

(1:21:42) Grian avoided superpowers involving strength, that could cause someone to die easily. Most of the powers were social or movement-based, which couldn't be used for offence as easily

(1:22:25) Some powers were randomly assigned, others weren't. Impulse's was random. Cleo's, Bigb's, Lizzie's, Grian's were assigned.

(1:24:25) Grian gave himself the mimic because it could easily backfire (like in Grian's fall damage death), and because it would've been confusing for a player who wasn't aware of the other powers. They likely would've spent the episode just figuring out how everything worked and not actually using the power to its best ability

Lots of discussion about the superpowers and how they interacted in the episode itself, go watch if you're interested :)

(1:33:38) Talk on how the series "standard" rules evolved since 3rd Life. There was no keep inventory, and no restrictions on enchanting levels or potions, which created slow or unbalanced fights

(1:36:23) 3rd Life was designed to be an experimental series, which made Grian eager to improve it. For example, some people just weren't dying in 3L, leading to the boogeyman in LL, and so on

(1:37:17) The goal with the seasons isn't to one-up the previous one, but to create a different experience every time, which keeps things engaging for the creators

(1:38:31) At the end of each session, Grian would ask the group if they had fun and how they felt about the wild cards. According the Skizz, the answer was "a resounding yes"

(1:39:08) Grian had moments throughout the season where he personally felt like things didn't go well for him, and was anxious for the rest of the group's episodes. Things worked out while editing the raw footage, though. His issues were never with the wild cards themselves, but his own actions (traps not working, spending too long branch mining), but would always find funny moments in his footage

(1:43:41) Everyone in the Life Series cast genuinely likes and genuinely respects everybody else in the group. This allows them to make the show and get mad at each other, because they know it's all just in-character

(1:44:50) It'd be hard to top Wild Life in spectacle, and Grian doesn't want to start an arms race with himself. The next season could potentially be closer to 3rd Life, but Grian's not sure yet. For Grian, Wild Life was the most enjoyable

(1:45:20) Grian: "As long as people keep enjoying [the Life Series] then I'd love to keep doing it"

(1:49:35) With the finale, Grian knew how the wild cards played out the previous sessions and was able to adjust them

(1:49:56) Grian's goal was to create safe chaos where everyone knew what was happening and wouldn't die to them, which didn't go entirely to plan. The snails were 60% of their original speed and people still died

(1:51:03) Grian made a precise timeline of when each wild card would start/stop, it wasn't randomized.

(1:54:16) All the superpowers were randomized, with Bdubs' power being removed from circulation because it didn't have much use in a finale setting

(1:56:10) It was important for Grian that in the final moments, the wild cards were removed, so there were no interruptions. The timing worked out well because there were a few people left and it ended within ~10 minutes (this implies that the change wasn't based on # of players alive, as people had speculated based on Gem's death)

(1:58:48) The players all randomly switched to zombie skins throughout the session to mess with people on NameMC. Well-played :)

[xxplastic-cubexx]

graph

bonus:

[radiopng]

hello in stars and time fandom..... places this down on the floor in front of you..... do you guys like roleswap aus

a clearer explanation of whos swapped with who under the cut in case you're confused:

mirabelle has swapped with siffrin, becoming the adventurer (with the unfortunate side effect of being put in the Time Loop)

odile has swapped with isabeau, becoming the shinobi

isabeau has swapped with bonnie (with their "chef" role, not their "kid" role!), becoming the butcher

siffrin has swapped with odile, becoming the cartographer

and bonnie has swapped with mirabelle, becoming the blessed one!