#i just don't like the tedious modding process

[fernweald]

so, when i last very actively played skyrim (sometime almost a decade ago honestly), i had this dunmer OC who was a vampire and a rogue, and i was so attached to him. i was sad when i lost that steam account and all the amazing action screenshots i had from that one combat camera perspective mod i loved.

anyway, the point i'm getting to is i feel that exactly same way about my main rook in veilguard. i love this silly redhead elf grey warden so much.

[itpemod]

Filing out the Google Form multiple times is a huge barrier to entry for how much I wanted to treat. For the purposes of treating ONLY, do I need to fill out the form, or can I just submit to the AO3 collection? I also don't care about being on the masterlist, I just want to make things for people and the form is incredibly frustrating to use.

Hi, we understand your frustration (podfic robot mod gets you completely), but our answer is going to be "no, you can't just submit to the AO3 collection" for a couple of reasons. We have some ideas for a compromise for submission, which we'll get into, but we want to explain our reasoning for anyone else who's in a similar position and is new to the exchange and the culture around ITPE.

One, we're not an AO3 exchange--as it says on the tin, we're a Tumblr exchange. We have sign ups on AO3 to capture standardized fandom data to assist us with our matching process, but after that, we don't use AO3 for anything in ITPE or even look at it. If you submit to AO3 but not to the google form, we're going to think you haven't completed your assignment--it functionally doesn't exist for ITPE if it's only on AO3. That same policy applies to treats. The collection is open for crossposting as a courtesy, but uploading to AO3 is and always has been optional.

Second, we understand people get different things out of exchanges. However, the masterlist is a tradition and staple of ITPE and we do require all gifts, including treats, to be included on it (because again, we're not an AO3 exchange). We have an option for you to exclude gifts from the masterlist in the event that you weren't able to obtain permission for a gift in time which needs to be delivered privately, or if you are someone who wants more control over where your voice is posted publicly.

Finally, we take the "informal" part of our name seriously. This is a no-minimums, low pressure exchange. This is a busy time of year for a lot of people and ITPE is about making gifts using whatever bandwidth you have. You're right that it's tedious to fill out the form multiple times, especially if you plan to make a lot of podfic. But it's a feature, not really a bug?

For some people, it makes them happy to make a lot of gifts--we love that for y'all, please do that if it makes you happy, but we've never set up a system for submitting a mass volume of gifts to avoid setting up the expectation that this is a norm. Throughout our exchange's history, we've often seen anxiety from participants that they're not making enough gifts because they compare themselves to what other people make, or even some of our most prolific participants being anxious about not being able to replicate their productivity from previous years. We don't want anyone feeling like they're not doing ITPE properly if they're not making a lot of podfic. We want you to have fun making whatever you have the time and energy for.

At the same time, we do understand people are excited and inclined to be generous, so we're willing to offer a compromise. If you are making more than 10 treats and you find filling out the form to be a hardship, please get in touch with us and we'll provide you with a spreadsheet to complete instead. Rather than filling out the form multiple times, you'll be able to drag cells down to copy over information that's staying the same between your entries, which should hopefully make the process faster. Again, we want to stress that this is for treats only.

We hope that this is an acceptable compromise. We want to protect some beloved traditions and preserve the spirit of the exchange, but we also don't want to stifle creativity and generosity.

[eljeebee]

📩 Simblr question of the day: Do you have a process for making your simblr posts?

- an anon ask contribution for @simblr-question-of-the-day (Hi squat!)

I decided to do a separate post, just like what @changingplumbob did a question ago!

Since I mostly do story posts, here is my workflow:

a.) I draft the next story updates. Nothing serious, nothing deep. Just a rough draft that I want to happen. I have drafts in my laptop,

as well as in my phone [spoilers? lol]

Sometimes just one paragraph, or two, as long as I get the gist of it. This draft will be the basis when it comes to shooting the scenes.

b.) Before taking the scenes, I make sure that I have the poses and some specific clothes that I want and need. When it comes to clothing, it's rare that I use specific clothes on some scenes, because I have tons of CC in my mod folder, but I download it in advance. Some of it are already download in advance (that is not yet needed now, but is used far in the future)

b.1.) Sometimes, when I need a certain portrait of a character for a scene that is from a different save file, I make sure I do that first before I load the main save.

b.2.) When I need a certain build for the scenes, I have to build it myself. This is evident with the Strauds' nightclub and the Beau-Asvang's penthouse. It took me weeks to finish these. This is tedious for me, so some updates gets delayed, especially when I feel overwhelmed or bored.

c.) After that, I shoot the scenes. I base my scenes on the draft. This is another tedious part for me, especially if it involves a lot of characters. Sometimes, it has to be in a certain time of day. I don't mess time in that save, because I fear I'll mess up the calendar, so I rely in the fast forward function. The only thing that I mess with it is the weather. It can take me a whole IRL day, or a few days to finish this step.

d.) After taking the scenes, I choose which shots are the best, then delete the rest. I don't edit the photos because the reshade preset I use was made to skip editing it, but will only edit if necessary. No resizing is done (sorry if I'm lazy ;-;).

e.) In this step, the draft that was written before will be finalized once the scenes are done. Most of the time, the drafts get changed, because I change the parts of the story based on the scenes I took. The whole essence or message of the story doesn't change, only the flow and how I structured it will be modified. The finalized script is written in MS Word. A tip for everyone: type the tags you're going to use for the post in the document, so all you have to do is to copy the tags and paste it here in the text editor!

f.) Next, I'll upload the scenes and the script here in my Tumblr drafts. Sometimes, I break the scenes in separate posts, but sometimes I post it in one, depending on the story and the flow.

g.) Finally, I either: queue the posts, or I post it myself. I post the posts that has the "previous | next" links myself, because I want to quickly add the links as soon as I post it. I only queue on some posts, namely Beneath, and New Beginnings.

Again, this is my workflow when it comes to story posts! Gameplay posts like The Life of the Hatcher only get captioned based on the shots, and is not as heavily planned as the DLU (Davis Legacy Universe).

If you've reached the end of the post, thanks for reading! I hope you find this helpful!

[puppycheesecake]

Hey there! It is indeed very satisfiying to see CAS organized :O Could you share your process / sorting method? As I understand it I need to group all the stuff toghether in folders first. Do you dress up a sim with for example all your witch hats, search them in your folder and make a category out of it? That's how I thought I would do it but maybe you got a better way to do it :D (and if you want to have the CC sorted by creator do I need specific folders for tops, bottoms and full sets?)

Absolutely.

I dunno if there's an easier process or not, but I can tell you what I did.

I already had my Mods folder organized into folders and sub-folders, so for clothes and hair I just went into the respective folders and made a separate folder within for every creator, sorted alphabetically, then numbered them starting with 001. (In retrospect I should have started at like, 005 or something just to give myself a little wiggle room in case there was something I wanted to add at the top, but oh well.) Most CC has the creator's name in the filename, so that makes sorting it easy.

*** I number 001 instead of 01 or just 1 because when you open up your Mods folder in Sims4Studio to batch fix everything, it'll knock all your folders out of order unless there's three digits. Found that out the hard way. :T

I know the example in the tutorial didn't have their folders numbered and just has the creator name, but I'm not sure how they're managing that? I have all my folders numbered so I know what display index number I'm assigning them. (¤﹏¤) So ClumsyAlien hairs go in Mods -> Hair -> 005 ClumsyAlien, and I know when I batch fix it to set the CAS display index to 5. (And I'll know what to set the display index to for any new ClumsyAlien hairs I download in the future.)

*** On top of having folders for most creators I also have folders titled "A-C," "D-F," etc., for single pieces of CC that don't warrant their own creator folder. It keeps them loosely alphabetized. Like, if I only have a single shirt by Creator A and don't want to make an entire folder just for that, I can stick that shirt in folder A-C instead. The way I have it, I have creator folders at the top -> misc. alphabetical folders below them. So that shirt by Creator A won't be at the top of my CAS catalogue, but it'll be at the start of my "miscellaneous section" beneath all the creator sections.

For hats (or any category where I sort by function instead of creator), I open up a blank Sim in CAS, put whatever CC I want grouped together on them, save, then open them up in Tray Importer and drag all that CC into its own folder. Number the folder and batch fix as usual.

The example in the tutorial had them breaking up clothing by top/bottom/etc., but I don't really see the need for that, so I didn't do it. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

*** When numbering folders/batch fixing, it's probably smarter to do every other number (001, 003, 005) so you can go back and add in more folders later, but I was not smart. :V I've already got a couple new creator folders tacked on at the very bottom, whoops.

It's a long and super tedious process (hence why I'm doing it in batches and not fixing everything at once), but man, it has been so worth it. I only have clothes, hair, hats, glasses, and shoes done so far, but even just having those organized has cut down on my time spent scrolling through CAS searching for a piece of CC.

[windslar]

Hi Ily, hope you’re well. I had three questions so sorry for the ask spam!

I’m so in love with the direction of TJOLC at the moment – I get so excited for each post, which feels like a mini cinematic masterpiece and Rueben’s storyline has me heavy breathing. 🤣 I only recently started following you and have binge-read the whole legacy a few times (I’m also loving the bright, slice of life feel of your MBTI legacy, which feels like a breath of fresh air!).

1️⃣How do you feel like your enjoyment of the game has been affected by the storytelling of Gen 3? I think I read that you prefer to be guided by the gameplay, and I wondered if that has changed or reversed now, and if you spend much time actively playing rather than setting up your scenes? I know legacies tend to have a short-ish lifespan with the edit/post-processing/posing burden and wondered if you felt like it’s sustainable for you, or if you love that side of things? (Thank you for indulging my curiosity!)

2️⃣I love the Mac UI-style widgets you use in your posts (like the camera/camera roll widgets) and wondered if you created them or if you’ve downloaded them? If the former, would you consider sharing them? I totally understand if not and fully understand wanting to preserve the uniqueness of your own style.

3️⃣What are your favourite PSDs to use lately? I’m always on the hunt for more ways to make my gameplay come to life a little more and wondered if you’d come across any gold? 😁

Thanks so much Ily and have a wonderful day. ♥

Hi! Please don't apologize for the ask spam! Sorry for taking a few days to get to this. I wanted to ensure I answered all of your questions thoroughly and thoughtfully 😊 Also,Thank you for enjoying Reuben's storyline. I have so much planned for it, and I really want to make sure I get as close as possible to executing the vision I have for his story. My MBTI legacy really is supposed to be a break from the dark vibes of Reuben's gen so I'm really glad that's coming through. 😁 I'm also dipping my toes into a little storytelling with that save... You'll see!

This is such a good question and something I'm semi-struggling with at the moment. In the past, I've let gameplay dictate the direction of my posts, but it's been very different with Reuben's generation. Initially, I wanted to incorporate gameplay posts with posed storytelling/dialogue-driven posts. But I found myself feeling like the gameplay stuff was just filler. The problem is story posts are so much more tedious -- finding the right poses, setting up the shots, and coming up with the dialogue. It's a less "organic" process, and while I love the results and often feel like the "work" is worth it, it does feel like work. For the entire month of May, I was able to post once a day (for each save!) and I thought I'd be able to keep that pace; but I'm literally at the end of my TJOLC queue today 😓. So, no, it's not sustainable. That's why I'm giving myself a week (or two) to catch up and build up my queue again. I also might have to use this time to update my mods, clean up my cc folders, and finally release a little project that I've been working on for a while now.

I'd say 99.9% of the widgets I've used in my posts were ones I created myself. I link my first PSD pack in my pinned post. Speaking of the little project that I've been working on, I plan on sharing some of the unreleased UI widgets and templates in a part two version, so stay tuned!

These days, I tend to use my own PSDs just for cohesiveness' sake. But some of my favourite PSD/template creators are @folkbreeze, @awkwardwhims, @pxltown, and @bunnithechubs. I love seeing people mix and match PSDs from all these different creators!

[theworldvsyoshiko]

Although that does remind me, I've been meaning to post about it for a while now, and I've got some free time and energy tonight, so...

I think it's not going to be surprising to anyone if I say that The Dancing Flock is effectively over at this point. The big issue, which I kinda mentioned: some of the mods updated, and they busted some stuff in the process. I actually played several sessions past my last update, but they were all in a separate save file while I messed around with mods trying to get it stable again. I never quite managed that.

But, even before that point, I'd been thinking about cutting it short, for several reasons:

By that point I'd been playing Rimworld daily and documenting it for 3 months, and I'd kinda gotten my fill of the game for the time being.

Like I said before, the win condition was... problematic. Even after gifting the colony's huge hoard of silver and befriending a pile of factions overnight, I was only a bit past halfway through my goal of world peace by allying with everyone.

And related, once the colony was stable, the moment-to-moment gameplay was... kinda dull. I couldn't do much to work toward peace; I basically had to wait for people to attack and then capture them. Building the giant lavish compound was a good long-term project, since it required a ton of resources. Once it was built, though, there was only so much I could upgrade that felt actually meaningful. Like, sure, I could've bartered for weeks to get enough gold to put a golden statue in every bedroom, but it wouldn't have changed anything or been particularly satisfying. The Hospitality stuff lent some variety now and then, but most Hospitality guests just kinda wandered in, claimed a bedroom, and then spent a few days hanging around and smoking joints.

And yet, at the same time that they were too comfortable and well-established, the colony was also uselessly inept at fighting. Remember the bear incident? I never actually finished that, because my well-established, fortified, late-game colony couldn't actually handle 7-8 angry bears. Nonlethal weapons just do not scale to late game well, especially if you're committed to the 'nonlethal' part and thus also not building traps or anything. I had the enemy spawn rates turned way down by the end, and it was still iffy at times. This also undermined the group's commitment to taking in everybody who came by looking for help, because every single fight was a gigantic slog toward the end.

Related to #3, once the colony was well-established, there wasn't much to talk about compared to Yoshiko and Umeko. The pacifist bent also rules out a lot of sidequests that involve going out into the world, because a lot of them give pacifists huge mood penalties even if you don't kill anyone. I was avoiding fights on top of that because of the tedious nature of nonlethal combat. Josefin bravely helped with this issue by being a pathetic little lizard creature, but she can only do so much. I had a couple of sessions where I'd play for two hours and come away with nothing much to report, because everyone had spent that time mass-producing hats and sculptures in between hanging out in the hot tub. Which seems like a great way to spend time, but isn't necessarily eventful.

So, I guess they're gonna settle into a long and peaceful life of giving each other blowjobs on the floor of their personal dance club, but offscreen.

Once the Anomaly DLC has been out for long enough to have really robust mod support, I'll probably grab it and start messing around with it, so there are good odds that'll lead to something new.

[iasmelaion]

Briefly surfacing from my new farm in Pelican Town (Greenwoods Farm, already in Summer and I am on that community center completion grind!!!) because new Stardew Valley update time is when I'm most reminded of the many and varied ways people play this game, since this is when I actually check the subreddit/tags/etc, and see the diverse ecosystem of SDV players:

Min-maxers who simply must make the most money as quickly as possible, and get the community center completed and achieve perfection in the most speedy and efficient way. Spreadsheets are involved. Schedules. Detailed calculations of the most profitable way to process a crop. (YES i have a SDV to-do list right now, and yes i am eagerly awaiting starting my ancient fruit wine empire [$$$$$], but I assure you I am NOT a minmaxer.)

People who like the fishing minigame. (I don't mind it, it's just that after 1000+ hours, I think I deserve to skip it. For my hand and wrist's sake, if nothing else.)

The people who take the Role Play part of Cozy Farming RPG seriously, and have whole detailed backstories for their Farmer and their interactions with the world and characters and the romances.

The people who take the Relaxing part of Cozy Farming RPG seriously and play a bit at a time, just vibing, not too concerned with making money or progressing.

The people who just restart over and over. (Don't understand it, tbh! lol I am Struggling on my new save without luxuries like the return scepter and obelisks and iridium sprinklers.)

The people who simply cannot function without their 103028 aesthetic mods that basically make the game look entirely different.

Relatedly, the people who are intense and detailed about decorating their farms or achieving the ideal, prettiest layout. (I care about this, I just kind of suck at it.)

The people who simply cannot function without their 158440 quality of life and expansion mods. (It's me. I'm in this picture. Tractor Mod and Automate, my beloveds. Stardew Valley Expanded, you are canon to me. I've done the game fair and square already, let me have this. also pour one out for PPJA, but at least we have cornucopia now. idky having frankly ludicrous crop variety pleases me so much, but it does)

Console/mobile players. thoughts and prayers, but seemingly every third post on the subreddit is console players asking when the update is coming out for console, does being a console player impact your literacy or something. like. someone JUST asked fifteen minutes ago. it is in the pinned post. sorry, that's mean, it's just very tedious and happens with every single update.

People who cannot play the game without the wiki (hello, it is me again, me and my dozen open SDV Wiki tabs. no, the Look Up Anything and UI Info Suite mods do not curb this behavior)

People who never check the wiki and simply. Muddle through?? (couldn't be me)

People who go the Joja route???? (i will NEVER do this, not even for the Steam achievement. the guilt and the shame would be TOO MUCH)

[sapphim]

/ / nexus mods profile / / sapphimods tutorials / / tag directory / / character directory / / ko-fi / /

main: @vaxilmores

mod updates free of my bullshit: @sapphimods

faq ☆

↳ tag: #faq

↳ see also: #modding tutorial, #modders resource, #troubleshooting

Right now, my focus is primarily on DA2 mods and modding tutorials. I am happy to answer modding questions that pertain to my area of interest.

If you can't figure out where to begin with a mod, or if you have been following my tutorials and have gotten stuck at a certain point in the process, and you haven't been able to find a solution elsewhere, I may be able to help. All I ask is that you be understanding that this is something I volunteer to do with my free time!

If you need troubleshooting help with one of my mods, please do not contact me on anon! It makes it difficult and tedious on my end to get the information I need. Either leave a comment on the Nexus mod page (that is what it is there for!) or message me off-anon. I promise I don't bite.

☆ Have you played Veilguard?

↳ Has the GotY edition gone on sale for $20? Then no, not yet.

☆ Will you be creating mods for Veilguard?

↳ Probably not!

☆ I have a question about mods for Veilguard/Inquisition or Mass Effect or [other game]!

↳ I can try to answer general knowledge questions or give my opinion on a matter, but I haven't modded Frostbite games like Inquisition or Andromeda for years and I'm too out of touch to answer any specific modding questions. I don't even have the games installed anymore.

These days most modding discussion takes place on Discord servers and, regardless of how one may feel about that, that is the single best place to find people available and willing to answer questions. So I strongly recommend such questions be directed to a server such as the Frosty Toolsuite, DAI Modding, or Mass Effect Modding discord, rather than to me.

(For good measure, here's a link to the Dragon Age Origns Modding discord for Origins/DA2 mods, as well.)

☆ Do you take requests or commissions?

↳ I do not take requests, unless I have specifically solicited requests for additions to a specific mod.

I am open to the idea of taking commissions for mods of the type that I usually post, but I would have to talk through the idea to get an idea of the scope before I could even quote a price, let alone accept the offer.

I do not create mods for Frostbite games anymore.

I will not accept commissions for mesh/model/armor mods, which seem to be the type of mod commission people most often try to solicit.

☆ How did you/How can I get started modding?

↳ I got my initial start fiddling with others' mods that I had downloaded, fixing minor bugs or tweaking them for personal use, which introduced me to the process without having to start from scratch.

My general advice for getting started is to pick something small in scope to work on, where you will be able to start testing it in game in short order. Being able to see results from your work is key to maintain motivation. However, if this doesn't interest you and there's a bigger project that you're super enthusiastic about, go for it! It is all about the enthusiasm.

Just remember that modding is all trial and error. Sometimes you'll try something and it won't work and you'll have to spend a lot of time figuring out what went wrong. Don't get discouraged when this happens. The mark of a seasoned modder isn't that you stop failing, but that you get better at powering through the failures.

For Dragon Age Origins (and DA2) I have compiled some resources to get started here.

☆ Can I message you off-tumblr?

↳ Yes, you can DM me on the Nexus, or if we are mutual members of a modding discord server, you should be able to find and DM me from there.

☆ Solas/Abelas/Fenris/Orsino is taller than the other male elves in the game, right?

↳ No. ♡

☆ Are you sure?

↳ Yes. ♡

☆ Is this really a frequently asked question?

↳ Yes. ♡

[merge-conflict]

5 (it's wonc isn't it 😞) 16, 20, 21, and 22

ty for the ask :3 questions are here

5. worst discord server and why

idk the modding one? because it has a billion channels and as soon as I joined I got overwhelmed, muted it and haven't opened it again. you say wonc like I'm not logging on every day and going into a brainrot thread to play ocs. sammy and I are deep in a brain cancer arc right now. xD

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

getting Johnny back his original body. I don't hate it, but it seems like such an easy fix given how the original relic trials went and that it's not just growing a new limb but a whole body including the brain. saburo doesn't even do that with all his money in the DE, which tells me it probably would take a while to grow a clone like that, if it's even possible (if it was, why would they have tested on random bodies and know that that process works best with relatives?). and it's not like johnny was ever a well-adjusted guy in his original body.

I know the answer is fix-it fic. But I'm surprised more people don't want to explore the inherent body issues/compromises in the genre. But! I do think it's interesting if people do or do not write Johnny getting a cybernetic arm again -> something that both fucked him up and defined him. what a choice between honoring what was and trying to get a truly clean slate. anyway it's something like the happy ending with children thing where I don't personally see the appeal, and that's okay. I was just honestly surprised it was so popular!

20. part of canon you found tedious or boring

I already complained about tech and the blackwall in a previous post. I guess on replays I really get bored playing Johnny's sequences or doing the BD stuff because once you know what happens it's just a slog to get through.

21. part of canon you think is overhyped

overhyped would mean that I hear about it a lot? and I so rarely hear meta discussions that I'm kinda starved for it. I guess I'm disappointed to hear the sequel in planning has a big AI component because I wasn't a fan of how the story seems to be going in the original game (i.e. I think they're going with a straight forward apocalypse monster angle which doesn't serve the underlying themes the way I personally want it to, which as we all know is what would be objectively correct).

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

this is a hard one because again I don't see a lot of discussion about it but again I see very little lore discussion so I could pick anything.

I think it's fascinating Johnny never once discusses where he gets the bomb (it's a Militech bomb) or the fact that bombing Arasaka tower is as good for Militech as it is for him. I thought maybe it'd come up in PL but nope! in game there's a shard that describes a Militech convoy being robbed by nomads, implied to be the one that was carrying nuclear armaments. was it a setup by Militech? or did they not want it stolen but get what they wanted anyway when they got Arasaka thrown out of NC? How did that contribute to the war later where NUSA tried to grab NC and failed and resulted in Dogtown's creation and Arasaka being let in? When Johnny signed up as a corpo soldier who was it that he joined? Was it Militech or some other corp that broke him by sending him into battle? Why can't you even discuss the fallout of Johnny's actions? Especially in that dream of his where he apologizes to the netrunner whose husband got killed in the blast? (does anyone else think it's spooky you can find that NPC selling vinyls on the street?)

Anyway besides Johnny's enormous hate-on for Arasaka I want to know what his opinions are on the other major corpo players beyond the simple fact he thinks they suck. But not even canon delivers on that sadly.

[mba-yngboy]

I write a lot of stuff for my guardian, and my friends guardians, and I've collected a bunch of headcanons from myself and friends that I think would be cool to share. since you know, there's a lot of world building but not a lot at the same time

A/N: I use guardian a lot, but I mean light bearer. if I'm talking about The Vanguard, I will just call it the Vanguard/ Vanguards

(more below cut)

new lights aren't resurrected with armor or weapons, but it's not hard to aquire some. older, experienced guardians will discard their old armor pieces and guns for new lights in easy to obtain location.

it's pretty rare to know who you were before you died. dead celebrities and people who were resurrected in an old family home usually have an idea if they find material (my hunter knows her alive name only because of a family photo book, and my friends titan was a very sought after exo model)

how to input armor mods are a self taught thing. weapon mods are harder, and "redborders" is just entirely deconstructing the gun and trying to put it back until a guardian figures it out. it takes a few tries (and guns) to actually craft a gun.

a guardian has muscle memory for certain skills. if a guardian was a mechanic in their previous life, they have the skills of a mechanic without having to relearn. same with other skills. it's common for guardians to pursue a career (or even passion) for something their past life was proficient at

comms are inputted into all helmets and some guardians are lucky to have one on their wrist. they're used for silent communication, and sometimes can be upgraded to have games :)

glimmer isn't a physical currency. it's digital, and can be accessed through a guardians ghost, or wrist comms (or in a non-guardians case, phone/ tablet-like devices) and its a universal currency.

the people who choose to live in the EDZ usually aren't tied to the Vanguard. and the Vanguard do not mark claim over EDZ.

it's actually common to run into a guardian who does not associate/ hate the Vanguard. it's also common for guardians to team up together despite who you're affiliated with if it calls for it. they're all light-bearers, and will help save Sol together :)

anyone can enter the last city, but to go inside/ visit the Tower without being a Vanguard, a guardian would need a temp pass. it's a tedious process, and the pass is usually only a one time use. people in the EDZ can go to Devrim Kay and get one without having to sit through the entire process

everyone should know that Crucible is a televised event (one that happens regularly) but other events that guardians can watch/ join is sparrow racing, xtreme skimmer sports (think of it like skateboarding lmao) and even a guardian dating show

the use of weapons and harmful light/ dark abilities is prohibited in the Tower. weapons don't need to be closed carried, but should not be aimed and need to be used with trigger discipline. one too many accident have happened. and no suit jumping in tower either

there is a Vanguard "police force" and Vanguard jail. they're kinda like mall cops, and are all under command of Zavala

the top three vanguard are called The Vanguardians (it was Zavala's idea) (thank you Xeno)

Rahool is a collector/ trader. he's kind of like a pawnshop owner. he usually has artifacts and doohickeys and doodads. he barters exotic items for said artifacts and resells them at a lower price

(before TFS quest HCs) a guardian can swap between subclasses. not at the same time, but can usually spend about 3 seconds inbetween subclasses to shift energies.

it's common for guardians who live with other guardians to pick up skills from other classes. class abilities are a bit harder to learn (i.e a warlock cannot dodge, and a titan cannot make a rift)

it's also common for "supers" to not be the normal golden gun, or nova bomb. they are the easiest to teach and learn, but an experienced guardian can develop something that fits their fighting technique.

the green purple and primary ammo bricks are an item a guardians ghost will hold onto, to transmat it into ammo. it's a raw material only the ghost can manipulate. it gets harder to transmat it into new ammo for different weapons associated to that brick, so the loss of a few bullets or rockets is common

building a sparrow/ skimmer is common in areas. there isn't a shop where one can buy a sparrow, but there's usually a guardian or no-light who can be commissioned to build or fix a sparrow. it's a taught skill that most guardians know so they can repair their own sparrow

building and repairing a ship is also a taught skill, but you can buy pre-made ships. it's just a personal preference that a guardian builds their ship to make room for... activities? (my guardian wanted to have a bed in her ship, and a seat for her pet warbeast)

Ghost playdates happen frequently (just leaving them in a room together alone). when in a room alone like this, they usually turn into 9 year olds. they're curious by nature, so sometimes they get into trouble. (crank calls and getting tangled into wires is a common thing in The Family™️ household)

this only really holds true to The Family™️, but their clan lives together and all work together to keep their apartment building up and running. it's not rare for that to happen, a clan forming and living together but it is uncommon.

[mille-marteaux]

Touhoumon Purple (pinned post)

This is a pinned post! There is newer blog content below this point, but the rest of this post is contained beneath the Read More button.

Last update: March 19th, 2023

Documentation, downloads:

Changelog:

New documentation hub and landing page. It's included as a link to a Google Spreadsheet. While this is primarily the same as the contents of the text files, its easier on you for not having to juggle like ten tabs or whatever.

Mandatory Strength boulders have been pre-moved by default. Optional ones for items still require the HM, however.

Starters now evolve at level 30 instead of level 36. Learnset levels are adjusted for starter Chibi forms and evolved forms, including stone evolutions.

Red UFOs exchanges changed. They are now used for IV maxing NPCs near Mossdeep.

There are four NPCs with different IV spreads.

One is all 31. This is for most casual users in-game.

One is Attack 0, rest 31. This is to minimize self-damage from confusion on puppets that aren't using their Attack stat. Very min-maxy.

One is Speed 0, rest 31. This is even more niche and min-maxy than the last; the only use case for this is for purposefully slowing puppets down for Baton Pass. Gen 3 will sometimes use Baton Pass as a neutral turn switch, similar to U-Turn.

The last is Attack/Speed 0, rest 31. This is very niche and min-maxy. This is again for Baton Pass, but also minimizes confusion self-damage.

EV training NPCs in the Frontier changed. They now give 4 EVs in their listed stat per battle. This slows the process of EV training down but makes it way easier to make specialized EV spreads.

All TMs are now in Lilycove Mart, as well as the "rare" berries

Tori can now evolve into Chibi versions of the birds in the sprite

Yes, this does some absolutely ridiculous things to their movepools. blast burn mystia lets goooooooo

Tewi, Attack Tewi, and Defense Tewi can now all fully slide Attack and Defense could already slide, so this just makes it funnier. Use a Power Shard on Attack Tewi to turn her into normal Tewi, etc no advent though she can keep that movepool to herself

"Energy Ball" has, finally, been renamed to "Focus Blast"

Evolved Koishi now holds PP Up at 50% and PP Max at 5%

Reisen II buffs, finally -- Typing is now Heart/Fire -- Stats are now 65 HP, 60 ATK, 80 DEF, 130 S.ATK, 65 S.DEF, 85 Speed -- Her level-up movepool is unchanged, but she can learn a huge mess of special moves via TM now. This makes her usable if you want to, but you have to invest in her pretty heavily depending on what you may want to run -- Her primary ability is now Magnet Pull -- Gained Pickup as a secondary ability

Added another above-curve item, similar to Elder Pain and Psycho Wand -- It functions as a Quick Claw that always activates. Due to its relative ease of obtaining compared to the previous two items, there is only one way to obtain it unless playing the Sandbox version

This is actually the final update to this hack because I'm sick of binary hacking. It's tedious, slow, annoying, and things can just break. I'm tired of making multiple gigabytes of backups just because I want to change some images or text around.

This project is done! Complete, finished. There is nothing more that I can reasonably fit into this game anymore that I want to include.

I want to be done with this project.. so I am! Unless something is broken, I guess. If it literally does not function by my own fault, I'll fix it, but I'm not adding or changing anything else from this point on.

The shift to a Google Sheet is because we anticipate the current hosting, and by extension website, to go down permanently.

While backups are in place whenever a new hosting plan is picked out, this will continue to exist as a central information hub just so you don't have to thumb through multiple text files and wiki dive.

As of the time of posting this, the documentation is not 100% complete - I have yet to do level-up movesets and TM/HM compatibility, but I intend to work on that soon enough.

There are a few more things cooking right now, so stay tuned!

[hazyaltcare]

hi there! fictive of jerome valeska from gotham here. could ya please do some positivity for me? it’s unfortunate that i must admit this, but even in this… life? body? i dunno… but either way, i still sometimes get the thoughts of doing the same shitty things i used to do in canon (eg. hurting people). it’s not in my nature to do that anymore, but it’s incredibly hard to fight those thoughts and whatnot. i hate myself for it, and for the havoc i wreak on my head mates; all i do is cause trouble amongst them. sorry aboutha ramble. anywho, some positivity please? thanks. - @fortheloveofsyskind

Hello, and thank you for reaching out. I'll try my best.

I'm proud of you for admitting it. It's not mandatory to do publicly, but since you did, I want to say: I hear you. Acknowledging your intrusive thoughts and violent impulses is difficult, especially in the current internet/fictive community climate. So I want you to know that I appreciate you, and you know what? I can 100% relate.

I don't judge you for struggling to fight your thoughts. Your intrusive thoughts alone does not make you a bad or hurtful person. It's normal to take time to adapt after switching worlds and bodies, even if your nature has changed (and that is wonderful! I am proud of you for acknowledging that you have grown. You have changed for the better. But please try to be patient with yourself. Change takes a long time, and there's no shortcuts, because change needs to be practiced. It's tedious, and awful, but I believe you can do it. You deserve to take your time. You deserve kindness, including from yourself. You shouldn't have to, you don't have to rush it.)

I can understand hating yourself for those thoughts and desires and what you did to your headmates, though. First, I want you to know that intrusive thoughts alone does not make you a problem to your system. I think one's system should have compassion to systemmates like you and me. Give a safe space to express those thoughts without judgment, and without acting it out. Like in a private channel on discord, physical/digital journal, password-locked blog, or even fanfiction or original writing.

But if you have indeed hurt your headmates because you succumbed to those thoughts, that also does not make you a problem... your behavior may be a problem, but it's not inherently you. You're not doomed to cause trouble all the time. I believe in your capacity for treating others kindly.

.

A little advice, feel free to ignore:

Hating yourself can feel like a deserved punishment, but often, it's counterproductive to change. Because change is a process, a slow one - like raising a plant, you don't yank it just because it doesn't grow fast enough, right? So I feel like it's not very wise to beat yourself up because you're not changing fast enough. I think you deserve better than that. Gentleness for oneself is difficult - I struggle with it too, so so much - but we can try. And knowing you're on the same journey as me encourages me. You're not alone. You have your system, too.

Advice end.

.

Also, regardless of what point you are in your personal improvement, I want you to know that you always have inherent worth. You're always worthy of respect, care, and compassion, even if you're not constantly recovering, even if you're angry and spiraling, even if you make mistakes and have hurt others. If you've hurt others in your system, you can fix your mistakes. There's still time. I hope your system will extend understanding to you as well.

Take care,

Mod Vintage (🍇)

[duckapus]

The Meme Regulation Unit Program

(So the Wonder Arc's obviously going to take a while to finish, especially since I'm insisting on the "fics and pics" format I've got going on, so I'm gonna just do my more traditional summary format stuff on the side so I don't lose the ideas over time.)

Anyway, this post is to explain the differences between the SMG Program we're familiar with and the version The Grid plans to create.

Frist off, they're using different terminology. Partially for organizational purposes, partially because the Meme Cycle needs Teh Funni to reach an IRL audience to work properly and the Grid doesn't want to look like they're just blatantly ripping Glitch Productions off because it'll drive away said audience.

Super Meme Guardian: Meme Regulation Unit (MRU)

Avatar: Anchor

Admin/USB: Supervisor

Guardian Pod: Data Chamber (it also has a significantly different design, but is still based on a USB Flash Drive since That's What Works)

There's also a few other changes:

Because the MRU Program isn't starting from scratch like the SMG Program did, they didn't need negative number prototypes and won't make the mistake of only deploying one Unit to a selected universe. As a consequence, the first MRU pair is MRU0 and MRU1, and the Odd/Even dynamic is completely flipped.

Because The Grid is primarily IRL-based, the Supervisor is created alongside their MRUs by an OC Design Agent, rather than being the one to make them. This doesn't change their role, but it does in some ways change the dynamic.

Because the Avatars almost all being or wearing red is just an aesthetic thing, The Grid decided not to bother with a similar trend so they'd have more options available.

Since they're playing catchup with the SMGs, after the initial test universe with 0 and 1, the other MRU universes will be activated periodically in batches of 4. They're not doing more than that at once because that would present an excessive workload and would make it too easy for some major problem to slip under the radar.

For reasons known only to himself Director K is weirdly adamant that either Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom be the first Universe to go online. On one hand this is causing a bit of delay because do you have any idea how long and tedious it is to 100% complete either of those games!? On the other hand this gives them more time to polish and fine-tune the MRU Mod, and the modding scene for both games is big enough that the process is already somewhat streamlined.

Granted, all of this relies on whether or not their newest recruit is as good a thief as Agent Astra believes she's going to be.

[terraliensvent]

I still can't believe how ridiculous and wild the trading scene is in this species tbh. You'd think the mods refusing to make myos even slightly easier to obtain would encourage people to be a little less greedy but nope.

Also it's hilarious how fast mods changed their minds on giving out limited traits/myos, and how greedy people are for them as well. It feels like mods have way too much bargaining power in the server. Which is a huge problem when you consider the fact that most of the mods get promoted because they're friends with other mods.

To me it feels less like a species and more like a cover up to net the mods as much money/high value characters as possible with little to no actual effort. You know what most species do with special mod traits/myos? They limit the amount mods can obtain so they're not inclined to use them as currency because that's extremely unfair to everyone else participating in the species.

Imagine if it was some random person offering the same thing on your $500 character, nobody would even consider something so ridiculous because obviously a random myo has no value. There is quite literally no value in getting a limited trait or myo when you have to do most (if not all) of the actual work.

The only thing the mod has to do is decide to give you a supposedly limited item. Once it's in your hands (assuming anyone actually uses these things) it's your job to go through the process of designing the myo, getting said design approved, and whatever other bs the mods put you through before the design is official (because we all know how tedious and annoying mods are about approvals).

That's not even mentioning their insistence on only making good designs for their $100+ batches. It seems like every time the artist isn't making profit off the design they give out least appealing design possible. Or the fact that they refuse to acknowledge how unfair raffles are in general when they only give out 50-100 myos a sale knowing they'll get well over 1000 entries.

Sorry for the long rant I'm just baffled by how easily everyone in the server seems to accept these things. The economy is absolutely destroyed and I feel like the lack of public suggestions and the general attitude towards any sort of criticism means that people will continue to be tricked into thinking this behavior is ok. I feel like someone should have the braincells to say "hey this isn't right!"

Honestly I could go on and on about the issues with terras in general as well as the mods but for the sake of everyone reading I'll cut this short.

I don't have any hope for this species seeing as the mods are just like every other greedy cs owner (except they pretend to be nice and welcoming, and seemingly are at first glance). I just pray the people falling victim to the fomo eventually realize they're being scammed.

this post is very well said anon, i agree with the points you made and you covered a lot of bases

pretty accurately describes the state of terras

[archduchessgortash]

PSA: Targeting Allies with Spells

What's happening in the video below isn't only a result of the Adjustable Party Limit mod I'm currently using.

It starts the moment you reach the vanilla maximum party limit of 4 members, including your avatar.

One or two characters flee in a comically irritating circle from your single-target or multi-target non-AOE buff spells. Before I started using mods, this most frequently occurred when re-applying Longstrider after each long rest. It frustrated me to the point that I'd trot around camp every morning, adding everyone's buffs individually.

Now, I have a quality of life mod that makes Longstrider a massive, permanent AOE. Highly recommend. 👍

This little game of cat and mouse that would give Raphael a chuckle also happens when you pan the camera around when not charging a spell, for lack of a better word.

I like to take videos of conversation scenes, and where a character is standing dramatically influences the lighting in the scene. I usually rectify this circling that would put Halo players to shame by detaching the character with whom I wish to converse from the group. Then, I position them accordingly and begin the dialogue to determine if the lighting is acceptable.

However, placing said character back at their position in the lineup is somewhat tedious, as it necessitates detaching everyone else, re-attaching the party member you want to have second in line, then repeating the process with the others. Why do this? Because who is second in line dictates who gets priority to comment and sometimes converse with your avatar in world exploration. The only time this gets overridden outside of actual dialogue is if you're in a location that is directly connected to one of your other party members' personal questlines.

There's an easier way to keep them from fleeing that I've used in other scenarios, but for some reason, it only dawned on my dumb brain just now that it would work better for spell-targeting and video-taking as well.

As Ilmater intended, I shall suffer my humiliation to spare the next poor bastard.

If you detach only your avatar, your party lineup remains intact. This works if your avatar is the one applying the buffs. If they're not, my apologies. Perhaps you could use the tedium as... character growth? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

To detach your avatar on PS5, bring up your party sidebar by pulling the left trigger once. You don't have to keep squeezing it or anything. Then, use the left analog stick or directional buttons to place the cursor on your avatar if it isn't there already. Press triangle. They are now detached and remain at the top of your order. Pics follow:

To re-attach, simply pull the menu back up and press square, first with the cursor on your avatar and then with it on any member of the group. It works the same way if you do the reverse (group first, then avatar).

[ryuji-terix]

A few tips for implementing SHA1 in C

I wanted to use SHA1 in code so I tought that I might as well do it from the ground up...

As you can imagine writing SHA1 is very *hem fun, expecially when a single different bit in the input can change the whole output :D

If you want to try implementing it too and need any help feel free to ask or check my code on GitHub (the .h file in under the include folder)

(this is the API I ended up with and I really like it)

the tips are under here... (see you soon ;D)

Docs

First of all don't follow the official FIPS pubblication (this one) since it's written for matematicians and not developers (with fancy systems signatures and weird rules)

Follow the official RFC 3174 (link) and completely ignore the example code

Operations

Be careful with the bitwise notation operations since in the document the caret (^) refers to a power while in C it refers to XOR [also the NOT they want is the tilde (~) and not the exclamation point (!)]

Block creation

While creating all the required blocks to then process note that ONLY the last block requires the size of the "input" (and the - if needed - padding) and not in each block (as written in this medium article)

Bonus tip for creating blocks: every block is 16 * 32bits integers (ignore the weird "418 mod 512" buisness, just always preallocate an extra block if the size of the input exceedes the minimum size to have both the message and the message size that is 512b - 64b (size) - 8 (since we have to write a bit after the last byte of the message but we are dealing with chars...). TLDR: bool need_extra_block = (file_size % 64) > 55; /* Bytes */

If you read files in chunks of 512bits (like every normal being) you might need to fix the endianess because freaking fread reads in REVERSE (AB CD -> DC BA) (you might also find AB CD -> BA DC)

Final notes

This were the most tedious and annoying things I remember, I leave the rest of the fun for you to experience

I leave here the website that I used to cross check my results (since some tools gave me different results so I had to compare 4 of them and took out the ones that were different)

This is just a mental note, I don't expect it to be useful to anyone I just wanted to write it down I guess...