#i'll be back at some point haha

[the-himawari]

🌻 Personal Update - Away on Vacation ✈️✨

Hi everyone! As the title says, I will be on a much needed, much anticipated vacation for the rest of the month!

Seriously, travelling has always been one of my biggest hobbies but I haven’t left the country since the pandemic started... plus the stress of my personal stuff last month... yeah, I REALLY needed this 😂😅

I’ll be in Japan + Korea chilling and meeting up with friends I haven’t seen in years~ 😊

That being said, I don’t expect I will be very active here this month. I may still drop in from time to time, but please don’t expect any regular updates 🙏 yes I know I end up crawling back very soon every time I say that, but let’s see LOL

If I run into anything cool and A3! related, maybe I’ll post it here? But until then, thanks so much everyone!! I hope all of you stay well as well 😁💜✈️

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

This one is for all my fellow "My gender is 'I have a job and I can't worry about that right now"'. I see you.

(part 1, part 2)

[pnfc]

i haint watched the dang chibisode and idk if ill actually watch it with sound on sdfjk but i have a hurt feeling about them casually imbuing perry with speech for a one off gag because the idea that he needs to talk to communicate is fake. we had 4 seasons of wacky magic hijinks cartoon where perry never needed verbal speech to communicate. they couldve done this gag at any point in the show but they didn't, and the fact that they didn't felt significant. perry's muteness is such a core part of his character, to me, to the way i conceive of him/write him. i don't wanna overreact to a goofy little side cartoon (even tho i'm doing it anyway) but it's still the characters, and it still upsets me! ok that's it i've said my piece

[pocket-size-cthulhu]

Not to be one of those adults but it's so funny how grown up things eventually start happening to you whether you think you're ready or not

I'm a gremlin, I wfh in my sweat pants, I think about anime in all my spare time. I had chicken nuggets for lunch today and I'm behind on my laundry. I tend to get overstimulated in the cereal aisle. But because I get on my computer every day and answer messages, my work doesn't know what to do without me and keeps giving me more money. 🤨 I didn't know I was capable of having a stable job for years but here I am?? They don't know how I live and don't care as long as I come to work and answer emails?? 🤨 How did this happen hahaha

[vaguely-concerned]

I was going to have rye maaaybe start to buy into solas' whole johnny silverhand deal a little bit more in the post-weisshaupt talk -- to Progress the Arc tm/set up the beginning softening in that relationship and heighten the effect when it eventually goes. quite another way entirely -- but the sheer spectacular cruelty in hindsight of 'at least you still have varric to talk to' is such that considering where I'm intending to end up with this narratively, the stoic 'not here to make friends you fucker gimme your intel' option is simply irresistible. gotta have that echo rattling around rye's head forever when he decides that you know what? I have had enough of being nice, actually. I do want to go ape shit. someone hold my coat for me please I have some work to do and I don't want to stain it. guess for now the ol' watcher training & instincts are still kicking in enough for them to treat solas like a tricky spirit you should treat with respect and good intentions, but also shouldn't be out there offering little fingers to unless you have a whole arm lying around to spare haha

[front-facing-pokemon]

[sysig]

The brainworms are winning, clearly (Patreon)

[averlym]

whshdfhfjf.,,,

[svtskneecaps]

friends and fiends if this truly spells the Over for the qsmp i may let the brainworms that have been festering in me for MONTHS--A YEAR, EVEN--win.

i may summarize the goddamn fucking lore.

[zukkaoru]

was a bit surprising to see you posting alnst bc you're The bsd poster. to me. /lh /affec BUT WELCOME TO, AS KEY PUT IT, DOOMED RELATIONSHIP LAND. soooo glad you got the point about luka (ur first post abt alnst a few days ago) bc same. SAME. isn't it funny how mischaracterization and a lack of media literacy follows us everywhere <33 AGAIN. WELCOME. HYULUKA ENJOYER TOO I SEE...I think(?)

yesss ive jumped on the alnst train and i'm having. a time for sure (/pos) sfdgfhgk

but yeah. wow. luka..... like i get why people dislike him but he's soooo interesting to me!! i need to pick him apart and study his brain. he's just playing the part he has to in order to win. he's taking the freedom he has while on stage performing as far as he can, because he has no other option and no other escape. he's cruel and that's the Point!! but. sigh. the mischaracterization and lack of media literacy..... it really just is everywhere i fear 😞

hyaluka also!! yes i do enjoy their dynamic it is very interesting to me and i love love love hyuna as well!! i enjoy m.izisua and iv.tl as well but perhaps iv.tl least for completely petty reasons (hyperfocus on them in the fandom bc it's a mlm ship,,) (it's a shame too bc their dynamic and the characters are both vv interesting and ivan seems like a character who is right up my alley lol. alas. my distaste towards fandoms centering everything around one mlm ship when there are other great characters and relationships is preventing me from fully appreciating it)

[artinandwritin]

Warm up ideas off the top of my head are Ruff and/or Tuff (bc idk if I've ever seen them in your style?), different outfits for the gang (idk that's what I like to draw fjdjdj), or Bjorn or Eret? I've been writing about them lately and in the mood to draw them myself <3

Gosh those are all so good (you know me I love drawing some good fashion) but!!! I couldn't resist warming up my art hand today with Eret and Bjorn (they're very dear to me) combined with a little facial expressions/facial shape study

Which meant!! I've been staring at their itpn designs for a solid half hour now and i couldn't help but notice the shapes of their furs! Like, for Bjorn it gives him a very boxy and squared feeling, often associated with more grounded characters in character design, while Eret's shapes are more bordering towards triangles, which are often used for a more unpredictable character with dynamic and fast tendencies and I really like that about both their designs

[vargaslovinghours]

Y’all are being subjected to my Sims 2 tests, so there

The other set of Vargases came over for a visit and Scriabin picked up Shmee and started talking to Scriabin through him. Very normal, very usual

I downloaded some circle-glasses recolours and hghghh they look so good! Closer every day to his final details! Getting ever closer!

Edgar too! I made him a custom hair with a lighter undercut - I’m mostly happy with it, probably could’ve shifted it a shade closer to his skintone but the texturing was weird no matter what :P And his stripey shirt! I wish Body Shop didn’t have that hands-on-hips pose lol, it looks so much better in-game, but that’s all the better :)

I got some new clothes for Todd as well! As soon as I saw this ‘fit I was like ��Oh that’s 100% Todd there he is.” Scriadad hug ♥ So cute

Foot-dancing together stopp it’s so cute!!

The way he looks at them stoppp <3 <3 They kept doing this right up til they left for home haha, Todd’s giggles are the cutest

Used SimPE to save him to the Body Shop, I now have infinite copies of The Boyyyy ♪

Moved him in with his “parents” as just shadow people basically, they’re not gonna matter in a bit as long as I remember how to get the Social Worker/Adoption process to work properly. Get her Todd!!

Wanna play? :D

Menacing :(

Look, Todd, your new dads are here! Initially I wasn’t sure who I wanted to adopt him, got lots of options; the first passes, the married couple with their own Todd, Johnny?? He definitely doesn’t have the facilities for a child lol But these are the ones that showed up on their own, so the married Vargases are the winners!

Scriabin cares more about him than his actual parents ;; A stranger off the street shows him more care! Not that it’s a high watermark

Look at him being a good dad!

Weh, he just wants friends ;; Poor baby

Best timeline, thank you

While we wait for CPS, let’s get some other interactions in! Nny is mean so he tended to prank the other two with a nose flick - mostly Edgar lol ♪ Now kiss

“Oh please don’t break all my bones~ :3” I love Todd looking up at them haha <3

Pffft, I think he was talking about the other Scriabin and just how attractive he is. Classic Scriabin. Alternatively, also funny to imagine him bragging himself up about how he’s just so handsome that Edgar can’t help but love him hahaha ♪

Allow me to tickle you with my KNIFE! >:D

Get a load of this guy lol

He ended up passing out at one point - I forgot which motives make CPS show up >.> - and completely 0%’d his comfort, but for some reason stargazing increased it?? It’s the same ground wh

Is two not enough to satisfy your butterfly bloodlust child?? He ended up with three, I had him release them before he was picked up by the Social Worker - success!

He rolled a new Want as soon as Todd was taken away - “Wants to see Ghost of Todd” Woah, dark! :0

And here he is on the married Vargases’ lot!! Success!! I did it right!! Heck yeah! :D Unfortunately they were uh, indisposed at the time. Good job guys pft

Goes right for Shmee, he really is Todd <3

[soyoursoulisgreen]

15 and 32

15. Do you prefer writing one-shots or multi-chapter fics?

I tend to prefer writing one-shots! I love to read multi-chapter fics, but I always get so worried that I'll lose motivation and just, never come back to it :') My first fic on AO3 is loosely a multi-chapter, in the sense that I've left it open to return to someday, but haven't had any interest to pick it back up in years lol. There's something very punchy about one-shots as well - I have a pretty solid split between short and long one-shots, but it's so satisfying when I Finally have a long one finished!

I also like making connected one-shots, or sequential one-shots, but letting them stand on their own so?

32. What’s a fic you’d love to write, but probably never will?

I think I had a Vargas fic idea at one point that I so badly wanted to read but didn't want to write, and made some concept sketches and an outline for and everything lol - something with the Jake/Edgar/Scriabin dynamic ♥ I do know that someone made a missing scene-fic about Scriabin and Jake's first interaction that I've been quietly making eyes at - next time I'm into Vargas for sure 👀

As for love to write, hm... Probably this overly-convoluted Osmosis Jones NTR fic that I've had in my back pocket for way too long honestly lol - ever since I learned about netorare they were my first and only choice but it's so all-hurt-no-comfort and kinda dark and sad and while it sounds really fun, the self-consciousness monster in the back of my head is like "Really? The White Blood Cell Movie? For that?" lol

[doctorweebmd]

coming out of my baldurs gate 3 delirium (aka i am working a night shift and can't physically play it. at work.) to say that horikoshi. horikoshi when i GET YOU. you are NOT leaving izuku with no quirk and no arms. i am in your walls

[bookishmuggleborn]

hello?🧍🏻‍♀️

[crest-of-gautier]

got the badges for gone fission evp 400 + evp 600 yesterday! .52 gal, l-3 nozzlenose, dread wringer, and squiffer make for quite the synergistic team!

my peak was EVP 810 (appx 300-310% HL). my high score of 151 eggs was obtained somewhere in evp 300...? i'm pretty satisfied with how it went, even if i didn't get HLM or 9s.

some thoughts/reflections on good freelancing teams/traits to develop when trying to rank up in evp under the cut:

i think grinding this rotation was pretty fun- all of the weapons have excellent mobility and i think they cover for each other really well! the l-3 was not my favorite weapon going into it but i think i really enjoyed the accuracy and mobility of it, so it's a bit more favorable for me now :)

i ended up reaching a skill wall in EVP 760-780 where i could not get past wave 2 or 3 (usually for quota related reasons, the quota is BRUTAL! we'd miss it by like 4-5 ish... ofc this partially relates to how well bosses are handled).

the grind for evp was a mix of freelance and grouping up (freelance for 230 -> 440s, grouping up for 440 - 750~, and then testing myself in freelance for that last bit).

i enjoyed the bits of freelance i did, and from my playtime i think these were some of the key traits/practices that indicate "good salmon run skills" to me:

players that know their weapons role(s) and target the appropriate salmonid (but also being willing to break that when priority targets haven't been taken care of)

knowing when a teammate needs help (with a boss or being revived) or when the teammate has a situation under control (e.g. someone's already on the fishstick, you can do something else)

proactive use of specials when problem targets appear, preferably with no overlap (e.g. tri-strike and inkjet activated on the same flyfishes is not the best)

using specials like booyah bomb, triple splashdown, and reefslider to clear basket area in the last 30 seconds to help eggs get in (especially important past evp 600)

teams that paint the walls first thing (especially whoever had the dread wringer). all interior walls for fission can be painted within the first 10 seconds imo

forwarding eggs closer to the basket after splatting static bosses (throwing one egg, and then swimming up with one)

players with good judgment; knowing when to lure (mostly for initial boss spawns), and knowing when to leave the big shot cannon

being able to figure out which directions snatchers come from and what eggs they can help you collect

i think these practices all stem from having good awareness and being able to collect information about the shift. it helps with making snappy quick-fire decisions, and it just gets more important the higher up in EVP you go. camera positioning/control is essential for this (you can't figure out where bosses/teammates are if your back is turned to them).

for me, every 7-10 seconds, i like to rotate my camera around to the opposite side of where i'm currently looking to make sure there isn't any bosses i'm missing. i'm hardly in one place longer than 5-10 seconds and i try to always be on the move. the spawn direction where salmonids come from are always changing, so it's essential to rotate around the map proactively rather than reactively. i think this also helps a lot with shotcalling in groups too (since you can be someone else's pair of eyes).

other than boss spawns/teammate locations (for revives), i think it's also important to notice when certain bosses haven't been taken care of for prolonged periods of time too, so that a special can be popped. to me it's usually a sign that someone whose ill equipped to deal with that boss has been forced to deal with them because the people with the "right" weapon are focused on something else... (no fault to them, of course, everyone has different priorities and you can't always communicate clearly in freelance)

in situations where squiffers were chased by a pack of scrappers, perhaps a booyah bomb or splashdown can be popped to help if you don't have the time to stun and splat them manually. maybe the fish sticks were left unattended by the shooters, so a triple inkstrike or a crab/inkjet shot can help clear them out.

awareness also extends to meeting quota, which imo involves paying attention to the timer + where eggs are located. i find that it's nice to check in with the timer/quota at 50s and 30s respectively so that you can start forwarding eggs closer to basket. and when everyone's going crazy about quota not being met i try to make sure i'm not overstepping anyone else's egg pile so that no one goes "wait no thats the egg that i wanted to pick up fuck i have to go back and get a different one."

i think this is why sometimes playing in groups is easier. if you have more sets of eyes that you can communicate with, it alleviates the need to have awareness of "everything" (provided that you can comms effectively). someone can be attuned to different things (e.g. my friend always tells us where snatchers come from and if they're good, i'm personally attuned to where people need to be revived, etc.). you also know what specials you have access to, unlike in freelance where you're not sure what others have until they use them.

the other part of completing shifts successfully (to me) is being mechanically sound with your movement, mostly in regards to how you use the terrain (walls) to get around the map and escape situations. the more you play a map the more you'll figure out how you can move around on it.

some examples, using the location callouts from salmonrun.ink: there were a few times i'd go on the harbor but i could escape any salmonids in the bridge area by climbing the walls there and squidrolling out as needed. sometimes on high tide i would swim from the perch to the left plat.

sub-strafing is also good to know too, especially when you want to rapidly collect the basket eggs at the end. i still need to integrate it into other parts of my gameplay, but it's helpful!

uh. this was way longer than intended because i have WAY too many thoughts about salmon run. TL;DR: The key to succeeding your shifts is having good awareness which comes from good information collecting practices, and having the mechanical skill to act on that awareness without hesitation.

there's definitely a lot that goes on in sensory overload the game™, so it will take time to build these muscles and reaction times. i think while at every rank of salmon run you may face a wall of "i'm overwhelmed by the bosses," the exact fix needed to get past it usually varies, so it's important to figure out what information you were missing or what actions you could've taken (more efficient movement or special usage, usually).

or if you're struggling with quota, try to practice forwarding eggs or take a look where snatchers come from (even if people splat them, it's still a good practice 2 develop for later evp. source: i don't fucking do it and it's biting me in the ass)

and most importantly, recognize when you're in the midst of a loss streak/skill wall, so that you can take a break and focus on other things that energize you! even if there's a certain goal you want to meet, grinding for higher levels of EVP and getting better at the game can be a very exhausting process. you can always come back to the grind later, whether if it's after a 30 minute break, or just a different rotation!