#it’s very nice :> on this platform

[zumicho]

yknow

tbh, being on tumblr has made me realize that what makes me love an author isnt soley for how they write and are able to create complex characters (or in the case of fanfic, expand even more on them) but they way they interact and talk just..normally ig? I suppose thats why ive never been able enjoy ff on wattpad or ao3 as much. Not that i dont, but in its own ways its very different. On tumblr i love to read ff and see the tags or even the reposts and asks later on with questions or connections other readers make. Makes the huge ff community seems cozier and smaller.

I guess what im saying is, youre a really nice person in how you write and how you present urself here. Ur blog is cozy, i like it. :>

anon

ur responsible for these tears

[azherwind-art]

"Tell your favorite creators that you like their work, people usually enjoy things silently, but hate tends to be loud"

This is a phrase I just heard from Dnd shorts that captures perfectly why I often try to make the effort of commenting on posts and telling people that I enjoy their work and why Even to small creators, I advice everyone to make the extra effort to tell them, I can guarantee it makes all the difference in the world, it's not cringy or obnoxious, it'll just brighten someone's day

[eyra]

I don’t usually do discourse on this blog but that last reblog hit the nail on the head. Reader interaction is at an all time low for fic authors and whilst I’m eternally grateful for any and all kudos and comments that I do receive, I feel as if in the past couple of years there’s been this weird migration of comments - they’ve left ao3 and they’re on tiktok instead. So, rather than people leaving comments on my fics, they leave their comments on the videos of people reccing my fics. I see tiktoks about my fics and they’ll have double, triple the number of comments that the fic itself has. It’s so lovely that people are talking about my writing, but it’s just a very strange phenomenon and a very odd feeling when you have a fic that you assume wasn’t overly well received because it has hardly any comments on ao3, but then you see a tiktok full of comments with people saying that it’s their favourite fic.

And I’m going to say something potentially controversial here but not ONCE have I seen a tiktok creator, whose content relies solely on other people’s fics, say anything along the lines of “leave the author a comment if you enjoy the rec.” Literally never ever seen this. And I think that’s a real shame.

[elvhenprince]

*please dont repost the audio to other platforms. share link to this post instead

I got a cameo, with male solasmancers in mind. Apparently this falls under an acting commission rather than a cameo (smth about going through their agent instead of a regular cameo..?) but GDL was very kind in reading my script anyway ;w;

Transcript:

Vhenan, will you dance with me? You may lead if you'd like. I would not refuse to be in the arms of a beautiful man such as yourself. You’ve remarkable strength, having forged your identity for yourself. You stand deservedly proud of the man that you are. Let no one tell you otherwise. Ar lath ma, vhenan.

[avenoirn]

This site is actually a MUCH better place now. I can't believe I'm witnessing it

[blueskittlesart]

pleeease give a review for infinity nikki ive been thinking about downloading it but i dont know if i have the space and if its worth it to clear some up for it !!!

as someone who spent HOURS on flash-based dollmakers as a kid, i absolutely love it. the gameplay hits somewhere between dressup game and open-world RPG, in that there's a large botw-like open map to explore, but the express purpose of exploring it is to unlock new clothes for your character. The exploration itself feels very calm and cozy most of the time, with the emphasis being on small collection tasks like fishing, bug-catching, and foraging. again, all of this is specifically to craft new outfits for nikki which you can both coordinate with no limitations to wear in the open world and use in scored styling contests with npcs, some of which reward you with game currency and some of which help you progress the story quests. the only place where i feel the gameplay truly suffers is in combat. you have one attack, and it's a ranged shooter, but there's no aim-assist whatsoever, and the mobile joystick isn't NEARLY sensitive enough to justify this. aiming in combat is one of the most difficult parts of the game, and nikki can only take 5 hits before she dies and has to respawn, making combat decently frustrating. However, there are very few places where combat is strictly necessary in-game, and both of the boss battles i've done so far had hitboxes large enough that it wasn't an issue; it's really in the open world against hordes of smaller enemies that the lack of targeting becomes really frustrating. other than that, though, the controls are fairly well-designed and intuitive, especially if you've played similar games before.

The clothes themselves are the star of the show, of course. I've yet to see a single clothing item in the game that I don't want. there's a good mix of fancy intricate outfit pieces and basics to obtain early-on, and without even touching the gacha you can coordinate some really cute outfits via in-universe boutiques and quests that reward you with clothes. Even the very obviously themed ability outfit sets that you craft early on almost always have a few pieces that are easy to mix and match with, so there's a TON of styling potential even for free players! As for the gacha, it's actually one of the more generous games i've played in terms of rewards and pity systems. My one complaint so far is that the 5-star gacha outfits especially seem to be very accessory-heavy, meaning it's possible to pull shoes, multiple necklaces, gloves, socks, and hairpieces before ever pulling the dress they're very obviously designed around. there is a pity mechanic to prevent this, but it requires you to pull a few too many times before your guarantee imo.

The story is ridiculous in a good way. It kind of reads like a 2000s-era barbie movie to me right now, in the best way possible. there's an amazingly predictable sexy villain, cute little flying creatures that follow you around, and every conflict is, of course, solved via clothes in one way or another. My absolute favorite thing about the writing, though, is how blatantly earnest it all is. at no point does the game poke fun at its own wacky concept or even attempt to make some self-aware joke about it to the player--it plays everything completely straight, and in this aspect it almost feels MORE self-aware. it knows that the kind of person who wants to play a dressup rpg is also the kind of person who does not, under any circumstances whatsoever, want to be questioned or made fun of for their love of fashion or their engagement with that game. It very much feels like the devs know that they're working with primarily girls and young women and a subject matter that those girls and young women are often looked down upon or made fun of for seriously engaging with, and so it promises to engage EXTRA-seriously to make up for that. (side note: there's one point in a story quest where, when asked to make a wish, nikki wishes that all girls never get cramps again. that was when i knew this was a game that knew its audience.) If I wanted to nitpick, i might say that every quest so far has sort of felt like an increasingly ridiculous trading sequence--you learn what you need to do very early on, but you'll always spend several hours of gameplay encountering obstacles and doing other smaller tasks to circumvent those obstacles so you can reach your original goal. this might annoy me more if the game was trying to market itself as a serious RPG, but it seems very self-aware to me, and despite how i'm describing it none of the quests ive played have actually FELT tedious. I think the fact that it's such a wild concept to begin with gives the writers a bit of leeway in how they handle the story quests, and because I as the player am aware i'm playing a dressup game I don't really expect quests to immediately get to the point and let me fight something. I will say that there are certain things that aren't super intuitive especially if you aren't a seasoned gacha rpg player, particularly the features relating to advancing your skills and the styling points of your clothing. though the game does technically explain what you need to do, it doesn't explain the RELEVANCE of the feature, just that it exists, so I had to lose multiple styling contests before I realized i could upgrade my clothing to get higher scores.

The final thing I'll talk about is performance. I'm playing the game on my iphone 13, and the performance is.... not great, i'm ngl. Off the bat, if you play the game on a mobile device, you're going to be getting a HEAVILY scaled-down version of the terrain graphics. all of those screenshots you see online of beautiful terrain full of flowers and particle effects are from ps5s or custom pcs. truthfully, the mobile app looks like a game from 2012 and it will still turn your phone into an incinerator. I've also encountered multiple graphics bugs, some during pivotal scenes, and I get consistent lags when playing for longer than a few hours, likely due to the strain on my phone's hardware. it's also an INSANE battery drain, so i only play when my phone is plugged in. All that being said, the game has been out for less than a week, so visual bugs are inevitable, and the developers have stated that mobile optimization is a priority, so hopefully we'll at the very least no longer have to overheat our devices to play it soon. Also worth noting, from what I've seen the rendering of the CLOTHING doesn't suffer AT ALL on mobile devices. presumably they sacrificed terrain rendering to allow for such beautiful texturing on the clothing itself, which, given that the clothing is the main focus of the game, I can't fault them for. Basically, if you're going to try to run an unreal engine game on your iphone, be aware that it will run like an unreal engine game on an iphone. and prepare yourself to have to let your device cool down every few hours.

tldr: i love the game so far. i'm really excited to keep playing and see where the story goes, and I think they should make more games for girls <3

[canisalbus]

Which is your favorite platform? (of the ones you have accounts to post things I mean. I can't imagine it being Instagram since you don't really post there which honestly fair)

Tumblr, Twitter (X?) bluesky? Something else?

I think I'm going to have to go with tumblr, and it's not just because we're here. Twitter and Bluesky are nice and my experiences on both are overwhelmingly positive. But tumblr has an atmosphere that encourages originality, sharing your creations and talking about things in depth.

[chloecherrysip]

"C'mon, Luigi! Pump those legs!"

"I'm trying, I'm trying. I got bad knees!"

[authenticcadence18]

Yall we are actually getting new phineas and ferb this year I just remembered and am feeling like. Giddy, 2010s era joy about it 🥺🥺

[creaturetap]

read a review for arctic eggs (video game) that was like "at first, launching eggs into the stratosphere is funny, but it gets old after a while" which, first of all, is a hysterical thing to read about a game you haven't played and know almost nothing about yet. like what do you mean. you can do that.

anyway now that i have played the game a bit, yes that does happen, and no it has not got old yet.

[asavt]

I finished a little reference sheet for Blake! I find it funny how much he has changed in his time existing, he didn't have his hair that long or voluminous(?

I'm trying to take this a little more seriously now, for portafolio purposes and stuff~ I would like to do character designing in the future...

[lordofthesillystraws]

godddd i wanna like. interact with moots but im so fucking bad at it. hello people who consistently like my posts and generally seem to enjoy my stuff you make my day every time i see you in my notifs. thank you!! /gen

have this gif i made from my fave episode :3

[girderednerve]

Low quality books that appear to be AI generated are making their way into public libraries via their digital catalogs, forcing librarians who are already understaffed to either sort through a functionally infinite number of books to determine what is written by humans and what is generated by AI, or to spend taxpayer dollars to provide patrons with information they don’t realize is AI-generated.

With Hoopla, librarians have to opt into Hoopla’s entire catalog, then pay for whatever their customers choose to borrow from that catalog. The only way librarians can limit what Hoopla books their customers can borrow is by setting a limit on the price of books. For example, a library can use Hoopla but make it so their customers can only borrow books that cost the library $5 per use.

“Investigating these authors, their book covers, their social media, etc takes A LOT OF TIME, especially with the volume of questionable material increasing month to month (and that's not including the sheer amount of legitimate books published each month in adult fiction that I'm looking at),” one librarian who asked to remain anonymous so she could talk openly about her job, told me. “Is it the best use of my time doing this work on top of my other duties when customers may or may not care? And with the rising multitudes of AI generated content, will there come a point where it just ‘is what it is?’”

This type of low quality, AI generated content, is what we at 404 Media and others have come to call AI slop. Librarians, whose job it is in part to curate what books their community can access, have been dealing with similar problems in the publishing industry for years, and have a different name for it: vendor slurry. While the term now encompasses what seems like AI-generated content as well, it predates the rise of generative AI, and also refers to the glut of low quality, often self-published ebooks or book “summaries” that are common on Hoopla. As some librarians told me, the sheer quantity of books in Hoopla’s service makes it seem more valuable because it offers such a large number of books, but in reality that number is misleadingly inflated by this slurry.

Several of the librarians I talked to said that they are worried about discussing [the problems raised by Hoopla's weak, unclear selection policies, including the 2022 inclusion of explicitly white nationalist texts,] because of the growing hostility towards libraries and groups like Moms for Liberty demanding that books about LGBTQ rights, race, and ethnicity be removed from libraries. One the one hand, librarians want to curate their collections and make sure their patrons are getting access to quality information. On the other hand, they don’t want people to think that they are trying to censor what materials patrons can access in way that’s comparable to what organizations like Moms for Liberty want. None of the librarians I talked to suggested the AI-generated content needed to be banned from Hoopla and libraries only because it is AI-generated. It might have its place, but it needs to be clearly labeled, and more importantly, provide borrowers with quality information.

[fobnsfwdoodlesbackup]

Hi y'all, I just wanted to talk a little about the behind the scenes of what I've been up to, to give y'all a little transparency and to open myself up for any tips or input! 🙏 Thank you for your continued support and for taking the time to look at my art 🫶

First and foremost I wanted to give some transparency about my art capacity.

As og followers may remember, I started this blog when I was doing art full time. Eventually my living expenses grew and I had to go back to work. I find myself in a cycle of "I'll make more art soon, once I get a job!" And "I'll make more art soon, once I am done with this job!" I lost my most recent job suddenly, having had an extension waved over my head until the last day(October 7th). Now I'm excited to have more time for art, but I am also feeling a rush to get a new job ASAP as I've been living paycheck to paycheck. I dream of doing this work full time, I'm just scared it's not quite there yet and I worry that I come off as scammy or dishonest when I anticipate more stability around the corner.

Second, I've been struggling with the Patreon. It's taken me a while to come to terms with this, but from what I've seen Patreon is not intuitive at all from the creator end. It doesn't do a good job of organizing addresses, emails, showing who or who isn't subscribed to me, or organizing and displaying the work I put on there. I've been really shocked by this experience, since lots of big names use Patreon. It's been a great way to streamline support, but it's been unhelpful in every other regard. I would like to continue using it, but I will most likely post more wips or process videos there in the future.

Which brings me to my third point, zines. I love making zines so much, it feels personal and fulfilling and fun! However the Patreon issues make it harder to keep information in order about where to send zines, or even where to message folks about them. In addition to this, the post office has been a big barrier to me, oftentimes only being open at the same time as my dayjob. Making zines can take days, then sending them out is a whole other monster.

This work is so important to me. Drawing peoples fantasies, representing body types, creating work around sexuality and the human experience feels like what I'm meant to do. I've made comics since I was a kid. This is the dream to me. The friends I've been able to make through this work are so important to me, and the conversations have been invaluable. Not to mention fun! I wanna doodle, I wanna draw hot stuff, I wanna thirst over these dudes! I want to play!

But I also just want to be transparent about the barriers I'm working around to share that experience. I'm completely self taught, both in art AND in running shops, building websites, running 8 accounts, etc. I take a lot of time to learn the logistics of these things, and try to make them make sense for my relationship with y'all (I do not want to paywall my art!! I don't want to!!!). This year my desktop broke down (the main one I use for all paintings and digital art). I've paused my Etsy shops and my Patreon to try to catch up with things. Trying to learn to paint in a completely different program. Then lost my job with no savings.

At the end of the day I don't want anything to come between me sharing my art with you. I wish I could doodle a thing, take a picture, and post it here. No third party site, no shop, no subscription. Just sharing my art with you. I promise I'm trying to figure out how to stay as close to that as possible, and I want to thank y'all for sticking with me as I untangle all of that.

So, what can you expect in the near future?

I'm working on a couple of painting commissions right now, which you should be able to see in the next couple of days! I want to catch up on kinktober and get those posted as well. There's a comic commission in progress which I'm very eager to work on, and which I think y'all will be excited for! To ease the weight of the Patreon I think I may do less zines/polls there and more wips and process videos! If possible, I want to do more full colored work too.

Thank you again for enjoying my work, and if you have any input or tips my inbox is always open 🙏🫶💕

[wolfchans]

My chest hurts so bad from coughing, last night when I came back from class it was so bad 😭

[avtorsola]

When at home in Ishgard