#options are all the characters listed in my intro post

[starlight-blackbird]

Which of my OCs would you guys like to be introduced to first??

[elspethdekarios]

Gale as an archmage

I've been thinking about this for a while. If you select Gale as an origin character in the character creator and play his intro, he introduces himself as Gale of Waterdeep™ he immediately follows with "please - no need to be intimidated."

Now I think we initially brush this statement off as Gale being full of himself, but the first time you talk to him and ask him to tell you about himself, there's an option to say something like "Come on, you must have stories from your time as archmage."

And I've always wondered - how would tav know this? Gale hasn't mentioned it. Which leads me to my research question:

Is Gale famous?

Not Elminster-famous, of course, but is he THE archmage of Waterdeep, known throughout the Realms? Is Gale of Waterdeep a legitimate title, not just one he decided to use because it sounds important?

Maybe all of this is common knowledge in DnD lore, but it's a fairly new world to me. Here's what I found about archmages:

From the Forgotten Realms fandom wiki (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Archmage):

Archmages were among the most powerful arcane spellcasters found throughout all of Faerûn. These practitioners of the Art were experts at manipulating and altering their spells, often in strange ways. Many cities across Faerûn had a single archmage who dedicated themselves to serve that settlement and its people. Some notable cities included Lyrabar in Impiltur, and the great western metropolis of Waterdeep. The term "archmage" was often used to refer to spellcasters who took on leadership roles among similarly-inclined practitioners of The Art. In the drow city of Menzoberranzan, the head of the arcane academy known as Sorcere was granted the title, Archmage of Menzoberranzan.

So, to summarize, archmages are super powerful, big cities often have a singular, dedicated archmage, and they take on leadership roles in the city, sometimes (or at least once) being deemed THE archmage of the city.

I've already seen posts about the insane amount of power held by archmages, so I'm not really going to go into that. I'm just interested in how well-known Gale would be in the Realms. One issue I'm running into while researching is that many people seem to approach the archmage in terms of DnD stats (spell levels, player levels, etc) rather than from a storytelling perspective.

I can't find much else specifically on how widely known archmages would be. There is a list of archmages on the Forgotten Realms wiki, but Gale isn't included on it. I'm assuming maybe BG3 lore is considered an off-shoot of FR lore and therefore not necessarily canon? Let me know if I'm wrong about this.

So that leaves me with message board responses. Here are some notable ones:

An old candlekeep.com forum on the differences between the titles used by magic users. Several users seem to agree with this person.

From the same thread as above.

Interestingly, DnD beyond has archmage categorized as a monster. I'm not sure if this applies only to evil-aligned mages or not, so anyone with more familiarity, feel free to chime in. Anyway, here's what DnD beyond says:

"Archmages are powerful (and usually quite old) spellcasters dedicated to the study of the arcane arts. Benevolent ones counsel kings and queens, while evil ones rule as tyrants and pursue lichdom. Those who are neither good nor evil sequester themselves in remote towers to practice their magic without interruption. An archmage typically has one or more apprentice mages, and an archmage's abode has numerous magical wards and guardians to discourage interlopers."

Gale does mention having students/apprentices at some point (he says something about being impatient with them if I remember correctly, but I can't remember when he actually says it), and, if he's Professor Gale in the epilogue, you're told that an apprentice delivered the invite to the party.

I also find it interesting that archmages typically have wards around their home to keep out intruders, implying that they're well-known enough to have people regularly trying to break into their home?? Or at least has happened enough times to warrant protection.

I also appreciate this reddit comment on a thread asking about the rarity of archmages:

This lead me to a super interesting reddit post which I really suggest you check out if you're interested. The OP breaks down the percentages of each class and level and translates that to city populations. I'm bad at math so that may be a horrible explanation. Anyway, here's a chart that they made:

I have been trying my hardest to put the alt text on the images for accessibility but I have no idea how that would work with this chart. I did include the text at the bottom for screen readers just in case. I'm sorry!

Sooooo someone in the comments asked specifically about Waterdeep and here's what someone who is good at math figured out! (They are correcting a previous comment with incorrect math, hence the first part of the comment):

Since a wizard is considered an archmage at level 18, it's safe to say that Gale would definitely be one of only a few wizards in Waterdeep with such a title. And if the above commenter's assumption about the Blackstaff being one of the only archmages in the city, Gale being of a similar level is HUGE, right? The Blackstaff is a big deal. From the Forgotten Realms wiki:

Blackstaff was the title and name given to the master of the eponymous staff and Blackstaff Tower, including Blackstaff Academy, as well as the Archmage of Waterdeep.

So if the Blackstaff is THE Archmage of Waterdeep, Gale, obviously, is not. But!!! If we can trust the math of the reddit users above, and we assume Gale was at least a level 19 wizard pre-orb/tadpole/whatever ... he would be one of two archmages in Waterdeep, second only to the Blackstaff themself.

I personally think that's enough renown to be a somewhat familiar name throughout Faerûn. So yes, Gale is a bit arrogant and, in his own words, pompous about being Gale of Waterdeep™ but perhaps it's warranted.

This has been a deep dive fueled by procrastination about writing the research papers I should actually be writing right now. Thank you for your time

[ct-multifandom]

Big day for annoying people (me)

The two new eps of ML were good? Like wow it’s been great so far except ep 3 was comparatively a flop imo. Werepapas was so, idk, enticing lore-wise but I don’t have much to say that other people haven’t except that they’re clearly NOT neglecting past plot points, making the tone too silly goofy all the time, nor retconning important stuff like some people worried they would. We have been FED. I’m sure Felix is involved in that ring bs somehow, but idk if his intentions are pure or not.

Warning for the only salty thing I’m gonna say on this post: I’m so tired of going into the fandom tag and seeing people whining about “bad writing” problems that literally never happened based entirely on their own incorrect predictions they made up to make themselves mad. Ugh anyway. This post is gonna be about small details I latched onto in Daddycop!

We got to see glimpses of Sabrina and Max’s rooms this ep! Max’s room looks like a Star Trek spaceship but the books on his bookshelf are kinda giving those reference books at the library of like, archived government documents or research papers iykwim whereas the books in Alya’s room look like manga. An interesting thing I noticed in Sabrina’s room is that she has a line of framed certificates on the wall, maybe academic awards or something similar

Did they ever say if Markov can see Kaalki or not? I’m sure they will eventually but idk which option I like better. It’d be cute if they were friends but it’d be pretty funny if he had to watch Max talk to the secret floating ghost who lives with them now and not question it

List of things Sabrina dumps in the trash: yellow nail polish, the brooch Chloe gifted to her/bribed her with in season 1, the cat ear headband from her Chat Noir cosplay when she and Chloe were roleplaying as him and Ladybug in season 3, a beret, maybe the one Chloe tried to bribe her with in s1, Chloe-style sunglasses, a Queen Bee doll, a photo of them together in the old animation, and a mug/tumbler? Maybe a gift from her as well idk maybe they’re selling Queen Bee-themed Stanley cups over there.

:((((( Aw Sabrina nooo I hate seeing her so sad and the way she lied to her dad so he would think she’s happy and has friends

I think this might be the first time the show referred to Fire Captain Hessenpy by name?

Marinette’s scooter has the T+S logo on it and a sticker that says Boulangerie Paris

Between eps 2 and 4 I’m getting the sense that Sabrina uses Miss Hound as an escape kinda like CN where she feels like she can become instantly likeable, trustworthy, helpful, and useful through the inherent credibility of being a superhero. She has anonymity, can sort of start over on a blank slate, and is automatically implied to be a good person since Ladybug entrusted her. I’m guessing we’re gonna see more of that blank slate idea with other characters and what they’ll do with it, but it’s telling that Sabrina decides to transform to resolve people’s minor inconveniences, especially when she’s feeling bad about herself. It’s like she’s proving a point to herself but also giving herself something productive to do.

The GIRLS Ahhhhh let’s go lesbians

Noticing a clear absence of Alix. Ik the special implied she has to keep hiding in the burrow from Lila but she’s all normal-looking in the intro and they can’t shelve her forever. I feel like something is gonna change to make her be able to return.

^^^ ALSO she’s the only hero with zero design updates and my theory is that the purpose of that is so she can do contrived time nonsense like going back to earlier seasons and going forward without contradicting anything or revealing which time period she’s actually from

I gotta say the side character writing has progressively been better and better throughout the show. Atp they really feel like actual people with their own opinions and motivations. In the early days they felt more like lovable NPCs who talked occasionally but now they’re real characters? With free will? I feel like I just watched Pinocchio get turned into a real boy

The pro-healthy eating censorship/propaganda/whatever in this show is so funny omg. Juleka: I brought fruit tea Mylene: wow that’s so much better than the sugary soda we had last time LMAO. To balance out Rose holding a bag of popcorn they gave Zoe two burlap sacks full of oranges which tbf I’d rather snack on those during a movie than popcorn but still. I saw a vid recently about gravity falls adding random bowls of fruit next to characters eating junk food because they were getting flagged as promoting unhealthy habits. I keep thinking about that moment in Ikari Gozen when Mari asks Kagami out for “juice” when any normal teen would’ve said “coffee” like nope no caffeine in my good Christian miraculous

Love Kagami being a pretentious film nerd go hang out with Nino

RED ALERT YOU GUYS Mylene has an inclusive pride flag pin on her overall strap. Like the rainbow flag with the trans triangle and the black stripe. It’s not subtle or anything it’s just right there wow. Damn

The pin above it reminds me of Timebreaker’s logo. I wonder what some of these pins mean

Ok last season they seem to have established that Sabrina became friends with Marc and Nathaniel who were both explicit Sabrina Supporters since their akuma episodes, so it feels sort of convenient that they were written out of the narrative for this ep. I do see the whole Girl Squad thing and how she feels excluded when all the girls in the group hang out together without her, doing traditional girl things like movie night sleepovers, so I do think it’s totally valid. Her having absolutely zero friends is hyperbolized though.

On that note I have to wonder if the school might have several lunch periods because none of the male characters expect Adrien and Nino were there. Or maybe they just stage the scene with whoever is convenient. They might have flexible lunch schedules and all the other characters are off somewhere else.

Rose mentioned a girl whose name I didn’t recognize and after rewinding i can’t tell what she said. Aglie? New character? Maybe she’s that black girl with pink hair who was sitting with Adrien, Nino, and Sublime at lunch

KAGAMI AND ONDINE ARE CANONICALLY FRIENDS this is like the Superbowl for me. I’m so excited for Sleeping/Princess Syren I need to see her.

God the girls were so messy in that scene where they didn’t want to invite Sabrina lol I kinda love it I can’t even be mad

Zoe, your lab safety is atrocious. Not only are you taking your goggles off while still in the lab, but then you *leave the room* and *touch someone* with your gloves still on?! Diabolical. What are they even doing, soldering computer chips?

Marinette when I catch you Marinette

Roger’s relationship with Sabrina is actually so cute even though he’s kinda misguided as a person GOD when he’s on his way to console his crying daughter and Lila enters his mind space and he’s cradling his arms like he’s clearly seeing her as his baby 🥺 nobody talk to me

Alexa play I bet on losing dogs by mitski. Myyyy baby my baby…

We got a glimpse of the baddest bitch in Paris Xavier Ramier I’m so happy

Sabrina shapeshifted her necklace into a brooch. Huh. I guess you can just do that

The power of believing in herself allowed her to yassify her own character design into a cuter and more fashionable superhero! This is basically just like real life if you think about it

Her ball has a doggy nose on it awww

Lila telling Roger to turn around so she could back him up and fire the anti akuma was badass okay

I’m not sold on the loud ass makeup they have a lot of the characters wearing so I’m glad we got to see the girls with clean faces at the end there. Wow they look so normal! I’m also loving the pajama designs. I had to pause and look at all of them.

Zoe had to stop and hit Sabrina with that rizz stare to make sure Sabrina wouldn’t be coming up with any platonic explanations for her behavior

I never thought I’d say these words, but I think a love triangle between Sabrina, Zoe, and Max would be fun. Imagine Zoe is into Sabrina, Sabrina isn’t exactly catching the hint and sees Zoe as a really nice friend, Sabrina kinda likes Max, and Max is like damn these bitches gay. Good for them.

The end card is so baby omg

I TOLD YOU GUYS Sabrina was gonna get a makeover and people were like uH No iTs JUsT An aNimATioN eRroR oF a ScRApPEd DeSiGn girl why the hell would they leave a scrapped design in the intro, and there’s no way they would accidentally not notice that much less repeat it

Mark my words white haired Caprikid is not an error either he’s real and he’s gonna collect all the chaos emeralds to get that way

A new diabolical twink has hit the scene. Ray’s pompous ass immediately reminded me of Preminger from Barbie. He looks like he rides horses. Like he tells people he’s into sports but then you find out the sport is just horse riding. Immediately invested. Who is this diva. I want him to get hit by a bus.

Ooooo Zoe was up to some Delinquent Shit in America this is so juicy. I looove when suspiciously perfect characters get revealed to be secretly fucked up that’s the best. I’ve always loved those types of headcanons, that she was expelled from her last school and moved to a different country all of a sudden for her mom’s PR. If you think about it, that’s exactly what happened to Chloe damn. Daughter commits PR disaster, do zero parenting about it, relocate daughter far away to start over with little consequence! I wanna see some parallels. I feel like she made it sound like she moved because she was getting bullied at her old school, but what if that was a lie, or at least a partial lie? You know shit’s serious when the exposition is in the post-post-endcard scene

The pacing of these episodes has been satisfying compared to previous seasons, especially 5. They aren’t trying to shove too much in, but there’s still a lot happening and fiiiinally a nice mix of plot and fighting. I was getting irritated by how rushed a lot of the fights were last season like might as well just not have them at all

Late edit: back to the pajamas because I forgot to analyze them, I have noticed that Juleka’s pants have bats on them :) frickin bats. They also have like… a crescent moon with something sitting on it? idk what that is. It’s like a pattern of cute spooky Halloween imagery. But the pants and her black lace tank top versus Rose’s sparkly pink unicorn onesie is adorb.

Zoe has a yellow tank and seems to be wearing her usual leggings under running shorts um? Outside clothes in bed? And her pink slides give the whole thing a sans undertale vibe. Oh what the fuck why do the feet of her tights have individual toes lmao. The horror. I hate it.

I can’t tell what Mylene is wearing except a black t-shirt that might have something white on it. OMG EDIT 2 ITS IVAN’S T-SHIRT FROM HIS OLD DESIGN YOU GUYS SHES WEARING HER BF’S OLD BAND TEE AS PAJAMAS. This is headline news myvan nation. She has maybe pink shorts and her slippers look like Uggs.

Kagami’s silk pjs look luxurious. I love how her clothes this season went from just preppy to being very obviously EXPENSIVE like she’s blending in with the gang but she’s still clearly rich af.

Sabrina’s pjs are a classic set with her usual argyle pattern on them. 10/10 would give her a warm glass of milk and read her a bedtime story. I wonder what she needs eye drops for because she told Roger she needs to pack them.

Excited to see more yay! I love the little details. It’s kinda a bummer that Sabrina spent most of her hero focus ep sobbing but we ball (see what I did there) and the end was so cutesy. So excited to probably watch episode 11 before episode 6

[rpgchoices]

Very short non spoiler review of Veilguard act 1

I played only to chapter 8, which should be still in act 1, but I am not going to add any spoilers. This is a very generic bulletpoint list of opinions.

GAMEPLAY

Intro is great, art is pretty good too, even the characters

combat is very fun, but I still preferred Inquisition combat

the world is extremely empty. There is one or two talking npc for each faction and that is. Secondary characters do not exist. Quests are all generic (ex. Random nameless character "hey, this person disappeared, can you find them?" with no extra story or explanation)

barely any animals or surprises in the world. The only exploration factor is looking at landscapes and doing some puzzles

there are only three type of puzzles: move object into place to activate door, destroy blight to free door to open, destroy crystal to free door to open. That is it.

choices that matters are identified by the game with a sign, and you will also have a sign that will let you know which dialogue was affected by what

loved the jumping around and the sliding down

you can pet any cat or dog

the world feels empty, empty of lore, empty of characters, empty of animals, quests, people

CHARACTERS

companions are the only characters in the whole game, plus a few associated characters to them

barely any banter and the only banter present is very superficial or more on the funny side

good thing is that if banter is interrupted by a combat it will continue later

my favorite part was seeing characters talk and interact in the lighthouse

do not expect cameo, and if there are cameo they are very short and very generic

companions are very good, very kind, very nice, with little consistency between their characterization and how they behave (ex. Neve is a detective, but she never asks anything or acts differently from other characters or even seem interested in what is going on)

companions seem almost flanderized, with mainly one character trait each

dialogue is sometimes extremely clunky, with "textbook answers" that seem written with AI instead of a writer. It is all "tell, do not show", so it is more likely that a character says "I am shaken" over actually showing how they feel

characters seem to act often like exposition machines, and knows things they definitely should not know

ROOK / PLAYER

amazing character creation options

I played as elf and it has little reactivity, maybe a bit less than Inquisition

the faction has more reactivity, and there are multiple dialogues with your companions about it, mainly little comments that make it feels like Rook has a backstory (much better than inquisition)

Rook facial expressions and movements are a bit strange sometimes, making it seems like he is always smiling and happy even when he should not be

the "purple" dialogue options are a bit meh, definitely not as funny as DA2, and I think "red" might fit more (in my attempt to try and make a more serious Rook)

you cannot really shape Rook's personality

also you cannot disagree with your companions, there is no dialogue choice to disagree or fight with them like in previous games. Most of the dialogue seems to be divided in a few categories: Exposition requests; Flirting; Supportive comment; Joking comment but still supportive.

STORY AND QUESTS

It does not feel like Dragon Age.

The game take theories and secret information from previous games and make it the standard world knowledge

there is no urgency

side quests are forgettable

story is very weirdly paced

each companion has a post-recruitment quest to know them

factions and world seems sanitized. We do not hear about the darker side of the Crows, or about Tevinter's slavery if not in passing

the story is okay but would have benefitted A LOT from hiding the villains and introducing them later. When I say a lot I mean from a 6/10 game to a 8/10 game.

also never thought I would say this, but I miss the Chantry. There is barely any mention of any lore

also only three choices matter - but do they? it felt like everything was a blank state

ROMANCES

By the end of act 1 you can still flirt with everyone.

A lot of flirting options for all characters and if you skip some of them you still get the next ones

I had no romance specific scene yet so it looks like you can flirt with everyone for quite a while before deciding

the flirting is all very PG13 and it is more allusions than actual overt flirting (I mainly flirted with Davrin and Emmrich)

for now I have seen no characters flirting with each other's

I think around chapter 7 and onwards the pacing gets much better, and the writing of the quests a bit more interesting. It honestly felt like a different game in some parts, and I have no idea what happened there. It feels like the game is:

Amazing prologue, probably the best DA prologue yet

First recruitment character and first mission - completely downhill with writing

Pretty slow and weird paced then until chapter 7-8

[antimony-medusa]

How To Set Up An Ao3 Exchange

One of the first things I say whenever anyone asks me about running exchanges is that if you have more than about 30 people in the exchange, do NOT try to match it by hand. That is so much work and takes so much time. Use Ao3's matching algorithm. And people say sure, and then they look at how Ao3 works and they go uhhhhhhhhhh I think we can make a google form work. Because google forms are reasonably intuitive to make work, and Ao3 exchanges are— not.

But the thing is, once you understand the underlying logic for Ao3 collections, they are not that bad, and seriously I can't overstate the benefit of having Ao3 do the matching for you. That's like the difference between 80 hours of curating data as it comes in and then matching it (what happened with hand-matching 325 people for holiday exchange), or 2 hours of double-checking the matching (what happened with matching 125 people for 48 hour exchange). You have to put in extra work to get an Ao3 exchange set up, but it super pays off in the end. So! Here is an intro to how Ao3 exchanges work on the back end. This explanation assumes you know how to sign up for an exchange because I've posted ones like that before, for example, here.

Let's get into it.

THE COLLECTION

The first thing you want to do is set up your exchange collection. If you go to your right-hand drop-down menu, you click on My Collections.

That brings you to every collection you have ever made, and you go to to the right and click "New collection".

That brings you into the back end of the collection. You want to go down and put in a name for the collection that will be the url (so no spaces), a display name, an email for the collection to email when something happens to the collection (this will be public, so use a fandom email), and a basic description.

There's places there to do custom icons and headers, but those are optional, but you can go in and make your exchange pretty later if you want!

We are still in the "setting up" stage of the exchange, so once we go to preferences, you want to select all the tick boxes and make it look like this.

Moderated means that you'll have to manually approve things to be added to the collection (not absolutely necessary but can keep out trolls, and it also means that you can manually check that gifts meet minimums before you let them in to the exchange), Closed means that no one can submit things to the collection yet (once you open your exchange you de-select this), Unrevealed means that any works in the collection will show up as "mystery works" and not be readable (so you keep it unrevealed until the posting date, so people can post early but not spoil the surprise), anonymous means that all authors will be anonymous (this depends on if you have an anonymous portion of your exchange, so it's optional), "show random works" just means that you get a selection of different works when people visit the collection at different times, "send a message to the collection email" is optional but is useful for moderation (like if you're checking people off a list when their gifts get delivered), and "type of challenge" you want to be set to "gift exchange".

and then on this page the only other things of concern are places where you can put in an FAQ, a description and some instructions, but those are all optional! I normally host the FAQ on tumblr, so I just say "go check the tumblr at [link]".

And then you hit the submit button.

Now we get into the nitty-gritty.

First up is some optional stuff— you can add in the times that you're going to do things! This is useful for communication, but not necessary. We're still setting everything up, so you do not want Sign-Ups to be open, that is only selected once you have everything ready to go.

Then scrolling down, you get to Requests and Offers.

This is where you specify the absolute minimum ships or characters that you want people to give you to sign up. 10 is the maximum Ao3 allows, so I always set it to 10 for both "allowed", which is the maximum the site will allow. And required is the low number. I usually set it to a minimum of three, to make sure someone doesn't sign up with "i will only write one ship" or something. This way, people will have to do a minimum of three separate requests and offers.

The "requests visible" is part of the back end thing, and it's up to you if you want to select it or not. If you keep it unselected, the only person who will be able to see requests is the mods, and eventually each person will see their assignment. If you select it, people will be able to browse everyone's requests and both maybe target offers so they can write for a specific person, and be able to find treats (extra bonus gifts) to write for people whose requests they like. Each side has its own benefits or negatives, it's up to you which ones you want to go with!

And here we get into more of the matching info! Let's look at Request Settings.

Now this is what the settings would look like for a multi-fandom exchange. The "details/description" box you want to make mandatory because that is where people will put their DNW and their prompts (and you absolutely want to make sure everyone has a DNW), and the url is an optional one which lets people link an off-site letter on google docs or dreamwidth.

Fandom allowing up to three fandoms means that people can do crossovers if they want (or tag a request something like 3rd life/hermitcraft), and if I wanted to say that people had to request 3 separate servers I would say "must be unique" but I'm okay if people sign up with three Dream SMP relationships in this idea hypothetical exchange, so I'm not selecting the unique button.

I'm ignoring the characters button cause that's extra complication, the only other thing I want to look at is the relationship button. A minimum of 1 ship per request (and there's a minimum of three requests), and let's say you can go up to 20, so people can request LOTS of different ships. I did select "must be unique" so someone can't sign up with the same ship three times. The "allow any" button is off, which means that I will have to select relationships that fit under the fandom that I selected one up, I can't request Shubble/Niki Nihachu (Origins), and put it with a fandom request for Hermitcraft. This has set it so that the absolutely minimum someone can sign up with is 3 relationships (3 requests * 1 relationship each), and the absolute maximum is 200 relationships (10 requests * 20 relationships each).

Requests will look much the same, except I am not putting down details/description or a URL, because I'm not letting people submit requests about what ship they "really" want to match on, they are going to be equally matchable to everyone they offered. Some exchanges will let you submit a requests DNW, but honestly that is so much extra work for the mods, I would not recommend it unless you think it's necessary to stop people from dropping their gifts later.

Okay, so now we take a brief digression into a tag set.

THE TAG SET

Okay so basically a tag set is an extra set of sliders that lets you fine-tune your exchange. If you do not use a tag set, when people sign up they will be able to use every canon tag on the archive, and only canon tags. Which is a LOT of tags, but when I ran an exchange without a tag set there were multiple times of hitting non-canon relationships or tags. But it's also a definite extra complication, tag sets are extra fiddly work and they are even less intituive. If you just want to go without a tag set, skip down to the matching segment. If you do want to avoid hitting people signing up with non-canon tags, keep reading.

I'm gonna say right off the bat that tag sets are the single most like "oh I am getting into the GUTS of the machine" part of running Ao3 exchanges, but if you can make them work they can super streamline both the sign-up (for your participants ) and the matching process (for you).

Oh boy, tag sets. Here we start getting into how exchanges start squeezing the interface to make it do what we want it to. I'm using a tag set, so first I clicked on the "tag set" url there and I made my tag set, and then I came back and selected its name from the drop-down menu on the collection.

When it comes to the relationship settings, you have three options:

Leaving both boxes unticked will allow someone to input any relationship that has been wrangled into the fandom and any relationship in your tag set.

Clicking Fandom Only will allow people to use any wrangled tag that has been associated to this fandom— but only those tags.

Clicking Tag Set Fandom Only will allow people to use any tag in your tag set that is associated with your fandom— but only those tags.

Fandom Only is not very useful for how we're using tag sets, because we specifically want non-canon unique tags we are designing for our purpose. Both boxes unticked is only useful if you want people to be able to do mash-up signups where someone puts ZombieCleo & LDShadowLady (3rd Life) on a signup for a fandom of Dream SMP— which in most cases you don't want, because matching that is gonna be very difficult. (We do something like this for mcyt recursive, but recursive is— weird.) The usual and simplest way to run is to click Tag Set Fandom Only, and that way your participants will get a drop-down autocomplete menu of the tags in your tag set, the ones they can use, when they sign up. Easy and simple!

I am leaving characters unchecked, because in both cases selecting a box will restrict the options available to someone signing up to character tags that have been associated or wrangled into a fandom, and we are either a) not using characters at all, or b) using the character field for gift types (more on that later), and we specifically want unassociated gift type tags that are not affiliated with any specific fandom. What tags? Well. Let's move over to the tag set itself.

So, I started a new tag set, and I'm over there on that screen, looking at it. What does that screen look like?

Okay so, part of the appeal of a tag set is that your participants are able to specify the difference between "Rendog & InTheLittleWood" and "Rendog/InTheLittleWood". You don't have to worry about people getting undesired shipping, because people were specifying if they wanted shipping when they signed up. You can reduce a great deal of people getting matched badly by using relationship matching, because most of the time even if people want a Tommy-centric fic, there's a pretty big difference between people who want "Tommy & Technoblade" and "Tommy & Dream". By specifying who you want the gift to be about, you remove a big hurdle of matching right away. That's why most exchanges run on relationship matching.

However, if there are 37 people on a given server, that's something like 2,600 possible combinations of people if you include both romantic and platonic, and that's before you start getting into trios, and that's just way too many tags for the mods to enter manually. So what you do is run a nomination period, and for a week or two weeks you go to all your participants and you go "do you want to sign up for this exchange? Nominate the tags you want to use now! If it doesn't get nominated, it can't be used!" And then people head to the tag set to nominate.

So, on this page, you want "visible tag list" to be selected, because you want people to see what's already been nominated so they don't duplicate, and you want "currently taking nominations" to be selected because you will be taking those nominations instead of doing them all yourself.

So you have to set up limits on those nominations.

The point of taking nominations is to make matching easier, so people normally use the same fandom and relationship limits as they are going to use on the sign-up, to make sure there aren't dozens of tags in the tag set that nobody's using, just cluttering up the space. It also helps stop the issue where someone sees a tag in the tag set, goes "oh man I love that ship" and signs up, but its an extra tag that no one intended to offer, so they don't match to anyone. That's why sometimes people keep the amount of tags that can be nominated low, I've seen people limit this to 10 tags per fandom, or even 7, so that's up to you.

And you save, and now when you link your participants the tag set, they will have a "nominate" button.

They will hurry over to press that button, and then they will see a page that looks like this.

This is a thing where you absolutely want to give your participants detailed instructions, because what Ao3 will try to do is auto-fill people's nominations with canonical tags. WE DO NOT WANT CANONICAL TAGS. CANONICAL TAGS ARE THE ENEMY OF EXCHANGES. CANONICAL TAGS ARE THE ENEMY OF MCYT EXCHANGES IN PARTICULAR.

Remember back when we clicked the button that says tags have to be unique? The canonical tag for Philza & Technoblade doesn't have a server on it, and people might want to be requesting that relationship for SMPEarth, Dream SMP, Origins SMP, or arguably even QSMP. If you only have the canonical tag, people can only request a specific dynamic once, for one server. And that is a problem for every situation where people interacted on multiple servers, and with the network of overlaps that is Empires/SOS/3rd Life/Hermitcraft and DSMP/Origins/SMPEarth/QSMP, that's going to lead to unhappy participants. So you tell people to nominate the ship and also "disambiguate" it, and add the server in parentheses. And then all your participants will hit the button to submit, and you will go into the "review nominations" button, and you will let those tags into the tag set.

Now I just distributed the tag set to a couple friends, so let's look at what this looks like behind the scenes.

Brace yourself, it's gonna be wild, but I believe we can get through it.

Now here is a perfectly standard look at tag set nominations after a few people have gotten into the tag set. This is why they pay tag mods the big bucks.

As you can see, there are a few things to be gathered. The first things is a bunch of people used the canon tags (because that's what Ao3 tries to get them to do), someone else nominated an x-reader ship, we have one tag there twice (spelled differently), and the tags are Piped (they have both the person's tax name and the username). (You can let tags in that are Piped, but I find that it makes the tag set harder to read, and usually exchanges are character-focused unless you're writing video blogging rpf anyways, so I ask people to submit tags unpiped, using usernames.) And for the tags that were nominated in a way that I want (unpiped, and disambiguated so they're unique), Ao3 is trying to get me to use the canon tag. But I don't want the canon tag, I want a unique tag, with the server on it, with no pipes. So.

So were I moderating the tag set, after a few minutes it would look like this.

That's going through and disambiguating the tags (adding the server, which I could tell because of the fandom it was nominated under), removing the piping and using the usernames instead of tax names, and then re-ordering the names so they're alphabetical so people can find them on the list later, rejecting the x-reader tag, rejecting the duplicate and allowing the one that's spelled correctly through. Amazing. I have tags that I want to use (I did some other tags that were ready to go in other fandoms as well). I hit submit. Am I ready to go?

Not yet! First, associating tags. If you accepted the tags through the tag nomination process, you will have a button up there that says Review Associations.

If you click on this, on the back end, anything that you accepted under a previously accepted fandom will be helpfully paired up with this fandom, with Ao3 trying to say "ah, does it go here?"

You just go down the list, and if is trying to put it in the right fandom, then you click the box, and at the bottom of the page you press submit, and then there's your tags sorted out to your fandoms! Bingo! Are you done now?

No.

Because tag sets are the most complicated part of exchanges.

So. if you open up your tag set, and you scroll down to "Unassociated characters and relationships" there are a bunch of tags that are are lost, Ao3 doesn't know where to put them. This happens when a) you accepted a tag that was associated with a fandom that hadn't been accepted yet, b) it was trying to associate it with a basket fandom that you don't want to associate it with so you couldn't accept the suggested associations (for example: Philza hardcore tags will show up in Dream SMP but you don't want to associate them there), c) sometimes Ao3 just breaks, spaghetti code d), you had manually added these tags on the Edit page— more on that later. So all of these tags you have to manually associate.

You hit the Edit button on the tag set, and scroll down to the bottom, to "tag associations", and start selecting where tags go.

Honestly this is a great time to be listening to a stream or a podcast or something, and then you have the tag set open in another tab so you know what all the unassociated tags are, and you just go down the list like a databasing machine. It is not hard, cause you disambiguated each tag with its own server, it's just time consuming. Note. This is why people go in and accept tags regularly during the nomination period, because if you do this all at the end you've got a BIG job ahead of you.

So, you turned on your VOD playlist and you associated all your tags, and all the tags are where they are supposed to go. You have a beautiful tag set.

But wait, you say, looking at this beautiful tag set. Some of those tags look at little different. What is the "Dream smp and only dream smp" that a couple of them have?

Well.

You see.

Ao3 designed tag sets to work a certain way, and nobody uses them that way. It turns out that "Quackity/Wilbur Soot (Dream SMP)" is a wrangled canon tag, and the system goes "ah, I know where this goes, this is a sub-tag of the major tag, and the top-level tag is Video Blogging RPF, so it goes under Video Blogging RPF, as all MCYT tags do. I am very smart. I have stuck this Dream SMP tag under Video Blogging RPF. I am a good machine". And then you go AUUUUUUUUGH, and then you turn up the podcast a little louder, and then you sit down and you delete the old tag and you write out a new tag that the system doesn't know what to do with, and it goes uhhhhhhh and sticks it in "unassociated tags" and then you go in again and you manually associate it into the right server.

Edit in 2024: I use (DFE) at the end of the tag now, because it's shorter.

It's not hard, it's just time consuming. Shouting at the tag set like STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO as it helpfully tries to stick dsmp tags in SMPearth and you wrestle it out of SMPEarth and into the right fandom bucket.

Deep breath moment. Honestly that's the most fiddly part of a fiddly process, so if you can get through this you're absolutely golden.

Anyways. You got clean disambiguated unique tags, and then you associated them in the right spot, and then you found the ones that got sorted to the wrong spot and you associated them yourself, and now you have a beautiful tag set ready to go. It's a thing of beauty. Shed a tear. Your participants can select from anything in this tag set, and you know they want to use these specific relationships, because they submitted them to you. What next?

THE MATCHING

Okay. You have your tag set set up and it's accepting nominations. Your participants are filling it out right now. You go back to your collection. it's time to tell it how to match.

This is the "minimum number to match" pane, and this is the minimum numbers to make a successful match. You want 1 for Fandom, and 1 for Relationship, and that's it. People will show up to the machine as a viable match as long as they have submitted a fandom and relationship that matches someone else's offered fandom and relationship.

This is a minimum viable exchange. You're ready to go. As soon as your tag set is done (or immediately if you're not using a tag set), you're ready to go back and open your exchange to sign-ups.

Congratulations!

FURTHER TWEAKING

HOWEVER. There is more that you can do. For example, do you want to allow people to request or opt into NSFW? There's an easy way to do that! First thing is you go back to your tag set, and you scroll down to the "ratings" section that you've been ignoring.

You select G and E, and that way, if people are opting into explicit that means they're okay with NSFW, and if they only select G, that means they only want a non-explicit piece.

Then on the collection you switch the requests and offers sections to include a place to specify a rating.

You want them to definitely specify at least one, and if you maximum allowed is 2, people can opt into both and say "i'm good with whatever"!

Then you scroll down to the matching section, and you tweak that to make sure that people will match on Fandom, Relationship, and at least one Rating.

Bingo. You now have a toggle to turn NSFW on and off.

But a lot of people like to match by TYPE of gift too, specifying if they want art or fic or playlist or web weave etc. How do you do that? Ah, at this point you are master of all you survey, and you can make tag sets do absolutely anything you want. Remember we talked about using the character slot? You go back to the tag set and you scroll down to "characters".

Now we were matching on relationships, so the character box is unused. And it lets you put in your own tags. So what you do is you start to add in custom tags.

And then you go back to the Collection settings, and on the requests and the offers you go in to the "characters" section and you say "must select at least one, can select up to six".

And then, you guessed it— you go back to "minimum number to match" and you set that "characters" tab to 1 minimum, 6 maximum. Now people who specified that they wanted Art can be matchable to artists who Offered Art. You have unlimited power, the world is at your fingertips.

There's even more customization that you can do, too! There's "additional tags", which is entirely custom tags you add yourself, that can be anything from specifying if people want fluff or horror or hurt/comfort etc— with the recursive exchange we used it to specify the works people were recursing— I'm considering using it for holidays with the holiday exchange. You can let people opt in or out of major archive warnings by selecting "archive warnings" as a thing that's in the tag set and that you're matching for. Once you understand how the underpinnings of how the machine works, you can wrestle it into almost any shape you want.

So. Whew. That's how exchanges work, under the hood. When I say that this is significantly easier than hand matching the holiday exchange, I ask you to picture just how complicated hand matching gets. Go forth! Thrive! Set up exchanges if you want! The world is your oyster!

Feel free to message me if you have further questions.

[nemisisnemi]

Nemi’s 100 followers Art Raffle! 

I’m holding this event as a way to thank you all for getting me to 100 followers :D 

I’d like to give a special thanks to: ( @loser-jpg @spookyavenuestreet, @lemonchuu @artistnettles, @nyx-of-night, @celestcelest, @vauxxnm (and so many more i cannot @ in one go due to the tag limit but you know who you are!! I'll be tagging more ppl in the reblogs!) for supporting me on my journey all the way to 100 followers! Thank you for always interacting with my posts <3 

EVENT RULES: 

No harassment is allowed. You will be taken out of the raffle and blocked. 

If you have multiple accounts, be sure to link your other account(s) in your bio or intro post. 

Do not ask me when I will be starting the pieces. I have a busy schedule and do not know when I will have the time. 

No NSFW & suggestive requests allowed!!  No furry & mecha requests, I do not have the skillset to draw these. 

The winners must send me(preferably multiple) references and or descriptions of what they want drawn. Any overly complicated details and or clothes will be simplified. 

The winners will be allowed 2 changes when I check in with them with their pieces. 

GUIDELINES + INFO: 

This event will be held for a week from (July 23 12:00 am - July 30th 11:59pm est time) and I’ll randomly select the winners at the end of the week via the wheel of names (https://wheelofnames.com/)

To enter, all you need to do is to reblog this post with the tag “nemi 100 followers event”! Each username will apply as an entry. While multiple reblogs are appreciated, you’ll only receive one entry to give everyone a fair chance! Any follows during this event are greatly appreciated

There will be 5 winners selected in total

The 1st & 2nd place winners get to choose one of the options I've given and the rest of the winners will get their respective prizes. Once the 1st & 2nd place winners have selected their choice, it cannot be changed. 

I will be tagging & DMing the winners so make sure you have your dms opened! If there is no communication from the selected winners within 24 hours, I will select someone else for that slot. 

Prizes:

1st place: (choose only one of these options!)

Full body colored/rendered piece w/ a simple background 

2 characters simple interaction bust shots in one drawing sketch/clean lineart (can be characters or ocs but no color!) 

one character colored bust shot w/ simple background 

examples below!:

first piece(from left -> right) is full body example, 2nd one is of the bust shot, 3rd one is the type of rendering I'll be doing, 4th one is an example of the sketch I will be doing

2nd place: (choose one only)

a full body sketch/lineart piece w/ no color & background 

one character bust shot w/ no color & background

examples below!:

ignore the doodles around the first piece, but that will be somewhat what a full body no color will look like, 2nd piece is closer to what the style might be in & is also what the bust shot looks like.

3-5th place: one character bust shot w/ no color & background 

If you're curious on what my current art style looks like, go through my recent posts or master list! The examples I gave aren't 100% accurate to how my art looks like right now.

link to masterlist: here

I would like to give another special thanks to @/celestcelest @glidiaxoxo @raguiras @twistedwonderlandshenanigans for helping me with this event. Go show these people some love!! This event would not be possible without their help!! 

Good luck to everyone and thanks for participating!! 

[affluent-havoc]

Alrighty then! For this 300 follower celebratory event I promised! I'll make this short and sweet. Here shall be the rules: -Give 10 words or less on what you ✨desire✨ -Can essentially be any Danganronpa character -Can ask in the comments of this post or as an ask -Also can be characters from the franchises listed in my intro page, those being the following The Stanley Parable Ace Attorney Sonic the Hedgehog Five Nights at Freddy's Dragon Ball Z Sam & Max Undertale Deltarune Know it's a bit much but I'll try and make it work if those options are provided! And nothing weird or inappropriate though I feel you've all been chill so I don't have any real worries about that! Also, I suppose this shall be like, a limited time event, probably around 2-3 days or so. Don't wanna go too crazy with the art and hurt my hand again. I also won't have these drawings be super detailed since I have no clue how many I'll be doing. I'll ensure I give it my all though!! Gotta really show my appreciation and give back accordingly!

[christiansorrell]

TTRPG Read-Through: Traveller - Book 1

Here is a read-through I did about a year and a half ago (originally posted on Twitter) of one of the all time classics: Traveller by Game Designers' Workshop! This read-through just covers Book 1 - Characters and Combat from the original Traveller box set trio of books. - Christian

This is the 1981 Second Edition printing of the classic Traveller three zine box set! Been wanting to read this for ages now. It's discussed A LOT in Mothership circles.

Really interesting to see GM-less and solo play options here. Didn't realize that was being done explicitly at this time. Also, nice to see "he or she" language here rather than the just "he" you see a lot in older games.

The UPP is clearly the creation of an utterly deranged mind. This seems like a huge overcomplication of just listing stats (unless all your players are proficient in hexadecimal).

[Hi, it's me from the future here (aka now - 2024): I've learned to embrace and love the UPP (or more specifically the planet stat version from one of the other books). It's complicated at first but really quick and cool once you know how to read it.]

I really like Social Standing as a stat replacement for charisma or charm or other social skills you tend to see. Feels like it would have more impact on the story and less of a "Roll to see if you convince him, I guess" sort of anticlimax social skills have most of the time.

I'm now into the "you can die during char creation in Traveller" bits. Really cool in some ways. Really comical in others. It recommends you enlist your bad stat characters into the Scout service because of it's high mortality rate (so you can roll a diff char before play), lol.

Essentially, you roll stats and that's your entire character but to give them some experience they can enlist in a Service. You have to roll to get in and may get rejected. If so, you submit to the draft (get into one at random). You can die. You can gain skills and promotions.

Honestly, the char creation feels like a solo game unto itself. Risk v reward of how far to push your enlistments to boost your skills and standing and benefits. You could have a whole story in your head by the end of it. Great Session 0 material.

As a 34 yr old, this hurts. Apparently, I have -1 Strength, Dexterity and Endurance now...

I admire commitment but asking GMs to use this full char creator for all NPCs (which means generating chars until you get one capable of filling the role you need) is truly too wild. Best part: at the end, it just says you can also pick whatever you want for stats and skills.

The weapons and intro text have much more of a space as a new age of sail vibe to them than I was anticipating. It's cool. Far more Dune than Alien (so far).

Interestingly (unless I missed something), skills are detached from your stats. Your base stats make getting into a Service easier and help you with Saving Throws and such, but skills have their own modifiers based on the situation and your expertise. It's cool (if a bit dense)!

In case you were wondering, there is absolutely no art in this entire book. I'm hoping we'll get some in one of the other two books with vehicles and ships and such but won't be holding my breath. Gives the whole thing a very Serious vibe.

Always interesting to see how older games chose to handle this (or not).

Here's the UPP in action along with quick listing of other character info. Interesting even if it is just too overcomplicated for my tastes.

Can't overstate how much char creation feels like a whole solo game of its own. You can roll a character at age 18 and have them go through seven 4-yr terms in a Service before retiring and having substantial cash, specific possessions, memberships and social standings. Wild.

The character sheet mentions PSIONICS which is exciting (but I'll have to wait till Book 3 for more on that apparently).

Combat is straightforward but has some unique bits: a focus on stealth as an option and movement/attacks occur by all parties simultaneously which means everyone (enemies too) gets to move and then everyone chooses who to attack and you roll them all. Sounds really fun.

Stats have cool effects in battle. Your Endurance stat is the number of attacks you can make before needing to rest (can you imagine if DnD just didn't let you do a base attack at a point?). Strength and Dex can boost or lower certain weapon rolls like you'd expect.

If trained in a weapon, you can give your expertise as a negative mod to your enemy's rolls to attack you to reflect parrying and blocking which is cool. The skills also add to your attack rolls. Skills just seem really useful overall here.

I just love that we get stats for broadswords, revolvers, and laser carbines. Plus, there are even special tables for archaic weapons for when encountering lower-tech civilizations. It feels like a really wide open interpretation of what space could look like. Feels exciting.

A few more equipment tables and a final quick reference page at the back and that's all for Book 1. I'll be back with Book 2 and 3 in the coming days!

Main thoughts: Character creation is very involved but really cool - its own game practically. Skills are very deep in a way that feels refreshing when compared to more stat-focused games. Combat has some fun, chaotic twists. Feels like a wide universe of possibility here so far.

I'll add Books 2 and 3 to this thread when I give them their own read-throughs. In the meantime, here's my newsletter (last two months have Mothership freebies): https://meatcastle.substack.com

And here's my website (with links to my games and modules and all that good stuff): https://shop.meatcastlegameware.com/

Thanks for reading!

[tellltaleacademy-if]

Hello I saw the intro post and I was a bit confused, are these not all of the Romance options?

Hello, yeah, there will be more RO's ! The characters listed in the intro post are more like the plot's main suspects, and they're all RO's except for Macy. I couldn't fit all the RO's in the intro post mainly cause I struggled to write their bios without giving huuuge spoilers. I'm sorry if it was confusing, it's my first IF and I'm still figuring out how to format everything clearly.

I'm going to publish the full list soon with more detail, but for now, here's their names and a little about them :

MA YIFEI [ F, 25 ] - A rich girl and former member of Chinese group SNH48 Yifei would be the epitome of an ideal female idol, if she wasn’t a huge lesbian. For mean girl who’s obsessed with the aesthetics of perfection and femininity, that’s a pretty rough secret to keep, specially when you start to develop feelings for the girls you're supposed to be kicking into the ground .

SABIRA OMAROVA, [ F, 23 ] - A Russian Tatar model who landed herself in this program through a series of unfortunate events, and the object of Yifei’s unrequited obsession. My idea is to have a Love Triangle-like route where you can be Yifei’s Rebound and romance Sabira at the same time.

TADA EMIKO, [ F, 2X ] - One of the company’s oldest trainee’s and an unbreakable soul that seems to maintain her spark no matter what. A true idol.

KIM AGATHA, [ F, 20 ] - Weird girl central. A former child model and fellow long time trainee at LOVEKRAFT ENTERTAINMENT, she seems to be the CEO’s favorite.

LI MAYUKA, [ F, 22 ] - The life of the party. No filter and no discipline, Mayuka really doesn’t seem like a Kpop trainee, but maybe her rebellious nature is exactly what you need to shield you from the horror of this industry.

[headmate-alchemist]

"Welcome to the potion store, what can I get you?"

inbox check

There are now 2 employees (mods) at the potion store. The inbox check will specify which mod is going to make your request.

Our most popular stock includes:

Headmate potions (choose from one of two versions):

Premade potions:

Every now and then, we may post premade headmate potions to our store. These are free to use as long as they are not labelled "alter intro"

Custom potions:

Simply choose your ingredients, and I'll mix something up!!

//or, name a theme, and I'll choose the ingredients

We offer three recipes: simple, regular, and detailed

This shop is radqueer neutral, but TransIDs can be added on request.

Simple:

Name:

Pronouns:

Gender Identity:

Sexuality:

Species:

Role:

Aesthetic:

Regular:

Source:

Personality Traits:

Disorders:

Appearance Description:

Romantic orientation:

Platonic orientation:

Detailed:

Sexual/romantic Preferences:

Hobbies/Interests:

Opinions on other headmates:

Picrew/Image:

Optional extra ingredients:

Moodboard:

Playlist:

Headspace Room:

Paraphilias:

TransIDs:

TrisIDs:

Outfit Board:

Creators Choice:

I choose the ingredients for you!

Non Alterpack Things:

Themed Playlists/melody potions:

pick a theme or a song and we will create a playlist out of it!!

Moodboards and Stimboards/Happy Potion:

Choose a theme or character and we will create a moodboard or stimboard with nine components themed around your chosen character, aesthetic or theme!

Source List

Fictive sources:

Dream SMP

Five Nights At Freddy's

The Glass Scientists

Jekyll and Hyde

Gothic literature in general

Arcane

My Hero Academia

Total Drama (any season)

Disventure Camp (Season 1 and All Stars)

Chonny Jash (the characters, not the guy)

Gravity Falls

Steven Universe

Dead End: Paranormal Park

Adventure Time

Frankenhole

South Park

Re-animator (and any other film from that series)

Stranger Things

Factive and/or Songtive Sources:

Tally Hall/Miracle Musical

Chonny Jash

TV Girl

Anyone from greek mythology

Lemon Demon

Alex G

Penelope Scott

Melanie Martinez

Imagine Dragons

Beach Bunny

Bo Burnham

OTHER SOURCES CAN BE CHOSEN, IT JUST MAY TAKE LONGER TO CREATE AS I'D HAVE TO RESEARCH THE SOURCE.

ALSO, WE ARE TAKING MOD REQUESTS TO HELP RUN THE STORE AND A MOD WOULD BE VERY MUCH APPRECIATED CONSIDERING LAST TIME WE COULDN'T KEEP UP WITH ALL THE REQS

Thank you for reading <3

[ravioliage]

Was gonna put this in tags of previous reblog but I hate the tag system.

With voiced protags, DAV's CC is the best we're going to get for a long long while. Especially if you watch the cutscenes and see Rook's range of emotion on their face (just exhaust all options in the Rookanis romance scene, for example).

I do have my qualms with it (not a fan of choosing between three heads and then tweaking, as stuff like cupid's bow are bound to heads instead of Lips menu, would have loved more piercings and body scars that look like combat scars, better skin tones, etc) but I fully understand why it's that way for mocap and animation purposes. To some extent they have to have a tiny bit of same face syndrome, consult the intro of Devil in Me to see how it looks like when the mocap actor and the face they're mocapping looks wildly different.

Bigger tits would also be nice but then I look at what the Crow armors do to uplift that A cup, and I can imagine some rigger wanting to bash their head against the wall when tasked with accounting for that. (Then a year down the line there will be a mod with comments like "modders can do this but a big studio can't, smh" and I don't want to derail this post but I hope they fracture a toe.)

Every game I've seen listed as having a better character creator doesn't have voiced protagonists nor does the protagonist appear in cutscenes with emotional depth. Dragons Dogma 2's is more limited than you'd like and also has the Heads System. I found that it's great for making freaks, but difficult to make human beings. DAV is the opposite.

The true problem with the character creator is sometimes your Rook gets put in lighting that's like the back alley of an eastern european convenience store.

Source: I have played other video games.

[y0gurtfae]

Welcome to Tumblr! You'll have a great time because compared to other social medias we have less insane people per sane people here (unless by insane people you include insane about their hyperfixations, which def outnumber the sane people)

I have two things to say/suggest/ask: 1. Can we get an individual post of that full banner? It looks lovely and I wanna reblog and heart it and I'm sure many others want to too! 2. You should probably make an intro post! Which is a post which is pinned (three dots and the pin option) on a blog to let anyone who stubbles across what you are about! The common things in intro posts are:

a general intro (what to call someone, age, nationality, depends how much you want to share)

fandoms they are in and/or past fandoms

their favourite characters or creators in that fandom [or OCs!]

tags which they use commonly (for example, if you have an au, you would list the tag here so people curious about the au can search it up and find all the media on it. Some people also have specific tags for their own art, like my own #eclipsesincarnation art, but listing the standard #my art and stating that's how you search the blog to find your art works too)

other social medias (bluesky, youtube, instagram, twitter, tiktok, etc.)

commission info if the artist does commissions

People also include images in their intro, or banners, or meme banners!

or if you have a carrd you can be like "Hi I'm ....", and link it, meaning you can skip points depending on how indepth the carrd is

Though this is these are just the common things, I recommend thinking about other things to include or looking at others intros for inspo!

Also your art is going to be eaten a lot, your art and artstyle seem very eatable, you can't escape your art being eaten Alright bye, have a nice day? Week? Better be safe and say life, have a nice life!

HELLO!!! :33

I have a bunch of art that i still need to post here including the banner ! not really sure how often i should post on tumblr to avoid shadowbanning? tho ! >.<

and !! ty for reminding me !! ill do a pinned post super soon :D tysm for the little guide aswell !! ill definitely try to check out what other people have set up aswell…

plz do not thhe car

🩷🩷🩷

[astupidgaydog]

Intro Post (NEW)

I. About me;

Hello !! I’m so glad to be back on Tumblr once again !! Since you probably don’t remember my account I’ll give a short refresher. I used to have the user name “@//Thesilliestperson” and ran a pro-ship safe mood / stimboard account.

I was under a lot of stress at the time and had quite a lot on my mind. I kind of just deleted my account out of no where because I felt like I couldn’t balance doing requests while also doing a bunch of school work. I don’t know why my first thought was to delete it but, hey, that was quite a while ago.

I’m going to try to build my account from the ground up, so be prepared for me to be on here pretty much 24/7 !! ( I still have to go to work so not 24/7 but you get what I mean. ) Thank you all for being so patient even when I deleted my old account out of no where, lots of hugs and kisses !!

For those who don’t know me; I’m Silly / Silliest !! I go by all pronouns except for She / her and I hope you can respect that. I am 17 and strictly anti-harassment in all shapes and forms as I know how it feels to be bullied to your lowest point over stupid things. Even though this is a pro-ship stim / moodboard account, I am currently iffy about dark-ships, I will most likely be posting them in the near future because of other people’s requests though so don’t let that discourage you from sending dark-ship requests !! ( I also ship some myself, it just feels kind of iffy to me. )

II. Stim / Moodboards;

I allow pretty much anything. You name it, I’ll make it into a stim / moodboard for you. As you can see, I don’t really have many boundaries when it comes to requests. ( The only requests I do not allow are NSFW requests since I am still a minor and am extremely uncomfortable with making those things )

If you want to request something from me please do the following; Add the media source, character(s) you want featured in the board, and if you want to be @‘ed or not in the post. You can optionally add what color palettes you want the board to follow and what ever extra things your heart desires.

I try to be very fast when posting stim / moodboards but please be patient if I don’t do your request(s) immediately, I might have a long list of other requests in front of yours. If after a month or two yours hasn’t been done it either got buried under requests or didn’t go through. If that happened, please re-send the request with a short message that should look something like this; “Hey, I didn’t receive my board yet! It included; ( Insert request. )” I will try my best to do yours as soon as possible when I see that message.

If something’s wrong with your stim / moodboard don’t be afraid to tell me !! You can privately DM me the issue or just talk about it through the request box. I will almost immediately try my best to fix the issue I made with your board before doing any of the other requests. ( I will keep the original board up unless you request me to take it down before posting the fixed version. )

III. My F/O’s;

This is a list of my F/O’s ( Also known as ‘Fictional Others’ ) that I adore with all my heart. You may request stim / moodboards that include my F/O’s, I don’t mind sharing them with other people / characters at all !!

💚 = Romantic , ❤️ = Platonic , 💛 = Familial

☆ Cracklin (ION) 💚

★ Gelatin (BFB) 💚

☆ Aventurine (HSR) ❤️

★ Leafy (BFB) 💛

☆ Kankri (HS) 💚

★ Mituna (HS) ❤️

☆ Sylveon (PK) 💛

★ Vaporeon (PK) 💚

☆ Moon (FNAF) 💚

★ Sun (FNAF) 💚

☆ Master Frown (Unikitty) ❤️

I love my guys / gals so much !! more may be added in the future, I’ll see what I do.

IV. The End;

Thank you for reading my long ass intro, I just wanted to redo the one on my old account in the best way possible. I hope this was good enough way to feature everything I do !!

Anyways, I hope to do lots of boards for many different people in the future !! I’ll try my best to make good ( or decent at least) boards. I haven’t made one in a while so this will be the best start to remembering how to make them again !!

Again, thank you for being so patient with me, even through tough times, I greatly appreciate it you have no idea.

Lots of love,

Silly 🎉

[lightbrand]

do you have a guide for someone who wants to get into alyuri? like the stories and stuffs?

OH YOU ASKED AT THE PERFECT TIME because I literally was hoping to make a general guide about them and their stories across not just Granblue Fantasy but also their original Rage of Bahamut incarnations and their Dragalia Lost cameos because they're about to rerun the BEST ALYURI EVENT EVER on July 15 in GBF. Long post ahead!

As for where to START, I highly recommend going in with the Granblue Fantasy story (which is where I found them at first), as there is a clear continuity and story progression with dedicated setup, plot, character building, and (now that there's been plenty of events and fate episodes) some truly delicious payoff. In addition, they're fully voiced with some beautiful CGs and art, and are incredibly fun to just watch audiobook/VN style! Their voice actors breathe so much life into the story. Most of these are available to see on YT, but I can link them for good measure since this will be like, a diet resource post. I wasn't able to find the first two Light SSR Albert (I might go record them from my own game in a bit) or Summer Yurius episodes, and I don't have him in the game [screaming and crying] but the GBF wiki has full text transcripts of those.

For a reading order, it goes like this:

-Light SSR Albert Fate Episodes 1+2 (Not REQUIRED per se, but a good intro to his character)

-Eye of the Storm (Side Story) [Personally, I'd recommend to start here because it properly introduces Levin and the actual story]

-[Optional] SR Albert Fate Episodes 1+2

-Wind SSR Yurius Fate Episodes 1+2

-Light SSR Albert 5*/Lv100 Fate Episode

-[Optional, placed here because of the release chronology] Summer Albert SSR Fate Episodes 1+2

-False Heroes (Event Story, is getting rerun in a few days and is in my opinion some of the best content with them bar none, I HIGHLY recommend experiencing it yourself!!!!! GBF has an event rereading function, even if you skip through it, so long as you unlock it, you can read it later)

-Dark Albert Fate Episodes 1+2

-A Sweltering Eternal Getaway (yes, the summer event is lore relevant for several important Levin characters and important to Yurius's character arc. don't worry about it.)

-[Optional] Summer Yurius SSR Fate Episodes 1+2

-[Bonus!] Here's some crumbs of an official "Bad Ending" from the ...And You event.

Now, going onto Dragalia Lost, the easiest and fastest one to actually go through, which is ironic since the game itself has long since EoS'd. It's super simple--watch Albert's Adventurer Story, then Yurius's. That's pretty much it. I really like their Dragalia Story even though it's short, since it's a fun mix of their love-hate relationship in RoB combined with the sort of care and closeness of the GBF story. There's a few character crumbs here and there in their voice lines and Wyrmprints (available on the DL wiki of course), but nothing MAJOR unless you want to go digging. The DL fanbase did a good job of archiving the game though, so if you want to see the smaller bits, they're all out there.

Now, by far the most obtuse (from an English speaking standpoint) for the least amount of reward is the Rage of Bahamut story. RoB is not accessible in English, but a few dedicated fans have compiled story summaries of all that happens. Here's a golden Twitter thread of a lot of their plot-relevant and side content in the game. They've also provided some translations and videos for some of the voiced content in RoB too! Here's a link for some of the 4komas that some fans took care of as well. Their relationship in RoB is very silly, as they never really...make up? They stay frenemies as opposed to other stories where they reconcile their pasts. Each card in RoB also contains some flavor text for the characters they feature, and a few of those are covered in the thread. The other cards are out there, but they are in Japanese, but if you're interested I could see if I could compile a quick list of the flavor texts with real rough translations. It's mostly some flavor though, not incredibly important plot-wise unless you're hungry for more of the way their RoB relationship is written.

As a small aside about RoB--it's the first incarnation of these characters, and it's ... on the older side. I think it's perfectly fair to say that originally, Yurius was something of a homosexual caricature played often as a joke, and I think it's important to understand that when looking at the older content. The newer content, however, has come quite a long way, and as someone whose been following the way Cygames has been developing their relationship for half a decade at this point, I think it's certainly improved just overall.

Well. That should be enough content to at least get that ball rolling and keep ya busy. If for some reason you get through all this and want some more crumbs or fanworks, let me know! I have many a fic/doujinshi recommendation as well :] Here's some cute official art for making it this far and forcing me to write this mini guide in prep for the False Heroes rerun !

[slenderofthewildcard]

UPDATED INTRO THINGY MA JIGGER!!!! Ace is helping with making it not look like shit like my last one! I'm simply here to keep things organized so Wildcard doesn't get distracted, apologies for the intrusion.

=General information=

Aliases: Wildcard, idiot, dumbass, Wc, ne m'oublie pas fleur (BY ACE!), eldest sib. I don't think the insults need to be included. THEY'RE ENDEARMENTS ACE!

NEVER USE: Joker, don't use that name anymore f!@#ers! Slurs should also be avoided please. (OOC Mod will be a bit more strict with asking the name Joker to not be used please /lh it is for Mod's comfort.)

Pronouns: She/he/they, card/cards, dice/dice's, luck/luck's, chaotic/chaotic's. Whatever the f!@# else no preference any and all these are just the main shit.

A 9ft tall (MINUS HEELS) land shark based slenderbeing with a cool as shit fashion sense! Please get more clothes dear....you can not just wear that one outfit. Watch me! I have a f#$%ing dozen of em!

Trans masc, pangender, aroace (maybe cupio f@#$ if I know and apothi) demi-queerplatonic and grayplatonic. Platonic partners with Ace! (I am generally referred to as Pink, but hello.) and eldest sibling to the suits!

I F@#$ING LOVE GIFTS AND TRINKETS GIVE EM HERE!!! Cards and dice and shiny shit! I will take anything you f!@#ers give me!

Hey f!@#ers! I'm the f!@#ing WILDCARD!!

Mess with the sibs or those I give a shit about, you mess with me.

Dealer at THE suits casino, I like to shake it up every now and again, everything in life's a f@#$ing gamble, all in the cards.

So....what d'ya say?

Wanna make a bet with a Wildcard Doll?

OOC Mod status: Slow but answering when I have the energy ^_^

OOC under cut.

This blog is a slendlr roleplay blog.

General rules and info:

Mod is not a minor but would appreciate asks be nothing more then suggestive, flirting is allowed with Wildcard but luck is as dense as a rock.

Mod uses pink/pinks/pinkself and xe/xem/xyr pronouns.

Magic anons are allowed. General rule of thumb, be nice, don't be bigoted and any hate will be deleted

(You are allowed to be mean to Wildcard and to bother them within reason as long as it's clear its for in character and not just to be a jerk to people like Mod or others. It is in fact encouraged you snark Wildcard its amusing.)

Shipping is also allowed.

Additional note for shipping/self shipping :3

If something is said or done in character that makes you uncomfortable or is too much during an interaction PLEASE let me know.

Blog may sometimes cover topics such as violence, death, cannibalism, threats, biting, and censored swearing (and probably other things...). Things will be tagged as needed.

Fun stuff and mentioned Characters above outside this blog:

100 faces meme list (For doodles, Wildcard and Pink are both options for this)

Slendlr writing asks (For writing prompts with Wildcard)

A03 where mod sometimes puts slendlr oneshots and lore snippets

Wc's Voice (Attempt) (OLD)

Wc's voice claim (updated)

Together with you Animatic (Wildcard, Pink and Icelandic animatic :3)

Post with Wc's ref

Ace/Pink - @/pinkslenderfolk

THE SUITS

Hearts - (who is not available anymore I believe) @/slenderofhearts

Diamond - @/slenderofdiamonds

Spade - @/slenderofspades

Club - @/slenderofclubs

Tags list:

slendlr - general fandom tag

the wildcard - general tag

friend of the wildcard (used for an interlude when Pink was a messenger for Wildcard and anytime ey post on here) - general tag

make a bet - ask tag

ooc post/mod post - out of character posting by mod

mod answers - out of character ask answered by mod

(Additional tags for when Mod remembers to use them....will be edited in later for older posts.....mostly forgotten))

ace - tag for asks/start of interactions with Pink in chara (friend of the wildcard is used more instead)

the suits - tags for asks/start of interactions with wildcards sibs in chara

kingsley - Wildcard's cat

Lore events are sometimes also tagged with set tags but i do not remember them all (usually under the influence of magic anons ex. cheesed wildcard, etc)

Wildcard's text will always be red.

Non red text that's not listed as being Mod/ooc is for Kingsley, Wildcard's cat.

[diy-fire-water-pups]

@paw-patrol-mighty-asks

Alright let's go! This will be a totally OOC post (for those who don't know, it means "Out Of Character", it's a post made entirely by the mod of the blog instead of the characters in it).

I decided to do better than just asking people to go interact with your blog: As an ancient Tumblr dweller, experienced in running roleplays and askblogs, why don't I give some tips for everyone who's starting a new askblog or wants to start one?

1- Prepare your blog for your future followers!

You want people to look at your askblog and be interested. You want them to look at it and be like "Oh that's so cool, I'm gonna follow them and send some asks!" So, for that to happen, you gotta first make your blog look attractive! Pick colors that match your muse(s), maybe a nice looking theme too - while the Tumblr app doesn't show themes, Browser/desktop mode will show a blog theme if you install one. First you'll want to go to your blog settings to activate this:

Now for example, this is what this blog looks like on the Tumblr app (on my phone and on my laptop in dashboard view), on a mobile browser (my Samsung tablet) and on a desktop browser. I'll change this browser/desktop theme in the near future because I don't like the three columns thing making the posts too squeezed in, but let's just go with it for now:

There is a wide variety of free themes (by Tumblr and by other bloggers who create themes and offer them for other users) to install in your blog and customize to make it look unique, attractive and matching with your muse! It's very easy to install a theme, but you can only do so through a browser/desktop. The mobile app doesn't work with this, but it's important to set up your app view as well in the customize blog options on your app, since your blog will look different in each different viewing option XD No sense customizing one look and leaving the other unattended!

2- Choose your fighter(s)!

Select your muse or muses. Get some information about them. Some people will look at your blog and have no idea who are these characters, so why not make a nice short introduction? You can make an intro about them in a pinned post on top of your blog, or a more elaborated "About" page like this:

This will make things easier to catch the attention of people from outside your fandom too! Some roleplayers who are semi or very selective will only interact with other blogs whose muses have an about page, so they can know each others' muses.

3- Set up your rules!

Make a post to pin on top of your blog welcoming people and inviting them to interact. You'll also use this post to set up some rules for interaction (trust me, without rules things can/WILL go downhill really quickly). You can list down what people can and cannot do when sending asks, according to your muses and to yourself. For example, running an askblog with underage muses will demand for no NSFW content or asks. If your muse feels extremely uncomfortable with something in particular, you can add that to the rules for people to avoid touching the subject - same goes if YOU feel uncomfortable with something too. The idea is to keep your muse as true to the canon character as possible, so your followers will feel the magic of actually interacting with that character (think of this as if you're cosplaying at a con, but it's all online!), unless you're going to use your headcanons or if you're working with an AU, but you need to take your own well being into consideration as well!

And now, last but not least, the most controversial tip ever...

4- Send yourself (as anon) the first asks for your characters to answer!

"Wait, WHAT THE HELL, LARY?" you may ask me, "But isn't that CHEATING????"

No, it isn't! Let's see why.

So this is the situation: You just finished creating and preparing your blog, it's BRAND NEW. There's NOTHING in it when you start. It may have a nice theme already, it may look good, you got all pages for your muses prepared, you got the rules for interaction, everything is ready. BUT...

Without posts in it, more importantly, without PROPERLY TAGGED posts, your blog is as good as INVISIBLE.

You need posts with relevant tags, so your blog will show up on Tumblr search. No, it doesn't work for reblogged posts. When you post something, the tags you add to this post are the way for people to find your post (and your blog) when they're using Tumblr search engine. When you reblog a post from someone else, the tags you'll add will serve only for organizing your blog's archive and for the search WITHIN your blog, they will not make that post appear on the general Tumblr search.

This is why I always add certain tags to every ask the pups answer, let's take a look at one of them, shall we?

Here you find:

1- The username of the blogger who sent the ask. 2- A tag for the fandom. 3- A tag identifying this post has something that's not necessarily canon to the original media. 4- Tags with the names of the characters that show up or are mentioned in this post. 5- Tags of the fandom and the characters, because that's how people look for posts about them in the Tumblr search.

If you go on Tumblr search right now, input "Paw Patrol Headcanons", do the search and filter for "latest" instead of "top", you'll see A HELLA LONG RESULTS LIST of posts made by this blog and by my personal Paw Patrol blog (self-indulgent-paw-patrol). Heh, I wasn't joking when I said I'm currently feeding this fandom because trying to get other people to create content here is like beating a dead horse. This happens because I'm always tagging my headcanons and they'll show up in search results so my blog will appear for the people in the fandom.

This is how you get your blog to show up for people. Using the relevant tags for people to see your blog's posts in the results when they're looking up for something related to it.

SO YOU'LL WANT POSTS IN YOUR BLOG, PROPERLY TAGGED, FOR IT TO SHOW UP FOR MORE PEOPLE

That's where enters the "send yourself the first anon asks for your characters to answer" part. By sending some asks yourself, you'll get the chance to start fleshing out your muses, testing how you'll make things work, and have some content in your blog to show up in the search results for the fandom. People will come take a look at your blog, see what you got there, and decide if they'll give a follow, a like, maybe a reblog and ask stuff. If they find an empty blog, it's more likely they won't be interested in interacting.

You can also reblog an ask meme/game like this one, or this one. You can find these kind of ask game posts on Tumblr search too, or follow blogs like @rpsourcedmemes which focus on gathering these kinds of posts for people to find more easily and reblog to get some interaction with your muses! Sometimes people want to interact with your characters but they just don't know what to ask them, so these posts help with suggestions for that!

I think that's it for now. I hope you and other people will find this post useful to help starting your askblogs. It goes for canon characters AND for original characters too - just askblogs in general! Make them look attractive and interesting, get your muses ready, set up your rules, get some well tagged posts in it and you're off to a good start!